Three books per week seems to be my sweet spot. Since I have started posting weekly updates, all but one has had three books on it.
Here’s what I finished this week:
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Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center
I loved this book! The story centers on Helen, who signs up for a wilderness survival course in an attempt to take back her life after a divorce. Although there is a romantic plotline, this book is much more than that, and I felt challenged and inspired by her adventure and the things she learned about life through the experience and the people she met along the way. Highly recommend and now I’m going to watch the movie!
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How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
This is a charming novel about a woman who tries to keep her dad’s bookshop running after his death. The story goes back and forth between the present day with Emilia and the cast of characters living nearby and the past where we learn how she came to be.
I have to admit there were almost too many characters in this one for me; I kept getting Mia and Emilia mixed up. That could be because I was switching between this physical book and another book on my Kindle app, so I wasn’t giving it my full attention. Also, I have read so many books about bookshops lately that they are starting to blur together. Those things are on me, though, so I would definitely recommend reading this one.
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More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
This was a nice follow up to the first book. I liked hearing what was happening with the characters I had grown fond of and even found myself liking the main character’s aunt Momoko better in this one.
What is your favorite book that you have read recently?
I finished 3 books this week. It could have been 4, but I kept jumping between 2 different books, so they are both half-finished.
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Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev – The Rajes #3
I really enjoyed this one. I felt it had more similarities to Austen than the previous book in the series did, and I loved getting into Yash’s story. I am looking forward to book 4.
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The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland – Lost for Words #1
I actually read the second book in the series before I was aware this one existed, but I don’t think I lost too much by reading them out of order. This book centers on Loveday, who is in the second book but not the main focus. She has had a lot of sadness in her life and the book shows how she struggles to overcome it, flipping back and forth between the past and the present. It has some heavy themes, especially of domestic violence.
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Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand – Paradise #1
Hilderbrand’s books are usually a quick read for me, and this was no exception – I read it in one sitting the other afternoon. I enjoyed this story of a woman whose husband dies but turns out to have had many secrets. It was a fun story, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.
I really enjoyed the #25in2025 challenge that I completed last month; it was a nice way to make sure I read some of the backlist books I had on my TBR. My TBR has grown quite a bit over the last couple of years, and sometimes picking what to read next can be overwhelming. Since I enjoyed that challenge so much, I decided to make myself a focused reading list for the rest of the year.
My focused reading list has 25 books on it. They are all fiction and are all readily available to me, whether through the library/Libby/Hoopla, already on my Kindle, or as a physical book on my shelf. The publication dates range from 2011-2024. I am not limiting myself to these books if there is something else I really want to read, and I am still planning to read one nonfiction book each month.
Here is the list (alphabetical by author):
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
I finished three books this week, two of which were 5 star reads.
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The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
I can’t settle on any one word to describe this book. It was weirdly interesting, at times profound, but also a bit odd in places. I did enjoy it, but nowhere near as much as The Midnight Library.
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Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
I am not sure how I missed reading this growing up, but I am so glad I have rectified that oversight now. This was a profoundly moving story that I connected to even as a middle-aged adult. I can see why it has been so well regarded for all of these years and recommend picking it up if you haven’t read it before.
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Yoga Pant Nation by Laurie Gelman – Class Mom #3
It has been six years since I read book #2 in this series, but I had no problem jumping back in with Jen Dixon and her ongoing role as class mom for her son Max. This was a fun, well-crafted novel with great characters and engaging storylines. Highly recommend!
This was a slower week for reading – I spent more time with my jigsaw puzzles than with my books. I did end up finishing two books, one fiction and one nonfiction.
I loved this book! Viv is such a great main character, and I love how the supporting characters become like a family to her. This was a fantastic prequel to Legends & Lattes!
Nonfiction
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How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby
I found this follow up book to The Color of Compromise to be both educational and challenging. I appreciated how Tisby expanded on the A.R.C. of Racial Justice that he had shared in the earlier book. A.R.C. stands for awareness, relationships, and commitment, and he explains what each of them means and why they are all needed. Highly recommended!
Do you ever read a book and keep having the vague sense of having read it before? That was my experience with Rise & Shine, Benedict Stone by Phaedra Patrick. Even though there were some parts I didn’t remember, there was enough that was familiar to convince me I must have read this book before. I wouldn’t hold that against the book, though; I am notoriously bad at remembering the plots of books I have read.
Benedict Stone is a jeweler in a small village whose business is almost non-existent and whose wife has recently left him. Then one day his teenage niece surprises him by showing up at his door for a visit. She is reckless and stubborn and turns his life upside down, and he must decide whether to accept the chance to change the way he looks at life.
There is a lot to like about this book. I enjoyed the colorful characters and the great setting. It was very satisfying to see how Benedict took steps toward a better, richer life for himself. Definitely would recommend!
More or Less Maddy is the newest release from Lisa Genova, and it centers on Maddy Banks, a young woman with bipolar disorder. Genova does an amazing job in this novel of taking us through Maddy’s experiences with depression and mania that lead to her diagnosis of bipolar, as well as the ups and downs she goes through as she struggles to accept what that diagnosis means for her.
I love that Genova brings a background in neuroscience to her writing. As I read this story, I felt like I was right there with Maddy, feeling the highs and the lows she was dealing with both before she got diagnosed and after, when she was trying to reconcile her need for medication and stability with her desire to pursue her dream of comedy.
I could also empathize with her family and friends, who just wanted her to be okay. Yes, that made them less supportive of her dreams than they could be, but I could understand the desire to see Maddy safe and as healthy as possible.
This was an emotional read and I would highly recommend it.
The Door-to-Door Bookstore is a novel written by German author Carsten Henn and translated by Melody Shaw. It is the story of Carl Christian Kollhoff and how his friendship with a young girl who goes by the name of Schascha changed his life.
I was initially drawn to this book because it is about a bookseller, but I quickly felt connected to Carl and wanted to get to know him better. He has a daily routine that includes delivering books each evening to the customers that have ordered from the bookstore he works at. One evening he is joined by a nine-year old girl named Schascha who has decided she wants to be his friend.
We follow along as Carl and Scascha become friends, get to know his customers better, and deal with Carl losing his beloved job at the bookstore. I found the overall tone of this book to be very melancholy, but I am glad that I read it.
In the Woods by Tana French – this is the first in the Dublin Murder Squad series and was recommended to me by someone on Bookstagram. I am just a few chapters in and am warming up to it.
What I Recently Finished
Fiction
Plymouth Undercover by Pamela Kelley – Court Street Investigations #1
Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland – Lost for Words #2 (I didn’t realize until I was partway through that it was the second in a series, but I don’t think it detracted from the book and I plan to read the first one now)
Not Quite by the Book by Julie Hatcher
How to Stuff Up Christmas by Rosie Blake
Secrets of a Shoe Addict by Beth Harbison – Shoe Addict #2
A Shoe Addict’s Christmas by Beth Harbison – Shoe Addict #2.5
The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
More or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova
Rise & Shine, Benedict Stone by Phaedra Patrick
Nonfiction
Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley
Short Stories
The Bookstore Family by Alice Hoffman – Once Upon a Time Bookshop Stories #4
Death Row by Frieda McFadden
What I Added to my TBR
Fiction
The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland
The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland – Lost for Words #1
Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
Anne of Avenue A by Audrey Bellezza
On Fire Island by Jane L. Rosen – The Fire Island Trilogy #1
Modern Persuasion by Sara Marks – 21st Century Austen #1
Take a Moment by Nina Kaye
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – Time Quintet #1
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Homemaker by Ruthie Knox – Prairie Nightingale #1
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts
Woodworking by Emily St. James
TBR Stats/Goal Updates
I currently have 161 books on my TBR. Of those, 16 are nonfiction and 145 are fiction.
I finished 4 more of my 25 in 2025 list, bringing that total to 22.
I have read 58 books so far this year (my goal is 75).
I have adjusted my nonfiction goal to 1 per month, and I have maintained that pace thus far.
If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!
I have also joined The StoryGraph to see what it is like. My handle there is bookwormtrish if you would like to be friends. I am still getting used to it, and my favorite thing so far is the detailed stats. Here is my May Wrap-Up from the site:
In So Many Words 