celebrating books & the literary lifestyle
The book I’m recommending today was a slower, thoughtful read for me. I am adding it to the “Newer Classics” list which is where I categorize the epic reads published in the past 20 years (or so).
This book was apparently a national bestseller years ago – or so the cover claims – but I hadn’t heard of it until my Dallas friend who also recommended A Fine Balance (I will always be recovering from that book) recommended it to me.
I don’t have a book review for you (yet) because I’ve been caught up in a slower, epic read that I will hopefully tell you about soon; and I recently spent a lot of my time watching all 10 best picture nominations (yay for CODA!).
Because travel planning is my other hobby besides reading I want to share my experiences and recommendations from a fun trip we took in March to Jamaica.
We went to Kingston and Montego Bay, very different cities, and together they made for a great vacation.
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As if this title wasn’t compelling enough – Paris + Books – this new historical fiction chronicles the history of the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, a literary home to American expatriates and famous writers in the 1920s, focusing on the life of its founder Sylvia Beach.
The book was additionally fascinating to me because it tells how Beach published Ulysses when it was banned in America. (I wrote my master’s thesis on Ulysses.) Very rarely – maybe once before – can I recommend a modern work of historical fiction that is related to the excruciating, yet brilliant book that I studied in detail.
Continue readingThis is an “older” Kristen Hannah book (2011) that is not necessarily my favorite of all her books but it possibly affected me more than any of the others. It is an explosive and emotional work of fiction.
Continue readingI need to get caught up on my posts/recommendations so I’m sharing two books I enjoyed recently. Both books fall into my favorite historical fiction genre (mostly WWII), and both have an often-used plot of granddaughters chasing grandmother’s secrets across Europe. It has become obvious and funny to me how many variations of this plot keep coming up, and I keep reading (and enjoying) them! Oh well! Happy reading!
Continue readingReading the new Jodi Picoult novel was a unique experience because it is historical fiction set in the very recent past, New York City early 2020 when COVID hit.
Now you may be thinking “I am not ready to read a novel about COVID” and I can understand that but I would still ask you to consider because this novel offers some perspective that most of us didn’t have, and it’s also just a really good read.
Continue readingThe book I’m recommending today was also enjoyed by my two friends who read more than me and both of my parents. So it’s a crowd-pleaser if you like the WWII historical fiction genre:
Towards the end of 2021 I ran into some reading blocks and didn’t recommend any new books for a couple of months. At that point I was feeling a bit let down about the year’s reading UNTIL I looked back over my posts from earlier in the year and remembered I did read a lot of really good books.
Here are my favorite books published (and links to posts about them) in 2021 in no particular order:
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Because this author’s previous book is one of my favorite of all times, I had very high expectations for
See my previous posts on: A Gentleman in Moscow and his first book, Rules of Civility.
This new title refers to the first road to stretch across America. The intro pages included a map, which I always appreciate.
Continue readingI haven’t posted much lately because, sadly, I haven’t read anything I wanted to recommend. UGH! On my Goodreads you’ll see more more “2 star reviews” than usual. And I’ve had a hard time committing to finishing longer, potentially epic reads while the shorter books have left me skimming the endings. But, I still have all of these new fall releases on my to-read list, so hopefully there will be something good here (descriptions from publishers notes).
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