I wanted to tell you about two new books I especially enjoyed:
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THE TIME I BOUGHT A HOUSE FOR ITS BOOKCASES
In 2005, I had no business buying a house. But I felt like that was the next logical step to make me into a responsible adult.
Much like today, the market was hot. Houses were overpriced, and you had to get an offer in immediately or the house wouldn’t be available the next day.
I strongly considered a house in another part of town. But they declined my offer. When I drive by that house, even today, I wonder how my life would have turned out differently if they had accepted my offer. Because I’m so glad they didn’t.
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RE-READING A FAVORITE
Before our recent trip to St. Augustine, Florida, America’s oldest city, I searched for historical fiction set there. One of my favorite books of all time kept coming up:
The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton
It has been several years since I first read this (in my early 20s?) so I was happy to have an excuse for a re-read.
I forgot my hard copy but was able to download on Libby, which is tied to my local library. If you aren’t using this app, check it out!
This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t read this book, please do and come back to my post later!
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ST. AUGUSTINE!
After visiting Jamestowne last summer, I became interested in the even earlier Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida, “America’s oldest city.”
My family enjoys traveling to historical places, and I love the beach, especially the Atlantic, so I expected this would be a great spring break destination for us. The famous city also checked the fishing (my husband) and ghost tour boxes. We stayed at the perfect campground, and there was so much to do in the area we could fill up several more trips with activities. St. Augustine exceeded our expectations!
We traveled in our motorhome, and I realized I had never been in Georgia before, having always flown to Florida and therefore never had the “experience” of driving through Atlanta…I’m not sure how soon we’ll be doing that again!
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KRISTIN HANNAH DOES IT AGAIN!
Once again Kristin Hannah has written an engrossing book that takes us to a difficult place and time alongside a strong female character. This new book may actually be my favorite by her:
The Four Winds: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
The initial setting is Texas during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. But when this environment truly becomes unsafe for her family, Elsa takes her kids to California looking for a better life. But so is everyone else! As refugees pour into California, their life is not much better there with the rough conditions, low wages, and prejudices against them.
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I raced through this new book set before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake:
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meiessner
The location and topic were new to me within historical fiction. And I love San Francisco.
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I am making my way through my reading list for early 2021 and can already enthusiastically recommend this new historical fiction about the city of Savannah and the “Titanic of the South”:
Surviving Savannah
by Patti Callahan
by Patti CallahanIn a dual timeline, Callahan tells the story of the doomed steam ship Pulaski, which set sail from Savannah in 1838. Many of the city’s most prestigious families were on board to sail to Baltimore for the summer. But during the second night, a boiler exploded, and the ship sank. Many perished and those who did survive waited several days for rescue in the open sea or faced a harrowing journey in a lifeboat. Families were broken, assets (many took their gold, silver, china with them) were at the bottom of the ocean; this tragedy affected Savannah for years to come. But until reading this book, I knew nothing of this disaster!
The present day timeline follows Everly who is curating a museum’s exhibit on the disaster while recovering from her own personal tragedy.
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I say this every year, but 2021 is bringing several new books by my favorite authors. This list below is truly exciting to me. I can’t wait to get started!!
Here is what I’ll be reading during the first three months of this NEW YEAR:
You can click on the titles to view and purchase on Amazon (I do appreciate your support as an affiliate but I also encourage you borrowing from your library or your local bookseller.)
Also, if you missed it: here were my five favorite books from 2020.
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Continuing my end-of-year tradition, I am sharing my five favorite books published in 2020. I didn’t come across any “5 star” books this year (I am extremely reserved with that rating). Still, I found several books I loved (in a 4-star kind of way) and am happy to recommend these as some of my new favorites:
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I will keep reading historical fiction about WWII as long as they keep pumping out books about it, even if all the titles start sounding the same!
My most recent read, however, was a pleasant change from novels set in Paris (not that there is anything wrong with being set in Paris I have enjoyed so many of those too!)
by Christopher Cosmos