I could have not read this and been okay in life. 🤣

The blustery winter scene outside the window is nicer than the book cover.

I wish I had read this in print! If you enjoy a capital D dysfunctional family drama with wit, mystery, and dark comedy, look no further. I didn‘t know Barnes is a playwright until after I listened and read the blurb; it definitely shows and pays off in this novel.

I had high hopes because I‘ve really enjoyed Seethaler‘s other works. Sadly, it fell short. There were some poignant moments, as in when the MC realizes the beauty of dreams disappear in the mundanity of life once achieved. Otherwise the novel is a series of vignettes involving the people who frequent the cafe, but I didn‘t feel invested in them. I wanted more development of the MC, his elderly landlady, and his longtime friend/employee.

Same cast of characters in this bed from the last post, yes still…..Covid gets the victory on this count.

Time might not be progressive in Tara‘s world but nonetheless other things are moving right along. I do feel a bit of nostalgia or longing for her quiet, contemplative observations in the previous volumes. I think that speaks to how noisy & intrusive reality is these days.

Happy Holiday Season! Wishing all of you cozy reads.

I managed to catch one of the miserable respiratory cold/flu viruses going around. Great timing! So, I‘m in bed with tea, animals, and books. I‘m always grateful for audio books, but never more so when ill.

We love Pulla in this house! Frankly, I love anything with cardamom. ❤️

I finally got around to using the Le Creuset bread oven I received last year for Xmas. 😆 It really is a very pretty kitchen ornament. (It‘s actually easy to use, I don‘t know why it took me so long.)

Sourdough toast & coffee this morning with Grendel. 🙃 Based on the opening I‘m hopeful this backstory will have more nuance than Beowulf.

Getting ready to make cranberry drops. Listening to Roz from booksonmyshelf read the third installment of A Christmas Carol. She is an excellent narrator!

Link to #1 https://youtu.be/ZoVsYXgoyo8?si=TBC2I6w8n2guA2zc

Bookclub pick that has long been on my TBR. ✅

Eminently readable translation, which is the true heroic feat of this epic.

After 9 am and still 🥶. Plan is to stay near the oven and bake more classic cookies.

Belated #FridayHappyReadingHour!

This is a bookclub pick for December. Ummmmmmm super festive? 😳 Reading between baking batches of Crinkles.

I was simultaneously delighted and frustrated by this #PersephoneClub selection! I loved some of the lyricism and forward inclusive messaging, but just when I got engaged with a character or plot point off it went in another direction. I will be very curious about others‘ thoughts on the ending.

My copy has a story of its own. I ordered it in January and it arrived soaked in lemon oil! It had to air out for 7 months in the garage. 😝

I do love this time of year, all the book lists!

https://youtu.be/MfjM0qjCUD0?si=O8kZkUDCgNYX1a1i

April 2026 nominations are open! #PersephoneClub

Little Boy Lost by Laski
The New House by Cooper

Both titles are linked in the comments.

@LeahBergen @andrew61 @Cathythoughts @CarolynM @rubyslippersreads @quietjenn @Gissy @Bookbuyingaddict @daena @elkeOriginal @Caryl @willaful @Teresereading

Sure fire sign of a favorite recipe. 😄 Mom‘s 1963 edition.

Bookclub pick. I enjoy short stories as a genre but I wasn‘t bowled over by the tagged collection. There is a nice arch to it and there are a couple of stories in the first half I got into. Overall though, the group discussion was more edifying than the actual reading.

In the pictured complete collection of Hemingway stories I reread “A Clean Well Lighted Place” and it is 5⭐️.

Compelling characters in the difficult time of reconstruction in Alabama.

I appreciated the author‘s afterward noting he realized a novel would better capture the experience of his great grandfather & the era better than a biography. Truth!

Ahhhhhhh, even the dog greeting chaos at home is less than the sensory nightmare at the mall. Going to enjoy some wine (yes with ice, thank you) and flag these recipes. 😊

#FridayHappyReadingHour

@mcctrish this pic is for you. It‘s Golden Mushroom Soup with Orzo & a Pat of Butter.

My reward for accompanying husband and two teen girls to the Mall of America today. 😅🥺 It was everything you would have expected in terms of the human mass.

The length of this novel did a disservice to the premise. 😏 It would have been much better as a short story or novella. What did the editor do aside from check grammar and spelling? I got through the audio only because I spent hours in the kitchen cooking & cleaning for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving tradition in this house. It‘s like visiting old friends.

If you know, you know. 💛🧡 #PlanesTrainsAutomobiles

“The world must be all fucked up”, he said then, “when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.”

Looking forward to bookclub discussion of this sprawling history of mythical Macondo & Buendia family.

Some amazingly lyrical passages! But I have mixed feelings because it is most definitely a “labyrinth of kinship”, which at times can get tedious. Nonetheless, I suspect with rumination this is a novel that is going to stick with me.

Thank you to the Litten who recently recommended this one! ? Intrepid Emily doggedly solves the murder mystery to save her fiancé from a life sentence. Quirky interesting characters and plenty of red herrings. I‘ve learned not to try to guess the whodunit with Christie - she doesn‘t leave a trail of bread crumbs.

I loved the charming scenes in Ivy‘s cottage, so cozy and sweet, despite the 🪳🪳🪳. The novel would have been better had it focused on Ivy as healer and hadn‘t spun out and around too many other threads that weren‘t very engaging.

I‘m not one for gushing sentimentality, but the final scene with Mike was 😭. #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

P.S. I‘m still in denial about the season. 🫣

#FridayHappyReadingHour stack. I only manage to read bits and pieces while I attend to the sundry household management tasks that come with this time of day during the school year.

Choose between two very different houses to shelter in during those rainy March days. ☔️

Books tagged in the comments. #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

@LeahBergen @willaful @CarolynM @Ruthiella @rubyslippersreads @Gissy @bookandbedandtea @kwmg40 @quietjenn @Kimzey @catebutler @Cuilin

Qualified pick, only because it does get into the weeds with respect to the level of detail in parts. But, absolutely pertinent in a world bent toward fascism.

Do mental illnesses and/or personality disorders account for mass cruelty and disregard for human life & suffering? We seem reluctant to admit normally adjusted people can join or tolerate monstrous movements and actions.

Apparently the new film covers a shorter time period.

Not technically a reading happy hour (more like chore hour), but nonetheless I was happy to get #3 in the mail! 👏🏾

#FridayHappyReadingHour

I was frustrated with the pacing in this one. It got both repetitive and digressive. I‘d suggest a pass if you haven‘t read it yet.

My expectations were too high! I really enjoy gothic literature and the first section was fantastic when Harker is trapped in Dracula‘s castle. (Has a surreal Kafkaesque vibe.) And the scene with Dracula crawling headfirst down the castle wall is absolutely creepy.

But then Dracula as a character all but disappears from the last 2/3 of the novel.

My favorite funny line for its casual delivery, “May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?”

80 year old Maggie is real a piece of work! Competing for the hotel as her claimed home against an 8 year old boy who is also a piece of work.

As others have noted, great twist at the end!

When the LMS is down we read, which is all good because I needed to finish this today. It‘s a buddy read with my daughter who was assigned it for English class. Oooooofta, emotionally heavy reading. The writing is as if Ward channeled Morrison & Faulkner.

Iowa farm life growing up during the depression. Far from feeling deprived, Mildred looks back with affection on her rich & vibrant experiences as a child. This isn‘t one of those woe-is-me memoirs. As to be expected, she felt some things in society had changed for the better, others not.

I‘m realizing when I‘m home, between mom-bus & work & dinner/kitchen duty, #FridayHappyReadingHour isn‘t chill book time. However, I do leaf through cookbooks, like this one recently sent to me by in-laws. So many of the words are puzzling since it‘s olde English! Many of the recipes I will take a hard pass on, like “How to make a calf‘s head pie.”😝

Squeal! 💜 If you and your kids have read the Track series, you know why. 5th installment. Will it be the last?

I learned much and feel more hopeful about peoples‘ ability & willingness to do good things when needed. I also loved Sharon‘s periodic cheeky commentary. 😉

1947

Wow, so I was thinking this only happened in my house! 😂 Everyone has something else to do other than eating when dinner is ready.

This was a morally ambiguous (fun!) read because Lucia finds herself in a cascade of consequences flowing from a single act of deception. While she is motivated out of a sense of familial duty, her conscience gives both her & readers all kinds of grief. #PersephoneClub

Aside from the mystery, Holding offers readers plenty to think about re: women‘s roles and their fulfillment.

I have the very unusual pleasure of a whole day to myself at the camper. What am I to do??? 😲 I have some dark, seasonally appropriate reads for starters.

44F degrees at 9 am - I‘m not going out until it hits at least 55F.

A late #FridayHappyReadingHour with Marquez in the camper. Too dark and chilly to be outside. 🌚 Sad for the rapidly diminishing daylight.

Today daughter and I wrapped up the second season of Wednesday and picked this up out of curiosity. It‘s quite punny, something we both appreciate, and she wants to try several of the recipes. I guess that‘s a thumb up for Thing. 👍🏻😉

#FridayHappyReadingHour - belated edition.

I for one am not complaining about the last gasp of summer temps! What I will complain about is the wind making skeletons of so many trees by Monday. 🥲

Reading outside makes me happy. 😎

🤔 This was a reread for a bookclub. Feeling rather milk toast about it. I‘m sure it was fresh & bold in 1959, but it fell flat for me today. I grasped the tensions/clashes created by the protagonist‘s narcissism within his communities and the cultural pressures brought to bear by colonization via missionaries. But it felt disjointed when suddenly in the last quarter the focus shifted to the latter theme. The pacing was off.

Another installment in the Cash Blackbear series with a pair of disturbing evildoers. I really liked the introduction of a tribal elder who gently nudges Cash to mature into her cultural heritage and the natural gifts she‘s been deprived of by the foster care system.

Sadly, a new narrator that presents Cash in a rather flat, monotone way.

I got lucky today! Brand new for $7.

In true ATK and Milk Street fashion, this isn‘t a compendium of boring basic bland veggie recipes, rather they embrace flavorful global flavors.👌🏾 Seasonal example is Mashed Butternut Squash with Cumin & Chili. Ohhhh, I just flipped to Habanero-Onion Soup with Lime. 😋

My daughter will not give her seal of approval on this book. 🤷🏽‍♀️

A late #FridayHappyReadingHour 😁

It‘s homecoming night so I have to stay up waiting for a call to pick up 5 girls to bring home here after the dance. My son is a senior and I am just now realizing next year I won‘t be on call as MomUber since my daughter will be driving. I don‘t know whether to be happy or sad.

Following the example of @ImperfectCJ I‘m posting this pic to inspire feelings of peace & contentment.

I need it.

Well, this is not a forgettable series, especially this second installment. Cash, because of her age, the region she lives in, and the era, doesn‘t understand the concept of sex trafficking. Until she encounters it first hand.

Very effective & vivid writing. Obvious TW.

P.S. What is with publishers and all the “girl” titles?

This cookbook is terrific for the detailed instructions, which includes details in a snapshot, even a sample schedule. 😁

Made my first sourdough crust last night and it was superb, although it was from King Arthur, not the tagged book. I still have pizza on the brain this morning. 🍕https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-discard-pizza-crust-recipe

The narrator is fantastic! Very plot driven writing, but for my taste not subtle enough to suspend my disbelief and stay fully engaged. Revolves around salacious romantic relationship drama, the type that sets community tongues wagging, which again if more nuanced perhaps I‘d appreciate it more.

So-So rating because I didn‘t bail.

#SoapOpera