RidgewayGirl's Year with Art and Books -- Part Two

Hi, I'm Kay. I live in a small city in Central Illinois after a life spent moving around, in an old house with a husband and assorted cats. I've been a member of the Category Challenge since 2008 and love how you all have provided me plenty of titles to add to my wishlist and tbr shelves. Come in, take a look around and share your opinions about what I've read.

These are the cats:



Homer, Melmoth, Freya, Oliver and Bettina.

My theme this year will be my favorite art from museums I have been lucky enough to get to visit. My categories are largely the same as last year, as it worked well for me.



Currently Reading



Recently Read



Recently Acquired



Reading Miscellany

Owned Books Read: 37

Library Books Read: 40

Audiobooks: 1

Netgalley: 22

Borrowed:

Books Acquired: 122

Rereads: 2

Abandoned with Prejudice:

Category One.



The Battle of Lepanto, series of paintings by Cy Twombly
Regular collection at the Brandhorst Museum
Museum: Brandhorst, Munich

It's impossible to explain how overwhelming this series of paintings, depicting the 1571 naval battle is. It's in its own specially designed room and it communicates the carnage and violence of that event more than the many traditionally painted works can.

Reading Around the World


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

1. Elevator in Sài Gòn by Thuận, translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyen An Lý (Vietnam)
2. People from Oetimu by Felix Nesi, translated from the Indonesian by Lara Norgaard (Indonesia/East Timor)
3. The Tokyo Suite by Giovana Madalosso, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato (Brazil)
4. The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Sawad Hussain (Kuwait)
5. We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Korea)
6. The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangaremba (Zimbabwe)
7. Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran, translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang (China)
8. Only Smoke by Juan José Millás, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn (Spain)
9. The South by Tash Aw (Malaysia)

Category Two.



The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles by Faith Ringgold
Exhibition: Faith Ringgold: American People
Museum: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Faith Ringgold had a long and varied career that included her active participation in artists's movements and the push for Civil Rights.

We Need Diverse Books
Books from outside of my wheelhouse.

1. Rejection: Fiction by Tony Tulathimutte
2. Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham
3. Woodworking by Emily St. James
4. One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips
5. The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
6. Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon
7. What We Left Unsaid by Winnie M. Li
8. The Unveiling by Quan Barry
9. How to Dodge a Cannonball by Dennard Dayle



Portrait of Alexander Sakaroff by Alexej von Jawlensky
Regular collection at the Lenbachhaus
Museum: Lenbachhaus, Munich

Alexej von Jawlensky was a Russian painter living in Munich when he painted this compelling portrait of Alexander Sakaroff, a Ukrainian dancer and choreographer in 1909. A decade later, arthritis meant he had to hold his paintbrush in both hands, but he continued to paint.

Expats, Immigrants, Works in Translation

1. Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu
2. The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft
3. The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
4. On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
5. The Harmattan Winds by Sylvain Trudel, translated from the French by Donald Winkler
6. Prefecture D by Hideo Yokoyama, translated from the Japanese by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies
7. The Living and the Rest by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
8. The Hairdresser's Son by Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer
9. The Brittle Age by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

Category Four.



The Park (1910) by Gustav Klimt
Regular collection of MoMA
Museum: Museum of Modern Art, New York

The paintings that tend to wow me are the ones where reproductions are unable to adequately show how fantastic they are. Naturally, I have chosen to post them as tiny pictures on a computer/phone screen.

Brand New Books
Books published in 2025.

1. Sweet Fury by Sash Bischoff
2. Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky
3. The Antidote by Karen Russell
4. Fireweed by Lauren Haddad
5. What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown
6. Fox by Joyce Carol Oates
7. The Good Liar by Denise Mina
8. The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
9. Ravishing by Eshani Surya
10. The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers

Category Five.



Autoportrait dans la glace du cabinet de toilette
Portrait of the Artist in the Mirror of the Toilet Cabinet (Self-Portrait) by Pierre Bonnard
regular collection of the Musée National D’art Moderne
Museum: Centre Pompidou - Musée National D’art Moderne, Paris

Years ago, I was twenty and living in Paris for a year. This painting fascinated me. Bonnard painted plenty of lovely landscapes and interiors, but this painting, created in 1945, when the artist was 78, holds the gaze in a way his other work doesn't.

Books Off of My Own Shelves
Tackling the tbr.

1. Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson
2. Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
3. Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
4. The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning
5. Two-Step Devil by Jamie Quatro
6. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from the Belgian by Polly Barton
7. Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky
8. So Far Gone by Jess Walter
9. Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists by Donna Seaman
10. India: What Can It Teach Us? by F. Max Müller
11. Model Home by Eric Puchner

Category Six.



Artistin -- Marcella
Artist -- Marcella by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
regular collection at the Brücke-Museum
Museum: Brücke-Museum, Berlin

Who doesn't love a portrait of a girl and her cat? Kirchner is one of my favorite artists -- living in Germany let me discover that the art I most like to look at is German Expressionism and the Brücke-Museum is a sweet gem of a museum in a quiet part of the outskirts of Berlin.

Books by Women

1. Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
2. I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro
3. A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir, translated from the French by Patrick O'Brian
4. The Float Test by Lynne Steger Strong
5. The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey
6. Swallows by Natsuo Kirino
7. The Accidental Favorite by Fran Littlewood
8. The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride

Category Seven.



Untitled (Blue Man on Red Object) by Bill Traylor
Regular collection of the High Museum
Museum: High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Bill Traylor was a field hand in his eighties before he began drawing. This work was made during the last years of the Great Depression in Alabama on cardboard using poster paints. The High Museum is a fantastic museum that has a large collection of outsider art -- art created by people without having attended art school, often people who live on the margins of society.

Reading as a Social Activity
My neighborhood book clubs.

1. Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
2. The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
3. Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro
4. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
5. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
6. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
7. Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
8. Big Time by Ben H. Winters

Category Eight.



Mujer saliendo del psicoanalista (Podría ser Juliana)
Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst (Could Be Juliana) by Remedios Varo
Exhibition: Remedios Varo: Science Fictions, AIC
Museum: Art Institute, Chicago

The paintings by Catalan surrealist artist Remedios Varo are so imaginative, odd and enchanting that it's impossible to look at them without falling into a daydream.

Books read on my iPad

1. The Accomplice by Joseph Kanon
2. The Book of Love by Kelly Link
3. The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
4. The Red House by Mary Morris
5. Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau
6. If You Love It, Let It Kill You by Hannah Pittard
7. The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto, translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom
8. Clutch by Emily Nemens

Category Nine.



Self-Portrait by Albrecht Dürer (painted in 1500)
regular collection of the Alte Pinakothek
Museum: Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Just to show you that I can appreciate the old stuff. Dürer was a good-looking guy who could paint.

Support Your Public Library
Library Books.

1. The Favorites by Layne Fargo
2. The History of Sound: Stories by Ben Shattuck
3. Audition by Katie Kitamura
4. Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
5. Heart the Lover by Lily King
6. Never Flinch by Stephen King
7. Moderation by Elaine Castillo
8. Venetian Vespers by John Banville
9. Fonseca by Jessica Francis Kane

Category Ten.



Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjûrokkei) by Katsushika Hokusai
regular collection of the Art Institute, but rarely on display
Museum: Art Institute, Chicago

I went to see this in January. Because of its fragility, it is rarely displayed at the Art Institute and I wanted to take the opportunity rather than waiting four years for the next chance.

Bad Things Happen
Crime novels, true crime and general mayhem.

1. Malice by Keigo Higashino, translated from the Japanese by Alexander O. Smith
2. Buzz Kill by J. Robert Lennon
3. The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
4. Strange Houses by Uketsu, translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion
5. The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal
6. We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
7. Not Long Ago Persons Found by J. Richard Osborn
8. The Murderers by Fredric Brown
9. The Grave Robber by Tim Carpenter

Category Eleven.



Das Schokoladenmädchen
The Chocolate Girl by Jean-Etienne Liotard
Regular collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Museum: Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Long Live the Rooster!
Books from awards longlists, shortlists and winners.

1. The Book of George by Kate Greathead (Competitor, Tournament of Books 2025)
2. Colored Television by Danzy Senna (Competitor, Tournament of Books 2025)
3. Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (Competitor, Tournament of Books 2025)
4. The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler (Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction)
5. I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger (Nominated, Joyce Carol Oates Prize)
6. Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton (Longlisted, International Booker Prize 2025)
7. Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Longlisted, Booker Prize 2025)
8. The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana (Competitor, Tournament of Books 2026)

Bonus Category.



Woman-Ochre by Willem de Kooning
Regular collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art
Museum: University of Arizona Museum of Art

This isn't a favorite of mine, or even one I even like, but its story is so wild, it has to be included. It was stolen from the museum in 1985 and found hanging on the back of the bedroom door of married schoolteachers after they'd died. There's a documentary called The Thief Collector (streaming on Peacock), too. I went to see it this Spring and while the other paintings were hung as usual, this one was under some serious plexiglass protection.

https://medium.com/true-crime-road-trip/the-missing-masterpiece-2caebd788a9d

Absolute Anarchy

And here we are. Welcome to my fresh new thread. Come in and put your feet up. I'll bring you a cup of tea.

Happy new thread, Kay! I love your theme of art from museums you've been to -- maybe I will steal that for next year!

Always fun to see your art selection and the cat crew again! I’m currently reading The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington, and I’m reminded that @pamelad mentioned last time that the character Carmella was based on Remedios Varo.

I'm always happy to reconnect with excellent art - happy new thread! I hope you enjoy the Lauren Elkin book.

Happy new thread! It was great revisiting the kitties. My parents are from small towns in Illinois (Georgetown and Ridgefarm).

Happy New Thread! It's a rainy, dreary day here in RI. I'd love a cup of tea. Also love revisiting the books you've read so far. I want to say that I like the quilting bee picture best, but Klimt is one of my favorite painters - so I guess I'll go with that one.

>14 christina_reads: Christina, I would love to see your favorite art!

>15 Charon07: Yes, they were friends. I have a book of Carrington's short stories, but I haven't read it yet. I look forward to finding out what you make of The Hearing Trumpet.

>16 Jackie_K: I'm looking forward to it! I bought her novel, Scaffolding, not too long ago, but finding Art Monsters on sale was too hard to resist.

>17 lowelibrary: I like living in farm country, mostly because the farmers market is spectacular and there's a farm stand just a short drive away. I also signed up for a CSA box this year. We did it a few years ago and learned how to prepare all kinds of unfamiliar vegetables as a result.

>18 dudes22: It's gray and rainy here, too. The quilting bee quilt is so full of joy. Faith Ringgold made it after a trip to France, and all of the work she created about that trip are expressions of happiness. And if you ever get a chance to go to the MoMA, I highly recommend seeing the Klimt in person.

I've read three books about terribly wealthy terrible people recently. This is the last of them. I did like this from the book:

See? A terrible ending. There would be no growth, no revelation, no coming of age, no plastic hour brought to fruition. There would be no reckoning with all that happened or resolution. Their problems were solved, and there was no need for any of that now.

But what are you going to do? That's how rich people are.

Happy new thread, Kay. >10 RidgewayGirl: I envy you enormously for having seen that in the original.

>21 MissWatson: Even my son was eager to go see it. Viewing conditions were tightly controlled -- a dim room and people allowed to see it only briefly.

Happy new thread! And new pictures of the cats! Is Bettina climbing a ladder?

>23 VivienneR: Yes, I was painting the ceiling in the bathroom (which I did not enjoy doing) and she kept climbing up to see how it was going.

>24 RidgewayGirl: Bettina the Intrepid!

>25 VivienneR: She does not see how limits might apply to her. She is likewise astonished by a closed door. My husband has had to install better screens in the screen porch as she will climb them.

When I read The Balkan Trilogy, I reviewed each book in the trilogy as I read it and I'll do the same now that I'm reading The Levant Trilogy.



The first book in The Levant Trilogy and the fourth book in Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War novels is The Danger Tree, that picks up a short while after the end of Friends and Heroes left off, with both Harriet and Guy Pringle in Egypt, but separate. Guy is stuck teaching a handful of students in Alexandria and, even as Rommel's forces advance and most foreigners are fleeing Alexandria, refuses to leave without permission from the man in charge of the English Institution in Egypt, a man who can't be found, having left for safer regions. Meanwhile, Harriet is in Cairo, working for the Americans. As they wait, Manning introduces a new character. Simon Boulderstone is a young British officer who briefly encounters Harriet when he is in Cairo. He is sent to a division in the desert where he tries to locate his brother and to figure out how to lead the men under his command.

This novel portrays what it was like in Egypt, and especially in Cairo, as the British expect they will be overrun any day by Rommel's troops. The British are mystified by the Egyptians, who seem far less concerned about which country will be colonizing them than they feel is appropriate, and there is a great deal of fear floating around. There are also a large number of European refugees now gathered in Cairo, although those who can are leaving for safer destinations like Damascus or Jerusalem. And in the middle of all that fear and uncertainty, Harriet and Guy's marriage seems more tenuous than ever.

The Danger Tree was published twelve years after the last book in The Balkan Trilogy, but it feels as though it picks up right where Friends and Heroes left off. I'm enjoying these books so much.

I like Catherine Lacey's writing quite a bit and disliked the one novel by Jesse Ball that I read, so reading about the end of their relationship because he was horrible was a lot of fun. It's a very interesting book, even without that angle and her author website is weird and lovely.

https://www.catherinelacey.com

>28 RidgewayGirl: That is a seriously great website! I’ve got a few books by both Ball and Lacey in my TBR, but haven’t yet read anything by either. Guess I’ll start with Lacey, using her helpful chart.

>28 RidgewayGirl: I doubt I'll ever read her books, but that website is all kinds of fabulous!

>29 Charon07: It's delightful and surprising and her descriptions of her own books are wonderful. My favorite of hers is The Answers, and I want to read Nobody is Ever Missing.

>30 Jackie_K: It must have been so much fun to create.

One of my book clubs focuses on mystery novels, and it's been interesting reading books in that genre that I would not normally pick up. But since they aren't always what I would pick myself, it's inevitable that there are a few I don't enjoy.

I was surprised by how much I loved The Book of Not. A little inconvenient to encounter a book that asks for all my attention at a time when I'm really busy, but I'm glad I read it.

My book club read and then met to discuss The Girls Who Went Away, but the discussion largely abandoned the book when one of our members talked about her mother having been one of those girls, Canada having adopted the same approach to out-of-wedlock pregnancy as the US. She first learned of, and met, her half brother when she was 39.

I've been busy over the last few months organizing a fund raiser for a local non-profit and June has been so busy I have had almost no time to read, let alone write a review. But the event took place on Friday and Saturday and it went well, with no problems that weren't quickly solved. But I am so glad to have it behind me and be able to get back to glorious routine. And here's a review! I didn't like the book!

>34 RidgewayGirl: This intrigues me. Took the BB.

>35 RidgewayGirl: Thank you for your review. I had eyed this on the library shelf several times but kept turning away. Now I know why. We have some similar reading tastes so I have learned to trust your reviews.

>36 beebeereads: Thanks, Barb, we do have similar taste in books.

Look at me, catching up on reviews!

This is the book that saw me through a few very busy and somewhat stressful weeks. It was fast-paced and memorable that it held up even as I read it with a distracted brain and in very small pieces. I hope J. Robert Lennon continues with this series.

The Battle Lost and Won is the fifth book in Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War sextet. I'm reading more slowly as I anticipate finishing this stellar and immersive series. In this installment, Harriet and Guy are more estranged than ever, although Harriet is the only one who seems to feel this as Guy is far too busy with putting on another show, managing his teaching responsibilities and arranging another lecture for Pinkrose. He consistently fails to show up for Harriet and can't understand why he should when he has so many more important things to do. So Harriet attempts to make a life of her own in Cairo, although when she is hospitalized, she begins to rethink her determination to always remain by Guy's side.

She looked defiantly at the crowded, brilliant street where everyone seemed intent on enjoyment, and she wondered, miserably, what reason she had for staying with a husband she seldom saw in a place where she had no real home and little enough to do.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of this book, the war seems all but lost, everyone expects Rommel's troops to march into Cairo at any moment. The focus of the book often turns to Simon Boulderstone as he tries to get through the war. The war is changing him; he's now a competent officer, and one losing his need to make connections with his fellow soldiers. As the war grinds on, the balance shifts and now Montgomery is chasing the fleeing German and Italian soldiers across the desert.

Thinking of his return to a wife he had almost forgotten, Simon wondered how he would fit into a world without war. He would have to begin again, decide on an occupation, accept responsibility for his own actions. What on earth would he do for a living? He had been trained for nothing but war.

At the end of this book, there's a startling development that throws everything in the air and I'm eager to find out what this means for Harriet and Guy. On to the last book.

Last weekend, I couldn't attend the big book sale in town so today I drove up to the edges of Chicagoland (Weaton) for a book sale and came home with a stellar, if overly large, haul. It was not a wasted trip since I was also able to go to a very good art supply store on the way home (I needed brushes and one specific pencil, which I will have to keep looking for).

>41 RidgewayGirl: Nice haul! I have at least one of those in my TBR.

What sort of pencil are you looking for? I can check if our art supply store has it. It’s not super huge, but it does cater to the university art students.

>42 Charon07: General's Layout Pencil is the one I'm looking for. It is often available in packs with other pencils from General, but as I only want that one, I didn't pick any of those up. I'm pretty sure somewhere will at least sell boxes of twenty, I just have to sit down and look on-line. I bought a box of them a good few decades ago and it's only now that I've run out.

Oh! I've always thought overly large haul and stellar meant the same thing!
Happy reading...whenever you get to them.

>41 RidgewayGirl: Great haul of books

>41 RidgewayGirl: Loved the top two on the right. That kind of pile of books gets my back pre-emptively achey!

>40 RidgewayGirl: I have recently bought the first book after seeing it in a (otherwise disappointing) second-hand bookshop, and recalling your enthusiasm. Must pick it up.

>42 Charon07: And I've looked on-line and there are several sites willing to sell me a box of twelve for less than $10.

>44 clue: ...Happy reading...whenever you get to them... Ha! There is that. I do have somewhat of a backlog going.

>45 lowelibrary: Thanks, April. I was thrilled to find so many recently published books.

>46 charl08: They fit all into one bag and didn't feel heavy at all, but that may have been down to my book buyer's euphoria. And I can't wait to find out what you think of The Balkan Trilogy!

>47 RidgewayGirl: - re: finding recently published books at sales - the one I went to on Fri goes through the books and sets aside the ones published in the last three years and charges more than what I would consider normal library sale prices. I noticed that this year they wanted $7 for a book published in the last two years.

>48 dudes22: That's interesting. The variance in pricing between book sales is interesting. How big was the sale? Often the big ones simplify pricing because there are so many books. I know the one I used to help out with would try to pull out the valuable books to sell on eBay, but the rest were simply priced as hardcovers or paperbacks because there were just so many and such a limited amount of time to set it all up.

Since I already have a number of books in my house, I do try to be selective and pricing newer books higher probably deters the folks who come in with carts and buy a hundred books at a time, or the book buyers there with their scanners looking for books to resell. Both are certainly valid buyers, but it is hard to move around the tight rows when someone brings a cart and angles it so no one can get by. And since these sales are run by non-profits raising funds, it's hard to be upset that they are charging what the market will bear.

>49 RidgewayGirl: - The sale is actually rather small. And it doesn't bother me too much, Kay. It is to help get books for the library. Just seemed to me to be a big jump from what they used to get for newer books. But I suppose that $7 is still good for a new hardcover, after all.

I really enjoyed Jeremy Tiang's novel about Singapore, State of Emergency, and that led me to the novels he's translated from Chinese. He's picked novels to translate that I've really enjoyed, and so I was happy to find Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran. I'm so unfamiliar with contemporary Chinese literature that it's like having someone knowledgeable to point out the books I might like, which I guess is exactly what is happening.

All of which is to say, I recommend making note of who the translator is when you read a book you really like.

>51 RidgewayGirl: It looks like Jeremy Tiang is the translator of Strange Beasts of China by Ge Yan, which I have as an audiobook. I’ll look forward to listening to it.

Hi Kay, I have been busy enjoying myself doing absolutely nothing and haven’t stopped by your thread in a while. As usual you have some interesting reading going on and I took a BB for >39 RidgewayGirl: Buzz Kill and will start it later this afternoon.

Guy felt a drop in spirits, thinking that Simon, too, would be lost to him. But that had to happen sooner or later. Simon had reached the last stage of recovery and must return to normal life; or rather, to the killing, destruction and turbulent hatred that these days passed for normal life.

The final book in The Levant Trilogy, the final book in Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War sextet, begins with spoilers for the previous book, so if you haven't read The Sum of Things, skip the next paragraph.

At the end of The Battle Lost and Won, Harriet finally leaves Cairo to get on an evacuation ship. After steadfastly insisting for years that her place was wherever Guy was, his indifference to her when she was hospitalized finally convinced her that he didn't care for her. But as she waited to board the ship, she is filled with misgivings and so when she sees an acquaintance, a British woman who drives a supply truck, she catches a ride to Damascus with the intention of taking up Adrian Pratt on his invitation to visit. But arriving in Damascus, she finds he's been transferred out and so she makes her own way, first in Damascus and then in Jerusalem, after she runs into an old friend. It takes a long time for the news of what happened to the ship she was supposedly on. Meanwhile, Guy receives the news of Harriet's death and he is, of course, deeply affected but Britishly. And Simon Boulderstone is injured and sent to a hospital called "The Plegiacs," although it takes him some time to figure out why. He asks Edwina to visit him, but gets Guy, looking for some connection to Harriet, instead.

This was a satisfying final installment in the series, and although Manning does not take Harriet and Guy through to the end of the war, she does take them far enough to where they can see an eventual end and to where their marriage has achieved a kind of holding pattern. The real focus of these books is how two wildly dissimilar people married quickly and then had to find out how to live with each other and how Manning resolves that is perfectly in keeping with what the characters have done beforehand. Simon Boulderstone was an interesting counterpoint to the civilians-in-wartime story of Harriet and Guy, and Manning pulls those two threads together at the end in a satisfying way. This is a great series of novels and I'm so happy to have read them, and also sorry to be finished with them.

I really like Japanese crime novels, largely because they focus on procedure and how following the rules leads to success and no author epitomizes that more than Hideo Yokoyama.

Hideo Yokoyama books look enticing but the only one at the library is 642 pages long! Yikes! Not for me - unless it is added to the ebook collection.

Thank you for the Canada Day greeting. It's a great week for celebrations! I'm looking forward to "our" birthday.

>56 VivienneR: Yes, Yokoyama really leans into procedure and whether he's looking at police or journalists, that takes a lot of pages.

I hope you had a great birthday and a fun Fourth of July, Kay. My birthday was fun except I ate far too much. A spartan diet is planned for tomorrow.

>58 VivienneR: Thank you, Vivienne, I had a lovely day and today the family is gathering, along with VictoriaPL and her husband. Yesterday, we drove out to the Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana, Indiana. Pyle was a famous war correspondent and his museum was a small gem and I did get a short collection of his columns to read.

It took awhile to write the next review, since it concerns that squishiest of genres, autofiction, except the author labelled the first book "memoir" and the second "a novel." In any case, If You Love It, Let It Kill You concerns somewhat notorious and messy relationships, if literary relationships can rise to the level of notoriety. It's also the second of a pair of books, this one picking up after the previous left off. There's a long article untangling the whole mess, if anyone is interested.

https://www.vulture.com/article/hannah-pittard-andrew-ewell-writers-marriage-che...

>51 RidgewayGirl: This Chinese one sounds interesting. It looks like neither local library has it. I might check into ILL in the fall.

>61 thornton37814: I hope you find a copy, Lori. It was really interesting.

In January, I treated myself to a subscription to Archipelago Books, a small press specializing in translated fiction. The goal is to read each book immediately, so as to not just amass a new pile of unread books. The latest book, The Living and the Rest by José Eduardo Agualusa, was excellent.

>63 RidgewayGirl: I really need to read some Agualusa: two of my categories this year are Portuguese language literature and African authors.

So The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager was lousy and I knew it would be, but one of my book clubs chose it and I try to skip the meetings where I don't read the book, so I read this one, since sitting outside on a fine summer's evening with a group of people I've grown fond of is not something to miss. I do try not to stomp all over a book that someone else has enjoyed but fortunately, people were united in their scorn and so we all settled in and pointed out every silly and implausible/impossible element and so had a fine time.

I really like Jamie Quatro's writing, although she is definitely not for everyone. Still, her latest book is really extraordinary.

>66 RidgewayGirl: I haven’t read any Jamie Quatro, but this book is on my TBR, and you’ve piqued my interest even more.

>67 Charon07: I'd love to hear what you think of it. It's doing some very interesting things. I heard her speak at a book festival and the Prophet is based on an artist she met when she got lost in that area (she lives on Lookout Mountain, Georgia) and while the man died before the book was finished, his relatives were happy with it.

Here's a book that has been less popular than it deserves. It's hard to wrap one's head around the idea of a heart-warming dystopian novel and, for my part, I read in the blurb that I Cheerfully Refuse involves a sentient Great Lake and decided it was not for me. But the reality is that this is a very easy read with engaging characters and excellent pacing. Give it a try. I'm going to put this one up for my book club's consideration.

Only Smoke is the only book I've read by Spanish author Juan José Millás, but I will now look for his other works. This one felt a little light to me, so I want to read more by him because some of the concepts in this book were fascinating.

I was down to just one review to catch up and then ended up finishing two books last night, so I'm behind again. But here's a start, a weird Japanese mystery/horror novel involving a lot of floor plans. If you think this sounds at all interesting, you are right.

>71 RidgewayGirl: That does sound interesting! :)

>71 RidgewayGirl: I have Uketsu’s Strange Pictures in my TBR, so I’m glad you liked this one. I’ll guess add this one to my TBR too!

>71 RidgewayGirl: Going on my TBR!

>71 RidgewayGirl: Very tempting - and intriguing. I'm always a bit nervous around lit levelled as "horror" even though it seems to encompass such a wide range of books. Waterstones here are advertising it as one of their best sellers, so clearly others don't share my nervousness!
https://www.waterstones.com/book/strange-houses/uketsu/9781805335375

>71 RidgewayGirl: That's a BB for me too. Intriguing.

>72 christina_reads: If you're passing by a bookstore, go in and page through. That's how I ended up bringing it home with me in the first place.

>73 Charon07: I'll be eagerly waiting to see what you think of Strange Pictures!

>74 GraceCollection: Once you get it in your hands, it's really hard not to start reading this one, unless you are able to ignore the floor plans.

>75 charl08: There's no real gore, Charlotte. The revealed story at the end is creepy and sad, but not gory.

>76 VivienneR: It's fun to run into something so different.

>77 RidgewayGirl: I'm insomniac. While I lie awake (and not reading) I build houses. The newspaper used to have house plans in their weekend edition and I never missed it. Strange Houses could be right up my street!

>78 VivienneR: That's very funny -- I used to do the same thing. Now I arrange books on a shelf in my mind.

I usually read something by Joyce Carol Oates every year, if not more than one. Amazing to think that at 87 she's still writing some very interesting stuff.

>80 RidgewayGirl: Hi Kay, Joyce Carol Oates is truly awe inspiring, I still have so many of her books to read. I am planning to read Fox this month.

>81 lsh63: It's so funny how often we're reading the same books within a few weeks of each other.

So sometimes I read a bad book. I'd like to think I'm getting better at putting them down quickly, but this one was so short and seemed to be leading somewhere and then it abruptly ended.

>83 RidgewayGirl: I have this on my TBR, but maybe I’ll take it off, especially if bad things happen to cats. (People being gruesomely murdered in novels doesn’t bother me so much.)

>84 Charon07: There are so many cat deaths and descriptions of the deaths and lists of the names of the missing cats. I don't think it's right to care more about the death of a fictional cat than the death of a fictional person, but there's no doubt that it hits harder.

>82 RidgewayGirl: Hi Kay, yes we are often book twins within a few weeks of each other. I'm reading Fox right now.

I'm back from a trip to New Jersey for the wedding of my niece, seeing all the extended family and spending time with my mother-in-law. It was a wonderful time, full of people, but also a little reading time here and there, so I am behind on my reviews.

I tend to pass over historical fiction -- too much of it feels like the author dressed up modern characters in old timey clothes or created stilted Historical Characters, neither of which I like at all. But my book club often picks historical novels and sometimes they are very good. Nathan Harris threads that narrow needle of creating characters at home in Georgia at the end of the Civil War while also making them feel very human.

For a book club meeting I will likely not be able to attend, I read a fairly standard mystery novel, the first in a series. I'll be sorry to miss the meeting since several of the women are older than I am and have direct knowledge of what it was like to be a young woman in the 1970s.

>88 RidgewayGirl: I was introduced to the series in an online group a few years ago. Our readalongs that year were focused on indigenous history and culture. I really enjoyed this and read two more in the series. I've fallen away from it so I will have to see if she has added more.

>89 beebeereads: That must have made for great discussions. I'm glad I read this one.

Hunchback was on the longlist for the International Booker Prize and I managed to get a copy through The Japan Foundation, who was offering free library subscriptions a while ago. The focus on disability and how that affects a person's access to the world was fascinating.

I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a book by Denise Mina.

>92 RidgewayGirl: I enjoy Denise Mina too. Taking a BB for this.

>92 RidgewayGirl: My library has multiple copies of this one in the system, so I've requested it. For some reason I don't tend to pick up her books, although I've enjoyed watching her on recent programmes about literature with Frank Skinner.
https://iwcmedia.co.uk/shows/skinner-minas-literary-road-trip-pope-swift

>87 RidgewayGirl: I'm a fan of this series, although I'm not sure I can articulate why "standard" doesn't work for me as a description of it. I just read Book 4 Broken Fields.
I think it has to do with the sustained engagement by the author with how indigenous children were stolen by the state: but that's looking back across the books, and it's a while since I read the first. But maybe it's just because I like how Cash hustles at pool!

>93 Charon07: She's solidly good. I met her at a book signing once and she is delightful in person.

>94 charl08: Yes, writing from the point of view of a Native American and talking about what life was like certainly moved it out of the standard mystery, but the mystery itself wasn't that interesting.

After reading an interesting review of I Who Have Never Known Men here, I ran across a copy at a bookstore and thought, "Why not?"

Of course, "why not?" is immediately followed by, "Oh, you definitely should." more times than not.

Poor Deer was one of two books that astonished me this year (the other is Two-Step Devil). I'm glad to have Claire Oshetsky's other novel, Chouette, still to read.

I read this one with VictoriaPL. We both like Karin Slaughter's crime novels, although I only like the stand-alone novels and I suspect that Victoria prefers the series mysteries.

>98 RidgewayGirl: Hi Kay, I just finished this book as well. I think I enjoy the series novels just a bit more than the stand alones.

>99 lsh63: I'm pretty sure that most people do!

>97 RidgewayGirl: - You have me just curious enough to put this on my BB list.

>101 dudes22: I think you might like it, Betty. She does a beautiful job describing how a very young child makes sense of what's going on around her.

I've really enjoyed the novels I've read by Winnie M. Li and she is becoming a better writer with each book. I liked this book about adult siblings who don't like each other much being stuck together on a road trip.

>87 RidgewayGirl: Glad you enjoyed your niece's wedding - always a good time for family reunions.

>92 RidgewayGirl: This is definitely a BB for me! I've already placed a hold on it at the library although it's still at the "on order" stage. Denise Mina has never let me down.

>104 VivienneR: Denise Mina is so reliably good.

>103 RidgewayGirl: Taking a BB for this one!

I am back from Chicago and the Printers Row book festival, although I am heading out to Minneapolis tomorrow to do a little exploring there. I want to visit Louise Erdrich's Birchbark Books, as well as a few other independent bookstores and see what the art galleries have to show us. But I went a little nuts with the books in Chicago. Visiting Exile in Bookville, Myopic Books, The Book Cellar and Sandmeyer Books as well as browsing all the publisher stalls at the festival was too much for me and things happened.

>107 RidgewayGirl: I’d love to make it to Birchbark Books someday. And I hope you didn’t cart all those books around Chicago all day!

>107 RidgewayGirl: - Looks like an interesting pile. I can't say I blame you for making the most of your visit. Sounds like a good time.

>107 RidgewayGirl: Clearly a case of making hay while the sun shines. Enjoy Minneapolis!

>108 Charon07: Birchbark Books was worth the trip. Minneapolis has so many independent bookstores and we only managed to visit two. The books were bought over days, fortunately, but hauling the suitcase to the train station and on to the train required effort! Worth it, though.

>109 dudes22: Betty, I feel like a squirrel who has prepared well for winter right now. I would like no-one to publish anything interesting for several months, please.

>110 MissWatson: I had no expectations for Minneapolis and it is a lovely city with a fantastic art museum, friendly people and so many independent bookstores, that we had to choose between them and ended up only visiting Magers & Quinn and Birchbark Books, both of which I strongly recommend.

>111 RidgewayGirl: That looks very inviting!

My third five star read of the year is Jess Walter's newest.

The stories in The Dilemmas of Working Women are offbeat in a very Japanese way, with a lot of one's identity being assumed to be wrapped up in what one does for a living or even just in having a job. They're odd and I liked them very much.

I am (mostly) keeping up with my Archipelago subscription, and The Hairdresser's Son by Gerbrand Bakker is the kind of book that makes me glad I committed to a subscription. It's not a book I would have picked up without having it shoved in my hands and it was a book I truly enjoyed.

So Bellevue Literary Press is a small press that publishes a lot of translated novels and unusual books and so I am willing to take a chance on the books they publish without having to know much about them and so far it's paid off well for me. Not Long Ago Persons Found was an odd book, but one I was always eager to get back to. They state on their website that they look for books with some connection to science or medicine and this certainly fit their mission statement.

>107 RidgewayGirl: Yes, I can imagine that took some effort hauling them to the station! I did this too when I went on a solo trip to the UK. Carrying bags of books through three airports made my arms a couple of inches longer.

>113 RidgewayGirl: This is a BB for me!

>117 VivienneR: The friend who was with me was flying home and I was able to convince her to mail her books to herself rather than drag them through three airports. And I think you will really like So Far Gone.

>118 RidgewayGirl: I wish I'd thought of mail. I've actually mailed stuff to myself on other occasions, but it just didn't occur to me that time.

So Far Gone is an ebook in the library's Overdrive holdings. I've come to prefer ebooks so that was good news, but I'll have to wait my turn.

>119 VivienneR: The one good thing about a long wait for a book to become available is that by the time it arrives, I've forgotten everything I read about it, so I get to go in fresh.

I really liked Quan Barry's We Ride Upon Sticks and so I was happy to get my hands on her new novel of literary horror. It turns out to be very hard to combine horror with a literary approach, and the result was that this book never scared me. But the writing was good and I didn't mind reading it.

Lily King is one of my favorite authors, so you know I read this as soon as I was able to nab a copy.

I hope everyone had a good weekend, my week ahead is fairly packed, but I hope to have time to peek in and see what everyone is reading. With the following review, I am caught up! Which is good, as I am more than halfway through several books.

Well, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is not a book I'd ever pick up voluntarily, but it was the choice of my book club and the favorite book of one of my favorite people, so I worked hard to set aside my own critical nature and to read it as sympathetically as I could.

So even a not great novel by Stephen King is still a good read.

Hi Kay, I have a hold on Never Flinch and will be reading it very soon. I love the Holly Gibney character. Also back at >122 RidgewayGirl:, I read Heart the Lover over the weekend and loved it.

>125 RidgewayGirl: >126 lsh63: Are the Holly Gibney books best read in order? I have Holly on my TBR, but I’d happily go back and read the earlier books first.

>126 lsh63: I'm glad you loved Heart the Lover, too!

>127 Charon07: So my mystery book club read Holly and they were able to follow it well enough, despite there being at least three books before that one. I think they are better read in order, but King knows how to give the reader enough information to enjoy the book anyway.

So The Accidental Favorite was fun, if not that good and perfectly suitable if you're in the mood for messy family drama.

I first read The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride back in 2017 and this is a reread as a sequel, The City Changes Its Face, has just been published. I loved it the first time, but had to put aside longer stretches of time to read it as the writing style required a few paragraphs to fall into, but once I was in, it felt as though I were existing in the protagonist's brain. This time around, I had no trouble adjusting to the lack of punctuation, of entire conversations held in a single paragraph and the way Eily's thoughts and words existed side by side without differentiation. I don't know if I've simply grown used to stream-of-consciousness style writing since I first read this, or because I already know the story, it was easier to fall into. In any case, it's still a superlative five star read and I'm excited to read the sequel.

>122 RidgewayGirl: Writers and Lovers has stayed with me since 2021. I didn't realize at the time I read it what an impact it was having on me. I appreciate your review and have this new one on my list. I may reread W&L before it comes to me.

>131 beebeereads: That's a good idea. I'd like to reread Writers and Lovers too.

I didn't love Elaine Castillo's second novel the same way I loved America is not the Heart, but it was still a book that kept my interest. The cover of the book is fantastic, and has nothing to do with the novel at all. It does follow the current trend of using classical works of art (presumably long out of copyright) and I like that, except it is rapidly looking lazy and uninspired.

I really liked Angela Flournoy's first novel, The Turner House, so I read her second book the first chance I got.

So it took me over a year to read this book, but the artists included in the volume do deserve wider fame. So here's a few paintings by artists I learned about:





Those are both by Gertrude Abercrombie. The Next one is by Christina Ramsberg.

>135 RidgewayGirl: The two you posted and a quick google of Abercrombie turned up some seriously terrific paintings. I will have to look more in depth.

>136 Charon07: Abercrombie is amazing and her life was bonkers. I visit the one painting the AIC has displayed every time I visit the Art Institute.

This is the first book I've read by Tash Aw and it won't be my last.

I openly admit that I don't need anymore books in my house, however, there was a book sale being put on by a local non-profit and I am not made of stone.

>139 RidgewayGirl: That looks like a good haul! I was intrigued by My Cat Yugoslavia and have now added it to my fiction wishlist.

>139 RidgewayGirl: - And you're supporting a non-profit. Always a good thing.

>140 Jackie_K: I read another book by Statovci, Crossing, and so My Cat Yugoslavia was even on my wishlist. Incidentally, we started watching Down Cemetery Road last night and are enjoying it. Emma Thompson is clearly enjoying herself.

>141 dudes22: Yes, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

>139 RidgewayGirl: Intriguing haul! I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on most of these when you get to them.

>139 RidgewayGirl: Great book haul, can't wait to read the reviews

Hi Kay, nice book haul, I have Hieroglyphics on hold and I’m next in line for it. Also I keep meaning to get around to Horse.

>138 RidgewayGirl: I think you liked this one much more than I did! I was told after reading it that there are three more planned to make up a series (ie possibly North / West / East to follow?) which made me look back on the book a bit differently.

Eta to correct list!

https://corporate.harpercollins.co.uk/press-releases/4th-estate-to-publish-quart...

>143 Charon07: & >144 lowelibrary: Gosh, guys, it's like you don't know how many books are already in my house! The tbr pile is substantial. I will probably read Horse soon, as it's been suggested for next year's reading for my book club. Someone made the request that each person only suggest a few books, which means we'll be lucky to get 12 suggestions in total as usually a few of us suggest 5 or 6, a few more throw in one suggestion and that's it. We've had the list open for a few weeks now and there are only seven books listed.

>145 lsh63: Lisa, I'm eager to read something by Jill McCorkle. She lives in a small town in North Carolina that is infested with writers and the bookstore there is small but very well curated, with an old clawfoot tub in the children's section.

>146 charl08: Charlotte, that's great news, thank you for telling me.

>147 RidgewayGirl: - I've been meaning to get to Horse too. It's been on my TBR for a couple of years already.

>139 RidgewayGirl: Great haul! Finding a book at a book sale that's already on your wish list is so satisfying. There are a few on your pile that will be on my lookout list.

>148 dudes22: I've been eyeing Horse since it was published, but it didn't make it onto my wishlist until it was suggested for my book club next year. But I was glad to find a copy.

>149 VivienneR: Yes, I can't decide what is better, finding a book on my wishlist or discovering a new book. It's easy to take a chance on a book when it only costs a dollar or two.

I like to read books by debut authors -- they're often rough, but there's an energy to them that is fun to read. I liked Ravishing by Eshani Surya. The first chapters were overwritten (not uncommon with first novels) but the book settled into something much more readable. And Surya has interesting things to say about chronic illness.

I thought of your comments about first novels whilst reading Well, This is Awkward. So much content for one book...

>152 charl08: A lifetime of ideas!

I was convinced to read this book by a few people whose opinion I respect, talked about how much they loved How to Dodge a Cannonball by Dennard Doyle. I'm very glad I listened to them.

I had strong feelings about Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera. I hope I managed to convey my problem with this book with at least a little restraint. It's my book club's December book and I am not looking forward to being the one person pointing out that, yes, having only one fleshed-out Black character and making them into a Magical Negro stereo-type is racist. I don't know, this book gets a very high rating here and the reviews are laudatory.

Last January, I signed up for a subscription to a small press that specializes in translations, with many of them coming from outside of Western Europe. This book is exactly why I signed up for it, and why I will inevitably renew that subscription.

I picked up The Brittle Age by Donatella Di Pietrantonio when I saw it at a Barnes & Noble because I really liked her previous novel, A Girl Returned, only to find when I brought it home that I already had another book by her in my tbr. Oh well, and in this case, good for me, because I have another novel by this excellent Italian author to look forward to.

Sad news--Daniel Woodrell has died. He wrote noir set in the Appalachian mountains and he may have been the founding father of that genre, one that now includes Donald Ray Pollock, Ron Rash and David Joy. If you're interested in his work, Tomato Red and Winter's Bone are good starting points.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/obituaries/daniel-woodrell-dead.html

Hi Kay that is sad news, I’m a big fan. I think I have a short story collection of his that I’ll fit in this month.

>158 RidgewayGirl: That is very bad news. I have loved all the books byhim that I have read and will miss watching for a new one.

>158 RidgewayGirl: I'm so surprised. I met him a couple of times when he came to Little Rock for an annual book fair. Unfortunately, it has died too.

>159 lsh63: Lisa, that's a good idea. I know I have an unread book by him on my tbr.

>160 DeltaQueen50: Yes, he was a brilliant author.

>161 clue: You're lucky to have met him. Book festivals were hit hard by covid and so many never recovered.

As part of my goal of reading what I want, when I want and more from my own shelves, I am not trying to read any award's longlist or even shortlist. But I will look at them, you can't fault me for looking! And then, now and again, one catches my eye. In this case, Seascraper, it was also reviewed in glowing terms by people who often like the same books I do. I'm glad to have read it.

>163 RidgewayGirl: - That sounds so interesting. I'll take a BB for this. Living close to the coast where we do get fog, I know that it can be disorienting.

ETA: I'm hoping for some book gift cards for Christmas that I can use on BBs I've taken this year. There's already a decent wait list at the library and we're going south for a couple of months after the holidays.

>163 RidgewayGirl: I’ve been eyeing this one since the Booker longlist came out, but your review has tipped the balance. Onto the TBR it goes!

>164 dudes22: & >165 Charon07: It is a wonderful book. And it has been stuck in my mind since I started it.

>156 RidgewayGirl: I read this last year and found it was a real eye opener to the gang violence in Haiti. It's hard to imagine.

>167 Cecilturtle: Yes, I knew it was a mess, but reading an account of what that actually means for some of its citizens was eye-opening.

On that rainy weekend after Thanksgiving, I took a day to curl up with a classic noir and it was a very good use of my time.

>169 RidgewayGirl: Hi Kay, it should come as no surprise to you that I have this book and didn’t realize it. I really need to take a day and make sure all of my Kindle books are catalogued in LT. Your review was great and it’s making me want to read it now!

>170 lsh63: I didn't put my kindle books into LT for a long time, fearing they'd raise my tbr number to a terrifying number, but after buying a few books that I already owned as ebooks, I went ahead and did it. I think you'll like The Murderers, it's a lot of fun.

At a local architectural salvage warehouse, I found a stack of The Household Magazine from the 19040s and brought home the four that were in excellent shape. It was a magazine of short stories aimed at housewives and the stories are truly bad but in a way that keeps me reading. I started a serial story about a man who has gotten amnesia twice so far, but I was only able to read the first two installments, so I'm heading back to nab the battered copies and hoping that a February 1942 is included. So I'm somewhat jealous that at the time, one could make a decent living writing terrible stories for magazines like this and, as mentioned in one story, one could pick up a few paintings by Picasso or a German Expressionist for a reasonable price. On the other hand, the advertisements within show a disturbing fixation on laxative use, along with ads trying to convince readers that giving your young child laxatives designed for children will not coddle him. And there's one Christmas story about a young boy who has a limp due to childhood polio who is named "Hoppy." Just so much there.

Venice in winter was a perfect setting to read about when the weather is cold and snowy, although I think it made my feet colder.

>169 RidgewayGirl: I have read both mystery and SF by Fredric Brown and I always enjoy them. Happy to see someone else here reading him!

>172 RidgewayGirl: This is the third time in a week that this book has crossed my path. The universe is telling me to add it to my TBR. It looks like something great to look forward to for 2026!

>173 NinieB: I had never heard of this author until I picked up The Murderers, but I will certainly read more by him.

>174 beebeereads: I think you are being told to read the book!

Big Time by Ben H. Winters was a fun and entertaining read, perfect for a snowy weekend.

So I read India: What Can It Teach Us? by F. Max Müller at the recommendation of a friend and, upon reflection, I think he recommended it to me having heard about in in general terms. His expression when I brought it up and the speed at which he moved onto other topics hints that he never read it himself and why should he have?

I have been reading, but not been in the mood to write reviews. Still, I am determined to end the year all caught up.

I really liked Model Home, which I bought because of the cover. Look at it, isn't it great?

I was utterly charmed by Jessica Francis Kane's Fonseca. Whether or not you've read any Penelope Fitzgerald, if you like a somewhat old-fashioned feeling story and lots of atmosphere, this is the one.

I liked, but didn't love The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers.

You've had some good reading recently. Fonseca looks tempting although I know nothing about Penelope Fitzgerald's life. Your review reminds me of a movie I saw a while back, I wonder if it's the same story. In any case it's going the on the wishlist.

>181 VivienneR: Penelope Fitzgerald didn't publish her first book until she was sixty and never wrote a novel about her time in Mexico, so not knowing her work doesn't diminish enjoyment of Fonseca.

Clutch by Emily Nemens was a mixed bag for me. I found the writing style interesting, even if in places it doesn't work, but the story lacked enough stakes to really involve me in it. There's something about reading about people so well off that a husband losing a job is only a problem in that this wife thinks he should be doing something more with his time, or divorce meaning only that two people are no longer living in the same house, with no strain on anyone's bank accounts. Sure, there are plenty of very wealthy people, but it is harder to make their lives interesting and I'm not sure this novel cleared that hurdle.

I'm determined to get my last reviews down before the new year. One more after this one.

The last review of the year!

End of year assessment:

Number of books read in 2025: 100 (boy, this makes things easy)
Books by women: 55%
Books by author's nationality (increasingly hard to assign in this global world):
24 countries represented
USA: 69
UK: 6
Japan: 6
Canada: 2
Ireland: 2
All other countries, one book.
Books in translation: 22

Best books of the year in no particular order:
Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky
Two-Step Devil by Jamie Quatro
The Balkan Trilogy/The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Fonseca by Jessica Francis Kane
It was a good reading year and I could easily add another ten books to this list.

I'm simplifying my time on LT, so I haven't opened a thread over on the 2026 Category Challenge. I'll still be following many of you and if you want to see what I'm reading, you can find me over on Club Read.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/377113

>187 RidgewayGirl: I starred the topic so I can follow you.

Happy New Year, Kay. I'll be dropping in to check on you at Club Read.

I'll be following you over there too.

>186 RidgewayGirl: Happy New Year! I’ve been on the fence about adding Fonseca to my TBR, but now that I see how highly you think of it, that might be what pushes it over the edge.

I’ll be visiting you over in Club Read this year!

>188 thornton37814: I'm following your 2026 thread, too. I'm enjoying following your progress on your massive needlepoint project.

>189 VivienneR: Hi, Vivienne, I'll be visiting your thread often.

>190 dudes22: Likewise, Betty. And hopefully with only one thread to maintain, I can keep up with other people's reading, which will be bad for my tbr, but sacrifices must be made.

>191 Charon07: It's a quiet book, but I loved everything about it.

>192 RidgewayGirl: I'm hoping the ability to link to the review and embed it will make it easier for me to keep up. I'm probably dreaming, but I can try!

Happy New Year! I'll visit you over at Club Read but will miss you in the Category Challenge!

January and I'm already falling behind on reviews. That doesn't mean I'm not reading!

195 - I have a couple of his books on my TBR pile.

>195 RidgewayGirl: Did you mean to post this to your 2026 thread in Club Read?

197 LOL, yes.