Lisa's Digging Up Roots This year!

I'm back to try and read mostly books off my shelf this year. I've been in a terrible reading funk for a few years, but am aiming high for at least 52 books, which I hope mostly to come from existing book piles.

I'm counting as ROOTS any book in my possession before January 1, 2026.

Welcome back, Lisa! Hope the reading funk is over and that 2026 is a great reading year for you!

Welcome back, Lisa. Happy ROOTing and I hope the reading funk is over.

Happy ROOTing!

>2 rabbitprincess: Thanks so much - I hope so too!

>3 connie53: Thank you, me too!

>4 MissWatson: Thanks!!!

January ROOTS

1. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa - a ROOT since 2025
2. Room by Emma Donoghue - a ROOT since 2025
3. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith - a ROOT since 2022
4. The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice - a ROOT since before 2008
5. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen - a ROOT since 2022
6. The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht - a ROOT since ~2020

Books acquired:
1. Friday by Michel Tournier
2. The Official We Do Not Care Handbook by Melanie Sanders
3. Throne of Glass Box Set by Sarah J. Maas

>8 LisaMorr: How did you enjoy the Yoko Ogawa book? I've read a couple of hers: very dark but strangely appealing.

>9 Cecilturtle: Very well described - I had to take breaks from it because it was very sad, but 'strangely appealing'! It left a lot of questions unanswered... the biggest of which was 'why?'. So, hard to say I enjoyed it, but I'm glad I read it.

good luck!!

>11 handshakes: thank you!

Finished my fifth ROOT of the year, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (a ROOT since 2022). I had started reading this last year but had put it down for a bit. It was a gift from a book-loving friend of mine, and it looked intriguing - won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016 and the Guardian blub on the front of the book was "Tremendously funny...". At that point, and now too, honestly, I was looking for an amusing book... I put it down last year after the first assassination in the book (and yes there is more than one). I just finished it yesterday, and that's after finishing my first four books by the 15th of January. Still and all, I'm glad I read it. The majority of the book is written as a confession to the commandant of a prison camp - the author is a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent who escaped Vietnam with the fall of Saigon to America. It's a very interesting read to see through the eyes of the narrator, a Vietnamese communist trying to fulfill his mission as a mole in the American Republic of Vietnam community. It's a challenging read and has a lot of difficult subjects, including torture.

ROOT #6 - The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America - a ROOT since 2020, I think - I can't exactly remember when I got this book, or why I got it. Maybe it was a gift? I had a period of time when I wasn't doing a good job of cataloguing my books, pandemic weariness I guess.

Well, it was slightly amusing, and the idea was good (a sarcastic bird guide), but it got tiresome after a while. I liked some of the alternate bird names and the bird drawings were cute, but it looks like the author got really lazy with his sarcastic bird commentary.

>14 LisaMorr: I saw this in a bookstore and came soooo close to buying it! Asked for a birthday present instead - crossing my fingers to get it at the end of February!

>15 Cecilturtle: Dodged a bullet I think - still, a very quick read, but I could've enjoyed something else a lot more, LOL.

January ROOT of the month was Lethal White with Room a close second.

I'm going on vacation on Saturday and will have some looooong flights, so hopefully I'll get to read some before/between/after gallivanting around.

>17 LisaMorr: Have a great vacation and enjoy that reading time! I tend to read *less* on vacation because I'm too busy gallivanting...and on the plane I'm usually catching up on movies.

>17 LisaMorr: I hope you have a very nice vacation, Lisa. Enjoy!

>17 LisaMorr: Happy travels!

>18 rabbitprincess: Thanks! I used to watch a lot of movies on long flights (I watched all 3 Lord of the Rings movies on a flight to Shanghai some years back!), but now I tend to read more. My long flight on Saturday is almost 15hr, so I will probably get a movie in!

>19 connie53: Thank you Connie!

>20 MissWatson: Thank you Birgit!

February ROOTs

7. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo - a ROOT since 2014
8. The Golden Ass by Apuleius - a ROOT since 2017
9. Pickups and Come-Ons by Knock Knock - a ROOT since 2017
10. Eat This!: 365 Reasons to Stop Dieting by Mary McHugh - a ROOT since before 2008
11. I'm Not Complaining by Ruth Adam - a ROOT since 2015

Books Acquired:
1. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
2. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
3. Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan
4. The Lord by Soraya Antonius
5. Inversions by Iain M. Banks
6. Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks
7. The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks
8. Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
9. Wax and Wayne, The Mistborn Saga by Brandon Sanderson
10. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
11. Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson
12. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
13. The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
14. Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
15. The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson
16. City of God by E. L. Doctorow
17. Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

ROOT #7 - The Redbreast - a ROOT since 2014.

This is the third book in the Detective Harry Hole series. I started this series with the seventh book in the series, The Snowman, a gift from a friend and resolved to start at the beginning. It's taken me a while, but I'm starting to make some more progress with this series! This was a good one ranging back and forth in time between 1999/2000 and WWII Norway. I would have given it five stars, but I had a hard time trying to remember who was who, which is partly due to the plot, and maybe party due to me!

ROOT #8 - The Golden Ass - a ROOT since 2017

Set in Greece during the Roman Empire, this is the tale of Lucius, who because of his curiosity about magic, gets accidentally turned into an ass. In addition to his own trials and tribulations as an ass, there are many other tales interwoven in the book that are told to Lucius or that he overhears while he's an ass. Quite a few of the tales are bawdy. The introduction was really interesting - normally we wouldn't know anything about the author as he wasn't an important historical figure of the time, but because he represented himself in court, his defense speech was documented. The last chapter described how he became a priest of Isis, which was also somewhat autobiographical.

ROOT #9 - Pickups and Come-Ons - a ROOT since 2017

This was a gift from someone, maybe my BIL, a stocking stuffer or something like that, and I came across it while I was organizing the library to get painted. I flipped through it and saw a couple of funny pickup lines and thought I might as well just read it and knock it off the TBR. There were some good lines; I've never used any (I'm not a very good flirter) but some of them were cute and some would probably work on me, LOL. And lots wouldn't....

ROOT #10 - Eat This! 365 Reasons to Stop Dieting - a ROOT since before 2008

I was going through all our cookbooks to prepare our kitchen to be painted and found this little book, a gift from my MIL. I wanted to enjoy it but it was disjointed and even insulting in places. On the one hand, it talks about life being too short to not enjoy food and it's ok to look womanly and that 'Italian and Brazilian men will love the way you look' and your boyfriend loves you; on the other hand, it talks about all the calories you can burn doing different kinds of activities. So, which is it - body-positive or you still need to lose weight?

ROOT #11 - I'm Not Complaining - a ROOT since 2015

I'm planning on reading a Virago Modern Classic every month this year (well, starting in February), and planning on choosing alphabetically. So, my first one was I'm Not Complaining by Ruth Adam. Set in 1930's England, it's about a group of elementary schoolteachers. I didn't really know what to expect, not having read anything by Ruth Adam before; not much happened, but then again, a lot happened, if you know what I mean. At times I wasn't sure if I was reading about the 1970's or the 1930's, because an open marriage was discussed and one of the schoolteachers had a number of boyfriends. One thing that shocked me was when one set of parents left their seven kids at home to look for work in London and tied the youngest baby to the bed so it wouldn't fall off! The schoolteachers were generally considered spinsters by thirty and it was assumed that they were all desperate to be married. And when one of them got married at an older age, it wasn't really an improvement.

'The whole weight of public opinion which believes that there is something comical and humiliating in being an unmarried woman, and something rather dashing and enviable in being an unmarried young man, left me without an answer to crush him.'

Not-a-ROOT #1 - The Official We Do Not Care Handbook Club

As a book added in 2026, I'm not officially counting this as a ROOT, but I still read it!

I saw an interview with the author, Melani Sanders on Morning Joe last month and she was so funny and also her message really connected with me. The book is good, but I would say that even though it says it's for women in perimenopause, menopause and beyond, it's definitely more for those in perimenopause and menopause, and not so much for someone who is ~10 years beyond. There's a lot of really good advice, cute checklists and mini-biographies of strong older women.

>30 LisaMorr: How fun! I follow her Instagram channel and have laughed out loud more than once!

February Summary

Five ROOTS read

ROOT of the month The Redbreast with I'm Not Complaining a close second.

A lot of books came into my house this month, so I'm buried a little deeper in the TBR, LOL.

March ROOTs

12. I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore - a ROOT from ~2020
13. The Ultimate Cartoon Book of Book Cartoons edited by Bob Eckstein - a ROOT since ~2020
14. The Happy Foreigner by Edith Bagnold - a ROOT since 2015

Books Acquired:
1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
2. The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
3. The Shining by Stephen King
4. Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith
5. Twelve Months by Jim Butcher
6. The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

Favorite read of March - The Happy Foreigner

ROOT 12 - I Am Number Four - a ROOT since ~2020

I can't remember exactly where or when I picked this up, but I've had it for a few years, I think. It's probably something I picked up at Barnes & Noble. The dustcover looks interesting, but I was underwhelmed with this one. I don't read a ton of YA, but I do read some and there is a lot I like, so it's not because it was YA. The first thing that got me was a typo on page five - 'a soft wind bxlew' - it took me right out of the book and had me thinking there would be a lot more. I can't really remember too many other typos, and although it was a good story (young boy hiding on Earth until he gets his powers and can fight the enemy and someday go home), it was just written too simplistically for me - it never really drew me in. At first I thought I would give it 3 stars, but after thinking about it, I'm not even interested in continuing the series (and I have a ton of series going - I LOVE series!), so I lowered it to 2 stars.

ROOT 13 - The Ultimate Cartoon Book of Book Cartoons - a ROOT since ~2020

Another book I think I picked up around 2020. A quick read, this book of 133 cartoons about books and bookstores was amusing. I liked 95% of these cartoons and laughed out loud at about a dozen of them.

ROOT 14 - The Happy Foreigner - a ROOT since 2015

This Virago Modern Classics novel is based on the author's experience as a driver for the French Army just after the first world war. I had never read anything else by Bagnold and didn't realize she had written the classic children's novel, National Velvet. I really liked this - beautiful descriptions of the countryside, of a country so recently engulfed in war, along with the experience of driving as an Englishwoman volunteering in France. The description of her romance with a Russian Captain was bittersweet - she knew it was to be short-lived.

>36 LisaMorr: Just popping in to say hi!

>37 connie53: Hi Connie! Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are doing well and had a nice Easter.

Quarterly ROOT Update

14 ROOTS read - 27% of my goal of 52 ROOTs, so I'm ahead of target!

Only 3 ROOTs in March - I've been working on Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
and it's taking longer than I expected. It's good, but I can't seem to sit and read it for a long time! So, it's a chapter or two a day - lots of looking up words and reviewing the explanatory notes.

Some statistics:

7 of 14 ROOTs read were by women

ROOTs by acquisition date:
2 from before 2008
1 from 2014
2 from 2015
2 from 2017
3 from ~2020
2 from 2022
2 from 2025

3/14 non-fiction

Places visited: United States (Florida, Ohio, California), United Kingdom (England), Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Greece, France, Egypt, Norway, Austria, Germany, South Africa

Favorites of the quarter:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Lethal White
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 - Room, The Happy Foreigner, The Redbreast

April Reading Plans

Finish Shirley.
The Brimming Cup by Dorothy Canfield - my Virago Modern Classics challenge this year is to read a VVMC every month, and I'm choosing authors alphabetically.

Not sure what else, but these are some of the books I'm planning on reading this year:

Nemesis by Jo Nesbo
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Severance by Ling Ma

>40 LisaMorr: Nice selection! Enjoy :)

>41 Cecilturtle: Thank you! Any favorites?

>42 LisaMorr: Memoirs of a Geisha is a classic now and it's probably my favourite out of them all, but I'm also a big fan of Jo Nesbo (very dark) and although I didn't love Lessons in Chemistry, it's a good reminder of how far women have come! Agnes Grey is a slow-paced, quick read but I enjoyed the story. I haven't read Ma and Smith.

>43 Cecilturtle: Thanks for your thoughts! I do like Nesbo - after starting with The Snowman, I've gone back to read the series in order. I may go with Agnes Grey next, as a quicker read, and it's by Charlotte's sister. If I finish both this month, that'll make two 1001 books this month, which helps my average, LOL!

>44 LisaMorr: oh yes, 1001... I'm doing my best to read some 6-10 this year. Some are awesome and others definitely crunchy. There's something for every taste though and I've made some lovely discoveries that I would otherwise have not found!

>45 Cecilturtle: Yes! I've found many good ones and some...not so much, LOL

April ROOTs

15. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte - a ROOT since 2015
16. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte - a ROOT since ~2019

Books acquired

1. Crazy Genie by Ines Cagnatti
2. Great Scenic Railway Journeys: Guide to North America's Tourist Railways and Museums by David Holt
3. The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks
4. Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales by Oliver Sacks

ROOT 15 - Shirley by Charlotte Bronte - a ROOT since 2015

It took me a while to get through this tome - 572 pages, including the explanatory notes, which I definitely read! It's a good tale, well told, but still it took me almost two months to finish it - although I was reading some other books alongside it. It takes place in the early 1800's during the Napoleonic Wars and the Luddite rebellion, the second of which figures quite prominently as the owner of a mill who is modernizing it with equipment that will require fewer employees becomes the subject of the Luddites ire, as well as not doing well financially because of the wars.

The titular character is a wealthy, single landowner who many in Yorkshire would like to see married off. Shirley is a unique individual - headstrong and independent, running her property and not abiding by the normal expectations for single women of the time. When she moves to the area, she becomes acquainted with Caroline, who lives with her uncle, a rather thorny reverend. Shirley and Caroline develop a great friendship. The aforementioned mill owner is a tenant of Shirley's and the object of Caroline's affection.

The novel proceeds to describe the various relationships between these main characters, their families and their suitors. I didn't expect the resolution - it was all tied together nicely at the end.

One interesting factoid - before this novel was published, Shirley was an uncommon name for a woman!

Hi Lisa, just popping in to see what you have been reading.
I think I have to read a book by Jo Nesbo soon-ish.

HI Stopping by on my usual Sunday jaunt through the ROOT boards! Looks like you have had some interesting ROOTS under your belt so far. Shirley caught my eye, that's an historical period I would like to learn more about but I have to finish wading through a deep dive into the time period I am studying now before I tackle another historical era. Happy reading!

>49 connie53: Hi Connie! Just back from vacation and I read another Jo Nesbo. I do recommend!

>50 kaida46: Hi Kaida, Shirley was pretty interesting I then read Agnes Gray by Anne Bronte, another good one by a Bronte sister.

ROOT 16 - Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte - a ROOT since ~2019

Anne Bronte's first novel is a look at what being a governess was like in the 1800's. I didn't realize that women outnumbered men by such a degree in England at the time, and this was made worse by the fact that many men were away serving in the military. This left young women with few prospects and why so many turned to becoming governesses, where they were paid very little and not treated well.

May ROOTS

17. Nemesis by Jo Nesbo - a ROOT since 2014
18. The Brimming Cup by Dorothy Canfield - a ROOT since 2018
19. The Sign by Raymond Khoury - a ROOT since 2010
20. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden - a ROOT since 2017
21. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - a ROOT since 2023

Books Acquired
1. Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann
2. Olympia and the Olympic Games by Ismene Trianti
3. Ephesus & The House of Virgin Mary: Past and Present by Selahattin Erdemgil
4. Knossos and Selected Minoan Findings at the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion: Brief Illustrated Archaeological Guide by Costis Davaras

ROOT 17 - Nemesis by Jo Nesbo - a ROOT since 2014

In the fourth book of the Detective Harry Hole series, there is a continuing subplot from the previous book, The Redbreast, and it will continue into at least the next book. There was a lot going on in this novel - a bank robbery/murder, the 'suicide' of someone Harry Hole knew well, someone from the Romani community who is important for Harry to solve multiple crimes, and the ongoing investigation of the murder of Harry's former partner. Almost five stars - similar to the last book in the series, I would've given it more, but it was a little hard to keep track of everything!

ROOT 18 - The Brimming Cup by Dorothy Canfield - a ROOT since 2018

I hadn't heard of Canfield before, but she has 57 works listed on LT! a Virago Modern Classic sitting on my shelves for way too long, The Brimming Cup, is ostensibly about a rural Vermont homemaker. It turns out to be a really interesting look into the interior monologues of the main characters (and a lot of the lesser characters), with the main storyline about how the main character deals with an aggressive visitor who tries to convince her to run away with him, right under her husband's nose. In many ways, I found it unbelievable that this really happens (I never thought I was sheltered or inexperienced); I was discussing it with my partner, and he said that yeah, he knew guys like the one described in the book. I really liked how the main character worked through the issues.

ROOT 19 - The Sign by Raymond Khoury - a ROOT since 2010

Starting off with an amazing sign in the sky above the massive breakup of an ice shelf in Antarctica, this thriller grabbed me. Traveling to Egypt and across the US, with peaks in other countries to observe the global response to these signs - extraterrestrial? Signs from God? Or could they be man-made? A good one.

ROOT 20 - Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden - a ROOT since 2017

I did not expect to like this novel as much as I did. Beautifully written, this tells the story of a little girl who grows up to become a geisha in pre-WWII Kyoto, Japan.

ROOT 21 - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - a ROOT since 2023

I was a bit hesitant to read it after seeing some conflicting reviews. In the end, it's not that far off from a lot of what I experienced as a chemical engineer. I didn't really appreciate the deus ex machina ending, but all in all, I liked the book.

June Reading Plans

Off on another trip this week; it'll be a busy trip, but hopefully I'll get some reading in, and they will all be ROOTs.

I'm currently reading The House on the Strand and I Capture the Castle; I think I'll be bringing the following with me:
Villette
The Thursday Murder Club
The Semi-Attached Couple, and the Semi-Detached House
Severance
Animal Farm - I'm pretty sure this will be a re-read for me, but it has been AGES....
The Silent Patient

Hi Lisa, just popping in to see what you have been reading. Have a good trip with some reading done too.

>61 connie53: Hi Connie! Just got back yesterday and got a lot of reading done! The only books I didn't get to from what I brought with me were The Silent Patient and The Semi-Attached Couple, and the Semi-Detached House, and I started The Thursday Murder Club yesterday on the plane home.

That's a lot of reading for a busy trip, Lisa. I hope you get to the other ones too.

ROOT 22 - I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - a ROOT since 2015

This was a delightful little book about a family come on very hard times living in a castle in England. It's narrated by the younger teenage daughter and is funny and sweet. I loved the eccentric cast of characters.

ROOT 23 - The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier - a ROOT since 2013

An interesting take on time travel from Daphne du Maurier, where ingesting a drug takes you back to the time of King Edward II and Queen Isabella. I used the suspension of disbelief prompt because although I am a big SFF fan, I could not believe that a drug could work this way. Still it was interesting and I learned a lot of history and about Cornwall, and it had its thrilling bits too.

ROOT 24 - Animal Farm by George Orwell - a ROOT since 2019

This was a re-read, but I read it so long ago I really forgot a lot of the details. Really sad to read it and see such a perfect match for what's going on right now.

ROOT 25 - Villette by Charlotte Bronte - a ROOT since 2018

Another Brontë book about what not-well-off young women do to get by in the 1800's, Villette was well done. I had a bit of a refresher on my French in reading this one - it is set in a fictional country similar to Belgium, where they all speak French, and Bronte included quite a bit of French, including some longish exchanges that needed to be understood to get the full gist of the novel. A lot of interesting characters; I do kind of wish that the main character would have spoken up more!

ROOT 26 - Severance by Ling Ma - a ROOT since 2025

An apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel, Severance has a slightly different take on the end of the world. I do really love this genre, and watching the decline of civilization through the eyes of the narrator was really interesting.

ROOT 27 - The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - a ROOT since 2022

A friend started gifting me the Thursday Murder Club series, and I finally got around to reading the first one - what a delight! The setting for the first novel in the series is a senior living community where a small group of very smart retirees with interesting and disparate backgrounds work on unsolved cases, until a murder happens practically on their doorstep. I'm retired, but not quite in the same age range of these folks, and I really enjoyed the mystery and how they worked together and with the local police. I look forward to continuing the series.

ROOT 28 - The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden - a ROOT since 2017

The Virago Modern Classic edition contains two novels by Emily Eden. They were written in the 1800's and are a bit different from the Bronte novels I've been reading lately because they are centered around rich/noble families rather than poor girls who become governesses/teachers. I enjoyed the second a little more than the first one, which had a lot of cattiness and rumour-mongering, stubborn characters and a bit of a deus ex machina which tidied everything up at the end. There was more character development in the second novel, and it was a bit more positive in tone (and I read it a lot faster, LOL).

June ROOTS

22. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - a ROOT since 2015
23. The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier - a ROOT since 2013
24. Animal Farm by George Orwell - a ROOT since 2019
25. Villette by Charlotte Bronte - a ROOT since 2018
26. Severance by Ling Ma - a ROOT since 2025
27. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - a ROOT since 2022

Books Acquired:

1. Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travel Quiz Book: 100 Fun Themed Challenges & Brain Teasers by Lonely Planet
2. Murdle: Even More Killer Puzzles by G. T. Karber
3. Dead Souls by Ian Rankin
4. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
5. Dubrovnik by Antun Travirka
6. Croatia: History - Culture - Art Heritage by Antun Travirka
7. Light While There is Light: An American History by Keith Waldrop

Quarterly ROOT Update

13 ROOTS read for a total of 27, which is 52% of my goal of 52 ROOTs, so I'm ahead of target!

Some statistics:

8 of 13 ROOTs read were by women

ROOTs by acquisition date:
1 from 2010
1 from 2013
1 from 2014
2 from 2015
1 from 2017
2 from 2018
2 from 2019
1 from 2022
1 from 2023
1 from 2025

0/13 non-fiction

Places visited: to be completed

Favorites of the quarter:
to be completed

>70 LisaMorr: I am currently reading this, and I’m quite surprised how enjoyable it is.