Friday, February 28, 2020

Books I’ve read in 2019



Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson. A woman on the run uncovers a series of deadly secrets
Jude found the rambling old bookshop when she visited last summer, the high point of a miserable vacation. Now, in the depths of winter, Lowell's store is a warm, safe place.
Jude needs a bolt-hole, Lowell needs an assistant, and when an affordable rental is thrown in, life begins to look up. The gravedigger's cottage isn't perfect for a woman alone, but at least she has quiet neighbors.
Quiet, but not silent. The long dead and the books they left behind have tales to tell, and the bookshop is not the haven it seems to be. Lowell's past and Jude's present are a dangerous blend of secrets and lies, and someone is coming to light the taper that could destroy everything.
A Child’s Garden by Catriona McPherson. Eden was it’s name. “An alternative school for happy children”. But it closed in disgrace after the suicide of one of its children.
When Breathe Becomes Air by Paul Kalanith. 2/16 This was Joe’s Christmas Book exchange to me this year. Quick read, beautifully written. Lots of literary references which I love. At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, the author was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale 2/25 reread of a favorite.
Firebirds An anthology of original Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Sharyn November authors include Delia Sherman, Megan Whalen Turner, Sherwood Smith, Nancy Springer, Lloyd Alexander, Meredith Ann Pierce, Michael Cadnum, Emma Bull and Charles Vess (illustrations), Patricia A McKillip, Kara Dalkey, Garth Nix, Elizabeth E Wein, Diana Wynn Jones, Nancy Farmer, Nina Kiritimati Hoffman, Laurel Winter.
The Crucible of Doubt (Reflections on the Quest for Faith) by Terryl Givens and Fiona Givens. 4/12 A careful, intelligent look at doubt-at some of its common sources, the challenges it presents, and the opportunity it may open up in a person’s quest for faith. Whether you struggle with your own doubts or mostly want to understand loved ones who question, you will appreciate this candid discussion. You’ll come away more certain than ever of the Lord’s love for all his children.
Dust and Shadow An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye. Sherlock Holmes tackles the Jack the Ripper murders. Wonderful for a Holmes enthusiast.
How We Got to Now (Six Innovations That Made the Modern World) by Steven Johnson 4/24 Christmas exchange from Joe.
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell 5/5
East of the Sun and West of the Moon 5/7
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer 6/5 Great YA fantasy based in Norse gods. Jack apprentices to the local Bard and when Northman invade their village his adventure begins. Trolls, dragons, giant spiders, a spoiled sister and a young Valkyrie bent on a worthy death to take her to Valhalla. Bought this trilogy hoping Jacob would love it and he will.
The Land of the Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer 6/8 Jack heads off to find out what happened to his sister Lucy. She’s been kidnapped again. He encounters unruly monks, earthquakes, hobgoblins, kelpies and elves, the fallen angels of legend. Jack is joined by Pega a slave girl from their village and discovers Thorgil in a close encounter with burial by moss.
The Island of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer 6/11 The amazing conclusion to this wonderful trilogy. Three thumbs way up.
The Underneath by Kathy Appelt 7/6 A calico cat left on the side of the road about to have kittens hears the howl of a chained-up hound dog. Together this unlikely pair must keep these precocious kittens in the underneath of the house or Gar Face will use them as gator bait. Fairly brutal story.
A Brazen Curiosity, A Scandalous Deception, An Infamous Betrayal, A Nefarious Engagement by Lynn Messina 7/21 Quiet, unassuming, biddable Beatrice Hyde-Clare poor relation discovers she has a mind for solving murder when she finds a Duke standing over a body in the library late at night. Working together they solve three murders and find they work very well together. The last murders she solves are the death of her own parents while navigating the waters of being engaged to a Duke. Fum.
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert 7/24 Alice and her mom have lived a life on the run as they try to avoid the bad luck that seems to follow them. Then her mom gets kidnapped and her last message is don’t go to the Hazel Wood. Dark Fairy Tale. The Grim brothers at their grimmest.
Peter Pan by J M Barrie 7/26 It’s one of those books you think you have read because you have seen the movies and plays. Darker than I expected.
The Lion and the Lamb by Packer 9/15 Story of Willard and Rebecca Bean. Sent on a three-year mission to live in the old Smith home in Palmyra, NY. They were to try to acquire the land of the Hill Cumorah. They ended up staying 25 years. Wonderful story.
Fermat’s Enigma by Simon Singh 9/22 The mathematical journey to the solving of Fermat’s Theorem a 350 year-old challenge that captivated the mathematical world😊.
Legion by Brandon Sanderson 10/1 Audible. Stephen Leeds has multiple personalities residing in his head. They each keep a piece of the massive amounts of information he owns compartmentalized. But when one of them dies??? I always enjoy a good Brandon Sanderson story. This one was no exception.
world. He has a micro power. He can tell who lost anything that is just laying around, ie hair scrunches, toys, bicycles. Beth his friend things he can be used for good and so does a FBI agent when he thinks Ezekiel can help find a lost child😊.
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrick Backman 10/8 From the author who gave us A Man Called Ove, Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years-old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. He grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other😊.
The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley 10/18 From the author of ‘Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie’. Flavia de Luce, a dangerously smart eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders, thinks that her days of crim-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey are over—until beloved puppeteer Rupert Porson has his own strings sizzled in an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. But who’d do such a thing, and why? Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she’s letting on? What about Porson’s charming but erratic assistant? All clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local constables can’t solve—without Flavia’s help. But in getting so close to who’s secretly pull the strings of this dance of death, has our precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head.
The Kingdom of Auschwitz by Otto Friedrich 11/19 Quick read of the story of Auschwitz. The major players; Hoess and Himmler. The Final Solution, death camps, brutality, starvation, cruelty.
Night by Ellie Wiesel 11/19 Harrowing tale of a 13 year-old boy’s survival of the Holocaust and internment in Auschwitz.
A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear 11/20 Maisie Dobbs in Gibraltar coming to terms with the tragic death of her husband and the loss of her unborn daughter. She literally stumbles across a dead body. While her family is sending agents to keep her safe and convince her to come home, she goes about trying to unravel the death of this young photographer. Ammunition smuggling and battles waging in Spain are all wrapped up in this.
From the Two Rivers by Robert Jordan 12/12 First half of the Eye of the World
Book of Mormon 12/27

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