Thankful for the Written Word 2022

Hello friends It’s time for my annual book wrap-up covering titles I’ve read since last Thanksgiving…be they hardcover or audio through Libby and Hoopla and new additions to the permanent collection here at the Chalet.

I’m the moderator of a Book Club at church and we meet September through June. I offer the group three titles to choose from. The choices are usually fiction, not too sexy (although we did read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo last fall) and no member has read it yet. I have made note of all the Book Club titles in the list. I hope you find a few new titles to enjoy!

Less: A love story, a satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,” “elegiac,” “ingenious,” as well as “too sappy by half,” Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.

Little Fires Everywhere: BC book. This story is about mothers—their relationships with their children and the choices they make to balance motherhood with the rest of their lives. So choices are for good some for bad and their stories are surprising.

Ghosted: Sarah and Eddie meet - connect and fall in love instantly. Sarah is excited to think her life has finally begun. Then Eddie doesn’t call and Sarah goes on a quest to find out the why and dig deep to learn the truth about who each other are.

Lovely War: It's 1917 during WW1 when Hazel and James first meet. She's a shy and talented pianist; he's a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. Their romance is cut short when James is shipped off. Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches before he meets Colette Fournier. Thirty years after these four lovers' fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another?

Jane Darrowfield Professional Busybody: After Jane helps a friend with a sticky personal problem, word starts to spread around her bridge club—and then around all of West Cambridge, Massachusetts—that she’s the go-to person for situations that need discreet fixing. Soon she has her first paid assignment.

Where the Grass Is Green And The Girls Are Pretty: One little lie. That's all it takes. For the illusions to crack. For resentments to surface. Suddenly the grass doesn't look so green. And Peyton her sister Skye and Skye’s daughter Max are left wondering: will they have what it takes to survive the truth?

The Paper Palace: It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at "The Paper Palace"—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has with her wonderful husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined with her childhood love, Jonas.

The Family Upstairs: Everything in Libby’s life is about to change on this her 25th birthday. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying - while the baby was fine there were three dead bodies laying next to each other in the Kitchen with a scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live there were gone.

The Dutch House: I re listened to my #1 book and I could listen to it again and again friends! This book carries with it all the meaning of home and asks what does a building hold of a family when you don’t have either. I originally read the book in March 2020 and listening to it February 2021 and I found it incredible - every time I listen to the title I find it more impactful. This is my favorite modern fiction title.

Evvie Drake Starts Over: In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, recently widowed Evvie Drake rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house nearly a year after her husband’s death in a car crash. Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and Evvie doesn’t correct them.

Nothing to See Here: Lillian and Madison were unlikely friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help with her twin stepkids. She wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way.

One True Loves: In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, traveling the world together.
On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing in a helicopter over the Pacific. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma living back in her hometown runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found alive!

Malibu Rising: BC book. Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me: Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls.

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty: New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts. It’s told in a modern way and It’s a favorite.

The Personal Librarian: BC book. The remarkable, true-life story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true. She was born Belle Marion Greener the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white.

The Taking of Jemima Boone: BC book. On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air. As Matthew Pearl reveals, the exciting story of Jemima Boone’s kidnapping vividly illuminates the early days of America’s westward expansion, and the violent and tragic clashes across cultural lines that ensue.

The Vanishing Half: Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

The Liz Taylor Ring: In 1978, Lizzie Morgan and Ritchie Schneider embark on a whirlwind romance on the bright beaches and glamorous yachts of Long Island. Over the years, their relationship has its share of ups and downs, including a nine-month hiatus that ends with a stunning eleven-carat ring—one that looks just like the diamond Richard Burton gifted Liz Taylor after their own separation. Like the famous couple, despite the drama that would unfold throughout the Schneiders’ marriage, the ring would be there as a symbol of their love…until it wasn't.

Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk: As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be—in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls, Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America—a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.

The Secret Life of Violet Grant: Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason: he provides the necessary support to her position as a young scientist. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband’s perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel’s shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life with this man.

The Hurricane Sisters: We meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.

Good Company: Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than twenty years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring—the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five

The Lost Summers of Newport: We learn about three woman in different eras 2019: Andie Figuero has just landed her dream job as a producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular show about restoring lavish historic houses. Andie has high hopes for her latest project: the once glorious but gently crumbling Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island. 1958: Lucia "Lucky" Sprague always felt like an outsider at Sprague Hall. When she and her grandmother--the American-born Princess di Conti--fled Mussolini's Italy, it seemed natural to go back to the imposing Newport house. 1899: Ellen Daniels has been hired to give singing lessons to Miss Maybelle Sprague, a young heiress whose stepbrother John is determined to see Maybelle married off to an Italian prince. Demure Ellen has a checkered past and is hiding at Sprague Hall.

Mary Jane: 1970s Baltimore, shy, bookish fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Show Tunes of the Month record club. She’s excited when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job in a respectable house. The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): The doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in. Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and a future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.

Hello Molly: At age four, Molly Shannon's world was shattered when she lost her mother, baby sister, and cousin in a car accident with her father at the wheel. Held together by her tender and complicated relationship with her grieving father, Molly was raised in a permissive household where her gift for improvising and role-playing blossomed alongside the fearlessness that would lead her to become a celebrated actress.

Eligible: In this modern version of the Bennet family and Mr. Darcy - Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweller: Winner of the 1968 Newbery Medal I finally read my son’s copy at the beach. When Claudia decides to run away, she planned to be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson. She will live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She saves her money, and invites her brother Jamie to come too - mostly because he has more money than she does. Claudia finds a statue at the Museum so beautiful she can not go home until she discovers its maker, a question that baffles experts. The former owner of the statue is Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Without her Claudia might never have found a way to go home.

The Sisters Montclair: The last thing twenty-one-year-old Stella Nightingale wants is a job as a caregiver for wealthy Alice Montclair Whittington. Alice, a ninety-four-year-old Southern grande dame with a dry sense of humor and a wicked tongue, has already run off a long line of caregivers. But Stella, who's only recently begun to put her life together, is desperate for work. And she figures she can handle Alice. An unlikely friendship develops between the two women, Alice, whose memory comes and goes, begins to reveal long-ago tales of her illustrious past, tales that pose more questions than answers. Who is her mysterious sister, Laura? Why won't Alice and her sister, Adeline, ever speak of her?

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris: Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. One day, when tidying Lady Dant's wardrobe, she comes across the most beautiful thing she has ever seen – a Dior dress. She's never seen anything as magical and she's never wanted anything as much. Ada Harris decides she wants a Dior dress of her very own. She scrimps, saves and wins a bit until one day, she finally has enough money to go to Paris. Little does she know how her life is about to be transformed forever.

The Other Bennet Sister: Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a woman with choices of her own. What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice? What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters?

The Beekeeper of Aleppo: BC book. Nuri is a beekeeper and his wife Afra is an artist they have a seven year old son Sami. They live a simple life in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

The Summer Place: When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house on Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market. When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.

The Other Daughter: BC book. Rachel Woodley is working in France as a governess when she receives news that her mother has taken ill back in England. When she finally arrives she is too late and tasked with clearing out the cottage she finds a clipping from a London society magazine, with a photograph of her supposedly deceased father dated just three month before. He's an earl, respected and influential, and he is standing with another daughter-his legitimate daughter. Which makes Rachel...not legitimate. Everything she thought she knew about herself and her past-even her very name-is a lie.

The Last Bookshop in London: August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but suddenly there are bunkers and blackout curtains. She certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.

One Italian Summer: When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just her mom, but her best friend. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano, the magical town Carol spent the summer before she meeting her husband. Katy has been waiting years to visit with Carol. But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents and of course delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life. And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back.

Mouth To Mouth: In a first-class lounge at JFK airport, our narrator listens as Jeff Cook, a former classmate he only vaguely remembers, shares the uncanny story of his adult life—a life that changed course years before, the moment he resuscitated a drowning man. Jeff reveals after that galvanizing morning on the beach, he was compelled to learn more about the man whose life he’d saved, convinced that their fates were now entwined. But are we agents of our fate—or are we its pawns? Sly and engrossing, Mouth to Mouth blurs the line between opportunity and exploitation.

The World of Downton Abbey: This was a lovely listen - published in 2011 it reminds the reader of the exciting world of the Crawley family we had all just learned about and were hungry for more.

Mrs. Harris Goes to New York: Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. She lives next door to the Gusset brood which include little Henry Brown. She becomes determined to help little Henry who they are not taking good care of. Ada knows Henry’s father is an American GI and when one of her rich clients Mrs. Schreiber laments that she will be leaving for America with her husband because of his job a plan begins to form. Ada will bundle off to America and set up the Schreiber’s new home and she’ll bring little Henry along and reunite him with his father. Mrs Harris's adventures take her from her humble Battersea roots to the heights of glamour.

The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.: Blending past and present, and told through three unique interwoven narratives that build on one another, a daring and brilliant novel that re-imagines a chapter in the life of Sylvia Plath, telling the story behind the creation of her classic semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar.

Black Cake: BC book. In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Normal People: At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers. The subtleties of class, first love and the complex entanglements of family and friendship are explored.

My total number of books 42 is less than the 45 I enjoyed over this same time - last year between Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving. And while I realize the date of Thanksgiving varies… I have been listening to more podcasts, reading more articles, watching more television - and there were those two weeks in October when I was battling a bad sinus infection and all I did was watch movies (I shared the films I love here.) and of course time on Instagram!

Top Picks!

I’ve added quite a few volumes to the permanent collection.

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I’ve acquired copies of Beowulf, Dubliners, The Catcher in the Rye, The Razor’s Edge and To Kill a Mockingbird. I have Book Club titles that will temporarily live there here in the Chalet until they are passed on to family, friends or placed in one of the book lending Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood.