Readers, Welcome to my blog (formerly Birds, Blooms, Books, etc). I'm entering a new decade taking on the challenge of moving from Maryland after living there 46 years and learning about my new home here in New England in the Live Free or Die state - New Hampshire. Join me as a write this new chapter of my life.

Monday, January 4, 2021

Books Read

 You'd think with all the quarantining that 2020 would have been a banner year for reading.  Not the case. I only read 64 books whereas 2019 was 79 and 2018 was 81.  I think I can explain this because library books were harder to come by, I did a lot of jigsaw puzzles in the first several months of our lock down at Vantage House, and I just got turned off by some of the books I started and just couldn't stomach.  Those don't get added to my list even if I read the ends before giving up on them. 

So I just posted the last 7 books I read to my list here.  Of these I'd recommend the latest Louise Penny book but only if you've read the others in her series.  If you haven't read her then start with her first one. Well worth it if you like mysteries.  

I'd also recommend The Nickel Boys for a picture of what racism has been like and likely continues in this form.  For lighter reading the historical fiction The Two Mrs. Carlyles is good.

What am I reading now?  I started In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larsen, a narrative non-fiction about the U.S. Ambassador to Germany in 1933.  It's well written but it's not comfortable reading in light of who we still are trying to extricate ourselves from in the form of tRump.  I see too many parallels between Hitler and tRump and Hitler's minions and tRumps kowtowing senators.  Maybe I'll get back to it after January 6th or 20th.   (Thanks to Marcia LaRue for pointing out my error.) It's the February selection for my book group.



So you probably noticed the photos had nothing to do with my content.  I  am so looking forward to being able to travel again so I went into my photo files and brought up some photos from a trip to Europe some years ago.