Here's my list of books I read in the last year.  The total is not as high as usual and I'm not sure why.  Maybe I was more discerning? Maybe I was busy blogging? Maybe?  Well, just don't know why.

I hadn't added to this list in my sidebar since book #51 which was several months ago.  Of the most recent additions I highly recommend #68 and #60 by Jenny Ashcroft.  A great historical fiction writer. Meet Me in Bombay was one I kept thinking about after I read it and wondering "what if ?" .  It's set during WWI and after.

#67 is a classic.  I had to wait a bit to get this one after reading Moonstone #6 also by Wilkie Collins.  He was a great mystery writer of the 1800s. I had read both so so many years ago that I remembered very little of either one.  Well worth reading.

I read a lot of mysteries and recently discovered Kathy Reichs #65, Ruth Rendell #63, and CJ Box #50 & 56.  They write very graphically and I find I can't read too many of them at a time.  Louise Penny though is always good and one she wrote with Hillary Clinton #51 was very current to the times.

Other good reads: #58 and #54.  

Scroll down to the bottom to see what's in my stack to read next.

68. Meet Me in Bombay by Jenny Ashcroft

67. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

66. Travels With George - In Search of Washington and His  Legacy by Nathaniel Philbrick

65. Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs

64. Letter from a Stranger by Barbara Taylor Bradford

63. Murder Being Once Done by Ruth Rendell

62. The Vacationers by Emma Straub

61. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

60. Under the Golden Sun by Jenny Ashcroft

59. A Game of Fear by Charles Todd

58. West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

57. Lucy By the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

56. Savage Run  by C.J. Box

55. The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

54. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

53. The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

52. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

51. State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny

50. Open Season by C.J. Box

49. Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

48. Fox Creek by William Kent Krueger

47. Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

46. The Various Flavors of Coffee by Anthony Capella

45. The Lost Summers of Newport by B. Williams, L. Willig, And K. White

44. The Orphans of Mersea House by Marty Wingate

43. The All of It by Jeannette Haien

42. The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk

41. Run by Ann Patchett

40. All of the Ways She Said Goodbye by B. Williams, L. Willig, And K. White

39. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

38. Provenance - How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo

37. Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden

36. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

35. Old Wounds by Vicki Lane

34. Lincoln Highway by Amor Towls

33. Art's Blood by Vicki Lane

32. Signs in the Blood by Vicki Lane

31. Trials of the Earth. The True Story of a Pioneer Woman by Mary Mann Hamilton

30. River of Gods - Genius, Courage, & Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard

29. The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett

28 The Farfarers by Farley Mowat

27. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

26. Welfare Brat by Mary Childers

25. Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tingui Zhang

24. The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

23. Death in the Air by Agatha Christie

22. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

21. Where You Once  Belonged by Kent Hurf

20. The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali

19. The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie

18. A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear

17. The Victory Garden by Rhys Bowen

16. A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

15. French Braid by Anne Tyler

14. Rules of Civility by Amor Towels

13. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith

12. Spider's Web by Agatha Christie

11. The Cafe by the Sea by Jenny Colgan

10. The Rose & the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott aka Agatha Christie

9. The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa

8. Come, Let Me Tell How You Live by Agatha Christie

7. Miss Marple: The complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie

6. Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

5. Crooked House by Agatha Christie.

4. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

3. Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict

2. The Boys: A Memoir  of Hollywood and Family by Ron Howard and Clint Howard

1. The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin

The one on the bottom I finished Saturday.  It's a reread for me from 2019 but didn't remember enough without rereading for book discussion coming up on the 17th. It's the second book I've read in 2023 with A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny being the first.

I purchased Michelle Obama's latest with birthday money and the other two I found at the library last week.

New Year's Eve Walk

No photos from the walk this week on Wednesday but I have these to share from a family walk on the afternoon of the 31st - New Year's Eve.

There was still a lot of snow on the ground and weather was cold. Our walk up the hill to the waterfall was mostly on a gravel road.  No sun on this day.

The road follows a stream which had interesting ice features.

The waterfall was full too.

Daughter Emily with Maple.

The waterfall was our stopping place.  The road got more treacherous with ice on the final section.

There once was a mill downstream from the waterfall and this bridge created the flume to drive the mill wheel we speculated.

Looking back the way we came.

That section on the road is not typically plowed and is closed in mud season per the signage.

A tree watching us as we passed by.

This house has been slowly coming apart.  Someone had good intentions but something must have happened to derail them

I do remember taking this walk with Emily and family years ago when someone lived here. Now no chance of that.

****

January 6th!  Never let an insurrection like that happen again.

Artwork

 Rediscovered some artwork of mine from 10 years ago.  Didn't realize it had been that long since I took up the watercolor brush and paints.

I see my mistakes but had forgotten how far I'd gotten in learning this medium.

Like any of these?

Interesting

 

JUST PLAIN NEAT INFORMATION.....   Glass    takes one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!   Gold    is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years.     When a person dies  hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.   Your tongue    is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.   The tooth    is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.   If you stop getting thirsty , you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.   Zero   is the only number that   cannot be represented by   Roman numerals.   Kites   were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.   The song Auld Lang Syne    is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.   Drinking water after eating    reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent. Drinking a glass of water before you eat may help digestion and curb appetite.   Peanut oil    is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450F.   The roar    that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.   Nine out of every 10    living things live in the ocean.   The banana    cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.   Airports at higher altitudes    require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.   The University of Alaska    spans four time zones.   In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.   Warner Communications    paid 28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday, which was written in 1935!   Intelligent people    have more zinc and copper in their hair.   A comet's tail    always points away from the sun.   Caffeine    increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines.   The military salute    is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.   If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up,   you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.   In ancient times    strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.   Strawberries and cashews    are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.   Avocados    have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.   The moon    moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.   The Earth    gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.   Due to earth's gravity    it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.   Mickey Mouse    is known as "Topolino" in Italy   Soldiers   do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.   Everything    weighs one percent less at the equator.   For every extra kilogram    carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.

Can't attest to the accuracy of these but they all sound plausible.

Thanks to Marilyn for sharing.