The Best Book for this period is French Braid by Anne Tyler!
Tag: book lists
Classics Club Spin #33!
Classics Club has announced another spin. How does a spin work? Members post a numbered list of 20 of the books from their Classics Club lists by Sunday, March 19. The club picks a number, and that’s the book members try to read and post a review of by Sunday, April 30. Anyone can participate who has a Classics Club list registered with the club.
So, here is my list for the next spin:
- Isa’s Ballad by Magda Szabo
- Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney
- The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous
- Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
- Miss Mole by E. H. Young
- Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
- Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
- A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova
- Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe
- The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
- The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
- The Prophet’s Mantle by E. Nesbitt
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
- The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
- Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
- Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
- The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
- The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell
- Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
- The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût
Hope some of you will join me. Have fun with the spin!
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer!
Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #22 Jutland Cottage + #21 Happy Returns Wrap-Up!
Rereading Happy Returns in the context of the rest of the Barsetshire series proved to be much more rewarding than reading it as a one-off as I did years ago. My thanks to the people who are sticking with the project and made comments or read along with this book:
- Liz Dexter of Adventures in Reading
- Penelope Gough
- Gypsi
The next book is Jutland Cottage, and I will be posting my review on Friday, March 31! I hope some of you can read along with me. Including Jutland Cottage, there are only eight more books to go in the series!
And here’s our badge.
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen!
Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #21 Happy Returns + #20 The Duke’s Daughter Wrap-Up
Since I know that at least one person who had been reading along was no longer able to find reasonably priced copies of the books, I got a lot more comments on the last book than I expected. I hope that happy situation continues. Anyway, my thanks to the following people who participated in discussing The Duke’s Daughter:
- Liz Dexter
- Penelope Gough
The next book is Happy Returns, which I read all the way back in 2015 and don’t remember at all (except that someone is running for parliament). It’ll be interesting to me to see whether I view that book differently now that I am more familiar with the characters. I will be reviewing that book on Tuesday, February 28! Hope you will join me.
And here’s our little emblem.
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson!
11th Anniversary! Top Ten Books of the Year!
It’s my 11th anniversary for this blog, and as is my habit, I am using it to post my top ten books of the year. This year’s books are all fiction, which isn’t unusual. What is unusual is that six of them are historical novels, and a few others are partially historical. Only one is set in the current time (the other nonhistorical novels in the recent past). Of the historical novels, most are set in the 20th century, but one each is set in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Five of the books are by women, five by men, and two involve the supernatural. Four books are set in the United States, two in Scotland, and one each in Australia, Madagascar, France, and an island in the Indian Ocean off what would become Australia.
This year’s choice was difficult, because I read some really good books, but here they are, in the order in which I posted the reviews:
- Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
- The Sentence by Louise Ehrdrich
- Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig
- Mohawk by Richard Russo
- Red Island House by Andrea Lee
- The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
- The Night Ship by Jess Kidd
- The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James
Here’s wishing you a year of happy reading!
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James!
Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #20 The Duke’s Daughter + #19 County Chronical Wrap-Up
Again, I had fun revisiting old friends and meeting new ones in County Chronicle. I thank anyone who has had time to send in a comment. They are
- Silvia Cachia
- Davida Chazan of The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog
- Liz Dexter of Adventures in Reading
- Penelope Gough
- Anne Roy
The next book is The Duke’s Daughter, which I will be reviewing on Tuesday, January 31. If you get a chance to read the book or have read it or just have something to say, pop in and make a comment. And here’s our little badge.











