Thankful Thursday and Books read in November and December

Linking up with Jennifer for Thankful Thursday-

I’m thankful for a warm home on these freezing cold days, school delays when I’m scheduled to sub, warm clothes for when I purposefully go out into the freezing temps to run and legs that keep me going, not exactly fast, but fast enough to warm up any body part that is not covered (everything but my face).

Two pairs of pants, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks, three long sleeve layers on top, ear covers and a hoodie over my head all have kept me not, well, cozy exactly while running outside but not freezing (except my face!) 

Who’d have thunk that Jacob’s jr. high basketball warm up pants would be perfect to wear over lined leggings? 

I’m thankful for friends who reach out to me, even friends whom I have not met (wink, Marilyn!)

I’m thankful for tea that I got for a good price.... even if it means that I have an overabundance until I drink a lot of it. 

This flavor is one of my favorite herbal teas. Kroger was out of it so I looked online. I had to buy six boxes of it- that is how it was sold. The price per box was about $2.50 (though now it is higher- I just checked. I got them from Amazon). The regular price per box at Kroger is $4.00. 

I’m thankful for living in a small town. I have no desire to live out in the country (been there, done that) and less desire to live in a city (been there, done that). My small suburban town is just right. I am able to walk to many businesses (I don’t normally do that but I like that I could). In a pinch, I have walked to our post office (about two miles away), I have walked home from the school that I sub the most at (it’s less than a mile from my house), Jacob walked home one time from the place where he was taking the driver’s ed classes and one time Abby walked home from dance class when we no one was home to pick her up. It is not like our house is centrally located- it’s that our town is small…I was reminded of that once again this week when Alyssa’s car needed a repair and we were down a car. In a pinch, we can walk to many places in town that we need to be. Now this was a not a good week weather wise to take advantage of the walkability but you bet my freezing face that I did! (And it was literally just my face that was freezing- see moving fast to avoid being cold except for the parts that aren’t covered. 

I’m thankful for my aunt who sent me a few pictures from back in the day. (And by sent I mean in the mail and by pictures I mean actual printed photos.) It’s neat to see pictures of you (and other loved ones) from years ago that you’ve not seen.

My brother Jay and mom on the Mackinaw Bridge

No greater love than this- only a mom could lean in for a picture with someone who´s just run 26.2 miles on a warm September day.

Donnie and me

These are the books that I read in November and December. I definitely did not read as much in November as I did most months this year due to writing more here. But, as making time for what is important to us and reading is important to me, I was still able to read a few. 

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li- This is about two thirteen year old girls, post WWII in a very poor farming area of France. One of them writes a book yet gives the credit to the other who then moves on (literally and figuratively). I didn't care for this book much. The plot and the writing were very much not engaging to me. 

The Good House by Ann Leary- Hildy, a sixty year old divorcee, alcoholic, real estate agent in an upscale town in coastal Massachusetts does not sound like an ideal protagonist necessarily but this book was fun to read due to the intersecting story lines and wit of the author. I loved the likable though flawed character and the setting. I could “see” this charming coastal town (it was a made up town but some reviews that I read mentioned the town that they think the author based it on) without being there thanks to vivid descriptions of the area. 

The Children by Ann Leary- Naturally, I looked for another Ann Leary book to read and this is what I found: It is so hard to describe this book and its characters so I am lifting this review off of Goodreads. It captures exactly what I liked about it and it gives a good synopsis as well. 

Zero Days by Ruth Ware- As thriller/ suspense books go, this was one fell somewhere along the lines of pretty good or OK. What I didn’t like about it was the main character’s husband was killed in the beginning of the book. So you have the main character dealing with grief... as well as being framed for his murder. Of course the main character is a Strong Woman and what ensures is a power to the she- esque dramatic feats both mentally and physically as she struggles to figure out who is framing her and who killed her husband. 

The Grief of Others by Leah Hagar Cohen- This book was OK. I found it too overbearingly dramatic. A woman, Ricky, has an unplanned pregnancy, finds out at an appointment that the child will only live a few hours after he´s born due to an abnormality, decides to not tell her husband this, the baby dies and every family member (the couple have other children) is adversely impacted by it and begin acting out due to their grief.  

Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin- This takes place in France and tells the story of a woman who is the caretaker in a large cemetery. We learn through the story that her beloved daughter was killed in a freak fire accident while attending horse riding camp. She’s estranged from her husband as well. Both the woman and her ex try to piece what really happened the night of the fire that took their daughter’s life. This book won all sorts of accolades and I don’t get it at all. The biggest take that I got from it was that the sexual revolution was a terrible thing (not the point the author was trying to make, I don’t think). Every awful event that happened was directly related to a weakness of the flesh. Can we please bring back the chastity belts?? 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver- This book won a Pulitzer prize and I heard quite a bit of good about it. I thought it was pretty good- not Pulitzer good but I’m not on the judging committee... It’s a modern day take on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. CD wrote often about the struggles and tribulations of the poor/ lower class. In this book, the narrator, Demon, grows up poor in Appalachia. The book chronicles his struggles in foster care and being addicted to opioids. This book is long and very drawn out. Many characters are too one dimensional for my liking- the bad guys are always bad, etc. Also I thought one of the storylines was just too farfetched to be remotely believable. 

The Secrets We Buried by Becca Day- this thriller was pretty good! A friend group of four woman was splintered when one of the women was murdered. All signs pointed to the woman’s husband but there was not enough evidence to charge him. Several years later, the husband resurfaces (he had moved out of town due to him being suspected of killing his wife) and old questions resurface about not only who killed the woman but the nature of all of the relationships within the friend group and those extending beyond it. 

The American Heiress by Dorothy Eden- I really liked this book! A good, well written historical novel bereft of terrible language and adultery? Yes, please!

A few thoughts on books/ reading in 2023 and book reading in general-

*For each month this year, I think I averaged about seven books a month (I’m unwilling to take the time to verify this for sure but I glanced back at a few months’ reading and based on that, I think that is what I averaged). 

*I have never have and don’t plan to ever set a reading goal. (Eg. of reading a certain number of books per year.) I enjoy reading and it’s my go- to hobby. Sometimes after I finish a book, I like to think about it for a few days before reading something new. Sometimes life gets unusually busy and I don’t make the time to read because responsibilities always trump a hobby (almost always!), I would not want to “stress” start a book because I needed to reach some reading quota. 

*My favorite genres are literary suspense books and character driven, literary books. A popular genre that I’m the least likely to read is chick-lit. It’s not that I don’t think some of those in the genre are entertaining, good escapism but rather, I like the books that I read to be thought provoking, have beautiful prose and/ or a great, ideally suspenseful, plot. I view watching Netflix series with Donnie as my non-deep, entertainment escapism. I don’t want that in a book! (Though I have read some chick-lit that I’ve enjoyed, it just is not what I am drawn to and I tend to not read much chick lit at all). 

*Speaking of being drawn to, while I don’t have a book reading number goal, I do think about what books I’d like to read in the future (this is not a yearly thing, rather, an ongoing one based oftentimes on what I have just read). For instance, I mentioned reading Demon Copperhead and not particularly liking it that much/ being puzzled about it winning a Pulitzer prize in literature. In reading reviews about it, I realized that the author based the character on David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. That got me interested in reading the book David Copperfield because I read that Dickens. considered David Copperfield to be his most autobiographical book and DC is considered one of, if not the, best Charles Dickens book. I’ve read a few of Dickens’ s seminal tomes in the past few years- Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities come to mind but I’ve not read David Copperfield and now I want to. (So sludging through Demon Copperhead may have been worth it for getting me to read David Copperfield.)