“It’s not Keep Calm and Carry On. It’s Change Your Perception So You Never Have to Keep Calm and Carry On. Stoics are very passionate people. The key is to be correct in your passions.” Go Gentle by Maria Semple Adora Hazzard is living her best life. A fifty-something divorcee residing in the historic…
“A cat is the soul of the home.” Motto of Agnes Aubert’s cat shelter In case you did not know I am an unapologetic cat lady. I have two cat tattoos to prove it. My current charge, Ringo, is an adorable, albeit not the smartest, gray feline. So,…
In the past few months, I’ve read some “heavy” books. Novels that addressed topics such as climate change, famine, and disease. So, I was in the mood for something that would give me joy, or at least a distraction. Enter: The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead. Grief, addiction, hope, fame, and acceptance do not…
“No one needed a magic wardrobe that opened to Narnia if they had a library card; if you had a library card, you had a thousand magic wardrobes to choose from, ten thousand….A library card was as good as a sword drawn from a stone” - King Sorrow, by Joe Hill Warning: This book…
For many of us, letter writing has been replaced by emailing and texting. But not for the protagonist in Virginia Evans’ new epistolary novel (a book written through letters), The Correspondent. Sybil Van Antwerp, a mother and grandmother, a friend and reader of books, retired from a distinguished career in law, communicates with people from…
Romance novels often have a meet/cute, that moment the couple meets. Some romances are termed “grumpy/sunshine” because one of the pair can be grouchy in his or her demeanor while the other is more, well, sunshiny. The protagonists in The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison come together with a meet/cute. When Ruth and Abe are…
2025 is fast approaching, but we're not quite ready to turn the page on 2024! This year was filled with titles that made us laugh, cry, and gasp. We read stories that moved, challenged, and transported us. We're a community that loves to read -- and to share what we're reading -- which is why…
“Crying makes him feel a fool, but he is weeping now, unstoppably. It's so performative. Who does he do this all for? Oh, what is the meaning? (He does not know about us yet, of course, reader. And though I'm no angel, I must say I have been mistaken for one, my feathers being so…
“When lost, yelled the crowd, in chorus, sit down and yell.” When I get lost (in a book) I never want to yell. I demand quiet. I want to focus all my energy on the book. But with Liz Moore’s God of the Woods chaos could have erupted around me and I would not have…
“Is this a test?” she asks. “For me?” “I’d say it’s more for us,” he says gently. “Or me, maybe. You’ve been good Annie. You’ve been wonderful, actually. It’s been over a month since you were grounded. And even that was for a mistake. I ought to give you more credit.” - Sierra Greer,…
