Taylor and Gwendolyn

 

What a good month of books!

Somehow I read 17 again - not my normal number.

It's such a joy to sit down and revisit what I liked (and disliked, ha!) about each book I read (or listened to!) this month. 

Recommend: Phoenix Crown & Zero Days - two of my FAV authors and both of these were FAB (former: historical fiction around the San Fran Earthquake of 1906, and latter: a thriller about a hacker trying to solve her husband's murder). The Paris Novel is a francophile's dream: the most gorgeous descriptions of French food and art and fashion in the 1980s (pub date 4/23!). The Many Lives of Mama Love (our April book club pick!) was one of THE best books I've read this year - absolutely gutwrechingly raw memoir of Lara Love Hardin's life (an addict who ended up in jail but manages to turn her life completely around). Couldn't put this one down & has forever changed the way I view addiction & incarceration. Amanda Skenandore has been added to my list of fav historical fiction authors, and her newest novel, centered around the Galveston hurricane of 1900, was a really great read. 

Honorable Mentions: The Seven Year Slip (time travel right-person-wrong-time romance), & The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard (multi-generational Parisian fashion historical fiction). 

Kid Reads. 3 family readalouds: another one of the Penderwicks (absolutely darling family series that we just love so much), an "I Survived" (not our normal readaloud speed, but absolutely timely for us as we read it while IN Galveston over spring break), and our top favorite: Nothing Else But Miracles (WW2 historical fiction, set in NYC, about 3 sweet siblings waiting for their dad to return from war - SO GOOD). Arden and I finished the 2nd Sarah Plain & Tall ("Skylark" - the family is forced to spend time in Main to escape the prairie drought), and Turner and I finished the 2nd Dimwood Forest book ("Poppy & Rye" - where we follow the adventures of our heroine mouse and her porcupine friend as they defeat the beavers). 

Nonfiction. Everyone should read Atomic Habits! Such a good book with so many good takeaways (and step by step methods) about how to make habits actually stick and become part of who you are. Lasting habits (ie parts of your identity) get formed from tiny small changes.