Reading 2023

I didn’t read - or honestly listen to - as many books as last year but I am still reading/listening at a great pace.   Maybe if I were not a seamstress in a former life, I was an archivist or I was a Librarian!

Shortest book - Always With You, 145 pages

Longest book - The Castle of Kings, 656 pages

Here are some favorites books of 2023.     

First, I fell in love with David Baldachi again this year and, new to me, Harlan Coben.      I read some popular books like Lessons in Chemistry - anxious to watch the movie as well as the Boys in the Boat movie which was also an excellent read several years ago.

I read Spare due to the affection so many of us have for the monarchy.   It was well written but being a true fan of the Queen and Royal Family……

I think the best books of the year, in no particular order have to be

The Day the World Came to Gander  - I was amazed, I was in awe, I cried, I had my faith in humanity restored.   5 stars for sure  

Coal River by Ellen Marie Wiseman - The author had the ability to take me to the horrors and corruption of working in  the coal mines of western PA.  It hit home because  my father ran away from his home in in Western PA, in the 1920’s at the end of  his senior year of high school….nothing to look forward to but working in the mines.  

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler - Not a new book but still enjoyable.

The German Wife, by Debbie Rix - Always a sucker for World War II stories, this is s story about the wife of a concentration camp doctor who’s husband would not divulge was he was doing.   How it lead to their divorce and her subsequent immigration to America and her life post WW2.

Tiffany Girls, Shelley Noble - Light, entertaining reading with a bunch of history about Tiffany Glass.   

A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan - This is not on my best books read list but rather the most disturbing book read list.   I heard a recommendation for this book on a podcast that I listen to, The Book Case (Charlie Gibson and his daughter Kate).   This book was most upsetting because it was true.  It focuses on the KKK and the corruption rampant throughout the local as well as high up in the state government in Indiana in the  1920’s.

So when you are not stitching, keep on reading!