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!

Reading

Reading takes me away.   I can be in Bali while snuggled on the couch in pj’s with a cuppa, or just as easily be in Paris in 1940.  Reading historical fiction makes me appreciate all I have to be grateful for.   To see how far we have progressed albeit I feel sometimes the old ways were better.

I use the Goodreads Ap to keep track of MY personal challenge as well as a place to keep a list of books I have read and want to read.....just like patterns, I've downloaded the same book more than once.    My challenge for 2022 was 26 books.    I didn't want to set the bar too high and feel defeated if I didn't meet the challenge.   Well, I doubled it.    I read, or listened to, 52 books in 2023.    I am not trying to shame others with my number.  It is MY challenge to myself.   I read at mealtime, I listen while stitching; I just have a lot of alone time to fill.  Some do not agree that audio books should count but having to take some long car drives by myself, audio books have become my friends.   Not only when driving, but doing hours of yard work in the spring and summer, I pop those air pods in and I off to the beach in Nantucket, or walking through the pre-revolutionary colonies.

I read almost exclusively off my iPad.   When I got my first Kindle about 10 years ago it took about a minute to get used to that versus a physical book and I have not looked back.   For me, I love the portability of taking the iPad versus a big old book as well as, oops! I finished and viola a quick download of the next book in an instant.  

I think this year was a fluke as for the number so I am bravely setting my 2023 challenge at 36!

My Statistics for 2022

52 books read

18,393 pages

Shortest book - 13 pages (??)

Longest book - 973 pages

Average book length - 353 pages

Most shelved book - Of Mice and Men

Least shelved book - The Jade Dragon

Some of my favorites from 2022

The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

The Escape by David Baldacci

Night Road by Kristin Hannah

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi

My Name is Resolute by Nancy Turner

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand

Next Year in Havana by Channel Cleeton

Cider House Rules by John Irving  

Mississippi Blood  by Greg Iles