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A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss (audio)

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 11+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss, narrated by Elizabeth Sastre, is a delightful reunion of three half sisters — Maggie, Simone, and Star — in a small village, Rowan Thorp, after the passing of their father. These sisters have not spoken or visited one another for many years, and all were affected by their traveling, unreliable, antiquing father, Augustus. These sisters return for their father’s funeral and the chill between them is palpable, until the reading of their father’s will requires them to work together in order to receive their inheritance.

Star is the new-age, hippie sister, while Simone is the high achiever, and Maggie is the one that stayed in the village with her children and raised them along after her husband passed away. Menopausal Maggie is having a secret fling with the grocer, while Simone has come to the village with a saddened heart as she and her wife try for a baby through IVF. Star seems carefree to her sisters, but her last boyfriend’s drug addiction cost her everything — job and home — leaving her little choice but to return to the village where she was a happy child until her sisters no longer came for the summer.

Bayliss is adept at crafting quirky characters and providing a well-rounded picture of the village and its residents. As she unravels the backstories of each sister and their lives after their blissful summers with their father ended, Bayliss sets the stage for a reset for these sisters and healing through a winter solstice celebration and the sifting through their father’s antique/junk shop. These characters feel like family, even the town busybodies. You can’t help but hope these sisters patch up their differences, learn to forgive, and work together.

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss is a sweet cup of cocoa with some dark, bitter chocolate thrown in. I loved these sisters and their squabbles, but even more so because they were able to grow and evolve.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

A former professional cake baker, Jenny Bayliss lives in a small seaside town in the United Kingdom with her husband, their children having left home for big adventures. She is also the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas, A Season for Second Chances, and Meet Me Under the Mistletoe.

Mailbox Monday #752

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Jane and the Final Mystery by Stephanie Barron for review.

March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen’s health is in slow decline, and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her nephew Edward brings chilling news of a death at his former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the prestigious all-boys’ boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near the schoolgrounds—and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s dear friend Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane clear William’s name before her illness gets the better of her?

Over the course of fourteen previous novels in the critically acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series, Stephanie Barron has won the hearts of thousands of fans—crime fiction aficionados and Janeites alike—with her tricky plotting and breathtaking evocation of Austen’s voice. Now, she brings Jane’s final season—and final murder investigation—to brilliant, poignant life in this unforgettable conclusion.

Farhang: Book One by Patrick Woodcock for review.

Farhang honors the people, places, and things Patrick Woodcock has seen while working as a migrant writer, volunteer, and teacher for almost three decades. This book is the first of three that will celebrate, memorialize, or eulogize the myriad moments that impacted his life while also shaping the shade and content of his writing. Beginning in Poland in 1994 and ending in the hamlet of Paulatuk in the Northwest Territories in 2022, Farhang travels the globe through Lithuania, Russia, Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, the Kurdish North of Iraq, Azerbaijan, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. From the salt mines in Wieliczka to the dirt paths to the Baraa government school in Tanzania, where he volunteered, Woodcock has tried to honor the moment before it becomes muddled, dulled, or romanticized. Some of the poems are about friends or students, others are about the cracked knuckles of strangers, the crawling and the abandoned. Art, language, architecture, politics, and the suffering from politicians left unchecked are also a focus. Sadly, many of the poems are for friends and locations lost to either time, neglect, or warfare. Farhang tries to chronicle some of what no longer exists or only lives on in the poet’s head and soul.

What did you receive?

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 320 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear, which I found through The Book Connection, is something I needed at the right time. As a poet, rejection is part of the publishing wheel, and like everyone, it gets me down. Clear points out that when we want to make behavioral changes, it takes a Herculean effort or it really takes a shift in our focus. It is not will power that will sustain the adoption of new habits or some bottomless pit of passion, it takes practice and hard work every day. Showing up for the good habits and making the bad habits unattractive to ourselves.

“True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. … Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.” (pg. 34)

“Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity. What you do is an indication of they type of person you believe that you are …” (pg. 34)

I think many of us believe our identities are merely our family or our occupation. Some even view their status as a winning athlete as their identity, but we are more than those items. What happens when those criteria no longer exist? Do we cease to have an identity? If you are no longer a professional athlete, who are you? Behaviors and values are other criteria we can look to as we characterize ourselves.

What’s important about Clear’s book is that it is not about setting goals, such as “I will write 25 pages per day on my novel?” It is about changing the processes behind goal setting to make behavior change more successful and achievable. We should all strive to do 1% better in our attempts to change behavior every day and through this long-term practice, we can achieve behavior changes over time. Our intentions should be clear and attractive to us, such as “I will write 1 new page of my novel at 12 p.m. in my office on Mondays.” These intentions will make it doable and with minimal pressure and provide a time and location.

Clear also discusses the idea of habit stacking in which you start new habits right after ones that you wish to continue and can signal to you that it is time for the new habit. For instance, if you grab a cup of coffee early in the morning, you can stack it with the habit of meditating for 1 minute with the cup in your hands, if your goal is to meditate more. There are lots of ways that habits can be stacked to make achieving change easier. Inserting habits where you can can ensure that a new habit becomes more automatic. Clear says, “The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.” (pg. 104) This is something the advertising industry knows well, which is why we consume new products, social media applications, and other items so easily.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear is definitely a great book if you are looking to ditch bad habits or form new ones. Want to hike more, this book can help you start and maintain the habit. Want to write more, same thing. He does warn that “when preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.” (pg. 143) But remember, “the human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty.” (pg. 231).

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

James Clear is a writer and speaker. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits and the popular 3-2-1 newsletter.

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary (audio)

Source: Purchased
Audible, 10+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Jessie Cave and Lino Facioli, is set in a small town at a failing hotel just after the pandemic sent many in the hospitality industry under. Forest Manor Hotel cut corners to stay open, and it’s beginning to show, as parts of the ceiling fall. Everything could do with a touch up, but when your owners don’t like to budget or deal with numbers, the task can be overwhelming. Izzy Jenkins and Lucas da Silva are the two main receptionists of the hotel, but they are always arguing and sniping at each other.

Even though Izzy and Lucas may hate each other, they both love the hotel and the mission to find the owners of some lost wedding rings could just be the miracle they need, especially if rewards are involved. O’Leary always has fun characters in awkward situations. While I wasn’t too keen on how long the misunderstanding lasted in this one, the banter and awkwardly sparkling moments between Izzy and Lucas were funny. It probably didn’t hurt that the male narrator really did well with the Brazilian Portuguese.

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Jessie Cave and Lino Facioli, was a comedy when I needed some cheering up, even if I did get frustrated with Izzy and Lucas. I think that is to be expected in these kinds of scenarios. I had a good time with this one.

RATING: Quatrain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Beth O’Leary is a Sunday Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 30 languages. She wrote her debut novel, The Flatshare, on her train journey to and from her job at a children’s publisher. She now lives in the Hampshire countryside and writes full time.

Mailbox Monday #751

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary, purchased from Audible.

Two hotel receptionists—and arch-rivals—find a collection of old wedding rings and compete to return them to their owners, discovering their own love story along the way.

It’s the busiest season of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is quite literally falling apart. So when Izzy and Lucas are given the same shift on the hotel’s front desk, they have no choice but to put their differences aside and see it through.

The hotel won’t stay afloat beyond Christmas without some sort of miracle. But when Izzy returns a guest’s lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management that this might be the way to fix everything. With four rings still sitting in the lost & found, the race is on for Izzy and Lucas to save their beloved hotel—and their jobs.

As their bitter rivalry turns into something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas begin to wonder if there’s more at stake here than the hotel’s future. Can the two of them make it through the season with their hearts intact?

Crushed & Crowned by Joseph Ross for Gaithersburg Book Festival consideration.

Crushed & Crowned guides the reader through a “museum of bodies,” seeking to “illuminate the darkest corners of our history. From sanitation workers killed in Memphis, to elegies aimed at resurrection, these poems forbid sleeping. Murals of saints guard refugees, statues replace enslavers with confident Black teens, a high school teacher observes the joys and sorrows of his students. These poems also stop us at one of the world’s largest refugee camps, inviting us to see LGBTQ refugees and their plight. These poems center the lives of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, considering their places in our history. These poems believe that if we read and live with the right spirit, the “crushed” of our world can end up “crowned.”

Corona/Crown by Kim Roberts for Gaithersburg Book Festival consideration.

Cross-disciplinary chapbook created in collaboration with photographer Robert Revere. The book addresses the act of looking, and the experience of going to museums. It is also about the COVID pandemic, and a time when museums and cultural spaces were closed.

 

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss purchased from Audible.

Wildly different half sisters Maggie, Simone, and Star have hardly seen one another since their sprightly summers at Rowan Thorp, their eccentric father Augustus’s home. Known for his bustling approach to the knick-knack shop he ran, Augustus was loved by all and known by none, not even his daughters.

Now, years later, the three estranged women are called upon for the reading of Augustus’s will and quickly realize he’s orchestrated a series of hoops through which they must jump to unlock their inheritance—the last thing any of them want to do. But Maggie and Star desperately need the money. And who would Simone be to resist?

Through hilarious goose chases, small-town mishaps, and one heart-warming winter solstice celebration, love is in the air, if only the three sisters can let themselves grasp it.

What did you receive?

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 352 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell, my final book for the 12 books recommended by 12 friends reading challenge, is part biography and part critique of his work as a sermon writer and poet. Donne was considered to be one of the most romantic poets of the time period, which also included William Shakespeare and others. Much of what Rundell pieces together from Donne’s life is from fragmented time lines and very few complete documents, as he liked to destroy documents written from his friends after they had died. He also often wrote fragments of poems on napkins or other scraps, which were given to others or thrown away or lost.

In one section of the book, Rundell points to a copyrighted book called “Amours” by J.D., with other sonnets by W.S., but it is unclear if it is even Donne’s work or that of Shakespeare. The author admits it is impossible to know who wrote the work or the sonnets inside.

Rundell is clearly a lover of Donne’s work, and she admires his intimacy with his subject, and while she does humanize rather than exalt Donne, with very few documents to demonstrate his movements, etc., she’s piecing together his life from scraps. What is known of Donne is that he did indeed love his young wife and family, despite the hardship of family life and earning a living at a time when Catholics were persecuted, killed, and shunned/snubbed. His brother died in jail after being found to have hidden a priest in his home. Donne also lost two of his 12 children in childbirth, including the twelfth and then lost his wife. His life was hard, somewhat of his own doing and decisions, but also because of the political and religious landscape at the time.

I will be honest there were parts of this book that got too academic and I skimmed them. I was disappointed that there was not more about the poems and the actual life that could be verified, but that is not the author’s doing. Her writing style was a bit dry at times, even as she seemed to talk directly to the reader. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell does its best to pay homage to the man, including his faults, while highlighting his contributions to poetry and religion. I will leave you with a poem I memorized in school:

Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she works on Renaissance literature. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. Rundell is also the author of a book for adults, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. She has written for, among others, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times, largely about books, though sometimes about animals, night climbing, and tightrope walking.

Click the image below to see all of my reviews for this challenge and maybe add some to your own reading lists.

Holly by Stephen King (audio)

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 15+ hours
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Holly by Stephen King, narrated by Justine Lupe, is a novel that will at times challenge readers because it is set during the height of the pandemic when information about the virus was minimal and many people were running scared. Holly, who is a bit of a hypochondriac, wears masks and gloves, and she’s definitely wiping down everything for germs, but she still smokes cigarettes. She is nothing but a ball of contradictions, but aren’t we all.

Finders Keepers is the private detective agency she runs with her partner, Pete, and some other helpers/researchers who will be familiar to readers of If It Bleeds and The Outsider, among others. She sets out to find a missing girl and uncovers a lot more than she bargained for.

This is probably the least creepy of King’s novels, as it deals with a real-world evil, rather than a supernatural one. Holly’s investigation of the girl’s disappearance takes her down a rabbit hole into other disappearances, but in the back of her mind is the anxiety about the pandemic, her mother’s passing, and her partner’s sickness.

Holly by Stephen King is a solid novel set in a time period many of us would probably like to forget or gloss over, but it reminds us that while we lived through it, we haven’t really dealt with the consequences of it. Some readers will bristle at the vax vs. antivax and COVID vs. non-COVID believers and all that it entails. I suggest they skip this one because they will be too focused on things that are just part of the time period for the story and less on the story and the character, Holly, herself. She navigates some big emotional traumas in this one, and I’m not sure if she’s addressed all she needs to (much like the rest of us) — she may show up again in another King novel, who knows.

RATING: Quatrain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Doctor Sleep and Under the Dome, now a major TV miniseries on CBS. His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller as well as the Best Hardcover Book Award from the International Thriller Writers Association. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Mailbox Monday #750

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Fixer by Edgar Kunz for Gaithersburg Book Festival consideration.

Temp jobs, conspiracy theories, squatters, talk therapy, urban gardening, the robot revolution: this collection fixes its eye on the strangeness of labor, through poems that are searching, keen, and wry. The virtuosic central sequence explores the untimely death of the poet’s estranged father, a handyman and addict, and the brothers left to sort through the detritus of a life long lost to them. Through lyrical, darkly humorous vignettes, Kunz asks what it costs to build a home and a love that not only lasts but sustains.

Disfigured on Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc from the library for my October work-based book club.

If every disabled character is mocked and mistreated, how does the Beast ever imagine a happily-ever-after? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference.

Love After the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead from the library for my November work-based book club.

This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous) writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism’s histories.

Here, readers will discover bio-engineered AI rats, transplanted trees in space, the rise of a 2SQ resistance camp, a primer on how to survive Indigiqueerly, virtual reality applications, motherships at sea, and the very bending of space-time continuums queered through NDN time. Love after the End demonstrates the imaginatively queer Two-Spirit futurisms we have all been dreaming of since 1492.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear from the library.

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving – every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, listeners will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:

  • Make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy)
  • Overcome a lack of motivation and willpower
  • Design your environment to make success easier
  • Get back on track when you fall off course
  • And much more

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits – whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

What did you receive?

Mailbox Monday #749

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

My Dear Comrades by Sunu P. Chandy from Literary Hill BookFest for Gaithersburg Book Festival consideration.

In this poetry collection, Sunu P. Chandy includes stories about her experiences as a woman, civil rights attorney, parent, partner, daughter of South Asian immigrants, and member of the LGBTQ community. These poems cover themes ranging from immigration, social justice activism, friendship loss, fertility challenges, adoption, caregiving, and life during a pandemic. Sunu’s poems provide some resolve, some peace, some community, amidst the competing notions of how we are expected to be in the world, especially when facing a range of barriers. Sunu’s poems provide company for many who may be experiencing isolation through any one of these experiences and remind us that we are not, in fact, going it alone. Whether the experience is being disregarded as a woman of color attorney, being rejected for being queer, losing a most treasured friendship, doubting one’s romantic partner or any other form of heartbreak, Sunu’s poems highlight the human requirement of continually starting anew. These poems remind us that we can, and we will, rebuild.

Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello for Gaithersburg Book Festival consideration.

Yours, Creature is composed of epistolary poems in the voice of Mary Shelley. Often written as missives to her famous literary mother, Wollstonecraft, the poems address months, years, and her own monstrous creation as they contend with exile, transience, and desire. These poems ask us to imagine the physical elements of Shelley’s existence in language that is both luminous and visceral. This is not a book that simply recreates a past, but one that transcends time as it threads together the loss and violence that history has asked women to suppress. The poems recognize the unspoken pairing of scarcity and creation; they explore how the monstrous is born out of rejection. Yours, Creature responds to a literary and historical narrative, but the poems exist as lyric, singing of the pleasure of creation and its transformative power.

What did you receive?

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (audio)

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 6+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, narrated by Joseph Balderrama, is a translated work in which a dystopian world of cannibalism emerges after a virus makes all other meat inedible. Marcos is the main character who is the supervisor of the local “specialty meat” plant. His father has dementia and he is paying for all his care, but his wife left him and his only child is dead.

Much of this book is stomach-churning, and while I see it as a commentary on the meat production industry and the industry/money driven industry’s influence over government policy. It’s interesting to me that the author chose this topic after I learned that Argentina is one of the largest meat consumers in the world. Marcos is so detached from his family, his emotions, his interactions with others, and while the gift he is given later on is supposed to make us believe he is reconnecting with his humanity, I don’t believe it. I was unconvinced. The ending wasn’t a shock.

I can see how this would be a good book club selection because there are a number of themes to explore and discuss, but the characters were very flat and didn’t evolve much throughout. Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is an odd dystopian novel set in Argentina where cannibalism is the norm out of necessity, but little is examined about the moral or ethical challenges of this decision. What’s worse is the conspiracies about it being a government hoax are never explored.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene. She won the prestigious Premio Clarin Novela for her second novel, Tender Is the Flesh, which has been translated into twenty-three languages. Several of the stories in Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird have also won awards, including First Prize in the 2004/2005 City of Buenos Aires Awards for Unpublished Stories and First Prize in the Edmundo Valadés Awards for the Latin American Short Story, among others.