Some Books I Read This Week

I read four books this week so I'll share my thoughts here with you. The two average ones are up first. 

Kat read this book and it sounded interesting. It was, but it was also just three stars for me. A Biography of a Mountain by Matthew Davis is an ambitious, researched look at the complicated story of Mount Rushmore, its creation, meaning, and legacy. Davis traces the land’s origins as sacred ground for Native tribes, the expansion of the American West, and the monumental (and controversial) work of sculptor Gutzon Borglum. The book also connects the site’s history to modern movements like Land Back and ongoing debates about how America memorializes its past.

While I think Mr. Davis tried to be somewhat evenhanded in presenting both the United States National Park perspective and that of Native Americans, but for me he was not completely successful. I came away with too many personal stories, too much history told in a rather dull, textbook-like way, and not enough from the Native American side of the story. For a book that sets out to center those voices, their presence often felt secondary.

Still, I appreciated Davis’s effort to grapple with such a difficult subject and his willingness to confront the political and moral complexities of the monument. A Biography of a Mountain is a thoughtful, if uneven, read that may appeal most to history buffs and those curious about how a single mountain can embody so many layers of the American story.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on November 11, 2025. 

I’ve read John Grisham since his early days, when his legal thrillers were taut, fast-paced, and nearly impossible to put down. Unfortunately, The Widow didn’t have that same energy for me. The setup, a small-town lawyer whose new client turns out to be more than she appears, had some promise, but the story moved at a sluggish pace and often meandered through subplots that didn’t add much tension or urgency.

Simon Latch is an interesting enough protagonist, and the premise of being wrongly accused should have made for a sharp, suspenseful read. Instead, the narrative felt underwhelming, more reflective and procedural than thrilling. Grisham’s writing is still smooth and readable, but the spark that once made his courtroom dramas so gripping just wasn’t here. 

All in all, The Widow was an average read, but not the kind of tightly wound legal thriller I used to read Grisham for. This one was also a three star read. 

Written in Bone is a fascinating, sometimes unsettling exploration of what our skeletons can reveal about our lives and our deaths. Forensic anthropologist Sue Black draws on her long career working with the dead to explain, bone by bone, how each part of the human body tells a story. From the skull to the toes, she shows how age, trauma, disease, and even personality can leave physical traces behind.

What I appreciated most was Black’s deep respect for the human body and humans themselves. Her passion for her work shines through every chapter, and her quiet sense of humor often balances the darker material. The book is strongest when she combines case studies with personal reflections; those sections feel human and heartfelt rather than purely clinical. Sometimes the case studies are difficult to read, like the identification of fire victims and what can happen to bone in a fire, but it's still interesting and worth reading.

That said, this book isn’t always an easy read. The tone can shift abruptly from deeply moving to very technical, and some sections bog down in dense anatomical detail. Readers looking for a true-crime style narrative may be disappointed as this is more a textbook-with-heart than a thriller.

Overall, Written in Bone is intelligent, compassionate, and informative, though sometimes uneven in pacing and tone. I learned a great deal about both the science of bones and the humanity behind them. Three and a half stars, rounded up. 

 

 

Life: A Love Story by Elizabeth Berg is a beautiful, deeply human novel that glows with warmth and quiet wisdom. It’s the kind of book that makes you pause, smile, and feel grateful for ordinary moments, like the smell of coffee, a favorite comfortable chair, the light through a window. Berg has always written with a sensitivity to everyday life, and here she captures it perfectly through the voice of Florence “Flo” Greene, a woman looking back with honesty and ahead with grace.

Flo decides to leave behind not only her house but also a written legacy for Ruthie, the neighbor girl who grew up next door and remains like a daughter to her. What unfolds is part memoir, part letter, and part gentle nudge to keep living fully, no matter one’s age. Through her reflections and even her meddling in the lives of friends and neighbors, Flo becomes a vibrant force for connection, reminding us that love, in all its forms, is both fragile and enduring.

What I especially appreciated is that this is a profoundly positive and hopeful novel, but never saccharine. Berg’s prose is luminous yet grounded; she never glosses over loss or regret, but instead lets them coexist with humor, affection, and renewal. There’s real emotional honesty in the way Flo reveals her long-buried secret about her marriage, and in how she reaches out to others even as she’s preparing to say goodbye.

Reading this felt like sitting down with an old friend who tells the truth but still leaves you feeling lighter and more open to the world. I think Berg must have a compassionate spirit and it certainly comes through in her writing.

Thank to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on March 17, 2026. (I'm sorry that you have to wait five long months for the publication of this novel!)

I hope you've got something good to read this weekend!

 

Unraveled Wednesday: 10/29/25

I’m happily joining Kat and the Unravelers today, with a completed Rainbow Scarf for Ryan and the beginnings of what will hopefully be a pair of socks for Justin. I took the scarf along when I visited Ryan on Monday, asked him to make sure he tried it on for length before I left, and then we both forgot. It's a bit longer than six feet, but I left it on the needle so I can easily take out a few inches if he thinks it's too long. I'll post a proper picture when it's done/approved and bound off. 

I did get the yarn for Justin's slippers, but I've also gone off on a bit of a tangent. I didn't think that I wanted to make socks for him because he has such big feet. But what I didn't want to do was knit socks with fingering weight yarn. He wears boots almost every day which means he is usually wearing boot socks. I spent quite a while looking for worsted weight yarn with nylon, and found that Briggs & Little makes some they call Tuffy. Sometimes it's classified as aran weight, but whatever the weight, it is nice, thick, woolly, yarn. Of course, it comes from Canada and that means tariffs, but nobody seemed to know quite what that would add to the cost. The yarn is priced quite reasonably at $7.00 Canadian ($5.00 US) for 215 yds., but I was hesitant to order, not knowing what the real cost would be. So I looked on etsy, found a bunch in various colors, and cast on some socks. 

I ended up casting on three times times because each attempt looked too small. I've finally settled on a 48 stitch sock. This is certainly doable so I'm going to keep knitting and hopefully end up with a pair of wearable and warm socks. I still intend to knit the slippers, probably Wychwood or maybe Thick Bootie Slippers (both are Ravelry links) but I haven't cast on yet. 

 

 

I finished four books this week, so I'll save my reviews for Friday.

What are you making and reading this week? 

 

I'm Lucky

I consider myself lucky for lots of reasons, but today it’s because I have a kid who cooks really good food for me. Ryan enjoys being in the kitchen, and since John’s garden happens to be at Ryan’s house, we usually head over there once a week. While John checks the garden, Ryan makes us lunch. (Our soil here in New Jersey has untreatable verticillium wilt that makes it unsuited for a garden here and is also slowly killing our trees, but that’s a sad story for another day.)

We used to go out to diners, but no matter what we ordered, Ryan would usually say he could make it better. (And honestly, he’s right.) These days he often asks if there’s anything we’re hungry for, and I usually tell him it’s chef’s choice - whatever he feels like making is fine with me. He’s made us omelets, egg salad, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, sausage corn chowder, “supper on a bread slice” (a dish my mother used to make, but Ryan’s version is much improved), and his absolutely stellar onion soup gratinée.

Last week I was grumbling about a disappointing canned clam chowder I’d tried, and Ryan offered to make some from scratch. He watched Jacques Pépin (I’m not sure clam chowder really needs leeks or corn like Jacques adds) and then checked out a few more videos on youtube. He decided the method was similar to sausage corn chowder, just with clams and clam juice instead. So that’s what I was served for lunch yesterday, along with Ryan's special cheese toast. 

And of course, it was fantastic! I've never had homemade clam chowder before, and it turns out the canned stuff doesn’t even come close. Ryan’s version had onions, garlic, celery, potatoes, butter, half-and-half, bacon, clams, clam juice, chives, parsley, a little hot sauce, and plenty of seasoning. I'm not sure whether this is my favorite or if his onion soup wins, but I will take either one of them any time he is willing to make them.

And one of the best parts?

Ryan sent me home with the leftovers. I am, without a doubt, very lucky.

 

Banned Books

Every year when my library puts up its Banned Books display, I can’t resist spending a little extra time browsing. There’s something both funny and thought-provoking about seeing which titles have landed on that list, and, in many cases, why.

This year, a few of the choices made me laugh out loud. Right there among the “dangerous” and “controversial” works were Bad Kitty and Captain Underpants. Really? Those mischievous cats and underwear-clad superheroes are what we’re worried about corrupting young minds?

When my sons were growing up in the 1990s, Captain Underpants books were a fixture in our household. They made the boys laugh, and, truth be told, they made me laugh, too. The idea that they’re banned for “offensive language,” being “unsuited for their age group,” or “encouraging disruptive behavior” is almost too funny to me. My kids were perfectly capable of coming up with their own disruptive behavior without any help from a cartoon character in his underwear.

As for Bad Kitty, it turns out some of the books have been challenged because they include a lesbian couple and use symbolic expletives (those cartoon-style symbols like @#$%! that suggest a swear word without actually saying one). Hardly scandalous, in my opinion, and certainly not something worth banning.

I ended up checking out two books from the display that I’d read before: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I had to look up why they’d been banned or challenged, too, themes of witchcraft, madness, and repressed sexuality for the first, and profanity and atheism for the second. It made me realize how easily books can be misunderstood or reduced to a single “offensive” element, when what they actually offer is depth, empathy, and perspective.

 

 

I completely support the idea that parents should decide what they feel is appropriate for their own children. That’s a personal and important responsibility. But I draw the line when someone tries to make that decision for everyone else’s children, too. One family’s comfort zone shouldn’t define another’s reading list.

Banned Books Week (it was October 5 -11 this year) is a good reminder of why libraries matter so much; they should be able to offer everyone the freedom to explore ideas, to question, to laugh, and to learn. Standing in front of that display each year, I’m grateful for the librarians who work hard to ensure those stories stay on the shelves, waiting for curious readers to discover them all over again. Checking out the books that make people uncomfortable are often the ones most worth reading.

Unraveled Wednesday: 10/22/25

I’m happily joining Kat and the Unravelers today, with what I hope is almost the end of the rainbow scarf.

I haven't yet tired of knitting rainbows but I do want to finish the scarf so I'm ready to start Justin's Christmas present. He's a little more difficult to knit for but I had what I hope might be a good idea - slippers. I've made him a gazillion hats and he wears size 13 boots, so socks are quite an undertaking. I found a slipper pattern that I think will work and have even ordered yarn that will be here later this week. If Justin ends up not wearing them, maybe Nugget and the kitten can sleep in them. 

I read several books this week but I'm saving a couple of them for a post I have planned for Friday. In the meantime, here is a slightly strange yet interesting book that I also read. Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo is one of those quietly unusual novels that sneaks up on you with its tenderness. I picked it up from my library’s shelves without quite knowing what to expect, and I ended up genuinely touched by its mix of fable-like wonder and small-town realism.

The story follows Gabriel Fisher, an orphan born extraordinarily large (eighteen pounds and twenty-seven inches at birth) whose life unfolds somewhere between myth and Midwest. Raised first by an older brother and later by strict Amish grandparents who try to hide him from the world, Gabriel’s journey is both physically and spiritually outsized. When a high school coach discovers him working in the fields, his secret life bursts into the open, setting off a series of events that test faith, love, and community.

Rindo writes beautifully about rural Wisconsin and the complex, sometimes claustrophobic ties of family and belief. There’s a quiet moral weight to the story, a sense that kindness and cruelty coexist in the same hearts. I especially appreciated how the novel balanced magical realism with grounded emotional truth.

That said, the pacing felt uneven at times, and a few plot turns veered toward the sentimental or predictable. Still, Gabriel himself is such a memorable character, both gentle and formidable, that I found myself thinking about him long after finishing.

A strange, heartfelt, and reflective novel about belonging and difference, Life, and Death, and Giants earns 3.5 stars from me. It may not be perfect, but it certainly has heart.

 

What are you making and reading this week?

 

Sometimes Monday ...

... you start out reorganizing the freezer and somehow end up baking a cake. It was one of those “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” kind of days, but with a very happy ending.

We have three chest freezers, mostly because we freeze a lot of garden produce, and both John and Justin hunt. Every fall, I have to clean them out and reorganize things so I can actually find (and use) what’s inside. I finished one freezer and had just started on the second when I discovered a bag of cranberries I’d frozen, probably last Thanksgiving. I moved them to the fridge to thaw, and then thought about them every time I opened the door.

At first, I considered making cranberry-orange bread, but since I didn’t have any oranges, and wasn’t in the mood for a grocery run, I started thinking about Nantucket Cranberry Pie instead. I went to look for the recipe but couldn’t find it in my box. I was pretty sure it was by Laurie Colwin, so I pulled out Home Cooking and More Home Cooking.

Of course, that led to taking all the cookbooks off the shelf, dusting, vacuuming, and then spending a lovely afternoon reading through Laurie Colwin’s essays (which, honestly, was half the fun). Eventually, I did find the recipe in More Home Cooking.

And since it made such a satisfying bake, I thought I’d share it here as both “blog fodder” and a handy place to keep the recipe for next time.

Here’s Laurie’s recipe, in case you’d like to try it, too:

Nantucket Cranberry Pie

1. Chop enough cranberries to make 2 cups and enough walnuts to make 1/2 cup.

2. In the bottom of a 10-inch pie plate or springform pan, place chopped cranberries, chopped walnuts, and 1/2 cup of sugar.

3. Mix 2 large eggs, 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) melted and cooled butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon almond extract. Stir till smooth.

 

4. Pour over cranberry-walnut mixture and bake for 40 minutes at 350 F.

 

I didn't have any walnuts so I added an extra 1/2 cup of cranberries. I used 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, just because I like vanilla better than almond. I don't know why it's called "Nantucket Cranberry Pie" when it clearly makes a cake, but it's delicious no matter what you call it. The cake does have a lot of butter and sugar, but I think I will decrease the sugar sprinkled on the cranberries to 1/3 cup or slightly less the next time I make it. After cleaning out freezers I felt like I deserved something good. 

 

I hope your week is off to a good start and includes some kind of treat! 

A Gathering of Poetry: October 2025

It’s the third Thursday of the month, which means it’s time for A Gathering of Poetry - welcome!

There are plenty of mornings when I open the New York Times, NPR, or the BBC online, glance at the headlines, and think, I wish we didn’t live in such unprecedented times. I’ll admit that back when there wasn’t a new crisis every ten minutes, I took things for granted. I assumed the world was humming along about as smoothly as it could, and I could focus on my family and the small stuff of everyday life.

These days, I take very little for granted and often find myself longing for an ordinary day, just a calm, uneventful, ordinary day. This poem captures that feeling beautifully for me, and maybe it will for you, too. 

 

Ordinary Life

by Barbara Crooker  

This was a day when nothing happened,
the children went off to school
remembering their books, lunches, gloves.
All morning, the baby and I built block stacks
in the squares of light on the floor.
And lunch blended into naptime,
I cleaned out kitchen cupboards,
one of those jobs that never gets done,
then sat in a circle of sunlight
and drank ginger tea,
watched the birds at the feeder
jostle over lunch's little scraps.
A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,
preened and flashed his jeweled head.
Now a chicken roasts in the pan,
and the children return,
the murmur of their stories dappling the air.
I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.
We listen together for your wheels on the drive.
Grace before bread.
And at the table, actual conversation,
no bickering or pokes.
And then, the drift into homework.
The baby goes to his cars, drives them
along the sofa's ridges and hills.
Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,
tasting of coffee and cream.
The chicken's diminished to skin & skeleton,
the moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
but this has been a day of grace
in the dead of winter,
the hard cold knuckle of the year,
a day that unwrapped itself
like an unexpected gift,
and the stars turn on,
order themselves
into the winter night.

==== 

Crooker, Barbara. "Ordinary Life". Selected Poems. FutureCycle Press, 2015. 

 

You can read more about the poet here. 

 

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Thank you for reading and joining us for our monthly Gathering of Poetry. You are

more than welcome to add your link below if you would like to share one of your

favorite poems. The more the merrier!

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Click here to enter

Unraveled Wednesday: 10/15/25

I’m happily joining Kat and the Unravelers today, with a completed pair of shortie socks. (Kat is on vacation but Wednesdays are always Unraveled for me.) I tried to take a photo in the wild, but it was disappointing at best.

 This one on Ryan's dining room table is a bit better. 

I'm not sure Jess will be as excited by these as I am, but I knit socks for her before and she hasn't yet said, "Stop knitting me these stupid socks." My idea of a fun time would be to wear contrasting socks as a pair but I like to live on the wild side. :-) I'm back to happily knitting the rainbow scarf, but that might also be finished soon, so I should think about casting on another project - maybe something for Justin for Christmas, but he's a little bit more difficult to knit for than Ryan. 

I finished two books last week. They were both four stars for me but I'll apologize up front since they are both ARCs that won't be published until next February. This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman is a beautifully written collection of interconnected vignettes that together form a warm, funny, and deeply human portrait of a family that can’t seem to stop tripping over its own love. The Rubensteins, particularly sisters Sylvia and Helen, anchor the stories, but Goodman widens her lens to include their children and grandchildren, capturing the shifting dynamics, misunderstandings, and enduring bonds that stretch across generations.

Goodman has always had a gift for observing the small gestures and quiet tensions that make family life both maddening and precious. Here, she distills those moments into perfectly honed snapshots, tiny domestic scenes that tell a much larger story about belonging, memory, and forgiveness. Whether she’s writing about an argument over an apple cake or the unspoken expectations between parents and children, Goodman does so with warmth, wit, and compassion.

Though the Rubensteins are a Jewish family, Goodman’s insights into sibling rivalry, parental pressure, and the ache of loss are universal. Readers of any background will recognize their own family in these pages, the love, the stubbornness, and the moments of grace that somehow keep everyone tethered.

This Is Not About Us doesn’t demand to be read in a single sitting, but it rewards those who linger over its pages, letting the connections between stories reveal themselves gradually. A wise, affectionate, and quietly powerful book about the way families fracture and heal again and again.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on February 10, 2026. 

Sadeqa Johnson’s Keeper of Lost Children showcases her gift for weaving complex histories together with deep emotional resonance. Set in the aftermath of World War II and spanning decades, this novel brings together three seemingly separate lives, Ethel, Ozzie, and Sophia, whose stories eventually converge in unexpected and moving ways.

Johnson’s premise is powerful: she shines light on the “Brown Babies” of postwar Germany, mixed-race children born to Black American soldiers and German women, often left in social limbo in both Germany and the United States, and ties that painful history to questions of belonging and identity in the U.S. Civil Rights era. The sections set in Occupied Germany are particularly vivid; the imagery of ruined cities, loss, and resilience lingers long after reading. Ozzie’s perspective, especially, offers a poignant look at the contradictions of fighting for freedom abroad while facing racism within one’s own ranks.

That said, the novel doesn’t always maintain even pacing. The transitions between timelines can feel abrupt, and at times the emotional impact of one story is diluted by the quick shift to another. Some character motivations, especially Ethel’s, could have used a bit more depth to match the strength of the historical backdrop.

Still, Johnson’s elegant prose and compassion for her characters carry the book. Keeper of Lost Children is both heartbreaking and hopeful, a meditation on motherhood, legacy, and the ways love can endure across distance and time. It is a thoughtful, moving, and worthwhile read for fans of layered historical fiction. This was 3.5 stars for me, rounded up because I learned much more about the mixed-race children born to Black American soldiers and German women and how some of them fared after the war.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book. it will be published on February 10, 2026.  

What are you making and reading this week?

A Viewing Recommendation

Netflix’s has a new "series" entitled Famous Last Words. It's based on a Danish series and consists of an interview with a notable figure, but it is not released until after the interviewee's death. In the US, it begins with a powerful, honest episode - an interview with Jane Goodall that was recorded in March of this year and has just been released after her death on October 1. I watched it twice this weekend and found it to be a unique and brave format. It's not merely a tribute, but a living testament to what it means to reflect, reckon, and speak truth as your time on earth winds down. Here's why I found this episode to be exceptional and why I think others' lives will be enriched by watching it. 

• The Power of the Format

One of the most compelling aspects of Famous Last Words is its premise: the interview is conducted while the subject is still alive, but is only made public after their passing. This gives the subject freedom to speak candidly, unburdened by the fear of backlash or revisionism. Out of this raw honesty emerges something deeply intimate: a chance to let someone frame their own legacy, unfiltered.

In Goodall’s case, she approaches the interview with her full humanity, not just as a legend, but as the person who loved, doubted, fought, and hoped. Because of the format, viewers are offered a rare gift: we get to hear her final reflection, on her own terms.

• A Portrait of Integrity, Courage & Vulnerability

Goodall never shied away from speaking truth - about conservation, politics, or humanity. This final interview is no exception. She’s playful, serious, expressive, and unafraid to critique global leaders. Yet she is also vulnerable: she discusses regrets, doubts, love, mortality. That blend of strength and softness makes her even more human and more inspiring if that's possible. 

• Reflective, Not Sensationalist

Rather than sensationalizing the “last words” angle, the show gives space for reflection. The host, Brad Falchuk, frames gentle but probing questions. In the later moments, he leaves the stage entirely so Jane can have a final, uninterrupted address to the audience. It’s a quiet, deliberate choice, and it gives weight to her closing remarks.

• Wisdom Drawn from a Life of Curiosity

Goodall doesn’t offer only sweeping statements. She recounts her childhood, her early days in Africa, her relationship with nature, and small personal stories that ground her worldview in lived experience. She reminds us that a life of curiosity, of caring, of paying attention, is a life well lived.

• A Call to Action & Hope

Despite the gravity of the topic, Goodall’s outlook is not despairing. She emphasizes that every life matters and that we all have a role to play, even when challenges like climate change and species loss loom large. Her final speech is a plea to not give up, to do what we can while on this earth. It’s moving, earnest, and dignified, exactly the tonal balance that turns introspection into motivation.

Famous Last Words: Dr. Jane Goodall is not a conventional documentary, nor a sanitized biopic. It’s more like a final letter, layered, honest, intimate, and deeply human. For fans of Jane Goodall, conservation, or human stories in general, this episode offers something rare: the chance to hear her voice one last time, full of passion, humor, clarity, and hope.

I believe many will walk away from it changed, more reflective, more inspired, more resolved and hopeful. It’s a tribute, a farewell, and a challenge all in one, and I hope you get a chance to watch. 

Red Sky At Morning ...

Sailors take warning! 

Okay, it's pink, but I'm calling it red and hope it means more rain for us this weekend. There is some predicted for Sunday and Monday and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

 

Here's hoping you have a wonderful weekend no matter what the weather! 

Unraveled Wednesday: 10/8/25

I’m happily joining Kat and the Unravelers today with one finished sock and a good start on the second. I still need to kitchener the toe on the first one, but I’ll wait until both are done. I’ve finished the heel flap on sock #2 and just need a few quiet minutes to turn the heel.

I snapped a few “sock in the wild” photos at Ryan’s house. His hydrangeas and sedum are blooming, and they made a nicer backdrop than my own parched lawn.  

I’m also still working on the rainbow scarf, but I made myself focus on the socks this week. Otherwise, I'm afraid they’d never get finished.

I did finish a book this week and it was a good one. So Far Gone by Jess Walter is an absorbing, funny, and surprisingly tender novel about one man’s reluctant reentry into a world he thought he’d left behind for good. Rhys Kinnick, once a journalist and now a near-hermit in the Pacific Northwest, finds his solitude upended when his two grandchildren appear on his doorstep, fleeing a father who’s fallen in with a Christian Nationalist militia. When the kids are kidnapped, Rhys, helped by a retired detective and a sharp-tongued ex, has no choice but to face both his past and the fractured country he’s been avoiding.

The setup could easily veer into bleakness or satire, but somehow Walter walks a real tightrope here. The book is very much about Our Present Moment, with political division, disinformation, and despair, without getting you so steeped in the terrors of the far right that it feels more like stress than storytelling. There are moments when it's laugh-out-loud funny, but it never feels like Walter treats his subjects too lightly.

Rhys is a man who can be saved, a man whose ideals and disappointments are equally large, whose disillusionment extends not just to society but to his own moral failings. Walter treats him (and the broken country he mirrors) with empathy and wit. The result is a story that’s humane, sharply observed, and unexpectedly hopeful.

If Beautiful Ruins was Walter’s elegy for ambition, So Far Gone is his meditation on retreat and return, and it proves that running from the world is never the same as healing from it. This one was a solid four stars for me. 

What are you making and reading this week?

 

It's a New Book!

We’re thrilled to announce the Read With Us fall selection: The Antidote by Karen Russell. 

 

 

This truly original book is a Dust Bowl epic from the author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Russell’s fiction has balanced the mythic and the human, and this newest novel promises both a sweeping historical story, magical realism, and an unsettling mirror of the present.

 

ETA: And now it's also a National Book Award finalist!  

Set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, The Antidote begins on Black Sunday, when one of the most catastrophic dust storms in American history descends upon the Great Plains. But the real storm, Russell suggests, has been gathering for generations. The town is already sinking under the weight of drought, economic despair, and the darker inheritance of its own violent past.

The book follows five unforgettable characters:

• A Prairie Witch whose body serves as a vault for other people’s memories,

• A Polish wheat farmer whose good fortune sours into something sinister,

• His orphaned niece, a basketball prodigy and apprentice witch who is running from her grief,

• A talkative scarecrow with unsettling wisdom, and

• A New Deal photographer whose mysterious, time-bending camera threatens to expose the town’s secrets.

As their stories intertwine, Russell explores what it means for a nation to forget - its history, its sins, and its connections to the land and what it might take to remember. It’s also a novel that feels fiercely relevant, confronting the legacies of environmental collapse and collective denial. In an interview with BookPage, Karen Russell said she wanted to write a story where an apocalyptic future for us isn’t a foregone conclusion. “You can’t imagine a viable future, a world that’s kinder and more just than what we’ve got going today, without returning to the past,” Russell says. This sounds like a book for me.

The hardcover, Kindle, and audio versions of the book are all available from my library without much of a wait, so hopefully we'll all have plenty of time to place a hold, get the book, and read it. The Kindle and paperback versions are priced reasonably from Amazon and the audio version is narrated beautifully by Elena Ray and six others. I'm sure your local bookseller could order a copy for you if you're lucky enough to have a local bookseller. Personally, this sounds like one that I might need to eye-read.

Kym, Carole, and I will be talking about the book, giving additional information, and doing promotional posts throughout November. Discussion day for The Antidote is scheduled for Tuesday, January 6, 2026 at 7:00 pm Eastern time, so mark your calendars. We'll ask questions on our blogs that day and then host the always fun, educational, and entertaining Zoom discussion.

Whether you're new to Karen Russell or already a fan, we hope you'll Read With Us and discover (or revisit since I know some of you have already read it) this amazingly creative novel. 

 

Sometimes Monday ...

 ... is when I hope to start feeling better. 

 

A couple of weeks ago, when I went to CVS for my flu and COVID vaccines, the pharmacist cheerfully suggested I should also make appointments for shingles, pneumonia, RSV, and a Tdap booster. That sounded like an awful lot of poking for one person, but I decided I’d better at least start with the shingles shot while vaccines are still available.

So on Thursday, I got my first shingles vaccine and a Tdap booster. I felt fine until Friday afternoon, when I suddenly needed a three-hour nap and still went to bed at 8:00 p.m. By Saturday I was feeling better, doing laundry, folding clothes, making baked ziti, baking muffins, and paying bills like a responsible adult again.

Then came Sunday. At 5:00 a.m., I woke up with one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had plus a fever. I alternated ibuprofen and Tylenol until things started to ease up a bit, and I managed the rest of the day pretty well, as long as I remembered to keep taking ibuprofen every six hours.

According to GlaxoSmithKline, the shingles vaccine can cause pain, redness, swelling, muscle aches, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and an upset stomach. Lucky me, I checked every single box! Still, I’d much rather deal with a few rough days than go through shingles. My mom and sister have both had it, and they were miserable.

So today, I’m determined to start feeling better, maybe with a little help from one last dose of ibuprofen. I’ll have to work up the courage to go back for that second shingles shot (not until December, thankfully), but I will. Otherwise, all this feeling lousy will have been for nothing!

Here’s hoping your Monday is off to a good and healthy start!

 

Please Don't Make Me Drive to Newark Again

On Monday, I was grumbling about having to pick up Justin and John late Tuesday night (well, late for me) at Newark airport. That trip actually went fine and we were home by 1:00 am. But what I didn’t know when I wrote that post was what Monday night itself would hold. 

Jess, who works at a vet’s office, had been told she absolutely had to be at work Tuesday for surgery day. That meant she was flying home from Montana on Monday. She had a friend lined up to pick her up, so all I needed to do was stay awake long enough to hand her the car keys; her car had been parked in our driveway since I dropped her at the airport back on September 20th).

Easy, right?

Well, the first sign of trouble was a text from Jess in Chicago saying her flight was delayed. Cue hours of updates: more delays, more waiting. Eventually, her flight left three hours late, which meant she landed at Newark at 12:45 am. By then, her friend had bailed on the pickup.

She checked Uber and it would have been about $200 for the ride. Beyond the cost, I couldn’t imagine having to climb into a stranger’s car in the middle of the night. So I did what any mom/aunt/friend with a semi-decent sense of responsibility would do and drove to Newark to pick her up. By 1:00 am, Jess and her luggage were in my car, and by 2:00 am, we were home. She still had a 45-minute drive back to her own house, but I went straight to bed because I had to turn around and go back to Newark the very next night.

All told, I made four round trips to Newark in two weeks (each about 110 miles), with the last two trips happening less than 24 hours apart.

The silver lining? I snapped this odd but kind of wonderful photo. I can’t tell exactly what’s happening in it beyond headlights and taillights, I think, but I like it.  

 

Still, I suspect the next time someone asks me to make an airport run, I’ll have no trouble saying no. 

 

Here's hoping you have a lovely, restful weekend! 

 

 

Unraveled Wednesday: 10/1/25

I’m happily joining Kat and the Unravelers today, still plugging away on the sock and adding some length to the rainbow scarf. Inspired by Carole’s “sock in the wild” photo from Monday, I decided to take one of my own while I was checking in on Nugget. 

Nugget, however, had some strong opinions. She felt the first photo was too sock-heavy and far too Nugget-light. (She’s not wrong.) So we tried again, this time featuring Her Highness lounging regally on her pillow in the bow window, supervising the neighborhood and patiently waiting for me to get inside and pay the proper tribute in treats. 

 

As for the knitting itself: I did make a little progress on the sock after Monday’s photo, but the toe still remains to be done (and the second sock). Meanwhile, I measured the scarf and discovered I’ve got a good 24" left to knit. So, I cheerfully joined the third skein and will just keep rainbow-ing along!

 

 

I read two books this week. The Salt Stones was recommended by both Jane and Sarah, and I found it to be a beautifully written meditation on what it means to live in relationships with land, animals, and family. Helen Whybrow’s prose is both lyrical and grounded, weaving together the visceral details of farm life, like birthing lambs in the cold of late winter, battling predators, shearing sheep, and harvesting blueberries, with reflections on stewardship, resilience, and belonging.

What struck me most is the balance between the daily grit of farm work and the larger sense of rhythm and meaning that Whybrow finds in the cycles of life and death. The book doesn’t romanticize shepherding or land stewardship; it acknowledges the exhaustion, the heartbreak, and the constant need to adapt. Yet at the same time, there’s a deep tenderness in the way she connects her care for the sheep and the farm with her love for her family and her responsibility to future generations.

This is not a fast-paced book. it moves in seasons rather than chapters, and its power lies in its quiet accumulation of moments. At times the meditative tone can feel a little heavy, but the writing is gorgeous and the reflections are well worth lingering over.

For readers who enjoy memoirs rooted in place, nature writing that doesn’t shy away from difficulty, and thoughtful explorations of what it means to truly belong to a landscape, The Salt Stones will be a rewarding read. 

Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye is an ambitious, multi-generational story set in Bonhomie, Ohio, beginning in the shadow of World War II and stretching into the postwar boom years. It starts with a single fateful encounter between Cal Jenkins, haunted not by combat but by his inability to serve, and Margaret Salt, a woman with secrets of her own. Around them swirl characters marked by grief, longing, and resilience: Cal’s wife, Becky, whose gift as a seer allows her to bridge the living and the dead, and Margaret’s husband, Felix, whose absence at sea casts a long shadow.

Ryan writes with warmth and empathy, particularly when exploring the ways ordinary people carry extraordinary burdens. The setting feels textured and true, and the novel shines when it zeroes in on the small-town dynamics of Bonhomie, where everyone’s business eventually comes to light. The consequences of one “stolen moment” ripple through the next generation, reminding us how personal choices can shape entire families.

The book’s scope sometimes works against it. The narrative spans decades and multiple perspectives, which occasionally left me wishing for more depth in certain storylines rather than breadth. A few of the characters’ motivations felt underdeveloped, and the pacing sagged in places. Still, there’s no denying the poignancy of Ryan’s themes - loss, love, and the uneasy reconciliation between who we are and who we hoped to be.

Buckeye doesn’t fully deliver on its sweeping ambitions, but it offers a moving and often thought-provoking portrait of ordinary lives intersecting with history. Readers who enjoy family sagas with a touch of mystery and spirituality will likely find it worth the read. 

What are you making and reading this week?