January is when a group of my friends and I participate in our annual NaJuReMoNoMo where we read novels we have never read before. I have always enjoyed this but it is only the last few years that I feel like the reading self I always was.
I was one of those kids who inhaled books. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read a lot when my kids were little and when Brian worked out of town. It helped keep me sane with three little boys running around. And then, slowly, overtime with the pressures of work and teenagers I was reading less. I did try audio books but I still preferred to have the paper in hand.
Somewhere in there, I picked up knitting and my whole life changed. It was just like reading had been. I was inhaling yarn fumes. It was great and I loved it but I was not able to read and knit at the same time. Life changed again and through the darkest times, I could knit. What I could not do was read.
I stopped reading anything at all. I used the January thing to learn to read again in this new life I had to live. I think I made one book the first year. If I recall correctly, it was a Miss Silver mystery by Patricia Wentworth. It took years to get to the point where I could manage more than one or two books a year. In time and after becoming a firm fan of audio books, I have slowly been able to read as I used to.
Because I can knit at the same time.
This year has been a great year of books. I discovered some new authors and read new to me books from authors from longer ago. I read things that made me laugh and cry and some books that made me want to know what the characters did next. All of the list below were absolutely great reads. I don't finish what I am not enjoying. Life is just too short. In between some of these I also stuck in two or three rereads from authors I have loved forever. They are not noted.
In no particular order though the first book read was The Old Vengeful by Anthony Price. It is an older book but if you like Mary Stewart or Helen MacInnes it is a great read.
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick This book has been in my wish list for years. I should have listened sooner and yet in a way I am glad I did not. I was so sorry that it ended and that I would never know what happened next. I will imagine.
The Murder Stone by Charles Todd. This book is outside the author's Ian Rutledge world but is still a wonderful read. If you like the period between World War I and II you will enjoy it. A story of friendship and family and loss and what remains and going on.
The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear. This is another story outside of the Maisie Dobbs canon but talent will out. It is a wonderful book.
The Girl in the Cellar, Poison in the Pen and The Key all by Patricia Wentworth. Three Miss Silver mysteries and all just as good as the others. I may have read the second in the list before but I don't think so. My Kobo showed it as unread.
Glass Houses and Kingdom of the Blind both by Louise Penny. I went on a Gamache binge a few years ago and then I stopped. It was great to be at Three Pines again.
The Widows of Malabar Hill, The Satapur Moonstone, The Bombay Prince all by a new to me author, Sujata Massey. I read the first book in the series last because I did not care for the narrator but after reading the other two, I knew I deserved to read this one too. They are light mysteries but are set in India in the early 1920's and reveal a part of the world and a time and place in history that I did not know much about. I found all three riveting stories and a revelation from an Indian woman's perspective.
The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose. I love Molly the Maid and though this short novella has been out for a while I was saving it for a treat during Januarys novel reading month. It was a treat I deserved.
And last but oh so not least, Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jessse Q Sutanto. This was a suggestion from Audible. I rarely like any of their suggestions. They always want me to read chick lit and I hate that category of book. This was a winner of a suggestion. It was charming and funny aand serious and very enjoyable. A friend read it on my suggestion and found her only disappointment was that the author's next book does not come out till April. I feel exactly the same way. Sutanto has written YA books before and my friend did read a couple of those. She says "well worth it" so they are on my list for the rest of the year.
There is little bit of January remaining and at the moment I am reading The Enigma Game, part of Elizabeth Wein's tour de force series Code Name Verity. After reading the book Code Name Verity, I did not have the heart to bear any more of the pain and sorrow. It was the most emotionally compelling books I have ever read. They are classed as YA fiction but they are all quite simply great books. I have only one left in the series to go, The Rose Code and I hope to read it soon.
And that is it for this January. It has been a wonderful reading challenge and has been a great way to deal with the long dark nights of winter. Between books and knitting I look forward to February, only a few days away now. When March arrives, the back of winter is broken and spring is on its way.
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