2020 Books!

I met my Good Reads 2020 goal with 6 to spare thanks to quarantine.  Check out my Instagram @fasterwaywithrobin to see all 46 of my 2020 reads! 

Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin was probably my most important read of 2020.  If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.

I had the HARDEST time narrowing down my top 3 fiction for 2020, but here they are along with some honorable mentions:

Honorable Mentions:

Summer of 69 - This was in my #1 spot for most of the year but my fall/winter reading edged it out.  If you like Elin Hilderbrand, add this to your list! The cultural references are super fun, and I enjoyed the characterization and story line.  I wish Summer of '79 was an entire novel!

The Hate U Give - Excellent read; the perspective was helpful and the main character, Starr, was so endearing.  Seeing the circumstances through her eyes was very eye opening.

A Woman is No Man - This was my first read of 2020 and it stayed with me all year.  

All Your Perfects - Her struggle in this story was similar to ours, and I thought Colleen Hoover handled it so well.  I loved the main characters and watching them navigate this particular hardship in their marriage.

Top 3 Fiction:

3. 

Winter in Paradise by ElinHilderbrand

I devoured all 3 books in this series in about a 3 week period between Thanksgiving and Christmas - it was perfection. As usual, Elin's characterization is just perfect, and I enjoyed the departure from Nantucket to St. John.  It starts out with the unraveling of a husband's secret and the novel unfolds as his wife begins to uncover the truth behind the facade of what she thought was a solid marriage.  Her sons are also primary characters giving the book depth and perspective. I loved each personality and the partial setting in Houston. The 3 books read in a row like one long novel. I wish there was a 4th!

2. 

Happiness For Beginners by Katherine Center

I thought for sure this would be in the #1 spot once it edged out Summer of '69; I even voted for it as my favorite before I finished my number one pick which was my last read of 2020. I love a couple other Katherine Center books but kept skipping over this one because of the premise, but I fell in love with the characters and enjoyed the psychology behind it, and the transformation of the main character.  Helen Carpenter is starting over.  She knows she needs to do something extreme to help get her life out of the rut it's in, so she goes on a specific journey with some unexpected and unwanted companions. 

1. 

The Simple Wild and Wild at Heart by K.A. Tucker

The first novel in this series, The Simple Wild, kept popping up everywhere, and I'm so glad I gave it a shot. I preferred the second book in the series, but you need the first for the second!  I'm currently reading the last one, but I'm reading it slowly because I don't want to say goodbye!  Calla Fletcher apprehensively visits her estranged father in Alaska after some things of importance come to light.  I was not a Calla fan at first, and was a little afraid it was going to be too predictable, but her transformation over the course of the novels is captivating, and I appreciated the twist the author throws in there.  These are probably technically romance which is not a genre I ever choose on purpose, and I definitely skipped over parts so be warned.

 

Year end book reviews are my favorites - give me ALL the recs for 2021!

Book Review #2: Edition apparently tomorrow means 6 days from now

So I've been inspired by my friend, Rachel.  She and her husband, Seth, are like goal setting power houses.   When we first met these young whippersnappers we felt like we hadn't done anything in the world.  You see, we had all recently moved to Edinburgh (read: been there for 4 days) and they had already been to multiple new student gatherings, enjoyed a ceildh (read: Scottish square dance), done a tour of the highlands, and written the first thesis chapter (Seth not Rachel).  OK, maybe not all of that, but they are go-getters I tell you.  Inspiring!  And then we remember that we have a kid and this is why at 4 days in all we had seen in Edinburgh was the inside of IKEA.

Bummer.

(about IKEA not about having a kid!:))

I have to say that since then, we have attended a ceildh or five and took a jaunt through the highlands and a family holiday to the Outer Hebrides.

Amazing.

Back in January SIL, Susannah, and I committed to what we dubbed "The Year of Discipline;" we made a few realistic goals that we were going to hold each other accountable for  (I've been planning on writing a blog post on this for months but never got around to it - so yeah, you can guess how well that is going for me.)  At the same time I was setting goals, Rachel was too, but she is actually following through.  One of her goals was to read a book each week this whole year.  I feel in love with this idea when I first heard about it and then it was back to reality when I looked back at all of the books I had read since Seth was born (read: 2), and realized this was a goal for the year I have an empty nest (read: at least 17 years from now).

So I may not be reading a book a week, but I have finished another one: Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden and I absolutely loved it.

{via}

 It followed great book criteria for me:

1. Fiction
2. Set in Britain (though it's partly set in Australia too)
3. Mystery (and it's a generational one which is a plus)
4. Epic (spans almost 100 years)

I had picked this book up at the recommendation of a book shop owner (old habits die hard) right after Seth was born, but didn't start reading it till a few weeks ago. I truly couldn't put it down - Taylor will attest to the sadly neglected bathroom that missed a scrubbing or two.

The characters are believable - you want to be their friends and are sad to see them go when the book is over.  The language was beautiful.  She has a great balance of inner dialogue, setting description, and interaction among characters.  And the storyline is intriguing.  I love trying to solve the mystery before it is fully revealed.

Here is a description from her website of the novel.

Morton's first novel, The House at Riverton is now next on my list - hopefully I can find it in the library!

Happy Reading!

Book Review #1: Edition what was supposed to be on The Forgotten Garden is actually on Moo, Baa, La La La

I just read a whole book.

This may seem like a small achievement to most, but barely having tucked my first year of motherhood in my belt, this is an accomplishment indeed.

Usually I am an avid reader.  It is probably the reason I became a teacher.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are gleaning new titles from book shop owners after running out of books to read at my own house and school library (wow - nerd alert!).  And now, for the first time in my life, I am finding that I have stacks of un-read books on my bedside table.

To be fair, I have read some of all of them.  That is except for The Dawkins Delusion - shocking, I know.  Apparently I go for young adult (YA) fiction over academia.  Now we see why I'm not getting my PhD too though most of you didn't need evidence.

For fun, I snapped a photo of Taylor's bedtime reading.  He loves to be reading a million books at once, so it has one thing in common with my side.

Further evidence of why he is getting his PhD and not me.
(The one  YA novel is purely due to my influence - we are reading it aloud together and are on about page 5. because I can't tear him away from his 5th reading of The Lord of the Rings.)

I am pleased to find that after passing the year mark, I'm finding time to read something longer than a blog post here and there (though I am super thankful for the invention of the blog so that my reading material goes beyond Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See and Goodnight Moon - not that I don't love reading with Seth; it is one of my favorite things to do!)  Recently, after an animated lesson on "Books: A Survey on Your Feelings about Reading" for the conversational English class I teach, some Chinese students asked me when I first started reading to Seth.  I had learned from our conversation that it isn't common in China to read aloud in families.  When I told them I had started reading to Seth immediately after he was born, they were amazed.

Seth is the baby on the left and cousin Caroline is on the right.

Seth's love for reading makes this former lit teacher's heart so happy.  He would rather look at books than play with toys!  He has recently started interrupting my housework by holding out a book to me with a look of such earnestness that of course I comply.  I mean seriously housework or reading to this guy?  Easy choice.

And I get this face if I don't comply immediately.

He has actually paused the writing of this post about twenty times so that I can read Things That Move or Peepo.  We actually read Peepo so many times in the past 48 hours that he now has part of it memorized.

His favorite book though is Moo, Baa, La La La and I have to commend his choice as it may be the only book that I can actually get through the sentence on the page before he is turning to the next one.  That Sandra Boynton is a genius!  He has also memorized sections of this book too.  My favorite part is when he starts wagging his finger while adamantly saying, "No, no!'  when we get to the page where the pigs are said to say "oink" instead of "la la la." Can you guess what Little Man hears a lot these days?

Pause my music before clicking play on the video if you want to see Seth "read."

So this was going to be a book review on Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, but I think I will save it for it's very own post tomorrow.

Read to your kids (no matter what age)!!

American readers, go and visit Elizabeth's blog to enter her giveaway - it closes July 31st!