It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 1-13-25

I still haven’t actually started my official First Book of the Year because I had so many others already on the go.

Also, because I keep getting distracted by my phone when I sit down to read, micro-planning too many trips. (Upcoming — long weekend in Nashville, TN; five days in England including one day of sightseeing in London; monthly visits to spend a weekend playing with and reading to our granddaughter several states away; and a 9-day Mediterranean cruise with a few days of sightseeing in Spain before we get on the ship!)

Please let me know what you’re reading in the comments and/or share your blog link! (If you can’t see where to comment, try clicking/tapping on the title of this post to open it in full.)

Currently Reading

Winter by Ali Smith

“A stunning meditation on a complex, emotional moment in history.” —Time

I’m finally reading Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet that has been on my TBR for years, since Autumn came out in 2016 and was a Man Booker Prize finalist.

Recently Read

The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden

With an engaging vitality, second-novelist McFadden (Sugar, 2000) explores a familiar subject—a daughter’s troubled relationship with her abusive alcoholic father. — Kirkus

The Warmest December is the second book by Bernice McFadden that I’ve read, and I don’t know why it has taken me so long to read more of her books. Glorious, set during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, is the other one that I’ve read. I think I might read ˆLoving Donovan next.

Author Bernice McFadden, also has a memoir titled First-Born Girls (Dutton, 2025) coming out in March about the bond she has with her mother.

Winter Solstice: An Essay by Nina MacLaughlin

2024 Mass Book Award for Nonfiction, Massachusetts Center for the Book
“Arresting . . . MacLaughlin reminds us of our capacity for wonder, heightened in this season of quiet.” —Heather Tressler, Los Angeles Review of Books

A quiet, meditative book on the theme of winter that doesn’t ignore passion and sensuality. Can be read in all in one sitting or in brief bursts that can be mulled over until the next time you sit down with it.

Autumn by Ali Smith

MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • The first novel in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet is an unforgettable story about aging and time and love—and stories themselves.

Recently Listened To

Queenie by Chloe Liese

This acclaimed and “welcome debut from a seriously talented author” (New York Post) is a disarmingly honest, unapologetically black, and undeniably witty novel that will speak to those who have gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.

I didn’t realize how long it took me to listen to this audiobook, although I knew it had been on my TBR for a long time. It was released in 2019 and has already been made into a Hulu series!

I don’t know why I waited. I think I thought it might be depressing or sad. Well, there are a lot of sad parts and many moments when you want to give Queenie a huge hug and drag her out of the situation she’s in, but I loved the character of Queenie. I loved the book by Candice Carty-Williams and the narration by Shvorne Marks (who sounded very familiar, and who I realize after looking her up that she voices Abigail on the Rivers of London books by Ben Aaronovitch.)

Queenie is definitely one of my 2025 favorite audiobooks already! Read the rave review from AudioFile Magazine and listen to their podcast about the audiobook here.

Mistletoe Motive by Chloe Liese

The Mistletoe Motive is a nice holiday romance! It’s a steamy enemies to lovers romance, is set in an independent bookstore and has a neurodiverse female lead with enough inclusive holiday spirit to win over even her Grinch-y co-manager. Lots of bookish talk makes it fun for even non-romance readers looking for a light holiday story. (Don’t forget it’s steamy, though! Not for listening to in the car with the kids in the backseat.)

Currently Listening To

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams

The fields of Ireland are very crowded, but by the conclusion of This Is Happiness, you feel Williams has justified adding another book to the herd. — The Guardian

This was a road trip audiobook this past weekend, but at 15 hours, we would have had to listen just about every minute of our round-trip drive, and we didn’t, so we only got 65% through. Another long drive this weekend and we’re down to an hour and 20 minutes before the library download expires!

This post is linked up to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading, hosted by The Book Date. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is a place to meet up and share what you have been and are currently reading each week. Visit the link-up for more books to your groaning TBR pile.