My last chance for an “It’s Monday” post in 2024! (I’m thinking I should probably change my post titles to “It’s January…” or “It’s February…”, etc., but maybe I’ll do better in 2025.)
Please let me know what you’re currently reading in the comments and/or share your blog link! If you can’t see where to comment, try clicking/tapping the title of this post to open it in full.
Currently Reading
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 cover image of a warmly dressed, innocently happy young girl in the snow on the cover of The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden seems misleading. I’m only six chapters in, but so far, the main character, Kenzie, has had a very hard life, first growing up with an abusive alcoholic father and later on, becoming an alcoholic herself, when she was only a teenager.
Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology
ed. Ellen Datlow
Hugo Award-winning editor, and horror legend Ellen Datlow presents this chilling horror anthology of 18 original short stories exploring the endless terrors of winter solstice traditions across the globe, featuring chillers by Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu and many more.
Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology was a surprise Christmas gift from my husband last year, that I saved to read over the holidays this year. “Chilling” is a good description of this short story collection!
Cold Kitchen by Caroline Eden
From the author of Red Sands, a New Yorker “Best Cookbook of the Year,” a cozy, thoughtful memoir recalling food and travel in Eastern Europe and Central Asia from a basement Edinburgh kitchen, featuring a delicious recipe at the end of each chapter.
Cold Kitchen is a NetGalley advance reading copy. It’s been a slow read for me, possibly because I’ve never traveled myself to the Eastern European and Central Asian countries the author writes about so evocatively, but it’s the kind of book you need to savor. The author is an excellent food and travel writer, as well as an amazing home cook.
I think there are many readers who will want to check out this foodie memoir.
Read an extract on the publisher’s website.
Recently Read
Murder at Plimoth Plantation by Leslie Wheeler
When a living history museum turns deadly, an armchair historian must transform herself into a woman of action. It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and history book author, Miranda Lewis, has deadlines to meet. But when a check-in call to her eighteen-year-old niece, Caroline, ends in tears and a hang up, Miranda rushes to Plimoth Plantation, where Caroline works as an interpreter, portraying a Pilgrim woman.
I won a paperback copy of this book by a Massachusetts author at a library conference last spring. An enjoyable cozy mystery!
I’ve been listening to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (an annual tradition of mine) and other Christmas-themed audiobooks lately. Too many to list here, as I’m so late with this post already.
My full-time job does get in the way of my blogging!
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.
Whenever you post is good! The Warmest December does sound like a really tough read in spite of the title. I hope she overcomes. Wishing you all the best for 2025.
Wishing you a great reading week
I don’t know any of the books that you are reading! I am finishing up Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars and just getting into Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment.