Happy New Year

I wanted to read fifty books this year, but the last one, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is too long to finish. I love her writing, and the subject matter is my favorite, England during the Great War and World War II. The main character, Ursula Todd, is a young woman in 1938, and lives through the Blitz and lives another life through Berlin during the war, I don't fully understand, but I love this book. The characterization is well developed, the plot is interesting, the atmosphere is very realistic and thoroughly a character in the novel. To be a best seller or to appeal to a large audience one must have all the draws of appeals and the author does just that. I am listening to the novel and the narrator does a great job. If I wasn't so tired, I'd read this book into the new year, but I've been up since 6 and I need to go to sleep. I finished A Fatal Winter at the nursing home today, and it ended with a lunar eclipse and a holiday party on Dec 21, so fitting for the day. It's a cozy mystery in an English village with the Episcopal priest as the detective, Father Max, a former MI5 operative. Good stuff. Love this series.

The reading life

I've had a rich life. As I browse the list of books I've read this year, I realise how truly blessed I have been. I started out trying to read more new fiction. And that has been good for me, but sometimes I am reading for comfort, something familiar and I have been doing that, too. I just finished Glare Ice by Mary Logue, and I am back in the world of Claire Watkins. How nice to know there are more books in the series if I want to visit Minnesota again in the winter. I read for atmosphere, I read winter, snowy books when the weather is cold. We got snow last night and I await a book by G.Mallory about an English village in winter. And I will probably pick up a favorite Agatha Christie, Murder at Hazelmoor sooner than later. It's a 40 cents Dell paperback copy from my Mother's collection of Agatha Christie paperbacks that I borrowed years ago. Those are comfortable too, going back to the past, and the English village again. "Backward, turn backward O time in your flight; Make me a child again just for tonight.". There's a quote on Susan Branch's blog about wishing to be a child again, never more than at Christmas, when I would always receive a pile of new books to read, and the vacation time to read them. Yes, I have had a full life of books, and a job at a library surrounded by them. Thank you, God, for my life, my family and friends.