Katie's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 01 May 2025 22:23:11 -0700 60 Katie's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma: Using the NeuroAffective Relational Model to Address Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resolve Complex Trauma]]> 60126849
The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma introduces a cutting-edge therapeutic model for addressing attachment, relational, and developmental trauma in a clinical setting. NARM is an integrated mind-body framework that identifies and treats the complex ways childhood trauma can manifest in interpersonal difficulties, maladaptive patterns, identity issues, and disrupted affect regulation.

Integrating the latest research on adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, it arms psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and trauma-informed therapists with the skills and tools they need to help clients break free from the lasting effects of childhood trauma.

The Guide is a go-to tool that explains:


The four pillars of the NARM therapeutic model
Cultural and Intergenerational trauma
Shock vs. Complex trauma
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
How to differentiate NARM from other therapeutic modalities
NARM's organizing principles
How to integrate NARM into your therapeutic practice
Ěý±Ő±Ő> 400 Laurence Heller 1623174538 Katie 0 to-read 4.49 The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma: Using the NeuroAffective Relational Model to Address Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resolve Complex Trauma
author: Laurence Heller
name: Katie
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud]]> 211728801
Haaretz has called her “a young woman on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.�

“Gila Fine is one of the great Talmud teachers of our time. It’s vitally important that the Jewish world hear what she has to say.� Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

“A fascinating look at the women who make their own way in the world of the rabbis. Fine masterfully peels away the patriarchal veneer of their stories to reveal their hidden light.� Rabbi Dr. Binyamin Lau

“A dazzling exploration of the portrayal of women throughout history � from Greek mythology to Hollywood movies � bringing the talmudic text to life for the contemporary reader.� Dr. Aliza Lavie

“Gila Fine’s sophisticated use of literary and cultural theory produces novel readings of talmudic stories. Her exquisite prose, profound analysis, and comprehensive knowledge of rabbinic texts make each chapter a delight to read.�& Professor Jeffrey Rubenstein

In� The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic, Gila Fine uses her considerable creativity, originality, and fine literary skills to elucidate talmudic tales, making them more poignant and meaningful.� Dr. Erica Brown

“An original feminine reading of the Talmud, restoring the lost voices of women to the great Jewish conversation.� Dr. Ruth Calderon]]> 249 Gila Fine 1592646735 Katie 0 to-read 4.66 The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud
author: Gila Fine
name: Katie
average rating: 4.66
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Oz: Ozma of Oz (Marvel Classics)]]> 11141699 New York Times-bestselling team of Shanower and Young returns to Oz with this comics adaptation of L. Frank Baum's third Oz book! Collecting Ozma of Oz #1â€�8.±Ő±Ő> 192 Eric Shanower 0785142479 Katie 0 to-read, want-for-the-girls 4.20 Oz: Ozma of Oz (Marvel Classics)
author: Eric Shanower
name: Katie
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read, want-for-the-girls
review:

]]> Death of the Author 214329001 The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.]]> 448 Nnedi Okorafor 0063391155 Katie 0 currently-reading 4.03 2025 Death of the Author
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Katie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Blob: A Love Story 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Katie 0 audiobook, female-voices 3.38 2025 Blob: A Love Story
author: Maggie Su
name: Katie
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: audiobook, female-voices
review:

]]> The Wedding People 177328214 A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach 1250899567 Katie 0 to-read 4.22 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Katie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing]]> 217245587 Accessible essays about searching for peace in the cacophony of birds and discovering a world of meaning in small moments—from award-winning actress Lili Taylor.

Most people don’t really know birds—or rather, they aren’t aware of them. Lili Taylor used to be one of those people. She knew birds existed. She thought about them, maybe even more than the average person. But she didn’t know them. And then something happened.Ěý

During a break from her work as an actor, Lili sought silence and instead found the bustling, symphonic world of birds that had always existed around her. Since then, she has kept a keen eye pressed to her binoculars in search of vivid stories that elevate the everyday, if only one pays attention.Ěý

Through a series of beautifully crafted essays, Taylor shares her intimate encounters with the birds that have captured her heart and imagination—from tracking flitting Zorros through oak trees to spotting majestic Bluejays perched on a Manhattan fire escape; from the exhilaration of chasing a migratory flock up the Empire State Building to the quiet joy of observing a nest of hatchlings in her own backyard.Through simply paying attention to birds, Lili has been shown a parallel world that is wider and deeper, one of constant change and movement, full of life and the will to survive.Ěý

This book is part-memoir, part-love letter to the beauty and resilience of the natural world-- a reminder of the profound connections that exist between all living things. Taylor's lyrical prose and thoughtful meditations on both the art we make and the art we discover around us create a sense of intimacy and wonder, inviting readers to see the world through new eyes and to find joy in the most unexpected places.]]> 208 Lili Taylor 0593728572 Katie 0 to-read 4.23 Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing
author: Lili Taylor
name: Katie
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> In Gad We Trust: A Tell-Some 214151387 A heartfelt and hilarious collection of essays from the comedian and entertainer known for voicing Olaf in Disney's Frozen and for his award-winning turn as Elder Cunningham in the Broadway smash hit The Book of Mormon

For the first and possibly last time Josh Gad dives into a wide array of personal topics: the lasting impact of his parents� divorce; how he struggled with weight and self-image; his first big break; how everyone was sure his most successful ventures (both on the big screen and on the stage) would fail; his take on fatherhood; and much more. This trip down the rabbit hole of overly personal stories will distract readers from climate change, the downward descent of democracy in Western civilization, and the existential threat that AI poses to Drake’s music—with never-before-seen photos and few-to-no spelling errors.

Whether you know him from Disney or Broadway, YouTube, the silver screen, or not at all, one fact remains: Gad’s work never fails to bring people together (as long as they’re alive). His delightful debut, written in the tradition of Amy Poehler, Jim Gaffigan, and Mindy Kaling, reminds us to keep going, even when the chips and doubters are stacked against you.]]> 272 Josh Gad 1668050528 Katie 4 audiobook, memoirs-biography 4.23 2025 In Gad We Trust: A Tell-Some
author: Josh Gad
name: Katie
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: audiobook, memoirs-biography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation]]> 123410681
Harriet Tubman, forced to labor outdoors on a Maryland plantation, learned from the land a terrain for escape. Louisa May Alcott ran wild, eluding gendered expectations in New England. The Indigenous women’s basketball team from Fort Shaw, Montana, recaptured a sense of pride in physical prowess as they trounced the white teams of the 1904 World’s Fair. Celebrating women like these who acted on their confidence outdoors, Wild Girls brings new context to misunderstood icons like Sacagawea and Pocahontas, and to underappreciated figures like Native American activist writer Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Bonnin, farmworkers� champion Dolores Huerta, and labor and Civil Rights organizer Grace Lee Boggs.

This beautiful, meditative work of history puts girls of all races—and the landscapes they loved—at center stage and reveals the impact of the outdoors on women’s independence, resourcefulness, and vision. For these trailblazing women of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, navigating the woods, following the stars, playing sports, and taking to the streets in peaceful protest were not only joyful pursuits, but also techniques to resist assimilation, racism, and sexism. Lyrically written and full of archival discoveries, Wild Girls evokes landscapes as richly as the girls who roamed in them—and argues for equal access to outdoor spaces for young women of every race and class today.]]> 192 Tiya Miles 1324020873 Katie 0 3.52 2023 Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation
author: Tiya Miles
name: Katie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: currently-reading, 25-for-2025-books-i-own, female-voices, minority-voices
review:

]]> Small Worlds: A Novel 1539970 280 Allen Hoffman 0789201291 Katie 3 25-for-2025-books-i-own 3.85 1996 Small Worlds: A Novel
author: Allen Hoffman
name: Katie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/25
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success]]> 220902087 When the rules stop working for you, Unruly is the guide to navigate your authentic path to personalized success.

Rules are necessary for a functional society, but many “rules� we follow are simply conventional wisdom, norms, or limited interpretations. We’re expected to play along by conforming, following the crowd, and steering toward comfortable paths. But viewing rules as a starting point rather than as an endpoint opens worlds of opportunities for your success.

Unruly is your manual to identify your best maneuvers in the gray areas that allow you to authentically create and secure your own path to success. Lauren Wittenberg Weiner, a powerful speaker and business leader who has upended barriers on her journey toward extraordinary success, teaches readers in any industry how
Navigate your own space within the rules while remaining in compliance and maintaining a strong moral compass. Convert fear and imposter syndrome into a superpower. Determine when it’s time to stop listening to what people think you should or could do to find what you can do. Use your power to be a gateway, not a gatekeeper, for others.
Borrowing from concepts in psychology, law, business, and the military, Unruly uncovers a deep understanding of rules and where they bend to equip readers for personalized success.]]> 256 Lauren Wittenberg Weiner 1637746962 Katie 0 to-read 0.0 Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success
author: Lauren Wittenberg Weiner
name: Katie
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[And How Does That Make You Feel?: Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Therapy]]> 167008898
Interspersed with straight-talking advice on common issues such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic attacks, as well as a therapist's guide to how to find the right therapist, And How Does That Make You Feel? is darkly funny, illuminating, and full of promise that a better future is always possible. It's everything you wanted to know about therapy (and a few things you probably didn't).]]> 320 Joshua Fletcher 0063310120 Katie 4 audiobook 4.15 2024 And How Does That Make You Feel?: Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Therapy
author: Joshua Fletcher
name: Katie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: audiobook
review:

]]> Strong Female Character 59903149
1. I'm diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it.

2. My terrible Catholic childhood.

3. My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me. I get groomed.

4. Homelessness.

5. Stripping.

6. More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.

7. I hate everyone at uni and live with a psycho etc.

8. REDACTED as too spicy.

9. After everyone tells me I don't look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.

10. REDACTED as too embarrassing.]]> 288 Fern Brady 1914240448 Katie 0 4.43 2023 Strong Female Character
author: Fern Brady
name: Katie
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Be Ready When the Luck Happens]]> 209192698 In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table.Ěý

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.]]> 320 Ina Garten 0593799895 Katie 4 4.24 2024 Be Ready When the Luck Happens
author: Ina Garten
name: Katie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, memoirs-biography
review:
I went into this not knowing much about its author - I’ve never watched one of her shows, and I don’t own any of her cookbooks. But she seems lovely, and I enjoyed getting to know her and her peeks behind the scenes in this very linear memoir. (I did find the “this happened and then that happened and then this other thing� a little boring.)
]]> The Let Them Theory 216351768
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins�New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

Learn how

Stop wasting energy on things you can't control Stop comparing yourself to other peopleBreak free from fear and self-doubtRelease the grip of people's expectationsBuild the best friendships of your lifeCreate the love you deservePursue what truly matters to you with confidenceBuild resilience against everyday stressors and distractionsDefine your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment. . . and so much more.

The Let Them Theory will forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory now and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]> 311 Mel Robbins 1401971377 Katie 0 4.16 2024 The Let Them Theory
author: Mel Robbins
name: Katie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: currently-reading, here-you-ll-like-this
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks]]> 13259797
Ken Jennings takes readers on a world tour of geogeeks from the London Map Fair to the bowels of the Library of Congress, from the prepubescent geniuses at the National Geographic Bee to the computer programmers at Google Earth. Each chapter delves into a different aspect of map highpointing, geocaching, road atlas rallying, even the “unreal estate� charted on the maps of fiction and fantasy. Jennings also considers the ways in which cartography has shaped our history, suggesting that the impulse to make and read maps is as relevant today as it has ever been.

From the “Here be dragons� parchment maps of the Age of Discovery to the spinning globes of grade school to the postmodern revolution of digital maps and GPS, Maphead is filled with intriguing details, engaging anecdotes, and enlightening analysis. If you’re an inveterate map lover yourself—or even if you’re among the cartographically clueless who can get lost in a supermarket—let Ken Jennings be your guide to the strange world of mapheads.]]> 276 Ken Jennings 1439167184 Katie 0 to-read 3.88 2011 Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
author: Ken Jennings
name: Katie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lifeform 208209822
What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal—but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal? Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases—Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing—through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more. No one writes like Jenny Slate.]]> 240 Jenny Slate 0316263931 Katie 3 3.71 2024 Lifeform
author: Jenny Slate
name: Katie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, memoirs-biography
review:
When retelling crazy dreams, it typically feels more entertaining to the teller than the listener. I think Jenny Slate had a wonderful time writing this memoir.
]]> <![CDATA[The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood]]> 214151357
She felt like an imposter in her own body. She grew distant from her friends and husband. She suffered from anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame. She also experienced trauma at the hands of one of her doctors—a stark trigger. And eventually, when her son was born, there was no� joy. Instead, she felt “disoriented, lonely, and like none of my clothes fit.� Why was she seeing and hearing things that weren’t there? Why was she so angry and miserable when she had everything she thought she wanted? Why was the life she’d built falling apart?

It took her months to discover that she was suffering from severe postpartum depression. And it took even longer to trace all the threads that came to inform her experience.

At its core, The Motherload> is about learning to forgive yourself for not being what you’ve been told you must be and for not loving the way you’ve been told you should. It’s about the uniquely female experience of constantly grappling with expectation versus reality, no matter your circumstance, and a rejection of the cultural idea of the mother as a perfect being. It is a moving, exciting, roller coaster ride, and a propulsive addition to the canon of women’s literature.]]> 352 Sarah Hoover 1668010135 Katie 4 audiobook, female-voices 3.81 The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood
author: Sarah Hoover
name: Katie
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: audiobook, female-voices
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne]]> 211025396
On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Cornell was found hanging in a barn, four months pregnant, after a disgraceful liaison with a charismatic Methodist minister, Reverend Ephraim Avery. Some (Avery’s lawyers) claimed her death was suicide…but others weren’t so sure. Determined to uncover the real story, intrepid Victorian writer Catharine Williams threw herself into the investigation and wrote what many claim is the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The case and Williams� book became a sensation—one that divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. But the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell’s death. Until now.

In The Sinners All Bow, acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to 19th century small town America, emboldened to finish the work Williams started nearly two centuries before. Using modern investigative advancements—such as “forensic knot analysis� to determine cause of death, the prosecutor’s notes from 1833, and criminal profiling which was invented 55 years later with Jack the Ripper—Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams� research to find the truth. Along the way she also examines how society decides who is the “right kind� of crime victim and how America’s long history of religious evangelism may have clouded the facts both in the 1830s and today. Ultimately, The Sinners All Bow brings justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given.]]> 320 Kate Winkler Dawson 0593713613 Katie 0 to-read 3.50 2025 The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne
author: Kate Winkler Dawson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> Beheld 44453031 The Wives of Los Alamos comes the riveting story of a stranger’s arrival in the fledgling colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts―and a crime that shakes the divided community to its core.

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.

With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior.

Suspenseful and beautifully wrought, Beheld is about a murder and a trial, and the motivations―personal and political―that cause people to act in unsavory ways. It is also an intimate portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship that asks: Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed―and subsequently, who gets punished?]]> 288 TaraShea Nesbit 163557322X Katie 4 3.38 2020 Beheld
author: TaraShea Nesbit
name: Katie
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, a-long-time-ago, female-voices
review:
Based on the Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ rating, I didn’t expect much from this but really, really enjoyed it. Historic fiction retelling of the Plymouth Colony with a focus on women’s voices and experiences? Yes, please.
]]> The Forester's Daughter 41713581 Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

The evening is fine. In the sky a few early stars are shining of their own accord. She watches the dog licking the bowl clean. This dog will break her daughter's heart, she's sure of it.

Claire Keegan's mesmeric story takes us into the heart of the Wicklow countryside, and of the farming family of Victor Deegan, with his 'three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage'.

When Deegan finds a gun dog and gives it as a present to his only daughter, his wife is filled with foreboding at this seeming act of kindness. As the seasons pass, long-buried family secrets threaten to emerge.

Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.]]> 68 Claire Keegan 0571351859 Katie 0 to-read 4.05 The Forester's Daughter
author: Claire Keegan
name: Katie
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Walking to Camelot: A Pilgrimage along the Macmillan Way through the Heart of Rural England]]> 26113666 272 John A. Cherrington 1927958628 Katie 2 The cover - so green and pretty. And the book felt nice in my hands.
The location - 300 miles on the MacMillan Way. And part of it goes through the Cotswold, of particular interest.
The maps in the front and back covers - all books should have maps, my personal rule.
The descriptions of history, culture, and local festivities, although they were a bit too frequent and became rote

Things I disliked:
The author - I never understood his purpose or motivation for the walk. The cover calls it a pilgrimage, but other than getting moved to tears by the possible location of the Camelot castle and imagining England as part of The Lord of the Rings, I never heard from HIM. After spending 300 pages with him, I had no idea who he was, other than a lawyer.
His companion - ditto the above point. Who was this person? The author’s friend? Relative? We never hear any of their history together, again no motivation for the walk and spending this time together. I know he liked walking fast and drinking.
Every encounter they had with a woman - every middle-aged woman was described as “frumpy,� a woman getting trafficked by her husband was a joke, and it was more than okay to ogle school girls in their uniforms (editor? Hello?)
The dialog: so stilted, so false feeling, and was it really necessary to address the person being spoken to in every conversation? “Where’s the next beer, John?� “Coming soon, Karl!�
I was never transported - thank goodness for the map(s), because oddly enough for a book of this genre, I never felt like I was moving, either through space or time. Rarely did the author even mention the number of miles walked in a day.
There was no transformation - why did they bother?]]> 3.78 2016 Walking to Camelot: A Pilgrimage along the Macmillan Way through the Heart of Rural England
author: John A. Cherrington
name: Katie
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, journeys, transformative-walks
review:
Things I liked:
The cover - so green and pretty. And the book felt nice in my hands.
The location - 300 miles on the MacMillan Way. And part of it goes through the Cotswold, of particular interest.
The maps in the front and back covers - all books should have maps, my personal rule.
The descriptions of history, culture, and local festivities, although they were a bit too frequent and became rote

Things I disliked:
The author - I never understood his purpose or motivation for the walk. The cover calls it a pilgrimage, but other than getting moved to tears by the possible location of the Camelot castle and imagining England as part of The Lord of the Rings, I never heard from HIM. After spending 300 pages with him, I had no idea who he was, other than a lawyer.
His companion - ditto the above point. Who was this person? The author’s friend? Relative? We never hear any of their history together, again no motivation for the walk and spending this time together. I know he liked walking fast and drinking.
Every encounter they had with a woman - every middle-aged woman was described as “frumpy,� a woman getting trafficked by her husband was a joke, and it was more than okay to ogle school girls in their uniforms (editor? Hello?)
The dialog: so stilted, so false feeling, and was it really necessary to address the person being spoken to in every conversation? “Where’s the next beer, John?� “Coming soon, Karl!�
I was never transported - thank goodness for the map(s), because oddly enough for a book of this genre, I never felt like I was moving, either through space or time. Rarely did the author even mention the number of miles walked in a day.
There was no transformation - why did they bother?
]]> Lanny 39738353 Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller and Booker Prize Longlisted novel Lanny by the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.

There’s a village sixty miles outside London. It’s no different from many other villages in England: one pub, one church, red-brick cottages, council cottages and a few bigger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might do anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs.

This village belongs to the people who live in it and to the people who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England’s mysterious past and its confounding present. But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a figure schoolchildren used to draw green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth.

Dead Papa Toothwort is awake. He is listening to this twenty-first-century village, to his English symphony. He is listening, intently, for a mischievous, enchanting boy whose parents have recently made the village their home. Lanny.]]> 210 Max Porter 0571340288 Katie 5 25-for-2025-books-i-own 4.07 2019 Lanny
author: Max Porter
name: Katie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own
review:

]]> A Million Heavens 13239796 272 John Brandon 1936365731 Katie 0 3.52 2012 A Million Heavens
author: John Brandon
name: Katie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, here-you-ll-like-this
review:

]]> Wild Places 58950744 Get back to nature and explore sites unspoilt by humankind with the latest addition to the Inspired Traveller’s Guide series.

We humans don't just love wild places. We need them; we need their scale, their breath, their drama and enigma. Wild places can be a balm and a solace; an escape or a returning; a best friend; an inner cleanse. And they can remind us of our unimportance in the world.

Travel writer Sarah Baxter presents 25 untameable natural wonders that reveal the curious story of ourĚýwildĚýplanet and why we need to protect it. Despite all the advances of human civilisation, we’ve yet to come up with anything to rival the majesty of Lapland's snow-capped mountain summits,Ěýthe haunting song of humpback whale in a Namibian paradise or the epic sculptural forms of Utah's vast Canyonlands. Escape to each of these unforgettable sites and more withĚýWild Places,Ěýan insightful and stunningly illustrated guide to all Mother Nature has to offer. DiscoverĚýspectacular and little-known gems with visits to...


Great Dismal Swamp, USA
Canyonlands, USA
Great Bear Rainforest, Canada
Cenotes, Mexico
Galápagos Islands, Ecuador
Kaieteur Falls, Guyana
South Georgia, Atlantic Ocean
Ennerdale, England
Strumble Head, Wales
St Kilda, Scotland
Camargue, France
Sápmi, Lapland, Sweden
Green Belt, Germany
Wadden Sea, Netherlands
Stromboli, Italy
Las Medulas, Spain
Coa Valley, Portugal
Skeleton Coast, Namibia
Erg Chigaga, Morocco
Kinabatangan, Malaysia
Mount Siguniang, China
Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Gangkar Puensum, Bhutan
Wilpena Pound, Australia
Wahipounamu, New Zealand

This is the perfect title for anyone who is fascinated by the marvels of the natural world.]]> 144 Sarah Baxter 071126029X Katie 4 4.11 2022 Wild Places
author: Sarah Baxter
name: Katie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, female-voices, in-a-land-far-away
review:
I loved learning about so many new-to-me places, and the illustrations were absolutely beautiful.
]]> Fervor 176442884 A chilling and unforgettable story of a close-knit Jewish family in London pushed to the brink when they suspect their daughter is a witch.

Hannah and Eric Rosenthal are devout Jews living in North London with their three children and Eric's father Yosef, a Holocaust survivor. Both intellectually gifted and deeply unconventional, the Rosenthals believe in the literal truth of the Old Testament and in the presence of God (and evil) in daily life. As Hannah prepares to publish a sensationalist account of Yosef's years in war-torn Europe—unearthing a terrible secret from his time in the camps—Elsie, her perfect daughter, starts to come undone. And then, in the wake of Yosef’s death, she disappears. When she returns, just as mysteriously as she left, she is altered in disturbing ways.

Witnessing the complete transformation of her daughter, Hannah begins to suspect that Elsie has delved too deep into the labyrinths of Jewish mysticism and gotten lost among shadows. But for Elsie's brother Tovyah, a brilliant but reclusive student struggling to find his place at Oxford, the truth is much simpler: his sister is the product of a dysfunctional family, obsessed with empty rituals, traditions, and unbridled ambition. But who is right? Is religion the cure for the disease or the disease itself? And how can they stop the darkness from engulfing Elsie completely?

Alive with both the bristling energy of a great campus novel and the unsettling, ever-shifting ground of a great horror tale, Fervor is at its heart a family story—where personal allegiances compete with obligations to history and to mysterious forces that offer both consolation and devastation.]]> 288 Toby Lloyd 166803333X Katie 4 3.59 2024 Fervor
author: Toby Lloyd
name: Katie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, female-voices, judaica, love-the-cover
review:

]]> A Walk Across France 439986 At age forty-five, Miles Morland left his high-paying job at the London office of a Wall Street firm and took a leap -- actually, a hike -- into the unknown. A self-described "middle-aged wreck," Miles set out with his wife, Guislaine, to walk across France, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
Setting for themselves the goal of twenty miles a day, Miles and Guislaine made their way past farmyards and riverbanks, through dusty village squares and ripening vineyards, into ancient walled cities and over sand dunes. And as the hot, dry countryside unfolded slowly before them, the couple looked back with relief -- and wonder -- at the tense, frenzied corporate life they had left behind.
The story of a walk, a marriage, an adventure, and a dream made real, A WALK ACROSS FRANCE marks the debut of an enormously entertaining writer.]]> 256 Miles Morland 044990945X Katie 4 3.59 1992 A Walk Across France
author: Miles Morland
name: Katie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: dusty-cookbook-challenge-2011, in-a-land-far-away, journeys, transformative-walks
review:
Despite the author being more than a bit insufferable (he is a retired Wall Street exec who worked during the 1980s) and misogynistic (but in that polite and gentle way), this was one of the more enjoyable Transformative Walks books I’ve read in a while. I particularly liked reading about how a trip like this was planned in the times before AllTrails and the internet. I was amazed at how little they (yes, he walked with his wife) knew about the towns along their route until they arrived - results were both charming and not. I also appreciated how the author conveyed the routine of a walk like this - readers expecting a more plot-driven story arc should not pick up travelogues.
]]> Jane Austen at Home 31450766
Worsley examines the rooms, spaces and possessions which mattered to her, and the varying ways in which homes are used in her novels as both places of pleasure and as prisons. She shows readers a passionate Jane Austen who fought for her freedom, a woman who had at least five marriage prospects, but--in the end--a woman who refused to settle for anything less than Mr. Darcy.

Illustrated with two sections of color plates, Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home is a richly entertaining and illuminating new book about one of the world’s favorite novelists and one of the subjects she returned to over and over in her unforgettable novels: home.]]> 387 Lucy Worsley 125013160X Katie 0 to-read 4.26 2017 Jane Austen at Home
author: Lucy Worsley
name: Katie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Habitat: The Field Guide to Decorating]]> 24795945
“Not-always-conventional ideas for livening up any space with art.� � Country Living

“Tons of tips, advice, and sources.� � Elements of Style

Lauren Liess fuses her love of design and the great outdoors into all her work. In The Field Guide to Decorating , Lauren invites readers to bring nature inside by mixing the textures of natural elements such as wood and stone with eclectic groupings of modern and quirky vintage pieces.

Readers will be inspired by the unique style of these rooms, which include lovely framed botanical prints and Liess’s own textile patterns inspired by wildflowers and weeds. The book is divided into three Liess writes in her introduction, “This book is a guide to what I’ve learned through my work and through my personal experiences, describing in precise detail how I progress step-by-step through the design process to make the decisions that ultimately lead to a fully realized vision. I hope it inspires you to have fun while decorating.�

If you are thinking of decorating or redecorating a home, you’ll want to have a look at the inspiring ideas that Liess offers—natural, relaxing, and stunning rooms that you, your family, and friends will adore and love to live in.

Includes Color Photographs]]> 272 Lauren Liess 1419717855 Katie 0 to-read 4.05 2015 Habitat: The Field Guide to Decorating
author: Lauren Liess
name: Katie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Between Each Step: A Married Couple's Thru Hike on New Zealand's Te Araroa]]> 55649673


In 2014-15, Patrice and Justin opted for the human-powered route to explore New Zealand. For four months, they tramped along Te Araroa, a continuous trail gaining notoriety stretching roughly 2,000 miles from Cape Reinga at the top of the North Island to Bluff at the bottom of the South Island. The adventure would either strengthen their bond to each other and their commitment to a nontraditional life, or it would break them apart.Ěý



This travel memoir powerfully captures the essence of trail life, New Zealand's unique culture and the tradeoffs to an off-the-beaten path trajectory. Told with suspense, style and humor, backpackers and armchair adventurers alike will learn that this newly created trail in an exotic locale is sometimes zany, but the healthy vulnerability to its rugged nature rewards self-awareness and growth. Readers will feel the pain of every blister, experience the fear of life-threatening tides and be blown away by the hospitality of the Kiwi people, all at the same time.Ěý±Ő±Ő> 197 Patrice La Vigne 1636496229 Katie 3 4.30 Between Each Step: A Married Couple's Thru Hike on New Zealand's Te Araroa
author: Patrice La Vigne
name: Katie
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> Miss Austen 44280984 Whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was?

England, 1840. For the two decades following the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen has lived alone, spending her days visiting friends and relations and quietly, purposefully working to preserve her sister’s reputation. Now in her sixties and increasingly frail, Cassandra goes to stay with the Fowles of Kintbury, family of her long-dead fiancé, in search of a trove of Jane’s letters. Dodging her hostess and a meddlesome housemaid, Cassandra eventually hunts down the letters and confronts the secrets they hold, secrets not only about Jane but about Cassandra herself. Will Cassandra bare the most private details of her life to the world, or commit her sister’s legacy to the flames?

Moving back and forth between the vicarage and Cassandra’s vibrant memories of her years with Jane, interwoven with Jane’s brilliantly reimagined lost letters, Miss Austen is the untold story of the most important person in Jane’s life. With extraordinary empathy, emotional complexity, and wit, Gill Hornby finally gives Cassandra her due, bringing to life a woman as captivating as any Austen heroine.]]> 288 Gill Hornby 1250252202 Katie 0 currently-reading, audiobook 3.71 2020 Miss Austen
author: Gill Hornby
name: Katie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: currently-reading, audiobook
review:

]]> Held 200241802
1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast—as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. This resonance through time—not only of actions but also of feelings and perceptions—desire in its many forms—are at the heart of this novel’s profound investigation.

Held is a deeply affecting and intensely beautiful novel, full of unforgettable characters and imagery, wisdom and compassion. It explores the deepest mysteries, and the ways in which desire in its many forms—andĚýperhaps the deepest desire, to find meaning—manifests itself. Held moves through history to light upon Darwin, Sir Ernest Rutherford, North Sea ganseys, early photography, Ella Mary Leather, modern field hospitals…while lovers find each other and snow drifts down across the centuries. From the WW1 battlefield where the novel begins, and its opening lines, Held is alive with "We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?”]]> 240 Anne Michaels 0771005458 Katie 3 audiobook 3.49 2023 Held
author: Anne Michaels
name: Katie
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: audiobook
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman]]> 203579088 A memoir of the author's journey from an office job to restoring a cabin in the Pacific Northwest, based on his wildly popular Outside Magazine piece.


Wit’s End isn’t just a state of mind. It’s the name of a gravel road, the address of a run-down off-the-grid cabin, 120 shabby square feet of fixer-upper Patrick Hutchison purchased on a whim in the mossy woods of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state.


To say Hutchison didn’t know what he was getting into is no more an exaggeration than to say he’s a man with nearly zero carpentry skills. Well, used to be. You can learn a lot over six years or renovations.


CABIN is the story of those renovations, but it's also a love story; of a place, of possibilities, and of the process of renovation, of seeing what could be instead of what is. It is a book for those who know what it’s like to bite off more than you can chew, or who desperately wish to.

]]> 304 Patrick Hutchison 1250285704 Katie 4 audiobook, memoirs-biography 4.04 2024 Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman
author: Patrick Hutchison
name: Katie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: audiobook, memoirs-biography
review:

]]> The Secret Chord 24611425
The Secret Chord provides new context for some of the best-known episodes of David’s life while also focusing on others, even more remarkable and emotionally intense, that have been neglected.Ěý We see David through the eyes of those who love him or fear him—from the prophet Natan, voice of his conscience, to his wives Mikhal, Avigail, and Batsheva, and finally to Solomon, the late-born son who redeems his Lear-like old age. Brooks has an uncanny ability to hear and transform characters from history, and this beautifully written, unvarnished saga of faith, desire, family, ambition, betrayal, and power will enthrall her many fans.]]> 302 Geraldine Brooks 0670025771 Katie 0 3.57 2015 The Secret Chord
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Katie
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: love-the-author, female-voices, judaica, 25-for-2025-books-i-own, book-club
review:

]]> Poor Deer 127823311 A wondrous, tender novel about a young girl grappling with her role in a tragic loss—and attempting to reshape the narrative of her life—from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire Oshetsky

Margaret Murphy is a weaver of fantastic tales, growing up in a world where the truth is too much for one little girl to endure. Her first memory is of the day her friend Agnes died.

No one blames Margaret. Not in so many words. Her mother insists to everyone who will listen that her daughter never even left the house that day. Left alone to make sense of tragedy, Margaret wills herself to forget these unbearable memories, replacing them with imagined stories full of faith and magic—that always end happily.

Enter Poor Deer: a strange and formidable creature who winds her way uninvited into Margaret’s made-up tales. Poor Deer will not rest until Margaret faces the truth about her past and atones for her role in Agnes’s death.

Heartrending, hopeful, and boldly imagined, Poor Deer explores the journey toward understanding the children we once were and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of life’s most difficult moments.]]> 240 Claire Oshetsky 006332766X Katie 3 3.97 2024 Poor Deer
author: Claire Oshetsky
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, love-the-cover
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Tale Dark & Grimm (A Tale Dark & Grimm, #1)]]> 10697427
"Unlike any children's book I've ever read. [It] holds up to multiple rereadings, like the classic I think it will turn out to be." - New York Times Book Review]]> 288 Adam Gidwitz 0142419672 Katie 0 3.97 2010 A Tale Dark & Grimm (A Tale Dark & Grimm, #1)
author: Adam Gidwitz
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, read-aloud, want-for-the-girls
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Love, Shipwreck and Survival]]> 168726464 **A Guardian, Observer & Waterstones Nonfiction Book of 2024**

What begins as an eccentric English love story turns into one of the most dramatic adventures ever recorded...

Maurice and Maralyn couldn't be more different. He is as cautious and awkward as she is charismatic and forceful. It seems an unlikely romance, but it works.

Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maralyn has an sell the house, build a boat, leave England -- and its oil crisis, industrial strikes and inflation -- forever. It is hard work, turning dreams into reality, but finally they set sail for New Zealand. Then, halfway there, their beloved boat is struck by a whale and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

On their tiny raft, their love is put to the test. When Maurice begins to withdraw into himself, it falls upon Maralyn to keep them both alive. Filled with danger, spirit, and tenderness, this is a book about human connection and the human condition; about how we survive -- not just at sea, but in life.]]> 254 Sophie Elmhirst 1529921562 Katie 0 to-read 4.02 2024 Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Love, Shipwreck and Survival
author: Sophie Elmhirst
name: Katie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Story of the Forest 208580732
The adventure leads to flight, emigration and a new land, a new language and the pursuit of idealism or happiness - in Liverpool. But what of the stories from the old country; how do they shape and form the next generations who have heard the well-worn tales?

From the flour mills of Latvia to Liverpool suburbia to post-war Soho, The Story of the Forest is about myths and memory and about how families adapt in order to survive. It is a story full of the humour and wisdom we have come to relish from this wonderful writer.

From the Orange Prize-winning and Man Booker-shortlisted Linda Grant.]]> 288 Linda Grant 1638931682 Katie 4 3.38 2023 The Story of the Forest
author: Linda Grant
name: Katie
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, tastes-like-kugel
review:

]]> Glorious Exploits 127278133 An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.]]> 304 Ferdia Lennon 1250893690 Katie 0 to-read 4.15 2024 Glorious Exploits
author: Ferdia Lennon
name: Katie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Murdered My Library 22052738
At the end of 2013, novelist Linda Grant moved from a rambling maisonette over four floors to a two bedroom flat with a tiny corridor-shaped study. The trauma of getting rid of thousands of books raises the question of what purpose personal libraries serve in contemporary life and the seductive lure of the Kindle.

Both a memoir of a lifetime of reading and an insight into how interior décor has banished the bookcase, her account of the emotional struggle of her relationship with books asks questions about the way we live today.]]> 70 Linda Grant Katie 0 to-read, book-love 3.76 2014 I Murdered My Library
author: Linda Grant
name: Katie
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read, book-love
review:

]]> When I Lived in Modern Times 182197
In the spring of 1946, Evelyn Sert stands on the deck of a ship bound for Palestine. For the twenty-year-old from London, it is a time of adventure and change when all things seem possible.

Swept up in the spirited, chaotic churning of her new, strange country, she joins a kibbutz, then moves on to the teeming metropolis of Tel Aviv, to find her own home and a group of friends as eccentric and disparate as the city itself. She falls in love with a man who is not what he seems when she becomes an unwitting spy for a nation fighting to be born. When I Lived in Modern Times is "an unsentimental coming-of-age story of both a country and a young immigrant . . . that provides an unforgettable glimpse of a time and place rarely observed" ( Publishers Weekly , starred review).]]> 272 Linda Grant 0452282926 Katie 0 to-read 3.64 2000 When I Lived in Modern Times
author: Linda Grant
name: Katie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Literary Trails: British Writers in Their Landscapes]]> 1383773
Author Christina Hardyment traces the route of Thomas Hardy's Tess across Wessex, wanders around the Lake District as Wordsworth did, and follows the path of Alfred Lord Tennyson towards Tintagel in Cornwall in quest of the Arthurian legends. Maps and archival pictures illustrate each route, and photographs show the places as they are today, making Literary Trails both a pleasure for the armchair traveller and a practical guide for anyone planning a literary journey through Britain.]]> 256 Christina Hardyment 0707803756 Katie 4 female-voices, journeys 3.52 1999 Literary Trails: British Writers in Their Landscapes
author: Christina Hardyment
name: Katie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: female-voices, journeys
review:

]]> Memorial Days 212806569 A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toĚýpeace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofâ€�Horse

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz � just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy � collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at Lambert’s Cove. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the varied waysĚýthose ofĚýother cultures grieve, such as the people of Australia's First Nations, the Balinese, and the Iranian Shiites, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between soulsĚýthat exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.]]> 224 Geraldine Brooks 059365398X Katie 5 4.33 2025 Memorial Days
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Katie
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, love-the-author, memoirs-biography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cat Who Saved Books (The Cat Who..., #1)]]> 56755560 The Cat Who Saved Books is a heart-warming story about finding courage, caring for others � and the tremendous power of books.

Grandpa used to say it all the time: 'books have tremendous power'. But what is that power really?

Natsuki Books was a tiny second-hand bookshop on the edge of town. Inside, towering shelves reached the ceiling, every one crammed full of wonderful books. Rintaro Natsuki loved this space that his grandfather had created. He spent many happy hours there, reading whatever he liked. It was the perfect refuge for a boy who tended to be something of a recluse.

After the death of his grandfather, Rintaro is devastated and alone. It seems he will have to close the shop. Then, a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears and asks Rintaro for help. The cat needs a book lover to join him on a mission. This odd couple will go on three magical adventures to save books from people who have imprisoned, mistreated and betrayed them. Finally, there is one last rescue that Rintaro must attempt alone . . .

Sosuke Natsukawa's international bestseller, translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai, is a story for those for whom books are so much more than words on paper.]]> 198 SĹŤsuke Natsukawa 0063095726 Katie 0 unfinishable 3.74 2017 The Cat Who Saved Books (The Cat Who..., #1)
author: SĹŤsuke Natsukawa
name: Katie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: unfinishable
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Something in the Woods Loves You]]> 204593663 An inspiring blend of nature writing and memoir that explores nature’s crucial role in our emotional and mental health. Bats can hear shapes, plants can eat light, and bees can dance maps.ĚýWhen his life took him to a painfully dark place, the poet behind The Cryptonaturalist, Jarod K. Anderson, found comfort and redemption in these facts and the shift in perspective that comes from paying a new kind of attention to nature.ĚýSomething in the Woods Loves YouĚýtells the story of the darkest stretch of a young person’s life, and how deliberate and meditative encounters with plants and animals helped him see the light at every turn. Ranging from optimistic contemplations of mortality to appreciations of a single mushroom, Anderson has written a lyrical love letter to the natural world and given us the tools to see it all anew.]]> 368 Jarod K. Anderson 1643262297 Katie 5 audiobook, love-the-cover 4.33 2024 Something in the Woods Loves You
author: Jarod K. Anderson
name: Katie
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: audiobook, love-the-cover
review:
Please read this if you and/or someone you love has struggled with depression.
]]> <![CDATA[Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks]]> 28221007
On the eve of turning fifty and a little burned-out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks. He planned to take his mother to a park she'd not yet visited and to re-create his childhood trips with his wife and their iPad-generation daughter.

But then the unthinkable happened: his mother was diagnosed with cancer, given just months to live. Mark had initially intended to write a book about the future of the national parks, but Lassoing the Sun grew into something more: a book about family, the parks, the legacies we inherit and the ones we leave behind.]]> 320 Mark Woods 1250105897 Katie 0 to-read 4.13 2016 Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks
author: Mark Woods
name: Katie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Walk from the Wild Edge 54570826
This is the story of Jake's journey around the UK, and of his journey to finding peace within himself and the world around him.]]> 320 Jake Tyler 024140116X Katie 0 4.12 A Walk from the Wild Edge
author: Jake Tyler
name: Katie
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hiking Naked: A Quaker Woman's Search for Balance]]> 35997950 260 Iris Graville 1938846842 Katie 0 4.09 Hiking Naked: A Quaker Woman's Search for Balance
author: Iris Graville
name: Katie
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, female-voices, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> Things I Learned from Falling 48717952
In THINGS I LEARNED FROM FALLING Claire tells not only her story of surviving, but also her story of falling. What led this successful thirty-something to a desert trail on the other side of the globe from her home where no one knew she would be that day? At once the unbelievable story of an impossible event, and the human journey of a young woman wrestling with the agitation of past and anxiety of future.]]> 272 Claire Nelson 1783253509 Katie 0 4.01 2020 Things I Learned from Falling
author: Claire Nelson
name: Katie
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, female-voices, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future]]> 75406588 232 Tom Bullough 1783788100 Katie 0 3.97 Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future
author: Tom Bullough
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Gathering Place: A Winter Pilgrimage Through Changing Times]]> 62039178
Pilgrims have always walked in times of upheaval, pitching themselves against weather, hunger, thirst and sometimes pain as they tread the paths their ancestors followed before them.

In The Gathering Place , author, nature campaigner and veteran solo walker Mary Colwell undertakes a 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino Francés in northern Spain at a unique moment in history � a time of pandemic, profound political change, and a climate and biodiversity emergency.

In a typical year, more than 300,000 people walk this route or part of it, but in between lockdowns in 2020, Mary was virtually alone. The modern world weaves in and out of the Camino's worn trackway, providing a focus for contemplation and a place where memories and experiences can gather. There are times of intense spirituality, meetings with a demon slayer, strange goings-on and magical tales, and the constant backdrop of nature with all its complexity and wonder.

In this delightful book, Mary's winter pilgrimage weaves a personal tale with a walk that millions have undertaken over the centuries. The Gathering Place is a beautiful, thoughtful and, at times, humorous journey of both body and soul.]]> 256 Mary Colwell 1399400541 Katie 0 3.84 The Gathering Place: A Winter Pilgrimage Through Changing Times
author: Mary Colwell
name: Katie
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, female-voices, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mountain Lines: A Journey through the French Alps]]> 28695683 A nonfiction debut about an American’s solo, month-long, 400-mile walk from Lake Geneva to Nice.

In the summer of 2015, Jonathan Arlan was nearing thirty. Restless, bored, and daydreaming of adventure, he comes across an image on the Internet one a map of the southeast corner of France with a single red line snaking south from Lake Geneva, through the jagged brown and white peaks of the Alps to the Mediterranean sea—a route more than four hundred miles long. He decides then and there to walk the whole trail solo.
Ěý

Lacking any outdoor experience, completely ignorant of mountains, sorely out of shape, and fighting last-minute nerves and bad weather, things get off to a rocky start. But Arlan eventually finds his mountain legs—along with a staggering variety of aches and pains—as he tramps a narrow thread of grass, dirt, and rock between cloud-collared, ice-capped peaks in the High Alps, through ancient hamlets built into hillsides, across sheep-dotted mountain pastures, and over countless cols on his way to the sea. In time, this simple, repetitive act of walking for hours each day in the remote beauty of the mountains becomes as exhilarating as it is exhausting.
Ěý

Mountain Lines is the stirring account of a month-long journey on foot through the French Alps and a passionate and intimate book laced with humor, wonder, and curiosity. In the tradition of trekking classics like A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush , The Snow Leopard , and Tracks , the book is a meditation on movement, solitude, adventure, and the magnetic power of the natural world.]]> 264 Jonathan Arlan 1510709754 Katie 0 3.93 2017 Mountain Lines: A Journey through the French Alps
author: Jonathan Arlan
name: Katie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Wanderings: A Mother-Daughter Pilgrimage]]> 22675843
When Kimberly Meyer gave birth to her first daughter, Ellie, during her senior year of college, the bohemian life of exploration she had once imagined for herself was lost in the responsibilities of single motherhood. For years, both mother and daughter were haunted by how Ellie came into being-Kimberly through a restless ache for the world beyond, Ellie through a fear of abandonment.

Longing to bond with Ellie, now a college student, and longing, too, to rediscover herself, Kimberly sets off with her daughter on a quest for meaning across the globe. Leaving behind the rhythms of ordinary life in Houston, Texas, they dedicate a summer to retracing the footsteps of Felix Fabri, a medieval Dominican friar whose written account of his travels resonates with Kimberly. Their mother-daughter pilgrimage takes them to exotic destinations infused with mystery, spirituality, and rich history -- from Venice to the Mediterranean through Greece and partitioned Cyprus, to Israel and across the Sinai Desert with Bedouin guides, to the Palestinian territories and to Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt.

In spare and gorgeous prose, The Book of Wanderings tells the story of Kimberly and Ellie's journey, and of the intimate, lasting bond they forge along the way. A meditation on stripping away the distractions, on simplicity, on how to live, this vibrant memoir will appeal to anyone who has contemplated the road not taken, who has experienced the gnawing feeling that there is something more, who has faced the void-of offspring leaving, of mortality looming, of searching for someplace that feels, finally, like home.]]> 368 Kimberly Meyer 0316251216 Katie 0 3.14 2015 The Book of Wanderings: A Mother-Daughter Pilgrimage
author: Kimberly Meyer
name: Katie
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read, female-voices, journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Walking into Alchemy: The Transformative Power of Nature]]> 48995056 356 Amelia Marriette Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 4.70 Walking into Alchemy: The Transformative Power of Nature
author: Amelia Marriette
name: Katie
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act]]> 22750456 304 Dan Rubinstein 1770411895 Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 3.70 2015 Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act
author: Dan Rubinstein
name: Katie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rain: Four Walks in English Weather]]> 28169568
Whenever rain falls, our countryside changes. Fields, farms, hills and hedgerows appear altered, the wildlife behaves differently, and over time the terrain itself is transformed.

In Rain, Melissa Harrison explores our relationship with the weather as she follows the course of four rain showers, in four seasons, across Wicken Fen, Shropshire, the Darent Valley and Dartmoor.

Blending these expeditions with reading, research, memory and imagination, she reveals how rain is not just an essential element of the world around us, but a key part of our own identity too.]]> 104 Melissa Harrison 0571328938 Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 3.84 2016 Rain: Four Walks in English Weather
author: Melissa Harrison
name: Katie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning]]> 1019332 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune.

He was to live by playing the violin and by labouring on a London building site. Then, knowing one Spanish phrase, he decided to see Spain. For a year he tramped through a country in which the signs of impending civil war were clearly visible. Thirty years later Laurie Lee captured the atmosphere of the Spain he saw with all the freshness and beauty of a young man's vision, creating a lyrical and lucid picture of the beautiful and violent country that was to involve him]]> 192 Laurie Lee 0140033181 Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 4.20 1969 As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
author: Laurie Lee
name: Katie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ways of Walking: Essays (A Walkabout Book)]]> 60338860 264 Ann de Forest 1735558524 Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 4.12 Ways of Walking: Essays (A Walkabout Book)
author: Ann de Forest
name: Katie
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail]]> 18527222 Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/Biography

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin. There she sang the first verse of “America, the Beautiful� and proclaimed, “I said I’ll do it, and I’ve done it.�

Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.

Author Ben Montgomery was given unprecedented access to Gatewood’s own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence, and interviewed surviving family members and those she met along her hike, all to answer the question so many asked: Why did she do it? The story of Grandma Gatewood will inspire readers of all ages by illustrating the full power of human spirit and determination. Even those who know of Gatewood don’t know the full story—a story of triumph from pain, rebellion from brutality, hope from suffering.]]> 288 Ben Montgomery 1613747187 Katie 5 4.03 2014 Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
author: Ben Montgomery
name: Katie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2015/07/15
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:
I sucked this down in one satisfying gulp.
]]> Neon Pilgrim 7106492 244 Lisa Dempster 0980335175 Katie 0 to-read 4.03 2009 Neon Pilgrim
author: Lisa Dempster
name: Katie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail]]> 16160298
I Promise Not to Suffer is Gail's light-hearted yet heart-felt memoir about her and her husband's adventures and misadventures, deepening marriage, and reflections on being irrevocably changed by life on the trail. She was a novice hiker, while he was an experienced outdoorsman. Removed from their usual routines and living outside in the wilderness for months exposed hidden intricacies in their relationship. Hiking 20 miles a day over mountains, thirsting in the high desert of California, forcing frozen feet into icy socks and boots each morning in the High Sierra, stumbling through lava fields in Oregon—Gail was required to meet the elements on their own tough-love terms. From an encounter with a mountain lion to her mother's battle with cancer at home, she confronts each challenge with wit and brave style. While a dangerous loss of weight forces Gail to leave the PCT after 900 miles, she regains strength and later rejoins her husband on sections until he triumphantly reaches the northern terminus in Canada.

Humorous yet honest, this journey of harrowing hilarity and reluctant revelations will be loved by active hikers (appendices include details of their unique ultralight gear and other essential how-to information), fans of female adventure stories, and armchair travelers alike.]]> 224 Gail D. Storey 1594857458 Katie 0 to-read 3.63 2013 I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail
author: Gail D. Storey
name: Katie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail]]> 9156793 304 Jennifer Pharr Davis 0825306493 Katie 0 to-read 4.00 2010 Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail
author: Jennifer Pharr Davis
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Steps Out of Time: One Woman's Journey on the Camino]]> 32617056 286 Katharine B. Soper Katie 0 4.20 2013 Steps Out of Time: One Woman's Journey on the Camino
author: Katharine B. Soper
name: Katie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read, female-voices, journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wildness]]> 200105590 A search for nearby nature and wildness After years of expeditions all over the world, adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year exploring the detailed local map around his home. Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, hold any surprises for the world traveller or satisfy his wanderlust? Could a single map provide a lifetime of exploration? Discovering more about the natural world than in all his years in remote environments, he learns the value of truly getting to know his neighbourhood. An ode to slowing down, Local is a celebration of curiosity and time spent outdoors, as well as a rallying cry to protect the wild places on our doorstep.]]> 368 Alastair Humphreys 1785633678 Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 4.26 Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wildness
author: Alastair Humphreys
name: Katie
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom]]> 221480935 The desire to walk is something that defines us, bringing joy, connection and freedom. But what happens to all this when we become mothers?

From the author of Wanderers, comes an urgent exploration of what it means to rediscover ourselves through the land we walk and the people we walk alongside.

___


In the wake of the complete metamorphosis of becoming a mother, Kerri Andrews determines to undertake a series of journeys on foot to understand what has happened to her.


Alongside a backpack full of supplies, Kerri carries with her the shadow of post-natal depression and the idea that maybe the hills are no longer for those, like her, who bear the mental and physical scars of childbearing and childrearing.


Yet, what she soon discovers are tales of mother-walkers that have long been neglected or hidden away. From Mary Wollstonecraft and Ellen Weeton to Kate Chopin, here are women whose urgent stories offer new ways of stepping into motherhood.


As Kerri traverses urban, rural and increasingly mountainous landscapes in the North West and Scotland, she is joined by women who have also experienced the profound changes that having children can bring to bodies and minds. Together, they explore the complicated ground of motherhood today � balancing enormous responsibility and upheaval with ambition, rage and hope � creating new paths as they go.


___


'Left me itching to lace up my boots and follow the call of the path.' Laura Pashby, author of Chasing Fog

'Bold, brave... I had the feeling, as I read, that Kerri Andrews might be clearing a path for us all.' Helen Jukes, author of Mother Animal

'Powerful and unflinchingly honest' Annabel Abbs, author of Why Women Walk]]> 201 Kerri Andrews 1783968435 Katie 0 to-read 4.00 Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom
author: Kerri Andrews
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain]]> 62587676 Ěý
When Andrew McCarthy's eldest son began to take his first steps into adulthood, McCarthy found himself wishing time would slow down. Looking to create a more meaningful connection with Sam before he fled the nest, as well as recreate his own life-altering journey decades before, McCarthy decided the two of them should set out on a trek like few 500 miles across Spain's Camino de Santiago.
Ěý
Over the course of the journey, the pair traversed an unforgiving landscape, having more honest conversations in five weeks than they'd had in the preceding two decades. ĚýDiscussions of divorce, the trauma of school, McCarthy's difficult relationship with his own father, fame, and Flaming Hot Cheetos threatened to either derail their relationship or cement it. Ěý Walking With Sam Ěýcaptures this intimate, candid and hopeful expedition as the father son duo travel across the country and towards one another.]]> 256 Andrew McCarthy 1538709201 Katie 4 transformative-walks 3.97 2023 Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
author: Andrew McCarthy
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/20
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: transformative-walks
review:
This wasn't the perfect book by any stretch, but I so love a journey, especially when it is a transformative walk. The pacing, storytelling, and level of detail were all just right. I did find the son to be, as another reader said, a navel-gazing toddler. It would've been more satisfying if he had actually transformed and started cleaning up his own messes (how many spilled beverages???) or maybe even served others instead of always being on the receiving end. Growing up is hard to do.
]]> You Are Here 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Katie 0 to-read, transformative-walks 3.97 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read, transformative-walks
review:

]]> The Salt Path 38085814
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.]]> 288 Raynor Winn 0241349648 Katie 4 transformative-walks 3.97 2018 The Salt Path
author: Raynor Winn
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/13
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This One Wild Life: A Mother-Daughter Wilderness Memoir]]> 55407907 From the author of Canada Reads finalist The Bone Cage.

Includes research on the shy child, parent-child bonding, social media issues, and the benefits of outdoor activity and nature immersion.

Disillusioned with overly competitive organized sports and concerned about her lively daughter's growing shyness, author Angie Abdou sets herself a challenge: to hike a peak a week over the summer holidays with Katie. They will bond in nature and discover the glories of outdoor activity. What could go wrong? Well, among other things, it turns out that Angie loves hiking but Katie doesn't.

Hilarious, poignant, and deeply felt, This One Wild Life explores parenting and marriage in a summer of unexpected outcomes and growth for both mother and daughter.]]> 248 Angie Abdou 1770416005 Katie 4 3.57 This One Wild Life: A Mother-Daughter Wilderness Memoir
author: Angie Abdou
name: Katie
average rating: 3.57
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/30
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: female-voices, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:

]]> Eat, Pray, Love 19501
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.]]> 368 Elizabeth Gilbert 0143038419 Katie 5 3.64 2006 Eat, Pray, Love
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Katie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2006/01/01
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: book-club, journeys, heard-on-npr, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback]]> 78895 NOWĚýA MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back."

Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity.ĚýTracksĚýis the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.Ěý

“An unforgettably powerful book.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

Now with a new postscript by Robyn Davidson.]]> 288 Robyn Davidson 0679762876 Katie 4 3.92 1980 Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
author: Robyn Davidson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2012/12/27
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: book-club, journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> On Trails: An Exploration 27276431 How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own?

Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing—combining the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic wisdom of Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.

Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic—the oft-overlooked trail—sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity’s relationship with nature and technology shaped world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life?

Moor has the essayist’s gift for making new connections, the adventurer’s love for paths untaken, and the philosopher’s knack for asking big questions. With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew.]]> 352 Robert Moor 1476739218 Katie 4 3.95 2016 On Trails: An Exploration
author: Robert Moor
name: Katie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/18
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hiking the Florida Trail: 1,100 Miles, 78 Days, Two Pairs of Boots, and One Heck of an Adventure (Wild Florida)]]> 1734551 208 Johnny Molloy 0813031958 Katie 2 3.44 2008 Hiking the Florida Trail: 1,100 Miles, 78 Days, Two Pairs of Boots, and One Heck of an Adventure (Wild Florida)
author: Johnny Molloy
name: Katie
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2021/02/08
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: journeys, transformative-walks
review:
The Florida Trail deserves better than this. I expected this book to be informative and entertaining, and I found neither. With no maps, no mile markers, no exploration of the state's history or geology beyond a paragraph or two, I was left no more knowledgeable than when I began. As far as entertaining, I grew weary of the author disparaging nearly every person except those very like him (white, southerner, male): suburbanites, weekend warriors, city-dwellers, Yankees, people with office jobs, people with nine-to-five jobs, people who vacation in Florida, people who move to Florida, people who drive cars, people who don't know about the Florida Trail, people who do know about it and assume he's continuing on to the AT, even people who make him pancakes that aren't to his liking, on and on. This superior attitude, the nuggets of life lessons scattered throughout the book, the admiration for the Confederacy, and the lazy editing made for unpleasant reading. It earned an extra star simply for the topic.
]]> Alone in Wonderland 55879258 Alone in Wonderland is a story about backpacking. But it's also a story about Independence, Love, Grief, Freedom, Adventure, Family, Chosen Family, Challenging Societal Norms, Safety, Feminism, Trauma, Overcoming, Letting Go, Letting In, Self-Knowledge, Self-Acceptance.

Debut author, Christine Reed, takes you on an 11-day solo backpacking trip around Mt. Rainier on the stunning 93-mile Wonderland Trail. She comes face to face with the challenges of long-distance trekking, the backpacking community, and the wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. Throughout the journey she asks questions about female independence in life and the outdoors. She challenges pre-conceived notions about fear and safety. She is raw and honest about grief and trauma and tells a truly inspiring story about overcoming.

Not to be missed by any adventure seeker!

AWARDS:
Alone in Wonderland has been awarded the National Indie Excellence Award for the Nonfiction Category, as well as The Book Excellence Award in the Adventure Non-Fiction Category.
It was also chosen as a Distinguished Favorite by the Independent Press Award in the New Nonfiction Category and Honorable Mention by the Foreword Indies in the Adventure Category.]]> 266 Christine Reed 173484180X Katie 4 3.5 stars 3.91 Alone in Wonderland
author: Christine Reed
name: Katie
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/08
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: female-voices, journeys, memoirs-biography, transformative-walks
review:
3.5 stars
]]> <![CDATA[Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women]]> 58959702
2022 Banff Mountain Book Competition Finalist

An Apple Books Pick of the Month and a Powell's and The Story Exchange Best Book of Fall

“A gorgeous and revelatory blend of memoir, travelogue, and long-forgotten history.”—Abbott Kahler





Annabel Abbs’sĚý Walking the Paths of Trailblazing WomenĚýis a beautifully written meditation on connecting with the outdoors through the simple act of walking. In captivating and elegant prose, Abbs follows in the footsteps of women who boldly reclaimed wild landscapes for themselves, including Georgia O’Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the French River Garonne, Daphne du Maurier along the River RhĂ´ne, and Simone de Beauvoir—who walked as much as twenty-five miles a day in a dress and espadrilles—through the mountains and forests of France.

Part historical inquiry and part memoir, the stories of these writers and artists are laced together by moments in Abb’s own life, beginning with her poet father who raised her in the Welsh countryside as an “experiment,� according to the principles of Rousseau. Abbs explores a forgotten legacy of moving on foot and discovers how it has helped women throughout history to find their voices, to reimagine their lives, and to break free from convention.

As Abbs traces the paths of exceptional women, she realizes that she, too, is walking away from her past and into a radically different future.ĚýWindsweptĚýcrosses continents and centuries in a provocative and poignant account of the power of walking in nature.]]> 391 Annabel Abbs-Streets 1951142780 Katie 5 4.18 Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women
author: Annabel Abbs-Streets
name: Katie
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/11
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: female-voices, journeys, transformative-walks
review:
I loved this. It’s what I had hoped a previous book I’d read about women walking in a historic context would be. The author did a wonderful job of bringing each woman to life, describing what waking meant to them, and then sharing how the compulsion to walk impacted her own life. Beautifully written. Oh, and I liked her assessment of America’s walkability.
]]> <![CDATA[Outlandish: Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes]]> 60209216 not be there, wildernesses found in Europe yet seemingly belonging to far-off
a patch of Arctic tundra in Scotland; the continent's largest surviving remnant of primeval
forest in Poland and Belarus; Europe's only true desert in Spain; and the fathomless
grassland steppes of Hungary.
From snow-capped mountain range to dense green forest, desert ravines to threadbare,
yellow open grassland, these anomalies transport us to faraway regions of the world.
More like pockets of Africa, Asia, the Poles or North America, they make our own
continent seem larger, stranger and more filled with secrets.
Against the rapid climate breakdown of deserts, steppes and primeval jungles across the
world, this book discovers the outlandish environments so much closer to home - along
with their abundant reindeer; bison; ibex; wolves and herds of wild horses.
Blending sublime travel writing, nature writing and history - by way of Paleolithic cave art,
reindeer nomads, desert wanderers, shamans, Slavic forest gods, European bison, Wild
West fantasists, eco-activists, horseback archers, Big Grey Men and other unlikely spirits
of place - these desolate and rich environments show us that the strange has always been
near.]]> 288 Nick Hunt 1529387418 Katie 4 3.82 2021 Outlandish: Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes
author: Nick Hunt
name: Katie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/30
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: in-a-land-far-away, journeys, love-the-cover, transformative-walks
review:
I loved this poignant combination of thoughtful travelogue, biology and history exploration (that was completely foreign to me), climate change witnessing, and how humans fit into the long view of our planet, both forward- and backward-looking.
]]> <![CDATA[Wanderers: A History of Women Walking]]> 52612688
“A wild portrayal of the passion and spirit of female walkers and the deep sense of â€knowingâ€� that they found along the path.”—Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path
Ěý
“I opened this book and instantly found that I was part of a conversation I didn't want to leave. A dazzling, inspirational history.”—Helen Mort, author of No Map Could Show Them

This is a book about ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parson’s daughter Elizabeth Carter—who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England—to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing—of being—articulated by these ten pathfinding women.]]> 288 Kerri Andrews 178914342X Katie 3 3.46 2020 Wanderers: A History of Women Walking
author: Kerri Andrews
name: Katie
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/17
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: female-voices, journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> Landlines 123263802 The powerful story of a 1,000-mile healing walk—from the lochs of Scotland to England's southwest coast—in a remarkable evocation of modern-day Britain.

Raynor Winn knows that her husband Moth’s health is declining, getting worse by the day. She knows of only one cure. It worked once before. But will he—can he?—set out with her on another healing walk?

The Cape Wrath Trail is hundreds of miles of grueling terrain through Scotland's remotest mountains and lochs. But the lure of the wilderness and the beguiling beauty of the awaiting glens draw them northwards. Being one with nature saved them in their darkest hour years earlier—and their hope is that this experience can work its magic again.

So Raynor and Moth embark on an incredible thousand-mile from Scotland to the familiar shores of the South West Coast Path, from Northumberland to the Yorkshire moors, and from Wales to home again. As they map with each step the landscape of their island nation, they find themselves facing existential questions—about themselves and about their country—during this epic, inspiring odyssey.]]> 319 Raynor Winn 1639364943 Katie 5 4.50 2022 Landlines
author: Raynor Winn
name: Katie
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/20
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: female-voices, in-a-land-far-away, journeys, love-the-cover, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal]]> 60012523 A stunning, revelatory memoir about a 330-mile walk from Washington, D.C. to New York City—an unforgettable pilgrimage to the heart of America across some of its oldest common ground

Neil King Jr.’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began on a whim and became an obsession. By the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency. His neighborhood still reeled from the January 6 insurrection. COVID-19 lock-downs and a rancorous election had deepened America’s divides. King himself bore the imprints of a long battle with cancer.

Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see America's national story with new eyes, King turned north with a small satchel on his back and one mission in mind: to pay close attention to the land he crossed and the people he met. What followed is an extraordinary 26-day journey through historic battlefields and cemeteries; over the Mason-Dixon line; past Quaker and Amish farms; along Valley Forge stream beds; atop a New Jersey trash mound; across New York Harbor; and finally, to his ultimate destination: the Ramble, where a tangle of pathways converges in Central Park. The journey travels deep into America’s past and present, uncovering forgotten pockets and overlooked people. At a time of mounting disunity, the trip reveals the profound power of the country's shared ground.]]> 368 Neil King Jr. 035870149X Katie 4 4.10 American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal
author: Neil King Jr.
name: Katie
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/28
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: audiobook, journeys, transformative-walks
review:
The author rambles through, rather than nature, America’s early history told by the people who left, those who stayed, the things they left behind, and a number of micro histories.
]]> <![CDATA[Walking to the End of the World: A Thousand Miles on the Camino De Santiago]]> 38813765

More than two million pilgrims have walked the Way of Saint James, a long-distance hiking trail familiar to most Americans by its Spanish name, the Camino de Santiago. Each pilgrim has their own reason for undertaking the journey. For the Jusinos, it was about taking a break from the relentless pace of modern life and getting away from all their electronic devices. And how hard could it be, Beth reasoned, to walk twelve to fifteen miles a day, especially with the promise of real beds and local wine every night? Simple.


It turned out to be harder than she thought. Beth is not an athlete, not into extreme adventures, and, she insists, not a risk-taker. She didn't speak a word of French when she set out, and her Spanish was atrocious. But she can tell a story. In Walking to the End of the World, she shares, with wry humor and infectious enthusiasm, the joys and travails of undertaking such a journey. She evocatively describes the terrain and the route’s history, her fellow pilgrims, and the villages passed, and the unexpected challenges and charms of the experience.



Beth’s story is also about the assurance that an outdoor-based, boundary-stretching adventure is accessible to even the most unlikely of us. In her story, readers will feel that they, too, can get off their comfortable couches and do something unexpected and even spectacular.


Walking to the End of the World is a warm-hearted and engaging story about an average couple going on an adventure together, tracing ancient paths first created in the tenth and eleventh centuries, paths that continue to inspire and reveal surprises to us today in the twenty-first.]]> 272 Beth Jusino 168051203X Katie 0 4.18 Walking to the End of the World: A Thousand Miles on the Camino De Santiago
author: Beth Jusino
name: Katie
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: in-a-land-far-away, journeys, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Unlikely Thru-Hiker: An Appalachian Trail Journey]]> 43570679 224 Derick Lugo 1628421185 Katie 3
I do wish there was more depth to the book. So many sections were filled with short sentences, disjointed conversations, and very little reflection or insight.]]> 4.13 2019 The Unlikely Thru-Hiker: An Appalachian Trail Journey
author: Derick Lugo
name: Katie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/30
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: journeys, minority-voices, transformative-walks
review:
The author seems like a really nice guy, and mazel tov to him for starting and finishing two amazing accomplishments: hiking the AT and writing a book!

I do wish there was more depth to the book. So many sections were filled with short sentences, disjointed conversations, and very little reflection or insight.
]]> We Begin at the End 50279680
Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families—the ones we are born into and the ones we create.]]> 384 Chris Whitaker 1250759668 Katie 4 audiobook 4.10 2020 We Begin at the End
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Katie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: audiobook
review:

]]> <![CDATA[World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments]]> 48615751
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

"What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.

Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.]]> 165 Aimee Nezhukumatathil 1571313656 Katie 4 4.05 2020 World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
name: Katie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, female-voices
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau]]> 58470896

This is the first of six journeys taken by Shattuck, each one inspired by a walk once taken by Henry David Thoreau. After the Cape, Shattuck goes up Mount Katahdin and Mount Wachusett, down the coastline of his hometown, and then through the Allagash. Along the way, Shattuck encounters unexpected characters, landscapes, and stories, seeing for himself the restorative effects that walking can have on a dampened spirit. Over years of following Thoreau, Shattuck finds himself uncovering new insights about family, love, friendship, and fatherhood, and understanding more deeply the lessons walking can offer through life’s changing seasons.


Intimate, entertaining, and beautifully crafted,ĚýSix WalksĚýis a resounding tribute to the ways walking in nature can inspire us all.]]> 280 Ben Shattuck 195353404X Katie 4 3.82 Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau
author: Ben Shattuck
name: Katie
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: 25-for-2025-books-i-own, transformative-walks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cotswolds: A Cultural History (Landscapes of the Imagination)]]> 7787523 to the Cotswolds today, a picturesque destination spot popular with country-weekenders, tourists, and celebrities. Readers will visit fine churches and manor houses that have survived from the Middle Ages, and tour a landscape still bearing the scars of the Civil War. The home of kings and nobles since Saxon times, the region is famous for its elegant estates, such as Blenheim Palace--England's grandest stately home--while signs of the early industrial age can be seen in its mills and factories. Artists, musicians, and writers were also drawn to this rural paradise, from William Shakespeare and William Morris to T.S. Eliot and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Bingham captures it all in her charming portrait of this glorious spot in the heart of southern England.]]> 244 Jane Bingham 0195398750 Katie 0 to-read 3.71 2009 The Cotswolds: A Cultural History (Landscapes of the Imagination)
author: Jane Bingham
name: Katie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees]]> 195853505 From the New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders, a lyrical book of short essays about food offering a banquet of tastes, smells, memories, associations, and little-known facts about nature

In Bite by Bite, poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil explores the way food and drink evokes our associations and remembrances � a subtext or layering, a flavor tinged with joy, shame, exuberance, grief, desire, or nostalgia.

Here, Nezhukumatathil restores some of our astonishment and wonder about food through her encounter with a range of foods and food traditions. From shave ice to lumpia, mangoes to pecans, rambutan to vanilla, she investigates how food marks our experiences and identities; the boundaries between heritage and memory; and the ethics and environmental pressures around gathering and consuming food.

Bite by Bite offers a rich and textured kaleidoscope of vignettes and visions into the world of food and nature, drawn together by intimate and funny personal reflections and Fumi Nakamura’s gorgeous imagery and illustration.]]> 224 Aimee Nezhukumatathil 0063282267 Katie 0 to-read 4.03 2024 Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees
author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
name: Katie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> French Milk 1574310 179 Lucy Knisley 0978942752 Katie 2 3.34 2007 French Milk
author: Lucy Knisley
name: Katie
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Seven Steeples 58311997 A stunning, powerful new novel about a couple that pushes against traditional expectations, moving with their dogs to the Irish countryside where they embed themselves in nature and make attempts to disappear from society.

It is the winter following the summer they met. A couple, Bell and Sigh, move into a remote house in the Irish countryside with their dogs. Both solitary with misanthropic tendencies, they leave the conventional lives stretched out before them to build another--one embedded in ritual, and away from the friends and family from whom they've drifted.

They arrive at their new home on a clear January day and look up to appraise the view. A mountain gently and unspectacularly ascends from the Atlantic, "as if it had accumulated stature over centuries. As if, over centuries, it had steadily flattened itself upwards." They make a promise to climb the mountain, but--over the course of the next seven years--it remains unclimbed. We move through the seasons with Bell and Sigh as they come to understand more about the small world around them, and as their interest in the wider world recedes.

Seven Steeples is a beautiful and profound meditation on the nature of love and the resilience of nature. Through Bell and Sigh, and the life they create for themselves, Sara Baume explores what it means to escape the traditional paths laid out before us--and what it means to evolve in devotion to another person, and to the landscape.]]> 181 Sara Baume 0358629233 Katie 0 to-read 3.50 2022 Seven Steeples
author: Sara Baume
name: Katie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Safekeep 199798201
A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034344 Katie 0 4.05 2024 The Safekeep
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: Katie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, tastes-like-kugel
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Katie 5 audiobook, it-s-good-for-me You have a child (of any age)
You were a child
You know a child
You have a smartphone
You have anxiety

This was on Barack Obama’s list of favorite books of 2024. I understand why. ]]> 4.35 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Katie
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: audiobook, it-s-good-for-me
review:
Read this if:
You have a child (of any age)
You were a child
You know a child
You have a smartphone
You have anxiety

This was on Barack Obama’s list of favorite books of 2024. I understand why.
]]> The Invisible Hour 62919793
One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter ? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

From “the reigning queen of magical realism� (Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author), this is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true.]]> 272 Alice Hoffman 1982175370 Katie 0 to-read 3.54 2023 The Invisible Hour
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Katie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Berry Pickers 123036004 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]> 307 Amanda Peters 1646221958 Katie 0 to-read 4.04 2023 The Berry Pickers
author: Amanda Peters
name: Katie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life]]> 127282273
A dramatic misinterpretation of the Jewish tradition has shaped the history of the Christianity is the religion of love, and Judaism the religion of law. In the face of centuries of this widespread misrepresentation, Rabbi Shai Held―one of the most important Jewish thinkers in America today―recovers the heart of the Jewish tradition, offering the radical and moving argument that love belongs as much to Judaism as it does to Christianity. Blending intellectual rigor, a respect for tradition and the practices of a living Judaism, and a commitment to the full equality of all people, Held seeks to reclaim Judaism as it authentically is. He shows that love is foundational and constitutive of true Jewish faith, animating the singular Jewish perspective on injustice and protest, grace, family life, responsibilities to our neighbors and even our enemies, and chosenness.

Ambitious and revelatory, Judaism Is About Love illuminates the true essence of Judaism―an act of restoration from within.]]> 546 Shai Held 0374192448 Katie 5 book-love 4.55 Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life
author: Shai Held
name: Katie
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: book-love
review:

]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Katie 3 3.86 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Katie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, looks-like-fluff
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Katie 5 audiobook 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Katie
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/23
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: audiobook
review:
This book has turned me into a John Green fan. Really, really well done.
]]> <![CDATA[The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World]]> 205478740
We embraced the mediated life—from Facetune and Venmo to meme culture and the Metaverse—because these technologies offer novelty and convenience. But they also transform our sense of self and warp the boundaries between virtual and real. What are the costs? Who are we in a disembodied world?

In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control. To recover our humanity and come back to the real world, we must reclaim serendipity, community, patience, and risk.]]> 272 Christine Rosen 0393241718 Katie 0 to-read 3.69 2024 The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World
author: Christine Rosen
name: Katie
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me]]> 59364113 A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard.

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.

To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.

In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.]]> 240 Patrick Bringley 1982163321 Katie 0 to-read 4.00 2023 All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
author: Patrick Bringley
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Katie 4 4.38 2024 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Katie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, it-s-good-for-me
review:

]]> Long Island Compromise 55777544 “Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?�

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives� successes and failures.

Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives� tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.]]> 464 Taffy Brodesser-Akner 0593133498 Katie 5 3.72 2024 Long Island Compromise
author: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
name: Katie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: audiobook, female-voices, love-the-author, tastes-like-kugel
review:

]]> Black Woods Blue Sky 213243955 An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.]]> 306 Eowyn Ivey 0593231023 Katie 0 to-read 3.69 2025 Black Woods Blue Sky
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Katie
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

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