Given the extraordinary times we are all experiencing, it occurred to me that rather than wait for a mid-year or end of the year call for your favorite reads, we should do something a bit different. Let’s share with each other, on a monthly basis, books that are entertaining and meaningful to us since the first of the year.
Here’s my idea and request and how we can start:
From the last three months, Jan. 1-Mar. 31, pick one favorite read (and one favorite listen if you listen to books also) and send me the title, author, and whether the book is fiction (F) or nonfiction (NF). Please write Just three sentences about it so others may know more than just the title. Please follow these few instructions as it makes my job of compiling the list easier.
(Note 1: If you’re having trouble choosing just one title, save your other favorites for next month’s submission. See below).
To begin, send me your first favorite by April 7, and I will post the results on MillersTime by April 10th.
Then, at the end of the first week of May, the 7th, do it again, with the best single book you’ve read and the best one you’ve listened to in the month of April. I will post what you send by May 10th. (I, of course, will remind you to do this in one of my ‘gentle’ nudges.)
We’ll continue this sharing of a favorite read and/or a favorite audio book for the following few months too, if readers are enjoying it.
I hope you’ll contribute each month.
Get started now on sending me one favorite book and/or one favorite listen by April 7. I won’t bother to remind you or bother you this time.
PS – If you’re looking for ideas of something to read, here’s the link to Favorite Reads from 2019.
Ellen Kessler said:
What a great idea! It makes it easier for if I don’t have to recall 11 months!
My recommendation is for Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. It was given to me by my daughter who said only that it is “a beautiful book.” My 3 sentences:
It is a beautiful book! It is about the 13th summer in the life of the narrator, recalled about 30 years later in a elegant “whodunit”. The cadence of the book somehow captures the confusion and the concerns of that summer and the beauty of life.
I’d love to know what people think about it!
Land Wayland said:
I am re-reading The Map That Changed the World: WIlliam Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, by Simon Winchester, Perennial Books 2001. Smith, a canal digger in England in 1793, discovered he could follow layers of rock all over England and he spent 22 years doing that and creating a map of the country’s geological roots. In 1815, this map was published in a full-color 5 foot by 8 foot book and turned the scientific and the religious world up side down. Clear explanation, excellent lively narrative, and lots of detail and asides to create context. Five stars for content and presentation.
Chris McCleary said:
I’ve recently been reading The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski and enthusiastically recommend The Last Wish. The Last Wish is a collection of fictional short stories in the Fantasy genre, collected and published together in 2008, which should be read first if you wish to read the published works in narrative chronological order (as opposed to the published order). This collection of stories is also the primary source material for the eponymous Netflix series, The Witcher. After watching the first season of that show, I became enamored with the world Mr. Sapkowski had created and started reading the source material.
Judy L White said:
I just finished Strangers in the House: A Prairie Story of Bigotry and Belonging, by Candace Savage. I had trouble following this story at first, then realized it was because of my ignorance of Canadian history and geography. After moving into a house in Saskatoon, and finding intriguing ‘found objects’ inside the walls during a renovation, she traces the history of the family who built the house, and uncovers a level of prejudice and ethnic violence that I had no idea had existed in Canada. Very well written; the second half is easier to follow than the first.
Robin Rice said:
My local guy, Eric, at Pegasus Books in W. Seattle – used and new books – recommended MINK RIVER, by Brian Doyle, when I asked for a second recommendation after his first of A Gentleman In Moscow. “I love this book,” he said, and so did I, a mix of stream of conscious narrative, humor, a good story, evocation of terrain on the Oregon Coast, and two wonderful wacky characters. It’s a love of a book.
Lydia Slaby said:
Am I too late? My newest favorite heroine detective is Veronica Speedwell (first book in the series is A Curious Beginning, by Deanna Raybourn, Fiction). Fiesty, smart, and set in the late 1800s London. Five books and counting, so makes a lovely little escape for a week or so depending on how quickly you can read these days.
I’ve also been enjoying the Hangman’s Daughter series (first book is The Hangman’s Daughter, by Oliver Potzsch, Fiction). Also mysteries, but set in 1600s Germany, and does a fascinating job of setting the scene of that world.
Finally, a quick read, The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss (Fiction) is a beautiful, haunting, extraordinary novella that goes into the world of Auri from his Kingkiller Chronicles (The Name of the Wind). Reviews have been knocking this book, but ignore them. It’s a gorgeous examination of an intriguing character who lives in a slower more observant world than the rest of us. I would argue a brilliant book for the moment that we’re living through right now.
ALSO, plug for bookshop.org — a new website set up as an independent bookstore competitor to Amazon. It’s brand new and still in beta, but very VERY worth a gander and a purchase.