Book Year

What books did you turn to this past year? I wanted to share the ones that took me away from the turmoil of 2020. While the "want to reads" were published this past year, the books I read are all over the map in terms of when they were published.

1. Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser--Having adored Fraser's book on Marie Antoinette, I was pleased and excited to receive this as a gift. I'm only quarter of the way through but can tell you Fraser puts you in the center of Mary's passions and though I want her to succeed, I'm racing along trying to figure out each wrong turn and how it led to tragedy.

2. The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg--Edie Middlestein is physically and emotionally larger than any real-life woman would be, but if anyone in your family is remotely like her, you can see the parallels everywhere. Meanwhile, the effect she has on her daughter, ex-husband and grandchildren is riveting, to say the least.

3. Risking the Rapids: How My Wilderness Adventure Healed My Childhood by Irene O'Garden--I am a long-time fan of this author, and keep coming back because she nails every journey so viscerally. (Check out her newest publication Glad to Be Human, which was published this year, as well). Digging into family stories from the safety of one's home is one thing; but risking one's life while taking on rapids in Montana quite another. What she conveys, in brilliant prose, is how growing up in a dysfunctional family was a much more dangerous journey, and how it could only and best be understood by facing down physical danger and understanding that she had the courage to be a survivor.

Want to Reads from 2020

The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel--the only reason I haven't jumped on this book about Thomas Cromwell's endgame is that I'm still reading Mary Queen of Scots, and I've also spent way more time binge watching this year. I devoured Mantel's first two books and anticipate I'll do the same with this one.

Want by Lynn Steger Strong--The years I spent in Park Slope (which changed in a long, lockstep march from an artists' haven to artisan hell) pulled me into this novel and after reading just a few pages, pulled it onto my wish list. One woman's struggle to keep her family afloat in a city that measures everyone by how well they're doing is yet another parallel to our lives. Even the title reeled me in--and I hope to let you know what I think after I read it.

Of course while I'm reading, I'm writing too, and just started sitting down to begin part three of the Beat Street Series (book two was published in 2018). It's taken me a while to get to it because I wrote another book (for adults) that I'm hoping to send out to agents and publishers this year. I'll let you know what it's about, I promise. But not now.

Redhead reading photo: Frank Kovalchek