First book report of the year. First blog post of 2023. First New Years’ resolution. Post book reports on the first of every month. I’m not big on resolutions anymore, but I hope to keep this one. Last year I got so far behind. I love doing my reports for those of you who like to read them and for myself to keep track of what I’ve read and when I read it in case I want to reference it later. So let’s see how long this last.

I’m starting with my five-star books this time…and my number 1 book in that category for my late fall reading was a surprise…

The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crew A little backstory as to how I even got this book. My husband and I took a trip to Nova Scotia this past fall. I was looking for my grandfather’s family home. He was from a beautiful little fishing village in a place called Volger’s Cove. We were having lunch one day, and I heard a group of women at the next table talking about this book, but I didn’t catch the name; they were very enthusiastic about it, which piqued my curiosity. So I chatted with them for a minute, and they were lovely and directed me to a sweet little bookshop just across the road (everything is just across the road, not the street). Off I went. I thought this would be a sweet little fluff book, but I was surprised. I loved it from page one. It did have an old-fashioned feel, but not in a fluffy way. This is from the description of the book on Amazon “Born into a basket of clean sheets―ruining a perfectly good load of laundry―Emmeline never quite fit in on her family's rural Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief, toxicity, and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England. Now she is retired and living in a small coastal town with her best friend, Vera, an excellent conversationalist. Vera is also a small white dog, and so Emmeline is making an effort to talk to more humans. When she joins a memoir-writing course at the library, her classmates don't know what to make of her. Funny, loud, and with a riveting memoir, she charms the lot. As her past unfolds for her audience, friendships form, a bonus in a rather lonely life. She even shares with them her third-biggest secret: she has liberated hundreds of spoons over her lifetime―from the local library, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill. She is a compulsive spoon stealer.” That is all I’m going to let out. I would encourage all of you who are feeling like you need a warm, fuzzy but heartfelt book sometime in this long winter to check this one out. I just ordered another of hers today. Order the book, put on a fire, and boil water for a cup of real tea…snuggle in for a read that you will love. Definitely five stars…

City Guide Paris by Cereal…Cereal is a group of people who travel to cities around the world and sought out places that they believed to be unique, interesting, and enjoyable. Paris was one of the cities that they chose, and it’s my favorite city in the world. The book features a considered selection of shops, hotels, restaurants, cafes, and points of interest. It is a lovely book with lots of information and beautiful photographs. I hadn’t read it before our trip to Paris in the fall, but I’m ready for my next trip. So many places underlined, and yes, I still like looking at the photos, and my goal on my next trip will be to find those choice spots. Now to see what other favorite city they might do that I love. I give it five stars and highly recommended it if you plan to go to Paris or have been.

The Paris Hours by Alex George This was a great book also. Paris, 1927. Since the death of her beloved employer, Marcel Proust, housemaid Camile has lived with a secret. She saved one for herself when he asked her to burn his notebooks. Now it has disappeared, and she is desperate to recover it before her betrayal is revealed. Then the mystery begins. So good. It also intrigued me to try a book by Proust…My son gave me a book by him last year, and I haven’t read it yet, thinking it might be a hard read, but I’m adding it to my reading list for this year. There is also chatter about Gertrude Stein in this book, and this year at Christmas, I got the Paris Bookshop which is about her…so there you go. One book leads to another and then another. Five beautiful stars

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy This was a surprise book. A beautiful book about two sisters surviving together after leaving Alaska because of unspeakable secrets. They went to Scotland to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. Beautiful writing as she tells the tale of the wolves being accused of killing a man. It’s a complex mystery, and there are some sad parts but not enough to be scared away. It’s an unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge. Five Stars

Freedom Farm by Jennifer Neves “Within the pages of Freedom Farm, everything bristles with life, every family member, each goat and pig and stone and bean and window, each acre of the Maine farm of her childhood where she learns the difference between wanting and having, where “pleasure comes in being able to provide for yourself.” A great storyteller, humorous and a rare gift for digressions that lead us, her lucky readers, into the deepest landscapes of the human heart.” I loved this book, and I know you will too. Five stars

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens For those of you who don’t know, I am a Charles Dickens fan. I have been since way back in high school when I read almost all of his famous works. I have also visited most of his houses in England when we were there on our many trips. I have collection after collection of his books in various editions. So this past year, I decided to go back, as an adult, and re-read some of his books. One book a year. Last year was Great Expectations. It is supposedly the most autobiographical of all of his novels. I probably love this book more now than when I was much younger. Also, the modern library version was much easier to read. Although most of the words were from the old era, the language generally is much more modern. I still had to pay attention, but by the time I finished the book, I was so glad to have revisited Pip and his family. If you love Dickens, this is a great book. This is a wonderful place to start if you have never read Dickens. Five Stars for this walk down memory lane.

So, that completes my list of five-star books. I will list the 4 Stars book, but to keep this post to a reasonable length, if that is even possible, I will list the book's name, and you can check it out at your leisure.

All of the above books I gave four stars. They were all excellent, and I highly recommend them. Do you sense a Paris theme in my books this fall? I must admit I love everything about Paris; we were also fortunate to visit that beautiful city again in the Fall. The Anne Tyler book is The Beginners Goodbye. A wonderfully short book about loss and survival. If you like Anne Tyler, you will love this book. I Could Tell You Stories, Sojourns in the Land of Memory by Patricia Hempl is another short read but great. A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist. She had me at the first sentence, “A writer is, first and last, a reader.” “It is difficult and diminishing to separate the self who writes from the one who reads.” I feel that is true.

Seeing Ghost, a memoir by Kat Chow, was surprising. It was a gift, as lots of my books are, so I didn’t know what to expect. My son, though, has an uncanny way of picking the best and most interesting books that I would more often skip over. This was one of those, and yet it was fascinating. Kat weaves together what is part ghost story and part excavation of her family’s loss history, spanning three generations as they emigrate from China, Hong Kong to Cuba, and America. A Waiter In Paris, another memoir, is a fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes of trying to make it as a waiter in Paris. It’s like a mini Mafia in the kitchen. Fast-paced and totally absorbing. Emma Straub is always a good read. This Time Tomorrow was very good also. A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe was a great novel about postwar New York City that follows one remarkable woman’s journey from the United Nations to the drawing rooms of Manhattan society and into the secretive ranks of the FBI…great mystery. One of my favorites from this four-star group was Everything Left to Remember by Steph Jagger. My Mother, Our Memories and a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains. Looking back now, I probably should have put this one with the five-star books. How brave the daughter was to take her Mom on a vacation through the Rocky Mountains in the hopes of not being too late to capture some of her Mom’s memories. How trusting of the Mom to go. It was heartwarming and sometimes a bit scary when things didn’t go as planned. A brave book. The Light Of Paris by Eleanor Brown was a wonderful novel about a grandmother and her granddaughter. The granddaughter is trapped in a bad marriage with no way out until she finds and reads her Grandmothers' diary about her life in Paris during the Jazz Age. The diary inspires the granddaughter to create her own Parisian summer. An easy and wonderful read.

So there you have it. That ends my 2022 year of reading. My Goodreads goal for the year was 55 books, and I read 58. I’m picking the same goal for this year. I hope all of you who visit here and love reading will set some goals also. The older I get, the more I want to read and let go of television and some social media. The world between the pages of a good book is much better than the world we live in lately. I find joy, light, history, and drama in those pages, and each time I close a book for the last time, I feel a sense of fulfillment. That, to me, is a good way to spend my days. Wishing you all the best in books in 2023.