No.605: What I Read in December 2021

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Well, I did it.  I read 100 books in one year!  Over 29,700 pages read with my two eyes!  I’m so happy to have completed such a huge goal and even more happy to be done, ha.  (Too much internal pressure put on my favorite hobby.)  Here’s what I read in December:

#91. THE OPERATOR by Gretchen Berg
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★☆☆

I was immediately drawn to the adorable 1950s cover!  The Operator is set in the 1950s and follows a woman who works as a switchboard operator.  She loves listening in to other people’s conversations, but her life is turned upside down where she overhears some gossip about herself.  It was a good story, but not as great as I had hoped.

#92. AMBULANCE GIRL: HOW I SAVED MYSELF BY BECOMING AN EMT by Jane Stern
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★☆☆

I am so used to being fearful that when I do something brave it seems almost unreal.  I find that I have the capacity to worry things into the ground, to talk to Tom Knox about them until we are both beyond bored, to go into intricate relentless detail with Michael, and then – boom – out of the blue, all the fear just falls away and I am doing the undoable.  I now think I am the type of person who would faint at the sight of a spider but could run into a burning building to save a baby.  Fear is like a hologram.  It seems filled with substance and when you go beyond it you realize it was just an illusion. – p.129

This one is the story of a middle-aged woman who was going through a hard time: she was depressed, her marriage was rocky and she suffered from panic attacks and debilitating hypochondria.  On a whim, in an attempt to pull herself out of the mess, she decided to become an EMT and it changed her life for the better.  I loved the section about her time in EMT class.  Her descriptions were so hilarious and I laughed out loud multiple times!  I’d rate this somewhere between a three and three-and-a-half stars.

#93. HOLES IN MY SHOES: ONE FAMILY SURVIVES THE GREAT DEPRESSION by Alice Breon
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★☆☆

A little book about childhood during the Great Depression from someone who lived it.  I really enjoyed all of the personal, family photos she included throughout.

 

#94. THE POSSIBLE WORLD by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★☆☆

Another book that was a cover buy!  This novel is a little hard to explain, so here’s the brief, one line description: “An astonishing, deeply moving novel about the converging lives of a young boy who witnesses a brutal murder, the doctor who tends to him, and an elderly woman guarding her long buried past.”  I found the writing to be beautiful, but it had a mystical element that I saw coming early on and didn’t love.  Another book that I’d rate somewhere between a three and three-and-a-half stars.

#95. THE BOOKSELLER by Cynthia Swanson
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★☆☆

The historical fiction novel is set in the 1960s and follows a single woman who owns a book shop. She begins living in a parallel world in her dreams at night, where her life is completely different.  I thought this one was unique and kept me reading, but there were enough little parts that kept me scratching my head (and not necessarily in a good way).  The ultimate lesson from this book: the grass isn’t always greener.

#96. WISDOM FROM THE LIVES AND LETTERS OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES AND ST. JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL by Louise Perrotta
(word among us press)
★★★★☆

This collection of passages was the book club pick for December and it was beautiful.  I tabbed so many pages!  (I shared one of the beautiful passages in this post.)  It was a great compliment to the book of Saint Francis de Sales’ Christmas homilies that I read last year.

#97. TUCKER’S COUNTRYSIDE by George Selden
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★★☆
Another school read aloud.  This one is the sequel to The Cricket in Times Square and was really cute.  The kids and I loved the dialogue between Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat!  There was a situation at the end that was morally gray (I won’t say more as it will ruin the book), but the kids and I had a good conversation about it.  Three and a half stars, rounded up.

#98. SOUNDS LIKE TITANIC by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
(amazon // bookshop // better world books)
★★★☆☆

This memoir was CRAZY.  From the description: “When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble in New York City, she imagines she has achieved her lifelong dream.  But the ensemble proves to be a sham.  When the group ‘performs,’ the microphones are never on.  Instead, the music blares from a CD.  The mastermind behind this scheme is a peculiar and mysterious figure known as The Composer, who is gaslighting his audiences with music that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic movie soundtrack.”  This book explores many aspects of Hindman’s life, but her time with The Composer was the most fascinating part for me.

#99. COME, LORD JESUS: MEDITATIONS ON THE ART OF WAITING by Mother Mary Francis, PCC
(amazon)
★★★★★

None of us in this room knows when the fullness of time will come for us.  God grant we can meet it with courtesy.  The fullness of time, in a deep spiritual sense, comes each day, a day which will never be again.  Today is the absolute fullness of today.  Let us be drawn to love and to give and to spread joy all about us.  We are not promised tomorrow, and we cannot do anything much about yesterday, except to regret what was wrong about it.  But we have today!  We have many hours of this day left in which to love God and to love one another and to spread the joy of Advent and Christmas far and wide, because what we spread in community will not be contained in community.  It will spread far and wide. (p.202)

I just love, love, love this book.  So many wonderful thoughts and nuggets of wisdom.  (I shared one of the beautiful meditations in this post.)  I’ll definitely be reading it again.

#100. WINTER WORLD by A.G. Riddle
(amazon // better world books)
★★☆☆☆

Ending the year with yet another book outside my comfort zone, this time apocalyptical science fiction!  This read like a mix of Ender’s Game and The Martian and was hard for me to visualize/understand all of the space lingo.  I also thought there were a lot of pages for not nearly enough action.  Don’t take my word for it – I’m not a science fiction reader! – but this was just okay for me.

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FINAL READING STATS FOR 2021

Total books read // 100
Total pages read // 29,738
Physical or ebook? // Physical: 90, Ebook: 10
Genre breakdown // Fiction: 67, Non-Fiction: 19, Religious: 14
Stars breakdown //
★☆☆☆☆: 0
★★☆☆☆: 19
★★★☆☆: 50
★★★★☆: 27
★★★★★: 4