Review: The Lonely Hearts Book Club

If you’re a reader (and I assume you are if you’ve found your way to this space) you likely enjoy books about books and reading. Add a curmudgeon who has gotten a bit lost but books or reading will put him back on the right path and I am very much sold. That’s a very very general description of Lucy Gilmore’s The Lonely Hearts Book Club, publishing on April 4.

Sloane Parker lives a quiet life as a small-town librarian. She’s not close with her parents and hopes that her fiance’s family will embrace her, even though her prospective mother-in-law is not her biggest fan. She hopes that she will soon get a promotion at the library, but then she runs into Arthur McLachlan, a very irritable senior patron. The other librarians steer clear of Arthur as much as possible but Sloane sees a challenge, one that soon has her life looking very different as she finds herself in a book club at Arthur’s house with a group of lonely misfits.

The characters in this book have so much depth. The book is split into sections which focus on each character and they don’t switch back and forth so you really get to know each character without having to keep straight who is who when (I’m reading a book like that right now and it’s driving me mad.): there’s Sloane, eventually you get to know Arthur, his neighbour Maisey who is adept at reading everyone except those closest to her, Greg who is dealing with the death of his mother and trying to figure out who he is without her, and Mateo who is living in his mother’s shadow, ignoring who he could be to stand outside of her shadow, Gilmore does a great job with each of the characters, giving them (mostly) believable backstories that are tender while still infusing them with enough humour to make it all charming, not depressing.

As with these types of books (I’m thinking mainly of The Reading List, an apt comparison but way more serious and a tough traumatic), the group has books assigned to read and discuss. I appreciated the choices in this book because while the third was a classic in the traditional sense, the first two were books by Asian authors – well-known, modern classics but it still felt like a deliberate choice and I appreciated it.

I really liked this book. I think it could make for great lake/pool/beach side reading this summer and I’d absolutely read more from Lucy Gilmore!

Thanks to SourceBooks via NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Mitford Affair

Marie Benedict has another historical fiction novel for us, this time focusing on three sisters, Nancy, Diana and Unity Mitford.

For those not familiar with the Mitfords, they were a family of six daugters (and a son, Tom), cousins of Winston Churchill by marriage, who made a splash in their day. Youngest sister Deborah (Debo) became the Duchess of Devonshire!

But this novel focuses on the years leading up to WWII as Diana and Unity claim more than a passing affinity for fascism; Diana via her relationship with the English fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and Unity via hers with Adolf Hitler. Nancy tries to figure out how seriously she should take their attraction to fascism as Great Britain faces war with Germany.

Like her previous novels, The Mitford Affair is written in short chapters on certain dates, making it easy to read in short sittings although I would have preferred to read it in longer chunks of time. I felt like I was losing the emotional threads Benedict was weaving because it was easy to jump in and out of the book at natural pauses. When I had time to read it in a more significant stretch of time, I was struck by the emotional nuance of Nancy’s relationship to their mother in particular, as well as the complicated dynamics within all sister relationships, even ones not muddied by differing ideologies.

So the really uncomfortable part of this novel for me (and for the author as well as she makes clear in her Author’s Note) was being so up close and personal with Hitler as he’s playing the part of gentleman for Unity and the beautiful, poised Diana. Unity in particular is obsessed with him in a romantic sense and it was just ick to read that even though I know that that’s what the real Unity likely thought.

Still, when I gave myself the time with this one, I really enjoyed it. Marie Benedict proves once again that she is adept at giving voice to women in history, even less than savoury ones in this case.

Like all good historical ficton novels, this one will without a doubt send you down a Google rabbit hole as you’ll want to know what happened to the sisters after the book ends in the early days of the war. If you’re looking for a nonfiction companion book to read with this one, I can recommend Sisters: The Saga of the Mitfords by Mary S. Lovell.

Thanks to SourceBooks via NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hi!

It has been A While. More than a year, in fact!

A lot has happened since I last posted here. I wasn’t at all sure that I was going to come back if I’m being honest.

But I just can’t seem to quit this space.

I’m coming back in 2023. I have a new kid now, born in April. If you follow me in instagram you know all about him. He’s the best. And you may also know that my instagram was hacked right after he was born. I couldn’t get the account back and that’s something I’m still sad about. If you’re looking for me, I’m now @thepaperbprincess – a subtle but important distinction.

So even with all of that, the chaos of adjusting to two kids (plus our dog who has had some significant health challenges this year that thankfully seem to finally be on the upswing), I’ve been reading! The biggest change in my reading life has been the addition of an ereader. Yup, finally made the jump.

(Again, if you’re with me on IG none of this is news and I’m sorry!)

I hate that there’s no colour on the ereader but otherwise I love that little gadget. I’ve finished over 150 books this year and the year is not over!

Ah that’s the end of naptime so I need to wrap this up. Leave me a note and let me know what you’ve been up to? So looking forward to reconnecting!

#LiteraryWives: The Summer Wives

It’s time for Literary Wives, a blogging club that looks at the depiction of wives in fiction!

As always, if you haven’t already please make sure to check out the posts by the other wives and join in the discussion if you’ve read The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams! There are definitely spoilers ahead.

Kay @ Whatmeread
Lynn @ Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi @ Consumed By Ink

I read this book back in February. Sometimes if I’ve already read the book we are going to talk about for Literary Wives, I will read it again to refresh myself and be better prepared to get into a discussion. And sometimes, as is the case for The Summer Wives, I can’t bring myself to do that because the first reading was painful enough.

The Book

As is often the case with Williams’ books, The Summer Wives, looks at the lives of privileged families and how the interact with those around them. If I remember correctly, this book operates on a dual timeline: 1951 when Miranda Schuyler arrives on ‘the island’ as a schoolgirl reeling from the loss of her father. Her mother is about the marry Hugh Fischer, a son of one of ‘the families.’ Now Miranda is part of the society of summer families and her new stepsister, Isobel is keen to draw her in. But there are other families on the island, like the Portuguese fishermen and domestic workers who earn their living serving those who come for the season. Miranda is drawn to one Joseph Vargas, whose father keeps the lighthouse. Isobel and Joseph have a long, complicated friendship. A bad thing happens and Miranda doesn’t return to the island until the second timeline, 1969. Now she’s a famous actress, suffering from a terrible heartbreak she doesn’t want anyone to know about. The Fischer family is not what it was and Joseph Vargas has escaped from prison where he was serving time for the murder of Miranda’s stepfather.

My Thoughts

I picked this book up because it sounded dramatic and I always enjoy books about wealthy people behaving badly. I’ve definitely been hit or miss with Beatriz Williams though so I should have been wary. This one dragged on for me and I couldn’t even care about any of the characters, or what Williams might have been saying about class and gender roles. The book dragged for me and all I could think about was when will it end?

 

 

What does the book say about being a wife?

That it sucks? I can’t recall if Miranda is married when she comes back to the island in 1969 but obviously the two wives in the book are Miranda’s mother, whose second husband dies quite soon after they marry, and Joseph’s ‘mysterious’ mother. Miranda’s mother is left to figure out what to do with everything, the money, the house, the children, when her husband is killed but it’s 1951 so women can barely do anything themselves. And Joseph’s mother is imprisoned by the decisions she made years ago (there might be a third timeline for when she’s young and so is Hugh Fischer). All in all The Summer Wives is a grim showing for women.

Honestly you should visit the other blogs because they will have done a way better job at having this discussion. Forgive me ladies! 

So be sure to visit the other blogs and get in on the discussion! And come back in March when we’ll discuss I’m Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagan. Promise I will do a way better job that time. 

Nonfiction November 2021 (Week 5): New to my TBR

Here we are, the final week of another incredible month of nonfiction reading. At the beginning of the month, I was struggling with the remnants of a truly heinous reading slump. I’d had two back to back months of so-so reading and was really missing my favourite thing to do! I was hopeful that reading nonfiction all month and connecting with other nonfiction readers was going to kick the slump to the curb for once and for all.

And guess what? It totally did! I managed to finish 13 nonfiction books this month and pretty well all of them were incredible (not The Fact of a Body, I hated that one). Some of them were recommendations from other bloggers this month that I managed to get my hands on right away, so thank you! (I will tell you which ones below.)

So to wrap things up, Jaymi @ The OC Book Girl is hosting and wants to know what books have made it onto your TBR?

This year I added more books to my TBR because of Nonfiction November than I have in any of the other 5+ years I’ve participated. And like I mentioned, I’ve already read some which has never happened before! This year I added:

Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by Cherie Diamond thanks to Jaymi @ The OC Book Girl who said it’s the kind of book that’s easy to forget it’s nonfiction. I love books like that!

Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit, and the Making of the College Admissions Scandal by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz, also came to me from Jamie! She got me talking about how sad it was to read about the kids’ reactions when they realized that their parents didn’t think they could get into the schools on their own. I’ve already read this one and I really enjoyed it. It’s verrrrrry thorough but they did a good job making it about the people in the system and not getting bogged down in legalese.

The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede: Carol at Reading Ladies put this one on my radar. She called it one of her favourites of the year and since I’d recently read The Only Plane in the Sky, this seemed like a good companion read. I’ve read this one too, just finished it the other day, and I can see why it was a favourite. I cried through the entire thing – mostly happy tears, but some heartbreak for sure. It’ll reinstate your faith that humanity is essentially good. Or we were, at one time, anyway.

Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body by Rebekah Taussig: I found this one on Based on a True Story and since I’m always looking for more books by disabled authors, I was excited to see this. I read this one this month and loved it. It’s a memoir in essay form, about love, sex, education, working, accommodations, how the kindness of strangers often infantilizes and angers her. Definitely recommend this one.

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore: Kate Moore wrote Radium Girls which I loved so when I saw this one on Book’d Out, I barely thought about it before adding it to my list. This is the last one that I’ve already read this month and I loved it so much. SO MUCH. It made me so angry and I cried and I was so proud of Elizabeth and all she accomplished in her life. This one is about Elizabeth Packard, a married mother of 6 who starts questioning the doctrines of her husband’s church (namely she finds that slavery should be abolished) and so her husband puts her in an asylum. He’s completely legally allowed to do so and she has no way to get out. So begins her crusade to not only free herself, but to make it illegal for other husbands and fathers to lock away their ‘troublesome’ wives and daughters.

Shelley Rae @ Book’d Out also put How to Fake Being Tidy by Finella Souter and The Schoolgirl Strangler by Katherine Kovacic on my list.

Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer: Julie @ Julz Reads added this to my list. I read and LOVED Melanie Benjamin’s The Swans of Fifth Avenue and have been looking for the nonfiction counterpart ever since. I’ve read The Kennedy Men and The Kennedy Women by Leamer already so I feel confident that he would have done them justice.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed by Men by Caroline Criado Perez: I’ve seen this one floating around on instagram, but it was Unsolicited Feedback that got it on my actual TBR. This one looks at the harm done to women because of a critical data gap.

Jorwerd: The Death of the Village in the Late Twentieth Century by Geert Mak: I am always on the lookout for books about the Netherlands (I was born there) but they’re not easy to find in English. Marianne @ Let’s Read had this on one of her lists and I hope I can find it here because the story of how this one village in Friesland changed because of how we work and interact together is one I really want to read!

Based on a True Story came through with two more books for my TBR (although of a darker tone than Sitting Pretty was!): Devil in the Grove and Beneath a Ruthless Sun, both by Gilbert King. These ones, about murder, sexual assault and police corruption, should scratch the true crime itch.

Finally, Rennie @ What’s Nonfiction? really went out of her way to beef up my TBR this year:

First, she added the food memoirs, Save Me The Plums by Ruth Reichl and The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty in Week 3.

Then, last week, she convinced me to add The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vailiant, about a cannibalistic tiger in Siberia, something I never thought I would want to read about. But she didn’t stop there. She also had Twilight of Empire: The Tragedy at Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs by Greg King and Penny Wilson and Stealing Sisi’s Star by Jennifer Bowers Bahney ready for me. We have since discovered that we are both fascinated with (borderline obsessed by) Empress Sisi and our mission is to bring her story to the North American masses. Truly, read about her, you won’t be disappointed!

So that’s a wrap on Nonfiction Novemer 2021, I guess! Thanks to our hosts, Katie @ Doing Dewey and Rennie @ What’s Nonfiction are back as hosts and three new hosts are joining: Veronica @ The Thousand Book Project, Christopher @ Plucked From the Stacks, and Jaymi @ The OC Book Girl for doing such an amazing job running this event this year! And thanks to all of you for sharing your favourite nonfiction reads this year!

See you all in 2022?

Nonfiction November 2021 (Week4): Stranger Than Fiction

Has November been a strange month for anyone else? It has felt at once like it’s gone by in the blink of an eye and like the longest month ever. Anyway, here we are in the 4th week of Nonfiction November, hosted by Christopher @ Plucked From the Stacks.

This week we’re focusing on all the great nonfiction books that almost don’t seem real. A sports biography involving overcoming massive obstacles, a profile on a bizarre scam, a look into the natural wonders in our world—basically, if it makes your jaw drop, you can highlight it for this week’s topic.

I think this kind of nonfiction, that almost doesn’t seem real, is such great gateway nonfiction for those who think they only like fiction. So let’s see if we can’t convert some more fiction readers over to the nonfiction side!

A Woman Of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII by Sonia Purnell. I’ve actually just finished this. This is honestly a completely bananas story of an American woman with a disability (she was missing part of one leg) who worked to organize the Resistance in France. Virginia Hall supplied information to the Allies to help them win the war, arranged for French citizens to receive food, money, medicine, and arms to help the fight on the ground, and she planned guerilla tactics like blowing up bridges and messing with German supply lines to frustrate the enemy before Allied forces arrived back in Western Europe. Ultimately she was secretly awarded the Croix de Guerre, a French military honour, but her return to life after the war was an endless frustration of having to prove herself to the men who were threatened by her experience and brilliance. I’m just waiting for the miniseries.

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park. There aren’t a lot of books about what life is like for North Koreans or even what life is like for those who manage to get out. Yeonmi Park’s story includes what it was like growing up in North Korea, the love for their leader, the willingness of anyone to turn on anyone else, the hunger, the lengths people would go to for food. And then Yeonmi, her mother and her sister manage to get out. Her sister goes first and it is many years before they are reunited. Yeonmi goes with her mother, brought over the border by human traffickers, and so begins their life of being non-people. They have no official documentation in China so they are at the mercy of those who would sell them. This is a harrowing account from a corner of the world we just don’t get access to and it’s wild to think that any one thing happened, let alone all of them.

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner. Here’s a more gentle read for those of you not into spies or life and death border crossings. Anne Glenconner, was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002 and had a front row seat to a lot of history in The Family. She was part of the Queen’s coronation in 1953. She and her husband were also behind what became a bit of an infamous resort, Mustique. She was married to Lord Glenconner for 54 years – on their honeymoon in Paris, he brought her to watch other people having sex (watch her tell the story on Graham Norton) and when he died he left everything to a former servant – and two of their sons died and a third was nursed back to health by Lady Glenconner after a terrible motorcycle accident. Queens, Princesses, badly behaved husbands, Mustique, celebrities like Mick Jagger – Anne Glenconner tells it all.

So there you have my picks. Hopefully one of these catches your attention that might not have otherwise shown up on your radar!

Make sure you visit Plucked From the Stacks to link up with more hard to believe nonfiction!

Nonfiction November Week 3 (2021): Be The Expert

Is November flying by for anyone else? We are the people who have definitely already put up our Christmas decorations.

We’re already in Week 3 of Nonfiction November! This week, Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert, is hosted by Veronica @ The Thousand Book Project. Be sure to visit to get the full details and link up with other bloggers this week!

I’ve only ever chosen Be the Expert for this week because I am pathologically incapable of giving up the chance to tell other readers about some books they should put on their radar. And like last year, I’ve taken inspiration from a book I’ve just started. I am 18 minutes into the audiobook of Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Muller so I’m in no way ready to talk about this one, a memoir of growing up Indigenous in Manitoba and how the author got involved in environmental work. But reading work, fiction and nonfiction, by Indigenous authors has become a priority for me in the last few years so I thought I would share some nonfiction highlights.

I used to shy away from reading these books. They’re hard. They don’t put Canada or Canadians in a great light and it’s often uncomfortable reading. But as someone living and working on the traditional territory (stolen land) of the Semiahmoo, sq̓əc̓iy̓aɁɬ təməxʷ (Katzie), sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsawwassen), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), W̱SÁNEĆ, and Kwantlen peoples, being uncomfortable in my reading is kind of the least I can do.

So here are some books about Indigenous experiences that I think you should read! Even if you’re not Canadian!

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21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Josephs. This is the foundational one, that explains how this Act informed policy for decades and how the affects are still felt today! It covers the parts of the Indian Act that we kind of already knew about and so many things that we had no idea. It’s based on a viral blog post by the author, a cultural sensitivity trainer in corporate spaces, and is well worth your time.

From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle. This is a memoir about growing up cut off from his Indigenous heritage, the abuse he suffered as a child, his struggles with addiction and finding his way back to his culture. It is such an incredible story.

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga. This is a rough one. Talaga investigates the deaths of seven teenagers in Thunder Bay, and the culture of racism that makes it so hard for these kids to exist in the city. Further north there are often no schools beyond grade 7, so kids are sent to live in Thunder Bay, sometimes with relatives, sometimes with relative strangers, so that they can go to highschool. I read it ages ago and still think about it.

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference, and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid. This one is a bit of an outlier on this list because the author is not Indigenous. But she handled the stories of the Missing and Murdered Women and Girls so beautifully, approached the families so respectfully, that I’m including this on the list because the stories she told are important. There is a stretch of highway in Northern BC that has become known as the Highway of Tears because so many Indigenous women and girls have gone missing along there or found dead. And their disappearances or murders have rarely been seriously investigated by authorities, leaving families without answers for decades in some cases.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott. This is a collection of essays by am incredibly talented young woman. I believe this collection has just been released in the States which is exciting! These essays deal with mental health struggles, the disappearance of Indigenous languages, the privilege of being able to pass for white, and the lack of legal redress for Indigenous peoples. It is a raw, angry, devastating and beautiful collection.

So those are my picks this week! Are there any Indigenous nonfiction titles that I need to read ASAP? I will add a shout out to Eden Robinson’s fantastic fantasy series, Son of a Trickster. And also Katherena Vermette’s The Strangers and The Break. Obviously those are all fiction but they’re so good.

Next year maybe I will pick a ‘fun’ topic…

Nonfiction November 2021 (Week 2): Fiction/Nonfiction Pairings

I don’t know about you but I added quite a few books to my TBR thanks to all your posts last week! I’ve even read one of them! A record for me!

This week Katie @ Doing Dewey is hosting Fiction/Nonfiction Pairings. Normally this week is a breeze for me because my fiction reading tends to send me in search of related nonfiction. But for some reason, this year finding pairings to share has been a bit of a stretch!

Women in the City

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Last year I read (and loved) The Girl in White Gloves by Kerri Maher. It is a fictionalized account of Grace Kelly’s life as she leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in New York City as a model and actress. It does move into her marriage to Prince Rainer of Monaco and made Grace Kelly sound a lot more interesting than any biography of hers I’ve read.

When Grace Kelly moves to the City, she rents a room at the Barbizon, the only rooming house that was acceptable for a woman of her class. Paulina Bren’s The Barbizon traces the history of the building, and includes stories of it’s more famous residents like Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion. Highly recommend for those of you that love New York City history. For bonus points, you could read The Bell Jar which is based on the summer that Plath spent living at the Barbizon.

Residential Schools

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This past year Canadians have been forced to reckon with the legacy of residential ‘schools’ as thousands of children have been found buried beneath the buildings that once housed them. Indigenous communities have been telling us about these places for generations, trying to find their lost children. The Education of Augie Merasty is a first-person account of Joseph Auguste Merasty’s time at a residential ‘school’ in Saskatchewan. It is brutal and painful and heartbreaking and I would argue that it’s also completely necessary reading. I will caution the reader that the person who helped Mr Merasty write his memoir doesn’t have the highest opinion of him but I still recommend this little book. It won’t bring the children back but it will make us witnesses to what happened.

You may be asking yourself how a magical book of whimsy like The House in the Cerulean Sea is related to residential schools. The author TJ Klune read about Canadian residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, and decided that that would be a great basis for a fantasy story. I didn’t know this until after I read (and loved) the book. It is problematic for a white, cis-gender male to co-opt a painful history that isn’t his own and use it in this way. If you’ve read The House in the Cerulean Sea, please read about Augie Merasty too.

Click here if you’re interested in my lighter picks from last year.

Nonfiction November 2021 Week 1: My Year in Nonfiction

And here we are! November 1^st! I look forward to this date every year because it is the beginning of a whole month of nonfiction reading and talking about nonfiction.

Let’s get into it!

This week Rennie @ What’s Nonfiction is hosting us!

Week 1: (November 1-5) – Your Year in Nonfiction with Rennie at What’s Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?  

Looking back on my year in nonfiction reading, it’s been pretty good! Normally I roll into NFN with around 29% of my reading being nonfiction. This year I’m coming in at 35%. I attribute this completely to my newfound love of audiobooks, since I only listen to nonfiction.

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I’m not sure that I can say that I have ONE favourite nonfiction read this year. Andre Leon Talley’s The Chiffon Trenches stands out because it was the very first audiobook I listened to and I still hear his voice telling me his life story. It was gossipy and I learned a lot but it was also incredibly reflective. I didn’t expect to meet the real Andre Leon Talley, you know what I mean? I felt the same way about Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile (bonus, she sings on the audio version!) and Jonathan Van Ness’ Over the Top.

Year Book by Seth Rogen and The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson both made me actually cry and cry from laughing so hard. Would also put Colin Jost’s A Very Punchable Face on this list.

I loved loved loved Notes From a Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi, Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner (which I got from Nonfiction November last year so thank you if that was you!), and I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell. Dutch Girl by Robert Matzen, about Audrey’s experiences in the Netherlands during WWII, and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zimmer were both so very good. And it doesn’t feel right to say I loved The Only Plane in the Sky by Garret M. Graff but it’s a book that has stuck with me since I finished the last page.

I’ve definitely been more drawn to reading about experiences that are not my own. That’s what was drawing me to Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong, What Doesn’t Kill You by Tessa Miller, The Education of Augie Merasty by Joseph Auguste Merasty and David Carpenter, Transgender History by Susan Stryker, and Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter by Heath Davis Fogg, the latter of which gave me a lot to think about in terms of what changes could practically be made in my workplace to make everyone feel respected and included.

But I think that I’ve recommended Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May the most. I listened to it on audio and it was so comforting at a time when we’re in this prolonged grief and anxiety about what the world looks like now and what is coming. I am already ready for a re-read so I think I need to buy a physical copy. I’ve also pushed Brandi Carlile on audio and told anyone who lives in/grew up in Vancouver that they need to read Seth Rogen’s book. I’ve definitely also talked about The Housewives by Brian Moylan a lot. I love the Real Housewives, unapologetically. And reading Moylan’s book was a JOY.

I was having a really great reading year until September. Since then I have been struggling to find my reading joy. So I’m hoping that all of your energy will spur me on to get back to it! I love getting to talk about nonfiction with all of you and I can’t wait to see what new books I add to my list!

Happy reading!

Nonfiction November is coming!

It is dark and rainy outside and I am counting the days until Nonfiction November officially begins!

Katie @ Doing Dewey and Rennie @ What’s Nonfiction are back as hosts and three new hosts are joining: Veronica @ The Thousand Book Project, Christopher @ Plucked From the Stacks, and Jaymi @ The OC Book Girl.

I have been an appallingly bad book blogger for…too long to even count at this point. My reading has been suffering the last two months as well. I am hoping that the energy of all the other nonfiction readers will help me get my reading mojo back.

If you’re doing Nonfiction November too, let me know! Come find me on instagram and let’s talk about our favourites. I have some titles that I’m really excited to get to this month and I know I’m going to learn about so many new books from all of you.

Head to Doing Dewey for more details on how to join!