December Book List

Twelve books read in the twelfth month, for a total of 123 for the year of 2018.

Closed Circle by Robert Goddard is one on this British author's older novels. I picked it up from the rehab room while in the hospital and enjoyed it very much. (And now I know where I can donate some of my books when I've finished them.)

Blindsighted, Kisscut and A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter are the first three books of her Grant County series.

Gone So Long by Andre Dubus III was rated a 'zero' by a previous reader at our library because it was 'so sad'. Yes, it is sad, but it is a beautifully written book about a father estranged from his daughter for the worst of reasons. Decades later, before he dies, he tries to get in touch with her in order to seek absolution.

Holy Ghost - Finally it was my turn to read John Sandford's (#11) latest Virgil Flowers novel! It didn't disappoint and I 'almost' had the culprit figured out. ☺

Desolation Mountain is #17 of William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor series. This is one of my favorite series, set in the Northern Minnesota wilderness of the Native American Ojibwe's.

Faithless and Beyond Reach are #'s 5 and 6 of Karin Slaughter's Grant County series. (Unfortunately our library doesn't have # 4.)

Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg is a continuation of some of the characters from her previous The Story of Arthur Truluv. Berg is one of my 'adopted authors', so I was the first reader of this one. It is a quick, 'feel good' read.

Where The Crawdads Sing* is Delia Owens first novel. She is the author of three internationally best selling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist in Africa. This is a part 'coming of age', part love story, part mystery novel - but mostly it is a story of the importance and beauty of North Carolina's marshes - as well as a reminder of how we are shaped by the children we once were. This was my favorite read this month.

Jodi Picoult does not shy from the controversial issues of the day as evidenced in her latest novel, a spark of light, which deals with a distraught gunman shooting several people in the last women's reproductive health services clinic in Mississippi still providing abortions. This was not only a riveting read, it was also thought provoking - whether the reader is pro-choice or pro-life.

*There are a number of poems in this book, all attributed to the author Amanda Hamilton. I liked them so much I made a note to look her up. Then at the end of the book, we find out AH was the nom de plume of the main character. In other words, the poems are those of Ms. Owens. Here is one of 'Amanda Hamilton's' poems I liked:

"Sunsets are never simple.
Twilight is refracted and reflected
But never true.
Eventide is a disguise
Covering tracks,
Covering lies.

We don't care
That dusk deceives.
We see brilliant colors,
And never learn
The sun has dropped
Beneath the earth
By the time we see the burn.

Sunsets are in disguise,
Covering truths, covering lies."

And another:

"Fading moon, follow 
My footsteps
Through light unbroken
By land shadows,
And share my senses
That feel the cool
Shoulders of silence.

Only you know
How one side of a moment
Is stretched by loneliness
For miles
To the other edge, 
And how much sky
Is in one breath

When time slides backward
From the sand."

Here's to another year of good reading in 2019. 💖