Books I Read In December

 Ten books read in December for a total of 97 for the year. 

My One and Only by Kristan Higgins is one I chose in order to have a paper back by the bed and because I have been enjoying some of her other romances. This one was a definite disappointment.

False Witness is Karin Slaughter's latest stand alone novel. It is as well written and finely crafted as all her other crime thrillers I have read.

Wish You Were Here is Jodi Picoult's newest novel. It is set in NYC during the early days of the Covid crisis. On the eve of departure on their dream vacation to the Galapagos, the boyfriend breaks the news that he has to stay because it is 'all hands on deck' at the hospital where he works. He encourages his girlfriend to go ahead because the trip is non-refundable. She goes alone and then finds herself stranded because of the pandemic.

I don't know how Picoult can write so beautifully about any and all subjects. I loved learning more about the Galapogos, their beauty and magic. This book had a twist that only added to its enjoyment. I won't spoil it for you.

A Darker Reality is the third in Anne Perry's Elena Standish series. I am really enjoying this series set in the 1930's between the two World Wars.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig was the Adult Book Club's choice for December. I wasn't planning on attending Tuesday's meeting (which was cancelled anyway), but I did want to read the book. It was about a woman who wanted to die, but ended up in the Midnight Library where she could choose any book which would give her variations of what her life could have been. I wasn't surprised by the life she finally chose, but it was an interesting read.

Leave The World Behind  by Rumaan Alam is a book I read after a conversation with a friend in Wisconsin. Kristina told me about her favorite bookstore located in a nearby small town. I visited their website and it does look like a delightful store, one I'd certainly love to visit. The website listed a number of books recommended by their staff. This was the only one of those that my local library had. It is not a book I would normally read - a dystopian novel about the end of the world. I found it disturbing because it is too close to my fears for our world. But the book was well written with just a tad bit of hope in the ending.

The Crossing and The Wrong Side Of Goodbye were the next two books in the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly. These books are like eating candy, once I start, I cannot stop. 

The Book Of Magic by Alice Hoffman is the fourth and concluding book of her Practical Magic series. As with some other last books in a series I have read, this one felt rushed, as in, "Let's just get it over with." I did not like it as much as the preceding novels.

And finally, Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout which I just finished yesterday. I've been a fan of her writing since reading her Pulitzer Prize winner Olive Kitteridge. The narrator of this book offers her reflection on the nature of existence: "This is the way of life, the many things we do not know until it is too late."

I look forward to another year of good reading in 2022. I hope you do too. Happy New Year! 🎉

January to December - 2021 in Photos

 Nature, nature, nature, nurturance! 💚

January - Adams Street bridge at Lake McKinley.

February - A lovely Mourning Dove on a frosty morn.

March - They look like smoke signals but in reality are flint colored clouds over a pond partially covered in ice.

April - Always good to see the toad survived the winter. After all he/she is a symbol of fortune, prosperity and abundance. I've never given him/her a name. How about Teddy/Teddie the Toad?

May - Why are some geranium leaves multi-colored and the rest are just green? This one was eye-catching especially with the raindrops.

June - Grasses silhouetted in the sunrise at Green Valley Lake/State Park.

July - We called them thunderheads when I was a child. They meant rain, possibly a storm.

Cumulonimbus clouds are always dramatic. (From Latin cumulus, "heaped" and nimbus "rainstorm".)

August - And I was chasing butterflies, hoping for that perfect picture. I was pretty happy with this one.

September - Another little trip close to home took me to a park/lake I had never been to before - Nodaway Lake southwest of Greenfield. 

So much to see and photograph and choose from. This little yellow Jewelweed with the dew still upon it won out.

October - Morning sunlight on the Virginia Creeper climbing an old lakeside maple tree at Lake McKinley.

November - Sunset and dancing clouds of purple and pink over the pond.

December - The Full Long Night Moon setting in early morning clouds.

Bonus photo #1

In January we made a trip to the Schildberg Recreation Area near Atlantic to see the swans on Quarry Lake #4.

It was late afternoon before they came back from feeding in harvested fields.

What a joy to watch them flying in, highlighted by the setting sun. 

Bonus photo #2

On a lovely June morning I set off on a photo-taking tour in my home county. It was an enjoyable time and I only took a hundred pictures.

I don't think I ever walked home from our one room country school without stopping on the bridge and looking down on both sides to the little creek - a tributary to the 102 River.

It looks different now, smaller and with Eastern Redcedar trees crowding the banks.  I don't remember the Arrowhead plants there years ago but the mud looks the same. And the memories remain - throwing rocks into the water, scaring the pigeons out from underneath the bridge - even going there and catching bullheads with my mother and sister. 

I thought for certain after we had our Covid-19 innoculations that our lives would be more normal and for awhile they were - once again being with family members and going shopping without wearing a mask. But the pandemic isn't over yet and I doubt it ever will be completely. I'm back to wearing a mask whenever I go out and shopping very early in the morning when there are few others out and about. Even with the booster shot I don't think I'm really totally protected. So 2022 will be another year of finding peace and contentment in, of and with nature. 

Perfect Balance

 I must have a hundred or more poems saved in my 'Poems and Quotes' folder. But they're not in any order, so when I go looking for a poem to use, which I have been because I haven't shared a poem for awhile, I have to look through them all. Yesterday I was looking for a poem about winter but gave up.

This morning FB gave me a post of the poets lost in 2021 with a snippet of a poem by each. I liked the stanza next to the last poet listed, Adam Zagajewski, and went looking for the poem it was from.  I found it was the last lines of his poem 'Balance'. 

Balance (Adam Zagajewski)

I watched the arctic landscape from above
and thought of nothing, lovely nothing.
I observed white canopies of clouds, vast
expanses where no wolf tracks could be found.

I thought about you and about the emptiness
that can promise one thing only: plenitude—
and that a certain sort of snowy wasteland
bursts from a surfeit of happiness.

As we drew closer to our landing,
the vulnerable earth emerged among the clouds,
comic gardens forgotten by their owners,
pale grass plagued by winter and the wind.

I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport's labryinth,

I once again knew nothing. The darkness
of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness,
the darkness of the voice that counts and measures,
remembers and forgets.