Bookish Chatter | April Showers Bring Bookish Towers

Happy Wednesday, friends! We’re in the middle of a cloudy and rainy week here in central New Hampshire and that means more time for reading! I have a couple of finished books of my own plus a handful of chapter book readalouds to share with you today. I’m already on my second cup of coffee this morning and I can’t wait to share my reading with you!

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Books I’ve Finished This Week:

Cursed Bread is on the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist and was really hard to put down. It’s set in a small post-war French village; the baker’s wife, Elodie, is in a distant and loveless marriage. When Violet moves to the village with The Ambassador, her presence is like electricity to Elodie and they form an unlikely and much-gossiped about friendship. And when strange things start happening to animals and the people in surrounding villages, the whispers only increase.

This book was tense and provocative. We know from the beginning pages that something horrible happens in the village, but what is it? Mackintosh slowly pulls back the curtains and gives us a delicious look at true evil in the works. I couldn’t stop reading and had to know what was going to happen. Cursed Bread is another great addition to this year’s longlist!

Nathan Coulter is the first book in Wendell Berry’s Port William series. It’s very short and gives us a glimpse of Nathan as a young boy with his gruff father, Jarrett, and his lovable uncle Burley. I don’t think this novel is a good preview of what’s to come in this series. There were scenes that were disturbingly violent, which I don’t recall from the other Port William books. This one was just missing a bit of connection with the characters and some of Berry’s essence. Of course, it was published in 1960, early in his career, so perhaps he’s still finding his footing with this setting? Or maybe it’s just me because I almost never like books told from the perspective of teenage boys. (William Kent Krueger standalone novels are the lone exceptions I can think of. And I see that he has a non-Cork O’Connor novel being published in September: The River We Remember. That’s going on the list!)

I am hoping to read The Memory of Old Jack later this month if anyone would like to join me. Old Jack featured prominently in A Place on Earth and he was quite a character. I’m looking forward to learning more about him!

Because of Winn-Dixie was our most recent morning readaloud and we all really, really loved it. It sparked so much conversation about how we never know what’s going on in other people’s lives. “I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.” — we (I) came back to this quote again and again. It was such a beautiful little book! And it was easy to read out loud. I struggle with the syntax of some books when I’m reading aloud, but this book supported my own accent and speech patterns perfectly. It was a joy all the way around.

And Spoiler Alert: I was bracing myself for the end of the book. A cardinal rule of the bookish life: the dog is going to die if its name is in the title. Prepare yourself. But this book broke that rule!! Winn-Dixie did not die. Sorry to ruin it for you, but if you’ve decided NOT to read this book because you don’t want to face another dog death, then have no fear. Go for it!

Bronwyn and I finished the third Samantha book, Samantha’s Surprise. It’s Christmas time and Samantha is busy making gifts and homemade decorations. But when her Uncle Gard’s special friend Cornelia spends the holiday with them, Grandmary is so busy trying to make everything just right that the decorations that Samantha worked so hard on are pushed aside, which Samantha blames on Cornelia. But once she arrives, Samantha enjoys Cornelia’s kindness and playful disposition and is so happy that Gard brought her.

This was a sweet little Christmas story that we both enjoyed. It didn’t hold a candle to Addy’s Christmas story, but that’s okay. I don’t think any of the American Girls can top her.

And of course, Bryce and I finished the eleventh Captain Underpants book: The Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000. I have to be honest: I’ve already completely forgotten the plot of this one. But Bryce enjoyed it and that’s all that matters! After finishing it, he chose the third book in the series to reread: The Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies From Outer Space. So here we go!! (If anyone has any suggestions for fun, light-hearted series’ to read before bed, I’m all ears. I might be able to sneak something in once we finish the one we’re working on right now and I could use a change of pace.)

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Slow & Steady:

I am still working my way through Tomb of Sand. I’ve read just shy of 600 pages, so there are less than 200 left. I’m getting close – that’s 5 reading sessions if I stay on pace. I was having a hard time staying focused until something shocking happened just before page 500 – so I finally feel invested in this story! Now the mother-daughter duo are in Pakistan and are lost? Perhaps I’ll have it finished by next week’s update? I’ll let you know!

I’ve only had a couple of reading sessions with Craft in the Real World and haven’t made much progress. But nearly every sentence this author writes is fascinating and I’m learning so much. I think the challenge will be to identify all of the different crafts while reading on my own. I wish I could take a class with Salesses as the teacher!

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I’m still waiting on Time Shelter from Blackwell’s and then I’ll have quite a stack of Women’s and International Booker Prize longlisters to get through, which is incredibly exciting to me. I love seeing them all lined up on my book cart next to my desk. AND Kate Morton’s new book, Homecoming, was published yesterday and I’m the first person on my library’s waitlist for it. I always fall in love with her books and can’t wait to dive into her next fairy tale.

I hope you’ve been able to spend time with a good book this week. Please tell me what you’re reading in the comments – I love the recommendations. Take good care!