Bookish Chatter | Four New Releases; One Homeschooling Recommendation; 2 Readalouds

Happy Wednesday, friends! This week is flying by and I cannot believe that we’ve hit the midpoint already. We are expecting a rainy morning and I’m looking forward to hearing the first raindrop soon. Today I’m sharing the reading I’ve managed in the last week. I’ve been busy printing and binding curricula and have been thankful to have audiobooks to keep me company! So today I’m sharing four new releases, one of my favorite homeschooling books, and two readalouds. Let’s get all caught up!

Books Finished This Week:

I swooned over Tom Lake and thought it was the perfect late summer book! Lara’s daughters all come home to their cherry farm when covid hits and they work in the fields together. While spending all of this extra time with each other, her daughters beg her to tell them her Peter Duke story. Peter and Lara met while putting on a theater production of Our Town in northern Michigan and immediately found themselves in young summer love. Peter goes on to be a world famous actor while Lara lets go of that dream and stays in Northern Michigan to start a family.

Patchett’s writing glows in this book. It was so well done – covid is in the background, but it never takes center stage. The story-telling structure she used is beautifully done and Lara’s story is pitch perfect. There were genuine surprises in the book that made me gasp, moments that made me laugh out loud, and others that were heartbreaking.

And friends – when I said I was swooning, I meant it. I had to fan myself a couple of times! And on top of that, I found myself getting super nostalgic and would often just put my head down and cry. This book made me feel all of the feelings and I adored it. I hope all of you do too.

Bonus points: Meryl Streep narrates the audio!

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Old God’s Time is on the Booker longlist and well-deserving of its spot. Tom Kettle is a retired policeman who is visited by a couple of detectives investigating a cold case involving the murder of a priest. Slowly his memories of the investigation start to surface, along with the memories of his wife and children.

This book was difficult in a couple of ways: as Mary warned me, there are “priests behaving badly.” And Tom’s memories are so pervasive that we don’t always know what is real (and neither does he). But through his memories are some truly beautiful reflections on parenthood and life. This book is sad but so worth the journey with Tom.

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The Last Remains is supposed to be the last of the Ruth Galloway series and it’s such a bittersweet feeling. This one hit all the right notes for me and I’m going to miss Ruth, Kate, Nelson, and Cathbad so much. Griffiths did a great job of alluding to earlier mysteries throughout this novel and allowing long un-seen characters take center stage. She also referenced The Secret History (that is an Amazon link, but Blackwell’s has a gorgeous 30th anniversary edition), which I’m planning to reread next month, to set the scene for a visit to Cambridge. I loved all of the dark academic vibes in this book!

Another bookish coincidence is that Griffiths also referenced the folktale, The Green Children, which was also a prominent reference in Pearl. I love it when my reading coalesces like that.

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Weyward was recommended to me by my librarian; she described it as a multigenerational story of witches. Sold! So much of this book reminded me of Thornyhold, one of my very favorite books. A young woman, Kate, escapes her abusive partner and seeks refuge in a crumbling cottage that she secretly inherited from an aunt she barely knew. Everyone in the village believes the Weywards have been witches all the way back to the 1600s. They’re not wrong. I loved learning about Altha, Violet, and Kate’s lives and watching them take back their lives from those who tried to control them.

The writing was a little clunky around the edges but the images and the story made up for all of that!

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A Literary Education: Adapting Charlotte Mason for Modern Secular Homeschooling is one of my favorite books on homeschooling. This was my third time to read it and it’s full of practical advice on how to work as much reading as possible into your daily routine, even with reluctant readers. This is one of the most encouraging homeschooling books I’ve read and I highly recommend it for all families who are interested in literature based homeschooling. This has tons of specific secular recommendations but its ideas and advice can be used by everyone.

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Bronwyn and I finished Ivy and Bean: Bound to be Bad this week. The book started with the girls wanting to be so good that they attract wild animals to them. And then somehow they decided that they needed to be as bad as possible because their reformation would be what would attract the animals. Chaos ensued and all of the children on Pancake Court went wild. Bronwyn and I laughed out loud many times while reading this one!

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The second Zoey & Sassafras, Monsters and Mold, was just as delightful as the first. A monster can’t get the mold to stop growing off of his back so Zoey designs experiment after experiment to determine how she can best help him. Will she be able to help him control his mold so that he’ll be able to attend the monster ball without shame?

I am loving these books and how well they describe the scientific method and designing experiments. And Zoey’s perseverance is something to be admired!

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Booker Prize Progress

I am still picking away at the Booker Prize longlist. I won’t be reading all of them because they’re not all in the library system yet and I can’t put in another book order. But here’s where I stand so far:

❒ A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ – abandoned; difficult for me to get started
✔️ Old God’s Time by Sebastian Berry
✔️ Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
❒ If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery – abandoned; difficult to get started
✔️How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
❒ This Other Eden by Paul Harding
✔️ Pearl by Siân Hughes
❒ All the Little Bird Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
❒ Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
❒ In Ascension by Martin Macinnes
❒ Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
❒ The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
✔️ The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

I still have All the Little Bird Hearts on my shelf, I’m on the Libby waitlist for This Other Eden, and I can choose one other Audible book on the 9th. I don’t actually have many choices: neither The Bee Sting nor The Prophet appear to be ready on audio. Western Lane is less than 5 hours and I’d hate to use a whole credit for that length of time. So that leaves In Ascension, which I’m pretty excited about!

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And that’s all I have for today! I hope the rest of the week treats you well and it’s full of exactly what you love. I might not be back on Friday with an update, but will check back in as soon as I can. Take good care!