Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for November, 2014…

The Penguin Book of Witches, ed. Katherine Howe – I started this volume of primary source material about medieval English and colonial American witch trials back in October with the goal of getting it finished by Halloween.  Life intervened and it took me into November to finish it, but I really enjoyed it.  Reading the primary sources was a new and fascinating endeavor – everything from newspaper accounts to letters from overzealous witch-hunting clergy and, my favorite, actual trial transcripts.  It was also sad – the primary source material made so plain how many lives were ruined (some ended) by spite and overactive imaginations.  Katherine Howe also added her own explanations before each item, which placed the historical texts in their proper context and illuminated some of the more opaque parts.  Highly recommended, especially to history nerds and anyone with an interest in the Salem witch trials (and similar witch hunts taking place around the country).

The Fairacre Festival, by Miss Read – I finally found my Fairacre books packed away from my move after hubby set up my bookshelves and I got the chance to dig into the book boxes.  I hadn’t read much all month, but I jumped right into this very slim (103 pages) Fairacre novella and loved re-reading the story of how the village bands together when disaster strikes their beloved St. Patrick’s church.  After an October storm destroys the belfry and part of the nave, Fairacre residents pull together a massive festival to raise funds to repair the church roof.  But the bill is steep and money is tight in all the Fairacre households – will they be able to raise enough money, or will they have to sell off a cherished piece of silver to pay for the repairs?  The Fairacre Festival is one of the shortest in the series, but it’s packed full of tension and drama, and with plenty of Miss Read’s signature dry witticisms sprinkled in – at the expense of Mrs. Pringle, mainly.  I always love a visit to Fairacre and nw I’m thinking of a re-read of the entire series.

Saddest. Round-Up. Ever.  What you see above is ALL I managed to finish in the entire month.  Oh, I started a few more books – The Railway Children on my phone, which I’m reading in bits and pieces, All The Light We Cannot See, which I had to return to the library so I bought a copy and then promptly laid it down, and Gilead, which I have been reading verrrrrrry slowly but which I will have to focus on before I have to return it to the library.  You’d think I’d have had more time, what with being snowed in for a week and all, but I just haven’t been able to focus.  Between catching up at work after the big storm, hubby’s absence earlier in the month and all the work I’ve been doing around the house, I just have not made the time to sit down and read.  (It’s also hard to read for extended periods of time because I’m at that stage of pregnancy – have been for weeks – where the couch is hideously uncomfortable.  I’ve started calling it Gitmo Couch and suggested torching it several times.  Since that’s where I do the bulk of my reading, it’s been tough.  I finished The Fairacre Festival while lying on my side on the floor, with the book over my face and one leg up on the coffee table.)  I am hoping for a more bookish December, what with Christmas reading and the fact that I’ve finally managed to unpack most of my favorite books… but I’ll settle for a slightly less pitiful effort.