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 December, 2017…

What Happened, by Hillary Rodham Clinton – I knew immediately that I was going to want to read this.  While I still feel raw sadness over the election, I also believe that the first-person narrative by the first woman ever to be nominated for President by a major political party is an important historical document and a story that needed telling.  I also think that those who want Hillary to “be quiet” and “go away” are indulging in short-sighted misogyny.  (Does the same angry dismissiveness dog Mitt Romney and John McCain whenever they speak out about politics?  Of course not.)  What Happened was wrenching, but it was thoughtful, meticulously crafted, and quietly brilliant – in short, it was very Hillary.  It made me cry, but I loved it.

Rich People Problems (Crazy Rich Asians #3), by Kevin Kwan – Needing something light and frothy in the extreme after the sobfest gut-punch that was What Happened, I turned to the final chapter in the saga of Nick Young, Rachel Chu, Astrid Leong and the whole gang.  Nick and Astrid’s beloved grandmother, Shang Su Yi, is on her deathbed and the entire family has come out of the woodwork to jockey for position in case she changes her will at the last minute.  Nick doesn’t care about his inheritance, but he travels to Singapore at Rachel’s urging so that his grandmother doesn’t pass away before they have healed their rift, only to find when he gets there that his grasping cousin, Eddie – hoping to inherit the estate in Nick’s place – has barred him from the house.  Rich People Problems is as full of twists, drama and designer label name-dropping as its predecessors, and it was so much fun.

Slightly Foxed No. 56: Making the Best of It, ed. Gail Pikris – I have been a Slightly Foxed subscriber for a little over a year now, but somehow I just discovered that when you sit down and read an issue cover to cover, it counts as a book on Goodreads.  (Who knew?)  I figure if it counts there, it should count here, too – and a 96-page volume of personal essays about books (which is what every Slightly Foxed issue is) should be considered a book in any event.  So – the latest issue!  I read a few essays at a time and loved them all, as usual, but my favorite was the essay about the Chalet School books, which I am planning to read – at least some – in 2018.

The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher – My mom couldn’t believe I hadn’t read this before, because my grandmama had a copy and had loved Pilcher.  It took awhile – other library deadlines kept interfering in November – but I very much enjoyed the story of Penelope Keeling and her useless children.  (The kids really were the worst, which diminished Rebecca’s enjoyment of the book after I recommended it to her, I am sorry to report.)  I just adored it for its atmospheric setting and lush writing.  No detail was spared – and I didn’t want any details spared.  I wanted to know absolutely everything about what Penelope made Danus for lunch and how the wine was when she and Richard went on their date and what she grows in her garden and how she decorates her kitchen and solarium and, I mean, tell me all of the things.  I am only sorry that it had to end.

Slightly Foxed No. 1: Kindred Spirits, ed. Gail Pikris – I’m on a roll!  I’d been wanting to go back and read through the back issues (which I have been collecting, little by little, for the past two years) and I really enjoyed this first issue of the journal.  The essay Ex Libris starts the volume off strong, and I loved the short bits describing woodcut bookplates (since wood-cutting is one of my favorite art forms).

Christmas at Thrush Green, by Miss Read – There is a 2018 #MissReadalong going on over on Instagram, and they actually began in 2017 with Christmas at Thrush Green.  I don’t know that it was the best place to begin, because it was assumed that the reader knew most of the characters and was familiar with their stories and how they met their spouses, and for the most part, I wasn’t.  (I read Thrush Green, the first in the series, a couple of years ago but don’t remember much about it.)  But it was a quiet, comforting, warm and cozy way to spend a few evenings reading by the light of my Christmas tree, and for that, totally worth it.  I’ll probably revisit it next December and I’ll bet I enjoy it even more then, after I’ve read through the series as I am planning to do.

London War Notes, by Mollie Panter-Downes – This collection of Panter-Downes’ “Letters from London” to The New Yorker between 1939 and 1945 had been lingering on my “currently-reading” shelf for way too long, thanks to intervening library deadlines.  It’s no reflection on the book, which is heart-rending and utterly captivating.  Panter-Downes writes with equal parts pathos and humor about the experiences of living through the Blitz, rationing, and long periods of waiting with bated breath for news of an ally or updates from the front.  She, and her fellow Londoners, are stoic and determined, but also set on finding enjoyment and laughter where they can.  If nonfiction about World War II can be delightful, this is.

Christmas at High Rising, by Angela Thirkell – A quick collection of short stories featuring the Morlands and their friends at High Rising, this was the work of an evening and was delightful.  Tony Morland goes ice-skating and falls in and out of a crush on a French girl, everyone goes to the pantomime, Tony rides a horse – in short, it’s all the High Rising drama you could wish.  My only complaint was that despite the title, there was nothing particularly Christmassy about it.  There is a story that focuses on Valentine’s Day, a story about Tony’s summer holidays, but only one Christmas story that was not even set in Barsetshire.  I think I’d read that somewhere but forgotten.  Calling the book Holidays in High Rising would have been more accurate and I’d have been less disappointed then.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, by Agatha Christie – Here’s a book that is definitely about Christmas!  Poirot is called in to investigate a murder that takes place on Christmas Eve in an old English manor house.  Yes, please!  The victim, Simeon Lee, is the much-hated squire of the county.  He’s a well-known womanizer who delights in setting his children against one another, and – as always – there are no shortage of possible killers with both motive and opportunity.  (I love the cozy mysteries where the victim is so vile that you need not feel guilty for enjoying the story.)  Naturally, Poirot unravels the mystery, and the solution is quite surprising.  I enjoyed myself immensely in reading this on Christmas itself and for a couple of days after.

Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdrich – Having loved Erdrich’s Birchbark House series for children, I wanted to try one of her adult novels and figured I’d start with her new release.  She is clearly a breathtaking writer, but Future Home of the Living God fell flat for me (which from what I hear was a common experience).  The story focuses on a pregnant woman who is on the run after evolution mysteriously stops and the government begins seizing all pregnant women and, later, women of childbearing age.  It’s an interesting premise, but I felt like I was reading The Handmaid’s Tale again (with a couple of slight differences) and was also frustrated that there wasn’t more exposition of the apocalyptic event.  I’m perfectly willing to suspend disbelief while reading – especially dystopias and fantasies – but you need to tell me what I am suspending disbelief about, or at least give me a hint.  I’m going to try one of Edrich’s really highly acclaimed novels, like The Round House and LaRose, and I suspect I’ll like those better.

That does it for me for 2017!  Ten books (including two Slightly Foxed quarterlies) in December – a respectable finish to the year, I think.  I finished a couple that had been lingering on the shelf, and ended up enjoying both (The Shell Seekers and London War Notes) probably the most of anything I read this month.  The Christmas books were a highlight of the month, naturally, and What Happened was hard to read but so worth it.  And that’s the end of a year in reading!  I think I’m going to come in somewhere around 101 books for the year, but I haven’t done my official count yet – soon.  It’s been a good year and I’m excited to see what 2018 has in store.

What was the best book you read in December?