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 January, 2023.

Christmas Days, by Jeanette Winterson – I had this on audio and saved it for almost a year, to listen around Christmas. It was a lovely festive listen – Winterson alternates between holiday-themed short stories and sharing recipes from her personal holiday traditions (along with stories from her life). As with most volumes of short stories, some were more of a success than others – I particularly enjoyed several spooky Christmas ghost stories – and I really liked the recipe interludes.

The Children of Green Knowe, by Lucy M. Boston – Tolly goes to live with his great-grandmother at the rambling old house long known as “Green Knowe” and encounters three ghostly – and very mischievous – former residents of the house. Their adventures over Christmas are sweet and just eerie enough to be delightfully spine-tingling. There is a little bit of a time-slip adjacent element, which I love.

The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were there, by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey – I’ve had my eye on this for ages, and it was waiting under the Christmas tree courtesy of my mom. I loved The Office when it was airing, and I really enjoy reading the oral histories of the show that are starting to come out (last year I read and loved Brian Baumgartner’s – a.k.a. Kevin’s – Welcome to Dunder Mifflin). Kinsey and Fischer’s book is also written in that tag-team style, but reviews the history of the show from the vantage point of their friendship. Knowing about their offscreen sisterhood of the heart, it’s even funnier to watch Fischer’s Pam and Kinsey’s Angela bicker and snipe. If you are a fan, do check this one out.

The Windsor Diaries: 1940-45, by Alathea Fitzalan Howard – Howard was a young girl living with her grandfather and aunt in an estate on the grounds of Windsor Castle during the World War II years – so she regularly encountered two other young girls in the neighborhood – the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, who were sheltering at Windsor during the Blitz. Howard was a year old than Princess Elizabeth and several years older than Margaret, and she took dancing and drawing lessons and socialized regularly with the Princesses, even attending sleepovers with them at the Castle several times. Her diaries from those years made for fascinating reading about the Princesses’ daily lives. Prince Philip makes an appearance (fifteen-year-old Elizabeth confides in Alathea that he is “her boy”) and Alathea especially loved Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who was genuinely kind to her. I especially enjoyed reading diary entries where Alathea overthinks royal protocol – there are pages devoted to whether she should continue calling her friend “Lilibet” or whether, in their late teens, it would be more appropriate to switch over to “Princess Elizabeth” – and her somewhat snarky comments about the Princesses’ hair and clothes. Trigger warning, though – there are references to self-harm, so if that is the kind of thing that you cannot read about, skip this one.

Yours Cheerfully (The Emmy Lake Chronicles #2), by A.J. Pearce – After reading Dear Mrs. Bird in December, I couldn’t wait to find out what happens next to Emmy, Bunty, Charles, and all of their friends. Yours Cheerfully finds the staff of Woman’s Friend re-shuffling after Mrs. Bird sailed off into the sunset (with all the good grace of a warship). Meanwhile, the magazine responds to a government call to help the war effort by spotlighting female war workers with the goal of recruiting more women to work at factories. But as Emmy writes up her feel0good stories, she discovers that the women’s lives in the factories are much more complicated than she is allowed to write about. Emmy’s efforts to support her new friends just might land her – and Woman’s Friend – in a whole heap of government trouble. This was a fun and delightful read.

Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship, by Isabel Vincent – Isabel Vincent is a recent transplant to New York, struggling to get her arms around a new job as an investigative reporter at The New York Post and to navigate a floundering marriage, when she meets Edward. Edward is a friend’s nonagenarian father, recently widowed and struggling, himself, to find a reason to go on. Isabel’s friend Valerie asks Isabel to look in on her father and having dinner with him – “he’s quite a good cook” – and a beautiful friendship results. Edward cooks sumptuous dinners – sending me down goggle rabbit holes trying to find the exact recipe for his apricot souffle and cauliflower soup – and in the process, Isabel and Edward heal each other. It’s a beautiful read.

How Much of These Hills is Gold, by C. Pam Zhang – Ba is dead; Ma is gone; Sam and Lucy are on the run. Pam Zhang’s new release re-imagines the American west as a land of giant tigers and massive buffalo skeletons. This is a sibling adventure story with a light magical realism element; it is gritty and dark. Definitely worth the hype, but darker than I like (the real world is plenty dark enough).

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter #1), by J.K. Rowling – A re-read that needs no introduction from me at this point. The kids are on a major Harry Potter kick right now, and this has been Nugget’s and my bedtime reading. (We’re now on to the second one).

Philosophy for Polar Explorers, by Erling Kagge – This slim volume is a fast read but packed with wisdom. Kagge was the first person to complete the Three Poles Challenge – reaching both the North Pole and the South Pole and attaining the summit of Everest – and Philosophy for Polar Explorers collects his life lessons from those adventures. Nothing earth-shattering here, but nice to read and packed with cool photos..

Winter in the Air, and Other Stories, by Sylvia Townsend Warner – I bought this book entirely for the cover, and apparently I was not the only person who did so. (It is gorgeous.) Happily, it’s also an excellent read. I’ve noted in weekly reading recaps that there are only a small handful of writers who can hold my attention over an entire volume of short stories, and Sylvia Townsend Warner is one of that select group. As always, not every story was a favorite, but there are so many gems in here.

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery – Another re-read and another read-aloud, and another one that needs no introduction for me. Over ,months now, Peanut and I have been slowly reading our way through Anne and enjoying ourselves hugely. Note for parents considering reading this one aloud – have plenty of tissues for that penultimate chapter. I sobbed my way through it as Peanut and Steve watched with concern. I knew it would be hard to read, but man. Anyway – now Peanut and I are checking our schedules to find time for her to watch the classic movie version with Meagan Followes. Am I way too excited to share that with her? Am I planning to make homemade raspberry cordial (non-alcoholic) to celebrate? Yes on both counts.

Smallbone Deceased (Inspector Hazelrigg #4), by Michael Gilbert – I love a mystery novel on audio, and this was a fun one. A body is discovered in a deed box within the office of a London solicitor, and the police have a puzzle on their hands. Who was Marcus Smallbone, and why was he killed, and what on earth was his corpse doing in a box on a law firm shelf? When the killer strikes a second time, the stakes go through the roof. While this wasn’t as wonderful as Death in Captivity, another novel by Gilbert and republished by British Library, it was a fun read and excellent on audio.

Whew! A busy month of reading and a great start to 2023. Two lovely read-alouds with two lovely kids: that’s got to be the highlight of the month. But as for the remainder of the month, there were so many other highlights – a fascinating historical diary… a beautiful collection of short stories… a riveting classic crime novel… and a fun and frothy look at one of my favorite television shows of all time. Ahead in February, I have lots of reading planned around the theme of my upcoming Antarctic adventure. Brrrrr!

What were your January reading highlights?