I love planning travel – dreaming of destinations, digging into the adventures to be had, and always, always reading. And although the pandemic has really harshed my mellow, I’m back to dreaming and scheming trips to take in the next few years. Austria and Switzerland are both high on my list, and I’m tentatively targeting summer 2023. I can already see the blue gentians waving and smell the Alpine meadow grass… Who knows if it will happen? I hope it does, and until the day I finally board that plane, I can dip into my stash of books set in Austria.
Crossed Skis, by Carol Carnac (a lesser-used pen name of E.C.R. Lorac) follows a group of friends, acquaintances, and some last-minute fill-ins as they depart for a skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps. Unfortunately, back in London, a corpse has turned up with a bewildering connection to a skier, and the entire holiday party – off enjoying sun and crisp snow on the slopes – find themselves suspects. The book ends with a thrilling chase on skis. Read this with cocoa, ideally in a cozy mountain chalet somewhere.
Speaking of chalets, The School at the Chalet, first in Elinor M. Brent-Dyer‘s classic children’s series, is full of them. An English brother and two sisters, recently alone in the world, hit upon the idea of starting a school for young girls in the Austrian Tyrol. (Because why not?) You have to suspend a lot of disbelief here, but it’s worth it for the luscious descriptions of Austria and the rollicking school life at the immediately, impossibly successful Chalet School. There are wildflowers, good food, and mountain adventures. What’s not to like?
If you’re more of a city type, perhaps I could suggest Magic Flutes, by Eva Ibbotson. (Ibbotson is another one who requires some suspension of disbelief, but I’m really good with that.) Magic Flutes tells the story of an Austrian princess who runs away from her fairy-tale castle to follow her opera dreams in Vienna. It’s pure confection, but such fun. (On this theme, I have Ibbotson’s A Glove Shop in Vienna on my to-read-soon stack…)
This stack might not be as good as being in the Tyrol, or even the next best thing, but until I can get there myself it’s what I’ve got. Any Austrian book recommendations for me?
Yawwwwwn. Morning, friends. First of all – the Bills. What a heartbreaker last night, right? Steve is processing his feelings today. I am not into football and even I was on the edge of my seat during that wild fourth quarter, and then so bummed. Mostly, I’m just super sad for Steve and for our friends who are just crushed today.
Anyway – the weekend. It was a crazy busy one. I had designs on taking Nugget skiing or at least ice skating again, but I think I knew deep down that it wasn’t going to happen; there was just way too much to do. On Friday afternoon I nipped out to a nearby park to pick up Peanut’s Girl Scout troop’s cookie order. I have never seen anything like it: I don’t say that lightly. There were tractor trailers lined up in the parking lot in a big ring, each loaded to the gills with thin mints, samoas, trefoils, and the like. I drove slowly around the ring in a line with other troop cookie managers while a volunteer walked alongside and other volunteers jumped off the backs of the rigs and loaded my open trunk with forty-seven cases of cookies. Can you believe all of that fit in my Mazda?
So Saturday was pretty much spoken for. Nugget and I had a play date with one of his bus buddies who lives in the neighborhood. The boys played outside for three hours in the bitter (below freezing!) cold while the other mom and I huddled by her fire pit. Steve and I spent rest of the day doing chores around the house – there were baskets of laundry to fold; Steve cleaned the playroom out for five hours; and I poured over my cookie manager manual and tried to make a plan for how I would get the cookies to the girls. I emailed the other moms with instructions to choose time slots between today and Friday because I needed the weekend to get the cookies unpacked and sorted, and one mom immediately asked if she could come on Sunday instead. Sigh. Fine. Which meant that my Sunday morning run went out the window as I rushed around unpacking, sorting, and counting cookies. Peanut was my assistant and helped me QC to ensure each stack had the correct number of boxes. (Real world math! If Jane needs 38 boxes of thin mints, and there are twelve to a case, how many cases does she need and how many extra single boxes?) The other mom stopped by at 10:45 and I handed over her daughter’s cookies and the cookies for our two booths, and then we rushed out the door for the usual Sunday circus – swim class, then immediately to indoor soccer (I salvaged my run while Nugget was scoring four goals), and then I took the kids off to old town to visit with our dear friends Zoya and Robert. Zoya cooked a Persian feast for us and the kids gorged on her stash of marzipan and meringues. It was good, after a weekend packed full of chores and obligations, to have that time with loved ones. We looked through their pictures from their recent Costa Rica trip and the kids played a loud game of Jenga. And now another week looms, but at least I have a fresh stash of Zoya hugs to see me through.
Reading. It was sort of a busy week, so I didn’t manage to power through as many pages as usual, but I did get some reading done. Most of the week was given over to Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World, by Mark Aldridge – one of my Christmas presents (thank you, Steve!). Over the weekend, I steamed through a new reprint I’d been anxiously awaiting: Jane’s Country Year, which was absolutely delightful. And then on Sunday I started Original Letters from India, but didn’t have much time for reading with all the rushing around (and then football). I’ll dive in properly tonight.
Watching. Well, on Sunday there was that fourth quarter of the Bills game, which was way too stressful. I don’t think I’ll make a habit of watching football. Other than that – on Friday Steve and I watched the Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express. We both knew the denouement (I’ve read the book, and he had seen the old version of the movie with Lauren Bacall) but it was just as much fun to watch, and gorgeously filmed. I’m trying to convince him that our grand return to movie theaters should be for Death on the Nile (the second Hercule Poirot movie to star Sir Kenneth) and I think this went a long way. Other than that – I know I’ve been waxing rhapsodic about Winterwatch so I should mention that I’ve also been keeping up with Miranda Mills on YouTube and am almost caught up on back episodes of her show; always a total treat.
Listening. A mixture. A few more episodes of The Stubborn Light of Things via my podcatcher while making the grocery run and taking a few walks early in the week, and then I decided to switch back to Audible. I put in a few hours on In the Crypt with a Candlestick but wasn’t enjoying it, so I returned it to Audible and switched to the ever reliable Agatha Christie; I’m an hour into The Man in the Brown Suit and liking it much, much better.
Making. Well, you saw those cookie cases. Most of the weekend was spent making stacks of cookies (divided by girl, and counted and double counted and triple counted to ensure everyone got her correct order). I also quickly made our 2021 family yearbook on Shutterfly when I realized that there was a great deal – too good to pass up – and ordered our book on a steep discount. That always feels good!
Moving. Speaking of feeling good, running is feeling good. Several neighborhood runs last week; I unearthed my cold weather running pants and got a new pair of tech-friendly running gloves so I could get out in this icy weather, because it’s always a happier day when I get a run in. I knocked out a couple of longer runs, and a speedy 5K on Sunday when I had to squeeze it in and be back in time to pick Nugget up from soccer. (Apparently the best motivation for me to run fast is the need to not keep my heart’s treasure waiting.)
Blogging. Themed Reads coming atcha on Wednesday, and back to Olympic National Park on Friday. Check in with me then!
Loving. I think every time I get together with friends over the weekend, I say that I love that time. But it’s true – and the pandemic has, if anything, shown me that I really do enjoy and need those social interactions. (Still an introvert, though.) I was running on empty this weekend, and seeing Zoya and Robert was just what I needed.
When I decided to bring my family with me on my October business trip to Seattle, I began researching ideas for the following weekend right away. There are so many incredible destinations in Washington State, but I knew I wanted something within fairly easy reach of Seattle. A repeat trip to the San Juan Islands was out, because the San Juan Clipper season ended the week before we were scheduled to arrive, and the ferry had been unreliable due to COVID-related staffing shortages. So I hopped on a call with a colleague (who loves planning vacations for people) to discuss options. I told her I wanted something outdoorsy, within a couple of hours of Seattle. We kicked around Leavenworth, Bainbridge Island, Mount Rainier, and even driving as far as North Cascades, but ultimately settled on Olympic National Park.
Any travel book or tour guide would tell you that one of the things that makes Olympic special is that it’s really three parks in one. There’s the rugged Pacific coastline, the hauntingly beautiful Hoh Rainforest, and the Alpine expanses of the mountain section. With my colleague’s help, I planned a packed weekend that would allow us to experience all three.
The coastline was first – I was so stoked to show the kids the wonders of Washington tidepooling. As it happened, time was not on our side – low tide was at about 5:00 a.m., and the closest beaches (Ruby and Kalaloch) were almost a two hour drive from our hotel in Port Angeles. Tidepooling would have to wait for a future trip, but we still had plenty of visual treats in the pounding waves and towering sea stacks. We made for Ruby Beach, keeping Kalaloch in reserve if time and weather allowed.
There’s something so wild and compelling about rain at the beach, isn’t there?
It was wet and cold, but we layered up and kept our feet moving, and it was totally worth it. I wouldn’t have missed Ruby Beach for the world.
Wet but happy family! A little rain won’t get in the way of our beach day.
We started out walking up the coastline, but the tide rushed in and cut off our path, so we turned and headed in the opposite direction, exploring as far as we could.
Although I would have loved to tidepool with the anklebiters, Ruby Beach was well worth the drive even without tidepooling – the trees, dramatic sea stacks, and crashing surf were spectacular. Someday we’ll make it back when the tide tables are our friends, and it’s not the worst thing in the world to have something to look forward to!
Next week: a truly magical walk through the Hoh Rainforest.
If last week’s data-driven post was challenging to write (so many numbers!) this one might be even harder (decisions!). Why do I do this to myself? According to Goodreads, I rated 25 books with five stars last year, so narrowing that down to the ten best reads of the year is – well, it’s going to be difficult. As always, this is a list of my favorites read in 2021, not necessarily published in 2021; I don’t think I even read ten books that were published in 2021, let alone rated them all five stars. I’m not making it any easier by continuing to ramble on, so I suppose I’d better just pick, huh? In no particular order:
My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell – This lightly fictionalized memoir of Gerald Durrell’s time on Corfu with his eccentric family had me in stitches. Between Gerry’s constantly rotating menagerie to the exploits of his siblings and the local characters, I think I laughed until I cried on at least every other page.
Few Eggs and No Oranges, by Vere Hodgson – One of Persephone Books’ “important” titles (although I’d argue that all books are important in their own ways), Vere Hodgson’s Blitz diary is a fascinating and compelling picture of London, and the indominable spirit of Londoners, during the darkest days of World War II.
A Winter Away, by Elizabeth Fair – This wasn’t the only Elizabeth Fair title I read this year, but it was my favorite. The story of a young woman who escapes to the countryside for a winter, lands a job as a private secretary and library organizer to a curmudgeonly old gentleman, and falls in love, was such fun. I couldn’t stop turning pages and I was genuinely sad that it had to end.
Where Stands a Winged Sentry, by Margaret Kennedy – A compelling memoir, taken from the diaries of a writer at the absolute height of her powers, of the tense days of the “Bore War” before World War II got started in earnest. I read it in one day, because I couldn’t put it down.
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, by D.E. Stevenson – I love D.E. Stevenson’s writing, and had Mrs. Tim on my list for ages, but it never seemed to cycle to the top. I’m glad it finally did in 2021, because I absolutely adored every word. Hester Christie is one of the truly delightful heroines of mid-century middlebrow literature.
Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and their Least Impressed Visitors, by Amber Share – I’ve been a fan of Amber’s work for a couple of years now, since I first found her on Instagram. If you’ve not yet heard of Subpar Parks, it’s a hilariously tongue-in-cheek project in which Share, a graphic artist, plucks phrases out of one-star yelp reviews of the U.S. National Parks (and more – she finished America’s national parks a couple of years ago and moved on to state parks, other public lands, and the national parks of the U.K., Australia and New Zealand) and juxtaposes them against travel poster-style illustrations. It’s eye-rollingly funny (what are people thinking?!) and also a good reminder to not take criticism too personally, because some people are just never happy.
Business as Usual, by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford – You know I love an epistolary novel, and this is such a good one. A young woman in the 1930s gets the radical idea that she’ll spend the year of her engagement – gasp! – earning her living. She moves to London, gets a job in the book department of a thinly-disguised Selfridges, and details her exploits in pithy letters to her intended (who is unimpressed by her choice to be a working girl, to say the least). Ann Stafford’s delightful illustrations are the perfect pairing with Jane Oliver’s warm wit.
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey – I’ve been meaning to read more Tey, and what better place to begin than with her best known book? Inspector Alan Grant, laid up in hospital after a serious injury while taking down a crook, occupies his mind by trying to solve the historical whodunit – did Richard III really murder the Princes in the Tower? And if not, who did? This was so much fun.
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison – I’d read some of Morrison’s essays before, but never tried her novels. This is a family saga with a heavy dose of magical realism – and you know that I usually don’t like either of those things, but this beautiful book worked for me; I was entranced. If that’s not a testament to Morrison’s power as a writer, I don’t know what is.
A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr – This slim little novella is absolutely pitch perfect from the first word to the last. It’s gorgeous, and poignant, and… well, it’s just perfect.
2021 was a wonderful year of reading – although these are my ten favorites, they’re the tip of the iceberg. I read some really, really great stuff last year; may the trend continue.
Good morning! Happy holiday weekend to my American friends – I hope you are having a restful, peaceful and contemplative Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We have another blanket of snow on the ground here, although this one is shallower than last time’s, and pockmarked by last night’s freezing rain. I’m planning a cozy at-home sort of day, getting things done around the house, and hopefully breaking that up with a hike or ice skating in the afternoon if the roads aren’t too icy.
Backing up to Saturday, though – I had a big adventure. I took Nugget skiing! When I was growing up, my family skied almost every winter weekend, and I belonged to my school ski club. I love skiing – there’s nothing like the feeling of flying down a mountainside in the crisp winter air. Steve, by contrast, doesn’t ski or snowboard; he tried a few times as an adult, to make me happy, but it hasn’t taken. So it just wasn’t one of the family things we did with the kids, and I missed it. A few years ago, my dad started teaching Peanut to ski, but Nugget was such a baby at the time that going to the mountain as a family was just too overwhelming, and it didn’t happen. But recently, Nugget has been asking to go skiing (and he’s a very different kid) and I wanted to go, too, and I finally decided I’d just take him myself. If Steve and Peanut wanted to join us, great, and if not, we would still go. So, on Saturday – that’s what we did. I loaded Nugget and my ski gear into the car and drove us about an hour and twenty minutes north to Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania. You guys. He did amazingly well – I was so insanely proud of him. First of all, I made the strategic mistake of taking him on MLK Day weekend, when the mountain was mobbed. It took almost two hours in line to get his rental skis and boots and the little guy didn’t complain once. Literally, I complained more than he did (I needed the restroom and was also feeling terrible about his first experience of skiing being standing in a two hour line before even setting foot on the mountain). Then once we got on the slope – finally – he picked up the basics right away and was flying down the bunny hill before I knew it! He loved every second – except that he wants ski poles and doesn’t like the wedge formation (he’s one of those kids that just wants to fly straight down the mountain) – and he’s asked to go again this coming Saturday. I didn’t touch black diamond snow, my whole afternoon was spent on the magic carpet, and it was the best mountain day ever because I made myself a ski buddy.
That was long! Sunday was much quieter and less exciting. The usual running around – weekly swim class, plus Nugget’s indoor soccer started up yesterday so we headed straight from the pool to the gym. And the rest of the day I spent finally cleaning up the living areas (there was a lot of Christmas detritus still laying around, plus piles of snow gear and boots, schoolwork, legos…) and cooking a roast chicken. The snow started to fall as we were leaving soccer, so we also got in plenty of time gazing at it out the windows and watching the squabbles at the bird feeder. Restful. (For us, not for the birds.)
Reading. ‘Twas another busy reading week! On Monday, I finished up Square Haunting, which is now neatly stacked up with Patsy and waiting to go back to the library (tomorrow, maybe?). Then back to my own shelves – I dipped into my Christmas stack and tore through the hilarious Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village. (It’s based on this CrimeReads piece, by the same author, if you want a flavor – but there’s added material in the book.) Next I picked up another recent Dean Street Press reprint – Mrs. Tim CarriesOn, the sequel to the wonderful Mrs. Tim of the Regiment. I loved it just as much as the first in the series. Then, I thought to pick up some nature writing to start off the year and grabbed H.E. Bates’ beautiful Through the Woods (although it starts in April, so perhaps I should have saved it for spring, but I’d already got it off the shelf by the time I realized that, so…) and then rolled through Amanda Gorman’s gorgeous and cathartic Call Us What We Carry. Finally, late on Sunday, I picked up another Christmas present – Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World (fact). I’m only about 25 pages in as of press time, but enjoying it immensely.
Watching. We continue to be basically English – wrapped up Winterwatch 2021 on Sunday evening, progress on recent Gardener’s World, and now thinking we’ll turn to older series of Winterwatch while we wait for the 2022 live cameras to boot up on BBC.
Listening. I am still making my way through Melissa Harrison’s beautiful 2020 nature podcast, The Stubborn Light of Things. I’m into June now and it’s lovely.
Making. Meh, just the usual. Lots of lunches and dinners for everyone (the roast chicken yesterday came out delish); many, many work emails; a clean living room, finally. Today I have designs on homemade chicken stock.
Moving. Y’all know what’s a workout? Teaching a six-year-old to ski. Lots of sidestepping uphill while towing him, hauling him to his feet when he fell, bending over (while on skis myself) to retrieve his skis after he yard sales… and 100% worth it, every single bit. Other than the obvious, it was the usual. Neighborhood runs.
Blogging. Part II of my 2021 reading retrospective on Wednesday, and back to the PNW with another travel post on Friday. Check in with me then!
Loving. I’ve already waxed lyrical enough about skiing with the little dude, but I’ll just give it a few more sentences; hope you don’t mind. It’s been years since I got a day on the mountain and it was amazing – more so because Nugget was there. I try so hard to meet my kids where they are and not force anything on them; his love of kayaking, and now hopefully skiing too, is all him. He’s just the coolest, best adventure buddy I could have wished for.
Sunday morning of our family Seattle weekend dawned grey as well – although, read on, it did clear up later in the day. We made it our mission to show the kids some of Seattle’s highlights – starting with Pike Place and the famous gum wall.
Nugget was impressed by the trick fish (it jumped at us and I nearly flew out of my skin, much to his delight) but the gum wall blew his mind.
We walked through an entire gum alley (I’d seen the gum wall before but somehow didn’t register just how expansive it is) on our way to…
The Seattle Aquarium – one of my favorite spots! The kids are used to the much larger National Aquarium in Baltimore, but what Seattle lacks in size it makes up in fabulous exhibits – especially the famous sea otters.
So stinking cute. I cannot.
Peanut is an otter enthusiast, so she was especially into it – but we all love otters, I mean, who doesn’t?
Nugget especially liked the massive industrial style fish tank. Super, super cool.
And the harbor seals – so adorable.
After the aquarium, we were looking around for ways to kill some time down by the water, and Nugget asked for a ride on Seattle’s Great Wheel. I was immediately into it – I’d wanted to check out the Great Wheel the last time I was in Seattle, but Steve (who doesn’t care for heights) didn’t want to do it. Steve and Peanut declined this time, too, so my adventure buddy and I rode the Great Wheel as a duo.
It was so much fun, and the views of Puget Sound, Alaskan Way, and downtown Seattle were gorgeous.
These views were pretty epic, but we also knew that we had even more incredible views ahead of us – because we had SPACE NEEDLE TICKETS for the afternoon.
Touristy? Okay, maybe. Ask me if I mind.
We rode the elevator alllllll the way up and – whew! I love heights, and even I was a little weak in the knees. That’s a long way down.
Zoiks! But, if you look out and not down – those views. I mean, really.
The Seattle skyline – amazing. I spotted my office.
Gorgeous Lake Union. One of these days I need to get out on that water.
We walked around, and around, and around, taking in the views from every angle – mountains in one direction, Puget Sound in another, all breathtaking. I could have stayed up there all day!
It was a full, active, on-the-go kind of weekend, and set me up for a busy workweek. And what a gift it was to have Steve and the kids join me on this trip!
Next week: after wrapping up my workweek, we hit the road for an incredible National Park weekend.
This is one of my favorite posts of the year to write, and also one of the most difficult – because math. (Invariably, I end up mis-counting at least one category and have to recalculate.) But no matter how hard it is to gather up and analyze all this data, I wouldn’t miss it for the world – I love seeing how my last year’s reading shook out, in really concrete form. Shall we take a look?
First up, according to Goodreads records, I read 124 books last year, for a grand total of 33,560 pages. The page total is never entirely accurate, because I have uncounted pages on the margins of the year (I’m always mid-book when the year turns over, so this count gives me credit for some pages read in 2020 for which I didn’t finish the book until early 2021, and on the flip side, I read pages in the last week of 2021 that will end up counting toward my 2022 book list because I finished that book – it was Patsy, by Nicole Dennis-Benn – on New Year’s Day). I’m also not too precious about selecting the exact edition read when I record my reading on Goodreads, so page totals vary in that way, too.
I read a few super-short books this year – a couple of Candlestick Press “instead of a card” poetry collections. On the other side of the scale, James A. Michener’s Chesapeake was a feat of endurance.
Speaking of those Candlestick Press poetry collections, it seems they should be better known. Only two other people shelved Ten Poems for Spring last year? Can’t be. But it seems that The Odyssey was crazy popular. Who knew?
Okay, let’s dive a little deeper.
The fiction/non-fiction breakdown was pretty standard in 2021. I always read more fiction than non-fiction, but especially in recent years, I’ve been enjoying more nature and gardening books, and more memoirs – so that scale has been creeping toward even. (It’s not there yet, as you can see, and I expect never will be – I’ll always be primarily a fiction reader.) The one thing that I think is noteworthy about this graph is: eleven poetry titles last year! Although I do enjoy poetry, that’s a lot for me. Probably has something to do with my efforts to read poetry almost all of April. I burnt out on it a bit after that, so I don’t think I’ll be recreating that challenge in 2022 – although I did read some very lovely stuff.
This is another graph that’s about standard for me. By far the largest genre – if you call it a genre – of fiction that I read in 2021 was classics. I’ve been a classics fan since high school and don’t see that ever changing. My second-most read genre, again completely predictably, was mysteries. What can I say? I love a good crime novel. Outside of the big two, again this is all standard stuff. Just a handful of literary fiction titles, a few historical fiction, and one or two titles from other genres. I’m not a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, but I usually have more than two titles on my booklist at the end of the year; this is more representative of how I see myself as a reader – those just aren’t really my jam.
The big shift with non-fiction genres is this big growth in nature and gardening books. I always have a few titles on my list, but I’m usually more heavily weighted toward books about books. This year I only read five books about books, and fourteen nature titles – almost an exact reversal from last year. The rest of this graph surprises me less: I always have a handful of history titles, and quite a few memoirs, and that’s exactly what I see for 2021.
No surprises here – as usual, I mainly read in the standard book format. There were a handful of audiobooks, read mostly on neighborhood walks, and a handful of ebooks, which I largely save for travel. And four journals – those were all Slightly Foxed quarterly issues.
As with 2020, I have really been trying to read my own books. I curate my bookshelves carefully, and I really know what I like, so I tend to be happiest with my own personal collection. I did borrow 23 books from the library last year, which is four more than the 19 I borrowed in 2020 – but far less than I used to check out, pre-pandemic, when my reading was almost 90% from the library and I would spend way too much time looking wistfully at the books on my own shelves, which I carefully chose and knew I’d love. I’m so enjoying reading mostly my own books and I don’t see myself going back anytime soon, although I’ll always be a library user to some extent.
Apologies in advance, because I kind of phoned this category in. Last year, I had categories for non-binary authors (just didn’t read any in 2021 – must correct that for 2022) and multiple sex/genders (mainly for anthologies and essay collections; this year I did read several books with both male and female contributors, but I pressed the easy button and simply categorized those based on the sex or gender of their editor). Maybe I’ll get more granular next year, but for now – this is just what I would have expected to see – heavily favoring women authors and editors.
Lastly, here’s a bit of a surprise. Usually, the USA and England compete for the largest slice of the “settings” pie chart, and while they go back and forth it’s usually closer than this. Not in 2021 – 67 books set in England (plus another 6 in other countries in Great Britain – five in Scotland and one in Wales, specifically) and only 16 in the USA! Continental Europe had a good showing this year – interestingly, Greece made up a large percentage of those books – but I need to read more set in Africa and Asia in 2022.
Whew! If you’re still with me, thanks for reading this far. I do enjoy nerding out on book data, what can I say? Next week, I’ll share my top ten reads of 2021.
Brrrrrrr. Happy Monday, friends! It is JANUARY out there, with a vengeance. Are you staying warm? I’ve been keeping a good balance of coziness with outdoor time – because it’s not fun to wrap up and be cozy unless you get a little cold first. On Saturday, we all really needed a nature release. Last week was… fine, you guys. It was fine. The kids were off school all week long with five snow days in a row, but THIS IS FINE. They haven’t been at school since December 17, between their holiday break and then this snow, but IT’S FINE. So – yes, we really needed a nature release. On Saturday morning we drove over to my favorite local paddleboarding spot, Beaverdam Reservoir, to hike part of the perimeter trail around the lake. (When we were halfway to the lake, Steve jokingly said, “Oh no! You forgot your paddleboard!”) It was a little too cold to be out on the water, but gorgeous. The day was one of those clear winter days that feel almost brittle – in a good way. The reeds and rushes around the lake were crusted with ice crystals and the trail was sparkling. Really – gorgeous! After our hike Steve and Peanut stayed inside to warm up, but Nugget and I headed right back out to meet up with his buddy P, and P’s brothers, at a park in our tiny village center. The boys bypassed the playground entirely and headed straight for a hill (leading down to the sports fields) – rolling, penguin belly-sliding, and sledding followed. Nugget had been begging for a play date with this particular little guy for weeks so I was glad it finally happened, now that the holidays are over. He needed to roll and wrestle with someone other than Peanut.
That was the end of our winter wonderland. On Sunday we woke up to iron grey skies – I made it out for a three mile neighborhood walk, but that was it (although I did have an exciting critter sighting on my walk – read on). Not long after I got home, the skies opened up and the rain washed away most of our snow (and thankfully, most of the ice, too – the driveway was a skating rink). The rest of the day was devoted to the business of life – weekly swim lessons (Nugget was promoted to the next class up! Swim star!) and errands. I was torn between a desire to cuddle on the couch with my book all day, and the need to clean the house – and neither happened, but at least the errands got done.
Reading. Not quite as frenetic as the previous week, but I did a good amount of reading last week. On Monday I finished up A Time to Keep Silence (which was beautiful) and then tore through Twelfth Night in honor of Twelfth Night. Most of the week was devoted to A Countryman’s Winter Notebook, which I’d been saving – and it was worth the wait. Such a total delight. Slightly Foxed has hinted that they’re hoping to publish a series of four collections of Adrian Bell’s “Countryman’s Notebook” columns, with this being the first. I do hope the rest of the series happens! Fingers crossed. I spent the weekend over a library book – Square Haunting, a roundup of the lives and work of five female writers and intellectuals who all randomly lived in the same Bloomsbury square (albeit at different times, for the most part) – two novelists that I know well (Virginia Woolf and Dorothy L. Sayers), one of whom I’d heard but never read (the modernist poet H.D.), and two names that were new to me (classicist Jane Harrison and economic historian Eileen Power). I’m nearly done – and it’s been a fascinating read – with no idea what I’ll read next. Something off my own shelves, no doubt.
Watching. Well, we answered the fraught question “What to watch after Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets?” with something possibly even better – BBC’s Winterwatch. We’re watching the 2021 series and all pretty much obsessed. Have been alternating Winterwatch with Gardener’s World so we’re basically English now.
Listening. Speaking of being basically English, I’ve been binge-listening The Stubborn Light of Things, Suffolk nature writer Melissa Harrison’s podcast (she also has a collection of her London Times columns out under the same name) in which she muses on the flora and fauna surrounding her rural cottage while out walking. I’m quite behind – it’s a one-time series, recorded in 2020 and long completed – and the season is all off; it covers spring through autumn and I’ve been walking and listening with snow on the ground. But as I said last week, it has a very New Years-y feel, and Melissa’s thoughtful comments on the state of the world, change, and stillness, recorded in the first uncertain days of the pandemic, are still very applicable (and very comforting) during this dark omicron winter. I’ve been loving this listen.
Making. Meh, not much. I haven’t picked up my knitting in more than a week (I’m almost done with an infinity scarf for myself after whipping up several to give as Christmas gifts, but I’m taking a break – I guess) and other than some very uninspired dinners and one cookie-baking afternoon with Peanut – trying to break up time during the interminable week of snow days – I haven’t been spending much time in the kitchen. I suppose you can say I’m easing into the year; I’ll be back at it before long but for now I’m favoring a gentle post-holiday re-entry.
Moving. I’ve been on my feet rather a lot. Daily runs around my neighborhood (with some walks to fill in the gaps on rest days), hikes, and chasing a rowdy pack of little boys through the local playground. As I say every week – yoga next week, I mean it, I need yoga.
Blogging. The first of my traditional three-part reading retrospective of the past year, coming on Wednesday, and back to Seattle on Friday. Check in with me then!
Loving. I’m a broken record, but on my walk yesterday I was reminded again why I love living out in the exurbs. (And why it’s always a mistake to leave my camera at home – blurry picture alert.) As I rounded my least favorite corner in the neighborhood (we call it “Dead Man’s Corner” for the combination of poor visibility, an easily-ignored stop sign, and cars that like to fly around the corner taking a racing line on the side of the road where the law requires pedestrians to walk – ugh) a quick movement caught the corner of my eye. I glanced over and saw a majestic hawk. Hawks are actually quite a common sight out here – I see them almost every day, either on walks or while driving – but this one flew just a few feet up into a small tree in someone’s front yard, and I realized that he was joining a female hawk, almost certainly his mate! (We have a few breeding pairs in our neighborhood.) I stopped to gape for a few minutes; they noticed me and took off in opposite directions, and the male flew right across the road in front of me looking for shelter in a neighboring yard. Just in the past week I’ve seen multiple hawks, a bald eagle soaring overhead, and a stunning orange fox. I love living in a place where these wild neighbors are so visible – seeing them never ceases to amaze.
Over the summer, my team started discussing the possibility of getting together for a week of working in the same place – and some meetings and workshops to take advantage of the opportunity. It was a great idea, and I was super into it, but when the dates were announced it happened to fall over my birthday week. Rather than ring in a new year alone in a hotel room, I brought my celebration crew with me to Seattle. (It’s nice to work for the coolest team leader in the company.) My meetings started on Monday, but we flew in early on Saturday morning to enjoy a weekend of Seattle sightseeing together. First stop – the Seattle library.
Most of the library was still closed off to casual visitors due to COVID, but we were able to take in the massive windows – too, too cool.
The kids needed some down time, so our next stop was the spectacular children’s section.
They loved wandering the stacks, and they both picked out a few books to crash with on the comfy couches.
They probably spent a good hour – or more – reading their way through their piles, and then they asked if they could check books out. Sorry, kids, we don’t live in Seattle. (I need to take them to the library back at home. One of these days.)
Still looking for indoor activities (it was COLD, and wet) we hit upon the Seattle Art Museum and its “Monet at Etretat” exhibition. I love all things Monet and a curated exhibit was enticing.
Gorgeous! The colors and the play of light on canvas – I can never get enough.
After slowly working our way through the Monet exhibit, we wandered the rest of the gallery, taking in the eclectic mix of art from several centuries.
Beautiful! We loved the Seattle Art Museum – even the kids enjoyed themselves (and it was rather a lot to ask after a day of travel).
Next week: day two of our family weekend in Seattle, and we get quite a skyline view.
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, 2021.
Romola, by George Eliot – I started the month with Romola on my kindle during a business trip out west. Not much to say now, because I’ll have a full review (for the Classics Club)… one of these days. I didn’t love it – partly because I was completely mistaken about what it was actually about, but mainly because it was no Middlemarch.
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2021, by Lia Leendertz – I love reading Leendertz’s seasonal guides month by month through the year, and I’m always a little sad to read the last chapter. This one was a delight, as were its predecessors. Focusing on the Romani people and on migration and movement, every chapter was wonderful.
A Single Thread, by Tracy Chevalier – I’ve never read any of Chevalier’s historical fiction novels before. This one – focusing on a “surplus woman” who leaves her mother’s house seeking freedom and a life of her own, and falls in with a group of Cathedral embroiderers – was fun, although I found the ending a little unsatisfying.
Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden, by Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates – Another month-by-month read through the year, I really enjoyed Macdonald’s and Gates’ vivid descriptions of the seasonal shifts, flora and fauna, in a traditional English orchard – one of only a few remaining. The authors make a beautifully written and compelling case for preserving these habitats.
No Holly for Miss Quinn, by Miss Read – I was feeling a bit grinchy this holiday season, so I kicked off Christmas reading with an old favorite. Miss Quinn is looking forward to a quiet Christmas of redecorating, when she is pressed into aunt service to look after her nieces and nephew while their mother is in the hospital. It’s just the shot of Christmas spirit Miss Quinn needs, and it was just what I needed, too.
Frost Fair, by Carol Ann Duffy – A new discovery this year: Carol Ann Duffy’s Christmas poems, which have been published one each year in tiny and beautifully illustrated volumes. I picked up a couple, and started with this poem about the Great Frost of 1683. It was gorgeous.
Tied Up in Tinsel (Roderick Alleyn #27), by Ngaio Marsh – I’ve been wanting to read more Ngaio Marsh, and this Christmas country house mystery, recently reissued in the Hatchards Library limited edition set, was just the bump I needed. It was fun – and a unique twist, with the entire household staff of “Halberds” made up of convicted murderers (!!!) but I found it slow going in places.
The King and the Christmas Tree, by A.N. Wilson – I was so excited to read this nonfiction account of the reason why the people of Oslo send a Norway spruce to the people of London every Christmas – and it didn’t disappoint. The story of the King of Norway’s daring escape from the Nazis and his welcome in England is as good as a thriller. A.N. Wilson’s book is written for YA audiences, but anyone would enjoy this.
The Christmas Chronicles: Notes, stories and essential recipes for midwinter, by Nigel Slater – I normally don’t sit down and read a cookbook cover-to-cover, but as the subtitle makes clear, this is far more than “just” a cookbook. Slater loves winter and Christmas, and his beautiful notes and gorgeous photographs amply demonstrate why. I would like to make a few of the recipes (which I skimmed) but the real value in this book was the evocative writing about a season so many people struggle to love.
Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday, by Carol Ann Duffy – Another of Carol Ann Duffy’s Christmas poems – this one features Dorothy Wordsworth, who walks through the snowy landscape, welcomes carolers, and hosts Samuel Taylor Coleridge for a birthday dinner at her brother’s table. Quiet and sweet.
The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Correspondence, by John Julius Norwich – This is a Christmas Eve tradition for me – ten minutes’ worth of laughing, which I can always use by this point in the season. There’s no antidote to holiday stress quiet like Norwich’s hilarious letters from frazzled “Emily” to her overbearing fiance on the occasion of his gifting her a partridge in a pear tree and… you get the picture. Unless, that is, it’s Quentin Blake’s absolutely perfect illustrations.
A Country Doctor’s Commonplace Book, by Philip Rhys Evans – Another Christmas tradition – I have read this on Christmas Day every year since 2018, always taking a break amid the detritus of Christmas morning, before it’s time to get up and cook (or at least help with) dinner. The “There’ll Always Be an England” segments are my favorite, but really it’s all gold.
The Country Child, by Alison Uttley – I have had a lovely Folio Society edition of this book for years, and finally picked it up for the Comfort Book Club’s December readalong. Having loved A Traveller in Time, I had high hopes for Uttley’s semi-autobiographical The Country Child. It was gorgeously written and evocative, but not as tightly plotted or drawn as A Traveller in Time, and while I loved it, I did bog down in spots.
The Carols of Christmas: A Celebration of the Surprising Stories Behind Your Favorite Holiday Songs, by Andrew Gant – This was under the Christmas tree (thank you, Steve!) and I excitedly opened it on the day after Christmas to get in one last holiday themed read for the season. It was really fascinating, although I expect I’d get more out of it if I knew more about music history… or music theory… or music, at all, really.
A Year of Scottish Poems, ed. Gaby Morgan – I’ve been reading this pretty volume all year, one poem a day more or less (I’ve gotten behind a few times and had to plough through several weeks’ worth to catch up). It’s a lovely way to end my day, and I really enjoyed this selection – which was a good mix of classic and new poetry, all from Scotland.
Whew! What a way to end the year, right? Fifteen books, many of them absolutely wonderful! The highlight of the month was definitely “The King and the Christmas Tree,” although I also really loved the Nigel Slater, and it was fun to revisit Miss Quinn, of course. For January, I already have a stack of wintry reads awaiting – just need some snow, now.
What were your reading highlights for December ’21?
covered in flour 