January 2019 Reading

January 2019 Books

1) Harriet Gets Carried Away by Jessie Sima | This one is a children's book. It was cute and had penguins, so, you can't go wrong. It was noteworthy that the little girl is the daughter of two Dads and it wasn't a big deal. (Also, Sima's Not Quite Narwhal is beautiful and recommended.)

2) What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli | A sweet YA romance set in New York City

3) The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede | Gander and their air traffic controllers were instrumental in providing a place for transatlantic flights to land on 9/11 after U.S. airspace was closed to incoming planes for the first time ever. Lots and lots of people worked their butts off and welcomed the stranded passengers into their towns and buildings and even their homes.

4) The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver | My first Kingsolver book, for my book club at work. I was blown away by the authenticity of the characters and the way people who had absolutely no obligation to do so stepped up for each other.

5) Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House by Alyssa Mastromonaco | While there were interesting details in this book, I was disappointed by it overall. The author wanted to write a book of this type because so many political memoirs are written by men. Fair enough. But anyone reading this book isn't going to be impressed by the important position she held or the truly challenging work she did because she doesn't highlight those things enough and spends more time telling us that she was worried about feminine products (seriously, just buy in bulk and stash them everywhere, how hard is that?) and her digestive issues (which absolutely must be very hard to handle while traveling internationally and supporting the President.) Her intended audience is young women who might want to work in the White House, i.e. not me, so your mileage may vary.

6) Roomies by Christina Lauren | A romance with a lot of too-good-to-be-true plot points, but in the end I really liked the main characters together.

7) Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald by J.K. Rowling | We saw the movie last fall and I was hoping that reading the screenplay might fill in a few gaps in my understanding of the plot. The book itself is a beautiful physical object: embossed, foiled cover, and gorgeous line drawings inside.

8) Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon | This is such a pretty book. It's a cross between a cookbook and a coffee table book with some stories about what it was like to grow up in the South in a well-to-do family. I really like Reese, but I thought it was a wee bit tone deaf.

9) I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel | If I was making a meme to express how I felt about this book, it would include the phrase "It Me." This is a charming little book and I could see buying it and reading it again every so often. It would make a lovely gift. Any longtime bookworm will find him or herself in these pages.

10) From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein | This is the first book by a former Obama staffer I've read where the person was truly a lower level staff person, not someone who wrote speeches or affected big events or helped create policy. You learn more than you probably wanted to know about her personal life, but also the real day-to-day details of what it's like to work in the White House and travel with the President.

11) Another View by Rosamunde Pilcher | After the popularity of Pilcher's big books exploded (The Shell Seekers, September, Coming Home), her earlier novels were reissued. This one, from 1968, features a young woman who has had to thrive amidst very little traditional family support of any kind. There is a bit of a love story, but it's just as much about her relationship with her father.

12) The Carousel by Rosamunde Pilcher | Pilcher's trademark of setting her books in or near Cornwall and then describing the location so well you feel as if you are there is one of the main appeals of this book. There is an insta-love plot point, but is, as with the previous one I read of hers, as much or more about what it means to be a parent and the importance of people who step in when parents fall short.