Today’s prompt was: Books On My Winter 2025-2026 to-Read List. I have a lot more than this on my list but I picked out ten to list today.
Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
3. Miss Read VillageDiary by Miss Read
I
4. My Beloved by Jan Karon
5. A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse
6. Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
7. ‘Tis Herself by Maureen O’Hara
8. The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner
9. Murder She Wrote:Brandy and Bullets by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain
10. Peg and Rose Stir Up Trouble by Laurien Berenson
Have you read any of these books?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about
I usually mention what I have been watching down below but today I thought I’d mention part of what I’ve been watching here because I have been watching a lot of clips of or interviews with or about Dick VanDyke since yesterday was his 100th birthday and he’s still alive.
When I was a kid, I watched The Dick VanDyke Show on PBS in the evenings after dinner and it became a comfort watch to me. As my mom said last night, The Dick VanDyke Show was something you could watch and know it was just going to be good, clean comedy and fun.
The show still holds up today too. I still watch The Dick VanDyke Show, especially when I am down about something.
In fact, when I am down or sad about something my husband will ask, “What can I do? How about I make a cup of tea and find you a Dick VanDyke episode to watch?” Sometimes he doesn’t even suggest it, he simply turns an episode on and backs away — much like a man might toss a bar of chocolate to a woman on her period and run away.
Of course I have also watched Dick VanDyke in movies like Mary Poppins, but, for me, my memories of him will always circulate around The Dick VanDyke Show.
I loved this interview with him from People Magazine. My brother sent it to me last night and I cried because it was just nice to see him doing so well at his age and hearing all his memories of the various projects he was involved with over the years.
This past week we were plunged into deep cold and also had snow a couple of days which left it hard for me to back out of our steep driveway. Yesterday was my first day out all week and the kids and I took some bean soup to my parents…yes, that bean soup from my post yesterday.
We are facing below freezing temps today, but later in the week temps will rise into the mid-40s. Why do I give weather reports in my blog posts?! I have no idea, but I always do it.
Our cats aren’t sure what to think of the weather. Somedays they want to go out but within ten minutes they are back at the kitchen window begging to come in.
We had a bit of cabin fever this week so Little Miss took Zooma The Wonder Dog for a walk down the street. Scout decided she wanted to see what was going on but she didn’t last outside long, dashing back inside through our side door when I wasn’t looking.
Since I wasn’t looking, I panicked a bit later when I couldn’t find her in the house and it was getting dark
I feel like I spend most of my days counting fury heads and asking, “Has anyone seen…” whichever cat I haven’t seen for a while.
Cass is our “new cat” who we’ve had since the end of October. He is a he and not a she like we normally thought and we are getting much better at calling him “he” as we get used to that change. We called him “she” for the first month of his life.
Our cat Scout has always been the crazy one, climbing up trees and having to be rescued by the fire company or falling out of them and almost dying, but now Cass is the craziest because we’ve found him on our snowy roof twice this month and twice he stole chicken from the stove or counter when I wasn’t looking.
I discovered him on the roof after a small snowstorm this week when Zooma was barking at him and snow trickled down from the roof as I opened the door. Our son looked out his upstairs window to see if he could bring Cass in but he had already found a way down to the porch so he could come in the door the normal way.
Yesterday, the same thing happened, but this time Cass thought he could climb onto the open door frame and jump down. The only problem was once he got on the narrow door frame he tried to step on our wreathe which kept moving and then panicked. He had no idea how to get off the door frame so eventually our son reached up for him and Cass fell, upside down, into his arms.
I’ve learned to duct tape the knobs on the stove so he won’t hit them with his foot when he thinks he can jump up. I’m also learning not to leave food on the counter that I plan to eat unattended. I hope to break him of these stealing habits soon — probably with a spray bottle, which is how I had to stop Scout from climbing our window screens when we first adopted her.
I’m curious if he will calm down once he is neutered a few days before Christmas.
This is off the subject — I don’t know about any of you have bots on your site or not lately, but I have tons from China and have for about three months. I’ve contacted WordPress but have been told to ignore them unless I start receiving a ton of comments. That’s great, I guess, because right now I get 30,000 fake views a week from China and I’ve heard and read on forums that this happening to a ton of other blogs and sites in the United States.
REMINDERS*: Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
We are also hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.” You can find the link for that at the top of my page in the menu or here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
At the beginning of the week I stayed up past 1 a.m. one night finishing Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. While I felt it was a bit wordy at times and maybe even a little repetitive with all that comparison by the second Mrs. DeWinter of herself to Rebecca, I really enjoyed it and do think it is as good as so many reviews I have read said it was (that sentence doesn’t make much sense but hopefully you can decipher it.)
Last night I finished Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie. It was very good, (though a bit rushed) but I think I’ll look for sweeter reads for the next couple of weeks as we make our way toward Christmas.
Little Miss and I also finished Caddie Woodlawn’s Family (also known from it’s original title Magical Melons).
I will probably read a couple of Christmas short stories by Dickens and L.M. Montgomery, as well as finishing reading A Christmas Carol to Little Miss. I will also read at least part of Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon.
Coming up soon will be a book of short stories by Louis L’Amour, Damsel in Distress by P.G. Woodhouse, and Murder, She Wrote Brandy and Bullets. I’m also hoping to start Glorious Intruder by Joni Eareckson Tada as a slow read. After all that or somewhere in between I want to start The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.
This past week I rewatched part of Meet Me In St. Louis, Wartime Christmas, and on YouTube a couple episodes of Real Vintage Dolls House. I started a couple of movies too but have not finished them yet.
I’ll be making a formal announcement later, but I’ll be watching James Cagney movies this winter and I’m looking forward to it because I’ve only ever watched one Cagney movie, so I will probably add one of his movies into my Christmas movie watching this week.
This morning, we watched the first episode of the new season of Shakespeare & Hathaway. It wasn’t as good as the earlier seasons (we skipped Season 4 filmed during “You Know What” because the one episode was just bad beyond bad) but it was nice to see their banter again after a two-year break. We will see how the rest of the season is.
I also watched “my farmer”, Pete, on Just A Few Acres Farm, which I do almost every Sunday after watching online church.
I made a lot of progress on Gladwynn book four this past week. I thought I’d share a little description I put together:
Small town newspaper reporter Gladwynn Grant is not going to get involved in any more mysteries. She’s learned her lesson. The hard way.
Her resolve starts to crumble, though, when someone tries to drop an industrial size light fixture on the Brookstone School District Superintendent during an interview. Was Superintendent Ellerton the intended target, though? Or was it actually Gladwynn herself?
While all this is unfolding her ever-busy grandmother, Lucinda, has been told by her doctor she needs to rest more and run around less while Gladwynn’s sister, Iona, is feeling overwhelmed with her role as a mother of three.
A new friendship between State Police Detective Tanner Kinney and Pastor Luke Callahan, the two men family and friends like to joke are battling for Gladwynn’s affections, has Gladwynn a bit perplexed, but also relieved.
Will Gladwynn be able to help find out if someone wants Superintendent Ellerton out of the picture, all while trying to keep Lucinda resting, Iona from cracking, and everyone in town from spreading rumors about her and one of the men in her life?
Find out in the latest Gladwnn Grant Mystery, Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.
If you want to read the previous three books, you can find links at the bottom of the page. They are available as ebooks and paperbacks.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link ups below.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about
Some husbands show their wives their love by buying them flowers or chocolate. My husband shows me love by buying me books and I’m here for it.
A couple of months ago he bought me My Beloved, the new book by Jan Karon, for my birthday/early Christmas gift. I haven’t read it yet because I gave it to my mom to read first.
Yesterday The Husband went Christmas shopping for the kids and came home with gifts for them but also a pretty copy of A Christmas Carol for me.
It’s a reproduction of a reproduction but that doesn’t matter to me. I love it, and I love how it includes the original introduction and preface that was in the 1922 version. To explain, there was a version of Dicken’s original version of A Christmas Carol published in 1922 by the National Book Trade Provident Society. Their version was republished this year by another publisher. So, a reproduction of a reproduction.Whatever it is, I love it. It’s little and cute and inside it features an introduction by GK Chesterton and original illustrations published in the original A Christmas Carol.
I read the story to my son several years ago so Monday I plan to start reading it to Little Miss.
This week we received our first snowfall of the year, and since the temps dropped so fast afterward, we still have snow on the ground and probably will for a while. Temps are going to stay very low for several more days.
I took this photo at my parents yesterday. I love this view.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
We are also hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.” You can find the link for that at the top of my page in the menu or here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
This past week I breezed through a novella called Christmas in Harmony by Phillip Gulley. I really enjoyed it. It’s part of the Harmony series by Gulley, which I recommend if you’ve never tried it.
I almost finished Rebecca and probably will finish it by tomorrow. It was very slow at first with so much melodrama and description but it picks up halfway through and now I have to read to the end, even though I did see the movie in the past. I forgot the ending of the movie so this will remind me if the two are the same.
I am taking part in the 13th annual Ho Ho Ho Readathon from November 26 to December 17th. I finished my first Christmas/winter themed book with Christmas in Harmony.
This week I’ll be starting A Christmas Carol with my daughter and also continuing Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and A Christmas Scrapbook, a short story by Phillip Gulley.
I will also be reading excerpts from Little Women and Shepherd’s Abiding (a Jan Karon book and part of the Mitford series) at some point.
If you want to know more about the challenge, hop over here:
Little Miss and I will finish Magical Melons or Caddie Woodlawn’s Family (which the name was changed to) by Carol Ryrie Brink this week. This is the sequel to Caddie Woodlawn, which we listened to on Audible. We’ve been slowly reading it along with other school books for quite a while now. Each chapter is like its own short story. I really enjoyed a chapter we read this past week about Christmas and ended up crying over it. I’ll share more about the book in a future post.
I have a Murder, She Wrote book, The Murder of Twelve, by Donald Bain on tap for sometime soon, but will probably end up reading more Christmas stories/books throughout December.
This week I watched an old movie called Ball of Fire, part of the PBS Little Women mini-series, and tried to watch a movie called Wonder Man with Danny Kaye but couldn’t get into it.
I honestly can’t remember what else I watched this past week so I guess it wasn’t very exciting.
Today I will be watching some sort of Christmas movie but I am not sure which one yet.
I added a couple thousand words to Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School last week.
I am listening (off and on) to Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link ups below.
This week we could choose whichever topic we wanted so I chose: Top Ten Quotes from my favorite Christmas book (or one of them): Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon.
A description of the book:
Experience the joys of a small town Christmas in this novel in the beloved Mitford series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon.
Millions of Americans have found Mitford to be a favorite home-away-from-home, and countless readers have long wondered what Christmas in Mitford would be like. The eighth Mitford novel provides a glimpse, offering a meditation on the best of all presents: the gift of one’s heart.
Since he was a boy, Father Tim has lived what he calls “the life of the mind” and has never really learned to savor the work of his hands. When he finds a derelict nativity scene that has suffered the indignities of time and neglect, he imagines the excitement in the eyes of his wife, Cynthia, and decides to undertake the daunting task of restoring it. As Father Tim begins his journey, readers are given a seat at Mitford’s holiday table and treated to a magical tale about the true Christmas spirit.
I try to read either all of this book, or parts of it, each year at Christmastime.
“Lord, make me a blessing to someone today!” He uttered aloud his grandmother’s prayer, raised his umbrella, and, beneath the sound of rain thudding onto black nylon, turned left, and headed to Lord’s Chapel to borrow a volume of Jonathan Edwards from the church library.
The day after his visit to Oxford Antiques, he realized that the angel had seized his imagination. He was surprised by a vivid recollection of her face, which he’d found beautiful, and the piety of her folded hands and downcast eyes. As for the missing wing, wasn’t that a pretty accurate representation of most of the human horde, himself certainly included?
In the back room of Happy Endings, Hope finished reading the second letter on her desk and held it for a moment close to her heart. She had never received a love letter before. She was, of course, the only one who would think it a love letter, as there was no mention of love in it, at all. Yet she could feel love beating in each word, in every stroke of the pen, just as it beat in the heart and soul of the chaplain of Hope House and expressed itself in everything he did.
His father gazed at him for an instant more, then walked up the steps and into the house. He sat there, numb with a mixture of joy and bewilderment. In one brief and startling moment, he realized that he was, after all, seen — and perhaps even loved.
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.
Blast it! No! He would not forfeit the glad rewards of this rare, unhurried moment. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and closed his eyes. Thank you, Lord, for the grace of an untroubled spirit, and for the blessings which are ours in numbers too great to count or even recognize. . . . He sat for some time, giving thanks, and then, without precisely meaning to, remembering. . . .
But, no. He didn’t want the Holy Family to go faster. He’d developed a special tenderness toward the last of this worshipful assembly, and wanted to give them his best effort, his deepest concentration. Indeed, it seemed to be the wont of most people in a distracted and frantic world to blast through an experience without savoring it or, later, reflecting upon it.
“I brought it home and thought, Timothy gave Hélène his beautiful bronze angel, I want to do this for him. Because if I could do it, it would represent the very reason Christ was born. He came to put us back together, and make us whole.”
“Christmas is real,” he said. “It’s all true.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s all true.
“Merry Christmas, my love.”
“Merry Christmas, dearest.”
“I’m a sinner saved by grace, Lew, not by works. It doesn’t matter a whit that I’m a priest. What matters is that we surrender our hearts to God and receive His forgiveness, and come into personal relationship with His Son.”
Bonus: He leaned down and took her chin in his hand and kissed her, lingering. “I like to see your eyelashes go up and down and the little stars come out of you.”
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link, you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
Thank you to those who linked up last month. Here are some highlights from that link party:
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about
Yesterday the kids and I went to see The Husband in the play version of It’s A Wonderful Life. Attending the play has become such a wonderful kick off to the Christmas season for us since he was also in the play last year.
This play is set up as a “radio play” where the characters are radio personalities presenting a play for an audience who only had access to a radio not a TV. This means the characters are reading from scripts but there are sound effects and voice changes that bring it all alive.
Each actor plays a couple of different characters so they have to change their voices or tones throughout. The Husband played four different characters but my favorite was Mr. Potter who I think he pulled off perfectly.
After the play an older man approached by husband and told him he had brought his blind adult son. The son thanked my husband and said the production came alive for him because of the voice changes and the sound effects added in.
My husband was so touched that the production meant that much to the young man, especially since there wasn’t a huge crowd there.
I hope more people attend the production today because the play version almost touched me more than the movie version, which I totally loved. I teared up a couple of times during it — especially at the end when George realizes how special his life is and how lost those in his life would be if he’d never been born.
It’s also interesting to note that Philip Van Doren Stern who wrote the original short story was born in the small town where my husband performed the play. He didn’t grow up there, but he was born there in 1900 and his father lived there for a time. (source Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Van_Doren_Stern)
If you don’t know the story, Stern wrote the short story for Christmas cards he and his daughter were sending out in 1943. He tried to get the story published but publishers didn’t pick it up so he self-published it. Later the short story was used for a full play and then for a screenplay for what has become one of the most famous Christmas movies of all time.
Now that we’ve seen the play, I feel like I can fully immerse myself in the Christmas season and am looking forward to making a list of Christmas movies to watch and Christmas books to read.
I thought I should mention here like I did in yesterday’s post that the girl kitten I’ve been writing about that was dropped off at our house a few weeks ago, is not actually a girl. We discovered some appendages this week that girl kittens do not have so our girl kitten is a boy kitten, but we are sticking with the name Cas.
It explains a lot about his behavior and his incessant yowling too.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
We will also be hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas starting tomorrow! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.”
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
Last night I finished The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert.
The concept of this book was a good one — Beatrix Potter, the children’s book author as a amateur sleuth — but when I finally got into the book, she wasn’t actually doing much sleuthing. She wasn’t even really the main character at times. There also wasn’t a ton of real “mystery” involved.
Instead, Beatrix wandered around talking to people and drawing pictures and meeting children while other characters (including the talking animals who were only understood by each other) did most of the solving of the very simple mysteries. There was more than one POV while I thought Beatrix would provide the main one.
The main mystery was a bit of a letdown for me in the end, but overall, the book had some cute, sweet moments. This was definitely a very, very light mystery with no gruesome of violent aspects (other than an owl making a meal out of some rats) and that isn’t a bad thing at all.
I don’t know if I will read more of this series or not yet. I’ll have to be in the mood for a leisurely wander rather than a strict whodunit if I do. That happens a lot so I’m sure book two will be read sometime in 2026.
I’m still reading Rebecca by Daphne DeMauier and will probably finish it this week unless I get wrapped up in Christmas movies and specials.
I might finish Nancy Drew: The Triple Hoax but I won’t finish it in time for Nancy Drew November.
I’m not really liking it, so it isn’t a priority for me.
I just ordered a copy of Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien and it won’t be here until a week before Christmas, but I think that will be perfect timing.
I plan to read at least one more Agatha Christie before the year ends and I think it will be Partners in Crime, my first Tommy and Tuppence mystery.
I also hope to read another Murder, She Wrote book but that might wait until after my Christmas reads, which including reading at least parts of Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon and Little Woman.
I watched my first James Cagney movie, Strawberry Blond, this week. I enjoyed it and will be watching it for my planned Winter of Cagney that I will be starting in January. I will be doing that at the same time I rewatch all of the Thin Man movies in order. It will be a fun month of old movies.
I also watched my second Bette Davis movie, Another Man’s Poison, (my first was All About Eve) this past week, and hope to watch more of her movies soon for Spring of Bette.
I watched The Barney Miller Show and episodes of TJ Hooker and Hunter with The Husband. We also watched a Murder, She Wrote episode. This week I hope to watch some more old movies, maybe a couple of Christmas movies, and some movies based on Agatha Christie books or stories. I also hope to watch at least one The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries episode so I can recap it on the blog.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link ups below.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about
Before I get too far into this post, I want to mention that today is my husband’s birthday and my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary.
Happy birthday to The Husband and happy anniversary to Butthead and Kim. Er….Bryan and Kim.
I have to say that I feel a bit bad telling this next story, considering it is my husband’s birthday, but I am going to do so anyhow because he’s a good sport. And please know that this story is shared in good humor, not as an actual complaint – since you can’t hear my tone which would be one tinged with laughter.
Last night he picked me up from my parents where I had been visiting them after he dropped me off. He suggested I sit in the back with our dog who tries to push her way into the middle console and bump against his arm while he’s trying to drive if there isn’t someone in the backseat with her.
I did so and when we got home, after dark mind you, my husband asked the dog if she was going to exit through the front door or would wait for me to move so she could exit through the back door. The dog stayed sitting next to me, so The Husband closed the door and walked into the house.
I thought he was going to go turn the outside light on and come back to help me with my bags, but instead when the dog and I got out of the car I found out we were totally alone in the driveway and backyard.
We’ve been married for 23-years and the man didn’t even open the door for me. Gasp! I was certain he would look out the back door to see if I was coming but after a few minutes, Zooma the Wonder Dog and I were still outside in the cold. I went inside and said, “Hey! Thanks a lot for leaving me!”
I found The Husband staring at The Avengers movie with the kids.
“I could have been eaten by a bear!” I told him.
“You wouldn’t have been eaten by a bear,” he insisted. “We’re located in a fairly safe neighborhood with a fairly well lit driveway. You were fine.”
For the record, we live on the end of a street at the far end of a tiny town, surrounded by the woods, and a couple of months ago Zooma the Wonder Dog had a stand off with a black bear in our backyard – a few hundred feet from where I was standing (alone and in semi-darkness).
“I just read a story about a black bear chasing a boy into a Dollar General in Pennsylvania!” I told him.
“What part of Pennsylvania?” he asked.
“Pittsburgh area but we still have bears around here you know!”
Chivalry is dead, ya’ll. Dead.
Something else that is also dead is my desire to worry about the number of books I am reading each year.
In 2026 I am simply going to read whatever I want and take as long as I want to read the books I choose. It isn’t that I worry about how many books I’ve read in a year too often anyhow, but sometimes I do find myself feeling bad I’m not reading more, usually because I am comparing myself to other bloggers or readers on social media.
It’s really silly to compare ourselves to others, especially at my age, but luckily it is a very brief comparison when I do so.
This year, I chose books I wanted to read, not books others said I should read, and I hope to do the same next year. I still want to list the books I read in my reading journal because I enjoy doing that and looking back at them at the end of the year, partially so I can recommend them (or not) to others, but I think next year I’ll simply list and not number. Or maybe I’ll just stop overthinking it? That might work too. *wink*
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
We will also be hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas starting the day after Thanksgiving! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.”
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.
I finished The Whispering Statue last week. It’s a Nancy Drew mystery and it had a lot of plot issues, but yet, it was also an interesting mystery, or had interesting aspects.
I am still reading Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier — a few chapters a week.
I added The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert to break up the drama of Rebecca.
Here is a quick description of the book from online: “The author of Peter Rabbit and other tales, Beatrix Potter is still, after a century, beloved by children and adults worldwide. In this first Cottage Tale, Albert introduces Beatrix, an animal lover and Good Samaritan with a knack for solving mysteries. With help from her entourage of talking animal friends, Beatrix sets out to win over the human hearts of Sawrey, where she’s just bought an old farm–and plans to stay.”
Up soon I plan to read an Agatha Christie book but I haven’t decided which one yet.
I have been watching mostly old shows again but also movies with the kids who are making their way through the Marvel movies. This would be a first time for Little Miss (11) and many times for The Boy (19).
This past week it was The Avengers and Iron Man 3. I hate Iron Man 3 so I tried to do other things while it was on. It was like watching a train wreck. It is the worst of the series for the Iron Man part. We just skipped the second Thor movie (The Dark World) because it is also horrible.
I also started a Bob Hope movie called I’ll Take Sweden. Frankie Avalon is also in it and it’s ridiculous. I had to go to bed before I could finish it.
And I watched a couple of YouTubers this week, including The Cottage Fairy who has been gone for a long time after having a baby but put up a new video this week.
I’ve been listening to The Jack Benny Show at night before bed.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link ups below.
The first book I read for Nancy Drew November was The Mystery of The Fire Dragon. The cover of this one caught my attention a while ago, so I was excited when I was able to get a copy of it and start it.
This one takes Nancy and her friends (Bess Marvin and George Fayne) first to New York City and then Hong Kong, to investigate the disappearance of a young Chinese-American woman named Chi-Che Soong.
Chi Che’s grandfather, Mr. Soong, doesn’t know his granddaughter is missing. He thinks she’s gone on a trip with friends, so he buries himself in writing a manuscript about – actually I don’t remember what the manuscript about, but I think it was about Chinese artifacts or something.
Chi-Che worked at a bookstore of antique books when she disappeared. Nancy wants to help her aunt Eloise, Mr. Soong’s neighbor, find out what happened.
At the same time, her lawyer father, Carson Drew, is preparing for a trip to Hong Kong and wants to take Nancy along. He sends her to New York to help his sister first though because he won’t be leaving for a week. I often wonder, by the way, where Carson Drew is going to investigate cases because sometimes the books don’t say. I always imagine he’s actually the lawyer for the CIA or something and is on big spy cases. I find it weird he often sends Nancy to solve cases on her own while he goes to investigate something else. She is often sent into very dangerous situations with just herself and her friends and this one is no different.
Anyhow, as soon as Nancy and her friends arrive at Aunt Eloise’s someone sets a large firecracker off in the apartment building hallway. Nancy and her friends try to find who did it but are unable to.
While at her aunt’s, Nancy notices how much her friend George Fayne, looks like the photos of Chi Che. She decides it will be a good idea to have George dress as her and then take her to the college campus and see if anyone thinks she is Chi Che and acts suspicious.
They will eventually meet one of Chi Che’s friends who is confused when she thinks Chi Che is on campus because Chi Che also told her she was traveling. The friend, Lili Allis, will work with Nancy and her friends by taking a job at the bookstore where Chi Che used to work.
Nancy is knocked out at least once in every book and this one is no different when she gets hit in the head with a flowerpot that falls out of a three-story window during this one. Ouch.
A friend, who studied Nancy Drew books in college told me that the Stratemeyer Syndicate only allowed for one knock out per character and only for a certain number of minutes. That absolutely cracked me up. I don’t care what the rule was, Nancy Drew definitely had some major brain damage from all the hits she took to her head over the years.
Eventually, Nancy’s investigation leads her to Hong Kong to search for the missing girl and find out if she found out about a crime that was going on in New York.
Two boons to her having to travel to Hong Kong for this case is that she will travel with her dad and that she will be able to meet up with her boyfriend Ned Nickerson who is studying at a college in Hong Kong. So many coincidences in this one — like Ned going to college there and when Mr. Soong’s brother is actually the ex-police chief in Shanghai so Nancy can meet up with him when she travels to Hong Kong.
I really enjoyed the history in this one. It was released in 1961 and mentions a lot of history about Hong Kong and China which I believe is accurate, though I didn’t look all of it up to double check. What I did look up is when China received control of Hong Kong again after British rule. In this book, the island is still controlled by Great Britain and the people have a great deal of freedom. The control of island went back to China in 1997, though I thought it was much later.
While Hong Kong was able to remain mainly separate from China even after control was handed back, the People’s Republic of China has begun to assert more control in the last five years.
The relationship between Ned and Nancy is cute with Ned always excited when her sleuthing stops and they can spend time together.
Some of the history was dropped while Nancy and Ned were spending time together. At one point they take in a Chinese opera and then visit a houseboat restaurant in a village called Aberdeen, which I thought was odd since it sounded Scottish.
I did look this up online and there is a real Aberdeen on the southwest side of the Island of Hong Kong. It is a fishing village and features a floating village and floating restaurants. It turns out the town is named after the former UK Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, which explains the name.
There is a scene where Ned and Nancy visit the floating village and unlike other books that don’t focus as much on descriptions, there is a more lengthy description of the village and the lights and how beautiful it all is. This makes me think that whomever the ghost writer for this book was, had visited Hong Kong at some point.
There are some rather “odd” sections in this book, such as when Grandpa Soong asks George and Bess if they believe in transference.
“They both admitted that they did. Then Grandpa Soong said” There are men in this world who are more dangerous than fire dragons. I am sure my Chi Che is being held by one or more of them and really was calling out in her thoughts to me and Miss Drew for help.”
Mmmmmkaaaay.
I also didn’t understand the end of the book and why Chi Che was found where she was (maybe I’ve read too many darker mysteries and figured that in reality the ‘bad guys’ would have just killed her) but it was still an intriguing mystery with a lot of interesting characters.
I seem to like the books where Nancy travels out of the country or away from River Heights more than those that take place in River Heights. I think that is because the books away from River Heights feel more rounded or flushed out due to the addition of historical elements.
Another one of my favorites, before this one, was The Case of The Whistling Bagpipes, which took Nancy to Scotland.
I know a lot of my blog followers have not read Nancy Drew before but if you have read this one, let me know in the comments.
I enjoyed what Avery from True Drew Podcast had to say about this episode too. You can find that here.
Today’s prompt was: Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future (submitted by Veros @ Dark Shelf of Wonders).
I don’t read a ton of modern books so I couldn’t think of any for that prompt. Instead I decided to share ten children’s books I didn’t read as a child but did read as an adult.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
I saw a movie adaption of this when I was a child but never read the book. I honestly think I appreciated it more as an adult. I read it myself and the next week read it aloud to my 11-year-old daughter and she enjoyed it too. What a sweet book with so many lessons. I didn’t like the way it ended, but only because I wanted more. I think most people know what this one is about but a quick summary is that it is about a girl who is orphaned, is sent to live with her eccentric and strange uncle at his mansion on the moor of England. While there she uncovers some family secrets and learns how to be kind and to love life.
2. Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
This was a quirky one but very fun to read with our daughter. This one is about two kids who go to visit their cousin and find an abandoned village that was left when the dam was destroyed and the lake that had been there disappeared. It turns out, though, that the whole village isn’t abandoned. There is a brother and sister living in two of the houses that are still standing.
3. The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes
This is a book in the series of books about The Moffat family. This one is about Jane Moffat, who is the middle Moffat. It is such a cute book with each chapter being it’s own story, yet one theme running throughout — the theme of Jane’s relationship with a 100-year-old Civil War vet. It was so sweet. I read this one first and then read it again with our daughter.
4. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
Little Miss and I listened to this one on Audible and really enjoyed it. Well, most of it. There are some chapters we skip because the stories are either dark or weird.
The story follows the Woodlawn family in Wisconsin, with the main focus being on 10-year-old Callie. It takes place during the Civil War years.
5. The Good Master by Karen Seredy
Little Miss and I just finished this one.
It takes place in Hungary and follows the adventures of young Kate and her cousin Jancsi. Kate is sent to stay with Jancsi and her aunt and uncle because, quite frankly, she is a brat and her dad wants his brother to teach her to be a nicer little girl.
Kate learns about sheep farming, life in a rural area, and how to be part of a family in this sweet book (though it did also have a disturbing chapter where she is kidnapped by gypsies).
6. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
I saw the 1985 version of this when I was young, but didn’t read the book until a few years ago. Two years ago I read it, while summarizing some parts, to Little Miss. We loved this book and love Anne. I think most readers of my blog know what Anne is all about, but if you don’t — it’s about an orphan who is mistakenly sent to live with an older couple and grows up to be a charming, whimsical and spunky child.
7. Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen
I loved this one and read it in the spring two years ago. I then read it this past spring to Little Miss. This is the story of a young girl whose father has PTSD from World War II. The family goes to stay at the girl’s great-grandmother’s farm, abandoned since the great-grandparents passed away. They go for the visit to help her father heal but it becomes a place for the whole family to heal.
8. The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
I read this one with my son years ago and enjoyed it and have started it with Little Miss. This book is an adventure book that stars young rabbits with swords who go on a quest that leads them through a journey of good and evil, searching for family, and learning about themselves and what they can do.
9. The Black Stallion by William Farley
I saw the movie adaptation when I was a child but did not read the book until about a year ago. I read it to Little Miss and it was good but there were some sections we skipped because it just dragged and dragged. This book is about a boy who is shipwrecked with a wild, Arabian stallion which he befriends and takes with him when he is rescued. Eventually he begins to work with a trainer to make the horse a race horse.
10. The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
This one is about a young pioneer girl from Pennsylvania whose family moves from the Philadelphia area to a very rural area of the state and learns what it means for a family to become self-sufficient and help to settle a new world.
Have you read these books? What did you think of them?
Are there children’s books you didn’t read until you were an adult?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
