Weekend Post

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend.

The bitter cold is here. Brrr.  The temperature this morning is -5  degrees F (-15 degrees C). Luckily it doesn't appear to be too windy, but I'm not going outside to check. 

It's hard to believe that  just this past Thursday it was mild, calm and 40 degrees F (4.4 degrees C) . It felt like spring after the cold weather we had earlier in the week. Funny how a couple of days of cold can make 40 degrees feel warmer than it would feel if we never had had the cold.

It was so nice I met my walking friend at the beach. You can see the beach in the photo below. After I left the beach I drove along the coast and stopped to take a few photos. 

These other photos might look cold, but it wasn't.

I even saw this hawk. He/she was a big one, and looking fast from afar I thought maybe this was the snowy owl that's been seen around this town. Then I carefully looked and it is not a snowy owl. No doubt. 

As I drove out of the parking lot I could tell it was a hawk. I must admit, I'm not very good at hawk identification except for red tailed hawks (because we have so many). Maybe a Cooper's Hawk? (David if stop by perhaps you could help.)

I also like how the sky in the background looks painted, don't you think?

Yesterday I stayed home all day, and I spent quite a bit of time playing in my happy place. I'll finish my post with a page for my Let's Face It challenge at Art Journal Journey

I started with some of liquid watercolor, then I stamped the face. The page was still a little white so I used some assorted spray colors of ink and paint to finish the background. I did stamp the face  once on some white paper and fussy cut it and added that one to the page after I was done with the background.

The face is a stamp I carved. I was inspired by Alison (Craftytrog)'s hand carved stamps, so I made a couple this past week. The face in my page really made me happy. 

I also die cut some fat borders  from book paper and gave them a bit of a design.

I finished the page with some rub on letters that I am trying to use up. I also added some tiny little red hearts. They are supposed to be used in a shaker card, but I like them as tiny bits on my background.

The quote is hard to read but it says: Life is Short, Do What you Love. Playing in the studio is certainly one of my loves.

Stay warm, have fun, and have a great weekend.

Friday Art

 Hi everyone. This work week  in New Hampshire is ending warmer than is was on Monday and Tuesday. It is still winter chilly today, but not Arctic freezing-hurrah for that. But like most weeks, this one flew right by.

And we did have a day when it felt like early spring and I could go for a beach walk.  Happiness for sure. 

However the extreme cold is due back tonight and tomorrow too. They're saying with wind chills it will feel like its -15 to -25 degrees. (-26 to -31 degrees C). And then we have some snow turning to ice or maybe rain coming in for Sunday night and Monday. Yes, it is winter. Sounds like there might be a lot of art time open in the next few days if the forecast holds true. 

 I do have some  some art to share today. I'll start with this tag for Wendy's challenge at Tag Tuesday. The new challenge is Use Fabric On It.

This is one thing I have managed to make and finish in the past few days.

I hope the blue and white vintage cloth trim at the bottom works for the challenge.

I used pink and brown ink on my  background, and then added these 2 paper die cut gears as well as this chipboard chess piece from my stash.  I think I went a little crazy with all the paint pen dots too.

I added the TH man and on the back of the tag I added a bit of metallic paper trim. I added it to the back so just the tips would peak out along the bottom of the tag, and my cloth trim wouldn't have to compete with it.

My other art piece today is a journal page for my Let's Face It Challenge at Art Journal Journey. I made this page awhile back in preparation for the challenge. I thought this would be a good page to share today as it also has some cloth trim along the bottom.

Plus it has a hint of spring with the bunny. Since we are smack dab down in real winter weather a hint of spring is always welcome.

There's actually a lot going on on this page, including painting, stenciling, doodling, messy scribbling,  fussy cutting out some printed paper, as well as die cutting. 

The quote is a very old Penny Black rubber stamp from my stash.

That's all for me. 

I hope you've had a nice week so far and have a wonderful ( and hopefully warm) weekend ahead. 

Enjoy!

More of My California Journal

Hi everyone. 

Today I thought I would share a few more pages from the travel journal I am making with scraps from my November trip to California.  I've added a few photos also of places shown in the journal, but the photos are not in my journal.

I've shown you photos from Joshua Tree National Park already, but I wanted to try my hand at drawing a Joshua tree. I penciled in the shape and colored this one with markers except for the sky which is a gelato watercolor crayon and for the mountain in the background where I used a watercolor colored pencil. I also added a few bits to the page too.

I picked up this Find Your Park brochure at some stop we made. It is made of heavy paper, and I thought it would work not only for the national parks we visited but also as a mini-page where I could attach other things.

I added some stickers and notes to the front. And when you open the brochure, you can find a few more items like this postcard I picked up at the park.

Fully opened I used this map I found in a tourist brochure and outlined most our  trip except for our first couple of days in LA and the time we spent on the Monterey Peninsula.

In this next page I created a tag (which I have since lightly colored in yellow) and used this fun cactus tissue paper. It would have been better if it was Joshua tree tissue paper, but I had this in my stash and thought it represented the desert enough to work.

Another place we visited in the desert was the Salton Sea. I thought its ecology was fascinating, but my husband thought it was a waste of time. We visited the state park headquarters and discovered a few things about the Sea, and the entrance fee ticket made the basis for my page below.

The Salton Sea was a semi-wet land that flooded around 1905 and created this large body of water. It was salty because of minerals found in the environment leached into the water.  After World War 2 until the 1970's it was a hot tourist area with lots of boating, fishing and beach going as it was an inland ocean.

With more demands for limited water in Southern California and with less rainfall, a lot of the sea has evaporated (as less fresh water is going into it), leaving it saltier and much smaller than it had been. Tourism has really dried up, leaving some previously busy beach towns to turn into ghost towns. Bombay Beach was one of those, and when we drove in, my husband basically turned around and drove out (even though an artist is trying to revive the town). Since the Salton Sea is saltier than the ocean, power boating has basically ended because the salt really corrodes those boats.

The Salton Sea is still a big birding area. At the beach near the state park headquarters, we did see some oyster catchers.

There was some low clouds that morning, and  I thought the views were pretty.

You can see how much the water has dropped though.

The Salton Sea wasn't more than a half an hour drive from where we were staying, and it was even shorter in the other direction to get  to Palm Springs. After we left the Salton Sea we drove into Palm Springs and walked around downtown as well as getting some lunch.

The A frame building in the top part of my page is now the tourist info center, and we had stopped there not only to use the bathrooms but to get directions about where it would be good to go in the city, especially for lunch.

We were directed to Main Street, and we walked quite a ways down and back, getting lunch, window shopping and checking out the city.

We had our lunch at this restaurant below, Maracus. We sat outside and had some delicious Mexican food.

As it was before Thanksgiving, and a relatively warm day, it seemed strange (for me who comes from a more winter  area) to see everything decorated for Christmas. 

And even though we didn't go in, outside of the Palm Springs Art Museum they had this great gigantic statue of Marilyn Monroe.

And this other exhibit also.

And when you walk down along Main Street in downtown Palm Springs, they have their own Palm Springs walk of stars. Here's a couple of examples.

Has anyone had a date shake? I really wanted to try one of these but I was so full from my delicious lunch I just couldn't do it. It's one of the things I will do if I ever go back to the area.

And finally, before this post gets extra long, here's a collage page I made in my journal to represent moments from the whole weekend in the desert.  (Ignore the cactus paper on the left.)

And as I have a few faces on this last piece,  I am linking it up to the Let's Face It challenge at Art Journal Journey

I hope you enjoyed my post today. Thanks for visiting.

 

Family

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday to you.

Although you can't see the details in the faces on my page today, I have another journal entry for the "Let's Face It" challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I started by using a stencil and a black Sharpie to create the border on my page. I colored in the outlined framing pieces and then I used some pink pan watercolor to color in the white space in the middle of the paper as well as adding a few watercolor splatters to the edges of the page.

I covered the watercolored middle with some printed tissue paper. I traced the people images with a stencil, painted them in black as well as fussy cut them out.  I added them to my page. The arrangement made me think of my immediate family (my husband, myself and my daughter when she was younger), but I also like the twist that families can be made up in many non-traditional ways, so that's what I titled my page.

The colors in the center were a bit too bold for my liking, so I did use a bit of white gesso to tone them down after I attached my family. Then I stamped the "family" word and added the die cut heart that was sitting on my table from a page I made back in December.

And that's my page for today.

Hope your week is going well so far. Thanks for stopping by.

In With The New

 Hi everyone.  

It's hard to believe the holidays have come and gone, and it is time to start another year of challenges at Try It on Tuesday. Congrats to all our spotlight artists. Next week we will post the top for 5 for our snowflake challenge which ran before the holidays.

Our first in 2022  challenge is 

IN WITH THE NEW!

It's time to try something new. Perhaps a new technique, some new stamp(s) or media, a new style, or something you've been wanting to do but  haven't yet.

My something new was some Hero Arts liquid inks used with some Dina Wakely spray paint. The spray paint wasn't new, but the inks ( a gift from a friend) and the inks used with the spray paint were.

I put some drops of ink on my water color paper and then sprayed the page with water to spread out the inks. I wondered what would happen if I sprayed some paint onto the page while the inks were still wet, and when I did that I created this background that reminded me of a bright night sky.  There might even be a bit of the northern lights going on here too. 

I stamped an evergreen tree several times in black along the bottom of the page, and I also used a stamp to create the moon. I colored in the center circle  of the moon with some watered down iridescent white  paint. I also stamped the snowman and his pup on some paper; then after coloring and fussy cutting them, I added them to some white space at the bottom of the page. I also stamped the "snowflakes" around the snowman and the quote, using a bit of paint pen for each snowflake.

I must say I like these Hero Arts liquid watercolors. The colors stayed bold when sprayed with water, and I like how I can spray them to create these spontaneous backgrounds. I know you could spray with a puddle of regular watercolors also, but since these are liquid to start with, you can get a really large spray area if you use a big drop.

All forms of art are accepted at Try It On Tuesday, and this challenge will run for 2 weeks. Don't forget to visit the other designer's blogs too. There's lots of great inspiration there also.

As my journal page also has the snowman's and the snowdog's faces on it, I am linking up to this month's challenge at 

Art Journal Journey.  That new challenge  is Let's Face It.

Thanks for visiting my page. I hope your new year is going well. 

T Stands for Shopping

 Hi everyone from frigid New Hampshire. Tonight (Monday) is cold but tomorrow they say our temperatures will be close to 0 degrees F (about -18 degrees C) with wind chill making it feel like it is about -15 degrees F (-26 degrees C), if not colder. I can tell you where you will find me on T day this week, next to the woodstove. (smile).  Luckily it is only suppose to be this cold for a day, because we have had times it's gone on for a week or even a bit longer. 

Since it is Monday night/Tuesday it is time for T over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog once again. I always look forward to seeing what drink everyone is sharing, never mind all the other interesting things too. 

Last week was certainly a fast week.

You might remember I mentioned in my last T Day post that my daughter was on vacation before she starts her new job this coming Friday. I also mentioned she wanted to go shopping.

One day last week we had sunshine and some cooler temperatures (in the mid-twenties  degree F or around -3 or -4 degrees C). It was the first sunny day in awhile and certainly the first sunny day in January, so we decided a little shopping roadtrip would be a great idea.

We headed off to Freeport, Maine. 

If you aren't familiar with LL Bean, they are a northern New England fixture. Back in  1911 their original owner, Leon Leowood Bean, made these "hunting" boots (as seen in the photo above) with rubber bottoms and leather uppers to keep feet dry while tromping around in wet woodlands. Somewhere along the line these boots even became stylish for day to day wear on college campuses and for others in the ever changing New England weather, as well as other places too. 

I had a pair in college, and I have 3 pairs now: ancient clunky felt lined ones for winter (that they no longer make) that are good for shoveling and mucking around in the snow, a low pair of slip ons, and a pair like this statue only they are fleece lined. I'm not sure what happened to my college pair; sadly, somewhere in my 20's moving around they vanished. 

One thing about these boots is that if the sole wears out, they can be replaced.  My ancient felt lined winters ones had to be replaced once when the dog we had at the time was mad I left her and she chewed the soles off both boots, all while my husband was in the other room doing something and didn't notice. My husband was pretty happy he didn't have order me new boots because at that time they fixed soles for free. I'm not sure if it is still a free service now, although they still fix and clean boots for you.

Here's the LL Bean page about their boot sustainability in case you are interested: LL Bean boots.

The flagship store is in Freeport, Maine, about an hour and 40 minutes from my house. LL Bean now has stores and outlets in other places. Beans (as many New Englanders call it) sells a variety of outdoor gear, clothing, housewares, etc. My first ever visit to Beans was when I was a teenager, and the store was in a multistory wooden sided unremarkable building. After several renovations and enlargements, Beans is now fairly big and drives a whole shopping experience in Freeport. 

In one of the open areas in their store complex, Beans still had their holiday decorated tree up.

I thought the reflection in one of their giant shiny balls would make a good photo, even if we are  distorted from the curvature of the ball.

And yes, we had done some shopping. If you're curious, I bought a pair of flannel pillow cases that match the flannel comforter/duvet cover I received for Christmas in 2020. Not very exciting I admit. 

I have digressed a bit from the drink theme of today's post, so let me share my drink with you.

It was very warm inside of LL Beans. The outside  air felt nice when we walked to go to a few other stores.  As it was a Tuesday morning and not particulary warm outside (like 24 degrees F or -4 degrees C), the stores were not very crowded and we had our masks. At the end of our shopping, we were thirsty, and my daughter, the Starbucks girl in the family, wanted a strawberry acai drink. She offered to buy me a drink. I never go to Starbucks on my own. Usually if I am at Starbucks I get a hot chai latte, but since I was warm from walking and from being inside LL Beans, I tried the peach-green tea-lemonade, light on the ice. You can see my drink in my hand in the photo above. It was delicious and refreshing too.

We had a fun day out with a few other stops along the way, including at the Big Indian (yes I know that is not politically correct at all but that's what it is called) that stands at the south end of Freeport. There must have been a tourist gift shop here back in the days when these kitschy statues were all the rage.

He is now a Freeport landmark along with LL Beans.

With our other stops,  we didn't get home until just before 6 PM.

All that shopping and driving was exhausting too.

(I just noticed how dirty my backseat is-smile!)

Have a great T day and week ahead. Thanks for visiting.

Happy New Week

 Hi everyone. Welcome to the end of the weekend or start to the new week, depending on when you read this post. 

Winter has really arrived in New Hampshire. We had about 4 inches (10 cm) of snow on Friday, some "mixed" precipitation today, and the weather people are saying that this week the very cold will be arriving, with temperatures of about 4 degrees Fahrenheit Tuesday (about -17 degrees C). Brrr.

Since it's been a quiet weekend, not much is new, but I want to share another page for my Let's Face It challenge at Art Journal Journey.

Today's page's background is made with some torn and collaged Gelli printed deli paper and also some printed tissue paper.

The faces are cut from a high fashion magazine that I picked up from my MIL's  trash pile last fall.  The tag was sitting on my work table as it is the inside of the frame I used the other day for my mirror post. The quote (from my stash) looked lost on it when I left it plain so I doodled in some details.

That's all for me. I've been doing some shoveling, catching up with a long time friend on the phone and watching some football with the hubby (on TV), as well as a few other creative tasks this weekend. I must say it is nice to more or less hibernate in this winter weather.

I hope you have a great start to the new week and you had a nice weekend. 

Thanks for visiting. 

December Books and 2021 Reading Wrap Up

Hi everyone. It's a cold Saturday morning here and that seems the perfect setting to do a book post. 

It's time for me to wrap up 2021's books with my December book post. I can tell it was the holiday season by the choices of books I read. Some of them had holiday themes, and some of them were just easy reads.

 Although I enjoyed all the books I read or listened to last month, I found it hard to  pick up an actual book and sit down to read for awhile.  My focus was there for listening, but for reading a book, not so much.  I'm not sure if it was because many of the  books I picked  weren't grabbing my attention, or if I was just busy and going through a reading slump month. If I listed all the actual books I had started to read last month and then put down, this would be a much longer post. 

So here's what I did read and also listened to for those of you enjoy reading book posts.

 This month started off with some Agatha Christie stories.

This first  book I found in my attic while taking out my holiday decorations.  Many years back, at a suggestion of a friend, I had stored some of my book overflow in boxes in the attic.

That worked OK until I didn't know what was boxed up in the attic because I had too many boxes. I did a big cleaning a few years back, and now, every time I go up in the attic to get something or to return something whose season is over, I bring down a pile of books that didn't get cleaned out.  Somehow this Agatha Christie non-fiction volume must have been mistakenly put up there.  Rather than put it in a donation pile or on my actual bookshelf, I decided to read it as it was a new story to me.

Agatha Christie's second husband was Max Mallowan. He was an archaeologist who went on many digs in the Middle East. This book is Agatha's story from some of her time spent in that part of the world during these digs, and it is also the story of that part of her life with Max. This book was first published in 1946, but it is more of a memoir and refers  back to 2 separate archaeological digs before the Second World War.

This book was a really a charming and an interesting read. It was fun to see the author as a person in her own words. Agatha must have had a really warm and loving relationship with her husband.  Their adventures in Syria and even aboard the Orient Express  were, although definitely dated, fascinating. And a little challenging at times too. They lived in tents and drove around in an old car fitted out for desert trips called Queen Mary, later painted blue and called Blue Mary.  I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and it you are looking for  the romance ( and hardships) of some vintage style travel, then I recommend this book.

My next Agatha Christie was my first listen for the month. It was time for a holiday classic.

Simeon Lee is getting old and his health isn't very good, so he decides he wants the whole family together for Christmas. Lee made a lot of money digging diamonds in South Africa, and he isn't the sweetest of old men either. His four sons and his granddaughter (from his daughter who is no longer living) gather at his stately home, and of course, there is murder afoot. Christie's famous detective Hercule Poirot arrives to solve the case.

This book is classic Christie, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed this story also. 

My next listen was a light "cozy" style mystery, book 2 in the Witch City Mysteries by Carol J. Perry. It just so happened, quite unplanned by me, to also have the beginning of the book  set at Christmas.

Lee Barrett has moved back to her home in  Salem, Massachusetts after several years of living in Florida and a too early in life widowhood. Along with her cat and her detective boyfriend (both whom she met in book one), Lee  investigates a murder of a family friend that happened in the building where her new job is located. She is now teaching at a performing arts academy in what was the city's oldest department store. There is lots of talk about the family who  built and owned that store, and those "stories" include many gold pieces. Lee's aunt, (Aunt Ebby), is a retired city librarian, and she "researches" lots of details in case also, especially about the connection between the family who owned the store and the gold. So how  does the gold connect to the murder?  That's one of the questions that carries through this multi layered story.

The cover of the book makes this story look like it is a comedy, which is isn't, but it is an easy to follow and enjoyable read or listen.  I hope Aunt Ebby gets a bigger role in some later books. Unlike book one where the murderer was pretty obvious, in this story the author has you thinking that there are a couple of people who could have been the murderers, right until the actual murderer is announced.  

I'm not sure the Camelot Capers by Elizabeth Peters was exactly what I felt like reading when I grabbed this book off the shelf, but it did grab my attention right on page one. Jessica is being chased by 2 men, perhaps for the heirloom ring she has or perhaps there is another more sinister reason. It is not the trip to England that she planned and hoped for.

The only way to escape the small village where she has gone to hide  (after she has given the men the slip and before they can find her again),  is to travel with her new friend David in his car first to London, and then to a few other places in England.  No matter where she goes however, those men are there, and the nastiness of their activity just keeps escalating.

This book was a fast read and an adventurous romp. I actually ended up quite enoying it, and I didn't expect what these men stalking Jessica were really up to.  This book is one of Peters stand alone mysteries and not part of any series she wrote. It was originally published in 1969. I'm finding that the variety of stories Peters wrote in her stand alone mysteries is very diverse and makes some enjoyable mysteries. No wonder why her later written Amelia Peabody mysteries are so good. 

My next listen was Jack Whitehall's new book, How To Survive Family Holidays.  I don't know what it is like to read this in book format (as it is not available here in the US until February), but I can  recommend this book to listen to if you're a fan of Whitehall's comedy. I laughed a lot.

If you aren't familiar with Jack Whitehall, he is a British actor/comedian. He has a few seasons of the show "Travels with My Father" on Netflix. In this show, Jack actually travels with his dad to various places across the globe and in some obviously set up situations, tries to modernize his father. His mom pops in on occasion too. I don't know if it is because they are family, but they have fantastic comedic timing with each other. Jack's Dad, Michael Whitehall, had been an agent who worked with actors and his mother is ( or maybe she also is retired) the actress Hilary Gish.

Also be aware that if you are American or a  citizen of another country where the word holiday can have different meanings, the holiday in the title of this book is about vacations, not strictly holidays such as Christmas, (although there is a section about spending holidays like Christmas with your family).  I listened to the Audible version, and I really enjoyed how Jack, Dad Michael and Mom Hilary all narrated the story. I'm not sure this book is for everyone, but I had a  good time listening to it. 

Another book I listened to is this novella by the queen of mysteries set in Victorian times, Anne Perry. At just over 3 1/2 hours, it was a quick but well written, serious story. A group of people have gathered at an estate called Applecross for some holiday festivities. One of the guests, a young woman, dies.  Another young woman named Gwendolen,  although she didn't physically murder the dead woman, is being held responsible for her death. 

Vespasia Cumming-Gould, a character from Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery series, travels with Gwendolen north to inform the dead women's mother of her daughter's death.  Vespasia is interested in unraveling why the young woman died, and as the novella unwinds, she uncovers that story.  Things are never quite what they seem in this excellent mystery. 

Reading an Anne Perry books always makes me glad I didn't live during Victorian times, but she still makes them fascinating to read about. I very much enjoyed this holiday story, and I think it would be a good read even when it isn't December.

After listening to the Anne Perry novella, I decided it was time for some more historical fiction. This book was a recommendation from Alison (Craftytrog) who mentioned how she really enjoyed it. 

This is the story of Mary Bennett, the middle of Jane's Austen's Bennett sisters from her novel Pride and Prejudice. 

It took me a bit to get into the swing of this novel. I started listening to it on my drive home from visiting my mother (which is over a 2 hour drive), and I was wondering if it was the right book for me. Then, as I was driving,  I suddenly realized I was quite enjoying Mary's story, and that the author had done a clever job of not only portraying the family Jane Austen created, but she also did a good job in how she retold Pride and Prejudice in the first part of the book.  

The author then continues the story beyond what Jane Austen wrote, but she keeps it quite appropriate for the time period and Austen's general style. Except Mary! The ending may have been dragged out a bit, but this was a thoroughly enjoyable story.  Thanks Alison for the recommendation. 

Moonflower Murders was my last book for 2021. I picked up this book on a trip to Costco. I didn't realize when I bought the book that it was book 2 in a series, but since book 1 (Magpie Murders)  and this author had been recommended to me by several people, I thought should give Moonflower Murders a try. Plus reading the first 8-10 pages in the store caught my attention.

When I got home that I realized Moonflower Murders was book 2 in a series. I did some online research to see if I should actually continue reading it. I found that it is a stand alone story, but the main characters continue from book 1. I decide to live dangerously and read this book without reading book 1.

I definitely could follow the story without reading book 1. In fact, I really enjoyed the story. The story starts with a murder and a missing person, and then there is a novel within the murder. It was cleverly done and not a difficult read. I was a little curious at the premise as to why a former book publisher should be asked to come and investigate a murder and a missing person, but sometimes in fiction I think you just have to go with the story.

Now I need to get a copy of book 1 to read where it all began.

My analysis and  recap of my reading for 2021:

And finally for this post, I did a recap of all the books I read during the year, just to see where those books had taken me. You're welcome to read on if you are curious.

2021 ended up being a good year for books.  March  was the month I read the most books (11) ; November was the month I read the least (4 with 2 of those were already half read in October).  I did do a count of the books I read in 2021, and it came in at  96 books, not including cookbooks and arts or crafts  books.

The breakdown by genre was:

1 classic (no wonder why I'm ready to read another one) fictional/non-mystery story

11 nature, gardening, natural history books

1 children's literature book (also a classic in that genre)

4 science books (which include biographies but are not straight biographies)

1 biography

1 history (nonfiction) book

7 sci-fi or fantasy books

7 historical fiction books*

12 general fiction books*

7 nonfiction books (not included in the science, nature or history above)

44 mysteries-including mystery classics

*explanation note how I separated by genre

historical fiction and fiction could be combined, but I put a book into the historical area  if it referred to an actual person or actual events or if the main focus of the story focused on a time period

 And here's a few notes on those 96 books. 

-book I was most surprised to really enjoy: Andy Weir,  Project Hail Mary (since I don't usually like out in space fiction)

-book(s) I would most likely reread: Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog (because it was funny and has enough depth that I probably missed something, and now I want to read 3 Men in a Boat.  To Say Nothing of the  Dog was inspired  by this story)

-longest book I read: Ken Follett: The Evening and The Morning 

-shortest book I read:Winston S. Churchill, Painting as a Pastime

-books I had read or listened to in the past and reread this past year:   Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders, Colleen McCullough: The Thorn Birds,  Dorothy L Sawyers: Whose Body, Robert James Waller: The Bridges of Madison County, Charlaine Harris: From Dead to Worse, Elizabeth Peters: The Curse of the Pharaohs, Madeleine L'Engle: A Wrinkle in Time 

-book that inspired me to read some other books it mentioned: Peter Swanson, Eight Perfect Murders (Of those 8 perfect murder mysteries, I had only read 2, and since reading this book I have read 3 others. That leaves me 3 to find and read.)

-my least favorite book of the year: Marcello Hernandez Castillo, Children of the Land  (This book was actually a very good book, but quite heavy and depressing at many points. I don't regret listening to it; it was eye opening and made to see the plight of so many immigrants, and I wanted to finish it. In the end, it was the least favorite of all the books I completed.  However I guess I could say my actual least favorite books were all the ones I started and then put aside as they weren't exciting me enough to continue.)

-memorable fiction: although they were all enjoyable or I wouldn't have kept reading: Elizabeth Gilbert: The Signature of All Things, Ariel Lawhon: Code Name Helene, Ken Follett: The Evening and the Morning, Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog, Toshikazu Kawaguchi: Before the Coffee Gets Cold; Jane Smiley: Perestroika in Paris, Ian Mortimer: The Outcasts of Time, Richard Osman: Thursday Murder Club, Marie Benedict: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Mary Stewart: The Hollow Hills (note to self: the last 2 books on my December list were not finished when I did this analysis so I did not include them.)

my favorite science read: Howard Markel: The Secret of Life

-series on the top of my 2022 list I need to read more of: (many the mysteries I read including but not only)   Elly Griffiths: The Magic Men, Susan Hill: Simon Serrailer, Elizabeth Peters: Amelia Peabody series, Dorothy L Sayers: all her mysteries, Connie Willis: the rest of her Oxford Time Travel books, Richard Osman: book 2 of his Thursday Murder Club, Anthony Horowitz: the Magpie Murders, Charlaine Harris: books 9-13 of her True Blood fantasies.  Some  series I would read anyhow because I love them and so did not mention those here.

memorable non-fiction books (including biography, nature, and history) : Elizabeth Tova Bailey: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Thomas D. Seeley: The Lives of Bees, The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild,  Bonnie Tsui: Why We Swim, Patrick Swevsson: The Book of Eels.

book I'm still reading but haven't yet finished: David Starkey: Six Wives

Memorable mysteries/suspense books including but not only: Nevada Barr: Firestorm and A Superior Death, Kim Taylor Blakemore: After Alice Fell, Elly Griffiths: The Nighthawks and the Zig Zag Girl, Donna Leon: Death in a Strange Country and Death at La Fenice , Anne Hillerman: Stargazer, Peter May: Lockdown, Arnaldur Indridason:  The Shadow District, Louise Penny: All The Devils Are Here, Peter Swanson: Eight Perfect Murders

Sorry for the extra long book post today.

And please, I love recommendations, so share if you have any. I can only read so many books, so even if you recommend a book and you don't see me reading it right away, it doesn't mean it isn't on my to read list.  

Happy reading in 2022 to you!