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Young Rhea is a miller’s daughter of low birth, so she is understandably surprised when a mysterious nobleman, Lord Crevan, shows up on her doorstep and proposes marriage. Since commoners don’t turn down lords—no matter how sinister they may seem—Rhea is forced to agree to the engagement.
Lord Crevan demands that Rhea visit his remote manor before their wedding. Upon arrival, she discovers that not only was her betrothed married six times before, but his previous wives are all imprisoned in his enchanted castle. Determined not to share their same fate, Rhea asserts her desire for freedom. In answer, Lord Crevan gives Rhea a series of magical tasks to complete, with the threat “Come back before dawn, or else I’ll marry you.”
With time running out and each task more dangerous and bizarre than the last, Rhea must use her resourcefulness, compassion, and bravery to rally the other wives and defeat the sorcerer before he binds her to him forever.
I love T. Kingfisher and I’m desperately trying to catch up with reading all the books she’s writing!
The Quotes
“Marriage was like death. You knew it’d happen eventually, but it wasn’t something you dwelt on.”
“The problem with crying in the woods, by the side of a white road that leads somewhere terrible, is that the reason for crying isn’t inside your head. You have a perfectly legitimate and pressing reason for crying, and it will still be there in five minutes, except that your throat will be raw and your eyes will itch and absolutely nothing else will have changed.”
“It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to be fattened up and eaten, or turned into a donkey, or forced to wear hair shirts and ashes like the children of wicked parents in fairy tales. But if your parents were wicked, you needn’t worry about pleasing them. When they were doing the best they could, you had no traction at all.”
“But he’s mad, completely mad, and he turns his wives into golems. He needs killing, not negotiation.”
The Narrator(s)
Kaylin Heath. I loved it!
My Thoughts
I love fairytale retellings and for some reason, I’m particularly fascinated with the story of Bluebeard. It’s not my favorite fairytale, mind, just one that fascinates me because of how gruesome it is. I love that this retelling leans into the gruesomeness, and I love that it also not-so-subtly calls out the predatory practices that some modern men still engage in. One of the things I notice and love about Kingfisher’s works is that a lot of the “happy-ever-afters” in her stories don’t require some kind of romance, or men saving helpless damsels in distress; it’s often women saving themselves, or women saving each other, and I think that’s the best kind of fairytale retellings for a new generation of young people to grow up with. I wish I had grown up with this, but you know it’s never too late to be your own knight in shining armor, so I’ll take what I can from it!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened – by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.
The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they’ve been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line – conveniently labeled “crazy” so their voices are ignored.
No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose…
I enjoyed The Radium Girls by the same author, and the subject matter of this one seemed really important as well.
The Quotes
“In the end, this is a book about power. Who wields it. Who owns it. And the methods they use. And above all, it’s about fighting back.”
“Unruly women are always witches, no matter what century we’re in.”
“Just think!” Elizabeth later exclaimed. “Forty men and women clubbed together to get me imprisoned just because I chose to think my own thoughts, and speak my own words!”
“We are only just beginning to appreciate exactly how a person’s powerlessness may lead to struggles with their mental health. With that understanding, statistics showing higher rates of mental illness in women, people of color, and other disenfranchised groups become translated into truth: not a biological deficiency, as doctors first thought, but a cultural creation that, if we wanted to, we could do something about.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Kate Moore.
My Thoughts
Oh my, where do I start? I had about five to six hours left of the book when I had to go to bed, so I set a sleep timer, expecting that I would fall asleep as usual while listening to the audiobook. I ended up extending the timer several times until after 4am in the morning when I finally finished the book! It was so compelling that I couldn’t stop listening and wasn’t able to drift off to sleep.
Stories like this one are so horrifying because it’s an actual true story and men have been and continue to be, even now, abusive to women in ways that are incomprehensible to me. Elizabeth is only one out of many women who have had their husbands put them in asylums for not being obedient, submissive wives, and while I admire Elizabeth so much for her fighting spirit and unending faith, there were so many other women who did not make it through to the other side of this apparently too common experience for unsatisfactory wives.
However, this book focuses on Elizabeth’s experience, and takes details and excerpts from Elizabeth’s own notes and writings about her time at the asylum. Elizabeth’s strength and tenacity, her tirelessness, groundedness, selflessness, the way she fought not just for herself but for the other women who had been unfairly institutionalized, is so inspiring to see. She is an amazing woman and a hero.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again…
All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.
But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands – that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper – an unlikely magical connection forms.
Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?
An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.
For the Reading Challenge(s): N/A
The Reason
This series has been on my TBR for a couple of years. Someone recommended it to me a while ago after I mentioned I love epistolary books and while this series is not fully epistolary, it does have letters as a form of communication and that’s close enough!
The Quotes
“It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there’s also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that tells me, “You will miss so much by being so guarded.”
“I don’t think you realize how strong you are, because sometimes strength isn’t swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it’s found in quiet, gentle places.”
“My favorite season is autumn, because my mum and I both believed that’s the only time when magic can be tasted in the air.”
“He found me on my darkest day. He followed me to war, to the front lines. He came between me and Death, taking wounds that were supposed to be mine.”
The Narrator(s)
Alex Wingfield. Rebecca Norfolk. They were both great and I enjoyed the narration very much.
My Thoughts
Book 1 – Divine Rivals I enjoyed the book very much but I do want to state that while there was some initial rivalry between Iris and Roman, I would hardly call it enemies-to-lovers. It was quite a short-lived rivalry, and they didn’t actually hate each other and were even friendly and helpful to each other at times. I do love the slow-burn though, and one of the reasons I love epistolary novels is because you get to know a person through actual communication, which they did here through their letters. I liked the world-building and the God-lore too, but I feel like there’s still a lot of information missing about who the Gods are and why they are important at all. I was very upset at the end of this book because I feel that what happened did not have to happen and was just drama for a dramatic ending’s sake.
Book 2 – Ruthless Vows I did not like the second book as much. It felt like there were a lot of back-and-forth with things happening that are time-fillers rather than any actual important thing that moves the story along. I also didn’t really like Roman’s role and character in this book; I understand why his role was important to the story but the feeling is like, the story was driving his role, rather than his role driving the story, if that makes sense. I still enjoyed the overall story throughout the series, and I like that we find out more about the Gods here. Still an enjoyable story and worth reading!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this series? Would you read them? Did you like the series or do you think you would like it?
“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.
Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.
Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.
Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.
For the Reading Challenge(s): N/A
The Reason
It has been reviewed highly by readers whose opinions I respect and I love epistolary novels in general.
The Quotes
“I look in the mirror and how can it be? I am an old woman. What has my life been?”
“I know you know this, but I want to repeat that when someone(s) treats you poorly, it is a reflection of him or herself and the misery within the heart of them. It doesn’t help a bit to hear that when you’re young, but later it will.”
“An e-mail can in no way replace a written letter. It does concern me that one day all the advancement of technology will do away with the post.”
“I remember when you said in an email that when you find a place for yourself in the world, it feels like music.”
The Narrator(s)
Maggi-Meg Reed. Jane Oppenheimer. Carly Robins. Jeff Ebner. David Pittu. Chris Andrew Ciulla. Mark Bramhall. Petrea Burchard. Robert Petkoff. Kimberly Farr. Cerris Morgan-Moyer. Peter Ganim. Jade Wheeler. And more. An amazing production! I love what the cast did with the characters’ voices!
My Thoughts
What a wonderful, nostalgic book! I’ve always loved letter-writing and books that feature letter-writing. Penpalling was one of my favorite hobbies as a child but snail-mail is no longer as popular as it once was now that we have “fast-mail”, and unfortunately I don’t have as much time to write letters as an adult as when I was a child anyway. Still, I have wonderful memories of writing letters and receiving them, and I love epistolary novels because letters can tell such a story!
I love how Sybil’s character shone through from her letters. I love seeing her relationship with the people in her life from the letters they write as well. I particularly love her relationships with Rosalie and Harry. Oh, to have a life-long friend like Rosalie who loves you enough to tell you hard truths and risk your ire. And Harry, a child who trusts her and feels safe with her. It was all very heartwarming.
There is only one minor complaint I have with the book, and it’s the whole weird mystery about Colt and the unsent letters. I feel like there was no need for the mystery, and in fact, quite unrealistic in tone considering the reveal. However, I’m letting that go because I love the rest of the book so much, and I’m still giving this 5 stars.
Note for everyone who loves letter-writing and snail-mail: I’m writing this here because if you’re reading this review, chances are you’re as charmed by this book as I am and/or are interested in the premise of letter-writing. This book has made me want to start penpalling again. I wonder if anyone else feels this way and want to start something up? I have often gotten the urge to find penpals again but I worry that I can’t keep up with regular letter-writing. This book has made me realize that the longevity of the connection is more important to me than the frequency, and if anyone else agrees, I’d love to give it a try! Hit me up if you’re interested anytime you see this, even if it’s years and years and years in the future!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.’ Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.
Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.
When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?
For the Reading Challenge(s): N/A
The Reason
It’s been on my TBR for a while because everyone says how good it is. I’ve also read Blood Over Bright Haven by the author and loved it, so I thought I’d love this one too.
The Quotes
“You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.”
“Most strong things are rigid. If you are water, you can shift to fit any mold and freeze yourself strong. You can be strong in any shape. You can be anything.”
“But if I learned one thing from Firebird, it’s that a person’s tragedy doesn’t define them or cancel all the good in their life.”
“Why don’t you try taking responsibility for the things you can control instead of the things you can’t?”
The Narrator(s)
Andrew Tell. He was really good.
My Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about this book. I loved the first 50-60% of it, and you can be sure I ugly cried for hours at that part. It’s a great story with great world building, and I loved how emotional it was, how visceral everything felt. Every character in the Matsuda family was so compelling; I loved them, I hated them, I wanted to be their bff, I wanted to hurt them… It held my heart in a vice grip from the beginning, and I loved it.
However, the later part of the book felt like it went on too long and didn’t have a place to go. It wasn’t a bad ending; I’d say it ends properly for a story of just the Matsuda family but there were still many unanswered questions about the state of the world of Kaigen and how that affects the Matsuda family. I understand this is because it’s technically a prequel to the author’s Theonite series, which was released a few years before this book but takes place years after the events of this book. Realizing this gives me a little more context to why this book ends the way it does, but as it’s marketed as a standalone, I feel very disappointed in the lack of a more concrete ending.
Having said that, I’m not sure if I’ll bother with the Theonite series as they feature a new set of characters and it’s the Matsudas I fell in love with here, but I am curious to see where the world stands in those books so never say never.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
“I haven’t made all A’s in the art of living. But I give a damn. And I’ll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.”
“Life is our resume. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?”
“I have a lot of proof that the world is conspiring to make me happy.”
“I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget.”
“Sometimes which choice you make is not as important as making a choice and commiting to it.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Matthew McConaughey. I loved it!
My Thoughts
This is probably one of the best books I’ve read this year. I had no strong feelings towards Matthew McConaughey as an actor before reading this book. I’d loved many movies he’d been in and I have always thought he was a great actor but I just didn’t know very much about him. Now after reading the book, I have so much more admiration and respect for him.
I respect his confidence and work ethic, and the way he went after what he wanted in life. I also really love his attitude and approach to life; he seems like an introspective person who doesn’t take any of his accomplishments in life for granted. I listened to this book on audio while also reading it on a physical copy – because there were many notes, photos, and other notions included in the physical copy – and I loved seeing copies of his handwritten notes, featured quotes, and more. There were so many quotable words of wisdom, and I’m pretty sure that if it wasn’t a library copy, I would’ve highlighted almost the whole book!
This is one book that I would recommend reading both on audiobook and on the physical copy if you can. His narration is wonderful to listen to, so high energy it lifts you up too, and it sounds like he’s just having a nice conversation with you. And reading the physical book is wonderful too because of the format and the included photos and notions. I loved the whole experience.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Lucky St. James, a Métis millennial living with her cantankerous but loving grandmother Stella, is barely hanging on when she discovers she will be evicted from their tiny Toronto apartment. Then, one night, something strange and irresistible calls out to Lucky. Burrowing through a wall, she finds a silver spoon etched with a crooked-nosed witch and the word SALEM, humming with otherworldly energy.
Hundreds of miles away in Salem, Myrna Good has been looking for Lucky. Myrna works for VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money.
Lucky is familiar with the magic of her indigenous ancestors, but she has no idea that the spoon links her to VenCo’s network of witches throughout North America. Generations of witches have been waiting for centuries for the seven spoons to come together, igniting a new era, and restoring women to their rightful power.
But as reckoning approaches, a very powerful adversary is stalking their every move. He’s Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself.
To find the last spoon, Lucky and Stella embark on a rollicking and dangerous road trip to the darkly magical city of New Orleans, where the final showdown will determine whether VenCo will usher in a new beginning…or remain underground forever.
“She breathed deep, appreciating the moment of solitude. Silence in an outdoor space had a presence instead of an absence.”
“Her grandmother liked to remind her that gratitude was the strongest spell, one that attracts, that transforms, that makes clear.”
“Anxiety makes everything feel very big or very small, depending on which is more hurtful in the moment. Being suddenly relieved of anxiety in this moment gave her a clear understanding that this was the life she had been running towards.”
“At one point, Lettie would have said indifference was worse than cruelty, because cruelty is at least full of passion. Now she knew different.”
The Narrator(s)
Michelle St. John. It was fine.
My Thoughts
I feel like I might have liked it more if I hadn’t gone in with high expectations. It wasn’t necessary a bad story, but it was a slog to get through and a lot of the plot points were more convenient than plausible. A lot of details were also inconsistent, some more obviously so than others; the initial impression that Venco was a big, rich and powerful company only to later seem like they were all alone and had no other help, all the Christian practices in what’s supposed to be a paganistic coven, the antagonist’s behavior in his encounters with opposition, the way the witches were discovered versus the last one.
There was a lot of potential for this story but the characters felt unrealistic to me, the things that happened to keep the story going were drawn out too long, and I didn’t like all the way things just conveniently happened to move the story along. The final quarter of the story got a little more interesting, and I was hopeful for a strong ending but it ended up feeling convenient also. I was really hoping for something good since I love stories about witches and magical heritage, but I feel like this story is all over the place and has no idea what its own message is. It’s quite a disappointing read for me.
My Rating
⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A carjacker lurking in a shopping mall parking lot. An abusive husband pounding on the door. A disgruntled employee brandishing a gun. These days, no one is safe from the specter of violence.
But according to Gavin de Becker, everyone can feel safer, act safer, be safer — if they learn how to listen to their own sixth sense about danger.
De Becker has made a career of protecting people and predicting violent behavior. His firm handles security for many of the leading figures in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and his computerized risk-assessment system helps analyze threats to members of Congress and the Supreme Court.
Now, in this unprecedented guide, de Becker shares his expertise with everyone. Covering all the dangerous situations people typically face — street crime, domestic abuse, violence in the workplace — de Becker provides real-life examples and offers specific advice on restraining orders, self-defense, and more. But the key to self-protection, he demonstrates, is learning how to trust our own intuitions.
For everyone who’s ever felt threatened, this book is essential reading.
I’ve seen this book recommended many times as essential reading. And after reading it, I concur.
The Quotes
“It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different–men and women live in different worlds…at core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.”
“I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.”
“There’s a lesson in real-life stalking cases that young women can benefit from learning: persistence only proves persistence—it does not prove love. The fact that a romantic pursuer is relentless doesn’t mean you are special—it means he is troubled.”
“We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning. Like rapport-building, charm and the deceptive smile, unsolicited niceness often has a discoverable motive.”
“I’ve successfully lobbied and testified for stalking laws in several states, but I would trade them all for a high school class that would teach young men how to hear “no,” and teach young women that it’s all right to explicitly reject.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Gavin de Becker.
My Thoughts
This is essential reading for both men and women. I’ve been hearing about it for some time and finally decided to read it, and it made me wish I had read it sooner. Much of it talks about extreme situations, but there are also very good insights into how to set boundaries and not engage with people who make you feel uncomfortable in the first place. As a woman, I have myself been groomed since I was a child to be nice instead of assertive, to make men feel comfortable even while they make me uncomfortable, to allow myself to be “persuaded” (coerced) into situations I’ve already said no to.
I had a lot of deprogramming to do and this book would’ve been very helpful if only I had read it years ago. However, it’s still helpful now, and I believe that both men and women would benefit from reading this, because while women are more likely to be victims of violence, men are not exempt to it. Plus, I think that a lot of men don’t understand women’s concern for safety and this book might open up their eyes to it a little bit, and maybe help them be better allies and/or be more aware of not doing things that creep women out.
There are some things laid out in this book that can seem shocking and stark, and there are definitely some things that might be triggering, but I think some of it is necessary because the topic is stark and scary, and we should all be taking it seriously. So I’d recommend it as essential reading, but caution to go into it with some care and awareness.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
‘Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.’
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was ‘just’ an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? As Lucy Worsley says, ‘She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern’. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.
So why – despite all the evidence to the contrary – did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do. Lucy Worsley’s biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It’s also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman.
With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was – truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
“Evil people are those who will not or cannot grow up,’ Agatha wrote. ‘A man who is a child,’ says one of her characters, ‘is the most frightening thing in the world.”
“Like so many writers, Christie was an introvert. She didn’t seek publicity and in fact often fled from it. Many members of the public seemed to resent her unwillingness to open herself to them”
“Christie’s success came as a woman in a world made by men.”
“Someone once said that the greatest character Agatha Christie ever invented was Agatha Christie herself.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Lucy Worsley. It was great, no notes.
My Thoughts
I recently read The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont for the 2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge prompt for biographical fiction and it was paired with another prompt to read a nonfiction about the character in the book for the first prompt. I did not like The Christie Affair very much and thought the drama surrounding her disappearance was much ado over nothing, to the point where I was questioning if I should read another, different book for that prompt so that I wouldn’t have to read about it again in a nonfiction setting. The Christie Affair represented Christie so badly that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more even though I have always been curious about her.
It took me a while to find a nonfiction book about Agatha Christie that looked interesting, and even then I was hesitant, but I’m so glad I stuck with it because this book ended up getting me so interested and invested in Christie’s life and works again. She really came to life for me, and I loved how the book told her story from her birth until her death and made it all sound so exciting.
The “downside” is that now I have to add a whole bunch of Christie’s books to my already massive TBR. I first discovered her books from my school library and binge-read as many as I could when I was 11 or 12 years old, but I’m sure I missed a lot of details at that age, and I’d love to rediscover them again now and read them with more mature eyes. I really enjoyed this book and finding out more about Christie’s real life. I’m excited to reread her books too!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
From the author of the bestseller Eat and Run , a thrilling memoir about his grueling, exhilarating, and immensely inspiring 46-day run to break the speed record for the Appalachian Trail.
Scott Jurek is one of the world’s best known and most beloved ultrarunners. Renowned for his remarkable endurance and speed, accomplished on a vegan diet, he’s finished first in nearly all of ultrarunning’s elite events over the course of his career. But after two decades of racing, training, speaking, and touring, Jurek felt an urgent need to discover something new about himself. He embarked on a wholly unique challenge, one that would force him to grow as a person and as an breaking the speed record for the Appalachian Trail.
North is the story of the 2,189-mile journey that nearly shattered him. When he set out in the spring of 2015, Jurek anticipated punishing terrain, forbidding weather, and inevitable injuries. He would have to run nearly 50 miles a day, every day, for almost seven weeks. He knew he would be pushing himself to the limit, that comfort and rest would be in short supply — but he couldn’t have imagined the physical and emotional toll the trip would exact, nor the rewards it would offer.
With his wife, Jenny, friends, and the kindness of strangers supporting him, Jurek ran, hiked, and stumbled his way north, one white blaze at a time. A stunning narrative of perseverance and personal transformation, North is a portrait of a man stripped bare on the most demanding and transcendent effort of his life. It will inspire runners and non-runners alike to keep striving for their personal best.
I went down a rabbit hole of running memoirs. I have many more on my TBR list!
The Quotes
“We often think we can’t go any farther and feel like we have nothing left to give, yet there is a hidden potential and strength in all of us, begging us to find it.”
“Out there in the wild, on a long journey, you hike your own hike, blaze your own trail, and only you can find what you’re looking for.”
“In the case of pain, perhaps the one we know hurts us less than the one we fear.”
“It was just numbers. I knew I could outrun numbers.”
The Narrator(s)
The authors, Scott and Jenny Jurek.
My Thoughts
I’m a beginner runner with the hopes of running a marathon one day, but I can unequivocally say that I have zero plans to ever run the Appalachian Trail, much less break a record running it. That’s why I read about it instead! I have a mixture of admiration and perplexity for the Jureks reading about this endeavor; I admire their spirit and ambition to take on something that requires you to push your body to such great lengths and show what the human body is capable of, and I’m also perplexed because I have zero drive and ambition to ever do something close to this, and I wonder about where this drive comes from. It’s just so amazing to me.
What I love about this book is the dual narration between Scott and Jenny Jurek; Scott is the one who ran the trail and broke the record, but he couldn’t have done it without Jenny’s moral, emotional, and physical support. I loved that we get both of them telling the story because we don’t celebrate the spouse behind the scenes often enough, and this book really showed how they were a team, both in marriage and with this achievement. As we read through the book, we also see the support they get from so many of their friends. I love seeing the kind of community that can come about from a group of like-minded people who love the outdoors and achieving greatness with their physical bodies.
I also love how self-aware and honest the Jureks are about their shortcomings and the mistakes they make throughout this journey. They don’t shy away from talking about times they were upset when things didn’t go well, or when they had needs that weren’t met, or when they sometimes handled interaction with fans badly. There were times Scott in particular came across as arrogant and single-minded when it came to achieving his goal, but honestly, this guy has a resume that entitles him to be just a little arrogant. He also acknowledges that you have to have a special kind of go-getter mindset to do the things he did, and I completely understand that! All in all, this was a great read, and highly motivating to me to get better as a runner.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
