Reading Goals -- Completed and Begun

Somehow, it's already January 11 and I haven't written any wrap-up posts for my 2022 reading OR declared what my plans for this year are.  Oops!  Time to rectify that.  

First, let's look at my goals from last year.

Overall Goal

I kept my reading goal at 55 last year.  That's just over one book a week, and I know I generally read at least that many.  In 2022, I read 103 books!  

My Year with Irene Kelly

I decided I wanted to reread the four Irene Kelly mysteries by Jan Burke that I had read previously, and then read the rest of the series too.  And I succeeded!  Well, basically.  I did not read the final book because it revolved around the disturbing serial killer from an earlier book that I had absolutely loathed.  In fact, I disliked that earlier book so much, I didn't even review it on my blog.  I decided I just didn't need to read more about that icky character, so I stopped with book ten.  But I still consider that challenge completed because I chose not to read the last book, I didn't just run out of time or oomph.

You can read my reviews for those books right here.

#TheUnreadShelfProject2022

My goal for last year was to get my unread book collection down under 500 books.  I started out with 512 books, I read 65 books from my TBR shelves... and I ended up with 499 unread books.  So, the good news is, I DID get down under 500 books, but the bad news is that I only barely managed that.  I really need to stay away from used bookstores, heh.

The Disney Origins Book Club

I joined a year-long challenge on Instagram to read books that Disney movies have been based on.  I wanted to participate in at least six months, and I managed seven, so yay!  Those seven were:

• "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen
• The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
• Bed-Knob and Broomstick by Mary Norton
• Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
• "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cinderella" collected by Andrew Lang
• Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers
• Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Diverse Reading

I set myself the goal of reading at least 12 books by or about people with a different ethnicity, culture, or background from my own.  And I succeeded!  I reviewed most of them here, and you can read those reviews here.

A few fun stats:

103 books read, total 

29 rereads 

2 nonfiction 

12 diverse reads 

8 manga

7 read aloud to my kids 

1 audiobook

Now for my 2023 reading goals!

Overall Goal

I'm keeping this at 55.  It's manageable, and I get a big kick out of surpassing it.

Diverse Reading

Once again, I want to read at least 12 books by or about people who are significantly different from myself somehow.

Classics Club

I want to read at least 12 books from my fourth Classics Club list.

#TheUnreadShelfProject2023

My goal this year is to get my unread book count down to 450.  This is ambitious, but I like challenges.

My Years with the Sacketts

I have spent a few years collecting up all the Louis L'Amour books about the Sackett family, and I have them all now!  There are nineteen books in all, so I don't expect to read them all in 2023 -- instead, my goal is to read ten this year and nine next year.  I plan to read them in chronological order, not in publication order.  Or, at least, in the chronological order I found online -- I guess some people disagree about what order they go in, so I'll just do my best.

Do you set reading goals?  Do you share them?  If so, leave a link and I'll check them out!

"Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas" by Stephanie Barron

It's been ten years since I read any of the Jane Austen Mysteries by Stephanie Barron.  And I have only read the first four, which means there are seven books between where I stopped and this one.  But none of that mattered at ALL because I dove merrily and seamlessly into this book and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The only reason I quit reading this series in the first place is that my foolish local library system got rid of them.  Hmph.  I picked up a copy of this at the used book store and saved it to enjoy this month.  And enjoy it, I did!

Jane Austen, her sister Cassandra, and their mother get invited to a Christmas house party at the grand home The Vyne, owned by the wealthy Chute family.  This is especially welcome because they three ladies are spending the Christmas season with Jane's brother James Austen and his family, and his wife Mary is... well, you know Mary (Eliot) Musgrove in Persuasion?  Imagine if she was shrewish as well as petty and whiny, and you have Mary Austen as portrayed in this novel.

Unfortunately, during the festive house party, a messenger arrives with a message of great military and political import (it involves that upstart new country, the United States of America)... and gets murdered.  Jane Austen teams up with a new friend, Raphael West, who turns out to be much more than simply artist Benjamin West's son.  Together, they solve the crime, plus a few more that follow.  The whole book is a galloping good time, and I am now determined to collect up the whole series and finish reading it.

(from my Instagram)

Particularly Good Bits:

The little fever of envy, once caught, is the ruin of all happiness (p. 142)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some mild bad language, unwitnessed violence, talk of suicide, and some decorous reflections on adult activities.

This is my 7th book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading challenge this year, and the 64th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"Catching Christmas" by Terri Blackstock

I liked this book so much more than I expected to!  I picked it up at a library book sale at some point because I read a couple of Blackstock's books a few years ago and liked them.  But then I read some reviews that said the book was disappointing or boring or something, and so I went into it with really low expectations.  That might be why I liked it so much, I suppose.

Finn is a cab driver who answers a call to pick up a little old lady at her house.  He takes her to a doctor's appointment and leaves her in the waiting room with his card so she can call him again when she's done.  And he makes some very grumpy assumptions about the kind of people who would leave this sweet old lady to the care of a cab driver to get to a doctor's appointment.

Callie, the old lady, doesn't call him, so Finn goes back hours later because he's worried about her.  He discovers she's fallen asleep and never been seen by the doctor at all.  Now he's really upset with her family, whoever they may be.

Callie's granddaughter Sydney is a first-year lawyer at a high-powered firm that's just laid off most of its junior associates.  She's hanging onto her job by the skin of her teeth, trying to salvage a horrible case defending a frat boy who is clearly guilty as charged.  She's spending ten or twelve hours a day at work on this case, and using the rest of her time to care for her grandmother the best she can.  Her parents have both passed away, she's Callie's only remaining relative, and she's doing the best she can to juggle work and caring for her grandmother.

Naturally, Finn and Sydney eventually meet up.  Naturally, Callie tries to play matchmaker for them.  It was never a hard-to-predict plot, but it was very sweet and lovely.  But not sugary!  Finn has a biting wit and no-nonsense attitude that keeps the story from feeling saccharine.  

I suppose if you expected this book to be a suspenseful thriller like the other series I read by Blackstock, you would find this cozy and heartwarming story disappointing.  But I liked it a LOT.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for themes about elder abuse, dying, and the court case that involved alcohol and drug abuse.

This is my sixth book read for the Literary Christmas reading challenge and my 62nd for #TheUnreadShelfChallenge2022.

"Silent Night; Holy Night" by Colleen Coble

Because I enjoyed All is Calm; All is Bright so much last month, I thought I would try Colleen Coble's other Christmas novella duology too.  And now I have a conundrum: do I keep this paperback because I really liked one of the stories, or do I put it in the Little Free Library I steward because I didn't like the other story?  Ahhh, the troubles a bookworm faces, eh?

Silent Night is part of the Rock Harbor series set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  I lived in Michigan's Thumb for nine years as a kid and visited the UP several times, so I really loved the setting for this story.  I also enjoyed that it wasn't about two people falling in love, but about a husband-and-wife team of search-and-rescue people who live in a lighthouse.  It's all about a skydiver who dies and turns out to have had ties to a recent kidnapping.  I very much liked this story and would like to read the series at some point.

Holy Night is part of the Aloha Reef series set in Hawaii.  The setting was really fascinating, since I've never been to Hawaii, but I didn't like the characters very well, and you know that is make-or-break for me.  The main character, Kaia, kept refusing to trust her fiance with Extremely Important Information.  Over and over.  And did her fiance decide maybe this was a reason to reevaluate whether or not they should get married?  No, he was all focused on feeling abandoned and emotionally discarded.  Plus, he seemed to mostly love Kaia because she was hawt -- he kept focusing on their upcoming wedding night rather on the way she was not being a particularly sensible or trustworthy person. I would not have finished reading this novella except that I really loved Kaia's sister Eva, a young woman with Down Syndrome who gets kidnapped.  I very much needed to know if she got through this okay, so I kept reading.

So, now I just have to decide if I should keep this because I probably would like to reread Silent Night at some point, or if I should not.  Sigh.  Maybe I will keep it until I get a chance to read more of the Rock Harbor series, and then decide.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for kidnappings, characters in danger, and a some intense kissing and mildly suggestive content.  No on-page smut.

This is my fifth book read for the Literary Christmas reading challenge and my 61st for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"The Mistletoe Murder" by P. D. James

This is a collection of four short Christmas mysteries by P. D. James.  I'm afraid I didn't actually love any of them, though I did enjoy three of the four.  Here's a bit of what each is about, and what I thought of them:

"The Mistletoe Murder" -- A crime novelist reminisces about the time she was invited to a traditional English country house Christmas, someone got murdered, and she eventually figured out how and why.  I liked the 1940s setting and atmosphere, but was overall meh about the way this one basically excused murder as being okay if you have "good" reasons.

"A Very Commonplace Murder" -- A peeping tom knows that the wrong person is being tried for murder, but doesn't come forward.  This one was fairly icky and voyeuristic, and I was not a fan.  Also, I figured out whodunit before the reveal, which annoyed me.

"The Boxdale Inheritance" -- Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh investigates a long-ago death at the behest of a family who wants to know if they can accept an inheritance in good conscience.  This one surprised me several times, and I quite enjoyed it.  My favorite of the four.

"The Twelve Clues of Christmas" -- Sergeant Adam Dalgliesh investigates what appears to be a suicide, but which he is convinced is a murder.  It got a little too cute here and there, and I kept feeling super sorry for Dalgliesh because he was missing out on enjoying Christmas with his family to deal with the crime.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 overall, but R for "A Very Commonplace Murder," which has all sorts of stuff about porn and voyeurism and rape.  The rest have little light cussing, four murders, some adult dialog.

This is my fourth book read for the Literary Christmas reading challenge and my 60th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"All is Calm; All is Bright" by Colleen Coble

This book is two Christian fiction mystery novellas, All is Calm and All is Bright, and although they both belong to other series Coble has written, they stand on their own perfectly well too.  Which is good, because we read this for my church's book club this month, and none of us had read any of her other books before.  But I plan to look for more now!

All is Calm is part of the Lonestar series, which takes place in Texas (obviously).  A woman accused of helping sabotage a race horse runs away -- with the race horse -- and finds sanctuary at a ranch that helps kids with emotional problems.  She had stayed there as a teen and remembers that it was a place of comfort and hope.  Once there, she teams up with an injured veteran to figure out who actually sabotaged the horse... and they end up clearing up a couple other mysteries too.  And falling in love in the process, because of course they do!

All is Bright is part of the Hope Beach series, which is set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  In it, a bright and helpful woman is targeted by an unknown assailant who forces her car off the road and into the ocean.  She survives, but she and the local sheriff can't figure out who would try to harm or kill her, since she's the most helpful person you've ever met.  Of course, they eventually do solve the mystery and catch the culprit, while starting to fall a little bit in love in the process.  

Of the two, I liked All is Calm better.  Part of that was the location -- a Texas ranch is always going to be catnip for me -- but part of it was that I simply felt like we got to know the characters in it really well.  I had a little bit harder time connecting to the people in All is Bright, but I did enjoy it a lot anyway.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some mild violence and characters in peril.  Both romances are clean and wholesome.

This is my second book read and reviewed for A Literary Christmas and my 57th read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"The Christmas Hirelings" by M. E. Braddon

This sweet little novella is like the epitome of Victorian Christmas fiction: filled with the knowledge that life can be fleeting and people can be cruel... but they don't need to be.

An aging aristocrat, his good friend, and his niece are all set to spend a very boring Christmas together at the aristocrat's country manor.  Then his friend suggests they "hire" some children to liven up their festivities, and after some consideration, they decide to do exactly this.  The friend departs for a while and returns with three siblings who are genteel, enthusiastic, and intelligent, and who fill the manor house with all the joy and brightness it was missing.

The smallest child is precocious in both intellect and attitude, and she captures the aristocrat's attention and eventually claims his heart (in a grandfatherly sort of way, never fear)... and then calamity strikes.  And, because this is Victorian literature, you can never be too sure that everything will turn out fine because some Victorian authors will just randomly kill off children just to make you cry, so I finished the last couple chapters of this novella with a lot of trepidation.  But I liked it a lot, by the very end.

Particularly Good Bits:

"Christmas can hardly be made too much of where there are children in question."

"They are small, but they are people."

Each of the children discovered a glittering new coin, and in Moppet's portion there were two sixpences.  The stout and serious butler helping the pudding on the carving-table by the light of a single candle was suspected of treasonable practices.

"People who are unhappy don't like anything.  Unhappiness is disliking."

"My life was barren, but it was peaceful.  What more did I want?"

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Clean and innocent and sweet.

I read this as part of the #DickensDecember2022 group challenge on Instagram, and it's also my first book read for the Literary Christmas Reading Challenge this year.  It's also my sixth book read for my fourth Classics Club list AND my 56th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.  Whew!

Joining A Literary Christmas Challenge 2022

I'm joining the annual Literary Christmas Challenge hosted by In the Bookcase!  This year, I hope to read:

• All is Calm, All is Bright by Colleen Coble
• Catching Christmas by Terri Blackstock
• A Victorian Christmas by Catherine Palmer

And I probably will read more Christmas-themed books too, since I have rather a large stash of them on my TBR shelves at the moment.  We shall see!  This is one of my favorite blogging events, and I try to participate every year, though I missed out last year for some unremembered reason.

If you want to join the challenge too, check out this kick-off post.

And if you're looking for some Christmastime reads, I have a whole page right here that lists the ones I've read in the past few years, with links to my reviews of them.

Looking Back; Looking Forward

Most of the time, I do one post wrapping up the last year's reading challenges and such, and another declaring my intentions for the new year.  However, a lot of my new challenges are just carrying on from last year, so I'm doing them all in one post this year.

A Literary Christmas (hosted by In The Bookshelf)

I said I wanted to read and review three Christmas books for this event, and I actually read six and reviewed five!  You can read them all here.  I'm sure I will participate in this event again next December, as it's always such fun to read and share Christmas books.

(All pictures are mine from my Bookstagram account.)

My Year with C. S. Lewis

I challenged myself to read at least five books by or about C. S. Lewis in 2020.  I read seven, though two of those were Narnia books, so they weren't new to me and I didn't review them on my blog.  You can read my five reviews here.

#TheUnreadShelfChallenge2020

I started the year with 537 unread books.  I read more than 50 of them, and yet, I ended the year with 527 books on my unread shelves.  Um, yeah.

The lockdowns did help in that I didn't go to bookstores or thrift stores or library book sales nearly so often, but I bought quite a few books online, and some of those were the fault of lockdowns because I was comfort-buying.  I did finally start to get a handle on how to resist buying so many books, at least -- I am committed now to not buying books that just "look good," but rather to buying ones I already know I want to read.  

My original goal was to read 24 of my unread books and clear off a whole shelf in my bedroom.  Well, I read more than double that many, but I didn't clear off a shelf, so this was a half-success, half-failure.  You can read all my book reviews for this challenge here.  (I did read several that I never reviewed...)

#TheUnreadShelfChallenge2021

I'm doing this challenge again this year!  You can learn more about it here at The Unread Shelf blog.  My goal this year is to read 36 books off my unread shelves AND truly clear off a whole shelf.  I have plans to move some books from my library up to my bedroom to ease my crowding problem down there, and I think that will help keep me motivated to NOT buy more books all the time.

Heidi's Lord of the Rings read-along

We are just about finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring together at Literary Adventures Along the Brandywine.  Obviously, we will be continuing this for the next few months, as we read The Two Towers and Return of the King and discuss it together there.

My Year with Harry Potter

I want to reread all 7 Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling in 2021.  I have not read any of them since the last book came out in 2007!  It's high time I revisited that magical world.

Sense and Sensibility read-along???

I am contemplating hosting a read-along of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen here this spring or summer!  It's been a couple years since a led a read-along, and I'd like to get back to it.  I'd be doing it chapter-by-chapter like before.  If that interests you, stay tuned!

Did you have any goals for last year?  Did you meet any of them?  Do you have goals for this year?  Do tell!

"A Holiday by Gaslight" by Mimi Matthews

What a fun finale to my Christmas reading this year!  I polished off this novella in about a day, and it was like a nice dessert -- satisfying, but not over-satiating.  It has a little bit of a North and South flavor to it, intentionally, with a young lady falling for a man in trade.  I'm going to be rereading Gaskell's book in February, and this nicely got me in the mood for that.

In this case, the young lady is being courted by a merchant who is stiff and formal around her, causing her to misunderstand the level of his affection for her.  She breaks off their courtship, but has second thoughts and tries to get to know him while he spends the Christmas holidays with her family.  It was fun, generally clean, and I enjoyed it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some old-fashioned swear words, mentions of a man admiring a woman's figure, and a few detailed kisses.  Tiptoes along the line of clean or not, and mostly stays on the clean side.

This was my 5th Christmas book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading link-up and my 57th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020!!!  I was really only hoping to read 24 off my shelves, and then I kept upping my goal whenever I hit my new one, and yeah... I am agog.  Now if only I hadn't bought nearly 50 books this year, this would mean I cleared off a couple of shelves!  But, there's always next year, right?

"Hercule Poirot's Christmas" by Agatha Christie

I have discovered a newfound appreciation for Hercule Poirot over the last couple years.  I entirely blame Kenneth Branagh and his 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.  

I read almost this whole book yesterday, and it was great fun!  I mean, great fun considering it's a book about a severely dysfunctional family and murder and so on.

Poirot isn't even in the first third or so of this book, which is all about this old man and his children, most of whom hate each other.  The old man gets killed, Poirot and some British policemen get called in to solve the crime, and the rest of the book is about that.

This was a fast read, and I'm happy to say I did not solve the crime before the hero did, which is the sort of mystery I like best.

Particularly Good Bits: 

"I believe the present matters -- not the past!  The past must go.  If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it.  We see it in exaggerated terms -- a false perspective" (p. 33).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for a lot of talk about a man having illegitimate children through his many love affairs, and a pretty gory murder.

This was my 4th book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading link-up hosted by In the Bookcase, my 13th for my third Classics Club list, and my 51st for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Yuletide: A Jane Austen-Inspired Collection of Stories" edited by Christina Boyd

This was a diverting collection of short Christmas stories.  They all center around Pride and Prejudice, which I didn't realize at first -- I thought there would be a mix of all of Austen's novels, but nope, all P&P.  Some of the stories retold Pride and Prejudice in a modern setting.  Others were a Christmasy sequel to the book.  Still others wrote an alternate version of the book where Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy fell in love in a different way from the original.  Many of the stories were good, a couple were great, and some were only okay.

My favorites were, in order of how they appear in the book:

"The Forfeit" by Caitlin Williams -- Mr. Darcy is stranded near Meryton at Christmas and must spend the holiday with the Bennet family while waiting for the weather to clear.  During the festivities, he and Elizabeth spend a great deal of time together, much to their mutual satisfaction.  (An alternate ending for P&P)

"By a Lady" by Lona Manning -- Elizabeth Darcy endeavors to make friends with her husband's cousin, Anne, and they discover a mutual interest in books.  (A sequel to P&P)

"The Season for Friendly Greetings" by Anngela Schroeder -- Lizzy and Jane Bennet attend a ball and get to know Col. Fitzwilliam and learn the truth about a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Wickham, thus learning to understand and appreciate another mutual acquaintance, Mr. Darcy.  (An alternate ending for P&P)

(From my Instagram)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some stories and PG-13 for others.  The modern-set ones are more PG-13 and the Regency ones are more PG.

This is my third book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Reading Link-Up hosted by In the Bookcase and my 50th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020

"A House to Let" by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Anne Proctor, and Wilkie Collins

 

Well, this was an interesting premise for a novella, anyway.  Charles Dickens and his writer friends Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Adelaide Anne Proctor all got together to write a book in several pieces that got stitched together later with a narrative framework.

It begins with "Over the Way," co-authored by Dickens and Collins, which tells of an elderly woman who moves to London and becomes fascinated by the house across the street from her new home.  It's up for rent, or "to let," and she thinks it contains a mystery, so she asks her butler and an old friend to both find out the history of the house.

Elizabeth Gaskell picks up the story with "The Manchester Marriage," which is part of the house's history, all about a widow who remarries a kind man, but inadvertently causes heartache.

Charles Dickens adds to the house's history with "Going into Society," about sideshow performers who turned the house into an attraction for a time (think The Greatest Showman).  One of them tries buying his way into society, but discovers that society only wanted to be friends with his money, not him.

Adelaide Anne Proctor continues the list of unhappy happenings with a series of narrative poems called "Three Evenings in the House" about a woman who continually gives up her own chances at happiness to help her brother.

Proctor's other contribution, "Trottle's Report," brings in the current history of the house and the mysterious goings on there.  Another tragedy is in the works, but perhaps it can be averted!

Dickens and Collins end the whole story together with "Let at Last," which does at least have a happy ending, so the whole thing ends on a good note.

Having different authors for the different bits gives them the flavor of being stories told to the characters by very different people, which worked very well for this sort of story -- better than I expected it to, in fact!  I liked "Going into Society" best, I think, because it didn't end totally sadly, but more in a realistically melancholy sort of way.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some sadness, deaths, and child abuse of the sort you commonly find in Dickens.

Several of the stories-within-the-story take place around Christmas, as does the main narrative that frames them, so this is technically a Christmas story, and thus it is my 2nd book read for the Literary Christmas reading link-up hosted by In the Bookcase.  It's also the 11th for my 3rd Classics Club list and my 49th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Christmas with Anne" (and Other Holiday Stories) by L. M. Montgomery

This is a book I hugged.  I think it may even have edged out Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas as my favorite Christmas book.

It's a collection of short Christmastime stories by L. M. Montgomery, along with the Christmas parts of two different Anne books, Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars.  Those happen to be my two favorite Anne books, and I'm starting to wonder if the inclusion of Christmas in them might be part of why they're my favorites.

Anyway, not every story in this is perfectly, incandescently wonderful... but several of them are, and the others are enjoyable too.  Several of them brought tears to my eyes, and several made me laugh aloud.  

Mine from my Instagram account

My favorites, besides the Anne chapters, were "Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket" and "The Josephs' Christmas," with "Christmas at Red Butte," "The End of the Young Family Feud," and "Ida's New Year Cake" rounding out my top five.

If you love heartwarming stories of good people sharing joy with each other, bringing comfort and cheer to others, or making peace with someone at last, then you will doubtless enjoy these as much as I did.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Clean and wholesome.

This is my 48th book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020, my 10th for my 3rd Classics Club list, and my first for this year's Literary Christmas link-up from In the Bookcase.

Joining A Literary Christmas Challenge 2020

I'm joining the Literary Christmas Challenge hosted by In the Bookcase again this year.  I love this event!  I'm already reading my first Christmasy book, so I'm sure I'll be posting a review of it soon.  If you want to join this event too, just click here to visit the official kick-off post.

I plan to read the following books:

• Christmas with Anne by L. M. Montgomery
• A House to Let by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, et. al.
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I might read more than that to, but we'll see how the month goes!

"The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" by L. Frank Baum

This book is entirely enchanting.  I loved it so, so much!  It's charming and sweet and cheerful and lovely.  I can't believe I'd never even heard of it until about a month ago!  Especially because it was written by L. Frank Baum, the guy who wrote The Wizard of Oz.

In this story, an abandoned infant is rescued and raised by magical folk living in the forest when the world was very young.  He's named Neclaus, but called Claus for short, and grows up happy and carefree and kind.  

When he goes out into the world of humans as an adult, he befriends all the children he meets, and ends up inventing toys.  Not just new toys, but the whole idea of toys and playthings.  He makes toys for more and more children, gets help from his magical friends to deliver them, and gradually becomes the jolly Santa Claus that we know and love today.

I loved all the little illustrations by Mary Cowles Clark in my MacMillan Collector's Library edition, which I believe are copied from the first edition published back in 1902.  

(Mine from Instagram)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good and wholesome and suitable for all ages.

This is my third book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Reading Link-Up and my 39th for my second go-round with the Classics Club.

"Blessed are the Cheese Makers" by Tricia Goyer and Cara Putman

This was the perfect book to read on Saturday when I was spending all day on the couch, laid up with a cold and resting my voice because I was supposed to sing in a couple of choir numbers at an Advent service that evening.  I just snuggled up with a blanket, this book, a box of tissues, and mug after mug of tea.  It was great, except for blowing my nose all the time.  Wretched cold.

Anyway.  This book was fun.  It's part of a series called Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries put out by Guideposts, and I've not read any of them before, but I think I'll check the library to see if they have others.  I liked the main character in this one, Cheryl, and would like to read others about her.  

Cheryl runs a gift shop called the Swiss Miss in a small Ohio town with lots of Amish people.  Cheryl is not Amish, but she's got lots of Amish friends, and she's very interested in an Amish man named Levi.  I've never gotten into the whole Amish sector of Christian Fiction, but I liked this book, maybe because the main character was non-Amish like me, so I could see their customs through her eyes.

At the start of the story, someone sets fire to a cheese factory.  I love cheese.  Living in Wisconsin for four years was heavenly -- we had a cheese factory near us that we visited every few months.  Oh my, it was delightful.  So I was very invested in finding out who would want to destroy a cheese factory!  What sort of an awful person would do that?  The mystery unfolds slowly, intermingled with Cheryl's busyness running the gift shop at Christmas time, her mother interfering in her non-existent love life, and Cheryl's attempts to help those affected by the fire.  And her attempts to help the police solve the mystery, some of which are actually helpful. 

Cheryl's Christian faith is woven throughout the book in a believable, non-preachy way, which I appreciated.  This was a solidly enjoyable Christmas mystery.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for mild, clean romance.

This was my second book read for the Literary Christmas reading link-up this year, and my 14th for the Mount TBR 2019 challenge.

"Nutcracker and Mouse King" by ETA Hoffmann AND "The Tale of the Nutcracker" by Alexandre Dumas

I'm reviewing these together because The Tale of the Nutcracker is Alexandre Dumas' French translation of the German story Nutcracker and Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann.  And the edition I read has them both together, translated into English by Joachim Neugroschel.

I'd never read either of these before -- my knowledge of the Nutcracker story comes from the ballet by Mikhail Baryshnikov that we watched on PBS every winter when I was a kid, and which I now watch on DVD with my own kids.  It was interesting to see the differences not only between these two versions of the story, but between them and the ballet!

E.T.A. Hoffman's is the original, and it has this very bold, brash feel to it.  And it's kinda dark.  Very German-winter-near-the-old-and-scary-forest sort of vibe.  It's all about a little girl named Marie who has a somewhat creepy godfather, Herr Drosselmeier, as well as a bratty brother named Fritz and a snobby sister named Luise.  They get a huge number of fabulous presents for Christmas, including a mechanical castle made by Drosselmeier, who is a Chief Justice, but seems to spend most of his time making fantastical toys and fixing clocks.  He also gives the family a very ugly nutcracker. 

Marie loves the Nutcracker.  She stays up late playing with him, gets attacked by lots of mice led by a seven-headed Mouse King, the Nutcracker and all of Fritz's toy soldiers come to life and have a battle with the mice, and Marie gets injured in the fray, but saves Nutcracker from the ravages of the Mouse King by throwing her shoe at him.  She faints from blood loss, and has to spend a week in bed recovering.

While she's stuck in bed, Herr Drosselmeier comes to visit.  No one in her family believes Marie's story of how she hurt her arm, but Drosselmeier seems to.  He tells her a long story about a princess named Pirlipat, some wicked mice, and a brave young man who tried to save the princess from the mice, only to get turned into a nutcracker.  Marie is convinced this story is about her new Nutcracker, especially when she gets visited by the Mouse King for several nights running.  Mouse King demands she sacrifice all her candies and cookies and marzipan treats to him, or else he'll gnaw on Nutcracker.  Marie tearfully complies, until all her goodies are gone.  But then Nutcracker comes back to life, defeats the Mouse King once and for all, and takes Marie on a journey to the Land of Sweets, which he rules.

After seeing many delightful things there, Marie falls asleep, and wakes up back at home in bed.  Her whole family laughs at her when she tells them about her journey.  But then Herr Drossellmeier returns, with his handsome nephew who has just returned from a long journey, and who obviously is the Nutcracker released from the enchantment for good.

Marie, though only 7, accepts this nephew's offer of marriage.  One year later, they get married, and live happily ever after in the Land of Sweets.

Um, yes.  Child bride and all that.  Hmmmmmmmm.  It's a weird, wacky story, obviously not meant to be taken seriously, so I guess we're just supposed to shrug and be cool with it.

Alexandre Dumas' translation is fairly similar, but he takes out a lot of the scary or weird parts, or tames them down.  Yes, the same Alexandre Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers tried to make a more-child-friendly version of the story when he translated it.  Which amuses me.  Basically the same things happen, except the mice are way less icky and the whole thing has a more sparkly, bright feel.

I definitely preferred Dumas' version because it was more whimsical, yet a little less nonsensical.

Overall, the story reminded me of a blend of The Wizard of Oz, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland, plus the game Candy Land.

You know how, in the ballet, about half the time is taken up with the girl and the prince watching his subjects dance while in his magical kingdom?  That's like one paragraph in this story.  Which also cracks me up.

One thing I like better about both of these than the ballet (at least the Baryshnikov version, which is the only one I've seen) is that they make it clear that the Nutcracker really DOES come to life, and the girl DOES get to marry him and live happily ever after.  I don't always hate the "it was all a dream" kind of ending, as it does work for some stories, but I've never liked its use in the ballet.  So I shall imagine the ballet ends this way from now on.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some scary/creepy stuff involving mice gnawing on, or threatening to gnaw on, people.

This is my first entry into the Literary Christmas challenge and my 38th for my second go-'round with the Classics Club.

Literary Christmas Challenge 2019

Yes!  Tarissa is hosting my favorite Christmas book blogging event again this year!  Check out her kick-off post at In the Bookcase to find out all the whereases and wherefores.  

I'm hereby signing up to read at least three Christmas-related books.  And one of them is a combined volume of both E.T.A. Hoffmann's original story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, plus the more-familiar translation/retelling by Alexandre Dumas.  The other two... will be other things, lol.  Not decided on those yet.

Oh, and there's a giveaway.  Info here about that. 

"The Innkeeper's Wife" by Savannah Jezowski

Awwwwwwww.  This is such a lovely story!  As someone who struggled with getting pregnant initially, though I've since had three healthy babies, I really identified a lot with things going on in this book.

Ginny and Caleb are in their mid-thirties.  They own and run a bed-and-breakfast.  They've wanted children for years, but never conceived.  In the middle of a Christmas snowstorm, a young couple arrives at the b&b, which is full.  The young woman is great with child, to say the least, and Ginny struggles to be courteous, let along kind, with this girl who has what Ginny so desperately wants.

Over the next few hours, Ginny comes to understand that what you want isn't always what you need, and whether or not you like a situation, that doesn't mean you can walk away from it.  I shed a tear or two over this story, but good tears.  The happy kind.

Particularly Good Bits:

Were all those tears for nothing?  Just salty water to fill up a well of pain that would never be emptied?

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for discussion of childbirth-related behavior, the mention of "missing periods" and taking pregnancy tests, and other things younger kids might not be ready for or interested in.  Nothing gratuitous, no bad bad language or violence or smut.

This is my second book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Link-up.