Top Ten Tuesday: My Favorite 2025 Reads

Welcome to my annual roundup of my favorite reads from the past year!  As usual, I am linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for her Top Ten Tuesday at the start of the new year.  Also, as usual, I'm doing two lists: my top ten favorite new-to-me reads and my top ten favorite rereads.

My Ten Favorite New Reads of 2025

1. Before the King by Heather Kaufman -- Christian fiction, Biblical fiction, marriage of convenience, personal transformation (PG-16)

2. Woman in Shadow by Carrie Stuart Parks -- Christian fiction, suspense, PTSD, murder, forensic linguistics, limb loss (PG-16)

3. The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery -- classic, coming of age, slice of life, humorous, friendship (G)

4. The Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen by Elizabeth von Arnim -- classic, humorous, travel stories, epistolary (G)

5. The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens -- classic, Christmas, family, friendship (PG)

6. The Silent Night by Sarah Beran -- YA, fairy tale retelling, fantasy, Christmas, romance (G)

7. Shadows of the Valley by Britt Howard -- Christian fiction, suspense, fugitive, found family, romance, limb loss, PTSD (PG-13)

8. Of Clockworks and Daggers by Sarah Everest -- Christian fiction, YA, steampunk, fantasy, redemption (PG)

9. A Run at Love by Toni Shiloh -- Christian fiction, contemporary romance, friends-to-more, horse racing (PG) 

10. Hear the Falling Snow by Storm Shultz -- Christian fiction, contemporary romance, Christmas, loss of parent, baking (G)

My Ten Favorite Rereads of 2025

1. The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery -- classic, personal growth, the outdoors, romantic love (PG)

2. Persuasion by Jane Austen -- classic, second-chance romance, friendship (G)

3. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell -- classic, enemies-to-more, he falls first, friendship, class strife, loss of parent (PG)

4. The Lilies of the Field by William E. Barrett -- classic, culture clash, found family (G)

5. The Railway Children by E. Nesbit -- classic, middle-grade, family, slice of life (G)

6. The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert -- YA, family, Germany post-WWII, animals, farming, growing up, ingenuity (PG)

7. Rowan Farm by Margot Benary-Isbert -- YA, family, Germany post-WWII, coming of age, animals, farming, first romance (PG-10)

8. Eldest by Christopher Paolini -- YA, fantasy, dragons, coming of age, war, friendship, found family (PG-13)

9. Eragon by Christopher Paolini -- YA, fantasy, dragons, friendship, found family (PG-13)

10. The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare -- YA, Christian fiction, Biblical fiction, coming of age, found family (PG-13)

How about you?  What books stood out to you in 2025?

"North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell (again)

Have you ever felt like God nudged you to read a specific book when you needed it, without your realizing He was doing that?

At the beginning of June, my father-in-law was discussing the Industrial Revolution with some of us.  He said something about wanting a good way to get a clear idea of how the implementation of factories affected ordinary people.  I piped up and recommended North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which is all about the two sides of the factory coin -- it shows the struggles of the factory owners and of the factory workers.  I said it's pretty even-handed, and it's written by someone who lived in a manufacturing-centric city, and it's a really enjoyable read besides.

My father-in-law said maybe he would try it someday, if he lives long enough.  I extolled its virtues some  more.  He was still unenthusiastic.  I doubt he will ever read the book.

But I had reminded myself how very much I like this book.  (After this third reading, I will bump that up a notch and say I love it.)  All this took place while I was hastily packing for a will-we-or-won't-we vacation that we finally decided to take two days before we meant to leave, after having to toss all our original travel plans out the door and make new ones almost on the spot.  The night before we left, I pulled out of my bag three books I'd meant to take along and put in a copy of North and South instead.

It's the only book I read over the two weeks of our vacation (not counting an audiobook we all listened to as a family).  And it was exactly what I needed.

The reason we had to rearrange our travel plans was that my mom had gotten a preliminary diagnosis of lung cancer, pending more tests.  Instead of spending two weeks of June at her house in Iowa with us, she had to stay here in Virginia with my brother's family and have a biopsy and other tests done.  So we rejiggered all our plans and set off for a vastly different vacation than we had been looking forward to, all while having this possibility of Mom having cancer hanging over our heads.  

And what is this book about?  Why, a daughter whose mother slowly succumbs to a lingering illness, and who loses her father without warning.  I lost my dad without warning last fall, and here I am, facing my mother's lingering illness.  While we were gone, my mom did receive a diagnosis: stage 4 lung cancer.  And Margaret Hale was right there beside me, bearing up under personal pain and loss and fear and worry and uncertainty, just like me.

I'm fully convinced the Holy Spirit sometimes nudges my hand to pick up specific books.  Like when I read Summon the Light by Tor Thibeaux on the way to my dad's funeral.  Like when I ditched other books and stuck this in my bag at nearly the last minute.  Fiction has such power, and our Creator knows it.  Why else would He have taught using fictional stories so often?

Particularly Good Bits:

"I must do something.  I must make myself busy, to keep off morbid thoughts" (p. 35).

"I came here very sad, and rather too apt to think my own cause for grief was the only one in the world.  And now I hear how you have had to bear for years, and that makes me stronger" (p. 129-130).

"My theory is a sort of parody on the maxim of 'Get money, my son, honestly if you can, but get money.'  My precept is, 'Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something'" (p. 231).

"Come! poor little heart! be cheery and brave" (p. 304).

"It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young; afterwards, we lose the sense of the mysterious.  I take changes in all I see as a matter of course.  The instability of all human things is familiar to me; to you it is new and oppressive" (p. 359).

(I find it very interesting and appropriate that all my favorite lines this time are very different from my favorite lines the first time I read this.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some violence and quite a lot of character deaths, really.

"Eldest" by Christopher Paolini

My reread of the Inheritance series stalled out for a while with this book, I'm afraid.  I think it could have been about 200 pages shorter, and it would have been a much stronger book.  Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was three hours long, and a full hour of it was Luke and Yoda hanging out on Dagobah, and you get an idea of the pacing issues.

That aside, I do enjoy the fantasy world of Alegaesia.  And Eldest had lots and lots of time spent with Roran Stronghammer, who is my favorite character in the series.  I very much enjoyed all of his sections, especially since they moved forward at a relentless pace.  I do get that part of Eragon's character growth was learning to be patient and to stop wanting to be going and doing at all times... but I think we could have experienced that arc just as well with a lot fewer pages.

Particularly Good Bits:

If any honor existed in war, he concluded, it was in fighting to protect others from harm (p. 2).

"History provides us with numerous examples of people who were convinced that they were doing the right thing and committed terrible crimes because of it.  Keep in mind, Eragon that no one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong.  A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.  On its own, being a decent person is no guarantee that you will act well" (p. 351).

"To have a child is the greatest honor and responsibility that can be bestowed upon any living being" (p. 362).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for fantasy violence.  Nothing gory, but not suitable for small children.  I think it may have had one or two old-fashioned cuss words, too.  No smut.

"The Bronze Bow" by Elizabeth George Speare

I know I read this at least once as a teen.  I remembered basically none of it.  In fact, I actually misremembered things about it -- I thought it took place during the boyhood of King David, but that's completely wrong.  It takes place during the life of Jesus Christ!  I was way off.

I did remember it being really good, and that memory was totally accurate, though.  Whew.

Daniel is an angry young Jewish man whose parents were killed by Roman soldiers when he was a boy.  Now he's part of a renegade band of rebels who ostensibly fight the Romans, but mostly just steal stuff.  He befriends a nice brother and sister from a good family, and through them, he encounters Jesus more than once, and also gets a real job, is able to start caring for his younger sister, and gradually realizes that armed rebellion against the Roman Empire is not going to fix his problems.

I almost feel like this is Ben-Hur for teens, because it has a lot of the same themes of letting go of anger and hatred, learning to forgive, and finding peace in the midst of trouble. 

Particularly Good Bits:

"Can't you see, Daniel, it is hate that is the enemy?  Not men.  Hate does not die with killing.  It only springs up a hundredfold.  The only thing stronger than hate is love" (p. 224).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, including descriptions of crucifixion.

This was my 36th book read for my fourth Classics Club list.

"Eragon" by Christopher Paolini

All three of my teens got into the Inheritance Cycle last year, and they really want to read Murtagh, but I said I had to read it first (because hey, I'm the one who bought that new release hardcover copy, after all!), but then I realized I need to reread the series.  Because I finished reading the original series in 2011 when Inheritance was released, and that is a looooooooooooong time ago.  I mean, my youngest kid wasn't even born yet when that book came out, and now she's a teenager.

So, for my #25fo25 challenge of 25 specific books I want to read this year, I picked these four books and Murtagh so I would be sure to read them in a timely fashion. 

My favorite character in this series is Roran Stronghammer.  He's barely in this book.  I did not remember that at all, so yeah... that was kind of a bummer.  I do love Brom too, though.  He's got such acerbic sass and mad skills -- how would I not love Brom?

Anyway, as original stories go, Eragon is an enjoyable one.  A Chosen One who is unaware of their chosen status until Weird Things Start Happening, who first reject and then embrace their specialness -- it's a timeless story.  Which is why we have been using it as a storytelling framework for thousands of years.  

My one quibble with this book is how quickly they make soup.  Repeatedly, characters will throw some foodstuffs in a pot, wait until the water boils, announce, "Soup is ready!" and then eat it.  Um.  Um.  I guess that's soup, but it's not going to be good soup.  Even pasta has to boil for more than 5 minutes to be done.  And you're tossing chunks of meat and root vegetables in that pot and assuming they're done as soon as they have come to a boil?  I worry for Eragon's gut health.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to rereading the rest of the series :-D

Particularly Good Bits:

"Keep in mind that many people have died for their beliefs; it's actually quite common.  The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe" (p. 197).

"Find peace in where and what you are" (p. 429).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence.  Nothing gory, but not stuff for little kids, either.  One or two mild cuss words.  No smut.

"The Lilies of the Field" by William E. Barrett

I loved this book even more the second time through.  Its simplicity, straightforwardness, and gentleness impressed me so much the first time I read it, and now I've added "feels like an old friend" to that list of reasons I love it.  I hugged this book more than once while reading it.

This is an uplifting and hope-filled story of how kindness can dismantle boundaries.  Black handyman Homer Smith does a day's work for a group of German refugee nuns in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, insists there's no way he will build a chapel for them, and then their faith and humility and ready friendship touches his heart, so he builds their chapel for them.  That's the whole story right there -- like I said, very simple.  And yet, so complex.  

I had my 6th through 12th grade literature class at our homeschool co-op read this, and we had a wonderful discussion of how the characters both reflected and refuted stereotypes of the 1960s, when the book was written and set.

Particularly Good Bits:

Their smiles made him welcome and Homer felt immediately at ease with them.  They did not have any color line; he was just people to them (p. 15).

He had a prayer in his own heart when he accepted food.  Nobody took food for granted when he was a child.  It wasn't always easy to get and a person learned to be thankful when it was there (p. 37).

He looked at them and his heart lifted.  These were people who needed something that he had to give (p. 60).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's a lovely, clean, uplifting book.

"Streams to the River, River to the Sea" by Scott O'Dell

I loved this book as a teen.  I loved this book again now.

Streams to the River, River to the Sea is a fictionalized account of Sacagawea's life.  It begins with a fictional description of her life beginning as a pre-teen when she is captured by an enemy tribe and literally groomed to become the chief's son's wife.  A half-French trapper named Touissaint Charboneau wins her in a gambling game and decides to make her his second wife.  Shortly before she gives birth to their first child, the Lewis and Clark Expedition shows up at the village where Sacagawea lives.

From there on, the book mostly follows the known account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but tells it from Sacagawea's perspective.  

Things I particularly love about this book:

+ the extremely well-researched depiction of American Indian life

+ getting to see a real-life adventure through the eyes of a young woman

+ Sacagawea herself.

Things I'm not so fond of in this book:

+ the portrayal of Sacagawea as a young teen, maybe 14 or 15 -- she was actually more like 19 at this point in her life

+ the portrayal of romantic feelings between Sacagawea and William Clark -- they're not historically accurate, they're based on a novel from the early 20th century that has since been debunked by historians as having fabricated a lot of things, including the supposed romance between Sacagawea and William Clark

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for a non-detailed depiction of childbirth, cruelty to animals, and for the portrayal of domestic abuse.  No bad language or spicy scenes, but does contain some frontier violence.

"Misty of Chincoteague" by Marguerite Henry

I reread Misty of Chincoteague and King of the Wind because I decided to use them both for the literature classes I teach at our homeschool co-op.  I read all four of the Misty books as a kid (Misty of Chincoteague; Stormy, Misty's Foal; Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague; and Misty's Twilight), and this one and Sea Star are the two I remember best.  Will I reread the other three in the near future?  Possibly.  They are charming, uplifting, wholesome, and educational -- what more could a horse-loving bibilophile want?

Misty of Chincoteague is about a brother and sister, Paul and Maureen Beebe, who live on Chincoteague Island off the coast of Virginia.  They hope to buy a wild Assateague pony called Phantom and her little foal Misty during the Pony Penning Days that take place each July.  Together, they do extra jobs for months and months to earn the $100 they figure Phantom will cost.  (That's about $1800 today...)  It's a lovely story about siblings cooperating, people who love horses, and the friendship and joy that a horse can bring to a child.

Because I was teaching this book for a literature class, I looked up the real history behind this book.  Misty was a real Chincoteague pony, and really belonged to the Beebe family, but the story in the book is largely made up.  Marguerite Henry actually bought Misty from Clarence and Ida Beebe, and they helped her with a lot of research about the wild ponies on Assateague Island in return for her writing their grandkids, Paul and Maureen, as the hero and heroine of her new book.  Although the books about Misty are fiction, they are grounded in fact about Chincoteague and Assateague, and about the people and animals that live there.  You can learn more about Misty, Marguerite Henry, and this book on this fansite, as well as on other sites such as Wikipedia.

I've had the pleasure of visiting Chincoteague and Assateague myself, back in my late teens.  We weren't there for Pony Penning Days, but I did get to see a few of the wild ponies!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean family fun for all ages!

This is my 32nd book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

"King of the Wind" by Marguerite Henry

It's funny -- I remember this being one of my favorite books as a youngster... but I only remembered the first third or so of it.  As far as I could recall, the whole thing took place in the Middle East, but that's not true at all!  Most of it takes place in France and England.  Huh.

King of the Wind tells a fictionalized version of the life of the Godolphin Arabian, a horse whose bloodline runs through a huge number of race horses right down to modern day.  Both Secretariat and Man O'War came from his line, if that means anything to you.

In this book, a stable boy named Agba raises an orphaned Arabian colt he calls Sham in the stables of a capricious sultan.  Sham is faster than any other horse in the stables, leading Agba to nickname him King of the Wind.

The sultan decides to send some stallions to King Louis XV of France as a gift.  He chooses Sham as one of the gift stallions, and Agba gets to be one of the stable boys who accompany the horses.  They arrive in France looking terrible after the long voyage, and King Louis XV has Sham used as a cart horse.  One thing leads to another, with Sham being sold from one owner to the next, used for menial jobs and never valued for the race horse he ought to be.

Agba manages to stay with Sham through all the changes of ownership, and acquires a cat friend called Greymalkin along the way.  Agba is mute, and horses and cats don't talk, so the story gets told without loads and loads of dialog -- and it works beautifully.  Eventually, Sham gets sold to the Earl of Godolphin, and finally is recognized for the valuable horse he originally was.  Now, the real history of this horse, known as the Godolphin Arabian, is not quite so complicated or so fraught with misery, but most of what Henry adds is there to emphasize the theme of a person or a horse's true worth sometimes being hidden or unrecognized.

Gotta say, I suspect that much younger me probably read the whole book once or twice, but reread the first third over and over and over, when things were all going really well and both Agba and Sham were happy and valued, and that's why I remembered that part, but had forgotten the rest.  And I did still like that part best :-)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some depictions of cruelty to horses, mentions of a sultan having people beheaded, and a sequence involving jail.  Nothing too grisly or horrible, but might be hard on readers younger than 8 or 9.

This has been my 30th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

"The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin (again)

I have a rule for myself: I have to wait five years between rereads of The Westing Game.  I've had that rule since I first read it 30ish years ago, and I have stuck to it!  This rule is born of me reading it twice in quick succession and realizing that much of my enjoyment of the book comes from the quirky surprises it contains.  When I remember what is coming, it's less fun for me.

This time, I read it aloud to my family.  My son had read it several times, my oldest daughter had read it five years ago and didn't remember it, and my husband and my youngest daughter had not read it at all.  We had the jolliest time experiencing this book together!  We now have several new family in-jokes because of it.

The basic plot is this: when paper products mogul Sam Westing is murdered, he leaves his money to whoever can win the Westing Game he has set up.  Players of the game all live in a new apartment building, though they didn't realize their living there was all a part of Westing's pre-death plan to get them to play.  As friendships form, alliances collapse, and families learn important things about each other, the tension mounts to see who will decipher all the mysterious clues and win the Westing Game -- and millions of dollars.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some discussion of corpses and murder, bombs, broken limbs, and an accident that results in disfigurement.  No cussing.

"By the Great Horn Spoon!" by Sid Fleischman

Way back when I was ten or so, By the Great Horn Spoon! was the first Sid Fleischman book I ever encountered.  My mom read it aloud to my brother and I, and we laughed and laughed and laughed over it.  (My brother and I also picked up using "Blast!" like an expletive, like a ship's captain does in this book, which our mom eventually got very tired of.  I still say it when something goes wrong, thirty-some years later.  Very handy word, really.)

A few years ago, I read this aloud to my own kids.  We also laughed a lot over it.  I reread it again this week because I'm using it in a literature class for 3rd-5th grades that I'm teaching at our homeschool-coop.  And I laughed again.  What a rollicking good adventure this is!

Twelve-year-old Jack and his family's butler, Praiseworthy, stow away on a ship headed for the California gold fields.  The Gold Rush of 1849 is on, and our heroes are anxious to make their fortunes in gold, not because they want to be rich, but so they can save Jack's Aunt Arabella from losing her home.  Aunt Arabella has raised Jack and his sisters, who are orphans, and Jack can't bear the thought of her losing the house that has sheltered them all for so long.  Praiseworthy would do anything to help Aunt Arabella too, so the plucky heroes are off to make a fortune for her.  

Along the way, they encounter an array of peculiar and hilarious characters, from an irascible and competitive ship's captain to a gold miner who mixes his coffee beans with ground up acorns.  It's a tall tale in the grand tradition of American storytelling, and I love it very much.  It not only made me laugh aloud while reading it over again this week, it even made me get tears in my eyes when I hit the very last three lines.  Wonderful stuff.

Particularly Good Bits:

The stagecoach climbed as if it were part mountain goat.  It lurched, it halted, it bucked, it leaped, and it clung (p. 110).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  There's no bad language, but there's a bit of violence involving a boxing match, a scene where a man is nearly lynched, a stagecoach robbery, and several times when the main characters are in great peril.  Nothing actually bad really happens to them, ever, but very young readers might worry a lot about them at times.

"Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo

Ahem.

First, let me be clear: I read this book twenty-ish years ago, between my junior and senior years of college.  I also am quite happy to read very long classics.  And French classics.  The Count of Monte Cristo, which was published nearly twenty years before Les Miserables, and is at least as long and very equally French, is my second-favorite book of all time.  The problem here is not that I don't know how to read and understand books from the 1800s, that I don't appreciate the French, or that long books tire me out.

The problem here is twofold:

One, I should not have read Les Mis during the summer.  I get a mild case of summertime S.A.D. in late July that lasts through August and into September.  Les Mis was not the sort of thing I need to read during that time.  In late summer, I gravitate to dark and cool mysteries, ala Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and to frothy romps, ala P. G. Wodehouse.  I should not have attempted to read this book during this season.  But a bunch of friends on Bookstagram got together a buddy read for it, and I have read lots of other books with them and really enjoy our discussions, so I decided to join.  Also, I'd totally read it once before (and during the summer, no less), so I knew I could finish it.  I just didn't reckon on the S.A.D. factor turning this book into a big bummer, or this book adding some extra grey tones to my S.A.D. or something.  Maybe both.

Two, Victor Hugo is not my kind of writer.  I like writers who can give me a good story, well told.  And who don't hesitate when doing so.  I do not appreciate entire chapters devoted to sarcastic remarks about famous Parisians I have never heard of and can't get the joke for.  I do not appreciate multi-chapter-long digressions about French slang.  I do not gravitate to writers who can't stay on track for more than about two chapters in a row.  I want to read about the characters that I have come to care about, and when you continuously wander off to look at the architecture or the flowers or the social customs... you lose me.  I don't care.  I care about your characters, and when you refuse to stick with those characters, I get frustrated and angry.

I think Victor Hugo needed a blog.  He needed somewhere to publish all his thoughts about heroism, sacrifice, the importance of Napoleon, the meaning of loyalty, and all the other extremely random rabbit trails he pursued throughout the book.  If he could only have had a blog, he could have pontificated about each one to his heart's content without gumming up a fiction book with them.  Perhaps he had ADHD.  Perhaps he got paid by the word.  I don't know.  

What I do know is, y'all, this book wearied me.  And, having read it twice, I don't think I ever need to read it again.  I love the musical, I love the Manga Classics version, and those will content me whenever I feel a Les Mis need.  I really love Jean Valjean, and his journey to forgiveness and insistence on living out a life of love and mercy and contentment are absolutely beautiful... and I wish Hugo would have presented that story in a coherent fashion instead of rambling like a senile old man.  I really do.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for reasonably tasteful discussions of prostitution, a very frilly and oddly twee explanation of why Hugo decided not to describe a wedding night, quite a bit of violence, and a very long description of what it's like to wade through a disgusting sewer. 

This is my 17th book read for my fourth Classics club list and my 6th for my #20BooksOfSummer23 list.

"Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett

I have no memory of this book.  I KNOW I read all of Hammett's novels about twenty years ago.  But the title is the only familiar part about it.  I didn't even remember that the main character is the Continental Op.  Weird.  Or maybe not weird -- I read all of Hammett's novels in a row, in a big anthology I got from the library, and they did kinda smush together in my brain.  So that's probably why it didn't feel familiar.

Anyway!  I thought at first this book was going to be about fighting Communists because it actually involves a Communist agitator at the beginning, but it turns out to be about a whole lot of gangsters battling it out over control of a town.  So the titular "red harvest" really refers to all the blood that's spilled by the end, not harvesting Commies.  Or being harvested by Commies.

The Continental Op shows up in Personville for a meeting with a man who wants to hire the Continental Detective Agency for an unnamed job.  That man then dies, and it turns out he was basically the last decent, law-abiding citizen of Personville, which is nicknamed Poisonville for a good reason.  The bulk of the book is about the Op setting various gangsters and crime bosses against each other so they will take each other down and he won't have to get his hands dirty.  Except, by the end, he has to anyway.

An unpleasant book about unpleasant people?  Yes, but also... wow, so satisfying by the end when all the baddies have come to bad ends.  It was just the sort of hard, no-nonsense, smooth read I have been craving in these last, unending days of summer.  I don't love Hammett's prose the way I love Chandler's, but he has a straight-forward and slyly humorous style I enjoy anyway.

Particularly Good Bits:

"Plans are all right sometimes," I said.  "And sometimes just stirring things up is all right -- if you're tough enough to survive, and keep your eyes open so you'll see what you want when it comes to the top" (p. 85).

The machine-gun settled down to business, grinding out metal like the busy little death factory it was (p. 122).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a lot of violence and blood that somehow manages not to get excessively gory, plus some cussing, lots of alcohol and tobacco use, some laudanum use, and a lot of innuendo about why one woman is so terribly popular around town.

This is my 43rd book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

"Playback" by Raymond Chandler

Man, this book has given me such a bad book hangover.  I don't even remember the last time I had such a severe one.  Usually, I am reading at least two books at once, and so I just naturally keep on reading my other book whenever I finish one.  And then I transition into another pretty smoothly.  But this book... I just can't leave it behind yet.  I finished it two days ago and, up until the last chapter, I was just kind of okay with it, but not loving it as much as Chandler's other novels... and then I got to that last chapter and it knocked me down.  I can't even remember the last time I read this book, and I had forgotten pretty much everything about it, which is how I like it -- that's why I cycle through Chandler's books by reading one a year.  And boy, was that effective this time around.

So yeah... I haven't managed to read anything in either of the other two books I have going right now, since I finished this.  I tried starting a different book because it felt more similar to this, but that isn't working either.  I guess I'll just have to let the hangover wear off on its own, or something.

Playback is the last full book Raymond Chandler wrote and published.  It is a bit unusual in that Philip Marlowe alludes to characters from a previous book in it, and talks about things that had happened in it, namely The Long Goodbye, which I don't recall him doing at all in the other books.  And it's some of those tie-in things that really come together in the final chapter of Playback and just... were so completely awesome and made me so happy that I can't get over them.

And, it seems I can't really review this book coherently, thanks to that.

Let me try to at least describe the plot a little bit.  Philip Marlowe gets hired by a lawyer to follow a woman.  He does, and discovers that she is in some pretty serious trouble, so he decides to try to help her instead of just tailing her and reporting on her activities.  There's not an actual mystery here in the traditional sense -- the focus of the book is not on figuring out whodunnit and bringing in a criminal.  Instead, it's about figuring out what someone is hiding, and why, and kind of... studying human nature a lot in the process.  

It's a pensive and contemplative book, really, and Marlowe sometimes seems to drift through it.  But I think that's the point -- Marlowe is adrift, and so is the woman he was tailing, and the idea of "what do you do if you can't anchor yourself to someone else or someplace else" is the story's actual focus.  And Marlowe gets a chance at an anchor, which could change his whole life forever.

Still not super coherent, I guess, but that's what I've got.  Like I said, this book knocked me for a loop.  But in a very enjoyable way.

Particularly Good Bits:

You can't run away from yourself (p. 24).

On the dance floor half a dozen couples were throwing themselves around with the reckless abandon of a night watchman with arthritis (p. 44).

"Excuse me," I said.  "I'm a little tired.  Once in every two or three days I have to sit down.  It's a weakness I've tried to get over, but I'm not so young as I was" (p. 142).

"If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive.  If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive" (p. 153).

I sat down on the couch and stared at the wall.  Wherever I went, whatever I did, this was what I would come back to.  A blank wall in a meaningless room in a meaningless house.  I put the drink down on a side table without touching it.  Alcohol was no cure for this.  Nothing was any cure but the hard inner heart that asked for nothing from anyone (p. 164).

If This was a Move, I Would Rate It: R for Marlowe spending the night with two different women, one instance of which does not fade to black until after one person is already naked.  There's also a lot of violence, including torture and a suicide, and some bad language and drug use.  And a lot of drinking, as usual.  

"The Enchanted April" by Elizabeth von Arnim (again)

This is the third time I have read this book.  I simply adore it.  I'm beginning to think that no actual holiday in Italy could compare to the pure delight of reading about these remarkable ladies spending April there!

Four British ladies who do not know each other pool their resources and rent a villa in Italy for the whole month of April.  Lotty wants to escape her weary life for a bit and breathe some new and different air.  Rose wants to get away from the fact that she is sure her husband no longer loves her.  Mrs. Fisher wants to sit alone in the sunshine and think.  Lady Caroline wants to figure out what to do with her life.

They are all trying to escape their ordinary lives and get some rest in a new environment.  But they discover that they carry their lives with them.  In fact, although all four ladies had grown tired of being who they were, when they reach their Italian villa, they gradually become more their true selves than ever before.  And it's that peeling back of artificiality and exposure of the real, honest people inside themselves that transforms each of them, not the beauty of an Italian spring or the sunshine or the (comparative) solitude.

And, once the ladies have been able to reveal their true selves to themselves and to each other, they can meet other people with poise, balance, confidence, and charm.  Lotty's and Rose's husbands arrive and discover their wives are as dear and sweet and whole as they had been years ago when they were wooing.  A third male arrival benefits from both Mrs. Fisher's and Lady Caroline's transformations as well, though he doesn't know this because he had not met them before.

All in all, this book makes me smile, laugh, and rejoice.  I'm sure I'll continue to read it every couple of Aprils for the foreseeable future.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's wholesome and sweet and uplifting.

"Emily of New Moon" by L. M. Montgomery

One of the things I love about L. M. Montgomery's writing is how vividly she remembers what things feel and seem when you are a child.  I also have very clear recollections of my childhood, particularly of my inner self as a child, and so much of what she writes rings so true.  When Emily cries, "I am important to myself" (p. 25), I wanted to cheer because that is how I felt too when I was in single digits and being dismissed by adults.  And, when "Elizabeth Murray had learned an important lesson -- that there was not one law of fairness for children and another for grown-ups" (p. 375), I set down my book and clapped.  I was very sensitive to injustice, slights, and being treated condescendingly when I was a kid, and I try really hard not to treat kids that way now that I'm an adult.

Anyway, I read all three Emily books twenty years ago, when I was in my early twenties, and thought they were okay.  I don't know if I loved Emily of New Moon when I read it just now, but I definitely liked it a lot more than I did before.  I chuckled often, smiled oftener, and am eager to read the next book in the trilogy.

Emily Starr's father dies, and she is taken in by some of her mother's relatives.  Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Laura are kind and loving to her, but Aunt Elizabeth bosses both of them and is less welcoming to Emily.  Still, they give Emily a home at New Moon farm on Prince Edward Island, and if Aunt Elizabeth is not kind, she is at least honorable.

Emily makes friends with some kids and some adults.  She starts out a lonesome, grief-stricken, pale child with a good deal of grit and spirit hidden under her puny exterior.  She blossoms into a loveable, healthy, friendly girl over the course of the book.  Always imaginative, Emily is determined to become a published author, and she spends a lot of time writing poetry, stories, and letters to her dead parents.  

And, while terribly ill with a fever, Emily solves long-ago mystery.  Her subconscious pieces together clues about a woman who disappeared and figures out what really happened to her, and brings joy and comfort to her best friend as a result.  This is presented a little bit mystically, but I know how powerful a person's subconscious and imagination can be, and I find it wholly believable that a person could put together a few seemingly disparate facts and reach the logical and correct conclusion without consciously trying to do so.

I really loved Emily's concept of "the flash."  I also have moments of such clear and unadulterated joy that they seem like ecstatic glimpses of a different world.  Mine usually are brought about by bits of music, silhouettes, or something wonderful happening against all expectation -- they can all transport me with a jolt of ecstasy.  I don't have a name for it like Emily does, but I think the concept is the same.

Particularly Good Bits:

And always when the flash came to her, Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty (p. 8).

Aunt Elizabeth was one of those people who never understand anything unless it is told them in plain language and hammered into their heads.  And then they understand it only with their brains and not with their hearts (p. 54-55).

"Poets are so scarce in Blair Water folks don't understand them, and most people worry so much, they think you're not right if you don't worry" (p. 80).

Spring is such a happyfying time isn't it, father" (p. 215).

She was filled to her fingertips with a rapture of living (p. 269).

Outgrowing things we love is never a pleasant process (p. 361).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for grief, mild mistreatment of a child, gossip about a woman leaving her husband for another man, and oblique descriptions of a sad and lonely death.

This is my 13th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list, and my second for the Classic Children's Literature Party.

"Jane of Austin" by Hillary Manton Lodge (again)

This book is such a joy.  It's a retelling of Sense and Sensibility set in the modern world and... please don't throw things at me, but... I like it better than S&S.  I do.  There are multiple characters in this that I like better than their S&S counterparts.  There are plot points and relationship tangles that work better for me here.  And this one has the sweetest service dog.  

I mean, obviously I do like Sense and Sensibility.  I led a chapter-by-chapter read-along of it, after all.  I just like this better.  

Jane and her older sister Celia make their living selling tea in a trendy tea shop in San Francisco after their father leaves the country.  And then, their landlord dies, and they get turned out of both the apartment and the shopfront they rented from him.  Desperate to find somewhere that they can live and remain guardians of their younger sister Margo, plus find a new space for their shop, they accept an invitation from a cousin they barely know.  He offers they can live in his guest house while they find a new shopfront.  The only problem?  He lives in Austin, Texas.  But moving halfway across the country is not that big a deal, right?  It only means leaving behind their home state, Margo's school, and the man Celia has been dating for years and years.

They move.  Jane falls in love with a handsome country singer.  A friend of their cousin's, a wounded veteran, falls in love with Jane.  Jane falls out of love with the handsome country singer when he turns out to be despicable.  And so on.  I really love that this retelling is told from the Marianne character's point of view because I never feel like I get to know and understand Marianne very well in S&S.  This book also has a lot of chapters from the POV of the Colonel Brandon character, Callum.  He's an absolute sweetheart, gentleman, and hero.  

Also, there are lots of yummy recipes included.  I'm going to make the tea-infused Texas Sheet Cake today to take to a potluck :-9

(From my Instagram)

Particularly Good Bits:

Kissing Callum was like finding a favorite thing I hadn't known I was looking for (p. 295).

"I don't think it's ever wrong," I decided, "to love what you have more than what you had" (p. 299).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for a plotline involving an unwed pregnancy, mention of marital infidelity in an off-screen character, quite a few non-steamy kisses, and mention of characters "making out."  Also, Callum deals with a lot of emotional trauma from the combat situation where he lost a leg.  Not a racy book, no bad language, no real violence.  Clean, but not something all younger teens would be ready for.

"Shane" by Jack Schaefer (yet again)

Some fictional characters take up residence inside your heart in a quiet, calm, yet confident way, and you can't imagine life without them there anymore.  Shane is one of those, for me.  But not only Shane -- Joe and Marian and Bobby Starrett too.  The whole family of four are so, so dear to me.

This book never ceases to fascinate me.  How Shane rides onto the Starrett family farm one day, just asking for water for himself and his horse, ready to move on through again once he's refreshed.  Accepting a simple offer of hospitality, then another, then another, then taking on a job he never would have dreamed of doing before, and never would have done if it hadn't been Joe Starrett who offered it to him.  The sophisticated gunman becomes a farmer.  The aloof loner joins a family in the most integral way possible without actually becoming physically intimate with any of the family members.  He simply... becomes one of them.  Belongs to them, as the narrator remembers thinking at the time.  He adopts them, they adopt him, and he's theirs as much as they're his.

At the end, it's Shane who has to sever those ties, cut himself loose from his family so he can become the lone gunman again.  Not because he no longer loves his family, but because he loves them so much, he can't possibly do anything else.  Because greater love hath no man than this: that he would lay down his life for his friend.  And Shane loves the Starretts, as surely as they love him.  Just as surely as I love all four of them.

(From my Instagram)

On the surface, it's just another story of small farmers versus a big rancher.  The big ranges slowly gave way to small ranches and farms all across the West in real life, and that metamorphosis was often painful and brutal and violent.  Shane elevates this time-worn tale by giving us heroic men and women who are straight and true and upright and clean... but not perfect.  

Over the past seven years, this story has climbed higher and higher on my favorite books list -- going from somewhere down near fifty up to rest inside my top ten even as its characters nestle a little deeper into my heart with every reread.  It's a jewel-perfect book, pacing and characters and plot and description all polished and shining and brilliant.  The 1953 movie version starring Alan Ladd as Shane is equally wonderful, and it has climbed higher and higher on my favorite movies list over the years too.

I read the Critical Edition this time, but didn't read all the essays at the end.  Yet.  I read the introductory matter, and I'm saving the other material to enjoy now and again, adding one or two to each of my future rereads of the book so I can make them last a long time.

Particularly Good Bits:

Something in father, something not of words or of actions but of the essential substance of the human spirit, had reached out and spoken to him and he had replied to it and had unlocked a part of himself to us (p. 113-114).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some old-fashioned cussing and western violence.

"Peter Pan" by J. M. Barrie

It's been years and years since I read Peter Pan, and I was overdue for a reread.  In fact, I've never read it as an adult. That made it rather a different experience, I must say.

As a kid, I saw this as a story about the wonders of staying young forever and the meanness of adults who force kids to grow up.  But I don't think that's Barrie's point at all.  I think his point is that, as we mature into adulthood, we start to see the world as it really is, and we discover that the real world isn't nearly as scary or perilous as we imagined it as a child.

Neverland is the combined imaginations of Wendy, John, and Michael, and everything is fairly frightening there.  Roving bands of pirates try to kidnap you, roving bands of Indians try to kill you, beasts are always trying to eat you up, mermaids laugh at you behind your back, and pixies irritate you whenever they can.  Doesn't that sound like a child's idea of the hardships of adulthood?

The thing is, when Wendy grows up, she discovers adulthood is sweet, rewarding, and enjoyable.  But Peter Pan is perpetually afraid of adulthood, so he remains perpetually a child... but he never learns the truth and never learns his fears are baseless.  

(From my Instagram)

I think Barrie is also reminding us that we need to let kids be kids and not try to force them to be little adults.  They'll imitate adults for fun, and that's great, but if you try to push them into maturity before they're ready for it, you'll scare them.

In the end, I liked this book a LOT better than I was expecting to.  I thought it was going to make me sad because I've had to become an adult despite my best intentions... but instead, it made me happy I'm no longer a fearful child.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for killing, fighting, danger, and suspense.

This is my seventh book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.