My sister-in-law has a really good book club. I usually enjoy the books she recommends from their reading list. One of the advantages of getting to this stage in my life is to admit without shame my specific likes and dislikes in reading choices. I don’t like real crime stories. In my world, the stories I read are fiction and nothing bad ever actually happens in the real world. I cannot read fantasy.. (Tolken, Rowlings)  I don’t usually choose books with dark themes or heart wrenching tales of grief (Oprah choices).. Honestly  Angelas  Ashes..? Who thought that one would be a pleasant afternoons entertainment? I read a great many murder mysteries… I don’t like gory gruesome murder mysteries (Patricia Cornwall lost me at Blow Fly).. I just want to read how some personally flawed detective is going to solve a mystery (Louise Penny, Inger Ashe Wolfe).  My mother is 92 and probably reads a book a day.. We have the same taste in mystery writers.. She recommended the Andy Carpenter series written by David Rosenfelt this summer. E and I both loved them….

Every year my sister-in-law shares her clubs last list with me and I take a break from my mystery book routine.. This summer I read the Midwife of Venice and enjoyed it. She has now recommended the Harem Midwife so I have added it to my winter reading list.

The winter begins with my reading list of titles recommended over the holidays. JR suggested The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul  which I read yesterday.. It was really good  (thanks J) and I have added the Author Deborah Rodriguez’s first book The Kabul Beauty School to my list.  PR recommended The Silent Wife  (TK her husband notes it is fiction) and I am going to start it this afternoon. It is raining, I have a cold and I just want to snuggle by the fire and sip Bailey’s, hot chocolate and get lost in a good book.

I read a lot, I read fast and I want to be entertained.. not challenged.. I admit it, like my favorite detectives….I am flawed..