Happy Hogmanay!

Kate DiCamillo excels at writing heartfelt, elegantly simple stories where the characters all form a greater mosaic that comes into focus at the very end. A delightful read-aloud with kids

Technically, Till We Have Faces was my favorite February read, but I decided not to count it since it was a reread. The Lincoln Highway is packed with fascinating character studies, nods to the Odyssey, and beautiful prose. It’s great for book group discussion.

March is my beach-read month and I was on the hunt for something I could blitz through with satisfaction. Blake Crouch delivered. It’s an adult sci-fi thriller so assume the necessary content/language warnings.

Yes, this is technically a reread, but it’s also a great example of, “sometimes our tastes change for the better as we age.” The first time I read this book, I was not particularly impressed. I was reading like a reader, reading to my own personal taste, and this book wasn’t “to my taste.” The second time I picked this up, I examined it as a writer, and found it to be simply incredible, particularly on a line level. Now I teach it to my MFA students.

May was my month of checking out various middle grade ghost stories, and this one was my favorite. Spooky (but not too spooky), nicely paced, interesting world building. Just a lot of fun.

This was an audiobook that the kids and I all listened to and really enjoyed. She wove multiple stories and timelines together in a satisfyingly unique way.

I think this book would be even more fun to read in the wintry months, although it made for a fantastic July experience, also. Read this and be inspired to eat delicious food and laugh at the antics of strangers.

I read plenty of Pratchett as an older teen, but he fell off my radar for a while as an adult. Pick up a Discworld novel if you’re ever feeling like you’d benefit from a razor sharp wit.

I could probably reread these poems once a year and get something new out of them every time. Next time, I’m going to read them aloud.

Fascinating insights into apartheid South Africa. Really loved his respect and admiration for his mother. Plenty of humor and sadness.

This isn’t a happy novel but it’s a powerful one. Vivid and moving and masterfully written.

I’m cheating on this last one because I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s such an enjoyable masterclass on writing short stories that I can already tell I’ll love it. Saunders wrote one of my favorite pieces of flash fiction (Sticks) and he has some great insights into what makes a short story great.