November reading roundup #3

Suddenly, it’s December – and the holiday season is here in all its twinkly chaos. To counter the madness a bit, here’s what I have been reading:

My Own Lightning, Lauren Wolk
After a lightning strike, Annabelle McBride has a heightened understanding of animals, especially dogs. When her brother’s dog goes missing and a stranger comes to town looking for his own dog, Annabelle has to make some tough choices, and re-examine some things she thought she knew. A beautiful, wise middle-grade novel (sequel to Wolf Hollow, which I also loved).

The Siren of Sussex, Mimi Matthews
Evelyn Maltravers is in London to make her debut – but she’s determined to dazzle on horseback rather than in the ballroom. When she engages Ahmad Malik, a skilled Anglo-Indian tailor, to make her riding habits, she finds herself drawn to him. The attraction is mutual, but there are obstacles (financial and otherwise) in the way. I loved this smart, witty romance, especially the nuanced relationship between Evelyn and Ahmad, and Evelyn’s group of unconventional friends.

Really Truly, Heather Vogel Frederick
Truly Lovejoy is excited for the perfect summer in Pumpkin Falls, but her plans start to fall apart when she’s sent to mermaid camp on Cape Cod. Meanwhile, a town heirloom goes missing, and Truly and her friends get roped into both a performance of The Pirates of Penzance and a real-life treasure hunt. Such a fun third installment in this series.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna
Because of her witchy powers, Mika Moon has spent her life never getting close to anyone. But when she’s hired to be a tutor for three young witches at Nowhere House, Mika finds herself falling in love: with the girls, their quirky caretakers and the grumpy librarian, Jamie, who’s their surrogate dad. This was British, irreverent and completely charming; shades of Ballet Shoes but totally modern.

The Wild Robot Escapes, Peter Brown
My nephew requested this one for his birthday (after loving The Wild Robot), so I sent it to him and then wanted to read it for myself. Roz the robot finds herself working on a farm; she enjoys the cows and children, but plots her escape back to her island home and animal friends. Fun and thoughtful, though I liked the first one better.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

P.S. The third issue of my newsletter, For the Noticers, comes out this week. Sign up here to get on the list!

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April reading roundup #3

Somehow it’s May tomorrow – and I have been reading up a storm. Here’s the latest roundup:

How to Find Your Way Home, Katy Regan
Emily has spent years scanning every crowd for her estranged brother’s face – but she never expects him to walk in the door of the housing office where she works. She invites him to stay, but reconciling is complicated, even for two siblings who love each other deeply. A sweet (though heavy) story of family, secrets, birding and forgiveness. I read it in one day.

Lost & Found, Kathryn Schulz
Eighteen months before she lost her father, Schulz met the love of her life. In this gorgeous memoir, she weaves those stories together beautifully, and muses on losing and finding, grief and love, and the ways all those things are intertwined. Stunning writing and lovely insights – every page felt important.

Four Aunties and a Wedding, Jesse Q. Sutanto
Wedding photographer Meddelin Chan is finally marrying her true love – and her zany mom and aunties are supposed to just be guests. But when shenanigans ensue with the family of wedding vendors they’ve hired, Ma and the aunts step in to save Meddy’s day from disaster (and murder). I laughed out loud at this sequel to Dial A for Aunties (Komodo dragons on fascinators!) and especially loved that it’s set in Oxford.

The Year I Stopped to Notice, Miranda Keeling
I loved this sweet, funny collection of Keeling’s observations over a year in London. Lots of overheard comments, conversations on the Tube and poignant (or odd) glimpses of people’s lives. Charming and so very British. To review for Shelf Awareness (out August 9).

Witch for Hire, Ted Naifeh
My partner gave me this graphic novel for Christmas. It follows Faye, a young witch and determined outsider at her high school, as she tries to track down the source of some increasingly malicious pranks. Reminded me a bit of Veronica Mars.

A Shoe Story, Jane Rosen
Seven years after college graduation, Esme Nash and her never-worn Louboutins head to NYC to pick up the life she thought she wanted. She spends a month in the Village, dog-sitting and finding her way via quirky neighbors and her host’s stunning shoe collection. A fun, lighthearted story and a love letter to my favorite part of the city. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 28).

A Sunlit Weapon, Jacqueline Winspear
Kent, England, 1942: a female pilot narrowly escapes death when someone shoots at her from the ground. But when her friend isn’t so lucky, Jo (the first pilot) engages Maisie Dobbs to investigate. Meanwhile, Maisie’s adopted daughter is facing trouble at school, and two young American soldiers are caught up in a conspiracy much larger than themselves. I loved this 17th entry in Winspear’s series; Maisie is thoughtful and wise and one of my favorite sleuths.

Under Lock and Skeleton Key, Gigi Pandian
After an onstage incident that nearly killed her and ruined her career, magician Tempest Raj is back home in Northern California, nursing her wounded pride. But when her stage double is found dead inside a supposedly sealed wall, Tempest and a motley crew of friends old and new tackle the case. I loved the ensemble cast (especially sweet Grandpa Ashok) and the references to classic mysteries. First in a new series.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

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#31things: the coziest red cardigan.

My sister bought it for me a while back. I hadn’t worn it much until this winter. But it’s keeping me warm and stylish on these endless chilly days at home. 

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June reading roundup #2

The second half of June has flown by – life is a bit scattered but the books are helping keep me sane. (As is my library – pictured above.) Here’s the latest roundup:

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, Ruth Reichl
Reichl, a longtime food critic, became the editor of Gourmet magazine in 1998. This memoir is the inside-baseball story of her years there, Gourmet’s evolution, some of its most famous stories (and personalities), and its eventual end. I like Reichl’s writing, but I want to love her and I don’t quite. I can’t figure out why. Still an entertaining, well-written story for foodies.

The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good, Elizabeth L. Cline
I loved Cline’s first book, Overdressed – a hard look at the fast-fashion culture and what it’s costing us. Her second book lays out methods for clearing out our closets and then shopping consciously: buying less, recycling or donating old clothes responsibly, and buying better-quality clothing made by brands that pay fair wages and treat the earth with care. Lots of common sense, but it’s great to have all this info in one place. Several fascinating Q&As with fashion industry pros. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Aug. 20).

The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery
I’d only read this little-known Montgomery novel once, and then Jenny co-hosted a read-along on Instagram. I was way too late to join, but loved my second read of Valancy’s story. She’s a delight, and I loved watching her step into exactly the life she wanted.

Today We Go Home, Kelli Estes
When Larkin Bennett comes back home after a tour of duty in Afghanistan, she’s grieving the death of her best friend Sarah and struggling with PTSD. Among Sarah’s possessions, Larkin finds a diary written by Emily Wilson, an ancestor of Sarah’s who lived and fought as a man during the Civil War. Estes’ second novel is a solid dual-narrative story of several strong women, a century and a half apart, fighting to be taken seriously on and off the battlefield. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Sept. 3).

The Library of Lost and Found, Phaedra Patrick
Martha Storm, volunteer librarian, spends her time offering to do tasks for other people so she can feel useful. But when she reconnects with her grandmother Zelda–after believing Zelda died 30 years ago–Martha starts rethinking some of her life choices and possibilities. A sweet, engaging, bookish story, though I had trouble believing Martha was quite that naive.

The Scent Keeper, Erica Bauermeister
Emmeline spends her childhood on a remote island with her father in the Pacific Northwest. He keeps drawers full of scents in glass bottles, and they forage for food. But as a teenager, Emmeline is forced into the outside world, where she finds friends but also betrayal. I’ve loved Bauermeister’s previous novels, and this one – despite a slow start – is engaging and lovely. I don’t think the plot is quite as strong as her others, but I loved the characters and the musings on scent and memory.

The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You, Dina Nayeri
Most of us see “the refugee crisis” in the headlines but don’t have a sense of what these individual human experiences are like. Nayeri, a former refugee from Iran, delves into her own experience and that of many others: living in camps, awaiting asylum hearings, living underground (in various countries) after being rejected. She’s blistering in some of her critiques, strikingly human in her storytelling. Compassionate, prickly and compelling. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Sept. 3).

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my favorite local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith.

What are you reading?

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My accidental spring uniform.

Spring has sprung for sure here in Cambridge. I came back from a quick visit to Texas to find dogwoods, lilacs and tulips in full flower. The nights are still chilly and the mornings often misty, but the days are crisp and sunny – sometimes downright mild.

I’ve been working my winter uniform for months, rotating between half a dozen dresses (mostly striped, black or denim) with black ankle boots, fleece-lined tights, my crimson scarf and a cozy grey sleeveless cardigan I found in Oxford last fall. But – glory of glories – I need something lighter to wear now.

It’s not quite bare-legs weather yet, at least for me, and I don’t want to spend ages getting dressed in the morning (really, who has time for that?). But I realized last week that I’d come up with a spring uniform almost by accident.

Right now it looks like this: cropped trousers (I have the same ones in red and black) + sweater or long-sleeved top (black, gray, white, striped or some combination thereof) + tank top. I’m still wearing a scarf (usually red, or the patterned one above) most days, and then I slip on my ankle boots or Rothy’s flats. (See above: I also own a red pair.) I’m still hedging my bets and wearing my beloved green coat, mostly, but I’ve reached for my spring trench coat a time or two.

I’m no style innovator, but I’d rather look classy, be comfortable and feel like myself than spend a lot of time experimenting. The uniform will shift again when we reach full summer, but for now, this is working for me.

Do you do the uniform-dressing thing? What are you wearing this spring?

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A tale of two coats

A color story:

For several years, my favorite coat has been the jade-green wool one I found at a consignment shop in downtown Boston. It matches my eyes (like a certain Boy Who Lived, I have my mother’s green eyes) and it is warm, stylish and comfortable. It also garners compliments – from friends and strangers – like no other article of clothing I’ve ever owned.

When I started showing up at Darwin’s every day, some of the staff came to know me initially as “the girl in the green coat.” (They know my name now, and they also know my fondness for their chai lattes, shortbread cookies and soups of every kind.)

My green coat – with a warm scarf, fleece-lined tights and appropriate footwear – is perfect for many, if not most, winter days in Boston. But occasionally, we have arctic blasts (or blizzards) that send the temperatures dropping to near zero. That means I need to pull out the big guns: my knee-length, hooded, quilted down coat, which is red. (In the mornings, when I look around the subway platform, I’m often the only person not wearing black or gray.)

A few weeks back, I walked into Darwin’s on a single-digit day wearing my red coat, and chatted with a friend behind the counter before going up to place my order. The staff member working the register stared at me for a moment in utter disbelief.

“Katie!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t even know who you were when you walked in!” I laughed out loud, and reassured her that the green coat would be back soon.

I told my husband this story that night. His comment? “Only you could wear a red coat and go incognito.”

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June reading roundup #1

We are all drawing a few deep breaths after Commencement, and I’m diving into summer reading – woohoo! Here’s the latest roundup:

The Hopefuls, Jennifer Close
After Obama wins the presidency in 2008, Beth moves with her husband (a campaign staffer) to D.C. As Beth struggles to find her place in a new city, she and Matt meet a charismatic couple, Jimmy and Ash, who quickly become their best friends. But like so many friendships, this one is complicated, and Close expertly explores the shifting loyalties and the fault lines in both marriages. So well done. To review for Shelf Awareness (out July 19).

Notes from an Accidental Band Geek, Erin Dionne
Elsie Wyatt is a top-notch French horn player, determined to get into a prestigious summer music program. But this means she has to (gasp!) join marching band. Elsie is a brat at first, but I loved watching her fall in love with band. (I’m a proud band geek from way back.) Super fun.

Girl in the Blue Coat, Monica Hesse
Hanneke spends her days finding and distributing black-market goods in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. But when a customer asks for her help in finding a missing Jewish girl, Hanneke is drawn into a web of Resistance activities. A compelling evocation of bravery, cowardice and betrayal during wartime – tense and well crafted.

Gone Crazy in Alabama, Rita Williams-Garcia
Sisters Delphine, Vonetta and Fern travel from Brooklyn to Alabama to spend the summer with relatives. Being black in both places carries a particular challenge in 1969, and the girls struggle to adjust while listening to the (warring) family stories from their great-grandmother and her sister. Delphine’s voice is smart and so engaging.

Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher
I’d never read this classic but picked it up after it featured prominently in Mother-Daughter Book Camp. Elizabeth Ann, sheltered and timid, is sent to Vermont to stay with cousins she’s never met. To everyone’s surprise – including her own – she blossoms there. A sweet, gentle story.

Before We Visit the Goddess, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
This is one of the picks for Modern Mrs. Darcy’s online Summer Reading Club. It’s a bittersweet story of mothers and daughters, spanning three generations and shifting in time, place and point of view: India to California to Texas, mother to daughter to granddaughter. Lovely and melancholy, though I wanted more resolution at the end.

Graveyard of the Hesperides, Lindsey Davis
Davis’ fourth novel featuring Flavia Albia, a private informer in ancient Rome, finds Albia approaching wedded bliss with her beloved, Manlius Faustus. But they get sidetracked when the remains of six bodies turn up in the garden of a bar he’s renovating. The plot meanders, but Albia is a sharp-tongued, engaging narrator. To review for Shelf Awareness (out July 12).

Nine Women, One Dress, Jane L. Rosen
Everyone is desperate to get their hands on the little black dress of the season – and it changes the fortunes of nine women, including a runway model, two saleswomen at Bloomingdale’s, an aging Broadway diva and more. Light and frothy and highly entertaining. To review for Shelf Awareness (out July 12).

The Seafront Tea Rooms, Vanessa Greene
A journalist researching tea rooms, a young mother at the end of her rope, and a French au pair bond over tea and struggles in Scarborough. Light, refreshing and lovely. Fun for Anglophiles.

Links (not affiliate links) are to my favorite local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith.

What are you reading?

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Dressing in the moment

I snapped this photo as I was leaving work one day last week. It was clear twilight – not dark – outside, but still piercingly cold. And while the chalkboard sign captured my sentiments exactly, the flimsy sundress (blowing in the bitter wind) made me shake my head in irritation.

Several years ago, Nichole Robertson (now of Obvious State) wrote a blog post called “Dress in the Moment.” In it, she detailed the vexation of being unable to find winter accessories in American stores when it was still frigid outside. Nichole was living and working part-time in Paris then, and she pointed out that French department stores – at least in her experience – tend to stock more seasonally appropriate items.

Maybe because I moved to Boston soon after she wrote that post, I think about Nichole’s words every winter.

When the shop windows are full of sundresses and gauzy scarves, and we’re stepping around frozen piles of gray snow on the sidewalk, a certain cognitive dissonance sets in. Many of us (myself included) don’t love the cold anyway, and the displays of colorful spring outfits that we can buy, but not wear, are a tantalizing frustration.

Separate, but related, is the annoyance of being forced to make do with worn or tattered winter gear. (I’ve spent more time than I care to admit digging through sale bins in midwinter, searching for a proper pair of gloves. And it is nearly impossible to buy snow boots if yours start leaking in, say, February.)

Nichole urged her readers to “channel their inner French girl” – and maybe mitigate the winter blues a bit – by caring for their winter clothing properly. I thought of this last week as I picked up my favorite green coat from the dry cleaners and cleaned the road salt off my leather boots.

We’re only midway through winter and I’m sick of my puffy down coat, but I’ll have to wear it, and my fleece-lined tights, for a while yet. (Though I ran around in ballet flats and a light jacket this weekend, because I could.) So I may as well embrace the corresponding need for sweaters, hats and cozy scarves. I splurged on this soft plaid one right before Christmas, and I love it.

I am already watching for signs of spring, and I relish each day that’s mild enough for lighter clothing (in whatever form). But Nichole’s words remind me to pass by the sundresses – for now – and embrace the season we’re in.

Instead of sighing over what I can’t wear yet, I’ll be doing my best to snuggle into my soft handknits and cozy sweaterdresses. (And thanking whatever genius came up with the idea for fleece-lined tights.)

How do you dress in the moment – especially in wintertime?

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My accidental winter uniform.

About a year ago, I became fascinated by the concept of a personal uniform. (It was all over the Internet for a while: President Obama’s blue or grey suits, the Australian newscaster who wore the same suit every day for a year, numerous bloggers writing about their wardrobes.)

I’m not a big clothes shopper and I hate making decisions in the morning, so you’d think a personal uniform would be tailor-made (ha) for me. So far, though, I’ve lacked the discipline – or the commitment – to really take the plunge. I haven’t edited my wardrobe down to 10 items or consciously worn the same 33 items for a month. (I have also resisted the Marie Kondo madness because, frankly, everyone else seems to be doing it.)

But as we continue to slog through winter, I realized I’ve developed a personal uniform almost by accident.

Winter in the Northeast is (I need hardly say it) cold – often bitterly so – and snowy. I work in a business-casual office environment and I commute on public transportation, every weekday. So I need warm, sturdy winter gear: snow boots, fleece-lined tights, a knee-length down coat for frigid days and a couple of wool coats for milder ones. But I also need outfits to wear under those coats, and I find myself reaching for a variation on the same ensemble most days.

Right now, that usually looks like a dress, either solid or striped (because I own an embarrassing number of striped dresses). I pair the day’s dress with black leggings and boots (of the snow or non-snow variety, depending on the weather). And I choose a scarf or knitted cowl to go with it. (That, and choosing my tea blend, is the kind of decision-making I can handle in the morning.)

I do own other pieces of clothing – sweaters, tees, skirts – and sometimes I feel like I should be making more of an effort to wear them. But right now, when I’m rushing around between showering and eating breakfast every morning, this winter uniform is what’s working for me.

Do you have a personal uniform – accidental or purposeful? (And if so, what is it?)

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Back in the (knitting) saddle

“I haven’t felt like knitting for months,” a friend lamented last week. She has an excuse – after all, she had a baby this spring – but I agreed with her. After an absurdly long, cold winter, I couldn’t wait to exchange my heavy knitted cowls and hats for lighter scarves. I put down the needles in May and never looked back.

Recently, though, I’ve pulled out a few handknits as the chill in the air has grown more pronounced. I’m not ready for heavy-duty winter wear yet, but I’m enjoying the chance to wear fingerless mitts, or snuggle into a scarf or cowl with my favorite green coat. (I knitted the purple wrap above this winter, but had forgotten how soft and cozy it is.)

Also, as ever, the good folks at Innocent Drinks are sponsoring the Big Knit, encouraging people to knit wee hats for their smoothie bottles to raise money for Age UK. I’m easing back into knitting with these tiny hats – a few at a time while J and I watch football or catch up on Modern Family of an evening. (Bonus: they are so quick and satisfying!)

All this talk of knitting also has me browsing Ravelry for new patterns, and dreaming of bigger projects to knit for others or myself. My favorite yarn shop in Boston closed a couple of years ago, sadly, but I’m thinking I may have to order some yarn online soon.

Are you a seasonal crafter, like me? Any patterns you’re dying to knit (or crochet) this fall?

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