Happy Spring Everyone!
April’s start kind of got away from me but I blame the perfect weather and a chance to be outside with the dogs. But a rainy day reminded me I haven’t given you all the monthly list and updates!
I have been working on my shelves and they are coming along great! I’ve decided to try cataloging them a little bit better since I’ve been working through them. It is crazy how much fun this is becoming. I feel like a librarian! I know I did this same project 3 or 4 years ago, but my collection ebbs and flows for sure so it is nice to know what I have and don’t. Plus, it is a great excuse to go through the book hoard! It makes my inner book dragon very happy to see all the precious books surrounding me in piles. Just imagine a little girl with big glasses and hair up in a ponytail, running with a book above her head and laughing in glee through shelves that seem taller than she is. That is my inner-self in utter happiness right now! *peeks behind curtain to find – a 30 year old with big glasses and hair in a messy bun directly on top of her head with an ice coffee, 3 dogs surrounding her in different states of sleeping/watching, flipping through a book she hasn’t seen in a while, and still giggling in glee surrounded by stacks and stacks of books.* … Yes, my husband checks on me and tosses me yummy snacks if I haven’t emerged in a while 😁
Being that it is a rainy day, I always find myself with a book and a blanket listening to the rain come down. I love being home when it is raining. There’s something just soothing about the sound of rain. Sometimes a bit too much and it practically puts you too sleep – We won’t count the amount of times I might have napped while looking up books during this.
I hope all of your Aprils have gone and do go well! Enjoy spring everyone! And to any of the Golf fans out there – Masters is kicking off on that 10th! Woot!
Chat with you all next month!
Reading Theme: Nature & Environment
Throw back to Transcendentalism when all people could write about is nature, ponds, and the human experience of living. Ok, maybe not that far back, but still, this month the goal in the reads are to find one that explores nature or an environment in its theme. Let’s keep this broad because reading nothing but Thoreau or Whitman doesn’t sound like the most invigorating reading for the month. If your characters go on long journeys through nature, they count! Why not? Theme is mostly outside but it is a romance? Bring it on! Beautiful part of the Reading Theme, we get to decide what we want to count towards it.
Happy Reading Everyone!
My Reading List for April 2025:
Wild and Distant Seas By Tara Karr Roberts
A gorgeous debut, laced through with magic, following four generations of women as they seek to chart their own futures. Evangeline Hussey’s husband is dead―lost at sea―and she has only managed to hold on to his Nantucket inn by employing a curious gift to glimpse and re-form the recent memories of those around her. One night, an idealistic sailor appears on her doorstep asking her to call him Ishmael, and her careful illusion begins to fracture. He soon sails away with Ahab to hunt an infamous white whale, and Evangeline is left to forge a life from the pieces that remain.
Her choices ripple through generations, across continents, and into the depths of the sea, in a narrative that follows Evangeline and her descendants from mid-nineteenth century Nantucket to Boston, Brazil, Florence, and Idaho. Moving, beautifully written, and elegantly conceived, Wild and Distant Seas takes Moby-Dick as its starting point, but Tara Karr Roberts brings four remarkable women to life in a spellbinding epic all her own.
The Simple Wild By K.A. Tucker
Calla Fletcher was two when her mother took her and fled the Alaskan wild, unable to handle the isolation of the extreme, rural lifestyle, leaving behind Calla’s father, Wren Fletcher, in the process. Calla never looked back, and at twenty-six, a busy life in Toronto is all she knows. But when her father reaches out to inform her that his days are numbered, Calla knows that it’s time to make the long trip back to the remote frontier town where she was born.
She braves the roaming wildlife, the odd daylight hours, the exorbitant prices, and even the occasional—dear God—outhouse, all for the chance to connect with her father: a man who, despite his many faults, she can’t help but care for. While she struggles to adjust to this new subarctic environment, Jonah—the quiet, brooding, and proud Alaskan pilot who keeps her father’s charter plane company operational—can’t imagine calling anywhere else home. And he’s clearly waiting with one hand on the throttle to fly this city girl back to where she belongs, convinced that she’s too pampered to handle the wild.
Jonah is probably right, but Calla is determined to prove him wrong. As time passes, she unexpectedly finds herself forming a bond with the burly pilot. As his undercurrent of disapproval dwindles, it’s replaced by friendship—or perhaps something deeper? But Calla is not in Alaska to stay and Jonah will never leave. It would be foolish of her to kindle a romance, to take the same path her parents tried—and failed at—years ago.
It’s a simple truth that turns out to be not so simple after all.
Shipped By Angie Hockman
Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends, or dating. But when she’s shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it.
The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they’ve never met in person, their epic email battles are the stuff of office legend.
Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos—best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands…together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.
With her career dreams in her sights and a growing attraction to the competition, Henley begins questioning her life choices. Because what’s the point of working all the time if you never actually live?
Out of the Woods By Hannah Bonam-Young
High school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb Linwood have always been a sure thing. For the past seventeen years, they have had each other’s backs through all of life’s ups and downs, achievements, losses, stages, and phases. But Sarah has begun to wonder… Who is she without her other half?
When she decides to take on a project of her own, a fundraising gala in memoriam of her late mother, Sarah wants nothing more than to prove to herself—and to everyone else—that she doesn’t need Caleb’s help to succeed. She’s still her mother’s daughter, after all. Independent and capable. That is until the event fails and Caleb uninvitedly steps in to save the day.
The rift that follows unearths a decade of grievances between them and doubts begin to grow. Are they truly the same people they were when they got married at nineteen? Are they supposed to be?
In a desperate attempt to fix what they fear is near breaking, Sarah and Caleb make the spontaneous decision to join a grueling hiking trip intended to guide couples through rough patches. What follows is a life-affirming comedy of errors as two nature-averse people fight their way out of the woods in order to find their way back to their roots.
Is A River Alive? By Robert MacFarlane
Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane’s dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.
I know this one isn’t out until next month, but I am really looking forward to reading this one!
