What I'm Reading Nov/Dec 2025

[Lynn]

Time to start a new thread for discussions of what you're reading during the last two months of the year! I'll be closing the Sept/Oct thread to new posts soon, but the posts will still be available to read after the thread is closed.

Please continue your discussions in the new thread.

[Book Concierge]

My reading has been so slow this year. But I just started listening to the audio of The Women by Kristin Hannah.

I know this is going to be a tough read for me. My husband stepped on a land mine in Vietnam and he often speaks about the nurses who treated him.

[Gina]

Wow BC. That will make it so personal for you. Let us know what you think.

[Maureen]

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was beautiful
The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten
In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, bestselling Norwegian author Frode Grytten takes listeners on a quietly epic ferry driver Nils Vik’s last route along the fjord, on what he knows will be his last day alive.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Tamara]

Maureen wrote: "I really enjoyed this book. The writing was beautiful
The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten
In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, be..."

Looks wonderful! I've put it on hold in my library. Thanks for recommending it.

[Tamara]

I read The Furies by Natalie Haynes.
Unlike her other novels which are re-tellings of Greek myths, Natalie Haynes sets this novel in contemporary London and Edinburgh. A young theatre director, grieving over the untimely death of her fiancee, goes to Edinburgh to teach drama therapy to dysfunctional children. The outcome is not what she expected.
I enjoyed the novel, especially the parts showing the teenagers engaging with classical Greek tragedies.
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Lyn]

I just finished The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World. It's a lot, and the well researched details are utterly heart breaking. But it's somehow also a page turner that's hard to put down.

[Mary Ellen]

I re-read In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden, over 50 years after my first reading. It is a very quiet novel, taking place largely in a cloistered Benedictine monastery. No cliff-hangers here; a rather old-fashioned, elegiac book that I found somewhat soothing in this fraught moment in time.

[Donna]

Glad to hear that, Mary Ellen. I’ve not read In This House of Brede but it’s on my short list.

[Ruth]

Mary Ellen wrote: "I re-read In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden, over 50 years after my first reading. It is a very quiet novel, taking place largely in a cloistered Benedictine monastery. No cliff-..."

Maybe it’s time for me to reread that too!

[Lynn]

Ruth wrote: "Mary Ellen wrote: "I re-read In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden, over 50 years after my first reading. It is a very quiet novel, taking place largely in a cloistered Benedictine m..."

You know, the Classics Corner nominations will be coming up sometime next week. Maybe one of you should consider nominating This House of Brede!

[Book Concierge]

While You Were Out – Meg Kissinger – 5*****
Subtitle: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence. Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger was one of eight children of loving parents. To all around them, the Kissingers seemed a happy, boisterous, pleasant family. But behind closed doors their mother was medicated and suffered from anxiety and depression. Their father was manic and prone to violent outbursts. And two of Meg’s siblings succumbed to untreated mental illness, committing suicide. This is a brutally honest look at the cost of silence.
LINK to my full review

[Book Concierge]

So far, I'm really liking Hannah's book The Women. Have been listening to the CDs in the car and when I first started it, Hubby and I were together one day and I asked if it was okay if I listened to the book (don't usually do this when he's in the car with me). I told him it was about an Army nurse in Vietnam, so it might be disturbing, but he agreed to listen.

He is now reading the book and loving it. But he comments frequently about how "close to home" it's hitting.