December Reading Roundup

Between the holiday craziness and general life craziness I ended up stalling out on a few books before I settled into my reading groove this month. The good news is that all the books I did finish were Good! Capital G and exclamation point good. (Except for one. Sorry Jim Gaffigan.)

Now I have a stack on my bedside table from the library and borrowed from friends and an ever-growing To Be Read list on Goodreads that I'm excited to start in the new year. My book club met last week for our holiday book exchange and to plan what we're reading for the next few months. I'm looking forward to every single book on our list. We start with The Aviator's Wife and Paris Wife and move on through Empire of the Summer Moon and Rules of Civility later this spring.

Per usual, I'll be linking up with the Twitterature linkup over on Modern Mrs. Darcy. Go check it out for lots of reading inspiration!

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. 
I should have read this before reading The Firebird, which is almost a sequel to The Winter Sea.  Regardless, I loved them both. Kearsley's books are becoming comfort food to me. They all have a similar time slip set up of two connected stories, one modern and one historical. In this one, a writer moves to a small coastal town in Scotland to work on her novel about the Jacobite rebellion of 1708. She decides to use the name of an ancestor as the heroine and discovers more than she expected about her family history. And of course, a handsome Scottish history professor. Kearsley has a lovely descriptive voice, and excellent character development. I can't wait to work my way through the rest of her books.

Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
A collection of essays about parenting from comedian and Dad of 5(!) Jim Gaffigan. When this is funny it is really funny, but he lost me for a while in the middle. I really think this was a case of "it's me, not you" though, because I have had a hard time with books that are set up like this lately. (Like Carry On, Warrior last month.) When I'm stressed I'm easily distracted and these just don't have enough of a plot line to keep me involved the whole way through like a mystery or novel does.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
We read this to our boys this month and it's been a ton of fun. My husband and I both adored Dahl as children, and we've been really excited for the kids to get old enough to read his stories. Funnier (and a bit snarkier) than the movie versions, the boys were hooked the whole way through. Now the only question is which Dahl to read next? My vote is The BFG.

Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
This mystery secretly written by JK Rowling is living up to all my expectations. I'm about halfway through and I can't put it down. My friend and I were both reading it while waiting in line to get books signed by Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman) on Saturday and it made that part of the wait fly by. The story follows Cormoran Strike, a down on his luck wounded soldier turned private detective in London. He's hired to look into the supposed suicide of a supermodel, and nothing in the case is as it seems. Rowling is in perfect form-the writing is excellent, the characters are compelling and the plot is a page turner.

I usually add some holiday reads in during December, like A Christmas Carol or Winter Solstice, but I'm not sure I'll get to it this year. What have you been reading lately? Are you thinking about what you'll read in 2014 yet? 

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