Welcome to the February 2025 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com!

After seeing the most recent Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, my husband’s interest in the folk singer/songwriter was renewed. He’s been listening to Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald. It covers not only Dylan’s artistic evolution from folk to rock and his relationship with other folk musicians but the political and cultural milieu.

I grabbed Tina Jost’s One Hour for My Priest: A Prayer Companion on my way out the door to Adoration on New Year’s Eve. Our family was pressed for time, so we weren’t there for quite an hour, yet I was able to complete one of the prescribed prayer options. This simple book makes prayer for our priests personal and concrete by creating structure and purpose.

I read Cooking Up Christmas by Jaycee Weaver as the first novella in a Christmas collection, An Evergreen Christmas. Ramsey is a chef; Bristol is hired to help with the business side of the restaurant. Work policy makes this a forbidden romance. The story is fun and entertaining, and the Christian treatment of forgiveness is well done. I’ll read more from this author.

What impressed me most about Sandralena Hanley’s The Stolen Princess is its moral depth. There’s an uncommon examination of guilt that results in not just forgiveness but penance, something both appropriate to the historical setting but also often overlooked. That’s not say the novel is heavy or maudlin. Its characters are likable, its pacing fresh, and this romance is sweet and endearing.

My oldest son had been looking for Tim Powers books at various secondhand book shops and finally came across the one he’d most wanted: Declare. This novel, set during the Cold War, is a World Fantasy Award winner. Double agent Andrew Hale traverses the Arabian desert, Berlin, and Moscow, culminating in a confrontation on Mt. Ararat. My son is about halfway through; I’m awaiting his verdict as I’ve long had Tim Powers books on my to-read list, and this was the one most-often recommended to me.

Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War by Burke Davis chronicles the history of the Confederate general. According to the description, it “humanizes this gentleman-soldier of tradition and makes him all the more awe-inspiring.” The Goodreads reviews are mixed, and I’m learning as I look at the books my son’s been reading that people have very strong views on biographies of historical figures—or maybe it’s on the figures themselves.

My oldest daughter tried a recipe from Bourbon Desserts by Lynn Marie Hulsman, a Christmas gift I snuck out of Kentucky this summer, right under her nose. I’ve read the introduction and perused some of the recipes, and I can’t wait to taste more from this book! My daughter baked the Light Chocolate Layer Cake with Bourbon and Cream Cheese Icing, and it was delicious!

For her Physics class, my high school daughter also read A Student’s Guide to Natural Science by Stephen M. Barr. It was a quick read that is (from her review) “a thorough explanation of the origins and history of science and mathematics, particularly relating to physics.” It explains the relationship between science and the Church. In sum, she says, “I think I understand the purpose and beauty of science and its basic tenets better.”

With her Literature class, she read The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the familiar play about the 17^th-century Salem witch trials (but also McCarthyism), which many of us read in high school. We also watched the 1996 movie adaption starring Winona Ryder, and I was reminded of how much I disliked Abigail Williams.

For the same class, she’s been independently reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the environmental classic written in 1962, that I’ve considered reading more for the author’s connection to Pittsburgh than anything else. My daughter has found it very dry, repetitive, and somewhat doomsday-ish, for lack of a better word. I think I’ll pass on it.

My middle-school daughter picked up several books from the school bookfair during Catholic Schools Week, including I Must Betray You by Ruta Supetys. It is set in 1989 Romania, during the fall of Communism and Nicolae Ceausescu. The protagonist is a seventeen-year-old blackmailed into becoming an informer. My daughter said the ending was hopeful, if not happy, but the climax was violent, as one might expect.

She also enjoyed Sarah Robsdottir’s Brave Water, which I read a couple of years ago. Set during a single day in modern-day Africa, the novel follows Talitha and her family, the only Catholics in their village. The daily task of procuring clean water for the village is the backdrop for the day’s events, which include an abduction. Deals with issues such as drug use and sexual trafficking as well as themes of forgiveness and redemption.

My middle-school son read Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary by Wendelin Van Draanen. I hadn’t heard of this junior detective mystery series, still stuck in the age of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew as I am. Sammy and her meet Lucinda as she’s walking her pig. Yes, pig. Lucinda then shares the tale of her great-grandmother, Moustache Mary, leading Sammy to investigate the cause of Mary’s cabin fire.

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