Welcome to the January 2025 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com!
For weeks, my husband has been sharing interesting facts from the book he’s been reading. Yes, it’s another book about alcohol, but this one has broader appeal, I think —Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails by Camper English. Sure, if you’re at all familiar with history, you know whiskey was used medicinally. But what about an Old-Fashioned cocktail? From ancient to modern times, alcohol has been used to treat and cure a variety of ailments.
I’ve made Belinda Terri Mooney’s Pray With Us: A Saint for Every Day part of my prayer routine in the new year. It features a saint for each day of the year—some familiar from the liturgical calendar and some lesser known. Each receives a paragraph summary and a prayer. One page per day, which is about all I can manage.
I’m still enjoying Christmas reading, including Saint Nick, by one of my favorite authors, Amy Matayo, who makes characters more real to me than perhaps any contemporary author I read. Nick, a young widow, has thrown himself into saying yes to others, in part to make up for the no he told his newlywed wife. He’s become the neighborhood dog sitter, repairman, and babysitter. When his neighbor leaves town and her podcasting therapist granddaughter moves in, his do-gooder status is challenged. Low Reed is all about saying no and setting boundaries; it’s her brand. But sparks fly when these two butt heads and take a chance on being honest and vulnerable with one another.
A Wood-Fired Christmas by Maddie Evans is set almost entirely in a Maine pizza shop. Ezra his kept Loveless Pizza in business, but now the hands-off owner is giving the business to his niece, Lacey, and she needs to make changes to keep the business afloat. Only Ezra doesn’t like changes. There’s a lot of opposition between these characters too, but once they decide they share the same goals, they’re able to work beautifully together—in the pizza shop and out.
Kortney Keisel’s One Foggy Christmas is a three-part story that shares Nash and Sadie’s love story, how their marriage falls apart after Sadie’s accident-induced amnesia, and their eventual reunion. There’s nothing to dislike about loyal Nash, but Sadie, well, she doesn’t remember loving Nash, and she doesn’t come around easily. This was my least favorite of the three Christmas romances I read in December, but still likable enough.
The Harwood Mysteries by Antony B. Kolenc is a wrap with the release of the sixth and final book in the series, The Devil’s Ransom. As the characters have matured, so have their challenges. The stakes are high as Xan and his new wife, Christina, their friend Lucy, and an assortment of friends fight a presumed demoniac outside the Moor-controlled city of Xelb. There’s a lot to enjoy here from the character growth to the history and lessons about discerning the moral course of action. I frequently recommend this series for tweens and teens.
For Christmas, my son received and read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Tales from the Perilous Realm. This collection of his shorter works and essays includes “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil,” “Farmer Giles of Ham,” “Leaf by Niggle,” and more. Illustrations by Alan Lee help bring the stories to life. If you like Tolkien’s philosophy and writing style, my son says you’ll enjoy it.
For Christmas, he listened to Letters from Father Christmas, also by J.R.R. Tolkien. Each year, Tolkien wrote letters to his children, arriving with a stamp from the North Pole. My son found it very endearing and inspiring to see how Tolkien used his talents to bring joy to his children. He said, “There is a bittersweet Narnia progression to the letters as Tolkien’s children slowly grow out of believing in Father Christmas one-by-one and grow up.”
Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age by William Powers is helpful in managing technology use. It discusses different information revolutions in history and how we can use that history to navigate our own use of technology. The book is a practical guide for how to use technology in efficient and helpful ways without interfering with other aspects of our lives.
My son’s also been lugging around our copy of John Adams by David McCullough, a book I read when he was just a baby. The Pulitzer Prize-winning, acclaimed biography of one of America’s great founders includes his roles as a patriot, president, and husband. I remember it as a fascinating, easy-to-read biography of a great man.
My high school daughter read Old Christmas by Washington Irving. I listened to the audiobook version of this book six years ago and found it disjointed as I was expecting something other than a series of vignettes. My daughter knew exactly what she was getting, and she loved reading about the old Christmas customs and traditions. She thought the illustrations by Randolph Caldecott were charming.
For Christmas, she received a copy of Roseanna M. White’s Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor, which she also really enjoyed. It’s just as warm, inviting, and Christmasy as the cover, and I knew the sweet romance with an emphasis on whimsy, Christmas traditions, and Christmas baking was something she would love.
While she was recovering from pneumonia, my middle school daughter read A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus, something I saw recommended on another An Open Book post. This WWII historical novel follows three siblings who bounce from home to home in the English countryside, hoping to find a new family after their grandmother’s death. They eventually find comfort with the village librarian, Nora.
For Christmas, she received and read Regina Doman’s first fairytale retelling, The Shadow of the Bear. Set in New York City, a tough street kid, Bear, encounters two sisters—Rose and Blanche. Bear befriends them, but his connections could prove dangerous to the girls’ family.
My middle school boy also liked Every Day on Earth: Fun Facts That Happen Every 24 Hours by Steve Murrie and Matthew Murrie. It includes facts about all sorts of things—animals, sports, nature, technology, food, etc., all framed by what happens in a 24-hour period.
My youngest son tore through his Christmas book, the latest installment in Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid series, Hot Mess. I can’t believe this series has stretched to nineteen books. This one is set in a tiny summer beach house during a family vacation. There’s also a little mystery to uncover—the recipe for Gramma’s famous meatballs.
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