My chosen theme for December 2024 was “Season’s Greetings” and I determined that the best way to ring in the season was to clear off my TBR shelf to make room for the many (many) books I asked for as Christmas gifts. I had the best reading month all year!
SEASON’S GREETINGS BOOKS (BOOKS FROM MY TBR)
Making it So by Sir Patrick Stewart is the longest audiobook I have ever enjoyed. I usually get tired of the narrator after 10 hours but Patrick Stewart’s voice is a true gift and I likely could listen to him read the Bible. Some parts made me respect him more, others less. He admits to cheating on not one, but two of his wives. More sad is how he all but skips over the impact it had on his relationship with his daughter. The most annoying part of the book is the number of times he mentions that everyone (everyone!!!) just loooooves his newest wife. This is a very British book full of people we all know and successes. Overall, though, Patrick Stewart inspired by 2025 reading goal of working through more Shakespeare works.
Birds Arn’t Real by Peter McIndoe and Connor Gaydos is ridiculous. Purely ludicrous. I listened to it at 2x the speed and enjoyed every hyperactive moment of this drivel. This is meant to be fun and it was. If you are unfamiliar with this joke that turned into a conspiracy theory, just understand that these two take it to the extreme.
Miracle on Ebenezer Street by Catherine Doyle is the cutest and sweetest magical retelling of A Christmas Carol. Honestly, this may be tied with The Muppet Christmas Carol. This is a middle grade book so I had the joy of sitting down and reading it in an afternoon. Nothing makes me feel so cozy and lovely like reading a book cover to cover. I highly recommend this one!
Move the Body, Heal the Mind by Jennifer Weisz PhD is the book we all know to be true but refuse to accept – that exercise can be beneficial to your physical and mental health. I do not normally like books with the author’s perspective woven throughout but this was just the right amount of her experience with exercise. I love that this book is written by a Canadian scientist who studies the impact of exercise on multiple different diseases as well as life in general.
Trust the Plan: The Rise of Qanon and the Conspiracy Theory That Unhinged America by Will Sommer was a well written and equally well researched book about Qanon. The author does an excellent job balancing the information with the conjecture without inserting, too much, his own experiences. This book is a prime example of a leaderless cult and while I am still intrigued, I don’t think there is much more to be learned at this time.
The Woman all Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield was a fantastic look at Elizebeth Greenfield’s life. It was nothing I had not already heard about this heroic woman, but all welcome information to hear again. I would have loved to have learned more about how Elizebeth managed to have both a heavy travel career and children but, the author at least acknowledges, there is not sufficient information about those who helped raise her children.
Hard to Break: Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick by Russel A Poldrack is the neuroscience of why habits happen. I love habits but this book was too heavy on the neuroscience for me. Much of it was difficult to understand and, in the end, the chemistry of our brains really loves bad habits and equally hates good ones. It was a depressing read.
Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Corey by Lori Mortensen with Illustrations by Chloe Bristol was a book on my TBR for a long time and I did not realize it was a picture book. It still amazes me how much you can learn from picture books. A delightful look at a wonderfully weird man.
Banned Books: The World’s Most Controversial Books, Past and Present is a compendium of books that have been banned through the years. This was an impulse buy years ago and I probably could have left it on the shelf. There is a lot of talk about banned books and I want to pick up books that are banned next year but I am not sure this was the best guide. It is like a tiny little coffee table book.
BOOKS I FOUND ALONG THE WAY
Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect by Mick West was an interesting primer on how to kindly and respectfully talk to people who are deep in conspiracy theories. This was a valuable book for me. Not just for talking to those who subscribe to complicated conspiracy theories, but also a reminder of how to talk to people who really misunderstand things. AI’s worst aspect, from my perspective, is the mis-information on legal rights. Explaining to people that something they read on the internet, especially something that makes them feel that they are in the right, is erroneous is an uphill battle. This book reminded me that building trust starts with respect. The real challenge would be doing so with a Flat Earther.
Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy by Symeon Brown was, actually, shocking. I know a lot of people want to be an influencer but I never realized the lengths some would go to for “fame” on the internet.
How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Cooley and The Library by Bella Osborne were both British contemporary fiction books I grabbed off Kindle Unlimited and loved. Both have a cast of characters which pair the young and old together to save a local resource. If you need a cute story about formed families, these are excellent choices.
Juniper’s Christmas by Eoin Colfer was another middle grade book that I could not put down. Juniper is trying to save her Mom and in doing so, saves Christmas.
Signal Moon by Kate Quinn is a short story about a magical line connecting a radio in England in the 1940s with a radio in modern times. Meh, not even Kate Quinn can write a short story that I enjoy. I just crave character development too much.
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel was so so so good. This is the true story of the most prolific art thief since the Nazis. I could not put it down and cannot stop thinking about it.
The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski is a magical story of three triplet sister witches who have a tea house in Chicago. While I loved the historical setting and the premise – especially the living house that helps! – this is a book of misunderstanding. You know the ones? Where if just one character had a higher emotional intelligence things would be resolved in under 100 pages? I still really enjoyed this one but would likely have enjoyed it more as a summer read.
The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Women’s Medicine that Changed Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder is an excellent book that highlights how the threat of seeking some rights actually resulted in losing others. The threat to men was so strong that when woman tried to practice medicine the theory that learning after the age of 12 would result in malformation of the reproductive organs – but just in women – became a standard belief. Further, they determined that women no longer could sense when a pregnancy was viable and the baby was viable at the moment of conception. This book left me furious but lifted by the stories of the women who refused to give up. However, like with Elizebeth Friedman’s story, there needed to be more emphasis on the women who cared for the professional women’s children so that they could have children and a groundbreaking career.
The Spy Who Ghosted Me by Jennifer Peel is another Kindle Unlimited read. It was a fun read but I felt like the male spy only had three lines – basically, he loved her, he didn’t deserve her, and he can’t tell her something. It was repetitive but good light fun.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer was heartbreakingly excellent. There were, perhaps, one too many tear jerker moments. Everyone was looking for family and ended up in a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory situation. And I loved all of it.
All in all, it was the very best month of reading this year! Now, if I can just figure out what I did and repeat it for 2025!
Tell me, please! How was your December reading?
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