Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This book has a really interesting premise—in a tiny coffee shop on a back street in Tokyo you can travel back in time to meet someone who has already been to the shop. There are a lot of rules surrounding the trip back in time, but those rules just made the premise more fascinating. Overall, I liked this book a lot. However, at the end, I knew that the book had been written by a man (couldn’t tell off-hand by the Japanese name). Why, you ask? Because a woman gives up her life in order to have a baby she will never see. Oh please, that is such a “sainted mother” take on childbirth. Otherwise, it’s really good.
 
The Price Guide to the Occult, by Leslye Walton
I’d been admiring the cover of this book for awhile in the YA section of the bookstore. It was good, not great. The magic was interesting, the villain truly disturbing, but the ending made it seem like there would be a sequel and, as far as I can tell, there isn’t one in the works. It had a Practical Magic movie-version feel to it. On an island of the Washington coast, Nor comes from a long line of witches who have one power, each different, due to a curse by their matriarch eight generations before. The curse is lifted with Nor and just in time as her mother has started using black magic to take over the world.
 
Too Big to Miss, by Sue Ann Jaffarian
This is a fun mystery about a middle-aged, plus-sized, single woman who starts detecting after her close friend kills herself live on webcam. Something doesn’t feel right to Odelia about her friend’s death and it turns out her friend had a lot of dark secrets. Uncovering them leads to a prostitution ring, a hidden child, and a man who used her for his own gain. This is definitely a potato chip read, not too complicated but entertaining.
 
Divine Misfortune, by A. Lee Martinez
Martinez is a great writer who doesn’t get enough attention. This one was not as good as his Constance Verity books but was still great. To get by in Divine Misfortune’s world, everyone needs a personal or family god. From those who keep your car running to ones like Zeus, gods have all sorts of powers. After Phil loses a big promotion because his competition began worshipping a god, he and his wife decide, reluctantly, to get a god of their own. Lucky, a god of fortune in the body of a raccoon, comes with a lot of spiritual baggage and Phil and Terry get caught up in a millennia-old battle between Lucky and the god of chaos. This book is as silly, funny, and odd as the description sounds. Read A. Lee Martinez’s books. You’ll have a lot of fun.
 
Better Luck Next Time, by Julia Claiborn Johnson
I picked this book to listen to because it is supposed to be funny. From the cover and the title, it certainly seems that it would be. I didn’t find it funny at all. It was a good story, though, along the lines of Water for Elephants. It’s a story being told by an elderly man about his time spent as a “cowboy” on a divorce ranch in Reno during the 1930s. Wealthy women would come to the city for a “quickie” divorce. Ward tells the story of the last of the ladies he knew at the ranch, which turns into a love story. I would definitely recommend it but would warn that the hilarity is way overrated.
 
The Curious History of Sex, by Kate Lister
I’ve been reading this in bits and pieces since about April. (I read nonfiction really slow.) It is amazing! Lister is a sex historian and runs the Twitter account “Whores of Yore.” Her writing style is as hilarious as it is nonjudgmental. It’s super informative and incredibly well researched. It starts with why ‘cunt’ is considered a bad word and ends with a history of male sex work. In between are every sort of topic dealing with human sexuality. My favorite thing that I learned, in the section about Sex and Machines, it the term Lister coined for how long it takes between a technology being invented and then being used for sexual purposes—it’s a ‘kink blink.’
 
The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted, by Robert Hillman
Book about books, so of course I had to read it. Taking place in rural Australia in the 1960s, it follows farmer Tom and the life he wants to make with bookseller Hannah. Hannah wants him too, but is still dealing with the scars from her time in Auschwitz where she lost her husband and child. This is a nice book about taking risks and living life even when it seems all is lost. And there is a bookstore that sounds amazing.
 
A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky, by Lynell George
My second nonfiction of the month! This is a book about Sci-Fi pioneer Octavia Butler—about how hard she worked and how much she overcame to become the writer she was. The prose work is almost poetry as it portrays Butler’s writing life. The author extensively used the Octavia Butler collection at the Huntington Library to tease out an intimate portrait of Butler. A lovely work for any fan of the dearly missed Octavia.
 
Winterkeep, by Kristin Cashore
Woo hoo! A new book in the Graceling series! It’s five years since Bitterblue weeded out the last of her father’s misdeeds and there is a newly discovered continent that she is establishing diplomatic ties with. When she finds out that some people in Torla may be stealing from her lands, she goes to the new country only to discover she’s at the center of a greedy plot. This is a very vague summary of the book which has some wonderfully complicated political plotlines. It’s a great addition to the series and I enjoyed it a lot.
 
The Elementals, by Michael McDowell
I finally found a horror book that was just what I’ve been looking for. Southern Gothic, creepy houses in a remote location, crazy family traditions come together to create a truly uncanny work. I named this book as one of my favorites of the year because it is the first horror that I couldn’t put down and can’t stop thinking about. The only problem I had with it was the ‘magical black person’ trope where the folksy black lady, who will do anything for the white family she works for, has the cunning to save the day. This book was published in 1980 and that was a common trope of the time. It did work for the story and the black cook was a bad ass, so I can’t complain too much.

I made a whole bunch of stuff as presents this year. We have a cross stitch with a goth literary theme and an embroidered deer skull with decorated frame.

I also crocheted four scarfs for my nieces and sister in law. Though I only remembered to take pictures of two.

Another big month for reading. Lots of fun stuff too!
 
The Twisted Ones, by T. Kingfisher
Continuing on my horror kick, I read Kingfisher’s other horror novel. This one takes place in rural North Carolina. Middle-aged Mouse goes to clean out her dead grandmother’s house, a house filled with 40 years of hording, she comes across the diary of her grandmother’s husband that indicates that the house is menaced by something wicked that lives in the dense forest that butts up against the home. Soon Mouse discovers that the house is connected to an other-worldly force and she may be in danger. It’s hard describe this one without really getting into it. Weird, uncanny, and frightening, this was a good one to give just enough of a scare. I liked it better, by a little bit, than The Hollow Places.
 
Faith Taking Flight, by Julie Murphy
I love Julie Murphy and I love the superhero Faith, so this origin story should have been right up my alley. It wasn’t quite. It’s a good origin story, but not well paced and the action seemed like an afterthought. It was a fun read and would be a great introduction to those who haven’t come across the comics. The fact that Faith is an unapologetic plus-sized superhero makes me want to introduce everyone to her stories, I just don’t think this book is quite the one to make people interested.
 
Rules for Being Dead, by Kim Powers
Set in the 1960s in a small Texas town, the story follows ten-year-old Clark after his mother dies mysteriously. It also follows his mother’s ghost as she watches over her kids. She doesn’t know what happened to her either. Clark’s mother had loved the movies and had imparted her love of films to her sons and it’s through that lens that we see Clark’s growth over the year following her death—his alcoholic father, his sympathetic new stepmom, the world at large. This is a lovely story, but terribly sad. Not usually my thing, but I really liked it.
 
Wide Open, by Deborah Coates
This one has been on my shelf for awhile, I think it was a present. Hallie Michaels has returned home from Afghanistan to attend her sister’s funeral. Due to an injury she received in battle weeks before, she can now see dead people, including her sister. Her sister, and several other ghosts of women, haunt her and she realizes she must find the truth behind their deaths. Part murder mystery, part fantasy, with a lot of love for the South Dakota landscape, this was a fine potato chip read.
 
Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix Harrow
Reread. This is an ambitious book and it thoroughly achieves its goals. I loved it even more the second time.
 
The Vanishing Stair, by Maureen Johnson
The Hand on the Wall, by Maureen Johnson
The sequel and conclusion to Truly Devious, which I read in October. Together all three books make a really great story. The current mystery and the 1930s mystery line up surprisingly and delightfully, and I found the ending to be well done. The three books together are worth a read, but make sure you have them all ready to go. The cliff hangers in the first and second books are no fun if you have to wait.
 
Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This book has been a bestseller this year and was on my anticipation list from last year. Turns out there are several Moreno-Garcia books on my TBR list. Also, horror. Still reading all the folk horror I can find (which isn’t much). This was a fun read full of crumbling mansion, and a storied family with oh-so-many skeletons in the closet. Noemí is a great main character—stubborn with something to prove, yet contradictory and naïve. This was not as scary as I hoped it would be, but it was pretty creepy. Definitely recommend.
 
The Best of Me, by David Sedaris
I listened to this one. Sedaris’s latest book is a selection of his work that he likes best. I’ve only listened to Sedaris read his stories and I can’t imagine reading them. His voice and delivery are so unique to him that it would be weird, to me, to read them in print. This audio was long, but definitely worth it.
 
Wrapped Up In You, by Talia Hibbert
A short novel by Hibbert, who I love for her Brown Sisters’ series. This is a Christmas tale about two long-time friends who’ve always been attracted to each other but have never said. Sweet and sassy, it was a lovely palate cleanser.
 
The Saint of Wolves and Butchers, by Alex Grecian
The opposite of a palate cleanser was this book. I picked it up a year or so ago to give to my mom but decided to read it first. We get present POV takes from Kansas State Trooper Skottie Foster and Nazi hunter Travis Roan as he is on the hunt for a rumored former Nazi living in Northwest Kansas. Then there is the story of Nazi officer Rudy Goodman from when illegally enters the U.S. up until present time where he has become the mystical healer of a church of his founding. It’s a thriller and paced really well. Not my usual read (there are a lot of those this month) but perfectly good. Probably would be a favorite for those interested in thrillers.
 

The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
Cluny Brown, by Margery Sharp
 
I read The Little Stranger because I was looking for a good scare. I felt the book was more sad than scary, since the scary parts are related to us through an unreliable third party. It’s set a few years after WWII in a rural county in England. The story, recounted by Dr. Farady a few years after the events, is about the Ayres family and their crumbling estate, Hundreds Hall. Dr. Farady’s mother was once a servant at the house, and in the family’s twilight years he comes to the house as their doctor. Over the course of the book, we witness the demise of each member of the family.
 
Doing some research at work about Margery Sharp, the author of The Rescuers (the book the Disney movie is based on), I found that she wrote a lot of contemporary fiction and it sounded delightful. I found Cluny Brown as an ebook from the library. It was a sweet book, with a poignant message. The story follows Cluny Brown, a 22-year-old woman who was raised by her plumber uncle. She’s considered strange because she does what comes to mind, despite money or class. Her uncle sends her into service for a family in Devonshire to learn her place. It is 1938 as Britain is on the cusp of war. (The books was published in 1944.) Working as a maid, Cluny’s disregard for class boundaries and her vivacious personality lead her making friends of all sorts across class divides.
 
On the surface, these two books have little in common, besides the old manor house and landed gentry in the country. They were written 70 years apart by women, one writing contemporary fiction, one writing historical fiction. The thing that, in my mind, brings them together is the themes of a dying way of life, class boundaries, and respectability.
 
Dr. Farady, even as he becomes close to the Ayres family, is always conscious of the class boundary that exists between them. When he becomes engaged to Caroline, the daughter of the family, he is blinded to the other things going on by his rising star. It is very apparent that he is obsessed with being respectable and aligning himself with a storied family. A family with a long history that no longer owns most of their land, who have no money, and only pride.
 
For Cluny Brown, the landed family she works for feel like their way of life is fading and they hold on desperately to their respectability. Cluny doesn’t give a thought to respectability and, even when her fortunes change for the good, likely doesn’t understand it. But that’s what confuses the family she works for. That’s the only thing they understand.
 
I feel like Sarah Waters must have been familiar with Cluny Brown. A subtle melancholy of a dying way of life runs just below the plot in both books. For both Cluny and Dr. Farady—both from working class backgrounds—their story hinges on respectability. For Dr. Farady, it is his life’s ambition, even if it is attached to a something no longer relevant. For Cluny, respectability means nothing if it means living life in a closed and measured way.