Reading Log as of July 09, 2025 - In Five Years

 

I’m currently still on Y for the A to Z and Back Again alphabet challenge so reading In Five Years by Rebecca Serle which has captured my attention. Not easy to do these days.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.

But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.”

So Dannie skips ahead five years in the future for one hour, meets a man, who she'll meet later, whose in love with her best friend who is dying. What does she do? 4 Stars 

James Reviews -Band of Brothers (2001)

 

War. It claims lives, it changes history and the Second World War was one of the most infamous of these wars. However, war can be entertaining to watch in movies and TV shows with many works of historical fiction set during World War II. And yet, many of these movies and shows try to be accurate to history despite the creative liberties.

Released in 2001 on HBO, Band of Brothers follows Easy Company during WW2 In Europe with the first episode dedicated to their training & their bonds before episode two throws us into the action starting with D-Day. Created by SAVING PRIVATE RYAN’s Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks, the show is based on Stephen E. Ambrose’s book BAND OF BROTHERS and most of the series’ ten episodes start with interviews with the veterans of Easy Company. 

My father and I watched it months ago and this was worth a watch, with a moving intro complete with incredible music, and well-crafted war scenes with fantastic early 2000s special effects. Bloody, intense and often unsettling, BAND OF BROTHERS is a tale of bravery, brotherhood and defying odds in history’s darkest period and pulls no punches. 

I rate this four stars and suggest you watch it, this is a show you will not miss. See you later, fellow historians.

-James M

Reading Log as of July 5, 2025 - my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry

 

I finished Fredrick Backman’s My Grandma Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.  Such a sweet, heartwarming, hilarious, intense, imaginative story.  Made me laugh, made me cry, made me wonder, as well as want to shake a couple adults for their attitudes. All the feels. At first, all the bickering between every one turned me off. But once I got past that, the story started to get better.

“Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.”

Now I want to read more of Backman’s books. Not sure which one yet. Maybe Britt-Marie was Here, since the character was in the book I just read.

5 stars

June Reading Wrap Up!

 

For the month of June I ended up reading 10 books in which 3 were new, 1 was a known to me author, and the rest were rereads for a total of 3638 pages. 

Breaking the Dark by Lisa Jewel (360 Pages) is a Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel published in 2024 which was a modern day Dorian Grey tale and Jessica is a downtrodden detective with so so powers and never uses them to solve the crime.  2 stars as it failed to live up to expectations

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand, the 4th book in the Nantucket trilogy which James picked up for me at Target on a whim.  It's the last book in the series which was full of back tory, an unknown narrator, a new couple trying to bilk every one for money and things, thinking they could get away with it. The ending was very anticlimatic.  2 stars as it failed to live up to expectations.

Unlikely Story by Ali Rosen (306), published this year. Ali's in love with J, her editor, who she's never met. She also has a contentious relationship with her neighbor who turns out to be J. There were so many little hints throughout the story that I pretty much figured it out way before Ali did.  3 Stars

Resorted to reading old friends which are books by Nora Roberts, my go to comfort read and always five stars. 

Three Island Sisters Trilogy with Nell and Zack in Dance Upon the Air, Ripley and Mac in Heaven and Earth, and Mia and Sam in Face the Fire.  Then Born in Trilogy with Born in Fire, Born in Ice, and Born in Shame.  

Reading Log as of June 22, 2025 - Great Big Beautiful Life

 

Welp! I usually enjoy Emily Henry's books but this one. Oh boy! A dysfunctional woman with a dysfunctional family and life and history invite two more dysfunctional writers to interview her about her life, pitting the two against each other. And wouldn't you know it, they fall into a dysfunctional relationship along the way.  There are many secrets and lies. What is the truth. I didn't like any of the characters. There was much to do about nothing. 

To sooth my reading palate, I resorted to rereading my favorite author Nora Roberts with the Three Sisters Trilogy as well as the Born in trilogy.  

Reading Log as of June 15, 2025 - Happy Father's Day

 

Happy Father's Day to my hubby, dad, my brother's in laws and all the dads out there. 

I unfortunately didn't get to any of the Wuxia reads. One author I really have enjoyed and learned much from is Qiu Xiaolong, author of the inspector detective Chen Cao who is a homicide detective in the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau in China. Inspector Chen Cao was introduced with the publication of Death of a Red Heroine in 2000. Set in the mid 1990’s in China, it was a police procedural blending fact and fiction delving into the politics and culture of the country. The character is in his early thirties and also writes poetry and works as a translator. Inspector Chen must navigate his way through government politics while trying to solve murders. The 13th book in the series Love and Murder in the Time of Covid was released in 2023.

His latest stories are a duology series which takes place in seventh century China called the Judge Dee Investigations. The first book Shadow of the Empire is a companion piece from his 12th novel – Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder – in which the inspector is reading a Judge Dee novel. The second book was released in 2024: The Conspiracies of the Empire. I have both books in ebook format and I’m looking forward to reading both.  

Currently reading Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life which is okay so far. 

“Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century…..

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.”

Reading Log as of June 8th - Unlikely Story and Swan Song

I’m currently reading two flufferton books:  Ebook Unlikely Story by Ali Rosen and Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand which James picked out for me the other day when we were at Target. It’s #4 in the Nantucket series so have no idea who most of the characters are, but oh well!

“Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons—how did they make their money, exactly?—Ed, Sharon, and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.”

 This week our 52 Books Bingo category is Wuxia which is historical fiction stories in which the characters use traditional Chinese martial art disciplines for either good or bad.

For the wuxia read I have several books in my stacks.  Poppy Wars by R.F. Kuang which is sort of is in that genre. Plus ebooks: A Thousand Li: the First Step by Tao Wong and The Girl with Ghost Eyes: The Daoshi Chronicles by M. H. Boroson which are on one of the lists above.

I finished rereading Anne Bishops Other series 1 through 5 which was a great reset as I was having a hard time getting into any of my new books.

Our Saturday Night movie was Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and it was James first time to see the movie. Quite exciting!