🧑‍🚀🚀🔭🏨🛳️☀️A Travel Book, Fantasy Series, and A Hot Read of 2025

 

We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay by Gary Janetti was on a list of the best books of the year. I listen to the audiobook read by the author. He is funny and sarcastic about the downs and ups of traveling. His father worked for a cruise line for most of his adult life, giving his family the opportunity to travel frequently on the Queen Elizabeth. Janetti has high standards and rigorous ideas of travel and dining. His writing reminds me of David Sedaris's essays with keen insight, biting humor, and underpinned by love for those close to him. 

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    I read the final two books of The Great Library series by Rachel Caine: Smoke and Iron and Sword and Pen. Caine tells the story from several different perspectives quite well. She takes a group of six students at the start of their training and grows them into mature characters who suffer, grow, and change the world. 

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    Atmosphere is the latest book by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I have read several books by Reid. She has a knack for tapping into the cultural zeitgeist and exploring modern issues through historical fiction. A theme in her work is women trying to flourish against discrimination. In this book set in the early 1980s, Joan Goodwin is among some of the first women to be accepted into the astronaut corps. Joan is intellectually formidable and determined to bring excellence to her efforts to achieve her dream without losing her innate kindness. The challenge of succeeding as an astronaut makes a meek former college professor into someone who knows what she wants and dares to go after it. 

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Taylor+Jenkins+Reid

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🌪️🏟️🔨 Dystopian Fiction: Brutal and Fanciful

 

    Now is the time when the lists of 2025's best books are being revealed. It is a tough time of year for me because my Hold list fills up faster than I can read. This one was available immediately.     

What a fierce book! Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is filed in the science fiction category in the dystopian bin. I've seen it compared to The Handmaid's Tale. It has the same feel of oppression, hopelessness, and defiance. The scenario proposed isn't far off from where our society is now. Prisoners have the "option" to become modern-day gladiators in commodified, televised battles. The life depicted is brutal, but amidst the harshness, there is a seedling of rebellion. It comes from within the circuit, and from those outside who protest. There are many story threads involving many layers of voices and how their viewing and participation in entertaining violence are impacted by it. 

    This is a brutal, devastating story, more so because, even though it is fiction, it is built on factual research.

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    Ash and Quill is the third in The Great Library series by Rachel Caine. It is solid science fiction and also dystopian, or better described as an alternate history. Caine's plot continues to unfold, and the core group of characters matures and changes. I am taking a hiatus to read some of the year's highly rated books, but I want to come back and read the final two.

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📃🖋️🩸🦴🔥Spy Thriller, Alternate History and Theology!

 

    I watched the Apple TV series, Slow Horses, based on the book by Mick Herron. It is a spy thriller and a darkly comedic work. I have enjoyed John L'Carree's books with their depressingly cynical take on the British Intelligence service during the Cold War. Herron's books are similar. Jackson Lamb is the head of Slough House, the place where those whose mistakes were too colossal to continue on the upward track, but they can't be fired. They are not the Thoroughbreds in charge, but the slow horses. It is gritty and warmhearted. The action is fast-paced and twisty.  

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    A YA book about a dangerous school for exceptional scholars with dark secrets? Yes please! Ink and Bone (The Great Library, #1) by Rachel Caine is a new-to-me fantasy series. It is diverting in a good way. The main character, Jess Brightwell, lives in an alternate history where the Library of Alexandria rules the world. No one is allowed to privately own books, which creates demand for them. Jess's family is an illegal book-smuggling ring. He is sent to train in the Great Library and become a conduit for smuggling originals, loves the power of books, and has divided loyalties between his newfound friends and his ruthless family. He loves the wrong girl and befriends dangerous people. Good stuff! This series of five books has been out for a while, so they are readily available. Hurrah!

"You have ink in your blood, boy, and no help for it. Books will never be just a business to you."

― Rachel Caine, Ink and Bone

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    A good friend gifted me Daily Doctrine by Kevin DeYoung last Christmas. I like Systematic Theology and have read several. This one was the most bite-sized and accessible. That is a strength and a weakness. It covers the basics: Faith, Inspiration of Scripture, Attributes of God, etc., and gives sources for further study. The topics sparked conversation with others about Predistination and Theories of the Atonement. DeYoung is a senior pastor and also teaches Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC. The topics he covers and the language he uses can be most suited to those with a Master's Degree, which I don't have. My degree is in Biblical Studies. I appreciated the stretching of vocabulary and ideas. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand theology more deeply. You might need to look up some words.

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🐁⛪️🇦🇺🥃🐴🍸Thinky Books

 

    Tell me a book is an award winner and I'm in! The Booker Prize is, according to their website, the leading literary award in the English-speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward, and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades (https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/about-the-booker-prize) 

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood caught my attention because it was compared to Marilynne Robinson's writing, which includes The Gilead Series. I see similarities because both writers examine faith and inner life in the context of lived experience. The book is quiet, but compelling. I learned things about Australia's mice population, I can't unlearn.   

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    Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote is the December book for my book club. I picked it thinking it was a fun, breezy book, much like the movie. 

Nope.

It is a worthwhile book, but much sadder and grittier than I anticipated. I wonder if Holly Golightly is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl — a quirky young woman who enters the male protagonist's life and propels him forward, whether in his career, relationships, or emotional intelligence. 

Side note: I'm going to sound so smart at book club.

The book is about loneliness and glamour, about wanting to belong and wanting to be free. The conflicting desires of the main characters make the story hum with tension. It was a compelling read, and even though the book is fairly short, I finished it in an afternoon. 

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    A favorite podcast of mine is Hidden Brain. The format interviews people in the field of social sciences. The interview with J. Stuart Ablon. His research and conclusion were so compelling that I wanted to read his book, Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School, and at Work. One of his basic ideas is that people are disruptive and difficult not because of will, but because of skill. These skills revolve around communication, processing, and opportunities. When people are heard and understood, problems can be solved collaboratively. He has some great case studies. 

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