Four years ago (wow, its crazy how time flies), I was scrolling Facebook (like one does when they are procrastinating), when I came across a post asking for people who were interested in a Book Club to sign up. I signed up that day and the rest (as they say) is history.
The premise is simple. You are in a Book Hive with 11 other members (so 12 in total). Each of you pick a book that you want the other members of the hive to read during the year. The hive kicks off with you reading the book you picked (this year, my book is Virtual Rebel by J.Z. Pitts) and you journal your thoughts while reading. (Some people leave discussion questions for consideration, others just write simple reviews/thoughts). At the end of the month, you send your book on to the next member in your hive and you get the book from the person before you in the line. This continues for the year. The rules are simple – 1) you must at least try each book (about 1/3 is the goal); 2) journal your thoughts and 3) send the book on in time for the next member of your hive to get it.
I’m super excited that the new round for my hive starts this month and I got the list of books today (it was a total Happy New Year’s Dance!). For this upcoming round, the books in my hive are:
I hope everyone had a productive and engaging 2025 and that 2026 is shaping up to be the same. I look forward to hanging out with everyone (albeit virtually) over the next 365 days.
In 2026 and through 2027, I’ll be undertaking a Lucy Maud Montgomery Big Read. The goal is to read her entire backlist of books (including her short stories) over this two year period.
The majority of her books are available from Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg – Lucy Maud Montgomery – if you have problems locating them from your library or other sources.
The Reading Plan is as follows:
Anne Books Jan – Anne of Green Gables (1908) Feb – Anne of Avonlea (1909) Mar – Anne of the Island (1915) Apr – Anne of Windy Poplars (1936) May – Anne’s House of Dreams (1917) Jun – Anne of Ingleside (1939) Jul – Rainbow Valley (1919) Aug – Rilla of Ingleside (1921)
Emily Books Sep – Emily of New Moon (1923) Oct – Emily Climbs (1925) Nov – Emily’s Quest (1927)
Pat of Silver Bush Dec – Pat of Silver Bush (1933) Jan – Mistress Pat (1935)
The Story Girl Feb – The Story Girl (1911) Mar – The Golden Road (1913)
Standalone novels Apr – Kilmeny of the Orchard (1910) May – The Blue Castle (1926) Jun – Magic for Marigold (1929) Jul – A Tangled Web (1931) Aug – Jane of Lantern Hill (1937)
LMM’s Short Stories (Project Gutenberg Volumes) Sep – 1896-1901 Oct – 1902-1906 Nov – 1907-1908 Dec – 1909-1922
If you are interested in joining in – feel free to post about your plan. This is totally low-key and informal. I hope to see some of you join in.
**Image generated using OpenAI and the prompt: I need an image for a LM Montgomery read a long starting January 1 2026 and running for 2 years – all her books including Anne of Green Gables, the Emily series and others will be read – it should be a rectangle image that looks good in a word press blog and should be simple with limited to no text**
Wow, I can’t believe its been nearly four years since I posted anything to this blog. How time flies!!
The last few years have been kind of crazy and busy between a military deployment (during the height of COVID), a second Master’s degree (Masters’ in Strategic Information and Cyberspace Studies), a graduate certification (Instructional Design), and starting my PhD (Education, with a focus on Research, Evaluation, Statistics and Assessment). I’ve also been on military recall orders for the last year.
But 2026 is shaping up to be a good year of reading and (keeping fingers crossed) blogging. I’ll be starting a 2 year Lucy Maud Montgomery Big Read with the goal to read all her published works (including her short stories) as well as attempting to tackle Moby Dick again. I might try War and Peace again (my goal to read it last year lasted all of a week before I got distracted).
Stay safe in the last few days of 2025 and I look forward to seeing everyone in 2026!
After a rather slow November, December was a pretty successful month for me, both on the reading and listening front. While I didn’t meet my yearly goal of 300 books, I still read 225 overall – which considering grad school and not having all the time in isolation (or as I termed it COVID-cation) that I had in 2020 was still pretty good!
Top Reads/Listens for December were:
The Forest of Vanishing Stars – Kristin Harmel – I’d previously read about the Bielski Brothers during WW2, so this was an interesting take on a similar story
The Unhoneymooners – Christina Lauren – I’m pretty sure i’m one of the few people that until now had never read CL)
Written in the Stars – Alexandria Bellefleur – i’m loving all the f/f romances that are being traditionally published right now
Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness – David Casarett – this was a total random pick-up from the library, because I was looking for a book with the word hotel in the title and the second book in the series (one of my early 2022 reads) met that requirement, but I had to read this one first.
The Dry/Force of Nature – Jane Harper – I rarely go direct from one book in a series to the next, but I did this with Jane Harper’s Aaron Falk series – I can only hope that she is planning on writing more about him in the future.
So Movie Monday was a short-running blog feature that I started back in 2018 and then like many things it fizzled (hello, distraction, and bright shiny new things) – but as I was sitting in the movie theatre for Sing2 over the weekend, as well as re-watching Encanto at home I figured that I would kick it off again.
I’ve been an AMC A-List+ member for 2 years now (and prior to that used the now-defunct nationwide movie pass) which lets me see up to 3 movies a week (although I rarely do), so hopefully, I’ll have some good ones to discuss in the near future!
There are a ton of movies coming out over the next year that I’m uber-excited to see and hopefully, you’ll enjoy my thoughts/witty repartee after I see them.
One of my favorite things about the end of Non-Fiction November is that not that it’s ending (which is always sad) but looking back at all the different posts from the month and figuring out which books I want to add to my already toppling TBR. My additions this were came both from various blogs that I read through-out the month, but also books that I discovered while I was looking at new(er) releases in Non-Fiction (my library now has new non-fiction right off to the side when you walk in the door and I find myself making a bee-line there whenever I visit).
I love the saying “Truth is stranger than fiction” because often times when I’m reading a non-fiction book I have to be like, hang on, really? I had no idea that could even happen. For my book choices this week, I literally googled strange non-fiction and browsed what came up in the results – so like most of my reading, its fairly eclectic.
I love medical mysteries and how people solve or attempt to solve them – this shouldn’t be any surprise considering that House was one of my favorite shows when it was on TV. I remember clearly the one episode in house where the wife is ultimately diagnosed with a sleeping sickness – and reading the description of this book it is that episode that came to mind. I found it interesting in the description that the diagnosis of encephalitis lethargica didn’t just result in never-ending sleep but also catatonia, insomnia (which seems very counter to the name of the disease) and Parkinson’s.
I’ve always been fascinated by people who survive shipwrecks, steaming back to my childhood when I read (and loved) The Cay as well as the perennial classic, The Swiss Family Robinson. Island of the Lost also seems to tie in well to my enjoyment of understanding psychology and behavior when faced with challenges. The description reminds me some of how different clans/common groups of people are formed and how they react (or don’t react) in the face of certain stimuli. Bonus, its free to read in Kindle Unlimited if you have a subscription, so its going to the top of my pile.
When I first saw the title of this book, I immediately thought about one of my favorite paranormal romance authors, Molly Harper – she has a vampire romance called Driving Mr. Dead, and while I knew they weren’t related, the idea of someone voluntarily driving in a hearse and picking up bodies just made a shiver go up my spine. It seems to also pair well with Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty which I read a few years ago. Plus the cover with 2 girls sitting on a hearse just made me giggle (much better than some of the other covers for this book that I saw on Goodreads).
One of my favorite non-fiction books from this past year was The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore about Elizabeth Packard who was sent to a mental asylum in the 1860’s for disagreeing with her husband – while The Trials of Nina McCall occurs nearly 60 years later, it seems to have some common themes to the Kate Moore book – I’ve never heard “American Plan” referenced in any of my studies of history (not that I’m actually surprised by that) and it makes me want to read some more on it but as one Goodreads reviewer pointed out finding evidence of it isn’t common because its just not talked about. My academic interests have tended towards public policy in the recent past, so I know i’m going to dig some more in to this.
What Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction books do you recommend?
What can I say? I actually like all of the featured weeks during Non-fiction November – I know that I said last week the book pairings one was a favorite of mine – but so is the Be The Expert/Ask The Expert/Become the Expert. This year I’m going the Become the Expert route based on my desire to continue reading about the role of class and race in the U.S. This theme drew my interest after I listened to Caste by Isabel Wilkerson earlier this year. For me, this week is always fun because I can dig into recommendations for books from a variety of sources – this year my Become the Expert recommendations came from “Readers Also Enjoyed” off Goodreads for the Caste book entry as well as from the Read-alikes section of NoveList (which is a service I just discovered from my library).
The Sum of Us – Heather McGhee – I first came across this book when I was looking for one to nominate for a group read in one of my Goodreads groups. What drew me to this book was that it doesn’t just address racism with relation to the African-American population, but also how it impacts White Americans and individuals who identify with other racial groups. I like the authors’ hypothesis of the Solidarity Dividend that gains will come when we come together across race to achieve goals.
The Color of Law – Richard Rothstein – Recently the Secretary of Transportation (Pete Buttigieg) came under fire for a statement made during a press conference about how infrastructure in the US was influenced by racist policies that placed certain groups of citizens at disadvantages. I had heard about some of these policies (ie. Redlining) in passing but hadn’t read anything in-depth. I figure if I wanted to learn more about these policies, then reading a book about the history of different housing laws and policies would be a good place to start.
Say It Loud – Randall Kennedy – This is a relatively new release (September 2021) but spans two decades of events and derived legal analysis – the listed essays are written by many key contributors to the body of research on race and class in the United States. Topics of essays include The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril and The Constitutional Roots of “Birtherism” I’m planning on using this book to fulfill the collection prompt for this year’s event.
Four Hundred Souls – Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain – I have to say this out loud, I actually didn’t finish How to be Anti-racist (in that the audiobook just wasn’t working for me and I have the print version on my ebook wishlist) – but that being said, Four Hundred Souls went immediately on my to-be-read pile when it was released earlier this year. Similar to Say It Loud, Four Hundred Souls is a series of essays – but rather than key events in history and legal decisions, Four Hundred Souls covers over four hundred years of history.
Broke in America – Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox – I’ve always found myself in a relatively privileged situation – meaning that I don’t struggle to find food each day, I’ve had access to good education and consistent employment through my adult life. However, not everyone in the US has had those advantages, in fact from the book description, nearly 40 million people in the US live below the poverty line (as defined by $26,200 for a family of four). I’ve previously read some books about poverty in the US (specifically Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond and $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn Edin) so I’m hoping to broaden my knowledge on this topic to better inform my perspective and understanding.
The South Side – Natalie Y. Moore – as I write this post, I’m sitting in Chicago visiting my sister – so this book caught me eye as it looks at how the city has become segregated which ties into many of the themes mentioned in Caste. As with several of the other books i’ve picked, the story is told through a series of essays. Reviews seem to be kind of hit or miss for this (they seem to bounce between either 1 star of 5 stars on goodreads) – so it will be interesing to see what side i come out on.
It Was All A Dream – Reniqua Allen – Often after reading a news article about a social policy that has detractors, or some kind of event that caused civil unrest – i hear, well, they just need to do better or work harder to get a better life (or other trite sayings). From reading the description, this book tells the stories of young Black Americans trying to do just that. I fall squarely into the millenial population, so the people who’s stories are in this book, are my peers which makes it even more attractive to me.
How To Kill A City – Peter Moskowitz – I remember when I moved to Maryland in 2010, I was working at the Navy Yard and the short 10 minute walk from the metro was just not something you did in the middle of the night (and since I was on shift-work, it was part of my routine) – now, I walk through the same area that has been completely gentrified to include new condos that cost in the 1 million plus range. I had never really thought about the impact those changes have on the general population who can’t afford to live in those areas (and its gotten even worse since the pandemic with the real estate market going insane). That is part of what caught my attention when I was reading the description of this book – understanding how these housing policies affect certain segments of the population.
Dying of Whiteness – Jonathan M. Metzl – I know this book and its connect to the others mentioned in this post is very tenuous but its something that I found intriguing. As I watch the political cycle play out in the US (most recently with the Infrastructure Bill that was just signed), I have to wonder why representatives vote against policies that will help their communities but also why do communities keep voting for people that don’t appear to have their best interests at heart. This book seems like it might try to dive into some of those reasons through the eyes of a Doctor in America’s Heartland. I have a feeling this could be a controversial read which is why I currently have it sitting in my car (in print) and I can’t wait to dig into it – although I likely won’t finish it this Non-Fiction November.
Fucked at Birth – Dale Maharidge – ok so i’ll totally admit that the only reason I added this book to my to-read pile aside from the theme was because of the title. There has been a lot in the media lately about social aid to the population (Universal Pre-K; Universal Basic Income, increases to social safety nets) – the purpose of this book seems to be examining how those could be used to help people get ahead – those who are quote “fucked at birth” and its seen as fate that people just have to live this way. It seems to be a fairly short book – doubt I’ll get it read this month – but i’m intriguing.
Here are a quick summary of a few books that I will help will let me start becoming the expert on race and social class in the US.
Do you have any books that you think I should add to my list?
Dee's Book Blog 