Yes, I had a month of eclectic books. It’s my favorite way to read. 🙂 Thanks, Paula.

I’d had The Notebook on my list for awhile too, but oddly enough, what prompted me to finally get it was I read an interview with the singer Tracy Chapman that said she loved it so much, so I pushed it higher up on my list. 🙂 I’m glad I did. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/arts/music/tracy-chapman-interview.html

I’ve never read Jake Tapper’s fiction (admittedly, I wasn’t even aware he was a writer until I saw Original Sin!). 🙂 So thanks for the heads-up. I’ll probably bypass his fiction works.

Glad to know we had similar thoughts about The Notebook, and glad neither of us gave up on it. ha. It’s prompted me commit to looking back through my own journals and seeing which ones I want to keep and which ones I need to trash! 🙂 I’ve gathered them all in one location, which is a little daunting when I see the number of them!, but hopefully will make it easier to start going through.

Thanks, Nancy! Glad to know you’re a non-fiction lover, too. I’m currently reading a book about traffic that is just fascinating to me, but I know it wouldn’t be for everyone. 🙂

So something interesting happened at my book club discussion about Eleanor and Park: the women of my generation liked it, but the generation below us didn’t. I didn’t see that coming. I think they just couldn’t resonate with the freedom and “irresponsibility” of parents in the 1980s. I was so intrigued by the reactions!

Okay, so I finished Take My Hand last week and I really liked it! My husband read it first (well, listened to it) and recommended it to me. Since we live in Alabama, it was especially interesting to me–and also especially disturbing as well. Ugh. Even though I’m sad for the real-life events that inspired it, I’m glad the story will live on because it needs to be told and witnessed again and again to prevent things like this from happening. I can see how it would make for an interesting book club discussion.

We balance each other out, Wendy. You read one non-fiction book per month and I read one fiction book per month. 🙂

That book about notebooks does sound interesting, Lynn! Thanks for the recommendation. I just had the Kindle sample sent over. I love the quote from your visiting pastor – it gives me permission too to keep adding to my collection. 🙂 Granted, I get most of my books from the library so I don’t keep them, but I still have a shelf of unread books of my own that I need to get to soon! Even after a week at the beach, I still didn’t have enough time to read. My priority instead of reading was on being happily entertained by my grandson! 🙂