Comments on: Reading Lately: October 2025 Book Reviews

By: Micheline Heckler

Micheline Heckler — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 18:28:49 +0000

I have four books to read for the Challenge 2025. I have been doing them for the last three years. I am thinking of Challenge 2026. I don’t know if you are open to suggestions but if you are, I have a couple of ideas.
1. One time you mentioned reading “around the world”.
Three or four challenges “around the World. Each one about a story happening in a different country. It could be country of your choice like “Around the World-Italy”, etc. or we pick our own countries.
2. Three prizes winners: one Pulitzer Prize, one Nobel Prize, one Booker Prize from the last five years or from any year.

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:51:03 +0000

I rambled on and forgot to mention other books I have read in October! Monday Monday (2014) by Elizabeth Crook, which Hannah of @booktalketc recommended. It is an older book about the UT Austin tower sniper, that I was not familiar with. The shooting occurred in August 1966 (I was 5). It was about a woman victim of the shooting and how her life changed and unfolds because of the event. I subsequently went down a rabbit hole about the shooting, that I was only vaguely familiar with. Some of what I found hit close to home. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. I’d had a copy sitting at home and had always heard of the title. It had lots of layers to it. Renee from @itsbooktalk recommended it. And lastly I read Anita Desai’s Rosarita, having seen it on Obama’s Summer reading list. It is a quick novella (if anyone is trying to reach a reading goal!) full of beautifully descriptive writing. And I will finish Buckeye (it will be a 2025 favorite) today. These books helped me out of a bit of a reading slump I was in after Lonesome Dove.

By: Ann

Ann — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 19:33:29 +0000

Currently reading Buckeye and liking it. I appreciate your review of All The Way To The River. I’d picked up my hold copy from the library, started it and for no particular reason, did not get far. I always have way too many books lined up to read and, your review confirmed it was time for me to move along. My next read will probably be The Turtle House for book club. Our library is reading it as part of a community reads initiative across the county. We get to meet the author Amanda Churchill at a local book festival in November. Always cool to meet the author and hear their story. In the past we met Stacey Swann, who wrote Olympus, Texas. She was actually from a small town up the road. I’ve had an ARC of The Turtle House sitting in my room, that I’d found in a Little Free Library. So it was meant to be.

I just put holds on Nobody’s Girl and A Guardian And A Thief (I do follow Oprah’s picks). And I am still waiting to read Broken Country! Our library had a cyber attack (truly, no idea what that even meant) and only recently got back on track. So I fell behind on new releases.

But I read Lonesome Dove! That was the silver lining. Going back and reading books off my shelves that I’d always meant to get to.

By: Susan Cassidy

Susan Cassidy — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 18:00:11 +0000

I love your blog and recommendations!! I love when you wonder how different books even get published. Too many extraordinary books much too little time to waste any time on unworthy books! When Henna, Oprah, Reese, GMA pick a BOTM I shy away from those!!
Keep doing what you do!!
Susan

By: Holly Kukkonen

Holly Kukkonen — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:43:44 +0000

I just finished Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley. I have enjoyed all of her books and thus was no exception. Lots of suspense, surprising climax.
I hope you enjoy Beyond the Beautiful Forevers, if one can enjoy a book about abject poverty.
Have you read anything by Tracy Kidder?