What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

28th challenge finish of the year.

It was about British female convicts being transported to Van Diemen's Island (present-day Tasmania) by ship; dangers, challenges, relationships among strangers torn from everything familiar.

I liked it.  I read through the night to finish it.  The characters were likable, and the story was interesting.  And yet it somehow left me not quite satisfied.  It felt a bit rushed in places.

Twenty-ninth challenge finish of the year.

I really do love Elizabeth Berg's work.  This is her brand new one, just released, and I was excited to see that my library already had it in their "new acquisitions," so I got on the reserve list and received it almost immediately.  Her prose are spot on, characters to care about, and I don't think I've ever found anything to complain about in the books of hers that I've read.

This one is about a ninety-two year old woman who is wrapping up her life.  She never had children, so she is leaving her house to the child who grew up next door and with whom she had an almost familial relationship.  She is writing a letter, explaining and telling stories about the house and its contents, and sharing memories and advice with this child/woman.

Having grown up on a wonderful homey street myself, surrounded by neighbors where, when I knocked on their doors, they would always take me in for a visit or a snack or a baby chick (but that's my story, not this book's), it brought back some wonderful memories, and makes me wonder what I should share in letters to ones I love.

I have another two audiobooks also from the library.  I am listening to the first one while I go through boxes of stuff that needs to be dealt with in an unsentimental way (45% discards / 45% donates / 10% [or less] keep) is my goal.