List of Favourite Books Read in 2017

Ann Tudor's List of Favourite Books Read in 2017

 

Steven Sherrill    The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time

Frank Conroy       Body and Soul

Louise Penny       A Great Reckoning

Jane Gardam        The Flight of the Maidens

Lee Child          Night School

Mark Pryor         The Paris Librarian

Martin Walker      Fatal Pursuit

G. Hendricks       The Fifth Rule of Ten

Christopher Fowler Strange Tide (Bryant & May)

Tessa Hadley       Clever Girl

Ian Hamilton       The Couturier of Milan

Alexander Risen    Unearthed

Asle Skredderberget The Oslo Conspiracy

Carol O'Connell    Blind Sight

Anne Holt          No Echo

E. J. Copperman    Written Off

Colin Cotterill    The Coroner's Lunch

Cara Black         Murder on the Champ de Mars

Val McDermid       Out of Bounds

Anne Lamott        Traveling Mercies

Gary Barwin        Yiddish for Pirates

Peter Gethers      My Mother's Kitchen

Marina Semple      Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Freeman Wills Croft The Cask

Kari Hart Hemmings The Descendants

Katherine Pancol   The Slow Waltz of Turtles

J. D. Vance        Hillbilly Elegy

Chris Oold         The Killing Bay

Michel Bussi       Black Water Lilies

Kate Atkinson      Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Steve Burrows      A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

Richard Carson     Taming Your Gremlin

G. Hendricks       The 4^th Rule of Ten

Margaret Millar    Collected Millar

Sheila Kohler      Once We Were Sisters

Peter Heller       Celine

Andrew Cartmel     The Viniyl Detective

John Fariow        Perish the Day

Margaret Maron     Fugitive Colors

Eleanor R. Barraclough  Beyond the Northlands

Alexander McCall Smith  My Italian Steamshovel

Elena Lappin       What Language Do I Dream In?

Molly Keane        Young Entry

Ann Patchett       Commonwealth

Charlotte Gill     Eating Dirt

Naoki Higashida    The Reason I Jump

E. O. Chirivici    The Book of Mirrors

Patrick deWitt     Under Majordomo Minor

Eliot Pattison     Skeleton God

Hope Jahren        Lab Girl

Delia Ephron       Siracusa

Richard Ford       Between Them

Jan Wong           Apron Strings

Muriel Spark       Memento Mori

Josephine Tey      Brat Farrar

Lucy Ribchester    The Amber Shadows

Mark Pryor         he Sorbonne Affair

Margaret Forster   Diary of an Ordinary Woman

Leif G. W. Persson The Dying Detective

Philip Pullman     Clockwork

Matthew Sullivan   Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Michael Finkel     The Stranger in the Woods

Gabrielle Zevin    The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

The Beaverton      Glorious and or Free

Margery Allingham  My Friend Mr. Campion

Mario Giordano     Auntie Poldi & the Sicilian Lions

G. Hendricks       The Second Rule of Ten

Claire Fuller      Swimming Lessons

G. Hendricks       The Third Rule of Ten

Jess Kidd          Himself

Harlan Coben       Don't Let Go

Elizabeth Strout   Anything Is Possible

Robert Harris      Conclave

Sheena Kamal       The Lost Ones

Christopher Fowler Wild Chamber (Bryant & May)

Margaret Atwood    Angel Cat (graphic novel)

Rachel Joyce       The Music Shop

 

 

Copyright © 2017 Ann Tudor

Food blog: http://fastandfearlesscooking.blogspot.ca

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/InfallibleNana

FB: https://www.facebook.com/fastandfearlesscooking

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

 

Knowing Now

How can we trust what we know,

what we think we know,

what we once knew?

The knowing dissipates.

Facts disappear into the fabled

mists of memory.

Mischievous mind churns facts into butter.

Feelings diffuse like moonlight

through rippled glass.

If we can't count on facts,

can't rely on feelings (since both, facts and feelings alike, are filtered through fading memory)

then what can we trust?

 

Why, as usual, nothing but the now.

Get used to it.

Accept the new now reality.

Just be here.

It's the only way through.

Remember this,

if you remember nothing else.

 

 

Copyright © 2017 Ann Tudor
Food blog: http://fastandfearlesscooking.blogspot.ca

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/InfallibleNana

FB: https://www.facebook.com/fastandfearlesscooking

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

 

The Present

Gifts are pigs in a poke

and must be received with joy

because they may be the manifestation of love.

Maybe not.

Maybe a gift just means

'tis the season and you're on my list.

But on the off chance that the impetus

is love,

accept the present.

The odds are good that it's love.

 

 

Copyright © 2017 Ann Tudor
Food blog: http://fastandfearlesscooking.blogspot.ca

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/InfallibleNana

FB: https://www.facebook.com/fastandfearlesscooking

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

 

My Annual Christmas Reminder

I send out this piece every year in mid-December, mainly as a reminder to myself. (You might want to admire the way I reduce my own list of things-to-do by recycling this Scene from the Journey instead of writing a new one.) Here's the message:

 

 

This is such a time of list-making for me. The list I made this morning includes "make lists," proving that the high-tension time is well on its way. So I decided to make a new list for myself. Here it is:

CALM DOWN. If it doesn't get done, will the world end? Don't get frantic about trifles (or truffles, either, though I wouldn't mind having one right now).

SIMPLIFY. I envision a Christmas dinner made up of X number of dishes. Well, how terrible would it be if I served X minus 1? Or X minus 2? Or even X minus 3? (But I suppose Chinese take-out is out of the question.)

SMILE.

Bring an OPEN HEART to every encounter.

GIVE to those who are less fortunate. Whether it's time or money that I give, and whether it's a lot or a little, giving will help everyone, including me.

And as a gift to all of you, I offer this prayer from the Dalai Lama:

May the poor find wealth,
those weak with sorrow find joy.
May the forlorn find new hope,
constant happiness, and prosperity.
May the frightened cease to be afraid
and those bound be free.
May the weak find power and
may their hearts join in friendship.

 

 

Copyright 2011 Ann Tudor
 
Food blog: http://fastandfearlesscooking.blogspot.ca

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/InfallibleNana

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Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

Making Room for Small Beauties

Run. Run. Go faster. Don't stop for anything. Make no detours. Run straight ahead or you'll never get it all done.

 

This is how I lived. Once, during a brief respite, I managed to notice the small beauties that my then-calm eye chanced upon. I remember that I enjoyed noticing them.

 

But somehow I re-forgot how to slow down and I re-lost the ability to notice. Oh, I often put it on my calendar

and added it to my to-do list: "Slow down. Stop doing. Stop running. Remember to notice."

 

A friend and I (both do-ers of the first order) were talking to another friend, whom we hadn't seen for months. We asked her how she spent her days. "Oh," she said. "I read. I do a little yoga. I take a nap. I sit. Sometimes I meditate. Or think. Sometimes, yes, I just sit and ponder."

 

I was tired of running. As soon as I finished off my to-do list for that day, I began to slow down. I started waiting for small-beauty moments, since small beauties in our lives are really all we have.

 

Now my pace is deliberately and consciously slower. Keep your eyes peeled for the new me as I meander along the sidewalks of life, making room for small beauties.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2017 Ann Tudor
Food blog: http://fastandfearlesscooking.blogspot.ca

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/InfallibleNana

FB: https://www.facebook.com/fastandfearlesscooking

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O