The Guest List by Lucy Foley

This was an interesting murder mystery, in the sense that you never find out who died or how they died until the very end. You know that somebody dies at this wedding on an island, and there are some very creepy and dark scenes every few chapters or so that are showing the people at the wedding finding out that something happened and slowly getting clues about it, but the rest of the book is slowly working up to what happened and giving lots of backstory for all of the characters. There are a lot of different points of view from different characters, all of whom end up having motives to be a murderer (although they don't all know it, even, until the end). I really felt the creepiness of the setting and the impending doom as things really seemed like it was going south, so Lucy Foley did a good job at that. I also really liked each of the characters that narrated--or, if I didn't like them, I could understand them and differentiate them. Overall, this was really interesting and well done.

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I finished reading this to Graham and we both just loved this book so much. Farmer Boy is so great because it just goes into so much detail about what life on a farm was like for people living back then, and I feel like it is so healthy for our kids--and for us--to appreciate how much work they had and what we should be grateful now. I'm always telling my kids how they should be grateful that they don't have to sit and be silent all day on Sundays because of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. 

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

I absolutely loved this murder mystery. This was a book recommendation from a friend--we ended up reading it for book club--and when she described it as "four eighty-year-olds solving a murder" I immediately put it on my to-read list. Who wouldn't love that book description? I bought a copy but didn't have a chance to read it so I ended up listening to it on Audible and just loved every second of it. The four members of the Thursday Murder Club--Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce--were this great fun group of people, and I absolutely loved all of the characters. I thought Osmand did an amazing job at developing each character to have his or her own personality and to be so distinct from the rest. I loved being able to hear all of their thoughts at different times, and I thought all of the asides that almost seemed like throwaways were so hilarious. The murders were exciting and hard to figure out. And I loved how the characters constantly were taking advantage of the fact that they were old and nobody would want to arrest them or would take them seriously. The main takeaway was the undeniable lesson that we all underestimate older people and to not do that. This was such a fun read and the audiobook was fantastic as well!

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

I was surprised by this book and how fascinating it was. It is set at the time of Christ, with Jesus as a character, which is the first surprising thing about it. (I don't think a book like that would win the Newbery Award today. Actually, it definitely wouldn't.) But it was actually about a Galilean boy named Daniel who is filled with anger and hatred towards the Romans who are occupying their land. He wants to take them down and wants the Messiah to come to kill them all. The story is about how he is trying to go about doing that, and the lessons he learns as he is metaphorically beating his head against the wall again and again. I thought the ending was just beautiful. I wished that Daniel had had a little more of a transformation--up until the last six pages he was still angry and hateful and raging, and then he repents and changes his tune. I feel like it should have been more obviously gradual. But I did really enjoy the rest of it and I felt like it really gave me a much better view of what it was like living in those times and what the political groups were like. 

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare

I had this book on my bedside stand for months, meaning to read it, and I am finally clearing off the books on my bedside stand and got through this one. This is about a boy in the 1700s (or earlier?) in Maine, who is left for the summer to guard his family's new cabin while his father goes to their old home to get his mom and sister to bring them back. He becomes friends with a Native American boy who lives nearby and learns all sorts of tricks for survival in the Maine woods. I thought this book did a good job of humanizing the Native Americans, but it also had some problematic stereotypes which probably would have been edited out if it were being written today. I think this one would appeal to my boys though because of the survival aspect and the exciting scenes like where they fight a bear. This one isn't a Newbery Award winner, although it did win a Newbery Honor and I thought it was worth reading because Speare wrote two other Award winners.

All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny

This is the first Armand Gamache book set outside of Quebec, and they make it all the way over to Paris and get caught up in a really huge cover-up and plot when Armand's godfather Steven is hit by a car on their way home from dinner one night. I loved the mystery, I loved the setting, I loved the twist at the end (I totally thought someone was a bad guy and he turned out to be a good guy). My only complaint was that things tied up far too neatly with a bow at the end, but I guess you can't deny Louise Penny that. Just another great Gamache mystery.

She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs

I realized while reading this that I have never listened to any of Dolly Parton's songs. I don't know her music at all. Part of that is that I have never listened to much country music, but part of that is that she isn't played on the radio at all any more. These essays have a lot of speculation about why that is (country music radio stations don't play almost any women any more, for one), but they are kind of like a biography and analysis of Dolly Parton's life and heritage and her activism, although it's not the outright kind. I have seen how Dolly Parton has become everyone's favorite celebrity because of her generosity and her donations to charity, and after reading this book, I can see why. She seems almost anti-feminist at first, with her plastic surgeries and over-the-top appearance, but I love how Smarsh describes her "gender performance" and how her emphasis of her appearance has allowed her to stop people in their tracks, forcing them to judge her at face value, underestimating her before she can wipe them out. I really like her and I'm totally interested in reading her autobiography now.