2025 Year of Reading

 In 2025 I read 70 books (goal was 75 so I got close) and 32 cookbooks. Here are my Top 10, Top 5 Cookbooks, and Worst 5:

Top 10 Books Read in 2025

When Southern Women Cook by America's Test Kitchen

Becoming the Pastor's Wife by Beth Allison Barr

A Life in the Garden by Barbara Damrosch

Dodge County, Incorporated by Sonja Trom Eayrs

Sociopath by Patric Gagne

Seeking Shelter by Jeff Hobbs

The Secret History of the Rape Kit by Pagan Kennedy

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes

The Owl Handbook by John Sheway

Top 5 Cookbooks

When Southern Women Cook by America's Test Kitchen

Preserving the Seasons by Holly Capella

The Garlic Companion by Kristin Graves

3 Doughs, 60 Recipes by Lacey Ostermann

The Cook's Garden by Kevin West

Worst 5 Books of 2025

End of Story by A.J. Finn

Spare by Prince Harry

Portrait of a Thief by Grace Li

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever

December 2025 Reviews

 

Becoming the Pastor's Wife by Beth Allison Barr

After reading and loving The Making of Biblical Womanhood, I couldn't wait to read this one and it did not disappoint. In a very similar vein, but more specific to how the pastor's wife has replaced ordination for women, particularly in the evangelical church. Barr is a pastor's wife and some of her family's struggle is shared in The Making of Biblical Womanhood but in this book she goes into more details about the current expectations for pastor's wives, how that has changed over the years, and how the current model was created. And since she's a history professor, she also shows how historically 1) there was no such thing as "ordination" in the Christian church until much later in Church history and 2) women DID preach, lead early churches, and held positions that would be equivalent to an ordained pastor today in the early Church. In my opinion her historical research makes such an obvious case that women were and can be pastors and that complementarian theology was created in response to the 1960's feminist movement as a way to keep women's unpaid labor in the home and church. It's hard to know if the men (and women) pushing the complementarian theology genuinely believe it's biblical or if they are aware how much this benefits men and want to keep women subjected for their own benefit. This was definitely an eye-opening book and important book that is continuing to shine the light of biblical truth on some dark corners of the Church.

Some quotes I liked:

"Murphy-Geiss quotes the aphorism that 'marriage is as much a requirement for Protestant ministry as celibacy is for the Catholic priesthood.' She also cites a 2008 finding that 94 percent of 'all Protestant clergy in the United States are married, and, unlike most other professions, the pastor's family is often involved in his/her work.' And marriage seems to be on the rise for Protestant clergy, as a 2017 Barna Group study found that 96 percent were married. These trends and persistent attitudes mean that the pastor's role is by design a two-person job in which only one person receives a salary, title, and official position. For a pastor's wife, especially one in the American evangelical tradition, the very nature of her husband's calling presumes her supportive and unpaid labor. He literally can't do it without her." (p. xiv - xv)

"We have taken a position [pastor's wife] never mentioned directly in Scripture and turned it into the highest ministry calling for contemporary evangelical women, allowing it to supplant other ministry roles. We have pressured women who do not feel called to ministry into ministry service because of their husbands' vocations. We have told women that their best path to ministry is literally to follow behind men." (p. 21)

"The problem isn't what these women were doing. The problem is what we call the work these women were doing. Milburga's world called her an abbess. Bertha Smith's world called her a missionary. Kathy Hoppe's world called her a minister's wife. I can't help but thinking about Elizabeth Marvel's words about women's ordination in the modern global church. 'Ordination has less to do with what an individual can or cannot do in the church,' she writes, 'and more to do with the power or prestige assigned to their position while doing it.' I think she is right. History suggests that ordination has less to do with the work of ministry and more to do with how that work is recognized." (p. 66-67)

"[Elizabeth] Flower's book Into the Pulpit provides an in-depth analysis of the SBC [Southern Baptist Convention] gender wars and their connection to broader American culture. In her chapter focused on the 1970s, Flowers shows how SBC concerns about female autonomy and independent leadership roles coincided with increasing agency for women...it was only in the 1960s and '70s that women in the US gained legal protections against wage discrimination, credit discrimination, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination within the workplace. They also gained legal access to birth control and abortion." (p. 138)

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (Books & Banter book club)

Lula Dean grew up in Troy, GA in a wealthy family who lost their fortune. Ever since Lula has been bitter and looking for a way to regain some power in her town. When a teenager places an erotic baking book in the public library as a prank, that launches Lula's campaign to ban books and "make Troy great again." Beverly Underwood also grew up in Troy, GA and never liked Lula. She's on the school board and is fighting against Lula's book banning campaign. Unbeknownst to either woman, when Lula puts up a little free library in her yard full of books that "made me who I am today," Beverly's daughter switches out all the books with ones that Lula wants banned. As the town residents accidentally start reading banned books all kinds of hell breaks loose in Troy, GA.

While it's clear in the book description that this book is satire, I did not like it. I'm a public librarian so obviously I'm against book banning. And I get that most of the characters were purposely caricatures, but the heavy handedness of the message got old FAST. I mean how many times was it mentioned that Lula Dean had orange hair - COME ON. It was also unnecessarily vulgar in my opinion. And there were WAY too many characters. She could have cut the character list in half and still almost had too many. I do think book banning is a topic worth discussing, but no one on "the other side" of this issue would read this book and change their mind. I did like the DNA storyline of the Black family finding out they were ancestors of the town Confederate hero - that was well done and brought up a known issue in a more natural way. Overall, I didn't like it at all. The writing was good and despite not really liking it I did want to find out what happened in the end with everyone. But I wouldn't recommend this one.

West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge (Evening Edition book club)

In 1938 two giraffes survive a hurricane at sea and are delivered to New York to be driven across country to San Diego, California. Woody Nickel is an orphan from Texas who came East to find his only living relative after his family and farm were all lost to the Dust Bowl. In the aftermath of the hurricane, Woody's cousin and place of employment were lost to the storm and he has a magical encounter with the giraffes. With nothing left to lose, he follows the giraffes when they leave and is eventually able to talk his way into helping transport them across the country. Thus begins Woody's adventure with the giraffes who will teach him more than he ever thought possible and prove that they are "not just animals."

The plot of this book is based on real historical events - two giraffes that survive a hurricane and are driven across the US to the San Diego Zoo. The rest of the story and the characters are built around this event. I liked all three main characters and in the beginning I was really liking the book. But it was somehow both monotonous and ridiculously over the top at the same time. Every day was get up tend the giraffes, stop, run into some trouble, get out of said trouble, stop for the night and then rinse and repeat the next day. Yes, I can imagine there would be trouble along the way and some of the trouble they encounter seems likely. Some of the trouble was so ridiculous that it seemed a stretch even for fiction. The further the book went the more ridiculous a lot of stuff became until I wasn't really liking the book anymore. I think this could have been an amazing book but it was a little too Kristin Hannah-eque for me - like every possible thing that could go wrong for these people and the giraffes did over and over. I would have quit reading if not for my book club reading this one.

Anatomy of a Con Artist by Johnathan Walton

Johnathan Walton never expected to be targeted by a con artist, but when his apartment building lost its pool he wanted to meet with other neighbors to work together to get their pool access back. That's when he met Mair Smyth and she quickly inserted herself into his life. He thought they were good friends until he realized she was a con artist and had conned him out of close to $100,000. But Walton didn't tuck his tail between his legs in shame and embarrassment - he got loud. He created a blog and ended up finding several other victims of Mair and eventually brought a criminal case against her. After being conned himself, Walton started helping other con victims get justice. In doing so he realized there are several red flags that con artists use to find and con victims. And that's where this book comes in, he wants to share with the world the Anatomy of a Con Artist to try to help people avoid being scammed or get justice if they have been scammed.

I agree with some of the reviews that I read that the book is a little repetitive. Each chapter tells the story of someone who's been conned that Walton helped and part of his own story of being conned by Mair Smyth. So there is a lot of reiteration around the red flags in each chapter. And honestly, any one of the red flags he talks about alone wouldn't be enough to be suspicious. But these red flags together or combined with other gut feelings or logic-defying situations could point to a con artist. The biggest downfall of honest people is that you assume other people are honest as well - and con artists count on that. This book wasn't amazing, but it was interesting and I definitely admire the lengths Walton went to to get Mair Smyth prosecuted and to help other victims.

Worlds of Wonder: celebrating the great classics of children's literature by Daniel Hahn, ed.

Daniel Hahn looked at almost 200 years of stories for children to put together Worlds of Wonder. This book highlights 80 children's books (not picture books or Teen/YA books) that have had a lasting impact on readers - both children and adults alike. The books included are all available in print in English, but several international authors/titles are represented. Each book covered has some information about the author and then a 1-2 page write up about the book - a short synopsis and why this book has had an impact on readers. The books are divided into 4 sections that cover a span of years. There are several contributors listed in the back of the book who wrote about each title. I do wish that the author had been listed on the page with the write up and I'm not sure why that wasn't the case. Of the 80 books listed, I've read 20 and after reading this book I've added a few more to my to-read list. This is the perfect book for a librarian and I loved reading about old favorites from my childhood and finding some new ones to check out as well.

Some quotes I liked:

[Black Beauty by Anna Sewell] "One Texas cowpuncher arraigned for ill-treating his pony would be sentenced to one month's imprisonment where he was required to read the story three times." (p. 34-35)

[Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers] "P.L. Travers fought hard against the changes to her story that she saw in the Disney film - ultimately, she lost. She was so unhappy with the way she and her novel were treated that she ruled out any further adaptations." (p. 94) [There were 8 books in the Mary Poppins series]

[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl] "In 2023, four years after Dahl's death, Puffin books announced that they would be revising all of his texts to eliminate derogatory words and passages. In the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Augustus Gloop is now described as 'enormous' rather than 'fat,' and the Oompa-Loompas go from being 'tiny' to 'small.' Elsewhere, references to glass eyes, ugliness, old age, disability, and other potentially sensitive topics were removed or altered. Arguments about censorship swiftly broke out, even getting as far as the U.K.'s House of Commons. But Puffin Books' decision to re-issue the original texts in The Roald Dahl Classic Collection finally left readers free to choose whichever version they wanted." (p. 159)

[A quote from the text of Watership Down by Richard Adams] "Animals don't behave like men," he said. "If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality." (p. 173)

[The Neverending Story by Michael Ende] "Michael Ende disliked the 1984 film adaptation of his novel so intensely that he launched legal action that delayed the release of the sequel until 1990." (p. 184)

[The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly by Luis Sepulveda] "In Sepulveda's imagination, cats not only understand the language of humans but can speak it - though it's the ultimate taboo to let humans in on that little secret...'Cats were aware, of course, of the sad fate of the dolphins, who had displayed their intelligence to humans who had in turn condemned the dolphins to acting like clowns in aquatic spectacles.'" (p. 206)

The Lost and the Found: a true story of homelessness, found family and second chances by Kevin Fagan

In 2003 journalist Kevin Fagan spent six months on the streets of San Francisco working on a series of articles about homelessness for the San Francisco Chronicle. During that time he met Rita and Tyson - two homeless addicts who had been living on the streets for years. When his article series came out, family members recognized Rita and Tyson and reached out to Fagan for help reconnecting with their family members. Both Rita and Tyson had loving family members who were willing to help them come back home. Things seemed to be looking up for both of them, but sadly only one made it to long-term sobriety. The Lost and the Found is about San Francisco's long history as a homeless mecca, but it's also the stories of Rita and Tyson - how they ended up homeless, how they survived, what made them decide to accept help and go home. Every homeless person you see on the street anywhere has a story and probably has family out there somewhere who loves them. Kevin Fagan does a great job of showing a "behind the curtain" view of homelessness through these two people's stories. And the fact that there is one happy ending and one unhappy ending also highlights the reality of drug addiction and how hard that cycle can be to break for many people.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Books & Banter and Evening Edition book clubs)

In 2016 Amy Tan took drawing classes and nature journaling field trips with naturalist, author, and educator, John Muir Laws. Around this same time, Tan began to get into birding - mostly in her own backyard. Her house in Sausalito, CA is surrounded by trees and a natural habitat for many different birds. She started stocking different types of feeders and really observing all the birds in her yard. By her own admission, she became obsessed with birds. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is taken from 6 years of her bird journals where she sketched birds and noted behavior and habits she noticed. Honestly, her sketches are AMAZING. It's obvious that she put in a lot of "pencil miles." The journal is more than just daily notes and observations of the birds - in the beginning it's more of her search for the right feeders/food, how to keep squirrels and rats out, and identifying birds. As the journal moves on, it's more behavioral observations and notes about sick or injured birds. She also has a young, Great Horned owl move into her yard - close enough where she can see him every day. There was a little repetition in the entries, but honestly not as much as you might expect for a work like this. She includes SO MANY sketches that really make the book. I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but I really liked it. It's a unique book that any nature lover or artist would really enjoy. Tan shows that she is much more than a fiction author, she is also a talented artist and naturalist.

November 2025 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Unprocessed Plate by Rhiannon Lambert

I'm all about cooking from scratch and sourcing high-quality, local food, so I thought this cookbook would be right up my alley. I didn't expect the first half of the book to be an explanation of ultra-processed foods. There was some good information in that section but there were a few things I vehemently disagreed with. To say that a "red meat patty" is worse than a plant-based fake meat patty (p. 37) is ridiculous. She didn't even try to talk about sourcing local, sustainably raised meat. Instead you should just make your own bean patty. On p. 34-37 she talks about the most common everyday UPFs including plant-based milk substitutes. But then in the info about plant-based milk she basically says yes this is a UPF but it may actually be better for you than cow's milk - no. These fake milks are some of the worst things out there - and I understand not everyone can drink cow's milk but there is a lot of research that raw milk can be consumed by people who are lactose intolerant. There are other options than fake plant-milk. At this point I knew this cookbook wasn't for me. I did flip through the recipes and didn't really see anything I was interested in trying. Not cookbooks but if you're interested in ultra-processed foods and why they're bad for you, check out Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken and/or Eat Everything by Dawn Sherling instead.

Good Things by Samin Nosrat

Good Things is the collection of recipes that Samin Nosrat cooks when she cooks for herself or friends and family. It's not organized like a typical cookbook. The chapters are a little random - there is one about seven dressings with three ways to use each, one about yeasted bread, etc. There are lots of tips and suggestions for various ways to use many of the recipes. The recipes skew more ethnic than my personal taste but there were a few recipes I'd like to try. Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of Nosrat.

A School Lunch Revolution: a cookbook by Alice Waters

Alice Waters is known for two major things - her restaurant Chez Panisse and the edible schoolyard. In this cookbook she walks the reader through the tenants of the edible schoolyard and then gets into the recipes. The recipes focus on fresh, local food with a focus on vegetables. While there weren't a ton of recipes I wanted to try, this one is definitely worth checking out especially if you're not already familiar with the edible schoolyard concept. Or if you just want to try to incorporate more seasonal vegetables into your own diet.

My Southern Kitchen by Ivy Odom

I'm a Southerner and I love Southern food, so I'm always checking out new Southern cookbooks. And My Southern Kitchen does not disappoint. Even though Ivy Odom is young, there are SO MANY great looking recipes in this book. At some point you think, am I going to find anything new to try? But I did with this cookbook. The recipes are not organized in a typical appetizer, entree, sides way but by Southern events - parties, everyday dinners, funerals, etc. I think it's a unique and very Southern way to organize a cookbook. This one is definitely worth checking out!

Seasoning in Appalachia by Jimmy Proffitt

To a non-Southerner it might not be obvious, but there is a difference between Southern food and Appalachian food. There is definitely an overlap, but there are some very distinct Appalachian foods. Jimmy Proffitt does a great job of highlighting those in this cookbook. There is also a section at the beginning about seasonal eating and preserving seasonal foods. There were several recipes I'd like to try as well. Overall, a solid cookbook and worth checking out.

Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden

This is a very thorough pasta cookbook. I especially liked that McFadden only uses dried pasta for all the recipes. Making fresh pasta is not that hard, but it does take much longer. I feel like focusing on dried pasta makes this much more accessible for the average home cook. He starts out with some basic sauce recipes, then goes into any season and seasonal pasta recipes. There are a LOT of recipes in this book, so you're bound to find something you'll like.

Make It Don't Buy It by Matt Remoroza

Matt Remoroza decided to learn how to cook from scratch after an encounter with moldy bread at a grocery store. Plus, eating out is SO expensive. He learned how to cook lots of food so that he could teach you how to Make It, Don't Buy It. There are a LOT of recipes in here. The recipes are all organized by type of food/course. I liked that he had a whole chapters on "foundations" that covered basic sauces, stock, etc. There is something for everyone in here and I found several recipes I'd like to try. If you're newer to cooking or hoping to expand your home cooking repertoire, this is a great cookbook to check out.

November 2025 Reviews

 

50 States of Murder: an atlas of American crime by Harold Schechter

Instead of focusing on high profile murders or serial killers, Harold Schechter tried to find murder cases for each of the 50 states that were either specific to that area or stand out in some way. I was excited to read this but it was a little disappointing. It felt like at least 40-50% of the stories were from the 1800's and I guess I was expecting more recent cases. There were also several cases where it was the first woman executed in that state or the last person hung in that state - there was even a case where the guy was sent to the electric chair twice (the first time didn't kill him). To me, many of the stories weren't "stand out" cases. And similar to The Ultimate Serial Killer Trivia Book by Jack Rosewood, it was kind of hard to read just story after story of brutal murders. I mean I understand that's the concept of the book but I couldn't read it as quickly because I needed to take breaks. Overall, it was interesting but I would recommend reading it over time and not like a normal book that you read over a couple of days.

Some cases that stood out to me:

p. 111 Constance Fisher of Maine suffering from postpartum depression killed her 3 children and tried to commit suicide in 1954. She was sent to a mental hospital and when she was released five years later her husband took her back. They had 3 more children. Then in 1966 she killed those 3 children and again attempted suicide. She was again sent to a mental hospital and a few years later escaped and succeeded in committing suicide. It was like a precursor to Andrea Yates but TWICE.

p. 271 I did not know that Frank Lloyd Wright abandoned his family and ran off to Europe with his mistress. When he came back to the US he started building a "bungalow of love" for them in Wisconsin. While he was away on business one of the workers building the house killed his lover, her children, and several other workers and set the house on fire.

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes

Two weeks after Lila Kennedy published a best selling book about keeping your marriage alive, her husband left her for a neighbor he'd been having an affair with - who's now pregnant. Then not long after that her mother is killed in an automobile accident and Lila's stepfather moves in with her and her daughters to help them all cope. Lila's publisher is also asking about her next book for which she has zero ideas. Then to top things off more, her American biological father shows up and needs a place to crash. To say Lila is overwhelmed is the understatement of the year. Trying to keep all the plates spinning while simultaneously grieving her marriage and her mother, leaves Lila overwhelmed and exhausted. When she meets a new single father at school pick up, things start to look up a little and Lila also has some ideas for a new book. But is this new man as good as he appears? Or will he be one more thing to go wrong for Lila? Maybe a happier future lies in unexpected people in Lila's life.

This is the classic Jojo Moyes that I LOVE! I'm always amazed at how her books weave in so many people and plotlines that all come together to create an amazing story that you didn't expect. This is a beautiful story about the meaning of family and finding love in unexpected places.

The Secret History of the Rape Kit: a true crime story by Pagan Kennedy

Pagan Kennedy stumbled on to the story of Marty Goddard being the person who "invented" the rape kit in the 1970s. Marty worked for a philanthropic organization and volunteered at a crisis helpline. She realized just how many children and teenagers were being molested or abused and were running away from home, then often being victimized again in different ways. She started wondering why more sexual assaults weren't prosecuted - then she saw why not - the police didn't bother collecting evidence to crimes they couldn't "prove" in a court of law. So, she starting thinking about how that could change and the rape kit as we know it today was born. First in Chicago, then New York City, then all over the US. One of the craziest facts for me was that the first batch of kits was funded by the Playboy Foundation. Sadly, just as these kits were beginning to be used all over the US and women and minorities were beginning to find a little more justice from the law, Marty disappeared. She cut herself off from most of her family and friends. Kennedy was determined to find Marty and try to bring her the recognition she deserved. Marty had a rough childhood and was raped in her 30's in the early 1980s. It seems that those events in her own life, plus all the other survivor stories she witnessed through her work took a hard toll on her. She ended up a mentally ill alcoholic who died alone and unrecognized for her trailblazing idea and work in women's health and police protocol. Even though Marty died before she could be more publicly recognized, her story is important. This one woman created a tool that wields enormous power today and helped change the way sexual assault is viewed by society and handled by law enforcement. This is not a super happy read, but it's an important one.

Some quotes I liked:

"When Marty couldn't find any conventional support for her rape-kit pilot program, she turned to her friend Margaret. 'I decided we had to put aside our feelings for objectification of women in [Playboy] magazine,' Marty later said. She applied for a donation of $10,000 from the Playboy Foundation - the equivalent of more than $50,000 today. She got it...In 1978, Marty Goddard delivered standardized rape kits to twenty-five hospitals in the Chicago area for use in the pilot program she had designed..." (p. 58-59)

"'For years, there's been a misconception that people who commit [sexual] offenses are two types of people: stranger rapists or acquaintance rapists, and they don't cross over,' a victim advocate named Colleen Phelan told a reporter in 2021. The new rape-kit evidence data confirmed that this idea had been wrong all along: the same man's DNA might show up in his girlfriend's rape kit and in a kit belonging to a child whom he'd grabbed off the street. In some cases, DNA results revealed that perpetrators have sexually assaulted people of different ages and genders. As the Tucson Police Department analyzed the results from its backlog, a new picture emerged of the serial rapist as a 'generalist' who attacked strangers, acquaintances, and family members. 'Their MO is vulnerable people,' Phelan said." (p. 145)

"Chillingly, two-thirds of serial rapists had never been arrested for sexual assault before the backlogged evidence was tested, even though some of them had been active for years. That 'is an indicator as to just how much undetected sexual offending there is,' Lovell told a reporter in 2020. It was also an indication of just how little police departments had done to prevent it." (p. 147-148)

"Black women, many of whom were in communities that have been shattered by police brutality, continued to be less inclined than other groups to seek help from forensic nurses or the criminal justice system. For every one Black survivor who reported a sexual assault, there were fifteen others who decided not to do so, a U.S. Justice Department study found in 2003." (p. 160)

"Even if the patient was spattered with blood and shivering with fear, she would be forced to wait, sometimes all day, before anyone attended to her. 'I don't think any of the victims ever waited for less than eight hours,' Waegemann said, 'and that's not including the rape-kit exam.' [that can take up to 5 hours on its own...]" (p. 162) [Then people wonder why women don't go to the police or hospital after a sexual assault...]

Gathered: on foraging, feasting, and the seasonal life by Gabrielle Cerberville

Gabrielle Cerberville has been foraging since she was a child, although she didn't know it was foraging then. She grew up in a homeschool family and was always outside exploring and that often meant picking wild berries. As an adult, she stumbles across some mushrooms and in trying to find out about them discovers they are edible, and that opens the door for her to foraging.

I'm in the minority here in that I didn't really like this book. I didn't know who she was before finding this book and I don't follow her on Instagram. Maybe if I was familiar with her, I would have anticipated her writing style more. Her foraging tips seem solid, but the overall book seemed all over the place to me. The book is organized seasonally with both foraging tips and recipes, but it's mostly stories of her personal foraging experiences. Her personal stories were written like the reader knows more backstory than we're given. They often seem to pick up in the middle of a situation or story that we don't know about so a lot of them felt kind of random or like you don't have enough information. There were also a couple chapters where one story was broken up throughout the chapter with other stories from different time periods mixed in which was confusing. Some of her foraging stories I enjoyed, some I did not. Many felt like she was trying a little too hard to be a hippie/Earth goddess type persona. Overall, I didn't love the book, but I do like that she is trying to bring more attention to foraging all year long.

October 2025 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Modern Pioneer Pantry by Mary Bryant Shrader

This cookbook is all about preserving and building your Modern Pioneer Pantry. There are chapters about water bath canning, pressure canning, drying and dehydrating, fermentation, freezing, and pickling. There is a LOT of information and recipes here. This is definitely aimed at someone who is comfortable in the kitchen and knows how to can. The recipes look good and there are lots of tips on how to use the preserved food in a variety of ways. Overall, if you're looking to up your preserving game, check this cookbook out.

The Cook's Garden by Kevin West

This is half gardening guide and half cookbook. In The Cook's Garden Kevin West helps you plan out your garden, and then cook what you've grown. The first half about gardening goes over all the basics - soil, compost, sowing seeds and transplanting seedlings, planning out your garden, and harvesting. I really liked that he also included a glossary too for newer gardeners. In the second half with the vegetable recipes each chapter focuses on one vegetable or vegetable family. There is information about growing and harvesting that vegetable, then recipes using it. This is a wonderful book that combines both gardening and cooking. There are lots of great photos and plenty of helpful tips. Whether you're new to gardening or more seasoned, you can find inspiration in this unique cookbook.

Preserving the Seasons by Holly Capelle

Preserving the Seasons is exactly what the title implies - how to preserve produce at peak season to enjoy all year. The book is divided into three sections - saving the seasons (covers preserving methods), infusions (creating infused drinks, oils, vinegars, etc.), and serving the season (recipes using things you've preserved or fresh produce). There were LOTS of recipes I'd like to try. I also thought the author did a good job of explaining each type of preservation method in the first section. The recipes had good tips for substitutions or if using the fresh ingredient instead of preserved. Overall I am really impressed with this cookbook! Definitely one to check out if you're a gardener and looking for more ways to preserve your harvest and used those preserved goods.

October 2025 Reviews

 

Hunger Like a Thirst by Besha Rodell

Besha Rodell had a unique background - she was born in Australia to an Australian father and American mother. After her parents split up, she and her mother and siblings moved back to the US. It was a hard adjustment for teenage Besha and she ended up dating a guy who worked in a restaurant. She ended up working in restaurants because while her family didn't have a lot of money, they had expensive tastes and working in expensive restaurants usually came with some expensive food perks. After meeting her husband, they live all over - New York City, Durham, NC, Atlanta, GA, Los Angeles, CA, and eventually back to Australia. All that moving was mainly for Besha's career as a food writer and critic. Hunger Like a Thirst tells her story of working in the food writing world, not quite as harsh as actually working in a restaurant kitchen, but close. Working as a food critic seems like a very hard job and she definitely shows both the pros and cons - especially as a parent. I really like her writing and her story/life is definitely unique and interesting. I like that she organized her story like the courses of a meal and it really worked with the book. Definitely worth reading if you're interested in food/dining/cooking at all.

Maus I: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (Evening Edition book club)

I first read Maus in a literature class in college. At that time graphic novels weren't really as normalized as today. Maus tells two stories in one - the difficult relationship Art Spiegelman has with his father Vladek and the story of how Vladek and Art's mother Anja survived the Holocaust. In Book 1 you see how Vladek and Anja met, how things were for them leading up to the Holocaust and how they survived mainly because of Vladek's instincts, wits, and bravery. This book ends when they are finally betrayed trying to be smuggled into Hungary and end up at Auschwitz. You know they survive because Art was born after WWII, but to find out how you need to read Book 2.

Maus II: And Here My Troubles Begin by Art Spiegelman

Maus II picks up where we left off in Maus with Vladek and Anja arriving in Auschwitz. Through luck, ingenuity, and friends they are both able to survive and even manage to see each other briefly a few times. They both survive until the end of the war and are reunited in Poland. The other half of the book continues to explore the difficult relationship between Art and his father with a little more focus on Vladek's survivor tendencies - he can't waste food, saves anything and everything just in case, and is often difficult and likely struggling with PTSD and the physical effects of what he went through in surviving the concentration camp.

The books are both an easy and hard read at the same time. Reading a graphic novel is a fast read because more than 50% of the page is drawings. But the content is hard - even a comic book about the Holocaust is not a good time. And it's hard to see how much Vladek overcame to survive Auschwitz and yet he struggles so much to connect to his son or anyone else. And the added layer of knowing that Anja had diaries that Vladek destroyed in his way of trying to "get past" the war and suffering after her death. I haven't read these book since college and I'm glad I re-read them. I'll be curious to see what my book club thinks about this one.

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (Books & Banter book club)

In 1960 John Steinbeck decides it's been too long since he explored his own country and decides to take an epic road trip around the US with his dog Charley. He has a truck (named Rocinante) fitted with a custom camper in the bed and starts out from his Long Island, NY home. Despite his fame as a well-known author, he is not recognized during his trip. He and Charley set out to see what the current state is in America. Along the way he meets a cast of characters, Charley almost goes feral when he encounters bears in Yellowstone National Park, and he finds both the good and bad in the US along the way. Based on the map included in the book, it seems like he did almost a circle and avoided (purposely or not) the middle of the country. Several states are not mentioned at all and it's less a comprehensive travelogue for the country and more a musing about traveling.

I haven't read any Steinbeck since high school, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I really liked it and there was more humor than I was expecting. He has a great way of describing the scene - whether people or a place that takes you there. I loved that he had Charley with him as that created a lot more natural encounters with people along their travels. I'm glad I read it and I might check out more of his fiction now.

Some quotes I liked:

"Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get so sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them." (p. 37)

"Somehow the hunting process has to do with masculinity, but I don't quite know how. I know there are any number of good and efficient hunters who know what they are doing; buy many more are overweight gentlemen, primed with whisky and armed with high-powered rifles. They shoot at anything that moves or looks as though it might, and their success in killing one another may well prevent a population explosion. If the casualties were limited to their own kind there would be no problem, but the slaughter of cows, pigs, farmers, dogs, and highway signs makes autumn a dangerous season in which to travel." (p. 45)

Poet's Square: a memoir in thirty cats by Courtney Gustafson

When Courtney and her boyfriend Tim move into a rental house in Tucson, AZ they didn't realize that it came with a feral cat colony. They quickly realize that there are 30 cats living in and around their yard. Courtney doesn't have the money to feed all these cats, but she tries. Soon she creates an Instagram account for the cats and they develop a following. Soon followers are asking if they can donate cat food and money for vet care. Once she works through trapping and spaying/neutering their feral colony, people in her area reach out and ask for her help in their neighborhood. Soon she's a dedicated "cat lady" traveling all over Tucson to help trap cats, rush hurt or sick ones to the vet, and deliver food to other feral colonies. Throughout the story of the Poets Square cats, Courtney shares her own story of her struggles with depression, an abusive relationship, and how becoming a "cat lady" helped put some of her insecurities into perspective.

I wasn't familiar with Courtney or the Poets Square Cats IG page before reading this book. I'm just a cat person who thought this sounded like a good book. While it is a good book, it's not a super happy book. Working with feral colonies is not for the faint of heart. Constantly seeing sick or hurt cats, kittens dying, people who profess to love cats but won't fix their pets, etc. is all VERY draining. It was draining to read about too. I'm thankful for Courtney and people like her who see a need and figure out a way to help. This is not a light-hearted pet/cat memoir, but it's definitely worth reading.

Not Nothing by Gayle Forman (Books & Banter book club)

Alex has had a rough twelve years of life - his father is not in the picture, his mother is mentally ill, now he's living with his Aunt and Uncle (who aren't excited to be taking care of him), and he's required to spend the summer volunteering at a retirement home because of "the incident." The volunteering feels like a punishment until he connects with Josey - a Holocaust survivor who hadn't spoken in 5 years until he meets Alex. Josey starts telling Alex his life story and Alex starts to see a little of himself in Josey's story. Alex also meets Maya-Jade, another volunteer his age who's volunteering because her grandmother lives at the Shady Glen retirement home. Maya-Jade and Alex start to bond when they begin interviewing residents and filming them telling highlights from their lives. Operation Rise seems to bring everyone together and Alex finally has something good going on in his life, but then "the incident" is brought to light and he risks losing all his newfound connections.

This book was recommended by one of my book club members and while I did enjoy it, I'm a little surprised my library system has it catalogued as Juvenile instead of Young Adult. There are several more mature themes presented in the book. While the main story is Josey's Holocaust survival story and Alex's story, I agree with some reviews that there seemed to be a little heavy-handedness in including several other current issues/topics that weren't really relevant to the story. And once you find out what "the incident" was, I don't think Alex would have been allowed to volunteer at a retirement home as his punishment. And I especially don't think "the incident" would have been kept from the retirement home staff. It's still a unique book that highlights the Bryan Stevenson quote, "Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done." and explores the importance of intergenerational relationships.

On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the making of a travel writer by Rick Steves

In 1978 Rick Steves was a recent college graduate and he and his friend Gene decided it was time to do the "hippie trail" - a 3,000 mile journey from Turkey to Nepal, going through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in between. Steves worked to save up to spend summers backpacking in Europe, but he wanted to experience the East now. Rick and Gene's trip lasts 56 days and is an adventure for sure. Throughout the trip Steves keeps a journal of their day to day adventures and during the COVID pandemic he stumbled across this journal and edited it with Gene's help to publish his "hippie trail" travelogue. There are tons of great pictures and maps of their journey included. I found it really interesting that Steves limited himself to 9 pictures a day in order to ration his film. What Steves didn't know at the time was 1978 was the last year the "hippie trail" would operate. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the Islamic revolution in Iran both occurred making travel through those countries unsafe. This book is a unique time capsule of Eastern travel in the 1970's.

All in Her Head: how gender bias harm's women's mental health by Misty Pratt

According to Misty Pratt in the last few decades mental health problems have skyrocketed and women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a mood disorder compared to men. So why is that? Are women suffering from mental illness more than men? Are the higher numbers because more people are seeking help? Pratt, who is a medical researcher, attempts to answer some of these questions with this book. Pratt suffered from depression and anxiety herself and also saw mental illness affect many of the women in her family so this is a personal issue for her as well.

I liked the book in the beginning but then it started to feel somewhat repetitive. She also doesn't really provide any answers to if or why women are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness. What it seemed to point out more to me was that mental illness overall (regardless of gender) is very under-researched and there are often no clear answers as to why someone becomes mentally ill or what (if anything) will help them long-term. I was also a little surprised that the last chapter was all suggestions of non-medication, non-therapy treatments like yoga, probiotics, being in nature, and spirituality. Not that those things aren't helpful probably to anyone, but the whole book seemed to be focused on medical and psychiatric treatment so it seemed odd to include that as the last chapter. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this one. It was kind of all over the place and didn't really give any possible solutions for this over-arching issue.

September 2025 Cookbook Reviews

 

3 Doughs 60 Recipes by Lacey Ostermann

In 3 Doughs, 60 Recipes Lacey Ostermann does just that - gives 3 basic dough recipes and 60 other recipes using those dough bases. The 3 doughs are sandwich bread, focaccia, and pizza so the cookbook is basically divided into three sections with the first dough recipe and then other recipes either using that bread or that dough in another way. Ostermann has really great photos of each step in the 3 dough recipes that should make it easier to follow the steps. I already make my own pizza dough regularly but I would love to make focaccia and sandwich bread regularly too. This is a cookbook I might buy because there are so many recipes that I'd like to try. If you're interested in making your own bread without the commitment of sour dough, definitely check this one out.

Feasts on the Farm by Tamara Hicks and Jessica MacLeod

Feasts on the Farm includes 60 seasonal recipes from Tomales Farmstead Creamery in California. The dairy is made from sheep and goat milk so the book includes lots of cute animal pictures. The photographs of the farm and the food are beautiful. I didn't really see many recipes I wanted to try and obviously the dairy in all the recipes are their specific cheeses - while you may find a comparable substitute, not having tasted their cheese it would be hard to know if your version compared with theirs. Overall, a beautiful cookbook but just not tons of recipes I want to try.