Category Archives: books

Reading In 2025

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I have been beating myself up over my 2025 reading list. This year’s goal was to read 100 books. Truthfully friends, there is no prize for hitting my goal, nor punishment for a miss. The point is to keep me always reaching for a book rather than a tv remote or worse, for my phone. I spend way too much time scrolling as it is and do enjoy a good book. 

I fell behind at some point this summer. A dozen books behind schedule is a pretty big hole to dig yourself out of but I did manage. Yet, all along, I felt like I was doing something wrong. Like what I was reading wasn’t good enough. 

Never mind all the articles and professional reading I was doing as well. 

My reading tastes range from historical fiction to thrillers to kiddie lit and non-fiction on a variety of topics. It felt like this year I devoted too many slots on my list to kid’s books. Out of the 102, 15 were kiddie lit. Three were from the Hector Fox storybook series gifted to the world by an author named Astrid Sheckels. These books feature exquisite artwork and fabulous stories about this group of animals that go on grand adventures but always come home to Hector’s den where they read a book or eat snacks together.

I want to live in Hector’s home, by the way. 

The kiddie lit stack also includes Charlotte’s Web and the first of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House On The Prairie series. I hadn’t read either since I was a child and was taken by how beautifully written these books are. The stories are captivating and thought provoking. These two and Hester Fox are better told stories than many of the adult contemporary fiction books I have read this year. 

I also read 20 nonfiction books on a variety of topics including farm life in the Great Depression, living in nature, and true crime. 

The rest were fiction and that stack included some truly wonderful books along with some that I would deem junk food for the brain. In particular, there were some thriller writers that required no effort to read.

I have a bookshelf where all the current year’s books live and where they are shelved in the order I read them. I also keep a Goodreads list and a notebook to record the books I read. The shelf, though, allows me to visualize all that I’ve read this year and the space these stories occupy in the world. 

Let’s face it – this is kind of a trophy shelf but I’m ok with that. 

On January 1, I always remove the books from those shelves and sort them on the kitchen table into the categories of Fiction, Non Fiction, and Children’s. I sort the favorites and which ones to give away. Then I shelve the keepers in their permanent homes. It’s a fun process for a closeted librarian. 

As I removed them 2025 books from that shelf, I realized there are trends in my reading year. Winter is reserved for longer books and a lot of nonfiction. By spring I’m reading more fiction, the heat of summer introduces kids books, and by Christmas it’s a steady diet of Richard Paul Evans and others who tell soft, happy Christmas stories. 

I read some great books this year. Why on Earth am I beating myself up over some kiddie lit that, in the grand scheme of things, is better done than some of the bubblegum fiction we are told we should be reading? 

Don’t worry. I’m done beating myself up now.

Reading is reading, friends. Whether you’re reading storybooks to your kids or diving deep into the world of Jane Austen, or reading bestselling fiction, it is all reading. 

And what a miracle it is that 26 little letters can be manipulated into thousands of words that tell a story in a book that is unique of all the other books next to it on a shelf. The creativity and effort that goes into writing books is something to be celebrated! The fact you choose a book over other distractions is amazing. 

Let us rejoice that there are books in this world and that we choose to read them! 

An Evening With Sean Of The South

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One of my favorite contemporary writers is a southerner named Sean Dietrich. He also uses the moniker Sean of the South for his blog and a one man show he performs all over the United States. He uses music and humor to make folks feel good. 

But he’s more than a southerner and more than a writer or a musician. He’s a storyteller whose message and everyman themes stretch across geography, generations, denominations and all the other imaginary lines we humans like to draw around ourselves. 

My gateway into his work was this video where he talks about a kind librarian and the difference she made in his life. Go watch it and come back. I’ll wait. It is lovely, heartfelt and worth your time.

Because of this video I discovered his daily essays and podcasts before finally reading one of his books and then another and another. I have not read everything he’s written but I’m working on it because his writing inevitably makes me feel better about the world. 

Searn writes about people who are kind or who are doing something good in this world. He writes about his dog Thelma Lou and about how church ladies run the show. He writes about his own origin story which he justifiably still wrestles to understand. 

He writes stories that prove there are still good people in this world. What he doesn’t write about is politics, religion or anything else that might divide us. His writing is a study in seeking out the good, looking out for one another, and in creating the family you need or, maybe, that needs us. 

He’s a modern day Mark Twain and is said to be the south’s answer to Garrison Keillor. He’s a man of profound words and many talents with a sense of humor that ranges from smartly witty to canned corn. And for someone who regularly stands in the circle of a spotlight, he seems a humble man too. 

My fella and I built a long weekend of books and fun around seeing the Sean of the South stage show in Cincinnati earlier this month. I’m a fan of the advice to never meet your heroes because too often we find that talented humans are still just human. They’re never as good as we hope. 

I’m thrilled to say that Sean Dietrich was exactly what I thought he would be and more.

Sean performed in Ohio for the first time as what must have been a sold out audience welcomed him to the 20th Century Theater. His wife Jaime meets and greets folks at the merchandise table where you can buy books, shirts, and music cds. 

His stage show is a fun medley of storytelling and music. He tells jokes and funny stories using music sometimes as vehicles for the stories and sometimes like props. It’s a high energy show with few lulls and no time to get bored. Sure, there were some men in the audience who clearly were there because their wives demanded it but the rest of us were thrilled to spend a couple of hours with his wit and melodies. 

When it was over, Sean Dietrich stood by the front door and greeted every person in line. He signed books, hugged people, posed for pictures and talked with folks. We had second row seats so we were near the end of the line and waited about an hour to have our turn. Friends, there are few people on this planet I would stand in that kind of line to meet but I was so grateful for the opportunity. We accepted hugs even though I’m not a hugger but it’s sort of a when in Rome moment. He signed my books. Best of all, he answered my question about writing in a way that was so gracious and kind I was actually surprised at how much thought he put into it. 

I thanked him for his daily essays, a bright spot on social media which feels more like a cesspool sometimes than a place to find inspiration and light. I told him to be careful going home and he told us to watch out for deer. We rural folks like to remind everyone of the ever lurking dangers of deer in the road. 

It was like chatting with an old friend. 

In fact, everything he puts out in the world feels like a chat with an old friend and that’s something we badly need these days. We need someone in our life who will remind us there’s still good in this world despite what the algorithm shows us. We need talent and creativity and someone to inspire us to be kind to a stranger, to share a funny story or to flex our creative muscle even if it’s just for ourselves. 

By the way, his father committed suicide when he was only eleven years old. While this horrific event helped to shape him into the person he is today, it didn’t break him and I don’t believe it defines him either. If a child can survive something so terrible, it seems like the rest of us will be ok too. 

Read his books. Follow him on Facebook for daily essays. Listen to the podcast. Go see the show. You won’t be disappointed. Get started at his website.

Spooky Silent Sunday

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Werner Books And Coffee

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If you’re ever in Erie, PA looking for a bookstore, Werner Books and Coffee is the place to be. This mostly used bookstore has friendly staff and comfy places to sit whether you’re lingering over a coffee or sorting through the stack of books you just found.

This is very much a community bookstore where you’ll find book dragons of all ages happily searching for their next favorite read. The kids section is well organized and there were some youngsters agonizing over what they would buy when we were there.

They host book clubs and poetry nights and have a robust collection of local books. I thought it was interesting that they have several book clubs and that they aren’t focused just on today’s popular reads. One that caught my eye is reading Carson McCullers’ classic “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter” which I hadn’t thought about since my English major days back in college. Other clubs were reading titles like “Remarkably Bright Creatures” which is an excellent modern fiction book if you ask me.

Even the coffee shop features sweet treats from local bakeries to go with your favorite warm drink while you study or read. Community partnerships clearly matter here and it made me wish for such a store closer to home.

They seem to have a book exchange program with relatively high standards and a terrific, if not small, collection of new books as well.

The staff is friendly and seems to know everyone’s names. We chatted with the gentleman who rung us up and he was telling us about a bus trip they were organizing to take their patrons on a bookstore crawl in Pittsburgh. My friend recommended some stores for a future trip and he and he was a little familiar with southern Ohio – he had also attended Ohio University and has a fondness for Athens County.

My friend left with a decent stack of books. I think I found one used and one from the new book section that I couldn’t leave without. The experience was so relaxing and nice I look forward to returning someday.

Werner Books and Coffee is located in a strip mall so there’s plenty of free parking.

Learn all about them at their website!

What We Think About

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“We become what we think about most of the time.” —Earl Nightingale

And poof! I’m a bookstore! Although, I wouldn’t enjoy letting other people touch or take the books so that would be a problem.

Friends, tell me something. What thing do you think of most of the time? What would you be?

Is that thing worth your time and mental energy? Is it worth becoming? Perhaps it’s time to redirect your thoughts and energy for a while.

Think about it.

Writer Talk With Adriana Trigiani

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The whole point of our Cleveland trip last week was to see a writer I have read and admired for years. She was speaking at the Parma-Snow Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library system and I just had to go. 

Adriana Trigiani is a writer first and foremost but her bio talks about the many hats she wears because she wants women to be inspired to pursue their own career aspirations. She’s billed as a women’s writer (although a lot of men like her books too) who has also worked as a television writer/ producer and a film director/screenwriter/producer. She also has a terrific podcast where she talks to authors about their books. I know her primarily as a fiction writer whose colorful books are true works of art that I look forward to with each and every release. 

When I learned she was coming to Ohio, Adam and I planned an adventure around this event. 

We were part of a lively audience packed into the Sari Feldman Auditorium at the library. Out of the 400 seats available that day, they all seemed full and they were mostly occupied by women. Adam was one of maybe two dozen men that I saw filter into the theater so the energy in this room just hit a little different. 

She’s an Italian American who grew up in the Appalachian community of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. My gateway into her world was a series based in Big Stone Gap that features a fictional character named Ave Maria, the 35-year-old self-proclaimed spinster of her mountain town. I actually listened to the series on CD in the car several years ago when I was driving more than I do now. I vividly recall many driveway moments when I simply did not want to stop listening and go inside. 

Since then, I have read everything she’s written except two of her older books (on my shelf and waiting to be read) and her newest book which I just acquired last week. It’s signed so it will eventually be moved to my signed book collection. All of her books pay homage to someone from her past and the contributions Italian Americans made to industries like dress making, music, shoemaking and more. They all are respectful and celebratory of these people and how they maintained pride in heritage while embracing a new life in America. These are immigration stories at their finest. 

They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes and I didn’t. However, I do feel like I met her. In fact, I bet most people in that room left feeling like they know her, at least a little. She sat down with Ron Block, an employee of the library system and co-host of the Friends With Fiction podcast (if you read fiction, you’ll love it and the hosts who are New York Times bestselling authors). They’re old friends and he had a list of questions to try to guide the conversation. Truth is, there’s no guiding this woman in a conversation. She tells fantastic stories with side stories and side treks off of those. 

I’m pretty sure she hasn’t met a rabbit hole she didn’t like and I appreciate that! 

Adriana  is relatable and funny and knows how to pull at your heartstrings too. She’s quick on her feet, fast with a joke and can paint a mental picture like no one’s business. It was like sitting in the living room of an old friend. 

I loved every minute. 

When we left, I was grateful that the event ticket came with a signed book and that I didn’t have to stand in line for it. We would have been there all night. 

Three ladies in front of us knew her from college. A woman they didn’t know who was sitting next to them gushed about what these books mean to her and was excited to finally see her in person. One man stood up to say his family ran the apartment building where she lived years ago. Another brought a pair of earrings Adriana  had given her twenty years ago. Adriana  took them off and handed them to her during a Q&A, the woman said. 

My only complaint is that it went too quickly. 

You can get a mini dose if you watch or listen to last week’s Friends and Fiction podcast interview with Adriana. Learn more about her here.

If you are a reader or just enjoy some good storytelling, I recommend you go listen to writers talk any time you have a chance. It’s always an enriching and fun learning opportunity! This one was filled with laughter and lots of wonderful stories!