Happy February (2026)

Author Recommendation, Celebration, Life, Mystery, Pie, , , ,

I wanted to share an update as well as a photo of the latest pie!

This is a fun read and I wouldn’t call it the best Kevin Wilson but I will probably read everything he writes. He’s a favorite. These photos are all from Litsy. This is Apple Cherry that I made for my parents’ Chili Feed Dinner for the Lions Club.

Run for the Hills counts for the Terrain category of the What’s in a Name Challenge, too.

FIVE STARS for Kate & Frida! This is a friendship built through a letter exchange in the 90s and I adored it! I already have the first Kim Fay which is related characters and she has a third in the works. New favorite author. This pie is French Silk! I had never had it (that I remember) and I certainly had never made it. It was good. The next photo shows the pastry crust before I poured in the chocolate egg concoction.

which makes a very nice background to my current read of Misha Popp’s final (3rd) entry to her Pies Before Guys mystery series.

And, yeah, not pie… but I read this pretty fast and thought it was quite interesting! Another ToB book but I’m not trying to be a completist this year. It just happened to come off hold at the library.

It being February, it’s Letter Month! Of course, I’m knee deep in stamps and stationery, washi tape and stickers. Much fun! I’ve sent 85 pieces and have received plenty (it’s not designed to be a 1:1 ratio goal…)

It’s not to late to join or go check it out and be ready for NEXT February! They do year-round activities so no reason not to wait til 2027. Happy February and OH! Tomorrow is February 20 and that means it is Cherry Pie Day. March 3rd is Banana Cream Pie Day if you need a bit more time to prepare!

Remember, PIE IS LOVE.

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Stats and More 2025 Year End Summary

1001 Books To Read Before Dying, Audio, Author Recommendation, Book Blogging Community, Book Picked Me, Challenge, Library, Life, Lists, Pie, Year End Summary, , ,

Finally! As long as it is the first week or weeks? of January: the SUMMARY of reading and the announcement you’ve all been waiting for . . . Care’s Books & Pie 2025 Pie in Literature Award!

2025 STATS

Total books read: 114 – down 5 from last year.

Pages read: 32,415 ………………………………2024: 34,365
Average pages per book: ~284……………………………..289 in 2024
Average pages per day: ……..……………………………….89

Hours listened: ~ 309 audiobooks: count 33

My Top Ten: The Correspondent, Beautyland, Heart the Lover, Woodworking, Glorious Exploits, There Was a Party for Langston Hughes, A Cartography of Peace, How the Penguins Saved Veronica, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

5 STAR READS27
4 STAR49
3 STAR29
2 STAR7
1 STAR 0

How many books did I read that were OVER 400 pages? 14! Same as last year. Only 2 books over 500 pages.

Woman / Man Author Ratio: 81 : 34 BETTER than last year.Not sure about race or LQTBQIA+ though I do attempt to differentiate that the male count is not all OWD (old white dudes). I actively promote and read women authors; I seek a diverse author pool and yet, I just discovered that I didn’t read very many black women authors. Hmm.

Repeat Authors: Elizabeth Strout and Percival Everett are repeats and more than one title this year; I read THREE by Rachel Joyce. I read another by Clare Pooley, Jane Austen, Barbara Pym, and 13 more. Debut authors that I managed to category-check: Virginia Evans, Misha Popp, Emma Pattee. New to me and am most excited to read more: Jamie Quatro

Repeat authors that made Top 20 last year AND this year, and the year before: Clare Pooley!

I read 12 “Classics” defined as older than 25 years, five (5) over 50 years old.
Oldest book: Persuasion by Jane Austen – buddy read with Facebook AND Litsy friend Melissa the Avid Reader.

I read 26 books (23%) of nonfiction, mostly Memoir. The four Graphic Novels I read were all memoir.

I am considering the switch or new dedication to Storygraph app for genre tracking; I’m not going to classify the 2025 list now. Audiobooks are still my favorite; I read less ebooks – only 26, 35 up from 28 hardcovers, and the rest tradeback style (0 of the smaller paperback size).

I again completed the challenges that I love: the 12 category #ReadICT Challenge sponsored by the Wichita Public Library and local public radio station KMUW; What’s in a Name 2025 (6 categories) and the T-O-B in March. I again finished the 50 category Reading Challenge sponsored by the Ashe County (NC) Library! FIFTY!! I added a few more Litsy readalongs and I continue in two IRL book clubs.

On the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die:
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oh dear, maybe Persuasion? I didn’t track this in 2025, apparently.

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FINALLY, anyone still reading this?! what you all have been waiting for is the Pie Award! Drumroll please…

How many books mentioned pie that I managed to catch?! 50 – down from 62 last year. I no longer had the ability to save my quote highlights with pie mentions to my goodreads updates or rather, I can’t FIND the updates easily due to GR shenanigans? (thus the droves of readers abandoning that site for Storygraph…)

And…  starting with Honorable Mentions. The Care’s Books & Pie 2025 Pie in Literature Award goes to:

First Honorable Mention: Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton:

Second Honorable Mention: Misha Popp’s Pies Before Guys Mystery series. I’ve only read the first two and own the third which I hope to read sooner than later. GOOD FUN! — well, maybe good as in guilty pleasure good, but I am finding these very entertaining. Fast-paced, snappy dialogue, characters to cheer for, etc. And, duh, LOTS of pie.

AND OUR COVETED 2024 Pie in Literature Award goes to:

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Happy Merry Days

Celebration, Food, Pie,

Happy Holidays

The following is a pic of my Christmas Cranberry Pear Pie on a holiday themed cloth napkin as background. I created a Christmas Card with this image. The top crust art was random pieces of pastry cut with a wavy box cookie cutter. I think it looks rather elegant! I will serve at my family’s “ThanksMas” celebration next Saturday. Along with a fig pie I need to try again and possibly a pineapple-pomegranate concoction.

Also, this time of year usually has me scrambling through the ToB Long List, of which I’ve read 6-7 but honestly, my passion for this hectic part of my holiday reading life has diminished and I will calmly wait for the Short List before I frantically research book availability and decide later how maniacally I will chase the Completist status before March 2026.

I’ll post again with some kind of year end 2025 summary, methinks, me hopes. Til then, fare thee well and go read some great books. Be Merry! Go Bake a Pie!

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Open My Mind • Nonfiction November • 2025 • week 4

Book Blogging Community, Celebration, NonFiction,

Click the image below to travel to Rebekah’s blog to find ALL the entries (or many?)

Topic prompt this week:

Week 4 (11/17-11/23) Mind Openers: Nonfiction books are one of the best tools for seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. They allow us to get an idea of the experiences of people of all different ages, races, genders, abilities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, or even just people with different opinions than ours. Is there a book you read this year from a diverse author, or a book that opened your eyes to a perspective that you hadn’t considered? How did it challenge you to think differently? (Rebekah)

Friends, I’ve not the energy nor time today to write a post worthy of this week’s prompt. Sorry. Mostly because I get caught up and travel down all the rabbit holes that Nonfiction November always inspires! So, what I am doing with my post today is to inspire and challenge myself and you all to do that when it suits.

In other words, I have nothing to add at this moment. ENJOY! Go be curious!! Add books to your mountainous nonfic tbr! Learn something new and appreciate different perspectives!

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Pairings • Nonfiction November • 2025 • week 3

Book Blogging Community, Celebration, NonFiction, , , , ,

Click on the image below to find this week’s host post:

Week 3 (11/10-11/16) Book Pairings: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or maybe it’s just two books you feel have a link, whatever they might be. You can be as creative as you like!

This year, I read Wuthering Heights and then found (yay library!) The Annotated version by Janet Gazeri and it was both delightful in its fact-sharing of SO MANY THINGS about the Brontë’s and the times their books were written but also a bit tedious with academic snoozable stuff.

I did a similar thing when I participated in a readalong of Persuasion by Jane Austen and sent a version to my friend (Hi Avid Reader!) that included ephemera

that supported the fiction text; some fun extra goodies.

One of my favorite pairings ever! that I push on people is to read the fictionalized story of what David Grann wrote about in Killers of the Flower Moon: Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I shared about this in 2023’s NonFicNov and you can read that by clicking on this book image:

FUTURE POSSIBLE IDEAS…

I read Happy Land last month by Dolen Perkens-Valdez and I think it would pair nicely with Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership by Brea Baker +

I read Tilt by Emma Pattee and participated in two book club discussions. This book has me considering what nonfiction books about THE BIG ONE that has been for decades predicted to hit Portland Oregon and Northwest US. I just saw this comment in an interview with the author, “The best advice is to get to know your neighbors.” And I think this is excellent for any area that could possibly be hit with any natural disaster. Which got me thinking what books could I read that explores that further.

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and, now, unfortunately, my PC/Wordpress/woes of technology prevents me from saving and uploaded pics to share to support this post and I just don’t have time right now to explore the tedium of it all.

Perhaps I should find a book about THAT. What fiction dystopia novel could I pair?! I await your suggestions…

[Updated to add the suggestions received: The Light Pirate (fiction) and Easthope’s Come What May (nonfic). My own research hints I should read The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster.]

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Choosing • Nonfiction November • 2025 • week 2

Book Blogging Community, Celebration, NonFiction

Click on the image below to find this week’s host post:

Week 2 (11/3-11/9) Choosing Nonfiction: There are many topics to choose from when looking for a nonfiction book.  For example:  Biography, Autobiography, Memoire, Travel, Health, Politics, History, Religion and Spirituality, Science, Art, Medicine, Gardening, Food, Business, Education, Music.  Maybe use this week to  challenge yourself to pick a genre you wouldn’t normally read?  Or stick to what you usually like is also fine.  If you are a nonfiction genre newbie, did your choice encourage you to read more?

My NF selections this year have been random and spontaneous. Usually, my choices are the result of looking for something to fit a reading challenge (Drat that Ashe County! They truly have made it a fun and distracted haphazard reading year! but I love it so… I find it amusing that they have so many and I rise to the challenge. ha ha.)

All that to say that I don’t typically search out by topic. I do enjoy a celebrity — and often musical celebrity — memoir, and I do love to read PIE recipe books. I do think I should read more about politics but they are usually so depressing.

This photo is from my NF shelf; it’s not ALL my unread nonfiction but IS the group of books I am of the mind to try and read NEXT. ooops, there seems to be a fiction title snuck into the pic! sorry about that. But this does give you Dear Reader, a glance of the variety – a bit of history, there’s that celebrity musician, general interest (Sapiens!) and a feminist bio (Rosalind Franklin!!), some highly regarded authors…

WHICH SHOULD I READ NEXT? Any votes for or against? I honestly think I *should* read Team of Rivals, so maybe I’ll start this soon.

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

My Year in Nonfiction • Nov • 2025 • week 1

Book Blogging Community, Celebration, NonFiction

Click on the image below to open link to this week’s host Heather’s blog for more information.

Topic prompt for this week:

Week 1 (10/27-11/2) Your Year in Nonfiction: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have you had a favorite topic? Is there a topic you want to read about more?  What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Nonfic that I’ve read so for this year include quite a few memoirs, celebrity memoirs to be specific, and a smattering of other stuff (which as I write I can’t recall a thing!) and goodreads is taking too long to bring up my NF category…) OH and that aside in parenthesis also assumes that I even tagged things correctly. Hrumph.

23 = Twenty-three

Celebrity Memoirs: Rebel Rising by Rebel Wilson, My Next Breath by Jeremy Renner, The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, and Me by Elton John. I enjoyed Rebel and Me the most.

NF + Graphic Novels: Audrey Hepburn (bio), Mexikid and Smile (both memoir) – Wait! Ducks is also graphic novel memoir and well done.

Other memoirs – one that I counted for the Ashe County NC 50 (Farmboy – genre I don’t read very much? Farming memoir! yuckety-yuck (seriously- not my choice of things to read especially rich white land owner childhood stories – um, NO.), Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast – fascinating, and then a grief book: A Three Dog Life which I picked up solely for the furniture on the cover (another Ashe Co category) and also, has a Stephen King blurb — so YES!

Political memoir: Nancy Pelosi’s The Art of Power. And then Holy the Firm – very odd, very interesting – the blurb says it explores the connection between beauty and violence. It’s by Annie Dillard. Someday I will read her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Someday.

I do enjoy the odd memoir, I do!

The most nichety-niche NF on my list must be Grand Forks: A History of American Dining in 128 Reviews – by Marilyn Hagerty. Midwest restaurant category? This came to my attention when the death of the author was a feature on the NBC Sunday morning program of Willie Geist sharing interesting people who had interesting lives. Anthony Bourdain was the editor of this and my husband thought it would be fun to read. Our library had an eBook copy available via Libby. Consider it a snapshot of wholesome community sharing and a look into restaurant styles of the 80s and 90s. Both nostalgic and sad, to be honest.

Speaking of political memoirs, but one that are more about the message than the author, I share the following:

Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig happened to be the Big Read Wichita and thus selected for our book club this summer. Admitting that assistance for expanding access doesn’t take away from able-bodies but opens opportunities for more, for all, for the entire community. Plus, I read Emmanuel Ucho’s Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy as it has been banned SOMEWHERE. Banned!! Can’t make white people uncomfortable, now. Grrrrrrr.

I read Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington because as a woman without kids, I always find these books interesting. We are not a monolith. #shrug

I think I find most of my nonfiction when I’m searching Libby… Just a unproven thought I possibly will explore more this month for #NonficNov! Tis most obvious to me that many of these titles I’ve listed and yet more to share… is that I’ve selected these to fit a reading challenge of some sort. Nuthin’ wrong with that.

Checking though my list — and I apologize this isn’t in more of a list format, but I have 5 more to talk about. I’ve grouped 18 thus far, mostly memoir of some sort. But these next are even more individually characterized, I think.

  • Everything is Tuberculous. Is “John Green” a catgory? Yes, I think so.
  • Let Them – self help! A friend bought this for me because she found it valuable. I had a few nuggets from the tome, but this really isn’t a book for me right now. (I should donate it to the library bookstore, or maybe I did already…)
  • Living Buddha, Living Christ – so many good reasons to read this! TNH explaining religion and mindfulness and purpose! Yes, please. And it fit the category of book I have owned the longest that I’ve yet to read. Glad to FINALLY get to it.
  • Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is a book I own that I’ve both listened to and read, TWICE read now! because my bookclub selected it. It’s good.
  • There Was a Party for Langston – by Jason Reynolds. This is a glorious book and I highly recommend it for all ages. BOLD for my favorite over all!
  • <<— click here to go to the illustrators site for more info.

In my final paragraph (this one), I ask you Dear Reader, if the following actually counts as Nonfiction? Nah, scratch that posit, because I will propose that the following title _is_ nonfiction because of all the detail and design of what an ANNOTATED book is! I submit for my 23rd book the Janet Gazari edited Annotated Wuthering Heights! Woo hoo! see? not a typical title for Nonfiction post, huh?!

Looking forward to reading many posts from NonFicNovember participants!

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Challenge Accepted: My Top 100

Author Recommendation, Celebration, Challenge, Lists, ,

A friend asked me if I had a Top 100 List of books to suggest to her. Uh…. not off the top of my head nor one printed in my pocket to present. But I thought it might be fun to see what books WOULD show on such a list if I were to create one.

With a bit of guidance from GoodReads to see my 5 star reads across the years, I have selected the following. Please be aware, I could easily be persuaded that something shouldn’t be here or I might have left off a wonderful book that missed my notice somehow, or a whim could change it all tomorrow. This is both Fiction and Nonfiction. Consider it a FIRST DRAFT? Also note that it very likely shows recency bias.

And finally: these are in no particular order!

  1. The History of Love
  2. Geek Love
  3. Murderbot
  4. Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting
  5. Persuasion
  6. The Count of Monte Cristo
  7. My Antonia
  8. North Woods
  9. The Secret Life of Lobsters
  10. The Wedding People
  11. Stoner
  12. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
  13. Olive Kittridge
  14. How to Read a Book (Monica Wood)
  15. The Frozen River
  16. Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
  17. The Bandit Queens
  18. A Gate at the Stairs
  19. Heft
  20. Beautiful Ruins (especially on audio!)
  21. Beloved
  22. Year of Wonders
  23. The Trees / Percival Everett
  24. The is the Story of a Happy Marriage – Ann Patchett
  25. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
  26. On Writing
  27. Bird by Bird
  28. The Color of Water –
  29. The Good Lord Bird
  30. The Book of Delights
  31. H is for Hawk
  32. Circe or The Song of Achilles both? (M Miller)
  33. GILEAD
  34. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
  35. I Capture the Castle
  36. West With Giraffes (again, audio)
  37. Born a Crime (definitely via audio)
  38. The Book Thief
  39. Far from the Madding Crowd (I recommend my review of this :/)
  40. Handmaid’s Tale
  41. A Prayer for Owen Meany
  42. Crossing to Safety
  43. It by Stephen King
  44. East of Eden
  45. Mrs. Dalloway
  46. The Signature of All Things
  47. Milkman
  48. Lager Queen of Minnesota
  49. Remarkably Bright Creatures
  50. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
  51. Mister Pip
  52. The Sparrow
  53. Trust
  54. Lessons in Chemistry
  55. The Reader
  56. Mountains Beyond Mountains
  57. Destiny of the Republic
  58. A Year of Pies
  59. Pie for Everyone
  60. Ms American Pie
  61. PIE
  62. Seabiscuit
  63. Alphabet Juice
  64. Looking for Alaska
  65. anything by Anna Quindlen
  66. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
  67. A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon
  68. These Precious Days
  69. Commonwealth
  70. A Gate at the Stairs
  71. Hello Beautiful
  72. Just Mercy
  73. MERCY by Toni Morrison
  74. Lab Girl
  75. Proust Was a Neuroscientist
  76. The Most Famous Man in America
  77. Out of the Flames
  78. (have I repeated any??)
  79. Five Tuesdays in Winter
  80. The Radium Girls
  81. Tiny Beautiful Things
  82. This is Not the Time to Panic
  83. Educated
  84. Love Begins in Winter / Simon Van Booy
  85. Chronicles of Narnia
  86. Mouse and the Motorcycle
  87. EDWARD TULANE!!!
  88. Mad With Yellow / Lisa J Starr
  89. Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower
  90. Anchor by Rebecca Aronson
  91. A Cartography of Peace
  92. All I Have in This World
  93. The Correspondent (V.Evans debut)
  94. Broken Earth Series
  95. There Was a Party for Langston
  96. Station Eleven
  97. Trespasses / Louise Kennedy
  98. Veronica
  99. Tale of Two Cities
  100. Ducks, Newburyport

Oh well, this should keep my friend quite busy. Bwahhahhaaahhahahahhhaha

Follow my GoodReads tracking here.

Post Script #1 – At first I miscounted…and then I ran out of time! AGAIN THIS IS A DRAFT.

Post Script #2 – no need for me to try and justify this. It is my list. A LIST. A list I made today, for fun.

As always, my theme: Eat some pie. Read books.

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

I Did It! > Ashe County NC Reading Challenge ’25

Challenge, Classics, Historical Lit, Library, Lists, Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 50 (yes, FIFTY!) category challenge . . .

BIG thank you to Amy who AGAIN sent me the list of 50 categories and still encourages me. YAY me, YAY AMY!

My grand list by clicking on my goodreads list does NOT provide the match of title to category so I am posting the snap-pic of my google sheet tracking:

You want to know my favorites, yes?

Beautyland, A Cartography of Peace, Two-Step Devil, Woodworking… Let’s go with these.

Quite a few books I’ve read could satisfy a category, OBVIOUSLY, and I gave up trying to do that; explains why I have more than 50 books in goodreads accounted for as well as visible when I have two books in the slot on the above chart. Ta da!

Wait – NO… I never did completely read the Judy Blume Summer Sisters. I started it, but got waylaid by must-read book club books or something. It is back on the TBR.

Copyright © 2007-2026. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.