Glad Game 2019: November 3

* took advantage of naturally waking up early combined with end of Daylight Savings Time to go grocery shopping early before the store got insane on a Sunday morning

* took the Halloween outdoor decorations down and put the Christmas ones up (they won't get turned on until after thanksgiving but I hate dealing with them in icky weather.

* made a yummy and comfort-foody lunch that filled me up for the day.

* did not let a materials failure on a planned project get me down. I regrouped, arranged replacement for the material and moved on.

* inked and calligraphed scroll for East Kingdom. Also got the majority of the gold paint down.

* started new physical book.

2019 Around the Year reading challenge: #39

A book with a strong sense of place or where the author brings the location/setting to life

Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Hazel Gaynor
and Heather Webb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What an absolutely beautiful book. Made more so by the artistic readings of all the narrators. I cannot recommend this audiobook enough.

Christmas 1968, Paris. Tom Harding, nearing the end of his life, travels to Paris to remember a time long gone. World War I. He brings with him letters from him, his dear friend Evie, her brother Will, people in his life during the long days of the War to End all wars.

This book is an epistolary of all those letters, mostly between him and Evie, as their friendship (having known each other since childhood) endures the savageries of the War as he is shipped to the front lines and Evie stays in England.

The writing is poetical and lovely. The imagery invoked brings it all to the imagination. I found myself moved over and over again by the words, the reading of the narrators (there was one narrator for each person so you could better follow along the audio) and the pacing. I am not ashamed that I was moved to rage, fury, frustration and tears as this book progressed.

If there is one fictional book I would recommend from this year's books, it is this one. Whole heartedly. I am inclined to buy the physical book and see if it moves me as much as the audio did.



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