From The Archives: DOA's Mystery Bingo

 Don't you just love those Reading Bingo sheets?  Here's one I did that I like.  If you get Bingo, reward yourself with a new Mystery Book!  Win, win.

 

 

Goodreads: My Year In Books 2025

 I've tracked my reading on Goodreads this year, and I will probably do it again for 2026.  I'll go for a 50 book reading challenge again, and be happy with any reading that goes over it.  Here's my 2025 reading!

 

 

 

 

 

DOA's December

 

We made it! It's the last month of the year and we are all (mostly) still standing.  This post will be the 84th post for the Librariandoa blog.  I'll just need sixteen more posts to get to the ever desirable 100 posts :)

Though I posted every day in November, I don't plan to do that in December.  I will be keeping three themed post days active this month:

DOA On TV Sundays

Mary's Recipes Thursdays

Saturday Puzzles

 

Never fear, there won't be a content drought!

DOA In The Kitchen!

 

I recently purchased several great cookbooks I'll highlight.

I've four nice sized cookie jars, I think they're all from Walmart, but I plan to put one type of cookie in each, with a little label so a person can just dig in.  Date filled cookies, Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Sandwich Cookies and Spritz are this seasons selections.  Pictures and recipes used as I make them.

On the side, I'll make half recipes of Muddy Buddies, Rice Krispie Bars, and daringly caramels and divinity.  Good luck with those last two, you say.  This could be the year when I succeed.

Crafty DOA!

Time to soothe the inner beast by doing craft projects. Crafting can put you in a "meditative state", they say.  Unless you mess up.

I've recently started painting ceramic things again.  I've no artistic talent, but I see painting these fun objects as being much like working in a coloring book.  I've always liked using nice colors and I must stay inside the lines. Some of these are new, some I’ve had for years.

I recently purchased a book called 100 Crochet Tiles.  I saw it in a store and looked at the directions, and determined I can do the stitches required.  Bozo that I am, I didn't pay attention to the yarn used, which is Paintbox and Scheejpes, a European yarn.  You can get this on Amazon.  I picked a square to try and ordered the Paintbox Yarn for that square.  The skeins are 1.7 oz, perhaps just enough for one square?  Watch this space to see.  Another roadblock here is I can't make a "magic ring" to save myself, so I either finally learn it, or just have a hole in the middle, lol.

 

A Merry Murderous Christmas!

I have a pile of Christmas Murder Mysteries I plan to read and review this month.  Since two of the books are short story collections, I'm giving myself a goal of having read all of my Christmas Mysteries by December 31st.

I don't quite have all of my books yet, so I'll post that list when I have them.  

This plan is inspired by the Ho Ho Ho Readathon at the Caffeinated Reviewer Blog.  I would love to have signed up for this reading challenge, but just not this year.

https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/2025/11/ho-ho-ho-readathon-begins.html 

 

 

Have a very Merry December! 

Librariandoa's Books Read In 2021

 

Here's my grand list of books read in 2021.  Not all, perhaps not most, were published in 2021.  

I would find reviews of a new book, or even ads for a book by an author, get the first one, and in many cases I'd start reading all of the series.  In the case of long series, those with ten or more books, I may have bought them all, but I like variety in my reading so I sprinkle them in amongst other books. 

In 2021 for the first time, I wrote a review of everything I read, so I have an actual record.  With all of the notebooks I keep, you'd think I could do a well kept reading notebook.  It doesn't work for me.

Reviews for January through July of 2021 are on my MerlynPerilous blog (merged with this "Classic DOA blog in August of last year).   https://merlynperilous.wordpress.com/ 

I may be wary of 2022 in some ways (har har, I thought 2021 would be so lovely), but with my backlog of great books to read and new series to try, and a promising start of new books to be published in 2022, I expect reading wise that 2022 will be an excellent year.

2021 Reads: 

1. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone Trilogy #1)

2. All Systems Red by Martha Wells Murderbot Diaries #1

3. Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

4. The House on Vesper Sands by Padraic O’Donnell

5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

6. Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T. A. Willberg

7. The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

8. The Desolations of Devil’s Acre by Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #6)

9. Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler  (Bryant and May Peculiar Crimes Unit Mysteries #1)

10. A Court of Thorns and Roses By Sarah J Maas (Court of Thorns and Roses #1)

11. Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone #2)

12. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone #3)

13. A Test of Wills: The First Inspector Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd

14. A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourne (Veronica Speedwell Mysteries #2)

15. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

16. Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

17. Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March

18. The City of Brass by S A Chakraborty  (The Daevabad Trilogy #1)

19. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

20. Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

21. The Water Room by Christopher Fowler (Peculiar Crimes Unit #2)

22. Dead Land Sarah Paretsky

23. The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

24. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious #1)

25. The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

26. Greenglass House by Kate Milford

27. The Big Four by Agatha Christie

28. The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Greystone Secrets #1)

29. The Deceivers by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Greystone Secrets #2)

30. Kingdom of Copper by S A Chakraborty (Daevabad Trilogy #2)

31. The Empire of Gold by S A Chakraborty (Daevabad Trilogy #3)

32. The Messengers by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Greystone Secrets #3)

33. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

34. Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C Bunce (Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries #1)

35. Truthwitch by Susan Dennard  (The Witchlands #1)

36. Windwitch by Susan Dennard  (The Witchlands #2)

37. Peril at End House by Agatha Christie

38. Mirror’s Edge by Scott Westerfeld (Imposters #3)

39. How to Get Away With Myrtle by Elizabeth C Bunce (Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries #2)

40. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

41. Lord Edgeware Dies by Agatha Christie

42. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious #3)

43. Bloodwitch by Susan Dennard (The Witchlands #3)

44. The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson  (Truly Devious #2)

45. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (Red Queen Series #1)

46. Witchshadow by Susan Dennard (The Witchlands #4)

47. The Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford

48. The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious #4)

49.Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

50. The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Inheritance Games #1)

51. Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer

52. The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Inheritance Games #2)

53. Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

54. The Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard  (Red Queen Series #2)

55. Credible Threat by J A Jance

56. Road of Bones by James R Benn

57. Child of Light by Terry Brooks

58. Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie

59. Uneasy Lies the Crown by Tasha Alexander

60. Cold Blooded Myrtle by Elizabeth C Bunce (Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries #3)

61. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

62. The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik (Scholomance #2)

63. The Kings Cage by Victoria Aveyard (Red Queen #3)

64. The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

65. The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time #1)

66. Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Netflix)

I loved this movie.  I have not read the book, but enjoyed the story and characters so much I'm going to get the book.  This was hugely popular with Reading Groups when it came out, and I can see why.

It's a mystery, a historical tale, a romance, and is filled with a love of books and reading that may not have been captured anywhere as well in ages.

It's the story of a young woman writer named Juliet Ashton in 1946.  As London is being rebuilt after the Second World War she is assigned an article by her publisher to write about Reading.

She's not too keen on it until she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams.  He's a pig farmer from the island of Guernsey who has her personal copy of Lamb's Essays of Elia which had her name and address inside it.  He attends a book group called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society which was begun during the Nazi Occupation of Guernsey during the war, and which has continued.  He'd like recommendations for more books by author Charles Lamb, and London bookstores which might carry them.

She loves the story of this book group helping it's members through such terrible times and feels it will be just what she needs for her article on Reading.

Feeling like she knows the Society and it's members from Dawes letter, she hastily packs and sets out for Guernsey, letting Dawes know she's on the way and that she'd like to do an article on his group.

Her reception is so funny.  There's nowhere in town to stay so she ends up in the home of a grim matron.

The Society members are shocked by her presence, and the meeting starts out very awkwardly.  The group meets at Amelia Maugery's house, and Amelia is particularly frosty in her reception.  She immediately tells Juliet she must lead the discussion.  Then coldy advises that the leader stands for her presentation.  By the end of the evening everyone is comfortably seated and is having a lively discussion of the evenings book.

Lily James is luminous as Juliet.   Juliet is a very modern girl, who knows what she wants, and is completely lively and in the moment.   She handles the reception by the members with aplomb.  When she finds there is much more to the story of the Society and it's wartime origins, she stays on the island, researching, and becoming friends with most of the members.  To her surprise, she eventually feels very much like they are family as well as friends.

Penelope Wilton, an alumni from Downton Abbey as is James, is so wonderful here.  She's this seemingly hard, tough woman who has borne too much, seen too much.

Michiel Huisman plays a remarkably sensitive man for his profession, so well read and a fine letter writer to boot.

I love the book discussions.

Love the interwoven mystery of Elizabeth.

Love that the children are included in the readings and discussions.

Most films don't capture the love of reading as this one does.

Loved at the end while the credits ran that you could hear a rather heated discussion of another book.

Read on, Peelers.