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Goodreads 2020 52 Books Around-the-Year Challenge 1. A book with a title that doesn't contain the letters A, T or Y -  Invisible Girl,  Lisa Jewe1. 2. A book by an author whose last name is one syllable -   The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo , Taylor Jenkins Reid 3. A book that you are prompted to read because of something you read in 2019 -   The Butterfly Girl,  Rene Denfeld (Sequel to  The Child Finder,  read in Feb., 2019) 4. A book set in a place or time that you wouldn't want to live -  The Great Alone , Kristin Hannah (Set in a very isolated and primitive area in Alaska in the 1970s. The setting was AWESOME, but I would never want to live there.) ) 5. The first book in a series that you have not started -   Two Girls Down,  Louisa Luna 6. A book with a mode of transportation on the cover -  Conviction , Denise Mina (ship's anchor)  7. A book set in the southern hemisphere -  Trust No One,  Paul Cleave (Set in Ne...
2019 Goodreads Challenge: Around the Year in 52 Books (+Wild Card) 1. A book that was nominated for or won an award in a genre you enjoy -  The Woman in the Window , A. J. Finn (An Amazon Best Book of 2018) 2. A book with one of the 5 W's in the title (Who, What, Where, When, Why)-  I Know Who You Are , Alice Feeney 3. A book where the author’s name contains A, T, and Y (representing  A round  T he  Y ear) -  Fight or Flight,  Samantha Young 4. A book with a criminal character (i.e. assassin, pirate, thief, robber, scoundrel etc.) -  Mr. Mercedes , Stephen King (plus I read the following two books in the trilogy,  Finders Keepers  and  End of Watch,  about the same "assassin/scoundrel.") 5. A book by Shakespeare or inspired by Shakespeare  -  A Thousand Acres , Jane Smiley (Described as King Lear on an Iowa farm .  Pulitzer Prize winner!) 6. A book with a dual timeline -  Fragile ,...
Every year since 1990-something, I've written an Acton Christmas story for my holiday letter. The story is "creative" nonfiction. Some of the events happened, but mostly it's a story. Here is this year's, based on the runaway antics of our shelter dog, Sara.                            An Acton Christmas - 2018:  "Runaway Christmas" In the Acton home, Mom was feeling the pressure of Christmas. There were always so many things she needed to do: paint each fingernail with a different holiday design, read all the books she was giving before she wrapped them – and those were just the important jobs. This year even the minor jobs like shopping and decorating were complicated. This year everything had changed – all because of Sara. Mom and Dad had a dog! Brennan was the first to notice the changes when he came home for Christmas. He called Mom’s phone from the driveway. “How am I supposed to get in the house?...