Oh William!

 

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Amgash, #3

Fiction

2021

Finished on December 15, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William."

Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. "William," she confesses, "has always been a mystery to me." Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years. They just are.

So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret--one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together--even after we've grown apart.

When I first started reading Elizabeth Strout's novels, I didn't care about her characters. I eventually came to love Olive Kitteridge, but I have yet to feel the same about Lucy Barton. Oh William! is Strout's third installment in her Amgash series, in which Lucy is the central character. Narrated in first person, and speaking to the reader, we are privy to Lucy's thoughts and emotions. She and her first husband have remained friends of a sort, and Lucy expresses her fondness and exasperation toward William, as well as grieving the death of her second husband. 

Grief is such a--oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you.

She reflects on her lonely childhood, and the lack of love and nurturing from her mother. She also speaks about her relationship with William's mother, who is very present in their lives during their marriage. This is a quiet, character-driven story that unfolds slowly. It reads like a conversation between two friends, with abrupt interruptions in a train of thought or memory. Many of Strout's paragraphs begin with statements such as these:

 "I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William."

 "Also (I suddenly remembered this too) ..." 

 "What I mean to say"

 “I don’t want to say any more about that...”

Since I have two other books by Strout to read (Lucy by the Sea is up next), I pushed through to finish this one even though it's not one that I can recommend. Had it been longer (I read it in less than two nights), I may have given up. Overall, a disappointment.

My reviews of the other books in this series:

My Name is Lucy Barton (4/5)

Anything is Possible (3/5)

Olive, Again

 

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Fiction

2019

Finished on December 12, 2025 (second reading)

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Elizabeth Strout brilliantly lays bare the inner lives of ordinary people, none more eloquently than the protagonist of her universally acclaimed Olive Kitteridge. "Funny, wicked and remorseful, Mrs. Kitteridge is a compelling life force, a red-blooded original," declared the San Francisco Chronicle. "When she's not onstage, we look forward to her return."

And now Olive has indeed returned, as indomitable as ever, navigating her next decade and the changes--sometimes welcome, sometimes not--in her own life. Here is Olive, strangely confident in her second marriage, in an evolving relationship with her son and his family, and crossing paths with a cast of memorable characters in the seaside town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth at a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the irascible Olive improbably touches the lives of everyone around her. 

I won't write too much about this book since I reviewed it three years ago. I can't explain why it wasn't a 5-star read for me the second time around, but I did enjoy it. I even marked passages that I didn't notice during my first reading.

Here is the thing that Cindy, for the rest of her life, would never forget: Olive Kitteridge said, "My God, but I have always loved the light in February." Olive shook her head slowly. "My God," she repeated, with awe in her voice. "Just look at that February light."

and

Loneliness. Oh, the loneliness!

It blistered Olive.

She had not known such a feeling her entire life; this is what she thought as she moved about the house. It may have been the terror finally wearing off and giving way for this gaping bright universe of loneliness that she faced, but it bewildered her to feel this. She realized it was as though she had--all her life--four big wheels beneath her, without even knowing it, of course, and now they were, all four of them, wobbling and about to come off. She did not know who she was, or what would happen to her.

One day she sat in the big chair that Jack used to sit in and she thought she had become pathetic. If there was one thing Olive hated, it was pathetic people. And now she was one of them. 

and

As soon as it got dark she tucked herself into her little single bed and watched television. The news was amazing to her. And this helped her. The country was in terrible disarray, and Olive found this interesting. At times she thought fascism might be knocking on the door of the country, but then she would think, Oh, I'll die soon, who cares. Sometimes she thought of Christopher and all his kids and she felt worried about their future, but then she would think: There's nothing I can do about it, everything is going to hell.

Olive is brash and outspoken, and yet underneath all of her gruffness and lack of filter, she's quite loveable. I  hope she plays a prominent role in another book by Strout.

Rather than link to my earlier review, I'm including it here:

Marvelous! Was it insomnia that led me to finish this book at 1:30 in the morning or the mere fact that I couldn't put it down? After reading the final page, I kept thinking about Olive and the motley cast of characters in this follow-up to Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize winner, Olive Kitteridge. Truthfully, I had to force myself to turn off the light and not start rereading from the beginning of the book.

In 2014 I read Olive Kitteridge (giving it a second chance after previously quitting on the audiobook) in preparation to watching the four-part HBO mini-series of the same name. I not only fell in love with Strout's writing, but came to care about Olive, warts and all. 

Olive, Again is an outstanding follow-up and does not disappoint. In similar fashion to the original novel, this book is comprised of thirteen vignettes. Olive takes center stage in most chapters, but is only a passing figure in others. I especially enjoyed the presence of characters from other novels by Strout (Isabelle from Amy & Isabelle was an unexpected treat!) and I'm now inspired to go back and reread each of her books. 

Having watched Frances McDormand in the lead role of the mini-series, I had a vivid picture of Olive, laughing out loud at her caustic remarks while feeling a tug of sadness and empathy as her life grew emptier and lonelier. I felt an ache of melancholy as I turned the last page, not ready to leave Olive, with whom I felt a strong connection as she reflected upon her life as a wife and mother in her final years. Thankfully, I have copies of both books for future reading and plan to rewatch the TV drama. 

Olive, Again is a poignant glimpse into aging, while providing levity with hilarious one-liners by the irascible and blunt heroine of Olive Kitteridge. Highly recommend!

The Marriage Portrait

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

Historical Fiction

2022

Finished on December 8, 2025

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the author of the New York Times best seller Hamnet--winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Women's Prize for fiction--an electrifying new novel set in Renaissance Italy and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now make her way in a trouble court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court's eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferrarese dynasty. Until then, for all her rank and nobility, the new duchess's future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the drama and verve with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman's battle for her very survival.

Bravo! I love this novel! Maggie O'Farrell is a consummate storyteller, and The Marriage Portrait may be her best book yet. With vivid settings and strongly defined characters, O'Farrell transports her readers to 16th century Italy. 

The sky above her head is vast, stretching from the tops of the cypresses all the way to the distant peaks of the Apennines, which can be seen, far off, in the purple-grey haze. As she walks beneath it, she is aware of its spectrum shifts, from the pink of sunrise, to red, to orange.

This, she thinks. All this. The cypresses like rows of upended paintbrushes, waiting for the giant hand of an artist, the low and subjugated wind, the jagged line of mountains drawn in charcoal on the horizon, the muted calls of servants to each other, somewhere behind her, the open doors of the villa, the clink of bells around the necks of cattle, the lines and lines of fruit trees that open into avenues as she walks by. She wants this. She feels the bliss of it all on her skin, like the graze of drizzle after a parching drought. She can take the other, she can bear it, if it means she can have this. She will exchange that for this. She will, she can.

Narrated in alternating timelines, the suspense of Lucrezia's future kept me reading late into the night. And yet I read slowly, savoring the prose, visualizing each scene and introduction of new characters.

The gown rustles and slides around her, speaking a glossolalia all of its own, the silk moving against the rougher nap of the underskirts, the bone supports of the bodice straining and squealing against their coverings, the cuffs scuffing and chafing the skin of her wrists, the stiffened collar hooking and nibbling at her nape, the hip supports creaking like the rigging of a ship. It is a symphony, an orchestra of fabrics, and Lucrezia would like to cover her ears, but she cannot.

While I have enjoyed several of her contemporary novels, O'Farrell talent shines in her dramatic historical fiction. I can't wait to read her upcoming 2026 release, Land, a multi-generational historical epic set in Ireland during the Great Famine. 

Highly recommend. I was tempted to re-read it the moment I finished!

The Nix

 

The Nix by Nathan Hill

Fiction

2016

Narrated by Ari Fliakos

Finished on December 2, 2025

Rating: 2/5 (Meh)

Publisher's Blurb:

It’s 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson hasn’t seen his mother, Faye, in decades—not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she’s reappeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she’s facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel’s help.

To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye’s losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.

One Goodreads' reviewer said she read The Nix in one sitting. 732 pages! 

The audiobook is 21 hours and 42 minutes.

It took me 9 weeks to finish!

I let days go by without listening.

8 of my friends gave it either 4 or 5 stars.

The World of Warcraft-like gaming chapters drove me crazy.

One sentence (in a gaming chapter) was 14 pages in length. Listening to it made me want to scream, "Take a breath!"

Why didn't I quit?

Well, audiobooks have a way of taking hold of me unless the reader is just awful, and Ari Fliakos is not awful. As a matter of fact, his narration is probably the only reason why I continued listening.

And, there was one funny (albeit sad) line, so I was hoping for more like this:

Samuel thought how his father married to his mother was like a spoon married to a garbage disposal.

I listened to Wellness (aso read by Ari Fliakos) this past May. The book was ok, but I didn't really care for it. Since I had a copy of The Nix on my shelf, I decided to try a read/listen approach.

Suffice it to say, I don't plan to read anything else by Nathan Hill.

As a good friend recently wrote, "not every book is for every person."

Nonfiction November 2025 Results

 

What I Read in November!

Original Selections for 2025

I am very pleased with my results for this year's Nonfiction November reading challenge. I chose nothing but memoirs, and managed to read seven of the ten selections. I gave up on one and ran out of time for the last two, but overall it was a great month of reading. Click on the links for my reviews.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (4/5)

Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life by Abigail Thomas (3.5/5)

Altitude Adjustment: A Quest for Love, Home, and Meaning in the Tetons by Mary Beth Baptiste (3.5/5)

The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward by Melinda French Gates (4.5/5)

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (4.5/5)

I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell (4.5/5)

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett (3/5)

One of the nice things about this challenge is that I get to discover a lot of nonfiction books that appeal to me. Here are a few that I've added to my TBR list:

Discovered on Musings of a Literary Wanderer 

(Angela)

Discovered on Books are My Favorite and Best

(Kate)

Discovered on Books Are My Favorite and Best

(Kate)

Discovered on Musings of a Literary Wanderer 

(Angela)

Discovered on Turn the Page

(Tina)

Discovered on Readerbuzz

(Deb)

A Month in Summary - November 2025

Depoe Bay, Oregon

November 2025

So, who has their Christmas tree up and decorated?? With Thanksgiving falling so late in the month, I decided to put our tree up right after our guests went home. We're hosting a small Christmas party for friends on the 9th, so I want to have the house decorated in time for that event. 

November was a pretty busy month for me. A few trips over to Salem and Corvallis (90 minutes each way), visitors at the beginning and end of the month, our anniversary, various doctor appointments, and a trip to the ER. (Rod has Bell's Palsy, which isn't great, but at least it wasn't a stroke!) In spite of all of that, I managed to get quite a bit of reading in. Focusing on the Nonfiction November Challenge, I knocked off seven books from my list. Most were exceptional, but there are a couple that I won't hang onto for a second reading. 

Books Read (click on the title for my review):

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (4/5)

Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life by Abigail Thomas (3.5/5)

Altitude Adjustment: A Quest for Love, Home, and Meaning in the Tetons by Mary Beth Baptiste (3.5/5)

The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward by Melinda French Gates (4.5/5)

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (4.5/5)

I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell (4.5/5)

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett (3/5)

Movies & TV Series:

Black Bag - Fun espionage movie starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. We enjoyed it!

The Beast in Me - A gripping thriller, but very disappointing performance by Claire Danes. Her exaggerated grimaces grew very tiresome, but Matthew Rhys manages to save the show with his stellar portrayal of a sociopath. Fun fact: Matthew Rhys is married to Keri Russell (of The Diplomat). 

Visitors:

My aunt, uncle and cousin came out in early November, visiting from Durham, North Carolina. It's always great to see them!

Thanksgiving was also very enjoyable with two of my three brothers here with their families. Our next door neighbors were also included for dinner that evening.

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

Rod & I celebrated 37 years this month. Twu wuv! 💕 (Poor guy is suffering from Bell's Palsy. He really was smiling on the inside!)

Wishing you all a calm and joyful December!

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

 

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Nonfiction - Memoir

2005

Finished on November 29, 2025

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

How do you conjure a life? Give the truest account of what you saw, felt, learned, loved, strived for? For Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the surprising answer came in the form of an encyclopedia. In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life  she has ingeniously adapted this centuries-old format for conveying knowledge into a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir.

 

Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere—preferably at the beginning—and see how one young woman’s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways.

 

An ordinary life, perhaps, but an extraordinary book.

I've never read anything like this book! Not only is it comprised of alphabetical entries about everything under the sun, but even the copyright page, inside cover flaps, and back cover blurbs are unique and entertaining.

From the copyright page:

Not responsible for lost or stolen property.

Not responsible for the weather, the moon, or scalding nature of soup.

Not responsible for the extra s some people add to the word occasion.

Not responsible for the short, edible window between

the banana is not ripe enough and the banana is rotten.

About this book:

I am not writing a memoir (I have no story); I am not writing an autobiography (for who really cares). I am writing a personal encyclopedia, a thorough documentation of an ordinary life in the end of the twentieth century/beginning of the twenty-first. And in fact, while I didn't know it then, I started this encyclopedia nearly two years ago, when I began gathering my columns/writings and putting them in alphabetical order. And I began it even before that, when I was busy making charts and tables for no apparent reason. And I began it even before that...

Allotting Enough Time to Make Flight:

I always work backward. Okay, the flight leaves at 11:15, so I should be at the airport by 9:15. That means I should leave the house at 8:30--no, play it safe, could be a lot of traffic, say 8:15. That means I need to get up at 7:30; that gives me 45 minutes to get ready and finish any last minute packing. As soon as I've come to this conclusion, I'll immediately repeat the whole internal dialogue-calculations, see if I come up with the same time estimates. I'll do this at least a couple more times the day before I leave, on of the times being that night when I set my alarm clock.

Broker:

It is weird and unsettling that a person who is hired to handle your money, make wise decisions about it, and, ostensibly, keep you from losing it is called a broker. 

Brother:

My brother, who grew up with three sisters, was I won't say how many years old when he finally realized that he did not have to wrap the towel around his chest when he came out of the shower. 

Dishwasher:

It is very difficult to try to load someone else's dishwasher; everyone has their own method. Glasses stacked in this row, bowls this way, silverware facing up, down--it's a highly personal thing. The few times someone outside the family has loaded ours, I opened it up and am disoriented, dismayed even, to find plates in the wrong slots, bowls on the top (the top?!), and even a skillet crammed in there. It's just too counter-productive and unsettling, even though it is nice of them to try to help.

Improvisation at Concerts:

I go to a concert, a band I really love. The band plays the first few bars of my absolutely favorite song, but then... what's that? They're altering it, improvising. The band thinks this is refreshing and artful, a welcome deviation, a prize for attending. But I am irked and disappointed they didn't play it just as I've enjoyed it on the CD all these years.

Potato Chips: 

When I eat potato chips, particularly the crunchy kettle kind, I find myself looking through the bag for the good chips. Somehow a good chip is one that is extra thick looking, and curled onto itself or folded, as opposed to straight and flat. It is a treat, a victory, to find a really good chip and pluck it from the bag. The thinner, straight, or broken ones aren't nearly as pleasing.

Some entries had me nodding my head in agreement and others had me laughing out loud. This is not a book to read straight through in a couple of sittings. I enjoyed reading several pages here and there between a few other books. 

Sadly, Amy Krouse Rosenthal passed away of ovarian cancer in 2017. She was 51. Her husband, Jason Rosenthal, has written a book called My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me: A Memoir. 

Highly Recommend

Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life

 

Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life by Abigail Thomas

Nonfiction - Memoir

2000

Finished on November 26, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A beautifully crafted and inviting accounting of one woman's life, Safekeeping offers a sublimely different kind of autobiography. Setting aside a straight-forward narrative in favor of brief passages of vivid prose, Thomas revisits the pivotal moments and tiny incidents that have shaped her: pregnancy at 18, single motherhood of three by the age of 26, the joys and frustrations of her marriages, and the death of her second husband. With startling clarity and unwavering composure, Thomas tells stories made of mistakes and loyalties, adventures and domesticities, of experience both deeply personal and universal.

This is a book in which silence speaks as eloquently as what is revealed. Openhearted and effortlessly funny, these brilliantly selected glimpses of the arc of life are, in an age of too much confession, a welcome tonic.

This is the third book that I've read by Abigail Thomas. I first discovered her memoir A Three Dog Life in 2007 after reading about it on Nan's blog (Letters from a Hill Farm). I followed up with What Comes Next and How to Like It in 2016. Safekeeping was published in 2000 and provided me with greater insight into Abigail's earlier years, but I didn't care for it as much as her later works. The vignettes jump around in time, as well as point of view (first person, third person, etc.). This slim book reads a bit like a novel, and is just shy of 200 pages, so it's a quick read, but with little take-aways. I had planned to read Still Life at Eighty as soon as I finished Safekeeping, but I think I'll hold off. Maybe I'll re-read the two I loved and then finish up with Still Life at Eighty.

"An artful scatter of snapshot moments... revealing a life that's remarkable not for its events but for the way it's recalled, with rue, insight and wit." ~ Rocky Mountain News

"Razor-sharp pieces of radiant truth.... Not so much memoir as a stained-glass window of scenes garnered from a life. This is an unforgettable portrait of a grown-up woman who has learned to rejoice in being herself. Reading it, we feel the crazy beauty of life." ~ Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird