Robin's Reading List

Robin's Reading List 2026

January- The Art Forger by Barbara A. Shapiro

February- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

February-Theo Of Golden by Allen Levi

March-Matisse and Picasso-Yve-Alain Boise

 April- The Best Time We ever had by Claire Lombardo

May- The Wedding People by Alison Espach

June- The Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspe

July-A Hundred Summers-by Beatriz Williams

Robin's Reading list 2025

August-The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

September- The Phone Booth At The Edge Of The World 

by Laura Imai Messina

October-The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb

November-Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

December-Open House by Elizabeth Berg

*****

Robin's Reading List 2024

January- Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

February- The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight By Jennifer Smith

March- Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

April- The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson by Ellen Baker

May- The French Ingredient A Memoir by Jane Bertch

June: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store 

by James McBride

July: The Constitution of the United States of America

August: Buddha In the Attic by Julie Otsuka

September: The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

*****

Robin's Reading List 2023

  

March- "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner

April- "It Ends With Us" by Colleen Hoover

May- "The Last thing He Told Me" by Laura Dave

June- "Perfect" by Rachel Joyce

July-

"Beyond That, The Sea" by Laura Spence-Ash

August- "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver

September- "Nobody's Fool" by Richard Russo

October- "Lessons In Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus

November- "The Building Of Jalna" by Mazo De La Roche

December- "Pineapple Street" by Jenny Jackson

August- "There is No" Ethan by Anna Akbari

Tom Lake- Robin's Reading List- March

I started the Robin's Reading List book yesterday...(for March)

It took me a moment to get into the rhythm of the writer's style,

but now I am totally engrossed.

I read a bit about the book before choosing it for March....

Perhaps you would like it on your reading list too.

 Synopsis:

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

I am enjoying Tom Lake....in fact, I cannot wait to cuddle up and read more.

Happy Reading.

Robin's Reading List- July

 I started July's book today. It is a few days early, but I was excited to start and share it here.

I was reading a magazine at the dermatologist office when I was there for Larry's appointment.

It is then I read a review about "Beyond That, The Sea" and a short note about the author.

It immediately went on my list and here it is, my July read.

Here is the link to my other 2023 reads.

Robin's Reading List

Have a wonderful day.

Take time for yourself.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

August 1, 2025 Robin's Reading List

Robin's August Book is:

 Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. Oysters, she thought. Where have they been all my life?

When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a traumatic childhood has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. But when her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her last wishes. er mother’s last wishes.

*****

I have enjoyed this book tremendously. It took me back to Paris in the most charming way, and is an easy read with interesting twists and turns in the plot. If you like a mystery, good food and France, you will enjoy this novel by Ruth Reichl.

~Robin~

*****

I would like to hear your thoughts on The Paris Novel.

If you would like to share them, email me at robin@robintolbert.com

I would LOVE  to share your comments about The Paris Novel in a sort of Book Club format.

Robin's Reading List

Lets see how it goes?

(I will keep you posted)

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Robin's Reading List~February

A few weeks ago, Larry and I came across a sweet movie on Netflix. We enjoyed it and at the end of the movie, they had a little ad about the BOOK! Larry bought it for me right away, and it is on this month's  reading list.

Statistical Probity of Love at First Sight

By

Jennifer E. Smith

The synopsis reads:

Timing is everything in this romantic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver find that true love can be found in unexpected places.

Today should be one of the worst days of Hadley Sullivan's life. Having just missed her flight, she's stuck at the airport and late to her father's wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she happens upon the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row....

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

***

With Valentine's Day around the corner, I thought this might be the perfect book for the February Reading List

If you aree not in the mood for the book, perhaps the movie might be a perfect escape.

Please smile often.

It is a beautiful day.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

 

Robin's Reading List December 1st, 2023

 

Photo: December Book

It is finally  December.

Larry and I are home from our Thanksgiving holidays

and

it is Robin's Reading List Day!

Today's book is Pineapple Street.

Here is an idea of what it is about.

Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process; Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family, and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider; and Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t have, and must decide what kind of person she wants to be. 

Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York’s one-percenters, Pineapple Street is a smart, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, loveable—if fallible—characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love—all wrapped in a story that is a sheer delight.

I am enjoying it because it is an escapist novel at its finest and 

need that right now. This is the last book of the year and I can hardly believe that.

Just think of the books that we will read in 2024!

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Robin's Reading List~ June 2024

Happy June!

As always, the first post of the month is a title for my reading list.

This book caught my eye because it is set in Pottstown, PA. (outside Philadelphia and home for me.)

I started the book this weekend, and yes, I will read the book along with you. It is more exciting that way.

If you want to discuss, please contact me at:

robin@robintolbert.com

 

The synopsis is interesting and so far true to the story.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.

I love the title of this book...

and hope that the rest of the book is as enchanting.

Please enjoy this month of June.

Happy reading.

Robin

Robin's Reading List-October

I am sorry that the October reading list book is a few days late.

I was out of town, over the weekend,

 but here we go....

this month's book is,

LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

by 

Bonnie Garmus

 Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. 

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.  

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

I chose this book, for this month (breast cancer awareness month) for my Pink Sister, Judy Dills. It is because of Judy that I had a mammogram in 2012 when they found a tumor. Judy recommended this book to me and now I recommend it to you.

I enjoyed this book very much and hope that you do too. One more thing....please have your breast cancer screening. 

 

Always, Robin

Robin's Reading List - April 2024

Happy APRIL! 

I had been looking for April's book for weeks and it was Larry who found it for me. it is...

 The Hidden Life Of Cecily Larson

He simply said, here is a book that I think that you would like.

It had been purchased and is on my kindle and ready to be read.

(I must finish what I am reading now)

Synopsis:

“A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson’s hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth.” — Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and After

Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make.

 I have been hearing from some of you, commenting if you have read the current months book and what you thought of it. 

Thank you for being part of the blog book list.

I have not started reading The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson yet, so we will be reading it together. I wish that we had a real time book club, so we could meet and discuss the book in person.

Please have a happy first day of April!

Love you beyond the moon.
me

Robin's Reading List~ May

 I am happy to announce my reading list book for May.

It is a memoir by a dear friend, Jane Bertch.

I LOVE this book. It is interesting, fun and quite charming. 

This is the inspiring and delicious memoir of an American woman who had the gall to open a cooking school in Paris—a true story of triumphing over French naysayers and falling in love with a city along the way

“An engaging, multilayered story of a woman navigating innumerable cultural differences to build a life in Paris and create her dream: to establish a French cooking school.”—David Lebovitz, author of My Paris Kitchen

When Jane Bertch was seventeen, her mother took her on a graduation trip to Paris. Thrilled to use her high school French, Jane found her halting attempts greeted with withering condescension by every waiter and shopkeeper she encountered. At the end of the trip, she vowed she would never return.

Yet a decade later she found herself back in Paris, transferred there by the American bank she worked for. She became fluent in the language and excelled in her new position. But she had a different dream: to start a cooking school for foreigners like her, who wanted to take a few classes in French cuisine in a friendly setting, then bring their new skills to their kitchens back home. Predictably, Jane faced the skeptical French—how dare an American banker start a cooking school in Paris?—as well as real-estate nightmares, and a long struggle to find and attract clients.

Thanks to Jane’s perseverance, La Cuisine Paris opened in 2009. Now the school is thriving, welcoming international visitors to come in and knead dough, whisk bechamel, whip meringue, and learn the care, precision, patience, and beauty involved in French cooking.

The French Ingredient is the story of a young female entrepreneur building a life in a city and culture she grew to love. As she established her school, Jane learned how to charm, how to project confidence, and how to give it right back to rude waiters. Having finally made peace with the city she swore to never revisit, she now offers a love letter to France, and a master class in Parisian cooking—and living.

*****

It is just May 2nd and I have finished the Jane's book for this month!

Jane owns the cooking school in Paris where Larry and I take classes each year. It is always a joy to go to spend the afternoon cooking at La Cuisine and visit with Jane and the staff. Jane shares so much her heart in her cooking school and her book. I liked this memoir very much.

Please enjoy this slice of Paris. 

Let me know how you like the book.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Today I am grateful for authors.

 It is August first and that means, today is Robin's Reading List Day.

This month's book was recommended to me by a sweet friend, Lisa A in New England.

The book is 

THERE IS NO ETHAN

by Anna Akbari

The Amazon synopsis reads:

In 2011, three successful and highly educated women fell head over heels for the brilliant and charming Ethan Schuman. Unbeknownst to the others, each exchanged countless messages with Ethan, staying up late into the evenings to deepen their connections with this fascinating man. His detailed excuses about broken webcams and complicated international calling plans seemed believable, as did last minute trip cancellations. After all, why would he lie?  Ethan wasn't after money — he never convinced his marks to shell out thousands of dollars for some imagined crisis. Rather, he ensnared these women in a web of intense emotional intimacy. After the trio independently began to question inconsistencies in their new flame's stories, they managed to find one another and uncover a greater deception than they could've ever imagined. As Anna Akbari and the women untangled their catfish’s web, they found other victims and realized that without a proper crime, there was no legal reason for “Ethan” to ever stop.

THERE IS NO ETHAN catalogues Akbari's experience as both victim and observer. By looking at the bigger picture of where these stories unfold — a world where technology mediates our relationships; where words and images are easily manipulated; and where truth, reality, and identity have become slippery terms — Akbari gives a page-turning and riveting examination of why stories like Ethan's matter for us all.

***

I have just started reading There is No Ethan, but it is attention grabbing for sure.

Please let me know how you like There is No Ethan.

*****

Happy August.

Remember to be kind to yourself...and to others.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Robin's Reading List 2024 ~ January

This is my first book of 2024! 

A few weeks ago, my cousin Natalie, 

(Uncle Bruce's Granddaughter) posted her favorite books of 2023.

This novel reached out and grabbed me. I am reading it now and loving the sweet characters. It was written in Japanese and translated to English. 

I love the gentle references. 

Strange Weather in Tokyo

by Hiromi Kawakami

 

 Because I have just started this book, and loving it, here is the synopsis from Amazon.

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize, Strange Weather in Tokyo is a story of loneliness and love that defies age.

Tsukiko, thirty-eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei," in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.

As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time's passing is marked by Kawakami's gentle hints at the changing seasons: from warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms. Strange Weather in Tokyo is a moving, funny, and immersive tale of modern Japan and old-fashioned romance.

I am perhaps 1/3 of the way through this wonderful book and enjoying it very much. If you read it, please let me know how you liked it.

Happy New Year!

If you have any book recommendations, please contact me at

robin@robintolbert.com

 

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Today I am grateful for my dear friend Judy-She has covid and I wish her to get well soon.

 Robin's Reading List

Photo: July's book is The Constitution of the United States

We should all read the Constitution of the United States of America in its entirety. Do you know what we are living for and what is expected of our elected officials? 

In honor of the 4th of July, this is my suggested reading for the month.

It costs $9.99 on Amazon.

This book sits on our coffee table and is picked up by the most unlikely people. Do you own a copy? Have you read the complete contract?

It is a dull, informative read, but very important and we live by these standards every day of our lives.

The Constitution of the United States of America is my book suggestion for the month of July.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Nobody's Fool, Robin's Reading List~ September

 This months book is 

Nobody's Fool

By Richard Russo.

This is the first book of a trilogy by Richard Russo.

Nobody's Fool

Everybody's Fool

and Somebody's fool

I have been a Russo fan for years and 

decided to start with the first book of the trilogy.

Nobody's Fool.....From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls, this slyly funny, moving novel about a blue-collar town in upstate New York—and about Sully, one of its unluckiest citizens, who has been doing the wrong thing triumphantly for fifty years—is a classic American story.

Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.

*****

Today is the first Monday in September and I have been sick with the flu or covid for a over  week. It is a really good time for 

me to start a new book.

I would love to hear from you if you have read

Nobody's Fool.

(email me at robin@robintolbert.com or comment below)

Happy reading.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me

Robin's Reading List~ July

 The the past month I have read 

"The Other Boleyn Sister" and "Jane Eyre".....

so when it was time for July's book 

I opted for a light beach read.

I went to Half Price Books 

and picked up the first book I

saw with

  the word SUMMER in the title.

This is what presented itself to me.

I am on page 50, and so far so good.

Here is what Amazon says about it:

Lily Dane has returned to Seaview, Rhode Island, where her family has summered for generations. It’s an escape not only from New York’s social scene but from a heartbreak that still haunts her. Here, among the seaside community that has embraced her since childhood, she finds comfort in the familiar rituals of summer.
 
But this summer is different. Budgie and Nick Greenwald—Lily’s former best friend and former fiancé—have arrived, too, and Seaview’s elite are abuzz. Under Budgie’s glamorous influence, Lily is seduced into a complicated web of renewed friendship and dangerous longing.
 
As a cataclysmic hurricane churns north through the Atlantic, and uneasy secrets slowly reveal themselves, Lily and Nick must confront an emotional storm that will change their worlds forever...

I hope that you are having a 

wonderful summer so far.

Love you beyond the moon.

me

October 1, 2025

 Robin's Reading List

The River Is Waiting

by

Wally Lamb

The story:

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?

I have been a Wally Lamb fan for years...

and to have his new novel released on my birthday made me very happy.

I could not wait to start it, and "The River Is Waiting" is as well written as ever.

Here is the link to the book list....

Robin's Book List

Love you beyond the moon.

Me.

An Evening with Barbra Kingsolver

 Last night, Larry and I spent the evening with author, Barbara Kingsolver. I wish it had been at a intimate dinner somewhere special in Dallas, but we were with 500 of her closest friends at Temple Emanu-El.

My fist Barbara Kingsolver book was Prodigal Summer in 2000.

I have been a fan since then, and when Demon Copperhead won the Pulitzer, I felt like my sister won.

Last night I got to spend the evening with one of my favorite authors.  She is humble and smart with a sense of humor that sneaks up on you. Much like her writing.

The evening began with a short reading, the mediator, Rabbi Stern asked questions and then Barbara conducted a Q&A.

As always, I am to shy to ask a question. I wanted to ask:

How did you find out that you won the Pulitzer? 

What naughty words did you shout???

Near the end of the book, Angus says to Demon, it is YOU who is magic.

As you wrote the book, did you feel Demon was magic too? Did you ALWAYS feel like Demon was magic? OR did you discover his power as the book was winding down?

Larry is over half-way reading Demon Copperhead, and I read it ages ago and it was on the "Book List" for August.

Robin's Book List

I looked forward to last night and hate that it is over.

Love you beyond the moon.

Me