Rose City Reader

Thursday, April 16, 2026

The Secret Hours by Mich Herron -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Secret Hours by Mich Herron

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The worse smell in the world is dead badger.

-- from The Secret Hours by Mich Herron.

The Secret Hours is a prequel to Mick Herron's Slow Horses series. I love all the Slow Horses books, so am happy to dive into the backstory behind Jackson Lamb and his crew of misfits.

I meant to be reading my book club's next book this week. But I just couldn't hack another "heartwarming story of love and redemption." I'm in the mood for ascerbic, exciting, and edgy, not more crosscultural historical fiction with a braided narrative of a young American woman today looking for her family history in a far away land.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Secret Hours:

This morning, as at every other hour of the day, Neezer wore a pork-pie hat and a plaid waistcoat over a white shirt and black jeans, an unlit roll-up in the corner of his mouth completing the outfit. When he heard Max approaching over the redundant cattle grid, he was making coffee in a microwave hooked up to a generator that had the kind of dry cough that would call for a lateral flow test if a human had it, and benignly watching a man who looked about eighty trying to load a dishwasher into the back of a van.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Two years ago, a hostile prime minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating “historical over-reaching” by the British Secret Service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so.

But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn. Now the administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust—and Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as their career prospects are washed away by the pounding London rain.

Until the eve of Monochrome’s shuttering, when an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin—an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.

The Secret Hours is a dazzling entry point into Mick Herron’s body of work, a standalone spy thriller that is at once unnerving, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny. It is also the breathtaking secret history that Slough House fans have been waiting for.

Friday, April 10, 2026

The Art of Making Memories by Meik Wiking -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Art of Making Memories by Meik Wiking

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

To paraphrase one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, Winnie-the-Pooh: you don't know you are making memories, you just know you are having fun.

-- from The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments by Meik Wiking.

I just discovered and ordered a copy of The Art of Making Memories because I loved Meik Wiking's earlier books, The Little Book of Hygge and The Little Book of Lykke. Both warmed my soul. I am looking forward to a cozy afternoon with this one.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point.

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Art of Making Memories:

So, if you want to be unforgettable, dare to be odd, to stand out. For instance, If I am doing a presentation at a conference, I often stand out easily because people remember
"that happiness guy" -- but what if I were just one out of twenty happiness researchers?

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Memories are the cornerstones of our identity, shaping who we are, how we act, and how we feel. In his work as a happiness researcher, Meik Wiking has learned that people are happier if they hold a positive, nostalgic view of the past. But how do we make and keep the memories that bring us lasting joy?

The Art of Making Memories examines how mental images are made, stored, and recalled in our brains, as well as the “art of letting go”—why we tend to forget certain moments to make room for deeper, more meaningful ones. Meik uses data, interviews, global surveys, and real-life experiments to explain the nuances of nostalgia and the different ways we form memories around our experiences and recall them—revealing the power that a “first time” has on our recollections, and why a piece of music, a smell, or a taste can unexpectedly conjure a moment from the past. Ultimately, Meik shows how we each can create warm memories that will stay with us for years.

Thursday, April 2, 2026

Care of the Souls by Thomas Moore -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore

The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is “loss of soul.”

— Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore.

I first read Care of the Soul back in the ‘90s, shortly after it was published and shortly after I had gone through a divorce. It had a great impact on me then. I am curious to see how it will strike me when I reread it now, much older and well into a very happy second marriage. I suspect it still has a lot to offer, even if what I take from it this time is different.

Have you read this one or any of Moore's books? If you aren't familiar with his books, Care of the Soul is not about your Christian soul, or soul in a religious sense. He is talking about "soul" in terms of Jungian or post-Jungian archetypal psychology. He draws on the wisdom of world religions, but writes in terms of "spirituality," not about religion per se.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

Jung explains that when we meet something of the shadow in another, we often feel repulsed, but that is because we are confronting something in ourselves that we find objectionable, something with which we ourselves struggle, and something that contains qualities valuable to the soul. The negative image we have of narcissism may indicate that self-preoccupation contains something we need so badly that it is surrounded with negative connotations.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

[Care of the Soul] provides a path-breaking lifestyle handbook that shows how to add spirituality, depth, and meaning to modern-day life by nurturing the soul. Readers are presented with a revolutionary approach to thinking about daily life—everyday activities, events, problems and creative opportunities—and a therapeutic lifestyle is proposed that focuses on looking more deeply into emotional problems and learning how to sense sacredness in even ordinary things.

Basing his writing on the ancient model of "care of the soul"—which provided a religious context for viewing the everyday events of life—Moore brings "care of the soul" into the 21st century. Promising to deepen and broaden the reader's perspective on his or her own life experiences, Moore draws on his own life as a therapist practicing "care of the soul," as well as his studies of the world's religions and his work in music and art, to create this inspirational guide that examines the connections between spirituality and the problems of individuals and society.

Thursday, March 26, 2026

Lessons by Ian McEwan -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Lessons by Ian McEwan

MY BOOK BEGINNING

This was insomniac memory, not a dream. It was the piano lesson again – an orange-tiled floor, one high window, a new upright in a bare room close to the sickbay.

-- from Lessons by Ian McEwan. McEwan is a must-read author for me but I've fallen behind with his more recent books. Lessons came out in 2022 and I am just now reading it. I love it and now wish I had made an effort to read it earlier. It's both the story of one man and how a confusing sexual experience changed the trajectory of his life, and a capsulized history, through his eyes, of England from WWII to the present. "Boomer Bio," yes. Sprawling, yes. But also intimate and engaging.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point.

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Lessons:

Two days later Roland and his parents took the train from Liverpool Street to Ipswich. Outside the comatose Victorian station they waited for a number 202 bus, as instructed in a letter from the headmaster’s secretary.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

Thursday, March 19, 2026

Chocolat by Joanne Harris -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

MY BOOK BEGINNING

We came on the wind of the carnival. A warm wind for February, laden with the hot greasy sense of frying pancakes and sausages and powdery-sweet waffles cooked on the hot plate right there by the roadside, with the confetti sleeting down collars and cuffs and rolling in the gutters like an idiot anecdote to winter.

-- from Chocolat by Joanne Harris.

I saw the movie adaptation of Chocolat with Juliette Binoche Johnny Depp back when it came out in 2000. But the book has sat unread on my shelf for years. I have this weird hang up about watching an adaptation and reading a book (or vice versa) back to back. I think it stems from my deep love of plot that makes me wait until the plot has faded in my mind before consuming the story in the other format. The problem is, I often forget to read the book (or watch the movie). That's what happened with Chocolat. I put it on my TBR 26 in '26 list to push myself to read it.

Now that I am almost finished with the book, I regret having it take up shelf space for so long. It's a fun romp of a story, but Harris paints it with such a broad brush it's cartoonish. The sexy cholate-making stranger blows into the village and squares off with the mean priest. She's good. He's bad. Get it? It might be the rare exception to the rule and the movie is better than the book. At least the movie condenses the simplistic story into two hours.

Have you read Chocolat or watched the movie? What did you think?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point.

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Chocolat:

I remember now; the boy supporting his mother's arm as they passed on their way to church. Alone of all Lansquenet's children, he has never bought chocolates from La Praline, though I think I may have seen him looking in at the window once or twice.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows. Each box of luscious bonbons comes with a free gift: Vianne's uncanny perception of its buyer's private discontents and a clever, caring cure for them. Is she a witch? Soon the parish no longer cares, as it abandons itself to temptation, happiness, and a dramatic face-off between Easter solemnity and the pagan gaiety of a chocolate festival.

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