Blogmas is HERE & Books I Read in November

Blogmas Day 1

Happy Blogmas!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! To celebrate, I’ll be blogging every single day leading up to Christmas.

That’s right, you read that correctly.

Every. Single. Day.

25 days until Christmas = 25 Coffee With Keri blog posts. Get excited!

I challenged myself to do Blogmas last year and had so much fun sharing holiday content with you. Committing to Blogmas definitely pushes my creative and writing skills, but for you, it is so worth it.

This year has had its challenges, as well as its joys. I hope my Friday blog posts have helped you find the good throughout the year. We’re in it together, and I am blown away by your encouragement and support each week!

So, because you’re super amazing, I have planned some pretty awesome Blogmas content for you this year. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it.

This creative challenge is worth taking to help spread some Christmas cheer to you every day. (And yes, I recognize that sounded extremely cheesy.) Be sure to subscribe and come back for your daily cup of Christmas cheer, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood coffee addict (aka me). Each post will be published at 6AM so you can read it while sipping on your coffee at whatever time works best for you.

Today we’re kicking off Blogmas by wrapping up November with the books I read last month. Tomorrow will start the Christmas content, I promise!

The Uncommon Reader — Alan Bennett (2.5/5 stars)

I picked this up at the library since it got decent reviews on Goodreads. Although the cover doesn’t suggest it, this is written for a mature audience (some language). The premise is that Queen Elizabeth doesn’t think she has time to read but is peer pressured into supporting the local library and falls in love with books. This is a short and sweet read with a clever twist at the end.

The Silent Patient — Alex Michaelides (5+/5 stars)

I LOVED this book. It is simply unputdownable. It’s a psycho thriller so there’s some language and graphic scenes. The chapters are short so it’s easy to make quick progress. I heard so many good things and it lived up to the hype. Highly recommend!

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business — Charles Duhigg (5/5 stars)

I listened to this as an audiobook and really loved this one. It explains the influence habits have on us (good and bad), strategies to break and create them, and how they affect our culture as well (music, politics, social issues, etc).

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast — Laura Vanderkam (3.5/5 stars)

Short and sweet about morning routines and how to make the most of your mornings. I admit it didn’t have tons of new information that I didn’t already know, but I love any book about creating routines so I enjoyed this.

The Last Thing He Told Me — Laura Dave (4.75/5 stars)

I saw a lot of great reviews about this one and decided to check it out. I really loved it and it kept me wanting more. Hannah’s husband disappears after his company makes the news for fraud, leaving Hannah and his daughter Bailey wondering where he went and what he’s hiding. Hannah and Bailey go searching for him and uncover a past so unexpected that anything is possible.

A Man Named Ove — Fredrik Backman (4/5 stars)

This is written by the author of Anxious People, which I read this summer and really enjoyed. A Man Named Ove focuses on (you guessed it) a man named Ove, a grumpy old man who misses his wife, loves order, and cannot stand his new extroverted neighbors. It took a while for me to get into this, but I ended up enjoying it overall.

And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer — Fredrik Backman (4.5/5 stars)

Short and sweet, but it hit me right in the feels. The author wrote this as a way to try to explain Alzheimer’s disease to his children. The book focuses on the relationship between a grandfather and his grandson and how the grandfather tries to explain what’s happening to his brain but can’t quite do it justice. It made me want to cry.