Reading some books is like eating chips and salsa. In the same way you can’t stop taking another chip and another chip, you can’t stop flipping the pages. But when you’re through you don’t always feel completely satisfied. Sure it was fun, delicious even. Only something inside you, still feels a little hollow. 

Reading some books is like eating chips and salsa. In the same way you can’t stop taking another chip and another chip, you can’t stop flipping the pages.

This is how I feel about a lot of beach reads. They are fantastic escapes for a few hours or days (depending on how long it takes me to read them). However, when I’m finished, they’re often forgettable. So forgettable in fact, that I’ve taken out the same book from the library before, only to realize, a few pages in, I’ve already read it. 

For me, for a fiction book to be truly good, its characters have to stick with me for a few days. The story has to play in my mind as I’m doing the dishes or driving in my car. And if it’s really good, it gives me a new perspective on our world or my life. 

Only, as I shared Monday, I haven’t done my usual amount of reading this year. This means, that rather than sharing only books that I’ve read since January—today, I am sharing some fiction reads that are still sticking with me after a few months or even years. Books, that hopefully are less in demand at your online library or local bookstore, and therefore available. 

Here are a few of my favorite fiction books, please share with me one or a few of your’s in the comments.

Women in Sunlight 

by Frances Mayes

If like me, you are missing traveling to new places, or if you long to go to Italy, this is a great book about three women who decide to forgo assisted living, to live in a villa in Tuscany.

Delicious!

by Ruth Reichl

A young writer takes a job across the country at a famous food magazine in New York City—and goes on a very unexpected journey when the magazine is shut down. If you love food, NYC, and even history, this is a great read.

Sourdough: or, Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market: A Novel

by Sloan, Robin

If you love bread baking—or have been experimenting with sourdough during quarantine—this is a fun, quirky read about a computer programmer in San Fransisco who accidentally becomes a bread baker.

I’ll Be Your Blue Sky

by Marisa De Los Santos

This is a sequel to Love Walked In and Belong To Me—two other great reads—but has a surprising historical mystery that keeps you engaged all the way through. The main character Clare, meets an old woman named Edith, on what is supposed to be her wedding day. Only, Edith not only gives Clare the courage to call off the wedding, but also changes her life forever.

Ellis Island 

by Kate Kerrigan

This book reminds me of the movie, Brooklyn, that came out in 2015. It too is about a woman who leaves Ireland to help support her family—only instead of being set in the 1950s, it is set in the 1920s. Ellie, the heroine, leaves Ireland when her husband falls deathly ill and the costs of his medical treatments are too much. She get’s a job working in a rich home in New York City, and then feels torn between the world she left behind and the one she is finding herself in. This book is easy to get engrossed in, and the good news is, when you’re finished there are two more books in the series.

What books have been like chips and salsa to you?

What books have had you thinking about the characters days after you finished them?

Feeling a little adrift in this strange, new normal of being at home? Sign up for my email list and get your free copy of my Social Distancing Survival Guide: Everyday Routines. Sign up here.