WHAT have you finished reading recently? The Disappeared, C.J. Box
WHAT are you reading presently? Wolf Pack, CJ Box; CS Lewis Investigates: Mystery at Rake Hall.
WHAT are you reading next? Realistically, Long Range by CJ Box. I have seven scheduled reviews for May because I’m trying to keep April RoE-focused, but that’s obviously on the struggle bus this year.
Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is books we found on social media, which is….a hard ask, because I don’t write down how books get pushed onto my radar, and I encounter far too many books in a given week to remember. Some of my new-to-me books are direct recommendations from other bloggers, and some are from friends’ reviews on goodreads. I’m going to go the lazy route and just check out some of my recent Goodreads TBR adds. So, working from the most recent backwards:
(1) A Short History of the World According to Sheep, Sally Coulthard. Should be a shear delight.
(2) Good Nature: The New Science of How Nature Improves our Health, Kathy Willis
(3) Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License, Bradford Littlejohn
(4) India’s War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia, Srinath Raghavan,
(5) Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship, John Baldwin
(6) The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen, Yuta Takahashi. I have no idea what this one is about, but the cover reminded me so much of What You are Looking For is in the Library that I added it on sight.
(7) Lady Clementine, Marie Benedict.
(8) Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future, Daniel Lewis
(9) Kolyma Tales, Varlam Shalamov. Pretty sure I found this via substack, specifically Rod Dreher quoting The New Criteron piece “How the Great Truth Dawned“:
In Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales—I regard these stories, which first became known in the late 1960s, as the greatest since Chekhov—a narrator observes: “The intellectual becomes a coward, and his own brain provides a ‘justification’ of his own actions. He can persuade himself of anything” as needed.
(10) The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, Jean LeClercq
Reading Freely 
A Short History of the World According to Sheep sounds intriguing. I’ll have to check it out!
A Short History of the World According to Sheep was good. Hope you like it!
I may have found it via you!
All these books sound wonderful, Stephen. Thanks for sharing.
https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2025/04/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge_024550649.html
You’re definitely not the only one who has trouble keep track. I get *a lot* of my book recs from social media, but I had to do some careful looking to pick ones that I was absolutely sure I found there. Some very interesting selections here!
All the books sound good. Going to check out The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen, Yuta Takahashi!
Oh wow, haven’t seen this title for a while: The Love of Learning and the Desire for God is a fabulous collection of essays on the topic. Solid stuff. I was fortunate to attend a lecture by this monk when he was alive. He was very short of stature, but what a brain!
Oh, wow! Thanks for that. I’ll have to boost it up the list.