by Noella Noelophile\u00ae<\/h6>\n![\"Red](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/christmas-3000059_1280-e1766781603125.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n
With torrential rains happening in California, now seems like a great time to recommend a good book.<\/p>\n
With a bit of mystery about it.<\/p>\n
Our library has The Ultimate Christmas Collection<\/a>, with Louisa May Alcott listed as the author–but no editor named.<\/p>\nAnd it includes a number of stories and poems by more than a hundred classic authors, arranged in alphabetical order.<\/p>\n
This is both a great anthology, and a look back at life during the Christmas season, more than a century ago.<\/p>\n
![\"Gilded](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/stars-6706214_1280-e1766781384846.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Conger Design<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nRanging in tone<\/strong><\/h4>\nUnlike today’s Christmas content, the tone of the included stories runs a full gamut.\u00a0 There’s George Ade’s humorous “The Set of Poe”; Thomas Nelson Page’s thought-provoking “My Cousin Fanny”; and the dark realism of L.M. Montgomery’s “The Red Room”.<\/p>\n
My personal favorites, so far, are Lucy Maude Montgomery’s lighter stories, “A Christmas Inspiration” and “The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner”, along with Marjorie Pickthal’s inspirational fable “The Worker in Sandalwood”.\u00a0 Thomas Nelson Page’s “A Captured Santa Claus” offers a look into the realities of families living during the Civil War, while O. Henry’s “A Chaparral Christmas Gift” is an interesting contrast to his much-better-known “Gift of the Magi”.<\/p>\n
Also included is E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 Gothic tale, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, which is fascinating to read in its entirety and spot the differences between the beloved Christmas ballet and the original story!<\/p>\n
The “mystery” element?\u00a0 \u00a0Louisa May Alcott died in 1888.\u00a0 \u00a0While her works are included here, a number of the other stories and poems are listed as first being published in the early twentieth century.\u00a0 She could not have been the editor.<\/p>\n
Oh well.\u00a0 Christmas is a good time for secret Santas and mysterious gifts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nContinue reading →<\/a><\/div><\/li>- Love, Rain and Valentines<\/a> February 12, 2025
by Noella Noelophile\u00ae<\/strong><\/h6>\n![\"Heart-shaped](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/valentines-day-2057745_1280-e1739407197213.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Jill Wellington<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nOrdinarily, I’d be writing a post about all the special community events going on for Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n
But with an atmospheric river bearing down on California, focusing on indoor activities–and upcoming events for which you might like to mark your calendar–seems like a better idea.<\/p>\n
How about we start with one of the major “loves” of my life: books.<\/p>\n
A great read<\/strong><\/h4>\n![\"Pink](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/valentines-day-background-3060241_1280-e1739406913275.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Jess Bailey<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nI’m only about halfway through The Women<\/em>, by Kristin Hannah<\/a>.<\/p>\nIt’s already cost me more sleep (“just one more chapter!”) than I like to admit.<\/p>\n
The year is 1966.\u00a0 Twenty-year-old protagonist Frances Grace “Frankie” McGrath has grown up in a life of privilege, on her parents’ estate on Coronado Island.<\/p>\n
But her adored older brother, Finley, has just graduated from the Naval Academy–and is on his way to Vietnam.<\/p>\n
A comment by Finley’s best friend that “women can be heroes” challenges Frankie’s perspective on her future.<\/p>\n
As an honors graduate in nursing, she naively enlists in the Army, with the goal of joining her brother in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
![\"Mountains](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/mountains-3059528_12801-e1739407331250.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Quang Nguyen Vinh<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nAfter arriving in Saigon, she experiences a major culture shock.<\/p>\n
Amid filthy living conditions, limited sleep, constant arrivals of wounded and dying soldiers and the ever-present threat of coming under attack, Frankie grows into a stronger woman and a first-rate Army nurse.<\/p>\n
She also forges strong bonds with her two fellow nurses, Barb and Ethel.\u00a0 The friendship between these three women from three very different backgrounds carries them through the tragedy, exhaustion and terror of war, as well as the indifference, ignorance–and, sometimes, open hostility–which they encounter upon returning home as veterans.<\/p>\n
![\"Open](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/a-book-1760998_12801-e1739407566509.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Conger Design<\/a> from Pixaay.)<\/p><\/div>\nKristin Hannah puts faces on history and the headlines some of us may remember from ‘way back when.\u00a0\u00a0 She has a gift for taking her reader into her scenes so effectively that we get a sense of dancing at the “O Club” or strolling through the crumbling grandeur of downtown Saigon.<\/p>\n
In the process she shines a light on the rampant sexism and lack of awareness which characterized the American public’s mid-Sixties attitude towards the war.<\/p>\n
This is the first of her books I’ve read, but I’ll certainly be checking out some of her earlier work.<\/p>\n
And this became a much longer post than originally intended!\u00a0 Tomorrow’s post will be about two additional “loves”.<\/p>\nContinue reading →<\/a><\/div><\/li>- A Rollicking “Merry Chaos-mess”<\/a> December 9, 2024
by Noella Noelophile\u00ae<\/h6>\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/gifts-2178635_1280-e1733794876438.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Pexels from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n
Admit it.<\/p>\n
Those gifts detailed in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carol?\u00a0 They sound more like a hassle than a pleasure, if they were to show up in normal life.\u00a0 (Even those five golden rings: who’d need that<\/em> many?)<\/p>\nAnd authors James Patterson and Ted Saffran have a hilariously good time with that concept, in their 2022 novella, The Twelve Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Brown](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/rowhouse-224442_1280-e1733795361531.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Bruce Emmerling<\/a> from PIxabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nThe novella starts in a very dark place–not unlike A Christmas Carol.\u00a0 <\/em>But it’s a darkly-humorous place.\u00a0\u00a0 (Admittedly, the book starts with a joke that initially struck me as being complete gallows humor–but the story is so good that I’m glad I stayed with it.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\nSiblings Will and Ella Sullivan are missing their mother, who passed away on Christmas Day, five years earlier.\u00a0 Their father, Henry, is barely functioning in his position as a professor at Columbia University–not to mention his role as a single dad.\u00a0\u00a0 Will is going down a questionable path, in his attempts to impress the “cool kids” in the wrong crowd.\u00a0 Ella, who is both a complete germophobe and a highly talented artist, is painting scenery for her school’s upcoming Christmas musical–and dealing with a temperamental cast member with an ego larger than Manhattan.<\/p>\n
And in their big, rambling old house on a Harlem street described as “modestly gentrified”, there’s very little light, and no laughter.\u00a0 Much less any signs of Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0 And certainly, no presents.<\/p>\n
Will and Ella have had enough.<\/p>\n
![\"Young](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/laptop-1842297_1280-e1733795534453.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Pexels<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nClandestinely, they set up a dating profile for their father, on a website for marriage-minded individuals.\u00a0 After all, they reason, the quickest way to have Christmas back in their home is to have their father happy again.<\/p>\n
And mayhem ensues.<\/p>\n
The children make an almost-immediate contact with a mysterious “Ms. Truelove”.\u00a0 Henry, catching them in mid-instant message to the stranger, fires off an immediate “no thanks” response.<\/p>\n
But the next day, a package is delivered to the front porch.\u00a0\u00a0 The return address?\u00a0 “Truelove Nurseries”.<\/p>\n
![\"Small](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/bird-5521442_1280-e1733794666241.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Mario<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nCertainly, you can guess the contents.\u00a0 But as in the song, that’s just the beginning.<\/p>\n
Day Two brings two turtledoves, courtesy of “Truelove Aviaries”.<\/p>\n
A less-than-enchanted Henry puts the children in charge of the birds as he tries to contact “Ms. Truelove”. \u00a0 But his insistence that she stop sending the odd gifts goes unheeded, as French hens, calling birds and other creatures wreak incredible havoc in the house.<\/p>\n
Playing out against the background of this mayhem is each Sullivan’s daily drama, at school or work.\u00a0 And who exactly is this “Ms. Truelove”, anyway?<\/p>\n
![\"Red](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/new-year-1909061_1280-e1733795749573.jpg\")
<\/a>(Royalth-free image by Anastasia 538<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\nThe tongue-in-cheek storytelling style had me laughing out loud more than once!\u00a0 But what I enjoyed most, was the imagination with which the authors have envisioned each day’s gifts.\u00a0\u00a0 Where most of us probably envision the maids a-milking, drummers drumming and so on as English gifts, the gifts in this story encompass a much wider spectrum.<\/p>\n
And that’s all I will say–except that I found the lords a-leaping, and their interactions with the Sullivan family, a standout favorite.<\/p>\n
Thank goodness most of the people we love will probably not go to the lengths of a “Ms. Truelove” when gift-giving time arrives!\u00a0 But you may well want to tuck this book into someone’s Christmas stocking.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nContinue reading →<\/a><\/div><\/li>- A Sense of Enchantment<\/a> December 1, 2023
<\/a>(Royalty-free image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n
With torrential rains happening in California, now seems like a great time to recommend a good book.<\/p>\n
With a bit of mystery about it.<\/p>\n
Our library has The Ultimate Christmas Collection<\/a>, with Louisa May Alcott listed as the author–but no editor named.<\/p>\n And it includes a number of stories and poems by more than a hundred classic authors, arranged in alphabetical order.<\/p>\n This is both a great anthology, and a look back at life during the Christmas season, more than a century ago.<\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Conger Design<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n Unlike today’s Christmas content, the tone of the included stories runs a full gamut.\u00a0 There’s George Ade’s humorous “The Set of Poe”; Thomas Nelson Page’s thought-provoking “My Cousin Fanny”; and the dark realism of L.M. Montgomery’s “The Red Room”.<\/p>\n My personal favorites, so far, are Lucy Maude Montgomery’s lighter stories, “A Christmas Inspiration” and “The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner”, along with Marjorie Pickthal’s inspirational fable “The Worker in Sandalwood”.\u00a0 Thomas Nelson Page’s “A Captured Santa Claus” offers a look into the realities of families living during the Civil War, while O. Henry’s “A Chaparral Christmas Gift” is an interesting contrast to his much-better-known “Gift of the Magi”.<\/p>\n Also included is E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 Gothic tale, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, which is fascinating to read in its entirety and spot the differences between the beloved Christmas ballet and the original story!<\/p>\n The “mystery” element?\u00a0 \u00a0Louisa May Alcott died in 1888.\u00a0 \u00a0While her works are included here, a number of the other stories and poems are listed as first being published in the early twentieth century.\u00a0 She could not have been the editor.<\/p>\n Oh well.\u00a0 Christmas is a good time for secret Santas and mysterious gifts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nContinue reading →<\/a><\/div><\/li> (Royalty-free image by Jill Wellington<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n Ordinarily, I’d be writing a post about all the special community events going on for Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n But with an atmospheric river bearing down on California, focusing on indoor activities–and upcoming events for which you might like to mark your calendar–seems like a better idea.<\/p>\n How about we start with one of the major “loves” of my life: books.<\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Jess Bailey<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n I’m only about halfway through The Women<\/em>, by Kristin Hannah<\/a>.<\/p>\n It’s already cost me more sleep (“just one more chapter!”) than I like to admit.<\/p>\n The year is 1966.\u00a0 Twenty-year-old protagonist Frances Grace “Frankie” McGrath has grown up in a life of privilege, on her parents’ estate on Coronado Island.<\/p>\n But her adored older brother, Finley, has just graduated from the Naval Academy–and is on his way to Vietnam.<\/p>\n A comment by Finley’s best friend that “women can be heroes” challenges Frankie’s perspective on her future.<\/p>\n As an honors graduate in nursing, she naively enlists in the Army, with the goal of joining her brother in Vietnam.<\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Quang Nguyen Vinh<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n After arriving in Saigon, she experiences a major culture shock.<\/p>\n Amid filthy living conditions, limited sleep, constant arrivals of wounded and dying soldiers and the ever-present threat of coming under attack, Frankie grows into a stronger woman and a first-rate Army nurse.<\/p>\n She also forges strong bonds with her two fellow nurses, Barb and Ethel.\u00a0 The friendship between these three women from three very different backgrounds carries them through the tragedy, exhaustion and terror of war, as well as the indifference, ignorance–and, sometimes, open hostility–which they encounter upon returning home as veterans.<\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Conger Design<\/a> from Pixaay.)<\/p><\/div>\n Kristin Hannah puts faces on history and the headlines some of us may remember from ‘way back when.\u00a0\u00a0 She has a gift for taking her reader into her scenes so effectively that we get a sense of dancing at the “O Club” or strolling through the crumbling grandeur of downtown Saigon.<\/p>\n In the process she shines a light on the rampant sexism and lack of awareness which characterized the American public’s mid-Sixties attitude towards the war.<\/p>\n This is the first of her books I’ve read, but I’ll certainly be checking out some of her earlier work.<\/p>\n And this became a much longer post than originally intended!\u00a0 Tomorrow’s post will be about two additional “loves”.<\/p>\nContinue reading →<\/a><\/div><\/li> (Royalty-free image by Pexels from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n Admit it.<\/p>\n Those gifts detailed in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carol?\u00a0 They sound more like a hassle than a pleasure, if they were to show up in normal life.\u00a0 (Even those five golden rings: who’d need that<\/em> many?)<\/p>\n And authors James Patterson and Ted Saffran have a hilariously good time with that concept, in their 2022 novella, The Twelve Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Bruce Emmerling<\/a> from PIxabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n The novella starts in a very dark place–not unlike A Christmas Carol.\u00a0 <\/em>But it’s a darkly-humorous place.\u00a0\u00a0 (Admittedly, the book starts with a joke that initially struck me as being complete gallows humor–but the story is so good that I’m glad I stayed with it.) Siblings Will and Ella Sullivan are missing their mother, who passed away on Christmas Day, five years earlier.\u00a0 Their father, Henry, is barely functioning in his position as a professor at Columbia University–not to mention his role as a single dad.\u00a0\u00a0 Will is going down a questionable path, in his attempts to impress the “cool kids” in the wrong crowd.\u00a0 Ella, who is both a complete germophobe and a highly talented artist, is painting scenery for her school’s upcoming Christmas musical–and dealing with a temperamental cast member with an ego larger than Manhattan.<\/p>\n And in their big, rambling old house on a Harlem street described as “modestly gentrified”, there’s very little light, and no laughter.\u00a0 Much less any signs of Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0 And certainly, no presents.<\/p>\n Will and Ella have had enough.<\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Pexels<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n Clandestinely, they set up a dating profile for their father, on a website for marriage-minded individuals.\u00a0 After all, they reason, the quickest way to have Christmas back in their home is to have their father happy again.<\/p>\n And mayhem ensues.<\/p>\n The children make an almost-immediate contact with a mysterious “Ms. Truelove”.\u00a0 Henry, catching them in mid-instant message to the stranger, fires off an immediate “no thanks” response.<\/p>\n But the next day, a package is delivered to the front porch.\u00a0\u00a0 The return address?\u00a0 “Truelove Nurseries”.<\/p>\n (Royalty-free image by Mario<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n Certainly, you can guess the contents.\u00a0 But as in the song, that’s just the beginning.<\/p>\n Day Two brings two turtledoves, courtesy of “Truelove Aviaries”.<\/p>\n A less-than-enchanted Henry puts the children in charge of the birds as he tries to contact “Ms. Truelove”. \u00a0 But his insistence that she stop sending the odd gifts goes unheeded, as French hens, calling birds and other creatures wreak incredible havoc in the house.<\/p>\n Playing out against the background of this mayhem is each Sullivan’s daily drama, at school or work.\u00a0 And who exactly is this “Ms. Truelove”, anyway?<\/p>\n (Royalth-free image by Anastasia 538<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/p><\/div>\n The tongue-in-cheek storytelling style had me laughing out loud more than once!\u00a0 But what I enjoyed most, was the imagination with which the authors have envisioned each day’s gifts.\u00a0\u00a0 Where most of us probably envision the maids a-milking, drummers drumming and so on as English gifts, the gifts in this story encompass a much wider spectrum.<\/p>\n And that’s all I will say–except that I found the lords a-leaping, and their interactions with the Sullivan family, a standout favorite.<\/p>\n Thank goodness most of the people we love will probably not go to the lengths of a “Ms. Truelove” when gift-giving time arrives!\u00a0 But you may well want to tuck this book into someone’s Christmas stocking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nContinue reading →<\/a><\/div><\/li><\/a>Ranging in tone<\/strong><\/h4>\n
by Noella Noelophile\u00ae<\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/a>A great read<\/strong><\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>by Noella Noelophile\u00ae<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
![\"Lighted](\"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/christmas-8385559_1280-e1701403453763.jpg\")
<\/a>