Summer books I enjoyed, with one controversial exception

Posted on July 22, 2026 by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

I’ve passed the first months of summer reading physical books that are serious while listening to fun ones! Having multiple reads going at once doesn’t bother me, especially when they are different genres, e.g. historical nonfiction vs YA romance. There are too many books I want to read out there! I’ll never get through my TBR stack focusing on just one at a time!

Here are quick reviews on five books that you might also enjoy this summer.

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

I’m starting with the most controversial review. Everyone else raves about Theo of Golden. I had to force myself to finish it. If you’re with me on this, let me know in the comments. There are not many of us.

@jtomiak
Everyone is raving about this book. I’m not seeing it. Enlighten me. #booktok #literarytok #theoofgolden
♬ original sound – J Tomiak

The premise: a kindly, rich, and thoughtful old man shows up in Golden, a city in the state of Georgia that sounds a lot like Savannah. He sets out on a mission to gift portraits to random strangers. He makes connections. Discovers that people don’t fit nicely into categories. Treats people that others overlook with kindness and respect. This novel is like Cherry Moscato wine – too sweetsy for me! It doesn’t have much plot or character development. It features plenty of cliches. And frequently, the author tells the reader what to think, as in this passage:

Theo knew little about race cars, other than what he had learned at the famed competition in Monte Carlo one year, but he was amused by Frankie’s enthusiasm for the sport. Perhaps confinement to a wheelchair made speed a tantalizing possibility and an understandable fantasy for the young boy.

I realize in a time when our country has instigated a war, violent rhetoric floods the media channels, and AI hovers over nearly every aspect of our lives, a sweet, fluffy book about a nice man doing nice things has appeal. However, I prefer something with more depth. 2/5 stars Come at me!

The Grand Idea by Joel Achenbach

The Grand Idea was recommended reading for my vacation in June: a five day bike tour of the Great Allegheny Passage. When I wasn’t riding the railroad path turned bike trail from Pittsburgh, PA to Cumberland, MD, I was reading about George Washington’s dream. In the 1790’s, Washington wanted to make the Potomac River a major gateway for trade from the port of Alexandria in the east across the mountains to settlers in the west. Since I grew up in Alexandria and worked at Washington’s home, Mt. Vernon, I found it highly interesting. Achenbach creates a multifaceted portrait of our nation’s first president and explores the theories and flaws surrounding expansion as our country took its first steps. Very appropriate for our country’s 250th birthday! Recommend with 3/5 stars, especially for the history buffs.

Crossing one of Pittsburgh’s many bridges at the start of the tour!

The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarval by Ambika Vohra

I chose The Sticky Note Manifesto as a potential comp title for a YA project I am currently working on, and it didn’t disappoint. High strung Aisha constantly feels pressure to perform from her immigrant parents. Prompted by a Stanford application essay, Aisha searches for ways to “step out of her comfort zone.” She gets unexpected assistance from Quentin, a cute guy from a different school who rescues her from her disaster of a winter formal. This is a fun meet cute that explores some real issues. I enjoyed the characters, their banter, and how they grew over the course of the book. 3/5 stars.

Fake Skating by Lynn Painter

This was another YA listen to help me with a current project. Set in Minnesota during the winter, Fake Skating could serve as a welcome antidote to July heat. It also features fun, flirty banter in a fake dating/ friends to lovers story featuring a former nerd turned school hockey star and his best friend from from childhood, the previously adventurous girl who has become anxious and introverted.

Painter does a great job setting up chemistry between her main characters. She also accurately depicts how a small town finds connection and community via school sports. However, I am daughter of an Army officer, and I married into a Navy family; I took issue with female MC experiencing trauma from her many moves as a military brat. It seemed over-dramatic to me. But I’m Gen X. The audiobook was well done and the romance kept me listening. 4/5 stars

One of Us is Next by Karen McManus

One of Us is Next is the sequel to One of Us is Lying, which is a YA mystery I enjoyed very much. In fact, it’s serving as a mentor text for one of my projects. Unfortunately, I did not like One of Us is Next as well. McManus spends a lot of time rehashing details from the first book. She also reuses some characters from Lying, and there isn’t the same level of tension. All of this made the story feel a bit like leftovers. The mystery was decent, and I finished the book. Definitely not as good as the first. 3/5 stars

How about you? What did you take to read on vacation? Do you prefer fluffy and fun in the summer, or are you okay with nonfiction? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Improving vocabulary

What you need to know about the soccer term “brace”

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

We are a soccer family. We’ve played it, coached it, and now we watch it. Especially with the World Cup going on! Over the years, I’ve shared many soccer terms here, including nutmeg, pitch, hat trick, and even how soccer got its name. It’s time to add another: brace. Pause your scrolling, Word Nerds, to learn about an essential soccer term.

image of female coach with young players in a huddle — Look at that U8 energy! These kids are 20 now. Photo Credit: Nancy Anderson 2014

According to Sports Illustrated, Cristiano Ronaldo holds the record for scoring the most braces. He’s had well over 200 of them. But what does that mean?

The word brace, when used as a noun, comes from Middle English and Anglo-French. Brace means a clasp, pair, pair of arms, or support. It derives from the Latin bracchia, the plural of bracchium, which means arm. (Thank you, Merriam-Webster) In soccer, if a player scores a brace, that means he or she scored two goals in one game. Considering soccer games usually have low scores, this is harder to accomplish than it sounds.

But scoring a brace is easier than scoring a hat trick, which is three goals in one game. By the way, hat trick comes from British cricket. When a player retired three batsmen with three consecutive balls, the club gave him with a new hat to honor his accomplishment. You can read more about hat trick here.

So now, when you are watching the USA match tonight, if a player scores a brace, you’ll know exactly what all the chatter is about! We’ll be watching, because we kinda love the sport around here. See this clip from my favorite show, Ted Lasso:

Sidebar: Since I paused our YouTubeTV subscription (It’s so expensive! We pay for Oct-May to watch Premier League Soccer and college basketball), we’ve been watching the latest world cup matches via Telemundo on Peacock. Quote from my daughter: “I’ve never heard anyone say GOAL for that long in my life!” 😉

Are there other soccer terms you’d like to learn more about? Have you figured out what off side means yet? Perhaps that should be another post…

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Who I Am

Make time to celebrate your successes

Posted on May 29, 2026 by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

When was the last time you paused long enough to absorb a lesson life was trying to teach you? For me, it happened on a cool Saturday in March. That weekend, I ran the Charlottesville Ten Miler. I keep going back to this spring race because it keeps me honest in the cold months of January and February. On a gray morning when the wind howls at 50 mph, I can’t skip training even though I really want to. Knowing I’ll have to race ten miles at the end of March forces me to complete the workout, even if it’s on the dreadmill. The importance of consistency is a great life lesson. But that wasn’t what I needed to figure out at my last race. Consistency I’m good at. I have other weaknesses to confront.

For over an hour and a half, I ran through my beloved alma matter and Charlottesville neighborhoods dotted with pink and white spring blossoms. Cheering fans lined the streets with posters, noise makers, and tiny cups full of candy. They really helped motivate me when I was tackling a tough hill. But learning run up hills wasn’t my lesson that day either. I live in Wythe County. As I used to say to my high school runners, “We eat hills for breakfast.”

The message came with the end of the race. When I heard the music blaring and saw the finish, I raced to the line on strong legs. Hubby, who finished well before me, caught the moment on his phone. He showed me the pics later, as we each enjoyed a Bodo’s Bagel, and that’s when life, or God, poked me on the shoulder and said, “Look at that.”

In the series of photos documenting my finish, I have a determined face and a strong stride as I approach the line. The pics show me at the moment of crossing, with my right hand at my left wrist, stopping my watch. Any runner will recognize this classic motion. But in a different picture, the one leading up to my the woman in front of me finishes with her arms raised in victory. Her mouth open with a cheer.

She celebrated her finish.

I clocked mine.

Runners are notorious for their attention to detail and desire to collect data. I am a typical runner. However, sometimes my focus on structure leads me away from more important things. And not just with running. Too often, I get so caught up in the details and the evaluation that I forget to celebrate the achievements along the way. For five decades, I have struggled with this tendency, and apparently, I still have work to do. I want to be more like the woman with uplifted arms who finished in front of me. I want to remember to have fun.

In a world that daily bombards us with challenges and frustrations, we would all be better off to celebrate small achievements and the moments that bring us joy. That can be as big as finishing a marathon or as small as remembering someone’s name in the grocery store. The leadership guru Michael Hyatt once said in a podcast, “You get more of what you notice.” I want to get better at noticing the joy.

What is something you have learned about yourself recently?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Book reviews/How to encourage reading

Why I enjoyed A Founding Mother, new historical fiction

Posted on April 29, 2026 by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

I’m a huge fan of Stephanie Dray. I’ve enjoyed several of her historical fiction books. Dray has a knack for digging up details about interesting women in history and making their stories relevant to modern readers. As a child of Virginia, I know a lot about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. I attended Mr. Jefferson’s University and worked at Washington’s Mount Vernon as a high school student! Dray’s upcoming release A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams gave me the opportunity to learn more about how this notable founding mother from Massachusetts shaped our country at its birth.

The Premise

A Founding Mother takes readers to the revolutionary setting of Boston in the 1770s. While Abigail Adams birthed and raised four children amid riots and calls for revolution, her husband John rose from country lawyer to one of the men trying to birth a new nation. Abigail demonstrated strength and wisdom during a harrowing time, and I enjoyed reading about her.

What I like

Dray and her co-author Laura Kamoie present Abigail’s story with engaging prose and just enough detail to hold reader interest without weighing down the narrative. I could relate to the woes and joys Abigail experienced as a mother. Physical and mental illness plagued her children, and yet she remained strong. Throughout the novel, Dray and Kamoie highlight the importance of quiet work performed in the background.

But without mothers, not one sprout would grow — whether the fruit be a child or a nation. It is mothers who nourish and guide each shoot toward the light without knowing what may blossom and what may wither on the vine. Without knowing which children will live or die.

I also admired Abigail’s fortitude as a wife of an important statesman. Her character states:

Party factions were tearing our young nation apart and it fell to my husband to hold this union together, alone if must be. Well, I resolved he wouldn’t be alone. He’d have me. I didn’t know how much I could help by charming ladies in the parlor or smiling at Hypocrites like Jefferson. But for John and for the country, I was willing to do this and much more.

After reading about Founding Fathers like Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, who had strained family relationships and inappropriate connections with women, it was encouraging to learn about the faithful lifelong partnership shared by John and Abigail Adams. John relied on his wife for advice and trusted her with managing their family and property, especially when we was gone for lengthy trips to Europe for his country.

Finally, I enjoy learning about history because it deepens my perspective. Present perils and conflicts feel less scary when I view them with a wider lens. Conflict has always been a part of our country. Early in the novel, John Adams says, “Had I to snap my fingers and make things right, I would. But America is a great, unwieldy body. Its progress must be slow.” That statement rang true in the revolution and still does today.

What I didn’t like

A Founding Mother covers most of Abigail’s adult life, and therefore is long. Towards the end, after John Adam’s term as president, it started to drag for me. Reading about the tragic lives of three of Abigail’s children also wore on me as the novel wrapped up.

Recommendation

The publish date of May 5, 2026 times nicely with the celebration of America’s 250th birthday (see Word Nerd Word semi quincentennial) as well as Mother’s Day. A Founding Mother would be a great gift for moms or history buffs and fans of strong women.

Have you read this book or any others by Dray and Kamoie? What did you think? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Book reviews

What you should know about Walter Issacson’s biography of Franklin

Posted on April 9, 2026 by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

Statue of Paul Revere in front of the Old North Church

A few years ago, I visited Boston for the first time. On the suggestion of my nephew, who has lived in Boston for several years, our family embarked on The Freedom Trail, a 2.5 path that winds through downtown. Stops along the trail have historical markers with info at several significant sites, including Paul Revere’s House and the Old North Church. The tour gave me new insight into the passion for liberty shared by many of the early American founders in Boston, and I wanted to learn more. Friends recommended Walter Issacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin, and I finally read it this winter.

What I liked

In Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Issacson creates a well researched portrait of Franklin, one of the few Founding Fathers who truly embraced democracy and a love for the “middling class.” I enjoyed learning how much Franklin valued the middle class and championed the rights of working people. Writes Issacson, “His focus tended to be on how ordinary issues affect everyday lives, and on how ordinary people could build a better society.”

“He saw middle class values as a source of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding principle was a “dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people.”

Reading Franklin gave me deeper understanding of the tensions among the Founders. It reinforced the idea that there has always been conflict and partisanship in our country, even from its earliest days. Reflecting on the long standing tradition of debate in America gives me comfort during this time of dramatic division in our country.

What I didn’t like

I grew weary of the many long quotes from Franklin’s publications. Issacson aims to demonstrate Franklin’s wit and personality, but they started to feel tedious.

Also, as Franklin’s story went on, I become disenchanted with his personal decisions. This great leader dedicated more time to his country than to his own family. He spent many years abroad in England and France and left his wife and daughter in Boston. He developed surrogate families while living in Europe, fathered an illegitimate child, and had close relationships with several women, some of them much younger than him. Reading snippets of correspondence between Franklin and some of his lady friends often made me cringe. Even when his wife begged him to come home, and after she had a stroke, Franklin stayed away.

Like many great leaders, Franklin had significant flaws. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life offers yet another demonstration that very few people are capable of managing fame, career, and family well.

Recommendation

If you enjoy non-fiction and biography, especially books about historical figures, you would probably like Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Learning more about one of America’s Founding Fathers feels appropriate as we close in on the 250th Anniversary of the beginning of our nation. However, with 493 pages of details, it requires a commitment. I would not recommend to people who don’t enjoy biographies.

Is there a book about an historical figure that you can recommend? Tell me about it in the comments.

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Improving vocabulary

Clearing confusion about the popular word bespoke

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Julia Tomiak / 4 Comments

Lately, I’ve been hearing the word “bespoke” more often. It looks and sounds like a word I should know, and yet, I don’t. On a recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts about tech, Hard Fork, co-host Casey Newton said, in a discussion about AI:

Why am I using this bespoke start up business analysis when I can just plug these files into something already on my computer?

Most recently, bespoke appeared in the novel I just finished, Pachinko. A character referenced a rich man and his “bespoke suits.”

I found great relief last week when a friend who is an architect said he recently heard the word repeatedly during a presentation and felt the same way. What is this word and why does it keep popping up?

According to Merriam Webster, bespoke comes from the old English verb “bespeak,” first used in the 1500s to mean “to hire, engage, or claim beforehand.” With time, bespoke (which is the past participle of bespeak) came to be used as an adjective to describe things that are ordered before they are created. Hence, a “bespoke suit” is custom tailored.

Bespoke is also being used a lot more in the tech industry to refer to custom made software and hardware designed to suit a particular client’s needs. Bespoke software is flexible, easy to integrate, and provides room for growth. It gives businesses a competitive advantage. No wonder there’s so much “bespoke” buzz!

Merriam claims that the rise in use of bespoke could also be related to modern consumer preference for specially made items over those that are mass produced.

Now you know! Go out there and use your vocab with confidence!

What word are you hearing more often that you’d like to know more about? Tell me about it in the comments. You can also read my posts about contemporaneous and antithetical here.

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!