{"id":46715,"date":"2026-07-18T21:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T01:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46715"},"modified":"2026-07-18T21:20:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T01:20:52","slug":"sonderbooks25-2006-stand-outs-and-big-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46715","title":{"rendered":"#Sonderbooks25 – 2006 Stand-outs and Big Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Happy 25th year of Sonderbooks! I’m celebrating #Sonderbooks25<\/a> by rereading all my reviews and changing the format of my Stand-outs pages to display better on phones.<\/p>\n

And I’m up to 2006<\/a>! I had suspected that this whole project would get easier after I passed 2005<\/a>, and I was absolutely right. The big reason is that in 2007 – when I made the 2006 Stand-outs page<\/a> – was when I took a website development class in grad school and revamped my website and added a blog. Before 2006, to convert the format, I had to pretty much rewrite the whole page, but to redo the 2006 page, I only had to substitute in a new frame – the basic format was the same. So it took me less than an hour instead of several hours.<\/p>\n

On top of that, there weren’t as many reviews to read. 2006 was my last year before I started posting all reviews on this blog, and I was still posting them as separate “webzine” issues. But it was also my Year of Upheaval, so the only issues I posted were Sonderbooks 105 in March<\/a>, Sonderbooks 106 in April<\/a>, Sonderbooks 107 in June<\/a>, and Sonderbooks 108 in December<\/a>. In addition, some of the books that appear in my 2006 Sonderbooks Stand-outs didn’t actually get reviewed until 2007. (But I’m going to reread the reviews along with the year they were posted.)<\/p>\n

What was keeping me so busy that I wasn’t posting reviews? Well, you can read about that in my Project 52 posts –
\nGetting Back on My Feet<\/a> – About starting the year in a German hospital with surgery for uterine adhesions, and my husband making plans to move to Japan so he could get away from me
\nGoodbye to Germany<\/a> – about the wonderful going-away party my Sembach Base Library colleagues threw for me and the poem Elfriede wrote for me
\nTruth and Trauma<\/a> – About the day the movers came, and my husband finally confessed it had been an affair all along (but now she’d broken up with him because he found out she was cheating on him) – but also that in the past he’d had a plan to kill me and bought the weapon
\nWelcome to Virginia<\/a> – About moving to Virginia to be near two childhood best friends, being taken in by their church, starting a Master’s in Library and Information Science program, and starting to heal.<\/p>\n

So yeah, it was a big year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I also read some amazing books that year.<\/p>\n

The two most life-changing books of that year I will not be rereading, but they were exactly what I needed at the time. I read NOT “Just Friends”<\/a><\/em>, by Dr. Shirley Glass, before I knew my husband was having a physical affair, but that book helped me understand that it was completely fair to call him seeing the other woman behind my back an emotional affair. And it was empowering to be told that’s a traumatic revelation – because then I didn’t feel as bewildered by the symptoms I was having of obsessive thoughts and flashbacks. It helped me have compassion on myself and thus be able to heal.<\/p>\n

The other life-changing book was Steven Stosny’s You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore<\/a><\/em>, which has since been retitled Love Without Hurt.<\/em> This book helped me stop beating myself up when my husband’s words were tearing me down. It also helped me stop reacting to his anger and resentment with my own anger. It sounds trite – but Steven Stosny includes practical ways to direct your thoughts so you can build compassion for yourself and your spouse instead of resentment. Even if that’s one-sided. I needed this book the next several years as I had to keep interacting with my husband. (The divorce didn’t happen until 2010, and we were still navigating child visitation until 2012.)<\/p>\n

Oh, and another good relationship one that I didn’t review until 2007 but is on the 2006 Stand-outs list is Forgive for Good<\/a><\/em>, by Dr. Fred Luskin. This book helped me see that if I could forgive, it would stop my husband from continuing to have space in my mind and continuing to hurt me. (Though I also had to learn that you can’t pre-forgive, and I had plenty of new hurts to navigate.)<\/p>\n

But here are some other books I plan to put in my still-growing pile of books from #Sonderbooks25<\/a> that I want to reread:<\/p>\n

How We Choose to Be Happy<\/a><\/em>, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks – a nice reminder that our happiness can flow out of choices we make.<\/p>\n

Waking the World<\/a><\/em> – Fairy tales from around the world about women in midlife.<\/p>\n

Diary of a Medical Intuitive<\/a><\/em>, by Christel Nani – It was super interesting to read about emotional and physical connections when I had gynecological surgery shortly after my husband left me.<\/p>\n

The Canterbury Papers<\/a><\/em>, by Judith Koll Healey – wonderful historical fiction<\/p>\n

Jane Austen in Scarsdale<\/a><\/em>, by Paula Marantz Cohen – Read when I was just beginning to discover how much fun Austen-inspired fiction<\/a> can be.<\/p>\n

The King of Attolia<\/a><\/em>, by Megan Whalen Turner – It’s probably time to give that whole amazing series a reread.<\/p>\n

But yes! It was surprisingly lovely to reread reviews from that tumultuous year. (I wrote some very long ones back then.) I had forgotten about some of the other books that helped me through that time and some of the other books that diverted me when I needed cheering up.<\/p>\n

So now I encourage you – Take a look at my reviews<\/a>! I still consider all of the titles Stand-outs. So if there are some you missed – think about giving some of them a try! Good books don’t expire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy 25th year of Sonderbooks! I’m celebrating #Sonderbooks25 by rereading all my reviews and changing the format of my Stand-outs pages to display better on phones. And I’m up to 2006! I had suspected that this whole project would get easier after I passed 2005, and I was absolutely right. The big reason is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[426],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sonderbooks25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46715"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46721,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46715\/revisions\/46721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}