No. 2 on David Higgerson’s holiday reading list: Gathering String

British journalist David Higgerson has dished out some more praise for Mimi Johnson‘s Gathering String.

Higgerson, who praised Gathering String early in 2013, featured it second in his post of 13 books by journalists to get you through Christmas:

This was the book which led to me starting 2013 with bags under my eyes.

In his January post, Higgerson said he was sleep-deprived after late night’s reading the novel:

You know when you think you don’t have time to read, then start reading a book when you get chance and then everything else that can be put to one side tends to go that way? This is one of those books.

Gathering String ‘still trails around in my head’

Two more 5-star Amazon reviews sing the praises of Mimi Johnson’s Gathering String:

  • Gin Collins says the “excellent story” is a “non-political political thriller with a wonderful love story.”
  • Dan Conover says he read the novel more than a year ago “and it still trails around in my head like the last whiff of smoke from the bonfire of my own newspaper career.” The book “is the only novel about newspaper people I’ve ever read that communicates the soul-deep, convoluted mess that old school journalists loved and hated about that lifestyle,” Conover wrote. “Johnson captures that experience in honest, easy prose that’s as beautiful and unpretentious as the Iowa landscape she so clearly loves. This is an easy book to recommend, and not just to journalists.”

That makes 29 5-star reviews (and seven 4-star reviews) out of 37 total Amazon reviews. In case you’re not finished with your Christmas shopping …