I’ve been busy at the library lately so thought I’d update my stash of interesting titles:
The Colorado Kid – Stephen King (F) – was looking for another read by King since I loved his Misery title… (This edition actually has what I consider to be the WORST cover art in the world. I’ll get you a pic…)
The Water Museum – Luis Alberto Urrea (F/short stories). Love Urrea’s other work…
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Stick – Zora Neale Hurston (F/short stories). Other Hurston reviews here: Barracoon (NF), Their Eyes were Watching God(1937)…
Mrs. Malory Wonders – Hazel Holt. (F/mystery). Just was looking for a cozy murder book and this title came up…
Bookmarks: Reading in Black and White: A Memoir – Karla F. C. Holloway (NF). I ILL’d this title but it looks rather different inside than I was expecting. We’ll see how it goes.
And more titles… (Told you I might have got carried away… š )
The Sittaford Mystery – Agatha Christie (F/mystery). Already finished this – good fun.
My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Maurier (F/thriller/mystery). Was looking for a Gothic thriller type of read… (Just realized that I’ve already read this. Sigh. No worries. Moving on…)
Ice: The Antarctic Diary of Charles E. Passel – Charles E. Passel (NF/travel/adventure).
The Round House – Louise Erdrich (F/Native American).
Queenie – Candice Carty-Williams (F).
A Traveller’s Life – Eric Newby (NF/travel).
DK Eyewitness Books: Astronomy. (NF). Just looked interesting.
Which one to read first?…. I know I’m going to read the astronomy Eyewitness book this weekend for starters and make a start on “The Commitments” by Roddy Doyle for Cathy’s Reading Ireland 2020 project.
Iām quite sure that I must have read this in the distant days as an early reader, and this time, it was a charming interlude of an early childhood during the late Victorian time. Alison Uttley was born in 1884 and this story details a year of life as an only child in her rural upbringing at Castle Top Farm (here called Windystone Hall) near Cromford in Derbyshire.
Itās more of a collection of vignettes and scenes from the POV of Susan Garland (the titular character) than an actual narrative plot, and so this made it perfect to have as a āpick-up-put-downā read just before bedtime. (Itās also very calming to read just before you go to bed and so I thoroughly enjoyed this read.)
Is it autobiographical? Is it semi-autobiographical? No one seems to know, but it doesnāt matter, really, because the descriptions of rural life are just charming. (They are realistic and show it’s not all roses and sunshine, but it’s still a good read.)
Itās also a history (in some ways) of country life long gone now: of servants and farmhands, of ploughmen and horses and larders full of home-made and home-grown food and drink. The weather plays a leading role as well, since the family lead a very outdoor life. Some of the winter descriptions made me shiver! š
This was a sweet read of times long past and was reminiscent of both “Cider with Rosie” (pre-blog) and “Lark Rise to Candleford” (pre-blog). Thoroughly enjoyable all the same.
ETA: Just learned about the author here. She was one of the first women to ever earn a degree from Oxbridge in Physics and went on to become a physics instructor. PLUS she wrote a zillion children’s books as well. Amazing story.
Total number of pages read: 3,056 pages (av. 306).
Fiction/Non-Fiction: 7 fiction / 3 non-fiction.
Diversity: 4 BIPOC. 7 books by women.
Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 3 library books, 7 owned books (whee!) and 0 e-books.
Plans for March 2021 include a week off for Spring Break – whee! Finish up my ongoing read of “Far From the Madding Crowd” by Thomas Hardy. I also want to continue to include more BIPOC writing on my list. Continue this pace of reading and continue this streak of reading more from my own TBR as opposed to those titles from the library.
This morning, I received my second COVID shot (oowwee) (since I fit into a higher risk category), and this went smoothly — if not painlessly. š
And – it just so happens that the immunization clinic was in very close vicinity to the library so of course, I ended up popping in there “just to see”… (Didn’t want to be rude, after all.) š
And then I came out with these lovelies (top to bottom in photo above):
The Body in the Library – Agatha Christie (can’t stop reading her every now and then – she’s like eating peanuts! š )
Roads – Larry McMurtry (NF/travel essays). (In progress. He’s true to the title: he’s talking about actual roads. Dear me. It’s a little like watching paint dry in its level of excitement so prob. going to DNF.)
Plainsong – Kent Haruf (another blogger was raving about this title so thought I’d do a reread from a long time ago).
I’ve been reading and I’m working on a general catch-up post about this but in the meantime, I thought I would do a Library Loot post. I did, actually, have a few more than this pile of titles but I think it was a case of the old “eyes bigger than your stomach” so about half of them were taken back last week. :-}
This pile includes:
Educated – Tara Westover (NF)
The Seven Dials – Agatha Christie (F/mystery)
Misery – Stephen King (F) – just finished this so post to come. (OMG. It was so good.)
My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Maurier (F) – reread
Plans for reading this week include choosing a classic (I have a hankering for one of those), write up a couple of posts about some recent reads I’ve completed, and then get back into the swing of things.
Similar to others in the book blogosphere, I rather enjoy being quite nerdy and reviewing how my reading patterns went over the past year, although I had thought I had read more than this. However, no worries. Itās not a race so all is fine. Just interesting.
So, to the numbers:
TOTAL books read in 2019 ā 48. (Average: 4 books/mo.) This is waaaay down from a typical reading year, but then this wasn’t a typical year! I’m ok with that.
Biggest monthly totals in the summer months (when school is out). Smallest total was in January.
This was composed of a focus on NF. (Actual numbers were 23 F and 52 NF. Of the NF, the majority were bio/autobio, similar to last yearās total.)
Authors: 25 M and 23 F. Iām happy with this splitā¦
Authors of color (AOC)/Topics related to POC: 21 (44%. Thatās pretty good, I think.)
Where were these books from? Iām pleased with this one: 69 percent were from my own TBR. (Progress of sorts.)
Publication details:
Number of pages: 13,961.
Year range of publication date: 1843 (A Christmas Carol/Dickens) to 2020 (various). 1996 average.
Shortest book length: 98 pp (When the Green Woods Laugh/H. E. Bates). Longest: 581 pp (Invisible Man/Ellison). 298 pp. average.
Overall, this was a fun reading year and I really enjoyed my focus on increasing the number of BIPOC authors in the list (42 percent of the reads were by BIPOC authors). Definitely going to continue with that campaign.
Another focus: reading more from my TBR. (Insert hollow laugh right here.) š
Additionally, I had two really good solid reads of the AP Style Book (for professional development), so it was a good mix of work/play. I had an enjoyable year.
Goals for 2020? None really (apart from the yearly read of the AP Style Book :-] ). Just more of the same, so long as itās fun.
Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 6 library books, 1 owned books and 0 e-books.
Plans for July 2020 include a month of teaching online Summer School at the university, prepping their lectures and grading work… Apart from that, lots of reading, jigsaw puzzles and hanging out. Temperatures are very hot outside for the most part, so it’s a pretty indoor life right now. š
Our city has a few lakes and flooded canyons. Here is one of them on a lovely weekend morning walk the other day.
Summer is now here and for me, life has slowed down (but just until I start teaching Summer School). In the meantime, Iāve been focused on learning about racial and social issues and how I can impact those.
My first step in that plan is to be quiet, listen and to learn, so Iāve been doing a lot of that. On a more practical level, Iām also planning on working some voter registration drives ā a cause that I believe will be critically important this autumn. I am cautiously optimistic that perhaps this countryās (and the worldās) social unrest will be the catalyst for some long-overdue societal changes but again ā that leads back to the upcoming U.S. election.
Iād like to really encourage you to take some action in your own community, however youād like to do that. If youāre interested in registering more voters, then you might follow up with your local League of Women Voters (LWV), a non-partisan non-profit focused on getting voters (of any stripe) signed up ready to do their civic duties. If you happen to live in a mid-sized (or up) city (or near one), I bet there is a chapter near you. Pretty fun and important to do at the same time.
A tricky (and miniature) jigsaw puzzle completed the other day. š
Moving on, Iāve been reading some books, working on a jigsaw puzzle or two, and messing around in the garden a bit. Just bibbling around really, but itās been fun and relaxing. Our local gym opened up the other day ā thank goodness! ā and so weāve been spending time there, trying to catch up for the previous slacker COVID months when nothing was open.
I went through a patch when I had a reading block, but that seems to have lifted now, so let me give you a brief taste of some of the titles Iāve finished recently:
Wallis in Love ā Andrew Morton. Let me save you some time here. Interesting story but itās Andrew Morton. He writes for drivel such as the English red-top newspapers so itās pretty hard to take him seriously, but as a gossipy frothy look at Wallis Simpson and her influence on the British monarchy, it was ok. No one was portrayed well throughout this recounting of this story, but at least the book was grammatically correct. š
Offramp ā Hank Stuever. NF travel essays by Stuever who writes a little aimlessly about his journeys to the smaller towns and communities just off the larger highways that crisscross America. I had quite high hopes for this, but it was not to be. Although fairly well written, the essay collection was only tangentially related to the overall theme of road travel and was more of a lame excuse to lump these texts together. Not bad, not great. Just ok.
Mr. Loverman ā Bernadine Evaristo. Fiction. Truly excellent. Will definitely make my Top Ten Books of 2020. See my review here and then go and read this book. Youāll love it (but let me know what you think about that last chapter!)
The graphic novel version of Atwoodās The Handmaidās Tale. Loved this, although it was a necessarily shortened recounting of the novelās more-involved plot. Still, a good reminder of Atwoodās plotting excellence and gave me impetus to check out the third volume in the MaddAdam trilogy.
My Sister, the Serial Killer ā Oyinkan Braithwaite. A satirical take on what might happen if your actual sister was a real serial killer and you were involved each time with the clean-up and cover-up of the victims. Well written Nigerian title. Good descriptions of life in this modern African country.
Tomboy ā Liz Prince. An autobiographical graphic novel which looks at the role of gender and how its then-limited definitions impacted the childhood life of the author. This might be a helpful read for middle-school-and-up readers who are struggling to fit in with their peers without giving up their own individuality. Good artwork along with the evergreen message of staying true to yourself.
After this string of OK reads, Iām also relieved to report that Iām now thoroughly immersed in the 1946 novel, āThe Streetā, by Ann Petry, a Black* writer. An early literary thriller and a huge bestseller, this title is notable for being one of the first bestselling novels to be published by a Black female writer.
Black writing had been published before this, naturally, but the general term of āBlack litā typically referred to only male writing. This was a woman writer who had centered her story in Harlem and featured the hard scrabble side of life. It covers serious issues such as sexism, racism, poverty, and unemployment, but at the same time, the story has a seam of hopefulness and almost optimism throughout the plot. Really good read so far. More deets later.
*Note: I am using the term āBlackā in favor of āAfrican-Americanā since that is the recommendation from the National Association of Black Journalists and the Associated Press. See here for more details.
Well, I apologize for that unintended slightly-longer-than-I thought break there. Life has gone a little awry (just as it probably has for you all as well), and itās taken me a little bit to get my bearings back. Our university classes all had to be moved online in a remarkably short amount of time, and it seems that I have spent most of the last couple of weeks either online in workshops learning how to do this effectively or messing around with the software needed to do it.
However, I feel more comfortable with the software now and have a stronger idea of just how to make this transition work for both the studentsā academic experience and my own personal one. Iāve learned to keep things as simple as possible and weāre all taking it day by day.
Like an awful lot of others out there in book-blogging land, I found it hard to concentrate on reading for a little while, but this is coming back to me now. Thank goodness.
Anyway, I thought I would make this post more of a catch-up post than anything and then I can move onto getting back into the swing of things.
So ā to the reading. I really enjoy Cathy746ās blog which focuses on reading from Ireland, and when I learned that she would be running February as āRead Irelandā month, I really wanted to join in with that. I toddled off to the TBR shelves and read the following as a tribute to the Emerald Isle:
The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind ā Billy OāCallaghan (F/short stories).
For two titles without links, Iām afraid that I didnāt write up official reviews for them. However, I can report that the Binchy was a great read ā like “a big cup of tea with chocolate digestives” good read and it hit the spot at a time when stress was quite high re: the class online transition. (To give you an idea of that, I have never taught online nor have I ever taken a class online, so I had a lot of learning to do! Iām much more comfortable with the whole process now, thankfully to the high level of support from both the university and my faculty colleagues.)
The OāCallaghan short stories were good with a couple of great ones in there. I think reading short stories as a unit is a bit of a gamble, and to be honest, Iām not convinced that reading the stories one after the other (as I did with this title) was the best way to experience them. I think Iāll probably make more of an effort to spread out the short-story reads a little more in the future. I bet that is a completely different reading experience that way.
Anyway, OāCallaghan is an Irish author and this was a good read. I also have one of his novels on deck so perhaps that might be more up my alley.
Another read that was definitely up my alley was an old collection of themed essays from the acclaimed zoologist Sir David Attenborough. Called āJourneys to the Pastā, this collection of writing pieces goes back to the 1960s when Attenborough was traveling to far-flung places such as Madagascar, Tongo and Australiaās Northern Territories ādoing what he does best, journeying with camera and pen to observe animals and tribal customs in some of the remotest parts of the world,ā says the book cover.
Although written 60 years ago, this essay collection more than meets the mark for excellence in nonfiction writing. I had wondered if there would be some non-PC descriptions of places and peoples, but there were none. (I shouldnāt have worried. It was Attenborough, after all.) A thoroughly enjoyable armchair travel with an erudite and humorous host who plainly adores what he was lucky enough to do. Heās is just as thrilled meeting the local tribal representatives and learning their customs, despite his main focus being on animals, and his enthusiasm and respect for the individuals who he meets in the course of his travels were a balm for this frazzled soul.Ā
This was by far one of the best of the reads Iāve had in the past few weeks, and if youāre looking for some gentle reads combined with some far-off travel (from the comfort of your own shelter-in-place home), then you wonāt go wrong with Sir David.
A completely different read from Attenborough was a short read by NYT critic, Margo Jefferson, who wrote a small collection of provocative essays about Michael Jackson. (Yes, that Michael Jackson. Thriller one.) Jefferson takes a pretty academic lens to Jacksonās life and provides much food for thought about him. Iām still thinking about this read and am contemplating putting together a full review of this book since itās got a lot of material inside the slim page count. (Iāve read some other Jefferson work: check out the review of Negroland here.)
So, Iāve been reading. And napping. And learning new software. And playing with my animals. And going for walks. And more napping. š Iām planning on adding more reading to this list from now on.
