January, 2023 Reading

 Nine books this month, which is a really good number for me. I can't take total credit; some of them were books that followed me into the new year.

Before I discuss those nine, here's what I'm in the middle of reading now:

Spare - Prince Harry. Memoir.  On audiobook. Of course.

Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography - Gail Levin. Aren't all biographies intimate to some degree?

Poison - Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. Novel. It's a roman a clef with a weird Virginia Woolf vibe.

Here's what I want to read:

Ducks - Kate Beaton. Graphic Novel. It just arrived today via ILL. Squeeeee! I know it's going to zoom to the top of my reading pile, but when? Tomorrow? Tonight? As soon as I get off this computer?

Here are the nine for January:

1. Sons - Pearl S. Buck. Novel. The second in a trilogy following The Good Earth. Wang Lung's three sons are an interesting bunch, especially the youngest, Wang the Tiger, a soldier turned warlord. I'm eager to finish the trilogy.

2. The Man Who Invented Christmas - Les Standiford. Nonfiction. An examination of Charles Dickens and his most popular work, A Christmas Carol. I liked it, but it felt padded, as if it were really meant to be New Yorker article-sized rather than book-length.

3. Who Was Michelangelo? - Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction.

4. Moloka'i - Alan Brennert. Novel. For several decades, Hawaiians exhibiting symptoms of leprosy were ordered by law to leave their families and go into an undetermined quarantine on the island of Moloka'i. This story follows the life of Rachel who is five years old when her symptoms first appear. I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked all the history of Hawaii, but felt the crashing weight of information dumps throughout. Brennert writes beautiful descriptions of the islands. The reader can really see their rugged beauty. The characters are mostly sympathetic and their rituals are presented respectfully and often movingly. My interest in learning more about Moloka'i was piqued. On the other hand, the prose style is a little clunky. The dialogue often seemed anachronistic and POV was all over the place, sometimes all at once. I wish that Brennert had just committed to doing this as straight nonfiction; I think the result would have been more satisfying.

5. Joan is Okay - Weike Wang. Novel. Joan is an attending physician who works in an ICU unit in New York City right about the time that COVID-19 is starting to make its frightening presence known. At times, the novel and the title character have a sort of flat affect, but then there's a good deal of sharp commentary. This is one of those novels I'm going to have to read again to fully absorb.

6. Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book - Keila V. Dawson (author) and Alleanna Harris (illustrator) Nonfiction.

7. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver. Novel. Basically, David Copperfield set in Appalachia during the opioid crisis. I never realized that Kingsolver and Dickens had so much in common. You don't have to have read David Copperfield to "get" Demon Copperhead, but it enhanced the experience for me. I suggest pairing those two books, or pairing Demon Copperhead with the nonfiction book Dopesick by Beth Macy.

8. Who Was Shaquille O'Neal? - Ellen Labreque. Nonfiction.

9. Starring Steven Spielberg: The Making of a Young Filmmaker - Gene Barretta (author) and Craig Orback (illustrator). Nonfiction.

DNF:

A House Divided - Pearl S. Buck. Novel. The third book in the House of Wang trilogy. I got a quarter of the way in and had an audiobook malfunction. I'm hoping to get back to it after I finish listening to Spare.

IT'S NOT ME, IT'S YOU, I THINK:

I've been in my book group for a year now, and we just don't seem to meld, or click, or whatever you call it. Our group dynamic is chilly. We engage with the leader (who is the Outreach librarian) but there's no rapport among ourselves. It's painful and I'm frustrated.

I need to feel some sort of connection. As a last-ditch effort, I'm going to try the library's other book group, which meets a little earlier in the day. The leader said that this other group is 'harder to please' and 'complains a lot more', so I'm interpreting that to mean that they are lively and interesting, and that maybe discussions are a little more organic. Wish me luck???

It Was 30 Years Ago Today: My Reading Journal

 

[This post is dedicated to TEJ]

Thirty years ago, January, 1993, I decided to get serious about keeping a reading journal. 

Before that, there were a series of false starts. I played around a little with tracking my books by keeping lists not in a designated blank book but on the blank, back pages of random books. (What was I thinking? Writing in books?) Then I would forget which book! As a result, 1984 (the year) is almost lost to me. All I remember reading that year was The Good Earth,  In Love and Trouble, The Madness of a Seduced Woman, Heartburn, The Good Earth and Shiloh and Other Stories. I particularly remember the last one because an older gentleman in my book group had harsh words for the book and author. When I went to defend it I instead burst into tears as if I'd been personally attacked. Tears and snot flew. The boo-hoos rose like balloons.

 Fast-forward to 1990, when I kept a list on the back pages of Inside Oscar. Luckily, I stumbled onto the list several years ago and copied it to a notebook and into this blog.

1991 is easy; that was the year of Anne Tyler. Nothing but Anne Tyler novels. I pretended my boyfriend's family had been created by Anne Tyler. My dreams were Tylerscapes.

1992 is but a vapor. Poof.

1993 turned out to be the charm. Good times and bad, sick or well, sad or happy, employed or jobless, here or abroad, I have written down my reading. 

And now it's been Thirty Freaking Years. I used to envy people who had reading lists going back that far. Now I'm one of those people! Incredible.

If you track your reading, how far back can you go?

Book Bingo Blackout: School's In!

 Unruly Reader strikes again! Isn't this school theme worthy of at least seven complimentary words that border on worshipful?  I'm totally enthralled.

Unruly has a description of each category/school subject:

I can see myself acing this challenge and going to the head of the class then graduating with honors. My plan is to come back and add updates here every month, so watch this space.

UPDATE:

January. Subject: Afterschool Special. Book: Demon Copperhead.

UPDATE:

February. Subject: Chronicles. Book: Spare.

UPDATE:

March. Subject: Band. Book: Young Man with a Horn

UPDATE:

April. Subject: Apple. Book: At The Edge of the Orchard

UPDATE:

May. Subject: Home Economics. Book: How to Keep House While Drowning

UPDATE:

June. Subject: Chemistry. Book: Lessons in Chemistry

UPDATE:

July. Subject: World Languages. Book: Happening

UPDATE:

August. Subject: Library Checkout. Book: Shy

UPDATE:

September. Subject: Modern Library 100 The Call of the Wild

UPDATE:

Subject: Drama Club Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Subject: Old School Sense and Sensibility 

Subject: English Lessons

Subject: Detention Five Days at Memorial

Subject: Elementary What Do We Know About the Winchester House?

2023 Reading Resolutions

 

Keep it simple. 

That's what I tell myself, but when I see a brand-new, unvarnished, pristine new year, something in me wants to get downright ornate with my resolutions. Read all the classics! Read your own shelves! Let your inner book snob take over! Don't read anything written before 1790! Don't read anything originally written in English!

I can never keep a whole list of resolutions, so maybe if I tell myself to read whimsically, I'll suddenly have a perverse need for structure.

Here are a few resolutions I'm pretty sure I can keep:

1. Read 62 books in 2023

2. Use the library.

3. Show the hometown bookstore lots of love.

4. Stay in the book group.

5. Continue posting to my beloved book blog, My Blob.

6. Oh, hell...read whimsically.

Regarding the above photo: This was the first draft of my 2023 resolutions. I thought I'd save it here, just to see...