Oh My July

 

July was such a good reading month. I feel as if I got my reading mojo back. It never stays gone, but when it's gone, it feels permanently gone. But it's here, making itself at home and putting its feet up on the coffee table. Whew.

I caught COVID during the 4th of July weekend, which was unpleasant at first, but as I improved, paid off in reading dividends. I was able to plow through my half-read stack while half-sitting up in bed, as Waverly remained close by and basked in the heat of my elevated temperature.

1. Born To Run -Bruce Springsteen. Memoir. Audiobook. Much more rumination than I was expecting from The Boss. He's thoughtful. Thought-Full. Enjoyed his narration of the memoir.

2. James - Percival Everett. Novel. Smart, sly, funny, and subversive. Since I have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it was interesting to see where the two narratives meet and diverge. I am sure that Mark Twain would heartily recommend this novel. Read this one for the new, no-name book group.

3. Spent - Alison Bechdel. "Comic Novel". A fictional version of Bechdel and her partner live "off the grid" near an idyllic small town in Vermont where their lives intertwine with characters from Dykes To Watch Out For. Now I want to go back and read the whole DTWOF series and get better acquainted with everyone.

4. The Matriarch - Susan Page. Nonfiction. A serviceable biography of Barbara Bush. It's written in a sort of a gossipy style. Good interviews with Barbara Bush and her immediate family and her many friends. My main irritation with the book concerns the biographer: Somehow, Susan Page could not keep herself out of it! I'm of the school that biographers should be like the proverbial fly on the wall. This would involve some use of the passive voice, but so what? It's not all bad, and exists for situations like this one. Read this one for the 3 R's book group. The theme for the month was to pick a first lady and read a book about her.

5. Honey, Baby, Mine - Laura Dern and Diane Ladd. Memoir. Audiobook. A few years ago, Diane Ladd was unwittingly exposed to dangerous pesticides that jeopardized her lung capacity. Doctors told Diane and her daughter, Laura Dern, that Diane didn't have much time, but one doctor said that if Laura could get Diane up and walking, that would improve her breathing, so the two began a series of walks which also became conversations about their lives. Dern recorded the conversations, but listening to the audiobook, I wasn't sure if these were the actual original conversations, or re-creations, because at times, Dern in particular, sounds especially neat and pat. Not to mention that they are both accomplished actors. I'm happy that Dern got her mother walking and talking, and I'm pleased that Ladd got well. I enjoyed all the theatre and Hollywood name-dropping and gossip, but the whole package feels so contrived. I'm thinking in particular of an argument they have towards the end of the book. In addition, I could have lived without the introduction by Reese Witherspoon.

6. Who is Willie Nelson? - David Stabler. Nonfiction. A damn good entry in the Who Was...? series. I enjoyed reading about Willie's early life and his lengthy struggle for success. Also, the author doesn't shy away from Willie's marijuana use, his battles with the IRS, and an extramarital affair that produced a daughter. My only (minor) gripe is that I would have liked to have seen a brief discussion of how Willie developed his distinctive singing style.

7. A Marriage at Sea - Sophie Elmhirst. Nonfiction. In 1973, an English couple, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were sailing to New Zealand when their boat was smashed by an injured whale. The Baileys had sold their house and built this boat to follow their dreams of adventure. After the encounter with the whale, the boat sank quickly, and the Baileys were soon adrift in a rubber raft with a dinghy attached and a meager supply of food. Their ordeal went on for 118 days, until they were spotted and rescued by a Korean fishing vessel. A year later, they published their account, 117 Days Adrift. (It was actually 118 days, but early reports got the amount of time wrong.) Journalist Sophie Elmhirst, writing in beautiful and restrained prose, covers their ordeal in A Marriage at Sea, but also goes back to the couple's beginnings, when shy, introverted Maurice met outgoing, extroverted Maralyn, and they somehow clicked. Elmhirst also discusses the couple's sudden celebrity after their rescue, their return to sailing. The book comes full circle, and again, it is beautifully composed, and breathtaking in its empathy and insights. It's wonderful and my favorite read for July. 

8. Who is Caitlin Clark? -Meri-Jo Borzilleri. Nonfiction. This is one of the 50-pagers in the Who Was...? series, and admittedly, there's not much to say about WNBA star Caitlin Clark, since she's still at the beginning of her career. Reading her origin story was time well spent, and now I won't be so jaw-droppingly ignorant when I see her name in sports news.

In book-related news, I followed the story about Dan Pelzer with great interest. Columbus, Ohio native Pelzer died recently at the age of 92, and left behind a reading log that began back in 1962, and it looks like it went on at least until 2023. .Also, nearly every book Dan logged was checked out from the Ohio Public Library system. His daughter, Marci, posted the100+-page list at what-dan-read.com One of the branches in the Columbus library system has a display of books from Dan's list. In his obituary, it says something to the effect of "in lieu of flowers, go out and read a real page-turner." The more I read about Dan, the more I wish I could have met him.

Do you log your reading? If so, how long have you done so? I've been at it regularly since 1993. (I have a list from 1990, and an incomplete list from 1991.) I love looking back at what I've read, and what others have read. If you haven't started a reading log, please consider doing so. They literally are the stories of our lives.

September, 2024: In The Books!

 

Ten books in September! I can hardly believe it. I may make my goal of 63 books this year after all.

1. Dear Miss Kopp - Amy Stewart. Novel. This wasn't my favorite of the Kopp Sisters series, but I was glad to see unsung-but-just-as-intrepid sister Norma solving a case in World War I France. Pleased with myself for finally finishing the series. I introduced Constance, Norma and Fleurette to my new book group, and they seemed intrigued.

2. Dear Hanna - Zoje Stage. Novel. Darkly hilarious thriller. The follow-up to Stage's debut, Baby Teeth. So satisfying. I couldn't wait to read it. Now I wish I'd saved it to savor as an October read.

3. Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation - Emily Van Duyne. Nonfiction. Plath scholar Van Duyne uses the latest information from letters Sylvia Plath wrote to her psychiatrist in the last months of her life, in which she confides that she had been the victim of domestic violence. Van Duyne convincingly builds the case that Ted Hughes destroyed Sylvia Plath in all ways, then, as the executor of her literary estate, set out to make her over in the image that suited him best, (which was a creepy sad-girl mythology that was meant to take the focus off of his own horribleness) while also destroying or losing her two unpublished novels and the last volume of her journals. The woman he left Plath for, Assia Wevill, also killed herself and her 4 year old daughter by Hughes, and he silenced her story, burying their ashes in an unmarked grave and forbidding anyone in his circle as well as Plath biographers from talking about her. He mythologizes Wevill as well as the dark temptress who took him from his happy home. "Hating Ted Hughes" would have been an apt title for this book as well. I know I did.

4. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos. Novel. Audiobook. I enjoyed the pulsating, jazzy rhythms of the prose, but for a book chock-full of sex, it wasn't that sexy. I watched the movie version as well. It looked great, the music was hot and so was Antonio Banderas, but it just didn't add up.

5. Who Is Billie Jean King? - Sarah Fabiny, Nonfiction. Billie Jean King was the first athlete I remember admiring. I enjoyed reading this for nostalgic reasons.

6. Who Is Lin-Manuel Miranda? - Elijah Rey-David Matos. Nonfiction. Many of the new books in the Who Was...? series seem to be getting more and more workmanlike, stolid and plodding. Lin-Manuel Miranda gave the world Hamilton. He deserves a better biography, and so do the readers.

7. American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath - Carl Rollyson. Nonfiction. In the late 1950s, Sylvia Plath had a dream that she met Marilyn Monroe and Monroe became a confidant of sorts, offering advice and giving Sylvia a great manicure. While recounting Plath's life, Rollyson uses the dream as a springboard to constantly compare the two women, and by extension, their husbands, Ted Hughes and Arthur Miller. Rollyson has a fluid, efficient style that I enjoyed reading, but the Monroe comparisons jarred the narrative.

8. Sociopath: A Memoir - Patric Gagne, Ph.D. Nonfiction. I really didn't like this book at all. The nuanced conversations about sociopathy were too many and too long. In other places, the book was irritatingly vague. The writing style was thin, unsubstantial and belabored. It often felt like it was padded to make the book a conventional volume length. Maybe it's unreasonable, but I had expectations that a memoir called "Sociopath" would be somewhat more piercing.

9. Who Is Travis Kelce? -Ellen Labrecque. Nonfiction. What's not to like? He's a Kansas City Chief. He's Taylor's boyfriend. I may try the podcast that he does with his brother Jason.

10. Lady Oracle - Margaret Atwood. Novel. Audiobook. 1970s Atwood, pre-dystopian. Sharply comic.

BOOK GROUP UPDATE:

I love my new group. This is the format I have been craving. We had such a great time talking about historical fiction in September, that we're going to continue talking about it at the October meeting. I got lots of inspiration for my infinite TBR.

...And August, 2024

 Here's what I read in August:

1. Miss Kopp Investigates (novel) -Amy Stewart. The Great War is over, and the sisters are back home. The Miss Kopp in this book is Fleurette. She is recovering from a lengthy illness, and can't go back onstage. She finds work posing as "the other woman" in divorce cases. (Back then, there was no such thing as no-fault divorce. Someone had to accuse somebody of something, usually adultery or mental cruelty.) During such a case, Fleurette happens onto a fraud scheme and proves every bit as capable of detective work as her older sisters. Great ending to the Kopp Sisters series, if  it is indeed the end. I never stop hoping that Amy Stewart just hit pause.

2. Random Family (nonfiction) -Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. This book has been on my radar for years, and recently came to my attention again when The New York Times put it on their 100 Best Books this century. It's an ethnography. LeBlanc followed two young Puerto Rican women, Jessica and Coco, as well as their extended family, including their partners, George and Cesar, who are in prison for drugs and murder. I admire LeBlanc's ability to portray her subjects without judgement, and the scrupulous way she completely wrote herself out of the narrative. This is often hard to read, but it's worth it. A good choice by NYT.

3. Mornings on Horseback (biography) -David McCullough. Teddy Roosevelt is an iconic figure and a colorful personality that is recognizable to this day. But what and who made Theodore Roosevelt into that person? David McCullough explores Roosevelt and his siblings' early lives as well as providing fully realized portraits of his mother and father. One of the best biographies I've ever read. Highly recommended.

4. Kopp Sisters on the March (novel) -Amy Stewart. In the early  days of WWI, Constance, Norma and Fleurette are at an army camp for women. At first, the camp is a weak and tepid excuse for preparing women to participate in the war effort. Constance's background as a "lady deputy" stands her in good stead when she has to step in and serve as matron of the camp. Meanwhile, Norma is trying to get her carrier pigeon program off the ground, so to speak, and Fleurette is arranging for entertainment to keep up everyone's morale. They are also all puzzling over one of their bunkmates, "Roxy", who isn't exactly what she seems to be. Her story is told in alternate chapters, based on an actual person and case.

5. Bibliophile (nonfiction) -Jane Mount. Everything your little bookworm heart could desire is in this exquisite book: Book lists, thoughtfully divided up by genre and sometimes subgenre, lists of beautiful bookstores and stunning libraries, fun facts about authors, and it's all illustrated in gorgeous color! I must have a copy of Bibliophile for my home library. A lot of hard work and heart went into the making of this book and it shows. And glows.

Book Group News:

My new book group, The Three R's, broke off from the library program and are now meeting independently, although still at the library. A quick explanation: When the group was part of the library program, they were required to meet in the Storytime room, which ironically, has terrible acoustics. The members asked if they could move to the conference room. The program director said they couldn't, but that if they declared independence, they could reserve the conference room for meetings. So that's what happened. 

I couldn't make the last meeting, in which the topic was to read a book in which a character goes to a foreign country to live. For this month's meeting on September 20, the topic is to read an example of historical fiction. I'm going to introduce the members to the Kopp Sisters.

I wanted to tell you about my strange Philip Roth dream, but I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. I've already lost this post once, and AI has offered twice to show me how to write properly. No doubt that you can imagine what I said in reply.

July's Reading Adventure

I was almost done with this post, and I lost it. The UNDO button was unsympathetic to my plight the third time my post disappeared. I guess it's because I kept ignoring AI's offers to "help [me] write".

In the interest of getting this done ahead of the sword of Damocles that all of a sudden lurks in this computer, I'm going to just hit the high notes.

New book group: Loved it. Love the format. This is my tribe. They seem to be in some sort of transition, though. Stay tuned.

Books read this month: 3. A meager number. I'm going to have to keep a daily reading diary to see what I'm actually doing.

1. Such a Fun Age -Kiley Reid. Novel. Audiobook.

2. Who Is Michael Phelps? - Micah Hecht. Nonfiction.

3. The Overstory - Richard Powers. Novel. Audiobook.

OK. I'm going to hit Publish now, so we've at least covered this much.

I Can't Help Myself: The Book Group Chronicles

Yeah, yeah. I know what I said. Words like "no more book group". Words like "free to read what I like into eternity". 

Mmmm, words. So delicious. I'm eating them now.

Because: Guess what? I found another book group and I'm going to give it a whirl.

This time, it could work, it could really, really work. (Why do I suddenly feel like Elizabeth Taylor embarking on another marriage?)

Here's how the book group is set up: First, someone (I don't know who! The Powers That Be? The Book Gods? Nancy Pearl?) chooses an author or a genre. Then, the gentle reader/scruffy bookworm goes in search of a book that fits the parameters. Finally, a month later, GR/SB shows up to book group, and each individual presents the book they chose.

Example: This month is "Edith Wharton (Again)". (Presumably, someone in this group has a hell of a girl crush on Edith Wharton, if it's "again".  Can't wait to find out who.) But anyway! Edith Wharton! I'm a fan. Which book should I choose? Should I just go with something I've already read or strike out and read something fresh, something new to me? I can't go wrong; Wharton is always satisfactory. A little depressing, yes, but nobody does it better, to quote Carly Simon.

As you can see, I'm already in love with this book group format. No more turning pages with one hand and holding my nose with the other. Even better: Since the group meets around lunchtime, we can bring our lunches! In my previous book group, NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED. I always thought it was a shame; I'm not one of those wispy, ethereal bookworms. Sometimes in books, characters eat, and when they eat, I get damned hungry. So yeah: Lunch!

This all takes place July 19. Stay tuned.

*

In other news, the bookgroupless me read 7 books in June:

 1. It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Breakups in History -Jennifer Wright- Nonfiction. If you're suffering from a bad breakup, or you know someone who has just had one, or if you've ever had one, you need to read this book. Jennifer Wright, covering ground from Nero to Norman Mailer will put it all in perspective for you. Your rotten ex-partner couldn't possibly be worse than Henry VIII (killing two wives) or Norman Mailer (attempted murder, laughed off). There is also a great rebound story: Effie Gray's husband, John Ruskin, was horrified by her naked and completely normal form and refused to have sex with her. She rebounded years later with a painter friend of Ruskin's and the happy couple went on to have several children. Edith Wharton's in here, too. After an unhappy and mostly unintimate marriage, she finally found a journalist who made her toes curl. Unfortunately, he was a jerk. Speaking of jerks, Lord Byron was of that variety, but his lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, stalked him unmercifully and even sent a bloody tuft of pubic hair in one of her many, many, many letters. And there was poor Oscar Wilde, going to jail because of his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, only to have Alfred abandon him, then write self-serving crap about everything. Read it, and you'll either say, yeah, I don't have it so bad, or you'll have someone historical to compare your scummy ex-lover to, and your friends will be impressed.

2. Come and Get It - Kiley Reid - Novel. Audiobook. Agatha, a well-known author of nonfiction books signs on for a year as an author-in-residence at the University of Arkansas. Millie is a senior and a Resident Advisor at one of the dorms. Agatha starts out interviewing students about how they feel about weddings for her new book, but suddenly her focus shifts to how these same young women talk about money. After accidentally overhearing a conversation, Agatha compromises Millie's position as an RA  and her own as writer-in-residence by paying Millie to let her sit in Millie's room and eavesdrop with a tape recorder running. This novel is long on character, seemingly short on plot, but rich in awkward situations. I liked Come and Get It well enough to seek out Reid's debut novel Such A Fun Age. Nicole Lewis narrates both audiobooks and her gift for voices and accents is superb.

3. Rx -Rachel Lindsay- Graphic Memoir. Rachel was diagnosed as bipolar as a young adult, and she must stay on medication to stabilize her condition. That means that her jobs must include health insurance. She gets a good job in advertising, but finds herself developing ads for an antidepressant drug. As she becomes both the target audience and the targeter, she starts to destabilize and soon requires hospitalization. As soon as she's "better", she's expected to hop right back into this twisted cycle again, and that's when she takes a step back and scrutinizes the situation. Read this, it's good.

.IV. The Road to Oz - Kathleen Krull - Biography, picture book. L. Frank Baum was an imaginative, daydreaming child who retained those same qualities as an adult. He failed at business repeatedly, but never ran out of ideas for his next creative endeavor. Author Kathleen Krull follows Baum through his checkered careers, showing the various inspirations for what finally catapulted him into literary legend. She did a great job of bringing Baum's quirky personality to life on the page, but she would also insert these parenthetical asides that seemed to be the equivalent of eye-rolling, and that was so jarring and annoying.

V. When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman - Novel. Book 1 of 5 in Penman's Plantagenant saga. In this volume, Stephen and Maude battle for England's throne. Stephen seems to be a weak king, but the English aren't about to accept a woman ruler. Historical fiction that feels so fresh and alive. I'm working on the second book in the series now, which follows the fortunes of Maude's son Henry II and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. 

6. Lost Boy -Jane Yolen- Biography, picture book. This biography of J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan was exquisite. Jane Yolen related anecdotes about Barrie's life and tied in quotes from his work.

7. Who Gets the Drumstick? -Helen Beardsley - Memoir. This memoir has an alternate title, Yours, Mine, and Ours. Two movies under that name were based on Beardsley's experience of suddenly becoming a widow with eight children and almost as suddenly, meeting and falling in love with a widower with ten children, marrying him, then having two more children. It's a charming little book with a quirky story sincerely told, but the first part gave me weird vibes. Beardsley's first husband, a Navy pilot was killed when the plane he was flying crashed. At the time, she was six months pregnant with their eighth child. After the child is born, a well-meaning nurse and her own sister seem hell-bent on pushing Helen to forget her former life and make a new one with the children, and her sister pushes her into moving from Washington to California, then immediately into dating. One of these dates leads to the father of ten, Frank Beardsley, also a Navy man. He and Helen get married fairly quickly. Here's the timeline: The first husband dies in July of 1960. Frank and Helen get married in September of 1961. There are light and humorous anecdotes throughout the book and no one could deny the strong human-interest appeal, but it feels as if there is more conceal than reveal. Everything's a little too good to be true. In spite of my reservations, I did enjoy this book.

May, 2024: Quit Book Group. Don't Care.

o

Bookworms work in mysterious ways, and one day last month, I woke up and decided that I didn't want to be in book group anymore. I didn't like that itchy feeling of having to read a book that I really didn't want to read. A book in which I didn't even want to crack the cover, not even the teeniest bit, and I damn well didn't want to sit and talk about it, nor did I want to answer inane questions about (cardboard) character motivation.

Regrets? Sadness? None so far. Instead, I have a feeling of buoyancy. I can read anything I want FOREVER.

 If I were to return to book groupdom, I would want to be in one of those new silent book clubs in which people sit around reading to themselves, then at the end of the meeting, they go around and share brief details and impressions of what they've been reading. If I liked the look of their book, I could quickly borrow it and make a note of the title, author, and some keywords that led to my attraction. So yes, I've had some pleasantly hazy reveries about this sort of book grouping, but I can't figure out why I am picturing all of us in semi-formal clothing!

...

In other news, I decided that I wanted to belong to all the libraries in the area, so I started patronizing the university library ten miles down the road. Wandering around in the stacks which seem to stretch for miles is both relaxing and exhilarating. Even better, it's free! I don't have to pay a fee to check out materials. Contrast this with an earlier attempt to join a community college library in a nearby town: 

1. No, you can't join. You don't live in our preferred counties.

2. No, you can't pay a fee to join. We just don't want your other-county ass.

3. Even if you were eligible, you still couldn't have access to all the available materials, because you aren't a student.

I know, of course, that this library has its reasons, rules, and regulations, but this Fuck You gift-wrapped in a Fuck Off stung a bit. I felt ashamed and unwashed. I felt like a bumpkin; how dare I inquire, how dare I try to walk my stinky feet through its shining portal? I slunk away, but regained my equanimity within a day: I'm not the bumpkin! They're the bumpkins! 

Everything is fine now. I joined the university library, and it's free and they sent me an email welcoming me, and you know what else? They could fit all of Bumpkin Library on one of their many floors! So there.

...

Finally, I'm going to talk about my May reading:

1. What Were the Shark Attacks of 1916? -Nico Medina. Nonfiction. These attacks are what the bestseller Jaws was based on. It seems so strange that just barely a century ago, people and even scientists knew so little about sharks.

2. What Was  the Great Molasses Flood of 1919? -Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction. My jaw dropped so many times reading about this preventable disaster. I know that companies can be inept and unscrupulous, but this was really blatant.

3. Emma -Jane Austen. Novel. Back last century, when I took that Jane Austen class and read six novels in six weeks, I had the sense in my bruised brain at the end that Emma was my favorite of the novels. I've been going back and rereading, and so far, I'm not wrong. There's only Mansfield Park left, and that was the one I ranked at the bottom. I'm not in a tearing hurry to read it. But Emma! What a treat! Audiobook.

IV. (for some reason, the numeral four isn't working on this keyboard) The Sunne In Splendour -Sharon Kay Penman. Novel. Rich and rewarding historical fiction about Richard III and The Wars of the Roses. I've got a stack of Penman novels that should take me to the end of the year.

V. (hmm, this is interesting.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -Ken Kesey. Novel. While I appreciated the novel, this is one of those cases in which the movie was better. McMurphy as a Christ-figure was too heavy-handed. Audiobook.

6. Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -Philip Gefter. This book seemed like one of those long New Yorker articles padded into book-length. Although it was repetitive, I enjoyed the backstage drama involved with the making of the movie, and at the end, Gefter's look at other movies about marriage that were influenced in one way or another by Who's Afraid...? I followed up this read with my own viewing of the 1966 movie, and relished it more armed with the insider knowledge and trivia Gefter's book provided.

...

Other stuff.

What I'm working on now: 

It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Breakups in History - Jennifer Wright. Nonfiction.

When Christ and His Saints Slept (Book 1 of the Plantagenet Saga) -Sharon Kay Penman. Novel.

Come and Get It -Kiley Reid. Novel. Audiobook.

Wishlist: The Alienist -Caleb Carr. Novel.

March Madness

Yes, it's true. I could not come up with a more clever title. There were no basketballs, polished gym floors, hoops, or three-point shots involved in the making of this post. 

Six books for the third month in a row. A respectable number.

 So much for my thinking that I could go a whole year reading nothing but nonfiction. It's just not so. I need novels. Novels need me?

 1. Lilac Girls - Martha Hall Kelly. Historical novel. Audiobook. I was almost halfway through this novel before I realized that several of these characters were actual people. Up to that point, I was quite engaged in the book, but that revelation had me sitting straight up for the rest. Caroline Ferriday is a rich New York socialite who devotes endless days to helping French refugees at the dawn of WWII. During the war, she raises funds for care packages for French orphanages. After the war, she spearheads a campaign to help women who were in German concentration camps get surgery to repair injuries inflicted on them by Nazi doctors at the camp who were bent on ghoulish experimentation. Kasia is a young Polish political prisoner. Herta is one of the Nazi doctors. Eventually, their stories intertwine. I'm really mad at myself for sidestepping this book for at least three years. It was so well done. The audiobook is incredible. Three different actors portray these women, and the one who narrated Kasia's part had me teary-eyed more than once. I admired Caroline, and despised Herta with the heat of a thousand suns. 

 2. Akin - Emma Donoghue. Novel. There are two stories here, and one gets completely overshadowed by the other. Not my favorite Donoghue novel, although when she seems to falter, she's still really good. I read this for book group.

 3. Class - Stephanie Land. Memoir. Land starts Class where her previous memoir, Maid left off, and concentrates on Land's senior year at the University of Montana, where she is pursuing a BA in Creative Writing, and is hoping to be accepted to the MFA program there. She's also still working cleaning houses and raising her kindergarten-age daughter as a single mother living below the poverty level. As graduation draws near, her life is further complicated by an unplanned pregnancy. She gets more than her share of raised eyebrows and well-meaning  but judgmental advice from classmates and faculty. And, as always, she does ongoing battle with a social services system that borders on Kafkaesque. Stephanie Land's writing is intense. One of her professors said "relentless", and I agree, but only in the best sense. What I like best about both her memoirs is that she's not afraid to portray herself as complex and contradictory. Looking forward to a third memoir.

 4. The Vaster Wilds - Lauren Groff. Historical novel. A young girl, a servant to a minister and his wife is on the run in the 1630s from the diseased and failing settlement of Jamestown. The reader is made to understand that the girl has committed some sort of crime. Her life in the wild is brutal, but through flashbacks, we see that her whole life has been difficult, and seems to have prepared her. given her the mental toughness needed for this latest hardship.

 5. The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen Age 83 1/4 - "Hendrik Groen". Novel. Audiobook. Set in The Netherlands, Hendrik and his friends, old-age pensioners in a retirement home, get tired of the tedium of the place and start the Old-But-Not-Dead Club in which each member arranges an outing per month for all of them. Hendrik also buys a motorized scooter and explores the area around the home. He is an avid reader of the news, especially when it pertains to senior citizens. His observations are concise, witty, and sometimes pretty savage. His diary follows a whole year, one of great change as he and his friends face up to their physical limitations and still have good times. Derek Jacobi as narrator was an inspired choice, although I sometimes had problems with his vocal dynamics. When Hendrik shouts, he shouts, he lets it all out, but when he was saying witty, caustic things half under his breath, I would often not catch it. When the book ended, I found myself missing these characters.

 6. The Guest - Emma Cline. Novel. After inviting her to spend the summer with him at his house in the Hamptons, Alex's much-older, rich boyfriend suddenly cuts her loose right before Labor Day, having his assistant get her a ticket back to New York City. But Alex has burned all of her bridges back in the city, and has grown accustomed to life among the rich, so she decides that no, she just won't return to NYC. Her plan is to hang around then show up at Simon's (the boyfriend) Labor Day party. By then, she hopes he will reconsider and they'll have a lovely reunion. During the five days Alex is adrift, she taps into her considerable grifting skills, then immediately embraces her genius for the bad decision. I was horrified by Alex, but enjoyed The Guest so much. Really loved the Patricia Highsmith feel of it. And OH MY GOD THAT ENDING! What happened? I went back over the last chapter a few times, looking for clues and developing theories. I'm glad I don't know for sure. I admire Emma Cline for making readers figure it out.

March, 2023 Reading

 March is a long month, and yet I only completed five books. When I'm having a bit of a struggle, I wonder whether to blame it on age. Being online too much is much more likely the culprit. 

Digression: Funny thing about that word, "culprit". Long ago, in a rare, dyslexic moment, it entered my brain as "curplit". I pronounced it that way in a roomful of English majors and you should have heard the sharply inhaled silence before they all burst out laughing. Embarrassing. I'm much more careful now, but at any given moment, I could still curplit. End of digression.

Then there's my harsh inner critic who tells me it's not age, it's not being online, it's that I'm an imposter. A poser bookworm. That I've never been much of a reader. Dim. Lazy. Unmotivated. Mean adjectives are her stock and trade; I told you she was harsh!

But never mind her. Instead, let's talk about something that really made my bookworm heart happy this month: While I was on Twitter one day, a guy named Ben from Australia posted pictures of excerpts from his 94-year-old grandmother's reading log. She's been keeping track since she was 14 in 1943. 80 years! Her entries start out in German and switch to English in the late 1940s. I fell into a daydream about spending my life in a clean, well-lighted room surrounded by other people's book journals that go back decades, reading and enjoying endless spooling lists of books. (How could I get people to send me their book logs, and what's an intelligent excuse for wanting them other than I would find them both comforting and thrilling?)

Okay, I think I've driven around the block enough now that I'm ready to post my five reads for March:

1. Young Man with a Horn - Dorothy Baker. Novel. A short 1938 novel about a young musician, loosely based on Bix Beiderbecke. The music itself seems like one of the characters. Baker writes so well about technique that the reader feels as if they also know about the intricacies of music. Sort of like chess and Walter Tevis and The Queen's Gambit. When Baker veered into the romance part of the story, the book seemed to lose some of its oomph, although I think the female interest is meant to be fascinating. Luckily, that was a brief sidebar. I was going to complain a little about not being able to figure out just who the narrator of the story is supposed to be, but since the book is about jazz and jazz is about improvisation, I'm just going to mellow out and not get too exacting. I really loved the atmosphere of Young Man with a Horn. As I read, I felt as if I were in a nightclub, music and smoke wafting through the air and ice tinkling in glasses. I want to read more of Baker; her 1962 novel, Cassandra At The Wedding is the one I've got my eye on now.

2. A House Divided - Pearl S. Buck. Novel. So glad to finally finish the House of Wang trilogy! Many hours of pure listening enjoyment. Audiobook was definitely the way to go. Buck writes in the cadences of ancient storytelling and as it washed over me, I was mesmerized. As far as the individual books go, The Good Earth is a solid and illuminating look into agrarian life in China, Sons has the most action, and A House Divided conveys the tension of past and present colliding.

3. Sooley - John Grisham. Novel. This was a book group read. I was engrossed in the story of the young South Sudanese basketball player/refugee, but Grisham's writing style is so bad. Yet, I couldn't stop reading! So bad it's good? Really baffled about my love for this one. I'm thinking about trying another of Grisham's sports novels like Bleachers or Playing for Pizza.

4. Who Was Alex Trebek? - Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso. Nonfiction. It's about time he got his own book! I miss seeing Alex Trebek so much on Jeopardy! Smart, witty, erudite -- the man inspired a girlish crush across generations in my family -- my grandmother, my mother, and me.

5. Who Was Maria Tallchief? - Catherine Gourley. Nonfiction. This biography of the first Native American prima ballerina is beautifully, almost lyrically written.

And now it's April. The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction will be announced soon, and this year, my money is on Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. My sentimental choice, as always, is Joyce Carol Oates.

Six In September

 Three audiobooks and three paper books! I like the symmetry:

1. Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions - Amy Stewart. Novel. Audiobook. Christina Moore's narration is simply the best. Trust me.

2. Dust Bowl Girls - Lydia Reeder. Nonfiction. Audiobook. A barnstorming women's basketball team from a small Oklahoma college were trailblazers with a forward-thinking male coach who made them into champions. Their accomplishments were astonishing. I love how their story is told in such a sweet and conventional style, mostly through their own recollections. The juxtaposition gives the story a warmth and immediacy. I enjoyed the cameos featuring Babe Didrickson, who was handed one of her few defeats by our title heroines, and First Lady Lou Henry Hoover, who frowned on women playing any kind of sports. I was reminded of the movie A League of Their Own.

3. True Biz - Sara Novic. Novel.  A groundbreaking novel about Deaf culture, and the very real threat of extinction by the well-meaning hearing community, armed with imperfect technology. Thought-provoking. The ending seems open-ended. I'm hoping for a sequel.

4. Everybody Thought We Were Crazy - Mark Rozzo. Nonfiction. Actors Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward got married after a whirlwind romance in 1961. They quickly discovered they shared a love for modern, often unconventional art. For a brief time, everyone flocked to their home from Hollywood royalty to Andy Warhol to The Velvet Underground to The Byrds. Hopper also finds that he has a talent for photography. A dizzying look at Pop Culture. A fun read.

5. Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit - Amy Stewart.  Novel. Audiobook. I can't stop listening to this series, and I am not a series person. Miss Kopp gets better and better with each novel.

6. The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven - Nathaniel Ian Miller. Novel. In the 1910s and 20s, the title character feels like a misfit in Swedish society. He goes to work as a miner, and gets seriously injured. After that, he decides to go farther north and live as a hermit, hunting and trapping. Although he's awkward and unpolished, people warm to him, and life hands him a few surprises. The novel seems a little uneven, but I enjoyed Sven and his cohort and his many adventures.

August, 2022: Pendulum Swings

 What a month for reading! I made so many happy discoveries. 

But first, a Val story:

I had a complete Little House set. Val borrowed it. One day, she came to my door looking like a thundercloud.

"I'm reading The Long Winter now," she said. "And I'm really mad at Pa." Was she seething?

"Almanzo and his brother invited Pa for pancakes, and he sat down and ate with them. THEN he went home and ate that wee bit of food Ma fixed. And he never let on about eating those pancakes! What was it? Two stacks? Really shit behaviour."

I decided to try and defend Pa. "Well, he was getting out there every day in the blizzards and such, tending to the livestock --"

"I'm sorry," said Val. "It's just shit that he did that. Never said a word."

"My mom noticed it, too," I said. "She criticized him."

"And she's right," Val said.

***

Okay, so where was I? Reading in August. July was decidedly non-fictiony, and last month, the pendulum swung back the other way. I really love how my reading sorts itself out now, without my help.

1. A View of the Harbour - Elizabeth Taylor. Novel. Many thanks to my book blogging buddy Care for sending me this novel. I've wanted to read Elizabeth Taylor (not the actress) for years, and she was definitely worth the wait. First published in 1947, A View of the Harbour takes place in a coastal village called Newby where nothing goes completely unnoticed. Taylor seems to have had a lot of fun with this book. One of the characters, Beth, is writing a novel that spans the length of this novel. Also like Taylor, she is sharp and observant, but seems oblivious that her husband and her best friend are carrying on an affair. The novel is witty, wry and so meta. Although the book is more than 70 years old, it feels very fresh. Elizabeth Taylor is one of my favorites now.

2. Lady Cop Makes Trouble - Amy Stewart. Novel. Audiobook. Many thanks to my book enabler Teri for recommending the Kopp Sisters series to me. I've been dancing around it for a long time. I saw the audiobook for this one, the second in the series and thought I'd plunge right in. What a delight! The lady cop of the title is Constance Kopp who is based on a real person -- the first female deputy sheriff in the United States. The stylish and retro book covers would dress up any bookshelf, but even better, author Amy Stewart has striven to write in a manner that convinces readers they are indeed back in the 1910s. Also, in Constance Kopp, I get a Mattie Ross (True Grit) kind of vibe.

3. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh. Novel. Reread. I had such an urge to reread this book about a young woman who decides to sleep a year of her life away. The outrageousness of the plot and the characters (especially the shrink!) stayed with me, but this time I picked up on how it's really a novel about grief when you strip away the designer labels.

4. Bluebird, Bluebird - Attica Locke. Novel. Book group book. I liked the juxtaposition of the main character being a Texas Ranger and also being Black. These identities added some much-needed uneasy tension to a novel that creaked under the weight of constant information dumps that seemed the only way to advance the plot. I appreciated that Attica Locke didn't resort to predictable tropes. This is the first in a series, and I'm invested enough in Darren Matthews, who is very human and very flawed to come back and read another. Besides solving more crimes, he's got a hell of a lot of baggage to unpack, and I'm rooting for him.

5. Who Was Nelson Mandela? - Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso. Nonfiction. As usual, the writing team of Pollack and Belviso do not disappoint. Very well done.

6. Girl Waits With Gun - Amy Stewart. Novel. Audiobook. I doubled back and listened to the first book in the Kopp Sisters series. I cannot recommend these novels strongly enough. Cool and sturdy writing, much like Constance herself.

7. The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale. Nonfiction/True Crime. Book group book. In 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes stabbed his mother to death in East London, then calmly went off with his younger brother to a cricket match. Although the boys continued to live in the house with her corpse upstairs, it was not discovered until many days later, in a grisly state. Using contemporary sources, Kate Summerscale follows the tumult leading up to the trial, and explores the public's fascination and bewilderment about what could have led this "wicked boy" to commit matricide. Summerscale goes down plenty of rabbit holes in her research, but doesn't dwell there. She shares these side trips briefly, and efficiently ties them to the subject at hand. After the trial, Robert Coombes' story would seem as if it were at an end, but improbably, it's just beginning. It gets even better and more interesting. This is my favorite of all the book group books so far, and I've been after my bookwormish friends to check it out.

June, 2022: What I Read

 

 

Here's what I'm thinking about today: Val dressed up like a tomato (pronounced Toe-MAH-toe) for the Toecheon Tomato festival in South Korea. For the talent show portion, she wrote and sang a song to the tune of "Feelings" about all the delicious things one can make with tomatoes. She even worked in some Korean lyrics. Val was the hit of the show, and her tribute was not misplaced; the tomatoes from Toecheon are the best tomatoes I've ever eaten.

Sometimes, I want to turn this into a Val blog. She was (is!) a lot more interesting than all my bookworming about. But then I hear her voice asking me, as she so often did: "Are ye daft?" And the way she asked it -- always like she was sincerely wondering. My answers varied.

I know that somehow I must bring this back around to my own book Blob. 

Okay. 

Yes. 

June, 2022 reading:

1. My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business - Dick Van Dyke. Memoir. Audiobook, read by the author. Enjoyable, but a little on the bland side.

2. Who Is Jimmy Carter? -David Stabler. Nonfiction. VERY well done. Carter's life has had so many acts, there is a vigor in the portrayal of him at all junctures and well into old age.

3. Who Was Johnny Cash? -Jim Gigliotti. Nonfiction. The first part of the book is good, then it seems to lose some energy. I think it's hard to pin down the essence of Cash's mystique in a book for younger readers. The best description I've ever read of him is that he was kind of a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley.

4. Happy-Go-Lucky - David Sedaris. Humor, Essays. Most of the essays seemed familiar; I listened to A Carnival of Snackery not too long ago, but I can never get enough of Sedaris. His father's long, slow decline struck a chord.

5. Pretty Baby - Mary Kubica. Fiction. Audiobook. Suspenseful. I liked the multiple narrators and the Chicago setting.

6. Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler. Fiction. Re-read. Book group read for July meeting. Anne Tyler is always comfort reading. This is her retelling of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. I want to go back and read Tyler's older titles, starting with A Slipping-Down Life or Celestial Navigation.

7. The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough. Fiction. Re-Read. Comfort reading. This time I was entranced by the description of Australia's many micro-climates. Paddy, Fee, Frank and even Mary Carson deserve their own novels. Meggie/Father Ralph had me rolling my eyes. Luke really struck me as a real bastard this time. Still find the Justine section of the book zzzz, although I recognize that Justine is the character McCullough most identifies with -- noticed they are approximately the same age.

8. Who Is Chloe Kim? - Stefanie Loh. Nonfiction. Usually I don't like the 50-page Who Was...? books, but this one was entertaining and well-paced. I didn't know much about Chloe Kim before reading this book, but now I look forward to following her snowboarding career.

The end of June meant that half the year was over, and out of the 39 books I had read so far, four emerged as favorites:

1. Taste - Stanley Tucci. Memoir.

2. Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco - Alia Volz. Memoir/Social History

3. Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner. Memoir.

4. The Leavers - Lisa Ko. Novel.

May 2022: Slow Read, Take It Easy

I read a whopping four books in May, and maybe I gave you an earworm when you read the title of this post.  So all is good.

Just noticed that they're all library books! As the receipt at one of my libraries likes to point out, I saved a bajillion dollars. 

Did I mention Mother's Day? The Spawn gave me a gift certificate to Reader's World, the local bookstore. He also treated me to Thai food. He's definitely got game when it comes to this mother of a holiday.

Anyway, here's what I read in May:

1. Films of Endearment (memoir/film criticism) - Michael Koresky.

2. The Taking of Jemima Boone (history/nonfiction) - Matthew Pearl.

3. The Leavers (novel) Lisa Ko.

4. What is Juneteenth? (nonfiction) - Kirsti Jewel.

Films of Endearment stemmed from a project Michael Koresky undertook -- since he and his mother bonded by watching movies together throughout his growing-up years in the 1980s, he decided to revisit one film from each year of the decade. Some of the selections included: Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Terms of Endearment, Places in the Heart, Nine to Five, and Aliens. These films were chosen because they all had strong female characters. Like works of art should do, each movie spawned memories and associations for Michael, as well as fresh realizations about what a remarkable, strong, multitalented woman his mother is. At first, I thought the book was all over the place, a little messy and disjointed, but now it's had time to settle, and now I deeply appreciate how Koresky's musings made Films of Endearment a far richer book than if he'd just stuck to a strict film essay format.

The Taking of Jemima Boone follows a chain of events that began with the kidnapping of Daniel Boone's 13-year-old daughter and two of her friends by one of the Indian tribes that were unhappy with white settlers streaming into Kentucky and violating previous treaties. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War is just beginning, and the English are eager to have the Indian leaders on their side. This book is meticulously researched, and I particularly liked Pearl's acknowledgment of all sides involved.

The Leavers turned out to be my favorite book for May. 11-year-old Deming and his mother, Polly, a Chinese undocumented worker in a nail salon, live in the Bronx, New York City with Polly's fiance, Leon, Leon's sister, Vivian, and Vivian's son, Michael. One day, Polly goes to work as usual, but never comes home. Since she has an independent nature and has talked about moving to Florida, it's assumed that she has abandoned Deming. Within a matter of months, Deming's world is turned upside down, and he finds himself fostered then adopted by a childless couple living upstate, two academics who rename him Daniel and seem intent on having him forget his Chinese identity and turning him into a replica of themselves. Although this seems cruel, they are well-intentioned, and among the main characters, there are no real villains. Ten years go by, and upon returning to NYC, Deming reconnects with Michael, and begins to unravel the mystery of what really happened to Polly, who also relates events from her point of view. The Leavers is beautifully written. Fans of Barbara Kingsolver will be interested in this smart, honest, and perceptive novel.

What is Juneteenth? is a valuable resource that sheds light on and much-needed information about our nation's newest holiday. I knew a few historical facts about its origins, but in reading this book, I learned about how Juneteenth celebrations began, how they slowly spread around the United States, as well as the types of food served and popular games that are played. Recommended reading for all ages!

April, 2022: So Very Triggered

I'm really pleased with my April reading. A couple of books really triggered me, but like Kafka or someone said (and I'm wildly paraphrasing), we *should* read books that pierce us and chop like axes into where our deepest feels reside. Strangely, those visceral reactions still come as a shock, even more than a half-century after I burst into tears and threw Jane Eyre across the room after reading the first chapter.

1. The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock. Novel. I'm so annoyed with myself. Five years ago, my friend Mary M. told me, nearly ordered me to read this book. I dutifully bought it and stored it on my main fiction bookshelf in the living room for yes, half a decade. So finally, it jumps off the shelf and into my hands and for the next day-and-a-half, I could not leave it alone. Brilliant hillbilly noir. Like almost everyone else, I was reminded of the Coen brothers and Jim Thompson. The next time Mary M. makes a recommendation, I won't be so skittish.

2. French Braid - Anne Tyler. Novel. Did I walk? No, of course not. I ran to the bookstore. My excuses for buying a book as opposed to waiting for a library copy were threefold: 

First excuse: It's Anne Tyler, duh.

Second excuse: The bookstore almost fell into oblivion and was rescued at Christmastime last year. Use it or lose it.

Third excuse: I was feeling hard done by because of my poor smashed-up car. 

I won't say French Braid is my favorite Anne Tyler, but I'll always remember it for getting under my skin. Like most of her novels, French Braid deals in slightly dysfunctional family dynamics. But what got me was a cat who is in the novel for only about a dozen pages. I adored him, and then. Well, let's just say that one of the characters didn't adore him, and didn't change her mind about him, not ever. I had tears in my eyes. Desmond! For days, I kept grabbing up the Spawn's and my cat, Starman, and hugging him and saying Desmond, Desmond. I recounted this plot point to anyone who would listen and even voiced my dissatisfaction on Twitter. The Spawn's response: Ob-la-di, Ob-la-dah.

3. Ocean State - Stewart O'Nan. Novel. In Rhode Island, a teenage love triangle goes horribly wrong. Lots of atmosphere. Pitch-perfect cadences of modern life. Ocean State reads like a pulpy true crime book and I was also getting whiffs of Joyce Carol Oates, but a more controlled JCO. Another book that I couldn't put down. O'Nan is a master. Now I have to wait another two years for his next book to come out. Damn.

4. Crying In H Mart -Michelle Zauner. Memoir. It was bound to happen: My homesickness for Korea and my grief over losing my mother all came crashing together in a single volume. Zauner, the lead singer for Japanese Breakfast, writes achingly and vividly about taking care of her mother in the few short months between her cancer diagnosis and death interspersed with memories of their trips to Korea to visit family once every two years, and their shared love for Korean food and culture. Then after her mother is gone, Michelle has to negotiate the grief and the guilt and figure out how to deal with it. She travels. She makes a lot of kimchi. She visits family in Korea. She writes. She performs with her band. And it's all so true and exquisite and heartbreaking. Crying In H Mart was my favorite read for April. I want everyone to read it, and I want an H Mart that is closer than Chicago. Yes, I bought this book. Could not resist the red cover and the ramen noodles that make the H in the title.

5. Who Was Charles Schulz? - Joan Holub. Nonfiction. A serviceable, workmanlike portrait of the beloved creator of the Peanuts comic strip.

6. What Was The Harlem Renaissance? - Sherri L. Smith. The Harlem Renaissance was rich, complex, and exciting. That era from the nineteen-tens through the 1930s just exploded with art in all forms. It's too much to cover in one of the volumes in this series. The Harlem Renaissance just cannot be constrained into the 108-page format. Still, Sherri L. Smith provides a great jumping-off point for readers of all ages to learn more about this dynamic time.

March, 2022: Sideswiped

The last day of March found me as an unwilling and unwitting participant in a fender-bender. Doesn't that sound like too cute and trivial of a phrase? The impact really REALLY rattled my cage. I think it rattled all the words out of me. But up till then, March was a stellar month, especially for reading. I can't think why it decided to give me the finger on its way out. 

What I read:

And Never Let Her Go - Ann Rule. Nonfiction/True Crime.

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles. Novel. (audiobook)

Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco - Alia Volz. Memoir/Cultural History.

Mrs. March - Virginia Feito. Novel.

The Dressmaker - Kate Alcott. Novel.

Born With Teeth - Kate Mulgrew. Memoir.

What Were The Salem Witch Trials? - Joan Holub. Nonfiction.

Half-Empty - David Rakoff. Essays/Memoir. (audiobook)

My very favorite read for March was Home Baked. No one recommended it to me; I found it while browsing the shelves at the library. It's perfect. If I see this book in a bookstore, I will buy it. Alia Volz expertly weaves her own family history into the larger canvas of 1970s and 1980s San Francisco. Her writing is beautiful and audacious just like her mother, Meridy Volz who popularized selling marijuana brownies. She first got San Francisco stoned in the 1970s, then used the brownies to bring pain relief to AIDS patients in the 1980s.  I know that Home Baked will be one of the re-reads of my life.

Fishtailing Out of February OR I Don't Think Snow

 Yeah, I'm done with winter. You'd think that my being a December baby and my birth kicking off Snowmageddon 61-62 that I would love a snow globe world, but no. And where do I live? The Midwest! I want to castigate myself for my geographical shortsightedness, but my teeth are chattering too badly. Let's talk about books instead.

What I read:

Who Were Stanley and Livingstone? - Jim Gigliotti. Nonfiction. A dual biography of the internationally famous British scientist who went missing and the intrepid American journalist who set out to find him.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple. Novel. I really wasn't getting along with this book at all. It seemed brittle. Glib. Overly aware of its own cleverness. Then I read somewhere that Semple wrote for Arrested Development, and that helped. I began to see Elgie, Bernadette, Bee, and the other characters as extensions of the Bluth clan. But I have one last hangnail annoyance: Why doesn't the title have a question mark? I should have brought that up in book group. (More about book group later. Favorable impression!)

Chasing the Last Laugh - Richard Zacks. Nonfiction. I went down a sad little rabbit hole after finishing this book. I found articles online about a woman named Susan Bailey who had memories as a child that led her to believe that she was the secret great-granddaughter of Mark Twain, and even wrote a book about it. I was pleased because I'd always felt bad that Mark Twain's direct descendant line died out back in 1966 when his granddaughter, Nina died (presumably) childless. But then some Twainite who was really into genealogy wrote a lengthy paper disproving Susan Bailey's claims, and that seemed to put an end to the discussion. Feeling deflated, I ranged between Well, thanks for clearing that up and You asshole.

Garbo - Robert Gottlieb. Biography. Not just a biography, but an exhaustive one. I don't think I'll ever really be able to enjoy a biography again if the biographer isn't madly obsessive. This beautiful volume explores Garbo's early life and career in Sweden, and analyzes her US film career in great depth. There is also a large section of impressions by her contemporaries and much discussion of her abrupt departure from films and into a life where safeguarding her privacy became Job One. From reading Garbo, I got some good ideas for the wishlist. (See below.)

What I'm reading:

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles. Novel. Audiobook. I'm not sure how I feel about Towles' latest book. Right now, it's meandering along. Of course, it's meandering with purpose, but still meandering.  I'm engaged enough to be worried/curious about how things will turn out for the main characters, but I did swear at the narrator when the book made another hard left in the narrative. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think The Lincoln Highway will replace Towles' earlier novel Rules of Civility in my affections.

And Never Let Her Go - Ann Rule. True Crime. This is about the 1996 murder of Anne Marie Fahey, a 30-year-old woman who was an administrative assistant to the governor of Delaware. She was involved with Thomas Capano, who was wealthy, successful and also in the upper echelons of politics and business. Although married with four children, he was reluctant to let Anne Marie pursue a future without him. When his charm didn't work, he killed her. This is the first Ann Rule book I've read since Bitter Harvest, and I'd forgotten how she has a tendency to overwrite, but it's so compelling. I can't stop reading.

What I want to read:

What Were The Salem Witch Trials? - Joan Holub. Nonfiction.

Aru Shah and The End of Time - Roshani Chokshi. YA Fiction. This is the next pick for book group. Not really my cup of tea, but I enjoyed my first book club meeting in years, and want very much to continue. The leader, Sarah, is enthusiastic and well-prepared. I knew her when she worked at Reader's World. When we talked, it was like cartoon characters who have big hearts dancing in their eyes, except in our case, it was books dancing.

Dust Bowl Girls - Lydia Reeder. Nonfiction. Women's basketball. Barnstorming. 1930s. Must read. I've been needing a Dust Bowl-themed palate cleanser since I read the abysmal The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah last year.

Change Lobsters and Dance - Lilli Palmer. Memoir. An excerpt from Palmer's memoir was featured in Garbo. I loved her clear and lively writing.

James Harvey wrote about film, and in Garbo, Robert Gottleib included Harvey's gorgeous essay about Camille. I immediately wanted to go find all three of his books:

Watching Them Be: Star Presence on the Screen From Garbo to Balthazar

Romantic Comedy in Hollywood

Movie Love in the Fifties

It's supposed to snow again tomorrow. I see myself curled up on the couch with a book and a chai tea latte.

End of January, Beginning of February, 2022: Too Many Books On The Go

What I read:

Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff. Novel. The story of a marriage from both the husband's and the wife's decidedly different points of view. I loved this book; I ate it up like candy, probably because the second half resembled a soap opera.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader - Fran Lebowitz. Essays. That was a hard go, but Fran, I love you. Truly I do. You are the Dorothy Parker this generation needs and deserves.

Murder Book: A Graphic Memoir of a True Crime Obession - Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell. Graphic memoir. I liked this book so much! Campbell examines why she and her mother are true crime fans, and revisits the cases that most resonated with her (Zodiac, Ted Bundy) gives a generous shout-out to authors and podcasters, and looks at how the narrative has changed since more women are now telling the stories of the crimes. Unsettling, thoughtful, and strangely funny at times. I am now inspired to read more true crime.

What I'm reading: 

Too many books on the go. I'm reading like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower.

Chasing The Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous, Redemptive, Round-the-World Comedy Tour - Richard Zacks. Nonfiction. Audiobook. Mark Twain and his family have been in India for what feels like forever. I'm eager to see them hop to another country.

Memoirs of Stockholm Sven - Nathaniel Ian Miller. Novel. I think I know why I've stalled on this book. Takes place in the Arctic region, and I'm simply too cold for that right now.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple. Novel. I am really trying with this novel, because it is my first book group book in a looong time, and I really want to be in a book group again. Next Monday night's the night! I'm going to wear my book earrings that my friend Becka gave me!

Garbo -Robert Gottlieb. Biography. It's gorgeous, with photos of Garbo scanned right into the text, but it's printed on coated paper, like a coffee table book, which makes it heavy as hell to hold up in bed at night or carry around.

Kings Row - Henry Bellamann. Novel. Arrgh, this novel is giving me a headache with its rusty prose style and labored psychological stylings. Still, I can't give it up.

What I want to read:

Little Big Man - Thomas Berger. Novel.

And Never Let Her Go - Ann Rule. True Crime/Nonfiction.

2022: January, Fanuary

 Bookworms! I'm off to such a great start in 2022. Although the year has only just started, my reading journal is already full of such delectable reads. Even the cat, who is not much of a reader (that I've noticed), wants to knead his claws on the cover of said journal while purring rapturously and chewing on the little red ribbon bookmark.

I'm discovering new writers and rediscovering old favorites. Making lists and wanting to do deep dives. January is Fanuary.

What I read: 

Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci. Memoir. I knew this book was going to be great (I wrote it down 3 times in my wishlist journal) and I was right. In fact, it was even better than I had imagined. Beginning with the delicious meals his mother and extended family prepared...created when he was a child, through his days as a struggling actor and the delis and restaurants he frequented during that time in New York City, through movie shoots in foreign locales and discovering the local cuisine to his own development as a cook, it's all about the food. (An amusing refrain would occur when Tucci would talk about being away working on a movie and wouldn't mention the movie by name, but would go into mouthwatering detail about a terrific restaurant he discovered while on location.) His discussion of learning how to make a frittata perfectly led me to track down his movie Big Night, arguably the most perfect foodie movie ever made. I watched it twice. Can I just say...timpano? It's now on my EAT THIS  bucket list. Tucci even fed into my cheese fantasies: When he got married to his second wife, Felicity Blunt, instead of a wedding cake, they had a cheese platter! But then life dealt Tucci the most cruel and ironic blow: He was diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his tongue. Cancer in the salivary glands. Going through chemo and radiation caused him to feel nauseous at the mere scent of food. This went on for more than a year, but he slowly recovered and got his gusto for food back again. Even though I have just told you the whole book, you should still read and savor it. Enjoy the recipes. Watch Big Night. And don't cut up your spaghetti.

Who Were The Navajo Code Talkers? - James Buckley, Jr. Nonfiction. This book really appealed to the linguistics/language learning part of me.

Who Is Queen Elizabeth II? - Meghan Stine. Nonfiction. Too many pages devoted to Prince Charles, otherwise, enjoyable. Long live the Queen!

What Was The Plague? - Roberta Edwards. Nonfiction. A well-done retrospective of The Black Death that doesn't shy away from the grisly bits.

Billy Summers - Stephen King. Novel. Audiobook. Billy Summers, a hitman that only kills "bad people" signs up for one last job. While waiting to do the hit, he begins writing his own life story.  There is a lot of violence, but there is just as much humanity. This is a solid, action-packed road trip novel with none of King's usual horror or supernatural elements. Well, okay, there is a nod to the ruins of the Overlook, which sit across from one of Billy's hideouts. I'm eagerly waiting for the movie/miniseries version.

Matrix - Lauren Groff. Novel. The story of a woman who may or may not have been poet and fabulist Marie de France. This Marie, who is royal by blood and illegitimate by birth is exiled from the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine and sent to a rundown Benedictine abbey as its new prioress. Although she isn't at all religious and not at all inclined to monastic life, Marie turns the fortunes of the abbey around and makes it a success. Shrewd, sensual, and intelligent, her greatest gift is knowing how to harness female power to its fullest advantage. For a book set in the late 12th century, it feels modern without being a bit anachronistic. Matrix has made me a Lauren Groff fan, and I can't wait to explore her other novels.

What I'm reading:

Memoirs of Stockholm Sven - Nathaniel Ian Miller. Novel. Sven doesn't seem to be able to fit in anywhere in his native Stockholm. In his 30s, he goes north to work in a mining camp. After a near-fatal accident that puts an end to that particular career, he ventures farther north to learn how to be a trapper. At this point in my reading, he's started to make friends, and now he's got a dog!

The Fran Lebowitz Reader - Fran Lebowitz. Essays. Some of the essays feel quite dated. Intermittently funny. I'd rather get on YouTube and listen to Lebowitz talk for hours and hours rather than read her writing.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple. Novel. I joined a book group and this is our first read. According to my reading journal, I read this novel back in 2012 but don't remember much about it. We'll see how it goes.

Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour - Richard Zacks. Nonfiction. Audiobook. Mark Twain was a brilliant writer and performer, but had a genius for the bad decision when it came to business. At the age of sixty, he became bankrupt because of an investment in a printing press. His wife was determined that they would pay back the thousands owed to creditors, so Mark Twain reluctantly decided the best way to accomplish this was to "mount the platform" -- go on an extended speaking tour. 

What I want to read:

Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff. Novel.

Today Will Be Different - Maria Semple. Novel.

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles. Novel.

Little Big Man - Thomas Berger. Novel.

Stanley Tucci cookbooks

Happy Go Lucky - David Sedaris. Essays.

What I DNFed:

Who Was David Bowie? I paged through this book, but had to say no because the author didn't mention Bowie's appearance on Bing Crosby's Christmas special and their strange though excellent duet of "Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy". Also Labyrinth wasn't mentioned. The Goblin King? Really? Another thing I would have liked to have seen discussed was Bowie's interview with MTV, calling them out for not playing Black artists. I know the writers in this series have to stick with the constraints of the 108-page limit, but that's leaving too much out. Cut some of those dreary sidebars!

Mid-October, 2021: Books, Cheese and Sinuses

 Hello and Ow. I have a blog and I must write but my left cheekbone is beating with sinus pressure. It's a familiar feeling, though, synonymous with fall and abrupt temperature change. Kind of like Homecoming except there's no tiara and the marching band is doing its formations on my face. The first time this happened, I was a 10th grader, and I couldn't imagine what was going on. My reading at the time consisted heavily of novels and memoirs about teenagers who came down with fatal diseases and died (Sunshine, Eric, Death Be Not Proud, Echoes of a Summer, A Summer to Die) so naturally that's where my mind went. I, too, would be brave and stoic for my family and friends, but first I had to have some relief for my exploding cheekbone, eye socket, and upper gums. Did I go to the school nurse? No. I went into the girls' bathroom and knocked my head against the wall next to the paper towel dispenser. It actually helped for a couple of minutes. Years later, I saw an episode of House in which House breaks his hand (I think it was on a bathroom wall as well) to get his mind off the pain in his leg. These days, I just take some NyQuil.

What I read:

American Cheese - Joe Berkowitz. I finally finished this tasty tome. Speaking of tasty, have you ever noticed that tasty and nasty look like rhymes, but they aren't? Towards the end of American Cheese, the author takes a test to demonstrate exactly how proficient he's become in the language of cheese during the year he's been actively studying. The test involves tasting several cheeses that have gone off in some fashion or another, and he must explain precisely why they have turned from pleasing to punishing. A spit bucket is thoughtfully supplied, and foul descriptions festoon the next couple of paragraphs. Not suitable for lunchtime reading. I found this out the hard way. But still: Damn good book. More about my adventures in cheese below.

The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s - Andy Greene. An enjoyable labor of love for fans from a true fan. Some of the chapters seemed a little repetitive, like how everyone (especially the producers, directors and writers) got burned out during the last season. And yes, Steve Carrell is a comic genius, but how many bouquets can be thrown at him before it gets tiresome? In my own personal Office journey, I am now finished with Season 2 and ready for Season 3.

The Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling. OH MY GOD, I loved this novel so much. I didn't want it to end. It's like the perfect meld of Middlemarch and Peyton Place with a hint of Dickens thrown in. Excellent audiobook. This book has inspired me to do a deep dive of novels about picture-perfect small towns with seamy undersides. 

What I DNFed:

Warhol - Blake Gopnik. Although I think of it as more of a "Not right now; see you later," rather than a flat DNF.

What I'm reading:

Inside Peyton Place - Emily Toth. It's a biography of Grace Metalious, written in the early 1980s. I'm already tired of all the references to The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. They feel stale. More about Grace! And: Toth describes all these photos of Grace, but there are no photos in my hardcover edition. Imagine my displeasure.

What I want to read:

Peyton Place - Grace Metalious. The Spawn told me that my library copy is on the way.

Kings Row - Henry Bellamann. An  ancestor of Peyton Place and The Casual Vacancy. Written in 1940.

Who Was A.A. Milne? - Sarah Fabiny. Please mention Eeyore, please, please, please.

What I cheesed:

I tried really hard to make friends with the goat cheese, and thought that I was getting close when I paired it with grape jelly on a cracker, but in the end, just...no. There's something about the taste and texture I just couldn't manage to like. It's like cream cheese has an ugly stepsister. Although I know I'm losing Gourmet Palate points for this, I DNFed goat cheese. So much for my late in life ambition to become a cheesemonger.

On the other end of the taste spectrum, I blew through the Steakhouse Onion Cheddar within 10 days. This called for another trip to The Cheese Store. The manager regretfully informed me that the supplier has discontinued it. Steakhouse Onion, I hardly knew ye, but you were part of one of the best grilled cheeses I've ever had in my life. I consoled myself with some of the Bourbon Maple Cheddar that I passed up last time. It's good, but it's no Steakhouse Onion.

Twelve in July

 Twelve books in one month! That's a lot for me. True, many of them were Who Was...? books, but I read a nice variety of fiction and nonfiction. And my ears, my lucky, lucky ears. Here's to the audiobooks!

So here's my tasty list for July:

1. Who Is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson? -James Buckley, Jr. Nonfiction.

2. The Mayor of MacDougal Street - Dave Van Ronk. Memoir.

3. Cheeky: A Head-to-Toe Memoir -Ariella Elovic. Graphic Novel.

4. The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich. Novel.

5. Who Is RuPaul? -Nico Medina. Nonfiction.

6. Who Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? - Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction.

7. Who Is Aretha Franklin? - Nico Medina. Nonfiction.

8. Little Bird of Heaven - Joyce Carol Oates. Novel. Audiobook.

9. Who Is Elton John? - Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction.

10. Who Was Andy Warhol? -Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction.

11. Who Is Judy Blume? -Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction.

12. Shuggie Bain -Douglas Stuart. Novel.

Notes:

I've got to hand it to Louise Erdrich. I didn't particularly enjoy the first part of The Night Watchman, but I stayed with it, and ended up enjoying it tremendously. Erdrich is an author that kind of sneaks up on you. I'm going to try more of her novels.

I knew who RuPaul is, but only superficially, so I was glad to read Who Is RuPaul? and learn more about him. It's a frank book that dives deeply into Queer culture. In fact, there is a defensive little note from the publisher on the inside cover. Nico Medina wrote Who Is RuPaul? and Who Is Aretha Franklin? (published before Franklin's death in 2018) . Although he, like the other authors in the Who Was..? series are working within a rigid framework, Medina's honest, thoughtful, and delicately emotional writing seems to transcend the constraints. After reading these two books, I am pumped to binge-watch seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race and head out to the movies on August 13 to see the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect.

Joyce Carol Oates and Louise Erdrich seem to be opposites in how they draw readers into their fictional worlds. Erdrich moves slowly and deliberately. Oates picks the reader up and flings them into her (usually) bleak landscape with a boot on the backside for good measure. Her characters and plots seem fueled on some sort of fever or drug, then they wind down significantly --almost peter out-- in the last act. In contrast, halfway is the point at which Erdrich, while not necessarily picking up speed, gains momentum. Her various, seemingly unrelated strands of story start to come together and make sense and not just sense -- a beautiful pattern, a satisfying ending.

I've never been a big fan of Andy Warhol's art, but I've always been intrigued by his philosophy and approach to art, so when The Spawn told me there was a Who Was...? book about him, I asked him to reserve it at once. I was not disappointed. Who Was Andy Warhol? joins my list of favorites in this series. I was inspired to go and check out The Andy Warhol Diaries (BIG heavy book, coffee table caliber, a real chunky monkey) which is so much fun to read: Gossip, name-dropping, minute details. It's like dipping into a box of candy. I want to drape my walls in tinfoil! I want to dye my hair glittery-silvery silver!

Since we're on the subject of Andy Warhol, right now seems like a good time to insert this story of Things I Kick Myself For. Once upon a time, back in the early 1980s, a neighbor of my parents gave me an Amy Vanderbilt cookbook from the late 1950s. As a cookbook, it was rather user-unfriendly. Short and chunky, it was not easy to prop up and open on a kitchen counter while cooking. The type was also small, and there were no photographs of how the dishes should look after preparation. It was also heavy on etiquette and  multiple forks. Waaay too much for a young and nervous cook, BUT the simple drawings interspersed throughout the volume were illustrated by *Andrew* Warhol! For years, I guarded it closely, but somehow in all the moves, both domestic and international, I lost this book. Kick. Kick. Kick.

Anyway.

Who Is Judy Blume? was a sentimental read. I was never a fan of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. Eleven-year-old me thought she was absolutely nuts to want a bra and her period. However, Blume's story of teenaged first love, Forever was of extreme interest to sixteen-year-old me. I studied that book. Around the same time, I read Blume's adult novel Wifey. I remember feeling proud of myself for getting the joke about the pervert who keeps appearing in the title character's front yard to masturbate and leave. Sandy calls the police. As they leave, she says she remembers one more thing: the guy was right-handed. Or was it left-handed? I'm not sure anymore, but I thought it was uproariously funny. Who Is Judy Blume? compounded my sentimental feelings by doing a sidebar about a book series Judy loved as a young girl: The Betsy-Tacy books! I was very squeee! Laura Ingalls always held the top place in my heart followed by Jo March, but Betsy and Tacy were a solid third.

And what can I say about my last and most favorite read of July, Shuggie Bain? It broke my heart, as Tracey Ullman would say, in 17 places. Poverty and alcoholism and bad love choices and closed-mindedness set in Thatcher-era Glasgow reminded me of Roddy Doyle's Dublin. I loved the cadences of the Glaswegian (?) dialect, but I was forced to stop reading more than once to look up Scottish slang. I loved and felt sorry for Shuggie's family. I thought his father, Shug, was the villain of the piece until his mother, Agnes, took up with Eugene. At that point, Agnes had my full sympathy. Also, there's a long-past vignette with Agnes's father and mother that I had to read over and over in shock because I JUST KNEW I was not really reading what I had just read. Which, of course, is a long way of saying a very WTF moment. When the novel ended, I did not want to leave the remaining characters. I had a sincere sense of loss. I'm late to the party, but I'm so happy that Douglas Stuart won the Booker for Shuggie Bain. I can't wait to read his next novel.

June, 2021 Reading and An Ambitious Plan

 Eleven books in June! That's a really good total for me. I must credit The Spawn, who checks out books I'm interested in on *his* card, then when I need them renewed, he encourages me to finish quickly. Okay, yeah his tone gets a little snotty, but who can argue with results?

1. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Fiction. I audiobooked this one, and I'm so glad I did. The narrator of the book, Bahni Turpin, is a treasure. She also narrated the previous audiobook I listened to, The Hate U Give. I was totally invested in all these characters. I was continually making excuses to go to the car. (Car time = audiobook time) The Underground Railroad is dazzling. Brilliant. Historical fiction meets fantasy meets alternative history with nods to figures in popular culture. Whitehead's writing is ...well, I already said dazzling and brilliant. If you were here, sitting in my purple chair, I'd be shouting dazzling! brilliant! at you until you went and found your own copy or threw something at me. The Underground Railroad feels almost as if it should be a pop-up book. That's what it did to my brain.

2. Blitzed - Norman Ohler. Nonfiction. Translated from German, Ohler examines how the Nazis were into drug use. In fact, they were the ones who invented methamphetamine! From the late 1930s to the end of WWII, almost everyone from 18 to 80 was speeding into history. It definitely explains the rapidity of Hitler's army taking over Europe and striding on into Russia. Meanwhile, Hitler, who didn't smoke, drink or eat meat, was turned into an addict by his personal physician. There's also some not-surprising and disgusting information on how new variations on their pharmaceutical concoctions were tested on prisoners in the work camps. An eye-opening read! I'll never look at WWII the same.

3. What Is The Panama Canal? - Janet B. Pascal. Nonfiction. An educational, informative look at all the false starts and missteps as well as political machinations that went into the building of the Panama Canal. Again, Tim Foley's illustrations add to the narrative.

4. Who Was Norman Rockwell? - Sarah Fabiny. Nonfiction. Rockwell's not one of my favorite artists, but I firmly acknowledge his importance in American art history. The book was a bit of a snooze for me, mostly because of my marginal interest.

DNF Philip Roth - Blake Bailey. Biography. I read about 150 pages before giving up. Not sad. Not sorry.

5. The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah. Novel. I read this book quickly, because that's the pace Kristin Hannah sets for her readers. I wanted to love this book, and I didn't. The writing seemed flat. It was also heavy on the melodrama, which she really didn't need to employ in the bleak Dust Bowl setting. The 1930s characters have modern speech inflections, which took me out of the story several times. Speaking of the characters, they are either sterling good or bad with no redeeming qualities. Did I mention that it's a bit repetitive? A former lawyer, Hannah writes as if she's presenting a case for a jury trial rather than a nuanced novel for readers to absorb and enjoy.

6. What Is The Story of Alice in Wonderland? - Dana Meachen Rau. Nonfiction. I'll be honest: Even as a child Alice and Wonderland seemed like too much of a muchness. I'm a Dorothy and Oz girl. 

7. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell. Novel. The story of Shakespeare's family, set during the 1680s, during a time of plague, and in the years before, when Shakespeare met Anne (Agnes, in this novel) Hathaway, who herself is a remarkable literary creation, as captivating as anything The Bard could have penned. I shied away from this novel for almost a year, and now I'm in equal parts mad at myself for doing so and thrilled that I finally read it, thanks to my book comrade, Care. Hamnet is haunting and mesmerizing. I would love to experience it as an audiobook. Believe the hype.

8. Who Is Ken Jennings? - Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction. This is one of the short entries in the Who Was...? series, that number around 50 pages. Not a fan of the shorter books. They feel like filler. They feel like the book reports you do in 5th grade. I feel affection for Ken Jennings, dating back to his original 74 game winning streak. I appreciated the sidebar bio of Alex Trebek, but c'mon people! Give Alex his own full-length book!

9. Me and Patsy Kickin' Up Dust - Loretta Lynn. Memoir. To read a Loretta Lynn memoir feels like sheer love, because she's basically talking it. Her Kentucky cadences jump off the page. You can hear her voice. In this one, she discusses her friendship with legendary singer Patsy Cline, as well as her life and career around this time (early 1960s). One of Loretta's twin daughters, Patsy Russell, who was named after Patsy Cline, co-wrote this book with Loretta.

10. Still Woman Enough - Loretta Lynn. Memoir. Okay, yeah, I fell down a Loretta Lynn rabbit hole (oh oh lol I just made an Alice in Wonderland reference after talking shit about it a few paragraphs ago) but there are much worse things. Still Woman Enough was written after Loretta Lynn's husband of 48 years died, and she was free to talk more frankly about their rocky relationship. And talk she did! The framework of this book is going back and revisiting the movie version of Coal Miner's Daughter and what they got wrong and what they got right, and what happened after Loretta and Doolittle rode off into the sunset at the end of the movie. It was funny, it was beautiful, it was heartbreaking. I can't believe I've had this book for years, maybe decades and only now just got around to reading it.

11. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr. Novel. This was my second audiobook for June, and I have mixed feelings about it. I admire the author's reach and grasp and how he knows and knows and KNOWS so much about science, so much about everything, but the book felt a little too tight, a little claustrophobic. The back-and-forth structure of the book between the characters and the skipping around in time was sometimes annoying, but worked in my favor when Disc 9 had a scratch and didn't play correctly and I realized that I didn't miss much between Discs 8 and 10. I appreciated knowing how all the characters ended up (GO Marie-Laure!) but I was more than ready to exit the novel with two more discs to go. I'm glad that I made the decision to audiobook this one, because I think I might have DNF'd an actual paper copy.

An Ambitious Plan

I realize that I never got back to blog about Part 2 of my May, 2021 reading. Days and weeks went by and my relationship to what I read, even though I truly enjoyed it, was getting fainter and fainter, and I felt colder and colder towards the material. This delaying and the resulting feelings was a cause for concern. If nothing else, Blue-Hearted Bookworm aka Blob, is my online book diary! I don't want impressions of my reading to get completely lost. I can imagine my Future Bookworm Self cursing my Present BS.

 It doesn't take a fully loaded bookshelf to fall on me for me to come to the conclusion that I need to update more often so that I don't have to struggle to reconnect with the essence of my feelings for the book. So: I'm going to try to do updates on Blob once a week, or at least once every ten days. I think my impressions will be fresher, but the books will still have time to settle inside of me. Let's see how it goes.