Books Read in the Last Two Months

I reported my first month's books on February 6th.  Here's what I've been reading since.  The *starred* ones I think my mother (and you) should consider reading.

**Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E Harron.  I wrote to one of my favorite bibliophiles: “This is the book I will always regret not being able to write.  The snark/voice I strive for with 100 times the talent.”  This is a Story, deserving of the capital S.  Read it. [Note: Kyla agrees with me.]

*A Murderous Relation (The 5th  Veronica Speedwell, by Deanna Raybourn.  Veronica!  Stoker!  The fifth adventure. The prince of England, intrigue, and excellent verbal repartee.  The only character I look forward more to this year is Lady Charlotte Sherlock, but that is an extremely high bar. 

*Whatever You Do, Don’t Run, by Peter Allison.  Super fun read! This was recommended after we booked our Kruger National Park safari (that will get rescheduled after travel opens up again) and I shared chapters with hubby and children as they were around. I loved the sense of place, and this guy can tell a funny story! The right amount of self-depreciation, humor, interesting facts, 'round the campfire tales--I'm picking up more of this author's books.

*Planet Earth is Blue, by Nicole Panteleakos.  Wow, this is a bit of my childhood. I was in 5th grade during the Challenger launch, and [Super]Nova is in 6th. I can't wait to finish this story with my kids (we've listened to the first half), as it is an important story with no early spoilers about the launch, and it tackles full on some topics dear to me: foster children, autism, special education, siblings. It even throws in mental illness, loss, heaps of facts about space, and "mental retardation" without feeling preachy or overstuffed. There are so many things to talk about here, and the author's note at the end adds to conversation. Very well done. The only part that brought me out of the story is the foster parents who seemed to have perfect understanding and patience for a nonverbal girl with severe autism. Wish we were all that good!

*Hey, Kiddo, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. On a librarian-friend's recommendation, I checked out the audio of this graphic novel, a bit of a paradox. But I'm so glad I listened to it, particularly once I head all the recording notes. A lot of love, thought, and community went into this production, but an equal amount of work went into the graphic novel, so I will now need to eye-read this book as well.

First of all, this is truly a well done memoir. Its whole title is "How I Lost my Mother, Found my Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction". This is one I have to keep for a while from the library, because I want my kids to hear it, too. It's a book well written for both generations. It's probably even worth my mother reading it!

**In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson.  I had first heard of this author, famous for his Walk in the Woods memoir of the Appalachian Trail, years ago but ignored urges to read it. [Note: I’m currently listening to it well walking miles a day in our neighborhood woods.  It’s dated and the author shows improved style in the five years between Walk and this newer book.]

This book made me fall in love with 1) Australia, and 2) Bill Bryson’s writing.  Our planned 3 weeks in Australia is not going to be enough, and I am already planning a second trip before our first trip is even off the ground…so to speak.  

I love Bill’s excellent research—he has read some really dry books about Down Under so that we don’t have to—and he relates it a way that is interesting, relevant, and humorous.  I can’t tell if at heart, if Bill is a historian, a journalist, a travel writer, a humorist, or just a gifted story teller. 

From Strength to Strength, by Sara Henderson.  I read this famous Australian’s memoir in conjunction with Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, and the comparison is not flattering to this book.  This author earned her fame fairly after winning the Businesswoman of the Year in 1991. After reading Bryson, it is not fair to compare her inferior, self-conscious writing style as her many talents lie elsewhere, and what she lacks in talent, she makes up for it in absolute Outback strength.  She has more incredible stories to tell than Bryson, but even if they were told better, it was hard to get beyond her husband, who on a good day, was a jackass, and averaged out to be a multi-dimensional scoundrel.  It was hard to read about “oh, but I loved him”.  She gave up any control of her own life when she married, but after decades, wrested it back and came out well in a life not of her choosing. 

Here is my summary of reading these two Aussie books:  When they die, good Americans become Australians.  The bad wind up in the Northern Territory. 

I want to be a good American!

Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green.  Wow.  Green is hit or miss with me, but I always get something out of his characters.  This time, the teenage protagonist suffers, literally, from OCD, something the author also has lived and struggled with his whole life.  Mostly, it makes me truly grateful that my own headspace is a pretty fun place to be in.

Searching for Sylvie Lee, by Jean Kwok. Hmm, I’m glad I read it.  It was interesting to read the plot twists and the back and forth chronology, but the book’s aftertaste was from the characters, most who seemed real and hurting

Trickster; Native American Tales, a Graphic Collection.  Fairly interesting and a quick read.

The Home Edit: A guide to organizing and realizing your home goals, by Clea Shearer and Joanna Tep Yawn.  Slap me, friends, if I ever become this person.

The Book Charmer, by Karen Hawkins. This book was charming. I think it fell short in many ways, but I loved the idea of books being able to tell a certain gifted person what people should do, in the bossiest way possible. The book dealt gently with make-your-own families, and friends, and dementia, but in a way that never made me get lost in the story. But I will probably look up the next book when it comes out. Let's see where this goes, shall we?

Room to Breath, by Liz Talley.  She could have had a hot affair, no harm to anyone, with a 24 year old really into her. Squandered. What's the point of fiction, people?  Southern lady contemporary fic is not my first choice genre, but I was gladdened to see personal growth in the female characters.

Saint Anything, by Sarah Dessen. It's fun when both Kyla (age 13 going on 35) and I (age 45) both read the same book. I was engrossed in the book, and Kyla and I had fun discussions about the characters, their dilemmas, parenting decisions, and even why the token black character was pretty one-dimensional. All said, I couldn't stop listening to it, and when it was over, I mostly forgot about it. However, I am not the target audience, so I don't hold that against the book.

The Broken Girls, by Simone St. James.  Another book not really appropriate for my 13 year old promiscuous reader, but that didn't stop either of us from obsessively listening to it until it finished! It was an interesting mystery, ghost story, history lesson, and enough love story to make it interesting. I'd read this author again.

Dig, by A.S. King. Perhaps reading a deliberately surreal book in a very surreal time (COVID-19 work from home week 2) was not the best idea. Somewhere, I had read an intriguing blurb on the book and put it on hold. I will say that I kept coming back to it, and wasn't able to not finish it. I do think that had I eye-read the book, I would have followed the different characters better than listening to the audio. And I'm glad I stuck with it through the ending. Overall, glad I read it, but I didn't save the hold so my kids could also read it. 

Total Titles to Date: 36 (in 3 months).  Good enough.

Books Read in 2020, so far

Almost Everything: Notes on Hope, by Annie Lamott. I need to buy my own copy so I can underline and note take to my heart's content.  St. Anne, indeed.

Drama, YA graphic novel by Raina Telgemeier.  Meh. Not written for me.

The Mighty Odds, by Amy Ignatow, from Sasquatch list.  So disappointing.  Maybe the age group (tweens) it was written for will find it funny and clever, but I did not.

Shouting at the Rain, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt (who wrote Fish in a Tree).  Also a Sasquatch, and now I will permanently add Hunt to my Must Read Author list.

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (there's a sequel and a 2014 miniseries...what?!?!)

Look Both Ways: A tale told in ten blocks, by Jason Reynolds, YA
Jason Reynolds gets a lot of well deserved credit for being a voice of urban teens.  Urban is often code for "black", and yes, Reynolds and many of his characters are black, but the books 
Jason Reynolds and Jacquiline Woodson are masters of lyrical prose. 

Golden Tresses of the Dead, by Alan Bradley, YA-ish chemistry/mystery. 
Flavia DeLuce gets another book out every year or so. The schtick is getting a little old, but it's been revived a bit as Dogger's character comes out more.  I do appreciate that for a book about small English village tropes, there are very few stereotypical elements to Bradley's acclaimed series.

My Fake Rake, Eva Leigh, NPR had a review of this https://www.npr.org/2019/11/30/783294614/my-fake-rake-turns-the-makeover-trope-on-its-well-coiffed-head.  Could have been frolicky, but I don't have the stomach for romance-stories-for-the-sake-of-romance anymore.  (Though, if you are going to write a thousand page book, I'm am going to need a love story or two woven in.)

Beside Herself, by Elizabeth LaBan.  Meh.  Got this title from something, but the story falls short.  To get over an unfaithful spouse, a wife decides to have her own affair as they stay together.  

Forever or a Long, Long, Time, by Caela Carter.  Wow, a Sasquatch book that I read aloud to the 5 of us over a series of weekend car rides together.  We were all really engaged in this story of siblings who had been recently adopted out of the foster system.  So much depth in this book, and I am really impressed by the author's ability to get deep into the heart of family and particularly this heroine. 

So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oulo.  One of the top books for white people to get a real conversation about hot topics and long, long standing racial injustices and perspectives.  Worth it.

The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming, by J. Anderson 
From this year's Sasquatch list, this is the story of a Piper-aged girl who makes her way over to baby Seattle with the Mercer girls.  The geography might be a little inaccurate, or I am misinterpreting information, but as a read-aloud, it was an entrancing story.  No Pollyanna, but with a pioneering spirit, we Pacific Northwesters all learned more about our history.  

One for the Murphies, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. I how this YA author tackles problems--a 6th grade with dyslexia, and preteens tackling what it means to be family, especially when you have been abandoned by your mother. This one is close to my heart, as a girl is entering foster care after a brutal betrayal by her mother and stepfather.  

Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson.  Woodson is a master of lyrical writing--her novels read like free verse and powerfully compacts a story of every member of a family in a generational transition.  

Mrs. Everything, by Jennifer Weiner. "I think this book changed my life," said BFF Susanne, and she might be right.  Her story telling talent has been contained in novels that were maybe a decade in duration--and could rightly be considered chick lit.  This, though, this is Every Women's life, told over an entire lifetime with the generations before and after.  I'm still buzzed over this book, several days later.  


Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger.
I had just read the forward to an Ivan Doig novel, and then pressed play on this William Kent Krueger story.  Dreamlike, Krueger’s 1961 Minnesota intertwined with Doig’s historical Montana and I was lulled into teen Frank’s brain and life.  The trestle outside their tiny town where Frank’s father is a minister is a more than an allegory of the trains and river that continually flows through their lives, both taking an extraordinary number of lives during this stranger summer.  I can’t quite dissect why I couldn’t put this story down, but as soon as I finished it, I bought another one of his novels.