October 2017 wrap-up

This month I equaled last month in both number of books read (16) and overall quality of reading. I gave a number of 2 and 2.5 stars this month because I'm finally realizing not everything I finish is a 3 or above. We'll see how long the revolution lasts. My favorite of the month was Sully, but there were a number of truly wonderful reads (The Last Days of Night; Poetry Will Save Your Life, etc.). This was a month of "finishing the leftovers" as I cleaned up a swath of my To Be Read list. I think November will be much the same. It was wonderful to realize that some of the books that have been on my reading list for months and months were very good.

One-word reviews below are linked to the full reviews.

boring

2.5 stars

stunning

4 stars

charming

4 stars

average

3 stars

wonderful

4 stars

informative

4 stars

mediocre

2.5 stars

fantastic

5 stars

obtuse

2.5 stars

enjoyable

3.5 stars

 

friendly

4 stars

 

fascinating

4 stars

heartbreaking

4 stars

nostalgic

4 stars

narcissistic

2 stars

fun

4 stars

 

 

What I'm reading this week (10/30/17)

Last week I finished:

I've always been drawn to the 1950s. I like the optimism of that post-war era. The economy was booming, and so were hospital nurseries. It seems like America kind of lost her way in the 1960s, but the 50s were clean, wholesome, and kid-friendly. I grew up in a tiny rural farming community that, even though I was growing up decades later, still felt very much like the 1950s. We had party lines, church picnics, drive-in root beer stands, a siren that went off every day at noon. In many ways, it was idyllic. That's why Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid was so much fun for me to read. It felt like Bryson was writing about my childhood. I started reading this one on audio, and I was so charmed, I switched over to my paper copy so I could relish in it a bit longer. (I highly recommend the audio version, which is read by Bryson himself, though.) In this memoir, Bryson discusses all of the high and low points of life in the 1950s with his signature whit. He talks about walking to any street corner in town and meeting up with a thousand other unsupervised kids (it was the Baby Boom, after all) and the antics that ensued. He talks about the fear of Communism and nuclear war. He talks about the introduction and unbridled consumption of convenience foods. After awhile, it almost felt a little too comprehensive (as Bryson's writing often is); there wasn't a topic left untouched. I enjoyed every minute of it. It's one of my favorite Bryson books, behind One Summer and In a Sunburned Country. If you're looking for a fun read about a simpler time, full of nostalgia that you may or may not be able to relate with, this is a good choice. My rating: 4 stars. 

Note: This one does contain the odd bit of "language" and much talk of prepubescent heterosexual lust.

I've read a number of books written by Fundamentalist Mormon women who escaped the fundamentalist teachings, polygamy, abuse, and poverty of their youth, but I don't know that any of them has disturbed me quite as much as The Sound of Gravel. This book is very much akin to The Glass Castle (which was not about fundamentalists) in its horrific poverty and tragically unsafe living conditions, but this one also had sexual abuse. The story is this: Ruthie is the fourth of her mother's ten children, several of which are physically and/or cognitively disabled. Her mother is one of four sister wives to a sometimes violent man who cannot support the dozens of children he's produced. The family shuffles between Mexico and America, eking out a living however it can, including selling pine nuts in a grocery store parking lot and welfare fraud. The stepfather is domineering, the mother is meek, and it's discovered that several of the children are being abused. I mistakenly thought that if I listened to this one I'd be less affected by its terrible themes. And yet, I did keep listening because I wanted to see the redemption. To leave a story like this midway without resolution is somehow worse to me than listening to everything and having a happy ending. The happy ending comes at the very end of the book, as a epilogue. Structurally speaking, I would have enjoyed a longer happy ending. I'm having a hard time recommending this book. I kept asking myself what is the purpose of books like these? If it's to raise awareness and spur folks to action to help families like this (though what on earth would you do for them?), that's one thing, but it just felt so private and I felt like such a voyeur reading it. It's a book full of such hopelessness and powerlessness, I often felt sick to my stomach. If you "like" heartbreaking books, books about religious extremism, books about folks triumphing over horrible childhoods, this is your book. My rating: 4 stars.

The third book I finished last week about unique childhoods is Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi. This is the memoir of an Iranian American girl, and it's told with humor. This book, and its follow-up, Laughing without an Accent, has been on my TBR for ages, but for some reason I kept ignoring it. I happened upon a cheap Kindle deal and decided it would be my October in-between book as it's easy to pick up and put down when I have a few minutes to read. I really enjoyed it. Much like Bryson's book, it told about childhood experiences with a bit of good-humored embellishment. I loved reading about her large extended family, all living within a half-hour of each other, her father's fascination with Vegas, and about how odd certain American foods and holidays seem to a foreigner. Dumas came to America as a child before the Iranian hostage crisis, in other words, before America turned a distrustful eye on its Iranian immigrants. If you like learning about other cultures and immigrant stories, this is a good one. My rating: 4 stars.

And last but not least on my memoirs dealing with childhood is Ron Fournier's Love That Boy. I'd picked this one up when it came out because it was a memoir that also dealt with presidential history, which combines two of my favorite genres. I left this book feeling duped, though. Everything I'd read about it, including its subtitle, seemed to suggest this was a memoir that dealt with fatherhood, presidents, and road trips, and while the book did incorporate all three, it was much more about parenting in the new millennium than anything else (think All the Joy but different, as you'll see in a minute). I didn't know I was getting into a parenting book, and I kind of resented it. Fournier is a journalist who covered the White House and Washington politics for years. He's the dad of two daughters and a son, Tyler, who has Asperger's. Tyler excels in some things but has a lot of trouble with others such as having conversations, picking up social cues, identifying other peoples' emotions, organizing, and writing. Fournier seems to have an inordinate amount of trouble accepting his son. He had capital-E Expectations about what and who Tyler would be, and Tyler doesn't measure up. His wife tells him to take Tyler on presidential history road trips (in which he meets presidents Clinton and Bush 43) to bond with his son and teach him the proper ways to interact with folks. Mostly, though, the book is snippets of interviews with other folks who have kids who don't measure up to their expectations and quotes from experts on how important it is to fix the kids. Or something. I don't know, I mostly skimmed the distressingly narcissistic parental parts. This book left a bad taste in my mouth every time I set it down. I've never met parents so disturbingly goal-oriented and out of touch with the enjoyment of their children. I know how hard it must be to try to raise a child with different abilities from most other children. I understand you might have to alter your expectations, but I never knew there were this many parents who seem unable to do that. As someone who didn't raise children of my own, perhaps I shouldn't comment, but as a stepmother, I can say that I've had years of experience with having children who aren't what you expected. There were years of agony, but a lot of joy, too. I'm still working on being present and nonjudgmental. The most important thing is that your kids never feel that your love is conditional, and the parents in this book failed so transparently with this. I just didn't like the tone of this book at all, but maybe someone raising an autistic child and who struggles with the ability to accept and love that child, would find this useful. My rating: 2 stars.

 

This week I'll be reading:

I Capture the Castle has been on my TBR for a long time, and I've been hoping to get to it all year. Now's the time. I'm looking forward to some fiction after all the memoirs I've been reading lately.

 

My next audiobook:

I'd requested that my local library purchase Miss Burma on CD, because not a single library in the system had a copy. It finally came in last week, so that's my audiobook this week. The audio quality is poor, but perhaps I'll get used to it?

What I'm reading this week (10/23/17)

I'm home on "readcation" through Wednesday, but I still wanted to post an update of what I finished last week. Hold on to your seats, this is a long one.

The seventh book in Bill O'Reilly's Killing series, Killing England, is a good as all the others. This is the story of the Revolutionary War, and if, like me, you haven't really studied that since grade school, it's a great refresher. We learn about General George Washington and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Martha Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, the Marquis de Lafayette, Benedict Arnold, King George III, and all the other key players in the war and the writing of the Declaration of Independence. There were several things that I'd long forgotten or I don't remember learning at all--that we enlisted the help of the French, for instance. And the book is full of historical facts that you just don't get from others books. George Washington was 6'2"! "Cannon" is both singular and plural. The lieutenant is named such because he serves "in lieu of" his superior (duh, how did I never put two and two together?). I enjoyed the parts of the book that talked about the founding fathers, but the parts that gave the blow-by-blow of the actual fighting wasn't my cup of tea. Reading this during the NFL kneeling-during-the-national-anthem controversy, I was struck again that if we only knew the sacrifices made by those imperfect men and women who went before us, we would find our national pride and come together. Every signer of the Declaration of Independence, every commander in the rebel army, every public person who called themselves a patriot was facing sure death should the war be won by England. If that doesn't give one pause, nothing will. I would recommend the books in this series to anyone interested in approachable historical nonfiction where you can learn a lot about the past without a moment of boredom. My rating: 4 stars.

Another wonderfully patriotic book that I finally got around to last week was Sully, the true story of Captain Sully Sullenberger landing flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January of 2015. It's so hard for me to find books that are instructive and truly uplifting, that show a man or women with the values we used to hold dear: integrity, steadiness, moral integrity. If you're looking for the same kind of book, pick up Sully. I listened to the audio version, and the narrator was fabulous; it also included a postscript narrated by Sully himself which is very well done, too. The flight lasted only about five minutes, and the time the plane's engines were disabled by bird strikes until the time it landed safely on the Hudson, with all 155 people on board safe and sound, was only 208 seconds. The amount of information gathering and processing and clear-sighted decision-making required of a man to make a landing as un-routine as a water landing, to do it with the stress of knowing the fate of 154 people is in your hands, the fear of making the wrong decision, of recrimination, it boggles the mind. And after the safe landing and quick evacuation of the plane, there was still the winter temperatures and icy water to worry about until boats could rescue them all. I found the book fascinating. It's mostly memoir and good background on commercial flying and aviation in general. It did feel that it was stalling, trying to fill pages until it got to the main event, but I enjoyed every word and thought so much, I didn't mind at all. I would have gladly read twice as much, because I just liked Sully so much. One thing that differed greatly from the movie of the same name starring Tom Hanks is that the book didn't touch on the investigation at all. Although there obviously was one, I guess using that as the backdrop for the movie was Hollywood's way of injecting more drama into the situation. Needless to say, I recommend this one to anyone. It would be a great book for teen boys because of its strong male role model. My rating: 5 stars.

I resisted Kathryn Smith's The Gatekeeper for quite awhile before buying my copy. I feel that I've read so many books about President Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, his presidency, and the people he surrounded himself with. But I think I always knew I'd cave, because I just can't seem to resist the siren call of an historical biography, especially if a president is involved. The Gatekeeper is the biography of Missy LeHand, FDR's secretary from the time he was Governor of New York to his last years in the White House. Smith seems to equate LeHand's job to that of the present-day chief of staff, though I find that hard to believe and unsubstantiated by anything Smith wrote about her position. She didn't seem to be an advisor, and though she had policy opinions and voiced them discretely, I have never read that she was considered a cabinet member (which I believe the chief of staff is). At any rate, LeHand was very important to Roosevelt and was beloved by all. Single all her life, she lived in the White House with the Roosevelts, and although there have been rumors over the years that LeHand was one of the women Roosevelt had an affair with--a claim made by one of FDR's own sons--there seems to be no evidence of romantic involvement. She loved him deeply and believed in him wholeheartedly, and he signed his letters to her "Father". By all accounts, the Roosevelts' marriage was very troubled, with both parties having affairs with other women, so the fact that Miss LeHand made her way to her boss's bedroom in her nightgown at night could probably be taken with a grain of salt. At any rate, I found this to be a very readable account, not gossipy nor terribly one-sided. If you've read other books about the Roosevelts, though, such as Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, or watched Ken Burn's wonderful The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, nothing here will be new to you. My rating: 4 stars.

I absolutely adored Tsh Oxenreider's At Home in the World released earlier this year, and I've also been loving her The Simple Show podcast, so I was very excited to read her previous book Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World. But you guys, this one bombed for me. I think that Oxenreider has matured much as a writer and person, and I think there's a big change in her approach between Blue Bike (published in 2014) and At Home in the World. I think she was trying so hard with this book, and although she kept saying she wasn't judging those who didn't live like her, the book did feel judge-y and preachy. I think she was still trying to convince herself of the life she wanted to dive into while writing this book, and perhaps it should have been kept to herself instead of being shared with us. In the book, Oxenreider, whose family is inordinately fond of travel and living abroad (and thinks yours should be too), examines the different facets of her life--finances, food, travel, education, entertainment, etc.--and decides what living intentionally means to her and her family of five in each category. I felt like all the ideas never came together. She talked on and on about how her family was going to do X, but in the end, we never really knew how doing X worked out for the family came. In other cases, she talked about how her family had put things into effect in retrospect (time gets very confusing in this book; it's hard to keep track of which year and which country the family is in). It's possible part of the problem I had is that I live in a family of two. I don't have three little kids whose food and education I need to worry about, and whose world view I need to mold. (On the other hand, a family of two needs to make most of the same decisions, so the information should have translated.) I just felt the whole book was kind of amateurish, which I really hate to say since I have come to really respect Oxenreider's honest voice. I would say if you're interested in eating locally and organically, if you're interested in homeschooling, if you think traveling and living abroad is one of the most important experiences you can give your children and family, this book is a good fit for you. I had no objections to anything she said, just maybe her approach. I would definitely recommend her new book about an extended world travel trip with her husband and three young children, though. I think it was much more mature in its approach and tone. My rating: 2.5 stars.  

Marie Howe is a poet I discovered in the late 1990s (maybe 1998?) when I ran onto her poem "What the Living Do" and decided it was one of the best poems I'd ever read. (Read it here.) But since her collection of the same name, I haven't read anything by her. So when her newest book, Magdelene, came into the library, I decided to read it. This is where I freely admit that there is a lot of poetry out there that I don't get. Just like everyone else, I struggle with poetry sometimes, and I struggled with Magdelene. But the thing is, I didn't struggle with the poems in Magdelene, I struggled with the concept behind the book. This is supposed to be a collection of poems that "imagines the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as a woman who embodies the spiritual and sensual, alive in a contemporary landscape." Okay, I understand that. But I kept wanting to ask "why?" Why not just present the poems as straightforward poems of a contemporary woman? What does Mary Magdelene have to do with it? And frankly, why Mary Magdelene? None of the poems seemed to be particularly tied to the Magdelene. This is one I'd have to discuss with someone who spends more time in poetry than I do. I enjoyed the poems, but the larger message, and I'm sure there is one, was lost on me. My rating: 2.5 stars.

I've written several reviews of the Calpurnia Tate books, including the two full-length middle grade readers and the now three shorter chapter books. Although the longer books are my favorite of the two sets by far, I do enjoy the chapter books as well. The first was about a skunk, the second about sheep, and this, Who Gives a Hoot?, is about an owl. I might have enjoyed this the most of the three. The illustrations in these books are beautiful, and you learn bits and pieces about the natural sciences right along with Calpurnia. Calpurnia is a little girl at the turn of the last century who lives in Texas with her parents, six brothers, and her grandfather, a crusty old scientist who takes Calpurnia under his wing. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, but she gets resistance from her mother who believes she should forsake her tomboy ways and be a proper young girl. The books are very well done. They're engaging, informative, and fun. I recommend them all. My rating: 3.5 stars.

You know that if it's a book of dog photography, I'm all in. Years ago I owned a book of William Wegman's dog photos of his Weimaraners dressed as people and posed in interesting ways, and I loved it, so when I saw a retrospective of his work was coming out, I bought it as soon as it was released. There's a very confusing essay in the beginning of the book that I'm still trying to figure out. I'm not sure if it was ironic or serious. But after that, it's just one great dog portrait after another. Many of the titles are funny or puns. And the dogs are so human that after you see too many you kind of lose perspective and ask these are dogs, right? Right. It would be easy for work of this kind to slide from art into kitsch, and I suppose sometimes it does, but there's an underlying seriousness that fascinates me. Each portrait is so well composed, you can see the thought (the art) behind the fun shots. I really enjoyed this collection. It would be perfect for any dog lover on your Christmas list. My rating: 4 stars.

Last week I began:

After finishing Notes from a Blue Bike, I kind of missed not having a Kindle book in progress, so I decided to finally tick Funny in Farsi off my reading list. It's the memoir of Iranian girl fresh to America, and it's funny and smart. I'm loving it so far.

This week I'll be reading:

On readcation I'll be double-fisting it with The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and Love That Boy.

My audiobook

The Sound of Gravel is a book I'd been waffling over for a few weeks, but when it came up as a Kindle deal, I bought a copy, and then decided since it deals with dark themes, maybe it would be better on audio where I could skip through the unsavory parts. It's heartbreaking, but then, I've read a whole stack of books about folks escaping fundamentalist Mormon sects, and they're all heartbreaking.

What I'm reading this week (10/16/17)

Last week I finished:

I read the first book in the Penderwicks series in 2015, and the second book has languished on my TBR since then. And the thing is, I really liked that first book. I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to want to read the second one, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. I was determined to remove it from the list before the end of the year, so I took it up on audio. It was genuinely enjoyable. I've found lately that my love for middle grade books has cooled. I'm not always in the mood for juvenile fiction, I guess, but this one hit the spot. With everything going on in the country right now, I was so happy to listen to a story that I knew would end right, a story of kindness and honor--Penderwick honor. This is the continuing story (there are currently four books in the series) of the four Penderwick sisters: Rosalind, the eldest who lovingly takes care of her younger sisters; Skye, the tomboy who's interested in soccer and science; Jane, who writes romantic adventure stories; and four-year-old Batty, who, with trusty Hound, insists on being a part of everything. The girls' mother dies before the first book begins, when Batty is a baby. Their father is a botany professor, always spouting Latin phrases they don't understand. In this book, the father is coerced into dating by his sister, and the girls hatch the Save-Daddy Plan to keep him from having any success at it. There are other secondary plots, too. The book isn't preachy or moralistic, but the girls always end up doing the right thing. I may have enjoyed this one even more than the first. I highly recommend these books for young girls (Amazon lists them for grades 3-7) or readers who are young girls at heart. My rating: 4 stars.

I really enjoyed my time with Jill Bialosky's Poetry Will Save Your Life. It's part-memoir/part-poetry book, with each short section containing a personal essay, one or more poems, and information about the poet. Bialosky's knowledge of poetry is nearly encyclopedic; she went through the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop, has published poetry to acclaim, and is the executive editor and vice president at W. W. Norton & Company. I've read several of her poems in the past but never a collection, and after this book, her latest poetry collection, The Players, is going on my "to buy" list. I found the balance between personal and poetic here perfect. Bialosky shows restraint in her writing, and no part went on too long or left you hanging. The poems showcased were a mixture of old friends and a few new-to-me poems. I think the trap of writing a book like this would be it feeling forced and formulaic, but this one never felt that way. I especially enjoyed the biographical information included for each poet. I wish she'd write a book of poet bios. In short, highly recommended, especially if you're a memoir AND poetry lover. My rating: 4 stars.

Here's a secret about me: I have a weakness for books made from college commencement speeches. I've read a number of them over the years, and even though I know they're the book equivalent of higher-priced roses on Valentine's Day, I've even bought a couple. I just love the cogent life lessons delivered by "people who know." So I was pretty excited to read William H. McRaven's Make Your Bed, based on his 2014 University of Texas at Austin's college graduation address. McRaven is a retired admiral of the U.S. Navy who was trained as a Navy SEAL. With that training, it's easy to believe that Admiral McRaven has a handle on what matters in life and what makes for success. The book addresses different things you can do to succeed in life...and maybe even change the world. It all begins with making your bed each morning, just as the SEALS do. Much of the advice is tough love. He tells you that you're going to suffer and you're going to fail, but if you are kind and never give up, you'll have a good life. There's been much talk lately about the millennial generation being "snowflakes" or "cupcakes" (McRaven would say "sugar cookies"), needing safe spaces away from the world in order to operate within the world. It's safe to say that McRaven would not support that ideology. It's a short book, only 125 pages, but it still took me awhile to get through it. I felt a little bogged down by the SEAL training episodes in each section and the bouncing around in time. The commencement address is printed in its entirety at the end of the book. I liked this one. I agreed with the advice, though my style of delivery would likely be different from the Admiral's. My rating: 3 stars. 

Next week I'll finish:

I didn't quite finish Killing England last week, as I'm flagging a bit on war books. Still, it's as good as all the others, especially the information surrounding the writing of the Declaration of Independence and King George III. Full review next week.

I'm also nearing the end of Notes from a Blue Bike. My interest is wavering, and I feel like I'm forcing myself through.

Next up:

Likely not a gentle read, I'm still excited to begin Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda.

 

This week I plan to begin:

Amazon has finally delivered the last of my October book list (5-8 day shipping turned into 16-day shipping for some reason), so I have a lot of books to begin next week, including: The Word We Used for It (poetry), Being Human (photography), and Who Gives a Hoot? (children's).

 

My current audiobook

I'm finally listening to Sully (personal account by pilot who landed the plane on the Hudson River) which I've been saving for the right time. It's even more wonderful than I'd hoped. A full review will be up next week.

What I'm reading this week (10/9/17)

Last week I finished:

As I said earlier, I had been interested in The Last Days of Night when it came out, but then I chickened out reading it for a long while because it was historical fiction based on actual events. This is a genre of books that makes me uncomfortable. I love nonfiction and I crave facts. I always get jittery when books blend fiction and nonfiction, because I don't know where the line between the two is and when it's been crossed. But the time had come to either read the book or donate it, because bookshelf space is prime real estate these days, so I decided to at least start it, and if I got too itchy, I could abandon ship. The technical skill of the book was something many reviewers had commented on, and that was enough to soothe me somewhat. Luckily, this is a story that pulls you in right away. No time is wasted on setting the scene or introducing characters slowly, and that went a long ways toward hooking and keeping me. It's a little difficult to summarize the plot , as one of the joys of this book is the plot's intricacy. There are a lot of moving pieces, but everything comes masterfully together in the end. It's the story of the electrical current war between Thomas Edison (in favor of D/C, or direct current) and George Westinghouse (in favor of A/C, or alternating current) in the 1880s. Edison had Westinghouse tied up in patent litigation (312 cases, to be exact), and Westinghouse hires the young hotshot lawyer, Paul Cravath, to fight Edison, and eventually save his company from bankruptcy. Also involved in the war is the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, who once worked for Edison, but is enticed to join the Westinghouse team. This is a simplification of the plot, and the book also calls in ideas like business's role in invention, intellectual property, if an idea or only a tangible item can be patented, the nature of genius, the importance of marketing, and many others. There is deception, intrigue, double-dealing, spying, allegiances, theft, coercion, and even romance. There is a lot going on here. And the amazing thing is, it's all true! I was eager to read the author's last pages where he talks about what in this incredible story he changed or massaged to better lend it to fiction, and other than some date manipulation, there is surprising little. It's a remarkable story, which I highly recommend. If you're looking for a book for a guy in your life, this is a good bet. My rating: 4 stars.

In an effort to get to The Mathews Men, which has been on my TBR for awhile, I decided to pick up the audio version. War stories are hit or miss with me. I like them, but I definitely like reading about the human element more than the machinations of war. I'd anticipated this book to be an intimate portrait of seven brothers from Mathews County, Virginia, (on the Chesapeake Bay) and their World War II experiences as U.S. Merchant Marines. While I learned a lot about Merchant Marines and how the war played out in the Atlantic Ocean--which no one ever writes about--I found the book difficult. For one thing, the title is not indicative of what to expect. It does cover the seven Hodges brothers involved in the shipping industry, but it also covers oodles of other men, and it was all too much--especially on audio. I also just felt the various skirmishes with German U-boats were just kind of uninteresting. Perhaps that's because I read Erik Larson's Dead Wake about a German U-boat sinking the Lusitania. There's only so much to say about U-boats and sinking ships, after all. My mistake might have been in taking this on in audio-form, but had I started it in book-form, I would have bailed quite early on. I think for someone interested in marine battle and the like, this would be a good read, it was well written and comprehensive, but it just wasn't a good fit for my interest level. I didn't find it particularly interesting. I'm getting a little burned out on war books, and the fatigue definitely showed while listening to this one. My rating: 2.5 stars.

Next up:

I believe Killing England is the last in the O'Reilly/Dugard Killing series. This one is about the Revolutionary War. And it's the last war book of the year, I swear!

Last week I started:

I have feelings about Tsh Oxenreider's Notes from a Blue Bike, but until I see how the second half plays against the first, I'll reserve my comments.

 

 

This week I continue reading:

Although I enjoy both of my current night reads, neither really inspire me to pick them up, either. Poetry Will Save Your Life is well done. I really like it, but I feel almost overloaded if I read too much of it. Make Your Bed is sort of the same way. I have other night reads to start, but alas, they're all "in the mail." Maybe I should spring for Amazon prime just to not have to wait so long for my books?

 

My audiobook:

After The Mathews Men, I needed an audio that was much less fraught, something a bit whimsical, so I began The Penderwicks of Gardam Street, the second in the Penderwicks series. It's a middlegrade reader about four sisters growing up  with their father in contemporary Massachusetts.