All the stupid April Fool’s stuff on the Internet bores me. Anyway, this is your heads up to believe even less of what you read on the Internet than usual.
Finished reading: The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson 📚A beautiful novel. A bit heavy-handed in its politics, but I share them so appreciated it. I learned a lot about Pacific Island life. Great characters, good story. Plenty to think about.
Finished reading: To Anyone Who Ever Asks The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse by Howard Fishman 📚I loved this book. New Hampshire, where I live, plays a part in the story, but it’s the “mystery” that is interesting, and the meditation on talent, personality, and luck is fascinating.
Finished reading: Many Lagoons by Ralph Varady 📚Written in the late 1950s and therefore dated in many ways, but also interesting. An American lives on a South Pacific island for a year. I’m also reading The Wayfinder and was interested to see a 1950s description of the same setting.
Currently reading: To Anyone Who Ever Asks The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse by Howard Fishman 📚
Finished reading: The Book of Difficult Fruit Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with recipes) by Kate Lebo 📚Excellent. It’s about everything.
Currently reading: The Book of Difficult Fruit Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with recipes) by Kate Lebo 📚
Finished reading: The Kurdish Bike by Alesa Lightbourne 📚Nice novel about living in Kurdistan for a year, teaching English. Interesting characters, I learned a lot about Kurdish culture.
Finished reading: My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem 📚Interesting guidebook with exercises on how to heal from generational trauma and recognize internalized racism.
Currently reading: And the Roots of Rhythm Remain by Joe Boyd 📚sick with COVID, perfect time to tackle 900 page, quite readable book on music.
Finished reading: Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen 📚long and tedious. Supposedly a horror novel but I found it good for putting me to sleep.
Finished reading: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon 📚hated it. Supposedly about living as a teenage autistic math savant and I guess the author did a good job maintaining voice
Currently reading: Melting Point: Family, Memory and the Search for a Promised Land by Rachel Cockerell 📚
Currently reading: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon 📚
Finished reading: 33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen 📚Poignant and sad novel about Jewish families in England and France during WWII. I pray we never see those days again. Nicely written.
Finished reading: Flesh by David Szalay 📚Topical novel about life in the modern world. Inequality, masculinity, globalization, it’s all here in devastatingly simple prose. I was tempted to stop reading after the first few chapters but I’m glad I kept going.
Currently reading: Flesh by David Szalay 📚
Currently reading: My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem 📚next month’s Library book club selection
Finished reading: Hotshot by River Selby 📚Interesing non-fiction about working as an elite firefighter.
Finished reading: Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson 📚Enjoyed it. Interesting, sad, but also hopeful novel about life and love in the modern world.
Currently reading: Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen 📚
Finished reading: Thelma by Marie Corelli 📚I started reading this book at least a year ago. It’s a product of its time (1887) and it definitely bogged down for a while. Mostly I’m glad it’s done.
Finished reading: Articulate by Rachel Kolb 📚Excellent non-fiction by a Deaf author about her relationship to speaking out loud. Quite thought-provoking, about language, speaking, writing, signing and more.
Currently reading: Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson 📚
Finished reading: The Boy on the Bridge by M. R. Carey 📚Not as good as “The Girl with All the Gifts”.