"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Monday, November 4, 2024

TTT: Books with Bugs On the Cover


Top Ten Tuesday: 

Books with Bugs On the Cover Where I Learned Something about the Bugs or the Human Psyche.

The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez
Building the Panama Canal which reveals a lot about how people from other cultures often feel about each other. (Colonialism?)

Jumper by Jessica Lanan
One spider's experience in the backyard. Very revealing.

What's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon by Rachel Ignotofsky
A children's book but I learned so much about both moths and butterflies as an adult.


Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Climate change and monarch butterfly migration.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
It's all about the nature of boys and how quickly things can fall apart.

The Secret History of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
About grief and the Civil Rights Movement.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The animal nature inside us? Can you find the spider in the drawing?

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies by Joyce Sidman
A biography about Maria Merian's Art Which changed Science.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
A home over time. What it means to have a place to live.



-Anne

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Sunday Salon -- Two days until the election!

My Halloween decorations this year. Notice the little donkey who snuck into the photo?
Go Dems!

Weather: Overcast, grey, and raining.


Two more days until the election. Today all I will share are fun or good news items I've found. I have had an emotional roller-coaster of a week. I imagine you have, too. I read or listened to some piece of political reporting that lifted me up and I'd be jubilant for a few minutes. Then I'd read another report that would send me into the basement of moods. Ugh. I hated it.  So today, I have decided to share only good, positive pieces of news or entertainment that will make you smile in hopes that they buoy all of us up and give us the strength to get across the finish line intact. Here we go.

Me posting my ballot in an election drop box in the library parking lot. I've checked. My ballot made it to the election office! I voted blue all the way through.

1. First up. Kamala was on Saturday Night Live last night and it was pure joy.



2. Jamie Raskin on Bill Maher about the definition of fascism (okay, not so positive but helpful.)

"The political scientists have told us the hallmark characteristics of a fascist political party; number one, they don't accept the outcome of democratic elections that don't go their way. Number two, they embrace political violence." — Jamie Raskin on Bill Maher. 

3. Women over 65 are voting for Harris. I'm in that group!


4. Ann Selzer, highly respected and accurate Iowa pollster, has Harris up by 3 points. In a state Trump won twice before!!! This poll hit the news yesterday is and is rocking the political world since Iowa wasn't even considered a swing state. (BBC) Is it possible that there will be an actual landslide? Is that asking too much?

5. Simon Rosenberg on Hopium Chronicles is bullish on Harris and the Dems. I spent an hour listening to his podcast this week. You could spend a lot of time looking at his site but let me sum up what his final message is: 

6. Not sure if this a comedy show or a real news show in Australia but here is a view of US politics from Down-under. Funny.

7. Let's do it. Let's end the age of Trump on Tuesday. Vote!


Books: Honestly I have been pretty distracted by politics so I haven't been reading much. But here is what's up with books:

I'm joining up on a new reading challenge this month: Novellas. Here is a link to my first batch of reviews: Novellas in November Reviews.

Finished this week


Currently reading


See you on the other side!



-Anne

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Six Degrees of Separation: From INTERMEZZO to ...?

Six Degrees of Separation

We Begin with:

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Two brothers. One is a competitive chess player.


The Tempest by William Shakespeare. In Scene I of Act 5 Miranda and Ferdinand play chess and flirt.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rawling. In this first book in the YA series, Ron has to play wizard's chess to dismantle the enchantment.

The Cardturner: A Novel About a King, a Queen, and a Joker by Louis Sachar. A teenager is the cardturner for his blind uncle who plays Bridge. He doesn't know the rules of the game and the uncle can't see. It's a crazy situation.


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. In the Oregon State Mental Hospital McMurphy gets the other patients to play Monopoly for real money. The game lasts for three days.


Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The characters play a lot of games. One is Whist, another game played for money. Elizabeth declines the invitation to play, implying she doesn't have the money to join in "fun" with the others who are behaving like snobs.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. In this dystopian novel Offred, the breeder, is called to do something unusual, play Scrabble with the Commander.

Join the fun. See where you end up. Link: Books are My Favourite and Best 6-Degrees Meme.



-Anne

Friday, November 1, 2024

Novella Reviews --- A CHRISTMAS CAROL; DEPT. OF SPECULATION; THE STRANGE LIBRARY



A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball, Hand colored etching by John Leech from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens via Wikimedia Commons


Chapman and Hall, December 19, 1843, by Christmas eve A Christmas Carol was sold out. The original edition was 166 pages long, which included a few illustrations by John Leech.

"Marley was dead, to begin with." Thus begins the most endearing Christmas story ever published, one which even if you haven't read the book, like me until now, you likely are very familiar with the story. Ebenezer Scrooge is the biggest grinch of all times, before "grinch" was even a word. (Just in case you are wondering, the word "grinch" was coined by non other that Dr. Seuss in 1960 for his book How the Grinch Stole Christmas.) Of course there is a whole cast of ghosts and other memorable characters, who help succeed in the end by moving Scrooge from grinch to philanthropist, grumpy to warm and cheery. If only everyone could have such a thorough conversion in our world full of hateful grumps!

A few years ago I watched the movie, "The Man Who Created Christmas". The subtitle says it is based on the inspiring true story. Here are a few details I remember from it: Dickens was in need of money at the time: His latest book didn't sell well; he was remodeling his house; and was expected to support his father who he had conflicting feelings about. He had to write the book fast: he did write it fast, in less than six weeks; the illustrator he employed didn't even have a copy of the text from which to work. And lastly he had to confront his own past demons: he worked a shoe-blacking job to make money as a child because his father sent the family into poverty; he was very resentful about that. All these details were poured into the story.
Like many of Dickens’ other works, A Christmas Carol was written as a work of social commentary. Dickens had a lifelong devotion to helping the underserved due to his own family’s experiences with debtors prison, which forced him to drop out of school as a boy and work at a factory. As Dickens’ biographer Michael Slater described, the author thought of A Christmas Carol as a way to, “help open the hearts of the prosperous and powerful towards the poor and powerless…." (Arts.gov)
His efforts worked. In fact, there is more charitable giving at Christmas time than any other time of the year. We can thank Charles Dicken and Ebenezer Scrooge for that.

I must admit that I quite liked A Christmas Carol, even more than I thought I would. Dickens was such a good writer! Everytime I read something by him I think that same thought. Make it a Christmas tradition starting this year -- Read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens with your whole family.

My rating 4.25 stars.





Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Knopf, Jan. 2014. 179 pages.

Back in July 2020 (remember those COVID pandemic days?) I spent a lot of time alone. My husband was working from home upstairs in our house and my domain was downstairs and the back porch. I was always trying to think of ways to entertain myself. On the day in question I climbed into our hot tub, got on a floatie and listened to the audiobook Weather by Jenny Offill, which I played from a portable speaker. As I floated above the hot water I was charmed by the quirky, clipped story of a librarian with a both a funny/odd and troubled family. It was great for the escapist reading I craved. I listened and floated long after I should have gotten out of the tub, totally absorbed.

Dept. of Speculation, published six years before the aforementioned Weather, is very similar in format and style. It is almost as if both books are really made up of just vignettes or thoughts which are clumped together into a story. In this story "the wife" and "the husband" are trying to make a life for themselves, often with not enough money and/or space. When "the husband" strays the reader is left wondering how this marriage will survive. And soon that thought is replaced by wondering if "the wife" will be able to hang onto her sanity. They do and she does, but it is all quite tenuous for a while.

When I was searching around for some insights into the book I found two reviews that were vastly different from each other. The reviewer for the NYT said much of the writing was "precious" and I understood that word to be negative. While the reviewer for NPR really liked the book and concluded the review with this summary,
Offill has successfully met the challenge she seems to have given herself: write only what needs to be written, and nothing more. No excess, no flab. And do it in a series of bulletins, fortune-cookie commentary, mordant observations, lyrical phrasing. And through these often disparate and disconnected means, tell the story of the fragile nature of anyone's domestic life.
Dept. of Speculation was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the NYT (after that "precious" review?). The paper's critics said of the novel, "Part elegy and part primal scream, it's a profound and unexpectedly buoyant performance."

My thought? Be prepared for something very different. My rating: 3.5 stars.



The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
First published in Japanese in 2005. Translated into English in Dec. 2014 by Knopf. 96 pages.

The Strange Library is a nightmarish fairy tale about a lonely boy who gets trapped in a labyrinth under the library and is imprisoned until he can memorize three books about the Ottoman Empire's taxation system. At that time the ghoulish librarian will cut off his head and slurp up his brains. He escapes with the help of a man wearing sheep's clothing and a beautiful girl who can't speak and who is not quite solid. When he returns home his life isn't quite what it was before and now the boy even doubts that this nightmare really happened. 

As I was closing this odd little novella with its illustrations by Chip Kidd I wondered to myself about its audience. Clearly this wasn't a tale for children, so why package it like it was? Then I turned the last page and found the final paragraph in a much smaller, undecorated font. It states that the lonely boy's mother has died and now he is all alone. Oh, I thought, this book is an analogy for grief. Suddenly all the details in the story took on a new meaning and hue: The ghoulish librarian; The labyrinth; The transparent woman; References that point to disease; Living in a nightmare and feeling all alone.

Now I want to break into tears for the poor boy and for his loss.

My rating: 4 stars

-Anne

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Review: JAMES (+Friday56 Link-up)


Title:
James by Percival Everett

Book Beginnings quote from page 1:


Friday56 quote (from page 22, last page of preview):


Summary:
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.


While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. (Publisher)

Review: I loved The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I read it as a kid and when I reread it as an adult. When I heard that Percival Everett had written the Huck Finn story from Jim's point-of-view I knew I had to read James. And I am so glad I did. What a treat. My husband and I listened to the audiobook version together. Immediately after we finished it, we both sat in silence for a few beats before we both exclaimed "wow!"

I think the two quotes I've provided from page one and page 22 set the stage very well. Slaves behaved by a set of rules in their behavior and speech when they interacted with Whites but not when they were alone. After Jim escapes to the island and then down the Mississippi River on the raft with Huck he keeps messing up with his language, not remembering to use slave-speak. This always pulls up Huck short, making him ask what was wrong. "James runs his every public utterance through what he calls his “slave filter,” to make himself sound ridiculous and gullible, to pacify the truculent white people around him" (NYT).

Jim's James' language and knowledge about the classics is astonishing. When he has his fevered dreams due to the snake bite, he imagines conversations with Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke, philosophers from the Age of Enlightenment. James can read and write. His most prized possession is a pencil and later a book in which he can write his thoughts. It is important to write about his life, so it has meaning.

At one point James ends up being sold to a man who has a traveling minstrel troupe. James has a fine tenor voice and is forced to put black polish on his face before the performance. A Black man pretending to be a White man, pretending to a Black man. Preposterous and silly but also deadly serious. The songs they sang were slave ballads that both Don and I sang in elementary school. At this point we turned off the audiobook and gasped with horror to think such songs were still being sung by school kids 100 years after the Civil War and Emancipation!!!

This is my first Percival Everett book but it won't be my last. 
"What sets James above Everett’s previous novels, as casually and caustically funny as many are, is that here the humanity is turned up — way up. This is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful. Beneath the wordplay, and below the packed dirt floor of Everett’s moral sensibility, James is an intensely imagined human being" (NYT). 
What a book. The best I've read all year, maybe all decade. It's a new American classic.

Rating: 5+ stars


HAPPY HALLOWEEN


Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)
*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!
*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 
*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  


Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Monday, October 28, 2024

TTT: Halloween/Scary Stories to Read or Reread


Top Ten Tuesday: 

Halloween/Scary Stories I Want to Read/Reread

I confess I'm not much of a horror genre reader. But this time of the year does make me think I should familiarize myself with a few of the best horror writers and their short stories.

1. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898) I'm actually reading this novella right now. It begins with a group of people sitting around the fire telling ghost stories.

2. The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs (1902) -- A cautionary tale about human desire and unintended consequences.

3. A Ghost Story by Mark Twain (1870) -- A twist on the usual ghost story proving Twain is the master of wit and satire.

4. A Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (1843) -- A narrator tries to convince his reader of his sanity by describing a murder he committed. I read this in junior high, a lot of years ago.

5. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948) -- I read this one in a graphic novel several years ago. It's about a town which hosts a lottery to ensure a good harvest. But the winner is the loser.

6. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates (1966) -- Based on a true story of three murders committed by Charles Schmid.

7. Survivor Type by Stephen King (1982) -- A shipwrecked surgeon resorts to self-cannibalism.

8. The Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (1952) -- A Sci-Fi story with time travel and a plot twist. It sounds like a good one for our age of politics right now.

9. Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl (1954) -- A wife murders her husband and then serves his leg to the detectives as a leg of mutton.

10. The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde (1887) -- A ghost and an American family. This story, which I've read before, is quite humorous.

Have you read any of these? What did you think of it? Can you recommend other Halloween/scary stories you enjoy?

-Anne

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Sunday Salon -- Positive energy

Mom, age 95, and her cousin-in-law, age 99, reuniting at the Oregon vs. Illinois football game yesterday.

Weather
: I am writing this post early because I will be traveling again this weekend. So I can only generally report that the weather has turned, or is turning to fall weather. Cool nights have meant we added another blanket to the bed but still keep the window open. On Tuesday it was sunny during the day but cloudy off in the foothills so we couldn't see Mt. Rainier. Almost time to hunker down. It is good football weather. It was sunny and warm during the football game yesterday. In fact, I worried about getting a sunburn.

Why I'm feeling positive energy about the upcoming election: I hope that my enthusiasm rubs off on you. I know it is hard not to wring our hands and stress out with all negative news about the "horse race." Here are some pieces of information which have helped me calm down a bit.

1. Start here with PoliticsGirl (4 min. 30 sec.) She sums up why Harris is winning.


2. Economy. Here is what Bart Starr, Jr., economist, found. After reading this you will see historically how much better the economy has done under Democrats over Republicans. (With all kinds of cool graphs.) Even Trump said (years ago) “It just seems the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.”

 3. Enthusiasm is on the Dems side. Remember 2016 when Hillary was doing fine, but Trump had all the enthusiasm on his side? Well, the tables have turned. "Since Kamala stormed onto the scene, the script has flipped.  She has drawn packed crowds everywhere and the enthusiasm has been off the charts.  We are hungry, hungry to save our Democracy.  And Kamala Harris is the perfect messenger.   Trump rallies, on the other hand, have the creepy feeling of a crypt." Need more evidence? Watch Beyonce with Kamala at a rally in Houston.

4. Likeability. The past two elections show that plenty of voters who don’t approve of Trump’s character will support him anyway. But favorability can make a difference in a close race—and Harris‘ rating is much higher than Trump’s. According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, Harris has a net favorability rating of -0.6 percent, while Trump’s is at -8.8 percent. Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, is the only candidate on either ticket with a positive favorability rating.

5. Trends. Not polls but trends predict the winners and Stuart Stevens is very bullish on Harris winning the race. (Vanity Fair, Oct. 23, 2024)

6. Early voting. 61-37% Harris Walz. At least 35% of the GOP voters are crossing over.

And then there are these encouraging helpers.

A. Michelle Obama (start at 12.30 minutes)

B. Meidas Touch: GOP Voters give Trump fatal news about Early Voting Stats.


C. Tim Walz. This guy is a gem. Watch his jogging interview:



D. Endorsements by so many people. I especially like this song, The People's House, which Bon Jovi released with his endorsement. 

 When We Vote We Win!
 


Books: Don and I are currently listening to Shakespeare: The Man Who Paid the Rent by Judi Dench. It is definitely not the usual memoir. It is all about the plays Dench has acted in with insights about acting, other actors, her family, etc. It is wonderful to listen to as she quotes lines from the plays and Shakespeare's sonnets. I'm also listening to Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and reading Orbital by Samantha Harvey.

This past week I finished Dept.of Speculation by Jenny Offill; The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami; and Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout.

I'm gearing up for Novella November.

Science: We took out grandson to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle on Thursday and had so much fun exploring science with him. I close with this funny photo of Ian looking into a parabolic mirror.






-Anne

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Review: TELL ME EVERYTHING


Title:
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Book Beginnings quote:
This is the story Bob Burgess, a tall, heavyset man who lives in the town of Crosby, Maine, and he is sixty-five years old at the time we are speaking of him.
Friday56 quote: 
Lucy stopped walking and looked at him. "Oh Bob," she said softly. And the Bob understood. She had heard him. She had absorbed this from him in a way that neither one of his wives ever could.
Summary:
With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?” (Publisher)
Review:
Tell Me Everything is the fifth book in the Amgash series, all set in Crosby, Maine. I've met all the main characters before in this or another series by Strout, so it felt a little like meeting old friends. That said, I think it would work well for a stand-alone, too.

Bob Burgess is married to Margaret, his second wife, but it is Lucy who really seems to understand him. He and Lucy go for occasional walks and they talk about everything. At one point Lucy points out she believes that Bob is a sin-eater, or a person who takes on other's sins or problems. It does seem that he is the person who everyone turns to when they have problems and count on him to take care of things. This is a huge burden, of course, and Lucy really understands him. But this fact actually causes new problems.

I really like Elizabeth Strout's writing style and how she allows us to really have a relationship with her characters over many books and series. I purchased this book for my recent trip to the Northeast. I've never been to Maine before so I wanted to read it while I was in the state. Unfortunately, I didn't finish it while I was there but I had started it. It had me at the very first page. After the introduction to Bob Burgess in the first paragraph, the second paragraph begins with this sentence: "Autumn comes early to Maine. By the second or third week of August a person driving in a car might lgace up and see in the distance the top of a tree that has become red." We were in Maine in the fall and we were having this experience.

.-Anne

Monday, October 21, 2024

TTT: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time


Top Ten Tuesday: 
How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time
Or: A Walk Down the Reading Memory Lane

My very own copy of Little Bear. Do you like how I colored all over it?

1. When I was a kid we rarely went to the library nor were there many books in the house. But those we did have I read over and over and over again: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik are two I remember clearly.

I read a whole lot of these abridged classics as a kid.

2. When I was in fourth grade my family moved to Africa. My father was a missionary. Once again we had few books and now no library. Mother's friend, a reader, loaned/gave my older sister and I each a set of books. Mine was the Narnia series. I read those wonderful books many times over the years. I also got a hold of copies of abridged classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Huck Finn. All these books have become favorites. I would usually read in bed, or at least lying on my bed, often for hours after lights out!

Favorite story by far: "Cannibalism in the Cars."

3. During this same time period I learned to really enjoy books read aloud. My mother would read stories out loud to us by candlelight when the power would go out. That happened a lot in Africa. My memories of those times are some of my happiest childhood memories. One book she frequently read from was The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain. If it were Christmas time, she would read Christmas stories she found in magazines to us, like "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson before it was published in book form. We would sit around the dining room table together as she read.

I loved this book so much, it became one of my favorite books of all time.

4. In sixth grade, still in Africa, I started attending an American-style school. Finally a library and a librarian. I distinctly remember reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle during that time. I also remember talking to the librarian about what to read next. A whole new world was opening up for me, talking about books and getting recommendations.

There are thousands of editions of this book. I don't think the is the actual book I read, I just tried to find one which had a possible publishing date close to when I was so enthralled by the book.

5. Home from Africa and into junior high school, I continued or became a big reader. I think I always had a book going. I don't remember any particular titles other than 1001 Arabian Nights. I loved that book. My habit of reading in bed was ingrained by now. I don't think I could go to sleep without reading at least a few pages. My reading history was often devoid of many children's classics. For example, I never read The Little House on the Prairie series, Black Beauty, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.


6. In high school my reading fervor slowed down. In fact, I barely even recall reading required books for class. I do remember reading the whole Lord of the Rings series, though, so maybe I just didn't like the word "required." I remember finding Phyllis Whitney romance books at this time. They were pretty tame by today's standards but I found them titillating. Her characters would go as far as "kissing hard."  Ha!


7. College days were full of assigned books and homework. Pleasure reading was relegated to holidays and summers only. But I would read then. I read the whole Poldark Saga by Winston Graham in response to the PBS series (first aired in 1970s) and many other books often recommended to me by my mother, who seemed to have morphed into a big reader by then, and another friend who was always reading. I could never figure out what to read on my own at that time. I'd often read lying in a lounge chair in the sun, catching rays while I read.

This book was the beginning book of my reading renaissance. 

8. Early working and  new marriage years I barely read at all. If I did, it was because a book I'd heard about was at the library. I never placed a book on hold or asked librarians for recommendations. Then in 1987ish my sister recommended I read Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. The book set off an explosion in my head and I started reading with a vengeance and haven't stopped since.

I bought this copy so I could read it to my grandsons since it is no longer available at our library.

9. As a young mother I read a lot of books and went to the library all the time but it was for my children. We always had piles of children's books we were making our way through. Many of these books are now favorites of my grandsons. In fact I looked at one of these books just today, Father Fox's Pennyrhymes by Clyde Watson. We used to quote this book quite often.

I think I've read all of Kingsolver's books now!

9. In the 1990s I joined two different book groups. One with ladies from my church and the other with ladies I taught with. Suddenly I went from not knowing what to read next to always having at least two books in the queue. I loved it and loved most of the books we read. The church book group started using book kits from the library in the early 2000s which are curated by librarians. Most of these books I'd never heard of before but many became favorites. My other group would pick popular favorites, most of literary merit. Two books I remember reading and loving: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Since I commuted to work I found audiobooks to be a good source for my reading. In those days audiobooks were on CDs and I became very good at making requests at the library for them and utilizing their hold system. I also started keeping track of what I was reading in little notebooks along with short annotations. 

John Green is a fantastic writer and I met him at a Librarian Conference before he was so famous.

10. In the early 2000s I hung out with the new high school librarian, Judy. We were always scheming up projects for my classes that would utilize the library books. At one point she planted a seed in my heart. "You know," she said, "you'd make a terrific school librarian." Then she proceeded to water and nurture that seed until it took root. In 2002 I applied and was accepted into a library program for teachers wanting to make the switch from the classroom into the library. It was a year and two summers program. The year I finished it I was ready to tackle a new job as a high school librarian. Once on the job, I realized how deficient my reading background really was and I had to hit the ground running to make up for lost time. I read YA books voraciously and finally made time to read many of the classics I missed growing up. One of my first YA books I read that made a big impression was Looking for Alaska by John Green and a classic I was blown away by was 1984 by George Orwell. If I could, I would listen to audiobooks but sometimes I even found time to read on the job sitting right there at my desk. Lucky me!

My review drew attention from the publisher and they published it on their website.

11. Sometime in those library-working years I discovered or rediscovered my love of poetry. I became the coordinator for a poetry contest at my school and assisted teachers in getting poetry in to student's hands. The whole process catapulted me in a new direction of reading: poetry. Now I generally always have a poetry collection I'm working on slowly in-between my other books. One of the first poetry books I remember devouring was Teaching With Fire: Poetry Which Sustains the Courage to Teach edited by Sam M. Intrador. Unlike my other books, I rarely read poetry lying down. I will usually read a poem or two during interludes in my daily schedule.


12. I retired seven years ago and my reading has slowed down a bit, mainly because I rarely read YA titles any longer. I have also joined the classics club and I find myself reading mostly classics or award books these days. I now know where to look for book recommendations, keep track of my reading on Goodreads, write reviews on this blog, still attend two book club meetings a month, and still enjoy listening to audiobooks, though now I listen to e-audiobooks through my phone but they are still checked out from the library. I have raised two daughters who both love audiobooks, too. One of my daughters is in two book clubs now. Like mother, like daughter. I used to wonder what to read next and now I have a TBR with over 200 titles on it. I'm known as the book gal at church and people often ask me for book recommendations, which I'm happy to make. My husband begrudgingly likes to listen to the audiobooks I play during car trips together. He has a great memory and will often reference a book we listened to together. I guess I could create a new adage: "Those who listen to books together will stay together, bonded by literature."  The last book we listened to was James by Percival Everett. OMG that book is good! I still need to read every night before I go to sleep but often can only manage a page or two before I turn out the light. Perhaps it is my age, or my trifocals, but reading in bed is no longer an Olympic sport, like it was when I was young. 

Now you know my evolution as a reader. Sorry I was a little long-winded today!


-Anne