Top Ten Tuesday:
What I Reading the Past Ten Years on April 15th.
As I look back on the books I was reading in April the past ten years the realization hit me how these books will give you a fairly good snapshot of my reading practices (and you'll get to know me a little better.) If I reviewed the book a hyperlink and a quote from that review are provided.
2026
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| Theo the Golden by Allen Levi I just finished this book a few days ago and haven't reviewed it yet. Apparently people either love or hate this book. I'm in the love camp. I read this book for an upcoming book club. |
2025
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Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar Another book club selection and a polarizing book which I loved. My favorite books fall into the genre of "literary fiction" and here is a fine example. "From the summary one would think, possibly rightly, that Martyr! is too dark of a book to tackle during these dark times. But what the summary doesn't say is how surprisingly funny the book is at times and ultimately how we all want the same thing -- for our life to matter." |
2024
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| Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia to Zion Journey Through America's National Parks by Conor Knighton I was reading this book while we were visiting Zion NP with our family. We had so much fun and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. "The book is organized on themes, not alphabetically by park. I thought I'd tell you about our trip using the themes Knighton used in his book. That way I can knock off a book review at the same time as updating you on my life and our trip." |
2023
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| Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, audiobook I participate in the Classic Club Spins four times a year. Romeo and Juliet was my spin book in the Spring of 2023. Somehow I escaped high school without reading it, though, of course, I knew the story. "I listened to the audiobook of Romeo and Juliet by ArkAngel: AudioGO. It was a full cast dramatization. I worried that this would be more like watching the play than reading it, and then would it count? Never mind that, it was an excellent choice of a way to consume Shakespeare's most famous play. I noticed many aspects of the play I'd never noticed before watching it in a theater or on the big screen." |
2022
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| Ten Poems for Difficult Times by Roger Housden In March of 2022 a family member was killed. Clearly this event sent all of us into a tailspin of grief and I was looking for some reprieve from that grief when I found this book. The title alone called out to me. ""The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass is a poem which not only describes grief but embodies it so much so that "your throat filled with the silt of it." Here Housden compares Bass's ability to look inward and this gives the poem credibility. It spoke strongly to me, so embroiled in my own grief right now. Thank goodness for poets and their poetry that can speak to us where we are, not just where we want to be." |
2021
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| Whale Day and Other Poems by Billy Collins April is National Poetry Month and I always try to read several volumes of poetry this month. Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. So funny. "Billy Collins has a great sense of humor and I often find myself laughing at some point while reading his poems. Last night I was reading them while my husband was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I kept calling out to him to hurry because I wanted to read aloud some funny poem I just found." |
2020
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| Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Remember 2020? That awful pandemic year? What did I read that year? One of my now favorite books of all time: Lonesome Dove. All 850 pages of it. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner. It took me a long time to read but I had nothing else to do and nowhere to go. "I would read thirty of so pages a day before setting the book aside. At that rate it took me almost as long to read the book as it did to herd the cattle all the way from Texas to Montana. For me Lonesome Dove will forever be branded in my memory as the book I read during the great pandemic of 2020 which will add greater poignancy and depth to my memory of it." |
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| The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka I have a few personal reading challenges I try to complete every year. One of them is to read two of the National Book Award winners or finalists for that year. The Buddha in the Attic was a finalist for that award. "This small book, really a novella at 129 pages, made a big impression on me. When the chorus of women speak up it is easy to see the travails of a people just trying to make something of their lives. It is horrifying to think how immigrants to the US are treated, not just in those days but also today. The country vowed to never do something as horrifying as internment of a people again after WWII. Yet here we are in 2019, creating camps and detention centers for people attempting to seek refuge in our land." |
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| The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science by Joyce Sidman For several years around this time I was a Cybils Book Award judge reading for the Junior/High School Nonfiction Category. I was always on the hunt for good books in those categories. "I loved this book. It was written by an artist, not a writer. That fact makes me smile. I love it that it was a woman who helped the world see the beauty and importance of insects. All those old, classically trained men couldn't figure it out, but Maria, with keen skills at observation figured out what should have been obvious. And her art. It is so lovely. It was written for a middle grade audience." |
2017
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| The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas I was a high school library for the last twelve years of my teaching career. I retired in 2017. This was the last year of my long time in education. At this point I read mostly YA novels, trying to find books I thought teenagers would enjoy reading. This is one of the best. |
So there you have it. Now you know I'm a book club, literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, classics, award winning, YA book reader. How about you?
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