I know that this is unusual for me, posting the books I have read this month five days before the month is over, but I have already read eight books (by February 20th) and while I am in the midst of reading three others, I know that I will not finish them this month. I have a couple of busy days and then on Wednesday, the 28th, will be flying to Ohio for a conference, and then I will be at the conference, so not reading much. (I do plan to take a book with me, because I am, after all, me.)
This is my first conference to attend in person since February/March 2020. We all know what happened next!! Although, when I went to that conference four years ago, I finished up with a few days in Georgia with Nancy and family, so that was nice. This time, I will get to finish up the conference spending time with my cousin Marie, so I am looking forward to that. Actually. if Marie didn't live in Ohio, I would probably have decided not to attend in person. I am presenting as a part of a panel on video game music, but the conference is hybrid, and another person on our panel will be doing her part from afar, so I could have done that. But I have not seen Marie in person since she was here attending to her sister Margaret before Margaret's death, and the funeral was the very last time I saw Marie in person. That was in 2019.
Marie used to live right in the Cincinnati area, so I have been looking forward to this conference. Since then, Marie and family moved near Columbus, Ohio, but she is going to drive to Cincy next Saturday, and stay overnight with us in our hotel room (me, Janice, Anita, Christine) because we have a suite that can actually hold six. So, while I am dreading driving to the airport, parking at the airport in longterm parking, getting into the airport, getting to my gate, boarding the plane, actually flying, getting off the plane, finding my way to the hotel, and then doing all of that in reverse order next Sunday--I am very much looking forward to spending time with my music librarian friends and especially to seeing Marie.
Since I am still not getting around to talking about books, I was just going to report that my new exercise regime felt not intense enough, without doing that long, strenuous two minutes of planking, so beginning on Feb. 1, I have been planking for 1 minute, balance right for 1 minute, planking for 1 minute, balance left for one minute, and then finishing off with two minutes of planking. I just wanted to keep working on that endurance. Still walking for twenty minutes a day. However, on Tuesday last, I walked for twenty minutes before staring my work day, and then taught four library instruction sessions in a row, three of which required a tour. For one of those three, we only walked from level two to four, with a short excursion on three, and then walking for ten minutes or so around four. Not too bad. But the other two--the instructor wanted her class to walk from two down to one, then up to three and then four and around, and those two classes were back to back. I was wiped at the end of those four library sessions, let me tell you!
Okay! Books!
1. Before she was Helen (2020) by Caroline B. Cooney. This was such a good book! I had enjoyed The Grandmother Plot enough last month to look for another book by CBC. How is it that Aunt Clemmie is this other person named Helen? And why? Her identity gets entangled in a murder and a drug heist that rocks the little retirement community in South Carolina.
2. Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller (2021) by Nadia Wassef. I saw this book on the sorting shelves on level five, and my interest was piqued because of Cairo, since I have been there because Nancy's family lived there. I wondered if that bookstore was there when they lived there. It was -- they expanded to a Maadi location while Nancy lived there, but she did not go there. It was far away. I enjoyed this book, and as the author described the books they stocked, she was adding to my reading list!
3. It's okay to laugh (Crying is cool, too) A memoir (2017) by Nora McInerny. I do not remember why I decided to read this book, which I had to borrow through ILL, but as I began reading it, I remembered that I had listened to Nora's Ted Talk, which was very good. All about love and loss and healing and grieving throughout life while still being happy in the present. Nora had a miscarriage, her father died, her husband died, all within about six weeks. That is a lot of loss.
4. Mr Dickens and his Carol (2020) by Samantha Silva. I grabbed this from the sorting shelves on level five at the same time I grabbed Shelf Life. In her forward, or afterword, somewhere, Silva apologizes to Dickens' biographers for her imaginative retelling of what might have possibly happened to Dickens as he was writing A Christmas Carol. True is that Dickens was financially challenged when Martin Chuzzlewit did much less well than anticipated, and true that A Christmas Carol was published on Dec. 19. But most of the story is purely Ms. Silva's imagination. And her imagination is pretty fun!
5. Squeeze me (2021) by Carl Hiaasen. I probably googled "if you like a book like this, then you might like these books" to find this book, though I don't remember which book this one is supposed to be like! Set in Florida, when the US president Mastadon, and his wife Mockingbird are introduced as characters, I was questioning my judgment, but actually, I ended up liking this book. Its heroine is Angie Armstrong, who does wildlife containment and management. Burmese pythons also are important to the two related stories that make up this one book.
6. Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes (2004, but originally 1999 as Memories of a Lost Egypt) by Colette Rossant. You guessed it: this was one of the books recommended in Shelf Life. Colette was a French girl, but did most of her growing up in Cairo. The Cairo she lived in seems much more appealing to me than the Cairo of the present! The recipes--oh my. Most of them I can not imagine eating!! But Colette Rossant is a cookbook author and chef, so I am sure her recipes are actually good.
7. Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived (1994) by Penelope Lively. Another Shelf Life recommendation. Britsh author Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, and lived there until age 12, before being shipped off to boarding school in England. I really need to talk about both of these books together, because Penelope (born 1933) and Colette (born 1932) lived in Cairo about the same time. Both had to leave Egypt around the end of the second world war because things were changing politically. Very different story telling styles, but similarities in experience!
8. Magic and Mystery in Ancient Egypt (English 1998, French 1983) by Christian Jacq was hard reading, and very complex, but interesting. You guessed it--Shelf Life also recommended this book. In Canada, where our Social Studies curriculum in elementary school is much more important than it is in the US (in my limited experience) Ancient Egypt is an area of study. For me, it was in grade five or six, when Mrs. Helen Jensen was my social studies teacher. It was fascinating to me! So, this book was also fascinating, and confusing, and hard to read, all wrapped up together.
And that is that! My eight books for the month, five non-fiction, and three fiction.
