Here are the eight books I read this month:
1. I started the month reading Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye's book Crossings: a bald asian american latter-day saint woman through life, death, cancer & motherhood (not necessarily in that order) (2019). I read this book at this point in time because Melissa died on April 23, and people with whom we are mutual friends were frequently posting about her, and also various historians and organizations. Melissa was my former student Bryan Lew's cousin, and I met her when she was a visiting student at BYU one summer. (Normally she was a Harvard student.) She was a fun, happy person! I didn't know she would "grow up" to be a respected historian and author, but she did. This particular book was one she wrote for her children, when she was worried that she would die and since her house was not the most organized, if she just wrote stuff on paper it might get lost, but if she wrote a book for them, then surely they could find it, at least in a library somewhere! It was a beautiful book, and of course my eyes did some leaking as I read.
2. We had the President's Leadership Summit at BYU on April 9, and we were all given a book: Russell M. Nelson's Heart of the matter: what 100 years of living have taught me (2023), and so I felt that I should read it. Ideas in the book were about fulfilling your life's mission (figuring out what that is first), nurturing enduring relationships, accomplishing the impossible (through God nothing is impossible if it is His will), keeping your covenants. (He calls this "the covenant path" and I don't love that phrasing. Because it is so much used. However, I just looked it up in the corpora, and was very interested to see that the first person to use that turn of phrase was in fact a woman!: Elaine S. Dalton said, in 2007, "... The promptings of the Holy Ghost will always be sufficient for our needs if we keep to the covenant path. Our path is uphill most days, but the help we receive for the climb is literally divine. We have three members of the Godhead--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost--helping us because of the covenants we have made. " So now I like that phrasing better!)
3. Three nonfiction books in a row this month! (I was actually reading all three simultaneously, depending on my mood.) Chance Thomas, the video game music composer who is also my Facebook friend, wrote his memoirs Making it Huge in Video Games (2023) and I actually enjoyed it very much! I was very amazed by the incredible amount of work that is involved in scoring a game, when the music is reacting to the choices that players make as they play. (Chance's other book, which is more like a textbook than a memoir, is our library's highest circulating anything to do with video games--of books, scores, CDs, etc., whether in the music library or elsewhere, it is the top circulating item on the topic.)
4. After the heavier reading I began the month with, I was looking for something light, and happened upon Pinky Pye by Eleanor Estes (1958) and the cute little cat illustration on the cover hooked me. She won the Newbery Medal for Ginger Pye (a dog in the Pye family), and Pinky Pye is a kitten in the Pye family. But having the kitten type--I just could not suspend my disbelief! Because in 1958--we had an old typewriter, and you have to push those keys hard. I just could not imagine a kitten having the strength (and dexterity) to do that. However, it was a cute story (also involving an owl, so my grandson Alexander would probably enjoy it) and a fun family dynamic. So I liked it, except for the typing.
5. We can work it out (2015) is the second book in Elizabeth Eulberg's Lonely Hearts Club series. (There are five books in the series.) I suppose I should have read the first book, but I just found this book on the sorting shelves, and it looked like a fun read, and it was. I enjoyed all the Beatles references and song lyrics scattered around in it.
6. Okay, THIS BOOK. It was, as I wrote on our Reading Group's FaceBook page, a Remarkably Brilliant Book. Remarkably Bright Creatures (2022) by Shelby Van Pelt. Her first novel, and she hit it out of the ball park. She so elegantly weaves together the lives of Marcellus the octopus, Tova the cleaner, Cameron the orphan, and all of the characters who surround them. It is a beautiful, beautiful book. She has set the bar so high for herself as an author, but I hope she arises to the challenge, because I would love to hear her voice tell me another story. Highly recommended.
7. Nancy's children got such a kick out of All my friends are dead (2010) by Avery Monsen and Jory John, that I had to check if our library had it, put a hold on it, and read it. I read it quickly, but waited to return it until the next day just because! In our library it is in the humor section of the popular reading sampler collection. The tree was my favorite: "All my friends are end tables." And then the end table says "I am not your friend." And later, when the tree is an end table itself "I am still not your friend." I do not know that I felt like throwing my head back and roaring "hahahahaha" but I did find this book funny!
8. Kenneth A. Baldwin, aka Kenny, is the author of The Crimson Inkwell (2019) and I guess this may have been the book that caused me to first meet Kenny, who is Patrick's friend. Patrick bought Kenny's book via venmo or paypal or something, and asked Kenny to deliver it to me. However, now I work with Kenny every year on the Public Domain Film Festival. But...the reason I read this book was that Rachel W. is organizing a book club in the library, and for June, we were supposed to read a book somehow connected with BYU, and Kenny's book was on the list, so I chose it. And huh. I liked it, but I didn't. Like, it is an interesting story, but I just somehow could not really like Louella, the main character. When I don't really like a character, it is very hard for me to like the book. I liked many of the characters around her, though. This book ends definitely on a cliff hanger, so that you need to read the second book to find out what happens, but unfortunately, I am not sure that I like Louella enough to care if she resolves her problems or not.
In other news, I have had the piano for one week, and I have been playing/practicing every day for an hour or a half hour if I spend too much time outside working, like I did a couple of days. It is so joyous to me to have this piano!
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