Nine books this month. I am on a tenth one, but it will end up being book one of September, because I won't finish it tonight...I need to write, not read, for awhile!
Before the books--this morning I spent several hours working in the yard because it was nice and cool outside. I got two blisters from the garden clippers on my right hand. The one on the side of my thumb is normal, but look at the beautiful shape of the one on my middle finger!
When I shared the picture, both my daughter Nancy and my friend Janice exclaimed, "The clippers love you!!" It still hurts, but that heart of my finger feels like a bit of a reward for my work outside today! And if I were to give the finger to anybody--which I have never done, and I am not about to start now!-- it would be a mixed message, wouldn't it!! So...books...
1. Pretty Good Number One: An American Family eats Tokyo (2013 - this one 2016) by Matthew Amster-Burton. The copyright date is different because I chose to ILL the large print book. My eyes adore large print. This is a memoir of living and eating in Tokyo. Matthew and his daughter Iris are particular fans of Japanese food, and it is a fun read to watch them trying different foods. (Matthew's wife prefers the food of their home country, England.) The best part of living in Tokyo for Iris is the freedom that children enjoy there! The parents are much less helicopter-y when it comes to going out and about.
2. I had a sudden thought this month--"It has been a long time since I read a Jaclyn Moriarty book! I wonder if she has something new since the last book of hers I read." And she does. It is The astonishing chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere (2022) which is another adventure for the children of the extended family of Nettlestones. The Nettlestone Cousins and Alejandro (the once and future prince) are on a mission to save the elves in Dun-sorey-lo-vey-lo-hey from sleeping themselves into oblivion, when they meet Oscar from elsewhere. (Australia. He is totally from Australia.) Although his trip to their world is a bit perplexing to everyone, they couldn't have saved the elves without him and his board with wheels. Jaclyn Moriarty is an excellent story-teller! Such a fun read.
3. The Bangalore Detectives Club (2023) by Harini Nagendra--Josie came across this title (since she also works in libraries and comes across titles of books they don't have in their collection) which I requested through ILL. Harini is an ecologist in India, and this is her first novel--she usually writes academic papers. It was interesting. She is exploring the life of a wife in 1920s India. Kaveri isn't content to just sit at home, and when she and her husband are at a dinner where a murder is committed, she can't sit still and watch innocent people take the blame. Her new (match-made) husband Ramu is a willing accomplice. Good thing his mother is out of the house for a few months--she would not have been a fan of Kaveri's activities!!
4. The Unwedding (2024) by Ally Condie. Ally Condie is another writer I had not read for a few years--since 2017. I looked it up! In 2017 her book jackets said nothing about an MFA from Vermont College, which she has completed since then. When I saw that she had, I wondered if my friend Marti Leavitt had taught her! They both are successful authors. Turns out Marti was not one of Ally's teachers, except in a workshop. Ellery's vacation weekend turns into a nightmare with murders and a storm. Well, it kind of started out as a nightmare, too, because Ellery is using the vacation she and her husband purchased for their 20th wedding anniversary. But a few months ago, he decided to take another direction (and a new girlfriend) so Ellery is on her own. She makes new friends and helps solve a mystery and it turns out kind of okay. And it is a well-told story.
5. Hope Springs (2022) by Jaime Berry is a debut novel for younger readers--not YA, more for tweens, but I liked it. (A good story is a good story.) Jubilee's grandma, who is her legal guardian, always wants to move, but Jubilee hopes they can stay put for awhile. When they move to Hope Springs, TX, Jubilee finds friends and a purpose, and even makes progress in building a better relationship with her mother (a professional singer who is on the road a lot) and finally finds a home in Hope Springs TX.
6. Curiosity (2015) by Gary Blackwood is historical fiction, and I found it very interesting. A short summary: Rufus, crippled from birth, is orphaned and earns his keep playing chess from inside a machine called the Turk. Rufus' time inside the Turk is during the time that Mälzel was the machine's owner (he features in the linked article) and took the machine to the United States.
7. Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions (2023) by Alex Byrne, who is a philosophy professor at MIT. I found this book fascinating. He is kind of looking at the approach to gender disphoria currently sanctioned (all you have to do is say it, and that's it--you are diagnosed. Without looking at trauma or any other things that might be causing you angst) which is weird to him as a philosopher, because it is important to look at things from many possible angles. I especially liked this paragraph, on page 137: "People are sometimes not completely forthcoming. They may leave details out. They may subtly distort their biographies, not intending to deceive, but as a means of maintaining an acceptable self-image. More straighforwardly, they may misinterpret their feelings and behavior: we are far from transparent to ourselves. And on occasion they may simply lie. That first-person reports of sexuality are sometimes inaccurate is more than plausible--sometimes it is provable. Being judiciously skeptical of narratives by transgender people is merely to treat them as human beings."
8. Property of the Rebel Librarian (2018) by Allison Varnes. Wow. If I had read this book in 2018, with its story of book banning and shutting down libraries and villainizing librarians, I would have thought "How bizarre! Glad this is fiction!" But now, in 2024, I live in a state that has banned 13 books so far, and made a law that if three parents don't like a book, it is banned. (Easy to see how one parent with an axe to grind could find two friends to go along with it.) And I live in a country where 17 states are thinking they will criminalize librarians for book recommendations. Like, what? Fahrenheit 451 here we come! Let's burn all the books! I never thought of my profession as risky, but I guess I need to think again. (I will talk about this book in our library book group in September, because we are supposed to read a book about libraries.)
9. The Swallowtail Legacy: Wreck at Ada Reef (2022) by Michael Beil. For our library book group, in August we were supposed to read books about schools, and though I didn't re-read any of them, I showed and telled about Michael Beil's "Red Blazer Girls" books, which I have read with enjoyment in the past. And reminding myself of how much I liked his books caused me to look for something new by him. This book was very good, just like his other books. Lark's family goes to Swallowtail island in Lake Erie for the summer and adventure awaits. Such a fun island--horses and bikes and golf carts. No cars on the island. Michael Beil created such interesting characters!
I opened with a picture of destruction to my finger (though beautiful destruction because heart) and will close with a picture of destruction in the library. Or, I guess "deconstruction" is a better term.
It is going to get worse before it gets better. Fun times!!
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