Summer reading

School and grades are now completely done which means, for me, that I can start the Summer of Liz. I don’t have anything required (outside the normal responsibilities) so the next three months are mine, all mine. 🙂 (I’m very lucky, I know.)

So – how to wisely spend this time? HA! I’m going to read and then read some more. I’m going to go through my wardrobe to see which outfits I can create/combine (just for fun) and I’m going to go and see my twin sis in CA for a few days.

So, speaking of reading (as we were), what titles have I read since the end of school? The above image tells the story:

• Chasing the Monsoon – Alexander Frater (NF). Reread and ok. Probably doesn’t need to live on my shelves any more though. :-} (Off the current TBR shelf.)
• Soul Clap Hands and Sing – Paule Marshall (F). I’ve read and enjoyed other Marshall work. This was a collection of short stories. Meh. Library.
• Majesty – Robert Lacey (NF/bio). I love the majority of Lacey’s work (good sense of humor) and and enjoying the older bio of the monarch. Nothing too mind-shattering but enjoyable all the same. (Off the current TBR shelf.)
• Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier (F). Loving this classic. (Off the current TBR shelf.)
• 100 Great Artists: A Visual Journey from Fra Angelico to Andy Warhol – Charlotte Gerlings (NF/history/art). I’ve really been interested in getting some more culture so got this out of the library. A quick but wide-ranging tour of some of the artworks of the world (mostly [all?] Western hemisphere).
• The Pale Horse – Agatha Christie (F). A murder mystery all wrapped by the end of your cup of tea. I do like a Christie every now and then. Library.

Swabbing the decks…

Haven’t done a “swabbing-the-decks” post lately and thought that now would be a good time to fix that. I’ve been reading but for some reason, have lost some impetus to blog about them. It’s not that they have been bad reads but I think I’m at that point of the university semester when I’m plumb tuckered out with regard to words in general. (I teach a writing-intensive class which I love to do. But so. Many. Words.)

So what is it that I’ve been doing with myself? Well…

I’ve been reading and here are some brief reviews:

Sharks in the Time of Saviors – Kawai Strong Washburn (2020) F

Loved this very fast fictional narrative about a Hawaiian family and the saga of their lives in the mid 1990s, especially the life of young Nainoa Flores who falls over a cruise ship when he is just seven years old. A group of sharks approach him in the water. Everyone expects the worst but instead, the young boy is brought back to the boat in the mouth of one of the sharks all in one piece, and his family view this as a favor from the ancient Hawaiian gods. 

You’ll have to read on to find out how this impacts Nainoa’s childhood and the rest of the family but suffice to say, this was a super-great read and I’m only sorry that I didn’t do a proper blog post on this. (It was also one of former President Obama’s favorite reads for 2020, so if it’s good enough for him, it’s going to be great for me. (And it was.))

I’ve also been rather interested in learning more about birdwatching so I’ve been paying more attention to trees and sounds when I go outside now. To help increase my (rather paltry) bird knowledge, I pulled out the really lovely DK Eyewitness book on the topic and found it fascinating. So far, I’m still practicing seeing the birds – a lot have good camouflage or I have bad eyes! – but I can hear their songs so trying to use those as a clue to identification as well. 

There was an Agatha Christie in the list as well, this one Evil Under the Sun, which was just a fun and non-demanding read. I’m very glad that she was a prolific writer since she’s given me lots of titles to read. And have another title on the TBR pile from the library. <rubs hands with glee>

Another read (when I was yearning for a read from another culture/country) ended up being Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and Their Passage from India to America by S. Mitra Kalita (2005). This is NF focused on three Indian families who all chose to live in Middlesex County in New Jersey, an area which has the largest Indian population in the world outside India (apparently). 

Author Kalita traces each of these long-term residents’ journeys as they land in America and start their lives in suburbia and it’s actually quite fascinating (especially for me, since I was an immigrant as well but with a different trajectory. [Am I still an immigrant even though I’ve been here decades now? When do you stop being an immigrant? Do you stop being an immigrant?)) 

So this was a fast and interesting read and I enjoyed it. Plus – another off the TBR. Go me. 😉 

Other stuff: I’ve just started a new jigsaw puzzle. (Fun.) We’ve been watching Netflix and I’ve even been exploring some new recipes. (Who is this person who is doing this? I’m not really a chef but I’ve suddenly become more interested in food and would like to find some different recipes to try…I think it’s linked with reruns of The Great British Baking Show that I’ve been forcing the Super Hero to watch in the evenings…)

So – nothing too exciting but it’s been nice. I hope that you can say the same. 

Library Loot: April 07 2021

Loot from my local library included the following:

• Belfast Diary – John Conroy (NF about 1980s Northern Ireland during the Troubles).
• Sharks in the Time of Saviors – Kawai Strong Washburn (F). One of former Pres. Obama’s favorite books of 2020, apparently. If it’s good enough for him… 😉
• A Caribbean Mystery – Agatha Christie (F/murder mystery). Love me some Christie.
• The Secret River – Kate Grenville (F/Australian). I’ve heard good things…
• Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King (F). I would like to read more King so seeing if I can handle his less-scary titles first.
• Emma – Jane Austen (F). In the mood for a good classic.
• The Water Museum – Luis Alberta Urrea (F/short stories). I don’t always get on that well with short stories but I’ll give them a go with Urrea’s work since he’s really good.)

Queenie – Candice Carty-Williams (2019)

Picked this up at the library the other day after having seen it mentioned on quite a few book bloggers’ sites and, at the same time, wanting to add another POC author to my reading life.

This is, apparently, Candice Carty-Williams’ first novel although it looks like she has a background in publishing as well. So – did I enjoy this read? Not sure that “enjoy” is the best word but it was a fast read and a pretty good one. I’ll say that.

The narrative revolves around the central protagonist, Queenie, a 25-year-old first generation Brit who is single, living in the UK with Jamaican parents. As the plot moves forward, we get to see how Queenie lives and works and from the POV of this particular reader, it read very smoothly overall.

Reading some of the reviews, countless people had compared Queenie to a more brash Bridget Jones in many ways, but I don’t think this is an accurate impression. Queenie is a much more hardened character than Bridget ever was.

She straddles both the Jamaican immigrant culture as well as the culture(s) of her friends and has to deal with insidious cuts and asides (racial and otherwise) in her newspaper workplace.

It seems as though she has her life fairly together for a twenty-something woman in the 21^st century, but the one piece that is significantly awry for her is her love life where there is one terrible decision after another. (There is a lot of unprotected sex in this book. Fair warning, if you want it. If not, carry on.)

And I just kept wanting to pull Queenie aside EVERY time she went to bed with someone and tell her that she didn’t have to do this. But I couldn’t and it was actually made even harder to be patient with her as she came across as consistently unlikeable in many ways: she’s selfish at times but perhaps Carty-Williams’ goal with her was to provide a more human character who makes human mistakes. I’m not sure.

This was well written overall. Carty-Williams handles the narrative effectively. I just wish that I had liked (and respected) Queenie a little more.

Library Loot: March 04 2021

I’ve been busy at the library lately so thought I’d update my stash of interesting titles:

• The Colorado Kid – Stephen King (F) – was looking for another read by King since I loved his Misery title… (This edition actually has what I consider to be the WORST cover art in the world. I’ll get you a pic…)
• The Water Museum – Luis Alberto Urrea (F/short stories). Love Urrea’s other work…
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Stick – Zora Neale Hurston (F/short stories). Other Hurston reviews here: Barracoon (NF), Their Eyes were Watching God (1937)…
• Mrs. Malory Wonders – Hazel Holt. (F/mystery). Just was looking for a cozy murder book and this title came up…
• Bookmarks: Reading in Black and White: A Memoir – Karla F. C. Holloway (NF). I ILL’d this title but it looks rather different inside than I was expecting. We’ll see how it goes.
• Around the World in 80 Days with Micheal Palin – Michael Palin. (Loved his travel book on the Himalaya mountains and wanted to read some more good travel writing.)

And more titles… (Told you I might have got carried away… 😉 )

• The Sittaford Mystery – Agatha Christie (F/mystery). Already finished this – good fun.
• My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Maurier (F/thriller/mystery). Was looking for a Gothic thriller type of read… (Just realized that I’ve already read this. Sigh. No worries. Moving on…)
• Ice: The Antarctic Diary of Charles E. Passel – Charles E. Passel (NF/travel/adventure).
• The Round House – Louise Erdrich (F/Native American).
• Queenie – Candice Carty-Williams (F).
• A Traveller’s Life – Eric Newby (NF/travel).
• DK Eyewitness Books: Astronomy. (NF). Just looked interesting.

Which one to read first?…. I know I’m going to read the astronomy Eyewitness book this weekend for starters and make a start on “The Commitments” by Roddy Doyle for Cathy’s Reading Ireland 2020 project.

Library Loot: Feb. 22 2021

I checked out the following titles from my local library:

• Quilts: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum – Elizabeth Warren. (I really enjoy looking at textile art…)
• Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches – Jill Fredston. (I was in the auto/bio section and this just looked very interesting.)
• India Calling – Anand Giridharadas. (Still fascinated by India…)
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick – Zora Neale Hurston. (I enjoy her work.)
• The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells (Was looking for a classic and this looked short!)

So, of course, I’m not actually reading any of these just yet and reading something completely different.! 😉

Patsy – Nicole Dennis-Benn

I’m not quite sure where I found this title (probably on one of my blog-reading adventures) but it sounded very good and my library had a copy so I brought it home.

From Amazon: Beating with the pulse of a long-withheld confession and peppered with lilting patois, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to love whomever she chooses, bravely putting herself first. But to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a nanny, while back in Jamaica her daughter, Tru, ironically struggles to understand why she was left behind. Greeted with international critical acclaim from readers who, at last, saw themselves represented in Patsy, this astonishing novel “fills a literary void with compassion, complexity and tenderness” (Joshunda Sanders, Time), offering up a vital portrait of the chasms between selfhood and motherhood, the American dream and reality.

 “But di weirdest t’ing ‘bout life is dat it’s only understood backward. Yuh neva know what’s at di end ah dis tunnel waitin fah you, sweetheart. Now come get dressed. We got life to live an’ rent to pay.” (p. 204)

This was a fast read at first and I really enjoyed the first two-thirds but then… I’m not sure what happened. The last third of the book seemed to be a different quality of writing (and not in a good way). It became sooo over-written in several spots that it became irritating to read which is a shame because the plot was good. I’d been sucked into the narrative of the characters but the questionable writing kicked me out very quickly.

What do I mean by “bad” writing? Let me count the ways:

“She weeps finally, finally with the rage of a woman touching her earlobe for the feel of an heirloom earring and discovering it gone, not knowing when and where it fell, and powerless at this point to find it.”

I know, right? A long and rambling non sequitur…

Or how about this example:

“Patsy pauses, the words bundled in her belly, as lifeless as a still newborn.”

Doesn’t it actually hurt your writing soul to read these sentences? Why would you use this comparison when there has been no talk of babies or infants around this?

The only (very slight) mention of anything linked with the topic of “baby” is “belly” in the phrase that comes right before this one and this image is such a stark negative one for what it’s being used to describe…

AND this book was stuffed with a really heavy Caribbean dialect which was continuously tricky to follow. I can typically do dialect for most books but this one was really hard to decipher. There were times when I had no idea what the characters were yapping on about.

The book, on the whole, had a strong basic narrative plot but my goodness, the last third of it was so overwritten that I almost stopped there. I soldiered on though because (a) I am pointlessly stubborn about some things and (b) it became quite entertaining to see what other writing nuggets I was going to read.

So, in terms of a plot and the actual story, this was a good read. In terms of writing, ummm…..

June 2020 Reading Review

The reads for June 2020 included:

• Wallis in Love: Wallis Simpson – Andrew Morton (NF – sort of) – 2018
• My Sister the Serial Killer – Oyinken Braithwaite (F) – 2017
• Tomboy – Liz Prince (GN/bio) – 2014
• The Street – Ann Petry (F) – 1949
• The Mothers – Brit Bennett (F) – 2016
• Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights – Gretchen Sorin (NF) – 2019
• She Came to Slay: The History of Harriet Tubman – Erica Armstrong Dunbar NF/history – 2020

So to the numbers:

• Total number of books read in June 2020: 7
• Total number of pages read:  2181 pages (av. 321). 
• Fiction/Non-Fiction: 3 fiction / 4 non-fiction.
• Diversity:  5 BIPOC. 6 books by women.
• Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 6 library books, 1 owned books and 0 e-books.

Plans for July 2020 include a month of teaching online Summer School at the university, prepping their lectures and grading work… Apart from that, lots of reading, jigsaw puzzles and hanging out. Temperatures are very hot outside for the most part, so it’s a pretty indoor life right now. 😉

Our city has a few lakes and flooded canyons. Here is one of them on a lovely weekend morning walk the other day.

And Black History Month Begins…

In the U.S., February can mean several different things to various people, and for me in particular, it signals the start of Black History Month, one of my favorite projects where I focus on reads by and/or about African-Americans. I think that reading and supporting POC writers is an important part of being a well-rounded reader, so I’ve pulled these titles (image above) from the TBR shelves as potential reads for this month:

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander (NF)
• Human Cargo – Matthew Crampton  (NF)
• Mother Country: Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front, 1939-1945 – Stephen Bourne (NF)
• Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa – Mark Mathabane (NF)
• They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys of Sudan – Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak (w Judy A. Bernstein) (NF)
• Strength in What Remains – Tracy Kidder (NF)
• Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press – James McCrath Morris (NF)
• We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation – Jeff Chang (essays)

—along with whatever other titles that come my way! Feel free to let me know of any titles that would fit!

Care to join in the fun?

Summer Reading List 2012

It seems like every summer, I search for a project to do and perhaps complete by the time September rolls around. I already have the habit of focusing on more of the classics during the hotter months, and the D and I usually have a movie focus – one year were all the Star Wars movies, another were all the Star Trek movies, last year were the Harry Potter movies (but could only stomach two of them as they got a bit b-o-r-i-n-g for moi – no disrespect intended for the HP fans out there).

So, with all this summer list talk on the bookie blogs around the interwebs, I thought I would put together a very “light-hearted-no-pressure–only-read-if-I-want-to” list of books that have been on my TBR pile for a rather long time and at the same time, be rather fun to read.

Here is the list that I tossed together. The caveats are as follows (not that I am picky or anything…) :

• I don’t have to stick to the list
• I don’t have to finish any of them
• Once they are off the list, they’re out of the house

Join Me – Danny Wallace (non-fiction) – finished this one September 2012. (Does that still count as summer in the Northern Hemisphere?)… Good read, btw.

Steve Jobs bio (non-fiction)

Proof of Love – Catherine Hall (Fiction). Good book, I think, but wrong time to read this. No fault of the author and not the topic though. Just timing.

Moscow Stories – Loren Graham (non-fiction) – tried reading this, but the author had some very strange ideas about things so I put it down. (July 2012)

A classic of some description (probably fiction) – Read M.E. Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret.” Read July 2012.

Anthology of short stories (whatever flings itself into my hands from my shelves) (fiction, obviously). Read July 2012.

Book on something Victorian-ish (whatever flings itself into my hands from my shelves) (non-fiction). Tried (I really did) with the Chicago brothel book, but boy. Boring. Sorry! August 2012.

Book on something medical-ish (perhaps Emperor of Maladies or book on Level 4 viruses at CDC) – whatever flings itself into my hands (non-fiction)

The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (non-fiction)

Freebie choice (mainly bc I can’t remember what’s on the home bookshelves right now)…. Most likely something fiction-y to balance out all the non-fiction on this list! Ooh. How about this one:

The Country Diaries: A Year in the British Countryside – Alan Taylor (ed.) (non-fiction) – this is turning out to be best read a small piece at a time as opposed to churning through the pages. So more of an ongoing project, me thinks. Read August 2012.

So – I think that gives me quite a lot of latitude from which to choose and (BONUS) are all on the TBR shelves right now which means, that when I’ve read them, off the shelves they go… (Just in time for the big October Friends of the Library book sale in October… tee hee.)