Almost halfway through the year and like other book bloggers, I think it’s fun to see how the reading is going and whether there are any patterns or trends emerging.
To that end, here is what I’ve read so far this in terms of numbers:
54 books in total for a total of 16,142 pages:
33 fiction – Includes short story collections and a play. (Very surprised to see this. I would have sworn that it was more NF but it’s not to be.)
21 non-fiction
Other interesting (perhaps only to me!) stats include:
25 books (46%) taken from my TBR – I’d like to up this stat a bit more this year…
Average number of books read per month: 10.5 books
Average page count per month: 285 pp.
Total average page count per month: 2,690 pp.
How do the demographics look?
10 from POC/BIPOC authors (19%) – I’d like to up this stat a bit more this year…
Autobiographies and biographies have been popular topics, but there are no real leaders, TBH: Other topics have included nature writing, travel, history and the social sciences….
.It’s been a good year so far. I hope that you’re having a similar year. Onward and upward!
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.
Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 6 library books, 7 owned books (whee!) and 0 e-books.
Plans for May 2021 include continuing to include more BIPOC writing on my list. Continue this pace of reading and continue this streak of reading more from my own TBR as opposed to those titles from the library. Sounds pretty doable to me. Plus – it’s the end of the semester and I’m off for the summer. 🙂
South Sea Tales – Jack London (F/short stories). Just saw that this is short stories. Bleugh. I am not an aficionado of short stories. What was I thinking?
The Pale Horse – Agatha Christie (F/mystery). Can’t go wrong with a Christie.
The Secret River – Kate Grenville (F) Wanted to read some Aussie lit.
The Lion in the Living Room – Abigail Tucker (NF/bio). We have kitties in our life: what can I say?
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towlers (F). (Just finished this. Post to come.)
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly – Anthony Bourdain (NF/autobio). I’m into cooking right and although this is a reread, I remember it as pretty good.
Cooking Light: Dinner ASAP (NF/recipes) – I know: me with a cookbook but I’m searching for new recipes. 🙂
So – any ideas of what I’ve picked up? Any recommendations?
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.)
Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 8 library books, 7 owned books (whee!) and 2 e-books.
So I had a productive reading month which was really fun. Plus, I also pulled out some cross-stitch and finally finished up a project that I’ve working on for quite a while. Just need to get it framed and then it’s done. 🙂
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.
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).
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 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.
Well, I apologize for that unintended slightly-longer-than-I thought break there. Life has gone a little awry (just as it probably has for you all as well), and it’s taken me a little bit to get my bearings back. Our university classes all had to be moved online in a remarkably short amount of time, and it seems that I have spent most of the last couple of weeks either online in workshops learning how to do this effectively or messing around with the software needed to do it.
However, I feel more comfortable with the software now and have a stronger idea of just how to make this transition work for both the students’ academic experience and my own personal one. I’ve learned to keep things as simple as possible and we’re all taking it day by day.
Like an awful lot of others out there in book-blogging land, I found it hard to concentrate on reading for a little while, but this is coming back to me now. Thank goodness.
Anyway, I thought I would make this post more of a catch-up post than anything and then I can move onto getting back into the swing of things.
So – to the reading. I really enjoy Cathy746’s blog which focuses on reading from Ireland, and when I learned that she would be running February as “Read Ireland” month, I really wanted to join in with that. I toddled off to the TBR shelves and read the following as a tribute to the Emerald Isle:
The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind – Billy O’Callaghan (F/short stories).
For two titles without links, I’m afraid that I didn’t write up official reviews for them. However, I can report that the Binchy was a great read – like “a big cup of tea with chocolate digestives” good read and it hit the spot at a time when stress was quite high re: the class online transition. (To give you an idea of that, I have never taught online nor have I ever taken a class online, so I had a lot of learning to do! I’m much more comfortable with the whole process now, thankfully to the high level of support from both the university and my faculty colleagues.)
The O’Callaghan short stories were good with a couple of great ones in there. I think reading short stories as a unit is a bit of a gamble, and to be honest, I’m not convinced that reading the stories one after the other (as I did with this title) was the best way to experience them. I think I’ll probably make more of an effort to spread out the short-story reads a little more in the future. I bet that is a completely different reading experience that way.
Anyway, O’Callaghan is an Irish author and this was a good read. I also have one of his novels on deck so perhaps that might be more up my alley.
Another read that was definitely up my alley was an old collection of themed essays from the acclaimed zoologist Sir David Attenborough. Called “Journeys to the Past”, this collection of writing pieces goes back to the 1960s when Attenborough was traveling to far-flung places such as Madagascar, Tongo and Australia’s Northern Territories “doing what he does best, journeying with camera and pen to observe animals and tribal customs in some of the remotest parts of the world,” says the book cover.
Although written 60 years ago, this essay collection more than meets the mark for excellence in nonfiction writing. I had wondered if there would be some non-PC descriptions of places and peoples, but there were none. (I shouldn’t have worried. It was Attenborough, after all.) A thoroughly enjoyable armchair travel with an erudite and humorous host who plainly adores what he was lucky enough to do. He’s is just as thrilled meeting the local tribal representatives and learning their customs, despite his main focus being on animals, and his enthusiasm and respect for the individuals who he meets in the course of his travels were a balm for this frazzled soul.
This was by far one of the best of the reads I’ve had in the past few weeks, and if you’re looking for some gentle reads combined with some far-off travel (from the comfort of your own shelter-in-place home), then you won’t go wrong with Sir David.
A completely different read from Attenborough was a short read by NYT critic, Margo Jefferson, who wrote a small collection of provocative essays about Michael Jackson. (Yes, that Michael Jackson. Thriller one.) Jefferson takes a pretty academic lens to Jackson’s life and provides much food for thought about him. I’m still thinking about this read and am contemplating putting together a full review of this book since it’s got a lot of material inside the slim page count. (I’ve read some other Jefferson work: check out the review of Negroland here.)
So, I’ve been reading. And napping. And learning new software. And playing with my animals. And going for walks. And more napping. 🙂 I’m planning on adding more reading to this list from now on.
January has come and January has gone, and what do I have to show for it? Not a bad turnout for reading, as it happens. I’m particularly chuffed about the number of titles that have been picked from the TBR, a trend I am planning on continuing since I’m on a book-buying ban until May. (We’ll see how that goes, yes?) Additionally, five titles meet the criteria for being POC-related. Here are the deets:
Living Earth – DK Eyewitness Books – Miranda Smith (ed.) (TBR) – no blog post
Bop – Maxine Chernoff (F- short stories) (TBR) – this was a DNF. – no blog post
101 Things I Learned in Culinary School – Louis Eguaras and Matthew Frederick (NF) (TBR) – no blog post
A slight lack of blog posts about a lot of these reads, but this was a combination of being busy, going on vacation, going back to school and procrastination/not that much to say, so it’s all good.
Moving on to February, it’s one of my favorite celebratory occasions – Black History Month – so expect some focused reading on that. Right now, I’m fully immersed in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1947) which is an amazing read. It’s a large book (Scary Big Book in terms of page numbers) – 580 pp – so it’s taking a little while. But whoo-whee — it’s good.
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