Jennifer's 2021 Reading (japaul22)

Hi everyone! I'm back again to share my reading and get inspired by all of your reading threads. My name is Jennifer and I live outside of Washington D.C. I have two kids, boys ages 11 and 8. I play the french horn in the U.S. Marine Band.

I've settled into a great groove of reading over the past decade. I like the classics and use the 1001 books list to push my reading out of my comfort zone. I also read new fiction where I tend towards "literary fiction" by women authors. I also usually have a nonfiction book on the go, usually historical biography or cultural studies. To lighten things up, I read the occasional mystery or historical fiction.

Thanks for visiting my thread! I'm very much looking forward to starting a new year in 2021!!!

This is one of the first years I can remember that I don't have a reading project planned. I'm kind of excited about that. In 2020, I didn't have one big book I was reading all year, but I had group reads planned for just about every month. This year, I'm just going to see what it's like to read without a plan. I will hop into group reads that fit my mood. I use the category challenge to organize my reading, so you can also find me there.

These lists are to help me pick books when I don't have a "next book" in mind. They will also give you an idea of the kinds of books I enjoy.

Contemporary Authors that I follow (i.e. I'll probably read any new novel they put out and am reading any backlog I haven't gotten to yet):
Hilary Mantel
Kate Atkinson
Eleanor Catton
Eowyn Ivey
Amor Towles
Tana French
Marilynne Robinson
Hannah Tinti
Barbara Kingsolver
Ann Patchett
Kamila Shamsie
Chimamanda Adichie
Margaret Atwood
Madeline Miller
Esther Freud
A.S. Byatt
Siri Hustvedt

Series/Mysteries that I follow:
Robert Galbraith, Cormoran Strike mysteries
Tana French
Jane Harper
C.J. Sansom
Sharon Kay Penman

Classic authors I love (reading novels I haven't read yet or rereads):
Jane Austen
the Brontes
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
Trollope
Thomas Mann
Doestoevsky
Tolstoy
Haldor Laxness
Sigrid Undset
Faulkner
Zola
Scandinavian classics
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Wallace Stegner
John Williams
Proust
Thomas Hardy
Henry James

Kindle TBR (because I never remember I have these):
Daughters of the Winter Queen by Nancy Goldstone
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Devil in the Grove
Martin Chuzzlewit
Our Mutual Friend
Nicholas Nickleby
Lost Children Archive
The Fire This Time
Sandhamn Murders by Viveca Sten books 1-6
Titan by Ron Chernow
Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar
The Imprisoned Guest by Elisabeth Gitter
How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
Three Lives by Gertrude Stein
The Wicked Girls
People We Meet on Vacation
Anne by Constance Fenimore Cooper
Compartment No. 6
A World on the Wing
The Great Circle
Under a Wide and Starry Sky
Tyll

Plans:
February Orley Farm, library books - The Push, Braiding Sweetgrass, Beheld,
March: finish Orley Farm, Love, Book of Evidence, Beheld, Effi Briest (bookspin), The Cold Millions, Ceremony (double spin)
April: library books - The Children's Blizzard, Anne Lamott; What's Mine and Yours, Lager Queen, Bird book
May: finish Square Haunting - next Carlingford book - Testament of Youth, Thousand Ships - Detransition Baby - Murder Must Advertise - Hideous Kinky
June: expecting a lot of library books to come off waitlist so I'll focus on those and Nature's Best Hope. Other possibilities - BOTM catch up, Still Missing
November/December closing out the year priorities: 1 or 2 rereads (Pym, Les Liaisons, Possession?), next Barroy book, Matrix, Paradise

Reading Log

January:
1. Academy Street by Mary Costello
2. The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga
3. The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
4. Jack by Marilynne Robinson
5. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
6. The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
7. Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
8. Someone Who Will Love you in All your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

February
9. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
10. Kindred by Octavia Butler
11. Constance Ring by Amalie Skram
12. Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
13. My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
14. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

March
15. The Push by Ashley Audrain
16. Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
17. Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
18. Love by Toni Morrison
19. Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
20. The Promise of the Grand Canyon by John F. Ross
21. The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura

April
22. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
23. The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin
24. Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
25. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
26. In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
27. The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
28. The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
29. The Executor and The Rector by Mrs. Oliphant

May
30. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
31. Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
32. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
33. The Doctor's Family by Mrs. Oliphant
34. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
35. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
36. Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

June
37. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
38. Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy
39. The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow
40. The Survivors by Jane Harper
41. Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
42. Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
43. Outlawed by Anna North

July
44. Book of Ebenezer Le Page by GB Edwards
45. The Guest List by Lucy Foley
46. This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
47. Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
48. Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

August
49. Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
50. The Heiress by Molly Greeley
51. The Life and Death of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan
52. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
53. Constance Fenimore Woolson by Anne Boyd Rioux
54. The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
55. In Other Words by Christopher J. Moore
56. Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

September
57. The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen
58. Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon
59. Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg
60. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
61. The Land Breakers by John Ehle
62. Regeneration by Pat Barker
63. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

October
64. Invisible Women by Carla Criado Perez
65. Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
66. The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
67. Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
68. All That She Carried by Tiya Miles
69. Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley
70. Night Waking by Sarah Moss
71. Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
72. Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert
73. Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

November
74. Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
75. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
76. Matrix by Lauren Groff
77. The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood

December
78. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
79. Covered with Night by Nicole Eustace
80. Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope
81. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
82. Divergent by Veronica Roth

Welcome, everyone!

I like your list of authors you follow. Happy New Year, Jennifer!

Hi, Jennifer, I look forward to following your reading again this year:).

Happy New Year, Jennifer. I look forward to following your reading this year. We share many favorite authors.

Happy new year, Jennifer. Here's to the end of home schooling hopefully in 2021. We're just going back to it again after a great run from the end of August in school. Ugh. Anyway, will be enjoying your reviews again this year.

>8 AlisonY: Oh, sorry to hear you're back to school from home. As you know, we've been home since March. Honestly though, we've gotten in a pretty good routine with it. Not ideal, but everyone is adapting. Thanks for popping in!

>5 dchaikin:, >6 karspeak:, >7 BLBera: Happy new year to all of you! I'll be following your threads as well!

Interesting list of Contemporary Authors you have in this list - not to mention the classics list.

Happy new year and happy reading!

Happy New Year, Jennifer! I'm a fan of several of your favorite contemporary authors (Mantel, Atkinson, Catton, Shamsie, Adichie and Miller), so I look forward to your thoughts about their books in particular.

Have you read any of Sarah Moss's books?

>10 AnnieMod: thanks! I'm hoping having this list helps me pick books since I haven't done much planning this year as to what I'll read.

>11 kidzdoc: I'm sure I found some of those authors through your threads over the years, Darryl! I have only read Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, but it made me want to read more.

#1 Academy Street by Mary Costello
I've started 2021 with a wonderful, concise, emotional novel. Academy Street follows the life of Tess Lohan, from the death of her mother when Tess is six, through her old age. Tess is born in Ireland and immigrates to America when she is in her 20s. Costello describes Tess's life - both her internal character and her outward connections with others - in a series of what I would call vignettes of her life. Large time periods are skipped and events don't always seem completely explored, but in spite of this, or maybe because of it, I got to know Tess inside and out in just 179 pages.

I must have heard about this book on LT, so I will do everyone a favor and continue highly recommending it! It's one you can read in a day, and you'll be glad you did.

Off to a great start!

Original publication date: 2014
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 179 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: Christmas present
Why I read this: off the shelf

Happy New Year, Jennifer. I look forward to following your reading this year. Academy Street sounds good. Like you, I'm sure I've heard of it here before. I can't remember the source but I see some familiar LT names on the book page.

>13 japaul22: I think the title and author are new to me. Good start, and I'm noting the book.

Happy new year Jennifer, looking forward to following your reviews again so dropping my star!

#2 The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga

The Book of Not is the second in autobiographical fiction trilogy by Zimbabwean author, Tsitsi Dangarembga. I absolutely loved the first book, Nervous Conditions, for its authentic voice, look at Zimbabwean culture, and feminist voice. Unfortunately, I didn't think this sequel was quite as successful.

In this book, Tambu, the main character, goes off to her next level of schooling, one of the best high schools in the country, which is mainly populated by white Rhodesians. There she deals with racism but also run-of-the-mill girlfriend drama and academic pressures. She is searching for her identity and torn between responsibilities to her country and culture and her desire to escape to a better life.

While these typical teenage dramas are playing out, the country is going through serious war and violence as the native people try to oust the white colonist. Tambu is involved and there are some brutal scenes of her family's experience, but she seems to remain on the outside of the violence and the focus stays on her high school experience.

While I still liked this book and will read the next in the trilogy, it was definitely less enjoyable for me. I felt like the writing was a bit overdone and the focus was more narrowly on Tambu. I missed some of the characters from the first novel.

Original publication date: 2006
Author’s nationality: Zimbabwean
Original language: English
Length: 246 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf, continuing the trilogy

Stopping in to say Happy New Year to you, Jennifer. and rather hoping we all have an easier year than the last one. I'll be watching your reading.

>18 sallypursell: Thank you! Yes, I do hope 2021 ends up better for all. Looking forward to following your thread as well. I know I don't chime in often, but I read every Club Read thread religiously!

>13 japaul22: I've had Academy Street on my wish list for ages. You're right - someone on LT did give it a glowing review, but I can't remember who. You've nudged it back up towards the top of my wish list.

>17 japaul22: i think this is the first review I’ve read of this so you had my attention. I plan to read it this year as I read the trilogy.

I’m wrong. In 2012 (!) i read rebeccanyc’s review and thumbed it. I’ll re-read her again after I finish.

>22 dchaikin: Rebeccannyc.. it’s sweet and wonderful to remember her.

>22 dchaikin:, >23 Simone2: I noticed her review when I posted mine - I think there were under ten reviews for the book and hers was, as always, the most insightful. So many good books she led us all too!

Hi Jennifer. I've had Nervous Conditions on my shelf for years, and now that I've gotten my books back from almost 2 years in storage, perhaps this will be the year I read it. It definitely sounds like a good one.
I hope you were nowhere near the mayhem on Wednesday!

>25 arubabookwoman: I hope you get to Nervous Conditions - I'd love to hear what you think of it.

Yes, I was home safely on Wednesday, watching in awe and fear as the stage I'll be performing on for Inauguration was overrun by rioters. I do work inside the Capitol several times a year and I've never imagined it could be infiltrated in that way. Scary stuff. Thank you for thinking of me!

Nice review of The Book of Not, Jennifer. I've owned my copy of Nervous Conditions for several years, but I haven't read it yet. Have you read This Mournable Body yet? If so, is it necessary or recommended to read the first two books ahead of it?

I'll definitely be thinking of you on January 20th, and I assume, and pray, that there will be a much larger armed police presence for the inauguration, given the recent comments by the insurrectionists.

>27 kidzdoc: Darryl, I have read This Mournable Body yet, so I can't definitely speak to reading the first ones ahead of it, but so far I think you'd have the best reading experience if you at least read Nervous Conditions first. It really sets the stage for the character's early experiences and focuses on the culture she grows up in - how she accepts and denies it. I imagine it would be important background for This Mournable Body. I'm planning to read it later this year, so I'll let you know if I feel differently after reading it.

Thanks for your thoughts on Inauguration day! I have to trust that security, which is usually intense anyway, will be even more heightened and well-planned.

>28 japaul22: Thanks, Jennifer. I'm in no great hurry to read This Mournable Body, so I'll read Nervous Conditions first.

I'm working on Inauguration Day, but I'm sure that I'll pay as close attention as I can to it, using my mobile phone and televisions in patients' rooms.

>17 japaul22: I read Dangerous Conditions a very long time ago. So long ago, that I’ve completely forgotten what it was about, but I remember enjoying it. I wanted to revisit that one before reading her later books.

>28 japaul22: etc. — I launched into This mournable body not knowing it was the third part of a trilogy: it wasn't hard to follow what was going on, because Tambu went back over the events of her childhood and schooldays a lot in the course of the book. But I imagine it's more interesting if you've read the other two, because what she's saying about her past now is probably quite different from what she was saying then.

#3 The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is one of my favorite nonfiction authors. Her writing often attempts to illuminate the every day lives of those living in the Northeast region of early America, and this book fit that theme. In it, she explores eleven everyday objects that have survived hundreds of years and uses them to study everyday life, cultural trends, political issues, and many other topics. As with all of her books, the focus is on women's lives, which are often not documented to the same extent as their male counterparts.

One of the tenets of this book is that women's "wealth" was typically in moveable objects: linens, kitchen items, small furniture, items of clothing, and decorative luxuries. Men's wealth was in land, business, and education. As such, studying the objects presented in this book is a study of women's lives. The objects studied were created between 1676 and 1837 and include items like an Indian basket, spinning wheels, a pocketbook, a decorative cupboard, a linen tablecloth, and silk embroidery. The items lead to explorations of the settlers interactions with the local Indians (some of the objects are made by Indian women), how women spent their days, what genealogical records leave out about women, the methods of fabric making, spinning as a a political act so as not to rely on England's manufactured goods, and many more topics.

I was interested and excited that there was so much focus on Indian culture (specifically the Abenaki people) in this book, because one of my focuses this year is going to be on reading more books by and about American Indians. This unintentionally fit that category, so it was a good way to start my reading year.

Ulrich's writing won't be for everyone; her style is not the popular narrative nonfiction prevalent today. The writing is scholarly and dense, though I found I got in a pretty good rhythm with it and was able to get immersed in the topic. I suspect her book, A Midwife's Tale, will always be my favorite, but this is a close second and one I would like to read again some day. There is so much information that it was impossible to absorb it all in one reading.

Original publication date: 2001
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 481 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf, favorite author

>32 japaul22: Sounds very interesting, adding it to my list!

>33 karspeak: Me, too.

Happy New Year, Jennifer. I’ll be following along this year. You’ve added many books to my wishlist in the past. Looking at the military presence in DC right now, I think that the danger is being taken very seriously.

Hi, thanks for the books mentioned in >32 japaul22: from me too.

>33 karspeak:, >34 sallypursell:, >36 LolaWalser: I know there are several Laurel Thatcher Ulrich fans in this group. Glad to have sparked some interest.

>35 NanaCC: Hi Colleen, I visited your thread as well and I'm very glad to see you back!

I'm still catching up with threads, and I'm excited to see where your no-plan approach this year will lead you. I've got a copy of Tsitsi Dangarembga's first book on the stack to read soon.

Wishing you a great (and safe) experience performing during the Inauguration!

#4 Jack by Marilynne Robinson

Jack is the fourth book in Robinson's series about characters from the fictional town of Gilead, Iowa. This novel explores the prodigal son, Jack, whose behavior was such a source of drama and gossip and grief in the other books. Jack, who is white, is basically homeless, an alcoholic, has had a stint in prison, and then meets a young Black woman who he falls in love with. Like Jack, Della is also the daughter of a minister and is living on her own in St. Louis as a teacher.

Their relationship is unlikely to me, and I had a hard time figuring out why they would have been attracted to each other, especially on Della's end. This is the 1950s, so there is really no way they can be together as a mixed-race couple. Jack is depressed, poor, and drinking too much. Yes, he is intelligent and kind but I can't imagine Della even discovering that beneath his poor, sad exterior.

Robinson's writing is, as always, beautiful and observant. Her writing is subtle and complex. So I did love this book, but I didn't like it quite as much as her other novels. I think Jack's story works better as a catalyst for conversations and character reactions in her other novels. When explored on its own, I thought Jack wasn't quite as interesting of a character as I found him when he was more mysterious and distant in the other novels.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 306 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library book
Why I read this: a favorite author

Nice comments on Jack, Jennifer. I need to get back to Robinson. I've only read two.

Good luck performing for the inauguration.

I’m late getting started this year, but Happy New Year anyway. I look forward to following another year of your reading. Looks like you’re off to a good start already. Last year I resolved to make more of a conscious effort to read more by writers whose work I have enjoyed (along the lines of your list of writers you follow, I suppose), but Mary Costello is one I’d forgotten about. I hadn’t heard of her when I picked up her book short stories (The China Factory) on a trip to Dublin getting on for 10 years ago, and I was blown away. I will happily add Academy Street to my wishlist - and I see there’s a second novel too, The River Capture (2019).

>40 BLBera: Thank you! Have you read Lila? After Gilead, it is my favorite.

>41 rachbxl: Welcome! I always enjoy following your reading as well. I did put The River Capture on my wish list after loving Academy Street.

>32 japaul22: fascinated by this review.

>39 japaul22: I’m happy to read your review of Jack, but hesitant to read it. I thought Gilead was terrific (i read it twice) and I really enjoyed Home, but Lila didn’t work for me (it felt a little bit like an author doing a “this is how i want the little people to behave” kind of thing, which I know may be more my problem than the book’s.)

>43 dchaikin: Gilead is the best, in my opinion. I really did like Lila. I think if you've invested in reading the other three books, you'll probably be happy to revisit the characters, but I would understand not prioritizing it when there are so many books out there to read!

And you should try Laurel Thatcher Ulrich sometime - I highly recommend A Midwife's Tale. It's a nonfiction book that takes the diary of an everyday woman in the 1700s and uses it to illuminate life in early America. It's really fascinating.

Audible has A Midwife’s Tale... Also A House Full of Females on early Mormonism.

>45 dchaikin: I liked both, but A Midwife's Tale is special. It is dense though - I'm not sure how well it would work on audio. Although you listen to a lot of audiobooks, so it might work for you.

Lila and Jack are the two I haven't read. I did love Gilead.

Very nice review of Jack, Jennifer. I liked it more than you did, but would also say I agree with your last sentence about Jack being a better character when he was behind the scenes and more mysterious.

I loved Home and Lila, but have yet to make it through Gilead. (two tries) I got bogged down in the cemetery with Jack & Della, so have dnfd Jack as well. Robinson is an excellent writer.

I (somehow) missed that Gilead was the first of a series so yay.

>39 japaul22: I enjoyed your review, but I found Jack's story so utterly bleak in Home that I think I'm done with the Gilead series.

>32 japaul22: One of my favorite NF authors, also (I've read all but the one on Mormonism) and I even have the DVD of the PBS docu-drama of A Midwife's Tale. Gosh, I should re-read or re-watch that. The last of hers read was Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, which I thought not quite as good as her early work, but certainly worthy of reading.

Touchstones not working, apparently.

A beautiful inauguration. I'm watching while pretending to get stuff done, and I'm pretty sure I spotted you in the band. Hope you were warm enough!

I was thinking of you today, Jennifer. It would be interesting to hear what it was like to be there.

Yes please! It was a wonderful ceremony, even constrained by social distancing and the lack of a crowd.

>53 RidgewayGirl:, >54 lauralkeet:, >55 lisapeet:

I'm home from the Inauguration swearing in ceremony and it was a wonderful day! It was very different than years past (this is my fifth Inauguration - GW Bush, 2 for Obama, Trump, and now Biden). It was so odd to not have a crowd there, on the platform or on the Mall. I missed the energy and definitely missed the applause as people are announced and speeches are given. We accompanied Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, both of whom were wonderful to work with - very gracious and professional. It was cold and windy, but not the worst I've done in terms of weather. It's a long day (our report time was 0345), but in a normal year as soon as the ceremony is done, we are bussed over to our spot in the parade, march the parade, and then we go to play at an Inaugural Ball, usually wrapping up around midnight. Today, because of coronavirus restrictions, we only did the swearing-in ceremony. So I'm tired, but it was much easier than a normal year.

It was very special to me to be seated just 20 feet below the swearing in of the first female VP. It will be one of my more memorable jobs.

>56 japaul22: Thanks for sharing your day with us. How exciting to be there. I found the ceremony very moving in places, particularly the women singing, Kamala's swearing in, and the poet laureate's presentation.

What a great milestone memory. Congrats on the new president.

ETA: Heh, I thought you might like this comment I picked up somewhere (Vox video on YouTube):

"Dayum that Marine band is amazing. We're used to hearing school bands; it's such a rare treat to hear professionals playing this music."

Jennifer, it sounds wonderful even if quite different from previous Inauguration Days. Thanks for sharing the experience with us!

The band sounded excellent as always and the arrangements were so interesting, especially This Land is Your Land, going into America the Beautiful. Thanks for sharing your day, and despite all the angst over security, etc., glad it was a shorter one for you.

The music was wonderful, Jennifer. Thanks for sharing. Lucky you to have witnessed history today.

>56 japaul22: Oh, how nice it was to have your first-hand account. I tried to look for you, but I'm not sure I found you. You must be awfully good.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us, Jennifer. The performances were fantastic. You must be extremely proud to have been a part of it.

>56 japaul22: 'm home from the Inauguration swearing in ceremony and it was a wonderful day! It was very different than years past (this is my fifth Inauguration - GW Bush, 2 for Obama, Trump, and now Biden). It was so odd to not have a crowd there, on the platform or on the Mall. I missed the energy and definitely missed the applause as people are announced and speeches are given. We accompanied Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, both of whom were wonderful to work with - very gracious and professional. It was cold and windy, but not the worst I've done in terms of weather. It's a long day (our report time was 0345), but in a normal year as soon as the ceremony is done, we are bussed over to our spot in the parade, march the parade, and then we go to play at an Inaugural Ball, usually wrapping up around midnight. Today, because of coronavirus restrictions, we only did the swearing-in ceremony. So I'm tired, but it was much easier than a normal year.

It was very special to me to be seated just 20 feet below the swearing in of the first female VP. It will be one of my more memorable jobs.

Ah, that all seems so nice. Says a Canadian. Also, so cool. What an experience, whoever the president is.

I forgot you'd have been playing in that, Jennifer. That's so amazing. What a fantastic experience to play at any of these, never mind 5 of them.

Even though you're obviously at the top of your game in terms of your instrument, do you still get nervous that you'll drop a note or something beforehand?

>65 AlisonY: Honestly, I don't get very nervous about the actual playing, though it is very difficult to play in the cold. I do get nervous about the sum total of the day. I got up at 1:30 am both for the day of Inauguration and the full dress rehearsal two days before. This is mainly to facilitate the intense security at every Inauguration. So your body does not feel great. We are outdoors a lot of the time, it's cold, and the pressure to perform well even though feeling physically exhausted is high. But, this is why my unit is incredibly close and supportive of each other. We are all in it together and it's an amazing feeling to know how intensely difficult the conditions are and still be able to work together to create an excellent product. I deeply respect and am bonded to my colleagues. Jobs like these are difficult in the moment but create lasting memories and bonds.

What a great account, thank you! I really loved Lady Gaga's performance—and I'm not a huge fan otherwise (though I don't dislike her either). It was so clearly heartfelt and 100% earnest, which is such a nice thing to see leak through the general aura of professionalism I see from performers.

>66 japaul22: It's so interesting hearing all about it - thanks for sharing that. You've definitely got a one in a million job!

Kudos Jennifer! Appreciate hearing about this inauguration from your perspective.

Thanks for sharing your Inauguration Day experiences. We watched the whole thing on TV, but how exciting to actually be there and participate!

Thank you for your account of your performance on Inauguration Day, and for your service that day, Jennifer! I tried looking for you, but I didn't realize that you were performing below the main platform, rather than above it. I (and probably all of us) have a newfound respect and appreciation for what you and your colleagues did that day.

That sounds like a gruelling day...but what a wonderful experience. Thanks for telling us about it.

>56 japaul22: What a great experience!

#5 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I finally got around to reading Adichie's 2013 novel that explores the experiences of Nigerian-born Ifemelu and Obinze, and I'm so, so glad I did. Ifemelu and Obinze grow up comfortably upper middle class in Nigeria, but have to contend with the challenges of living in a developing country. When they are in college and the teachers continually go on strike, they begin seriously looking for ways to leave. As a female, Ifemelu is able to get a visa to America to live with her aunt fairly easily. Getting a work visa is not as easy. Obinze, as a male in the post-9/11 world, is unable to legally emigrate. He ends up briefly in London and then back in Nigeria.

Ifemelu is the focus for most of the book. She becomes successful in America writing a blog about race. She writes about how she never thought of herself as Black until she came to America - Black doesn't exist in Nigeria. She writes about the differences between Non-American Blacks and American Blacks. Her words are powerful and honest and entertaining - as a good blog should be. I was immediately struck by how her observations line up with Isabel Wilkerson's book, Caste. Though Americanah is a novel, it felt like real life observation of how the American Caste system is implemented and how it affects all of us.

Amidst these observations and experiences with race in America, the UK, and Nigeria, life happens. Ifemelu has various relationships, jobs, and family drama. Through it all, she thinks about Obinze, her first love. When she moves back to Nigeria, the question is whether she and Obinze will still love each other and whether life will allow them to be together.

I really loved this novel. For me, the most successful parts were the revelations about race and the immigrant experience. Also about the different lifestyles in Nigeria, America, and Great Britain. I was less interested in the romance between Ifemelu and Obinze. That took just a little bit of the glow off of this novel for me, but I still highly recommend it. I'll read anything Adichie writes. I think she's a wonderful writer.

Original publication date: 2013
Author’s nationality: Nigerian and American (dual citizenship, I believe)
Original language: English
Length: 588 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: 1001 books, books about Black American experience for category challenge

>74 japaul22: It’s good, isn’t it? Your review took me right back. I wonder what it’s like to read it now, against the backdrop of a broader discussion about race which wasn’t there when I read it (or when it was written). This is one of the few audiobooks I’ve listened to, and I remember my younger stepdaughter, who must have been not quite 4, stomping around the kitchen imitating the reader’s Nigerian accent (my stepdaughter doesn’t speak English, so it was even funnier).

>74 japaul22: I loved Americanah too, Jennifer and like you, will read anything by Adiche.

I haven't read her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, yet, but I'll get to it some day.

I will also read anything Adiche writes. I read Purple Hibiscus and loved it, but each novel keeps getting better and better.

Great review of Americanah, Jennifer. I enjoyed it as well.

#6 The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

I've read both of Stuart Turton's mystery novels now, and I've detected a pattern. :-) Turton writes highly entertaining but over-complicated plots. His first book, 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, was a clever mystery with a sort of time warp where the main character keeps waking up in different bodies on the same day trying to solve a mystery to get out of the cycle. The Devil and the Dark Water is set on a 1600s merchant ship and involves the Devil, hidden cargo, and greed.

What I liked about this book was the pace, the setting, the captivating characters. What I didn't like was the overly complicated solution to the mystery and that the characters seemed too modern for their 1600s setting. I softened on this last point when I read Turton's afterward where he explained that he purposely did not write this as a historical mystery. He used the setting and idea to create his mystery and characters and then easily threw out any historical details that didn't serve his conception. It made me feel better that this was purposeful.

I like Turton's writing and his plotting is very creative. It's just good to know going in that he really enjoys these overly complicated plots that require some suspension of belief to enjoy. I suspect I'll read whatever he writes next - his writing is just so entertaining.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 480 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: like the author, wanted something fun

I'll have to check out Turton when I'm in the mood for an entertaining mystery. I think Evelyn Hardcastle has been on my list for a while. I probably got it from you, Jennifer!

>80 japaul22: The Devil and the Dark Water is already on my list (I'm waiting for it in smaller format) so I was glad to read your positive review.

>81 BLBera: even though his books have the same feel, the plot/setting is very different. I'm not even sure which I liked better.

>82 rhian_of_oz: I'll be curious to hear what you think!

#7 Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

This is an informative nonfiction account of the clash between Texas settlers and the Comanches in the 1800s. I learned a lot about the Comanche way of life and why it was never going to mesh with the lifestyle of white settlers. In a nutshell, the Comanche were nomadic, following the buffalo herds and ranging over hundreds of miles, and the white settlers wanted to farm and graze cattle. Though the Comanches were skilled fighters and horsemen, they were vastly outnumbered by the American army and also didn't understand the end goal of Americans until it was too late.

The subtitle of the book highlights the life of Quanah Parker. Quanah was a mixed blood Comanche. His mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was famous for being violently abducted by the Comanches from her family's Texas settlement. She was nine years old. She was adopted by the tribe (they often kept and assimilated girls her age, though killing anyone else they encountered, because they would be able to bear children later and they badly needed to grow their tribe). Cynthia Ann, by all accounts, fully adapted to the Comanche way of life. She married a Chief and Quanah was one of her sons. In her adulthood she was "rescued" and forced to reenter American life, to which she never readapted. Quanah's story in this book feels incomplete to me. Though he ended up being considered the last Comanche chief (even that is complicated to say because the Comanche were made of smaller bands that really had little to do with each other), little is known about his time as a Comanche before surrendering and moving to a reservation. At that point, he became famous and developed into a skilled negotiator for his people, though there was only so much he could do. I was more interested in his earlier life.

I was a little uncomfortable with the ways this author chose to describe the Comanche. He uses words like "primitive", "Stone Age", "irredeemably hostile", "remarkably simple". He also dwells often on how they never had any sort of agriculture - is that truly the mark of a civilized society? I guess his judgment is true in ways, and was used as a comparison to other contemporary American Indian tribes which might also be fair. But it still troubled me and I wondered if the author was really coming at this from a fair, unbiased angle.

I'll be curious as I read more by and about American Indians if my criticism of this aspect changes.

All in all, an interesting and engaging history.

(And now I see it was a Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle finalist - maybe I'm being overly sensitive . . . )

Original publication date: 2011
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 388 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle
Why I read this: topic of interest

#8 Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

There are many, many reasons why I would never have read this book if it hadn't been gifted to me by a good friend this Christmas.

1. It has a super-modern cover that strikes me as "male" and "trying too hard" (even though it's pink)

2. It's short stories which I don't like.

3. They are described as being about love.

4. The title is stupid.

5. The cover talks about how the author writes some tv show that sounds awfully annoying.

HOWEVER, I actually really enjoyed this. I'm having a hard time admitting it. The stories are quirky and creative (words I also usually would not associated with a book that I enjoy) but don't lose the everyday observations that I enjoy in a book. The stories are memorable. The pacing of the story order was great. I read it in a couple days and was always looking forward to what the next story would bring. I might even suggest this to a couple of friends who I think would like it.

I guess I shouldn't always judge a book by it's cover!

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 242 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: gift from a friend
Why I read this: gift from a friend

>84 japaul22: I'll stick with Margaret Mead's idea that the earliest sign of civilization is a healed femur.

>84 japaul22: Great review, even though you felt mixed about the book in the end. I too feel like I need to read more non-fiction about Native Americans, especially to whitewash the last of those awful Hollywood misrepresentations from my mind that I innocently sucked up as a child on many a summer holiday in front of the TV. I studied the Navajo in depth at one point, but I'm interested in any recommendations for great non-fictional books on any of the Native American tribes.

Maybe Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is as good as any.

>86 janemarieprice: Meaning the society would have the skill to set a bone? Makes more sense than agriculture! There are so many regions where agriculture isn't necessarily needed (well, when population was lower and natural resources more abundant) or didn't suit the land. I feel that's very true for the arid plains where the Comanches were - I mean look at what ended up happening due to farming - Dust Bowl!

>87 AlisonY: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is definitely on my list. I set this idea up in the category challenge, thinking I'd just commit to reading 5 books this year by or about American Indians and I got so many great suggestions that it might have to be a multi-year focus. I don't know if I can read too many books on this in a row since it is a pretty depressing and guilt-inducing topic!

>88 japaul22: I think that the society would have the skill to set a bone, and also that they would have the resources (physical and psychological) to care for a member of the group that wasn't producing food and who could actually be a liability. That altruism isn't always a given in very early societies.

>85 japaul22: Excellent review. You liked this book more than I did, although I was charmed by it, I just thought the stories began to feel samey. Especially point 5 - that show does sound annoying.

>89 lisapeet: That makes sense, about not just the medical knowledge but the willingness/ability to care for a hurt member of the group.

>90 RidgewayGirl: I don't remember that you read this, probably because I'm not one to note short story reviews. Because I read them so seldom, I don't have a great frame of reference as far as the "samey-ness" of them. :-) I did enjoy it though. Possibly because it was so different from what I normally read!

>74 japaul22: this is a really motivating review. I got such mixed vibes about the book when it came out that i avoided it. But now I read this (and the follow up comments). And I need to Caste!

>84 japaul22: and interesting. Comanche’s are fascinating. And I have no idea why agriculture would play a role in evaluating the, what, “progress”(?) of the culture. Seems astoundingly boneheaded. Their lack of agriculture was essentially a kind of cultural and practical choice, as was their use of horses and guns. It’s not like there were Comanches who hadn’t thought of it before. Anyway interesting. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is essential, even if dated and depressing. It works on audio. Blood and Thunder may apply too if you want to expand to Navajos, who were quietly dependent on agriculture - although the focus is Kit Carson - the destroyer of Navajo independence. (Not light books)

>84 japaul22:, >92 dchaikin: Or perhaps the newer The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (I haven't read it, but my mom who reads mostly non-fiction recommends it).

Your review got me on a real Googling quest this morning for Native American books, and my husband was rolling his eyes at my endless commentary on the subject at 7:30 this morning.

I came across a book on my work laptop that I'll have to find again as it sounded fascinating. It was focused on the Native Americans before Columbus' 'discovery' of America and got me thinking about that era of history and where they descended from.

I just wonder how much of that book is focused on supposition rather than fact. Now I really need to find that title again.

>93 ELiz_M: i’ve read good reviews of that.

>84 japaul22: Thanks for that wonderful review. I think you're wise to pay attention to the language used to describe the Comanche; it is imho most likely an indication of the author's attitude toward this group.

I remember a year or two ago when I read a book about US history from a Spanish-got-here-first perspective running across the idea that many plains cultures were shaped in part by being caught between the hammer and anvil of the Spanish and French, then later between the US and Spanish.

I'm also interested in The heartbeat of Wounded Knee. I tried to read Bury my heart at Wounded Knee and it tripped too many emotional triggers for me.

>94 AlisonY: Was that 1491: New revelations of the Americas before Columbus?

>97 markon: Thank you! That's exactly what it was. Have you read it?

>92 dchaikin: Something about the Americanah reviews when it first came out also put me off reading it, but I read her book Half of a Yellow Sun which I loved and then I knew I needed to get to Americanah also.

>92 dchaikin:, >93 ELiz_M: I've added the American Indian reading recs to my ever-growing list.

>96 markon: I wasn't sure if I was being over-sensitive, but it was noticeable to me and it's not the sort of concept that I'd want to be simply accepted by the average reader.

>94 AlisonY: I'll be watching to see if you get to any Native American books this year that I can add to my list! I remember when that 1491 book came out, but I never read it. I feel like it had a lot of positive reviews.

I loved The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee and Treuer's earlier Rez Life.

#9 A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Modern Library put this book on its list of "100 best novels of the twentieth century". I am perplexed. This is an odd story of an English family living in Jamaica in the early 1900s. When they experience a hurricane, the parents decide it's a good idea to send their young children (all under 10) back to England on a ship by themselves. The children set off on a ship which is promptly overrun by pirates. This sets them on a strange, sometimes violent, dangerous voyage.

I was disengaged a lot of the time from this. I guess it was an adventure story, but it didn't grab my attention. I would often read a couple of pages and then think, wait, what just happened?! And go back to reread some unbelievable chain of events. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for this. It seems to be a book that many people love. It just wasn't for me.

Original publication date: 1929
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 279 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased nyrb edition
Why I read this: nyrb off the shelves

>98 AlisonY: Listened to an audio of 1491 on my commute over 10 years ago and enjoyed it. My clearest recollection is of wonder at some of the complex societies and human-made landforms in Central and South America. And I think this was the first time I'd had population estimates before and after Europeans came brought together in one place. Anyway, it made enough of an impression that I immediately thought of it when I saw your description.

From Wikipedia: 2006 winner of the National Academies Communication Award for best creative work that helps the public understanding of topics in science, engineering or medicine.

& The book presents recent research findings in different fields that suggest human populations in the Western Hemisphere—that is, the indigenous peoples of the Americas—were more numerous, had arrived earlier, were more sophisticated culturally, and controlled and shaped the natural landscape to a greater extent than scholars had previously thought.

>92 dchaikin: I seem to remember that there were a lot of reviews of Americanah by Americans that didn't like her depiction of race in the US, but I thought it was good. Her mirror of our society didn't reflect well on us.

>101 japaul22: hmm. Interesting. This now sums what I know about A High Wind in Jamaica. (Seems one would not want their children in a boat...but anyway)

>102 markon: that criticism wouldn’t have bothered me, I think. Anyway, thanks. Also I’m noting the National Academies Communication Award - because that sounds like something to follow. (I’ve only read one winner, Your Inner Fish. I really enjoyed it.)

>101 japaul22: I’m one of those who loved A High Wind in Jamaica and gave it four and a half stars. I found it quite disturbing ...

>101 japaul22: Same as my birthday twin in >104 SandDune: I also gave 4½ stars to A High Wind in Jamaica.

>102 markon: You're selling it even more. Sounds fascinating.

>104 SandDune:, >105 kidzdoc: Interesting! It certainly was an inventive, disturbing book. It was just a little too wild for my taste right now. Maybe it would have worked better for me at a different time.

#10 Kindred by Octavia Butler
This book has been on my mental TBR list for quite a while, and I'm kicking myself for not getting to it sooner! Butler is a great writer. In this novel, she takes an unbelievable premise and turns it into an absolutely believable and complex look at slavery.

Dana, a Black woman living in the 1970s, is recently married to Kevin, a white man. They move into a new home, and strange things begin happening. Namely, Dana is repeatedly sucked into the past, 1815 Maryland, to the slave plantation of Tom Weylin and his son, Rufus. She appears to be sent back in time to save Rufus every time his life is in danger. And she is only sent back to the present when her life is in danger. Dana comes to realize that Rufus is an ancestor of hers and a free black woman (child when she first meets her), Alice, will be mother to her ancestral line. With every trip back to 1815, Dana experiences first hand what it was like to be a slave and some of the complexities and powerlessness of slave life.

I thought this book was very successful. Though the premise is fantastical, the brutal realities that are explored take the book right back down to earth.

It's hard to believe this was first published over 40 years ago.

Original publication date: 1979
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 264 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: on my TBR list for a long time

>108 japaul22: I just discovered Butler as well and I am halfway through Kindred. It seems like such a weird premise for a book, but she's amazingly talented and pulls it off. I can't wait to finish (but with the foreshadowing in the beginning, I'm reading through my fingers).

Nice review of Kindred, Jennifer. I'll try to get to it later this year.

I loved your comments on Kindred, Jennifer. Have you read Parable of the Sower? That, along with its sequel, is also wonderful. Butler was ahead of her time.

>109 Yells: I'll look for your review when you finish! Yes, that foreshadowing at the beginning was very effective.

>110 kidzdoc: I hope you do, it's really excellent and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

>111 BLBera: I haven't, this was the first book by Olivia Butler that I had read. I have heard great things about Parable of the Sower.

>111 BLBera: I read the Earthseed series last month (she was the chosen author on the Monthly Read thread) and that is what got me hooked on Octavia Butler and reading Kindred. I look forward to reading more of her stuff.

>101 japaul22: I'm another fan of High Wind in Jamaica. Reading your review though, I'm wondering if I was influenced by the film of the same name with Anthony Quinn and James Coburn. I saw it on TV and then got it on DVD.The relationship between the children and the pirates came out really well there, as did the moral dilemma at the end. The hurricane scene was really convincing too.

Hughes has another gripping hurricane book, In Hazard.

>103 dchaikin: There wasn't really another option for travel for the period in which the book was set (sort of mid nineteenth century, but unspecified)

>108 japaul22: There was a 25th anniversary issue of Kindred, which was how I discovered it, prominently displayed in the bookstore. It was excellent as you say. I have to admit I'm a sucker for time travel.

>101 japaul22: I enjoyed A High Wind in Jamaica, but was reading it to my son at the time and I think part of the fun was that interactive thing. As I've mentioned in someone else's thread, there was that disconnect of reading a book to a 9-year-old boy that had a character named "Titty," but all intervals of snickering aside, it was a fun read with the kid.

Interesting comments from everyone on A High Wind in Jamaica. I could definitely see it working as a movie. And also reading it to a child would give it a different vibe. I think if my expectations had been set differently, I would have enjoyed it more.

#11 Constance Ring by Amalie Skram

Constance Ring is a 1885 Norwegian novel that explores the limited, powerless life of a young married woman. Constance's first marriage happens when she is still a very young woman to a husband 20 years older than her. At first things are ok, but she is increasingly disgusted by him and refuses any intimacy with him. She is young and beautiful and her husband tries everything to make her open to him, but in the end he turns to their also young and beautiful maid. When Constance finds out she considers divorce, to the horror of her family. They understand her situation and expect her to accept it.

Constance's second marriage starts slow, but she grows to love her husband. Discovering his past lovers, though, ruins her trust and love. Her last lover also betrays her, which is the final betrayal she can handle.

I thought this was a really good novel that explores the double standard imposed on women. Constance simply can't accept that men are allowed to indulge their sexual desires with any woman at any time and people simply accept it or pretend not to see it. She feels badly for the women of a lower social stratus who are even more powerless than she is. She feels betrayed that men she is married to and/or loves would indulge in these sexual relationships without love, whether it occurs before her relationship with them or during. And she seems to only partially ever awaken to the joy of physical intimacy with any of her lovers because of these thoughts and feelings.

I found this book in the 500 Great Books by Women that I've been exploring this year. I've read a bit of Norwegian literature (well, of what is available in English translation) and I hadn't heard of this author. I'm glad I read it and recommend it to readers who enjoy this era and topic.

Original publication date: 1885
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian translated to English by Judith Messick
Length: 289 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased used copy
Why I read this: 500 great books by women

>74 japaul22: Catching up. Wonderful review of Americanah. My favorite read of last year. Someone told me The Thing Around Your Neck is even better so I’m getting to that one soon too.

>117 japaul22: kind of fascinating and glad it still works. Great review!

>114 SassyLassy: I was thinking, if I know a hurricane is coming and my choices are hunker down or take a boat... the boat idea sounds a little iffy. : )

Constance Ring sounds good, Jennifer. Great comments. I will have to check out 500 Great Books...

Because I need to add books to my WL.

I started reading your thread this morning and realized by the second post that we have much in common, starting with a love of Eowyn Ivey. I reviewed The Snow Child as an ER in LT, and it became an instant favorite. I didn't realize she had written another book. Thank you, it went straight to my wishlist. Another shared favorite is Sigrid Undset. When I looked at your library, I learned that I have a quarter of your books (23%) in my library too.

Sadly, I do not share a fondness for Haldor Laxness and disliked Independent People quite a bit.

>24 japaul22: RIP rebeccanyc

>32 japaul22: I liked The Midwife's Tale (The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812), too, but that is all I have read by Ulrich. Which book would you recommend as your second favorite?

>45 dchaikin: Adding House Full of Women to my wishlist.

>52 avaland: PBS docu-drama of The Midwife's Tale? Running to see if I can stream it...

>56 japaul22: Echoing others in thanking you for sharing your day at the inauguration with us.

>60 kac522: "the arrangements were so interesting, especially This Land is Your Land, going into America the Beautiful" That stood out for me too.

Phew. Stopping for a bit, but I'll be back. Wonderful stuff

The variety of responses to High Wind in Jamaica makes me curious to read it myself. I have a copy, so maybe I'll read it after The True Deceiver, which arrived today.

>108 japaul22: I read and liked Kindred several years ago. Her way of handling time travel reminded me of Connie Willis, especially her book Passage.

And I'm caught up!

>121 labfs39: Glad to see you here! I remember quite enjoying your past threads as well. We do have a lot of favorites in common. For Laurel Thatcher Ulrich I think my favorite after A Midwife's Tale would be The Art of Homespun.

I enjoyed The True Deceiver, though not as much The Summer Book. Interested to see what you think and if you get to High Wind in Jamaica.

#12 Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
A recent review by nickelini of this book made me want to pick it up. I've committed to reading some books by Native Americans this year and this is written by a First Nations member. It has great detail about this Anishinaabe community trying to save some of their traditions and get back to their roots. It actually tied in surprisingly well to a nonfiction book I'm reading called Braiding Sweetgrass. A lot of Native American traditions especially regarding respect for the land are described in both.

This novel is a little hard to describe, but it's basically an apocalyptic suspense/thriller. The community is in northern Ontario and suddenly, as winter is beginning, they lose power and cell service. At first they believe it is just a fluke and will be repaired. But then they learn that it is not just their community that has lost power. They need to decide how, together or apart, they will survive the winter.

I really liked this. The setting is great, both in terms of the location and the cultural setting. I will say that it wasn't quite as "thrilling" to me as it was set up to be. I wasn't really surprised by any of it and I thought something even more dramatic would happen than what actually did happen. But, overall I'd still recommend it.

Original publication date: 2018
Author’s nationality: Wasauksing First Nation
Original language: English
Length: 224 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: caught my eye, Native American reading

Regarding my last post, I need to confess my ignorance of best practice in the naming of what I call Native American or American Indian. I only heard the term "First Nations" recently, but I think it's how Canadians and maybe Australians refer to original inhabitants of their regions? In the U.S. we've moved from Indians to Native Americans to American Indians, and I'm not even perfectly certain which is most accepted currently. If anyone has any insight, I'd love to improve my understanding of this!

>125 japaul22: Indians to Native Americans to American Indians

Had we really moved away from Native American as the collective term? The term I hear (and read in the local newspapers) the most seems to be Native Americans (when the tribes/nations/groups are not called by their own names (which is usually the case in Arizona)). American Indians seems to be used as an almost complete synonym and not as a replacement.

#13 My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I'm sorry to say that though I love and admire Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I didn't think this book was very good. The problem with it is that it is a compilation of not her writing, but her speeches. And speeches don't translate very well to reading in my opinion.

Original publication date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 370 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: purchased several RBG books after her death

>126 AnnieMod: You could definitely be right. I think the naming of the relatively new Smithsonian Museum as the National Museum of the American Indian swayed me to thinking that was the preferred name currently.

Greetings! Well, I've finally caught up, here. I found Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee to be heartbreaking and depressing but definitely a book every non-Native American should read. A fictional account that had a lot to do with Native American history that I thought was very good was Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier, better known for writing Cold Mountain. Also, there is the much more obscure but enlightening novel The Surrounded by D'Arcy McNickle that I read a couple of years back.

I've never read A High Wind in Jamaica but very much enjoyed Hughes' two novels about Europe between the world wars and the rise of Nazism, The Fox in the Attic and The Wooden Shepherdess. One is a sequel to the other, but I can't remember which is which right now. Anyway, I found them somewhat odd but very much worth reading.

I got curious about the Native American/American Indian question. A quick online search brought me to the Native American Rights Fund website. So that would be one "vote" for Native Americans. But it's a 50-year-old organization, so they would not be likely to change the name of the organization with changing terminology. I note that from there you can follow a link to "Indian Law News Bulletins {which} are a current awareness service of the National Indian Law Library." So that's a vote for "Indian." We also find "The American Indian College Fund" and "First Nations Development Institute."

Here's a relevant entry on Wikipedia, for whatever that's worth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States#Terminology_...
Common usage in the United States

The term Native American was introduced in the United States in preference to the older term Indian to distinguish the indigenous peoples of the Americas from the people of India.

In 1995, a plurality of indigenous Americans, however, preferred the term American Indian214 and many tribes include the word Indian in their formal title.

Criticism of the neologism Native American comes from diverse sources. Russell Means, a Native American activist, opposed the term Native American because he believed it was imposed by the government without the consent of natives. He has also argued that the use of the word Indian derives not from a confusion with India but from a Spanish expression en Dios meaning "in God"215verification needed (and a near-homophone of the Spanish word for "Indians", indios).

A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American.214 Most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American, and the terms are often used interchangeably.216 The traditional term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

That page links to a Wikipedia entry for Native American name controversy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States#Terminology_...

An excerpt from this page is:
In the 20th and 21st centuries, indigenous peoples in the Americas had been active in discussions of how they wish to be known. They have pressed for the elimination of terms they consider to be obsolete, inaccurate, or racist. During the latter half of the 20th century and the rise of the American Indian rights movement, the United States government responded by proposing the use of the term "Native American" to recognize the primacy of indigenous peoples' tenure in the nation. The term has become widespread nationally but only partially accepted by various indigenous groups. Other naming conventions have been proposed and used, but none is accepted by all indigenous groups. Typically, each name has a particular audience and political or cultural connotation, and regional usage varies.

Cheers!

First Nations is used in Canada and in the Pacific Northwest of the US.

>129 rocketjk: Wow, thank you for all of that!

Moon of the Crusted Snow caught my eye as well, Jennifer. My indigenous friends prefer Indigenous today. It's probably best to ask.

>131 japaul22: You're welcome, but mostly it was just a bunch of cutting and pasting. :)

Oh wow, you found Moon of the Crusted Snow quickly. I'm glad you liked it too.

I see you've found lots of answers to your questions about names. I'll just add that in Canada, using Indian, American Indian, or Native American is generally frowned upon. We mostly use First Nations, Metis, and Inuit, or Indigenous which covers all three groups. Sometimes you'll see Aboriginal, perhaps more in a government or academic context. That word used to seem to me like it belonged only to Australia, but I'm getting used to hearing it for Canada too.

My all-time favourite First Nations novel is Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway. Others that I really enjoyed were Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King and Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese. I think all of these are pretty quick reads. The other one I want to mention is Halfbreed by Maria Campbell. I read this memoir at university, but I hear she's published a new edition that includes the sexual abuse she suffered and that the original publisher took out. Humphf! I mean, I read between the lines and it's not a surprise that this was part of her experience. Anyway, she's Metis, so that's a unique angle that you don't come across often.

Happy reading!

In my work (journalism), I use the term Indigenous when I don't know the more specific tribal affiliation. That also works for Australia, Canada, etc. and I think it's a very safe term if you don't have more information. I always ask my subjects how they'd like to be affiliated for articles, but you can't exactly do that with novels... though possibly the author's bio or webpage might include it if you were interested in digging. Otherwise, you probably won't go wrong with Indigenous.

I've wishlisted Moon of the Crusted Snow... noted that the Kindle version is $4.99, but I'm trying to put the brakes on ebook buying for the moment (we'll see how long that lasts).

>108 japaul22: I'm pleased to see how much you enjoyed Kindred - I have a library hold on an e-book. It's come up a couple of times recently but at times when I've had more than enough to read so I've put it off, but I'm really looking forward to reading it. All the more so now given comments from you and others on this thread.

I'm also kind of pleased to note the American Indian/Native American debate, but only because I don't know either. I remember it came up in something I was writing on my CR thread last year and I really didn't know what to say - but I just assumed that that was because I'm European!

>134 Nickelini: THank you, I'll add those suggestions to my list..

>135 lisapeet: Yes, you've stated the crux of my issue perfectly. In a situation where I can ask a person's preference, I definitely would, but for a more general term, I like knowing the Indigenous seems to be the most widely accepted/preferred currently.

>136 rachbxl: I had also put Kindred off for some reason, I think because it's often described as sci-fi which I'm generally not interested in. But the time travel in Kindred facilitates the exploration of slavery so it felt right and necessary.

#14 Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass is a collection of essays exploring Indigenous relationships with plants and the earth. Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and also a botanist who teaches at traditional American universities. She explores the differences in how her Indigenous culture and the typical American culture teaches interaction with their environments. This book flipped a lot of narrative for me; even from our earliest origin stories, our cultures have a different relationship with the world. The Christian origin story of being shut out of the garden of Eden and of having the earth provided for our comfort and use is a huge contrast with the reciprocity involved in most Indigenous origin stories. My writing of that is hugely over-simplified, so please don't take offense. There isn't any culture-bashing here, even when the author takes a hard look at choices we've made as a nation. Kimmerer takes 385 pages to provide context and examples of how we can all treat our earth better - benefitting the plants and animals here and also benefitting ourselves in a reciprocal relationship. She has many essays on specific plants and how, seemingly by design, our responsible use can benefit both the plant and the human. I learned so much about sweetgrass, maples, strawberries, leeks, and many more native plants.

I highlighted hundreds of passages in this book. Some books change your point of view and thinking for the better and this one definitely verbalized a perspective that I was ready to hear. I loved Kimmerer's sentiment that everyone is Indigenous to some land. As a nation of immigrants in the U.S. and Canada (her focus areas) we should strive to create an indigenous mindset to our current land by learning about our national landscape and how we can live in a reciprocal relationship with the mutual environment that we share with plants and animals.

Certainly, there aren't easy answers here. We are a transient population. It's hard to connect with the land when you move through multiple diverse regions. It's hard to connect with the environment when you live removed from green spaces. It's hard to connect with plants when they are endangered from our actions. I think it's best to look at this book as a way to inspire a desire to connect with our environment. By spending time in it, I think most people will naturally want to protect it. I will say that one of the few highlights of this pandemic has been the incredible amount of time I've spent in our local woods behind our house with my two young boys. We've spent countless hours hiking through barely navigable paths, splashing in our creek, scrambling over rocks, looking at mushrooms and weird bugs. And they've spent countless more hours playing - masked :-) - with a small group of friends creating a whole world back in the woods. I feel lucky that we ended up living in an area that is both incredibly suburban and beautifully wooded.

I highly recommend reading this book. It's a slow book, a challenging book, and an uncomfortable book at times, but it really challenged my perspective in a good way and the ideas will definitely now make up a part of my worldview.

Original publication date: 2015
Author’s nationality: Citizen Potawatami Nation
Original language: English
Length: 385 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: came up in searching for books on Indigenous culture

Hi. Noting how much you got out of Braiding Sweetgrass. It sounds terrific. Lately my only ... err ... Native American/American Indian .... anyway, lately my only sense of this came from There There, about Indian identity in impoverished Oakland. Getting in touch with nature was not a theme.

>139 dchaikin: I've heard a lot about There There and it's on my list as well!

#15 The Push by Ashley Audrain
The review I read about this new page turner billed it as a new "it book" that everyone would be reading. (Think Gone Girl) I'm not quite sure I agree, but it was engrossing and kept me guessing til the end.

The book centers on toxic mother/daughter relationships - 3 generations of them. There is some child abuse, which almost made me put the book aside, but I realized that the abuse is part of what makes the narrator's version of events unreliable and it wouldn't be the same book without it. The mother/daughter tension, this book also has the "did I give birth to an evil child?!" theme.

This is not great literature, but it was engrossing and I loved (though that's not really the right word for it) the ending.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: Canadian
Original language: English
Length: 385 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: book with buzz

Great comments on Braiding Sweetgrass, Jennifer. This sounds like one I would like.

I'm not sure about The Push...

I loved There, There - I can't wait to see what Orange does next.

>141 japaul22: Just edited this review to include that the author is Canadian, not American. Whoops!

>141 japaul22: I also liked the ending.

#16 Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
When reading William Bradford's account of Plymouth colony, Nesbit noticed that he never mentions his first wife, who died by falling off the Mayflower once they were in harbor of the new land, or his second wife who came over to join him after he was widowed. In fact, there are really no women mentioned at all. So this novel, set in 1630 Plymouth, gives a voice to Alice Bradford, the second wife, and also to Eleanor Billington, a woman who came on the Mayflower as an indentured servant and has earned her freedom by the time the novel begins.

The novel is told from several points of view, but only the female characters get to speak in first person. There is drama about dispersal of land, which leads to a murder. And this also brings up gossip about the death of William Bradford's first wife. There is also lots of conflict between the "chosen" puritans and the colonists who came along without the same religious convictions.

Not a lot happens in this novel, but I liked how the author tries to explore some different aspects of what this early colony might have actually been like, instead of the more reverent and idealized version of events that we, as Americans, are often taught.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library book
Why I read this: LT review (thanks, Laura!)

>145 japaul22: You're welcome, Jennifer! I'm a big fan of history that amplifies unheard voices and exposes some of the realities (actual or inferred from research) rather than those idealized versions. For such a slight book, Beheld did both of these things very well.

I am waiting for my turn at Beheld; I think I'm #2 on the reserve list.

#17 Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope

I liked this standalone novel by one of my favorite authors. The plot of Orley Farm centers around a 20 year old disputed will. At issue is whether a codicil that granted Orley Farm, one small portion of the estate, to the only infant son of a second marriage was forged by this baby's mother, Lady Mason. When Lucius Mason grows up and tries to kick a tenant off his land, this tenant discovers old documents that throw doubt on the codicil being authentic. A new trial ensues.

The crux of this book is the ethics of defense lawyers defending clients that they know or assume to be guilty. Also, of course, forgiveness, redemption, and fairness even when the fair outcome doesn't benefit the parties we might wish based on personality.

I really liked this one and I think the strong focus of the plot might make it a more memorable one of Trollope's novels for me. I believe this is the 18th novel I've read by Trollope.

Original publication date: 1861-2
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 458 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle purchase
Why I read this: LT group read

#18 Love by Toni Morrison

In Love, Morrison slowly reveals the relationships of multiple women with each other and with a successful Black man and hotel owner named Bill Cosey. The women are his child-wife, his granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law. At heart of the novel is everyone's relationship with the deceased Bill Cosey, but more importantly to me, their relationships with each other. Cosey's wife, Heed, and his granddaughter Christine are the same age and were friends before Cosey took Heed as his wife. Their relationship is central to the book.

This is a brief novel, only 200 pages, and there are still things I didn't quite understand. I'm hoping our group discussion will help me sort some of it out. I also felt that, because it was brief, though Morrison put in some larger cultural issues like the Civil Rights movement and correctional/prison systems, those didn't get explored as deeply as she explores greater societal issues in other novels.

I also was a little perplexed by the title. I don't see much Love in this novel - more abuse, jealousy, and possessiveness. Maybe it was ironic.

I always enjoy and respect Morrison's writing, but this novel will rank in the middle for me. It's no Beloved, or Paradise, or Song of Solomon.

Original publication date: 2003
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 203 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: paperback purchase
Why I read this: LT group read

>148 japaul22: Hi Jennifer. I intend to read the entire Barsetshire chronicles in a boxed set next year. Wish me luck and or impart some much needed feedback from your part. Happy Reading to you.

>150 Jiraiya: Ah! That series is my favorite of Trollope's work. One thing I always tell people is that the first book, The Warden, is almost a prequel so definitely read the first two before deciding to continue or not. Also, there's an LT member (lyzard) who leads amazing group/tutored reads. If you want to delve into the books a bit more deeply, check out those dormant threads. There are threads for each book.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/140276

http://www.librarything.com/topic/144010

>151 japaul22: I did hear that The Warden is slow going. I've bookmarked your links. Will get to them by the weekend, considering that I need to keep some distance because spoilers. Do remember that I'll be reading the omnibus next year. I appreciate the effort. Very nice of you. Have a good day or night.

>152 Jiraiya:, I'd suggest using the threads I linked to when you read the book. If I'm using an old one, I read the intro material and then only read the thread as I go. Liz is great about not putting in spoilers without warning!

>153 japaul22: :)

>149 japaul22: Great comments, Jennifer. I agree that Love doesn't rank with Beloved, Song of Solomon or Paradise.

>149 japaul22:, >155 BLBera: seconding Beth's comments. Nice review, Jennifer. I'm really struggling to come up with some coherent thoughts.

>156 lauralkeet: I just didn't get too deep into it! ;-)

It's me again, japaul22. I am puzzled by your 4 star rating of Love while you said you didn't understand certain parts while also saying that you didn't like a bit of what you did understand. 4 stars are the most overused rating in Goodreads, but here too? Maybe it's something universal among booklovers and there's an underlying reason that a sociologist, or neurologist can detect and diagnose.

>158 Jiraiya: For Love specifically, my written review reflects that I'm judging Morrison against herself. I've read 7 of her novels now and I think she is an exceptional writer. Her books are complex in form and language, challenging in subject matter, and pack a huge emotional impact. I've rated 3 of her books as 5 stars, which is a rating I give out infrequently. I can't imagine reading any of her novels and viewing it as less than a 3.5 star. Love is a book that I will want to read again, inherently meaning it was worth my reading time enough to rate one of my higher star ratings. Also, I like a book that leaves some questions. Maybe "didn't understand" wasn't the best way to put it. With Morrison's writing, there is always a surface level understanding (which I got), but deeper layers to be discovered upon every rereading. Those are the levels I'm hoping to get to when our group read discusses the book.

More generally, my star ratings are an emotional reaction from right when I finish a book. They probably don't mean much to other people, honestly. I also have a difficult-to-explain system where I judge a book against others like it. So I might give an entertaining mystery or suspense book that sucks me in for the moment but doesn't necessarily have lasting value, a 4 or 4.5 star rating where a classic that is undoubtedly better written might get fewer stars if I don't connect to it. Even though it is a "better book" overall. Also, I often find that when I review my reading at the end of the year, the books I remember as favorites didn't get a star rating to reflect it and some books that I rate highly I've totally forgotten.

Maybe I should say also, that I never give out 1 or 2 star ratings because I would simply discontinue reading a book that would end up with that rating! I think the lowest rated book I would actually finish reading would be a 2.5. So if you shift my star ratings to 2.5-5 a 3.5 or 4 will be a book that I really enjoyed but won't say is a "favorite", keeping all of the above in mind.

>159 japaul22: I see, well then, I guess this rationale is something new to me. I know many people giving 4 or 5 stars to a lot of books, but you are not like that. You are articulate, and clever, my friend:)

#19 Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

Effi Briest is a German "wife committing adultery" novel. I seem to have read a lot of these - Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Constance Ring, etc. This novel has some similarities to these others, but some important differences. Effi is an extremely young wife, only 17, who is youthful, exuberant, and loves the outdoors. Her parents marry her to a 40-something year old man who is kind, but striving for career advancement and lives in a boring, isolated village. Young Effi is lonely, bored, and trapped. She tries hard to "be good" and does respect her husband. Her affair doesn't seem based on real passion (unlike some of the above mentioned books), but I thought was more done out of desperation to find something exciting in life. And also just a result of her naivety. The affair is not dwelt on - in fact it's not even spelled out - and her husband doesn't find out until years later. But of course, a woman (even an 18 year old) must be punished, and no one will be surprised at the ending.

I liked the way this book was plotted and I really loved Effi. Fontane chose the right things to leave unsaid and created interesting and complex characters. I don't think it's quite as memorable as a novel as some of the classics in this category, but I would still recommend.

Original publication date: 1895
Author’s nationality: German
Original language: German (translated by Hugh Rorrison and Helen Chambers)
Length: 217 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library book
Why I read this: 1001 books, litsy #bookspin

>161 japaul22: Good summation. The history of patriarchy at work in literature is long, and even more pervasive than racism, though that is a debate for another time. Keep up the good work.

#20 The Promise of the Grand Canyon by John Wesley Powell

Light on science, heavy on politics, I wasn't enamored of this book. John Wesley Powell himself is an interesting character. He explored the Grand Canyon through its famous Colorado River, a dangerous journey to be sure. The first journey turned into a fight for survival, with half of the party striking out on their own across the desert rather than facing more rapids, never to be seen again. The second journey finally focused more on the science and exploration, but I was never satisfied that it was really explained. How did he come to these large-scale conclusions about the earth's geologic history and formation? It wasn't discussed to my satisfaction. It's hard thing to explain, certainly, but I felt the author took the easy way out and instead focused on the trip itself and the people involved.

After Powell's exploration days are over, he begins making the argument with Congress that he should be funded to create a topographical map of the entire western region. He argues that this map will help explain where water is available and, more commonly, where it is not. The western United States is largely arid, and the story being handed out to settlers that it was a land of opportunity for farming was not the case.

While there were interesting aspects of this book, I kept wishing it had been done a little differently. I wanted more of the science and less of the personal relationships in this instance.

Original publication date: 2018
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 365 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: interested in the topic

Yeah, I find that a lot - a book "about" some scientific or technical matter spends all its time discussing the main characters' relationships, politics, funding (sneaky ways to manage funding)... booooring.

#21 The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura

I enjoyed this dual biography of sisters Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to earn a medical degree in America in 1849. This was, of course, no easy road. Medical schools were not open to women so she had to fight her way in. But gaining the education may have been the easiest part, once you begin reading about her life trying to be recognized as a doctor. She encouraged her younger sister Emily to also pursue a career in medicine, partially to have an ally.

Elizabeth spent time in Paris, London, and America, finally opening a clinic for the poor in New York. Her beliefs in the benefits of hygiene, fresh air, and exercise above dubious medicines and harmful surgeries were definitely ahead of her time. She and Emily ran this clinic for decades. They later started a school for women to study medicine. Both had been against schools exclusively for women, believing they would be of lesser quality and preferring that women be allowed into the already existing schools available to men. Unfortunately, this wasn't happening, so they finally opened their own. Soon after the opening, Elizabeth departed permanently to London, first trying to continue her career (largely unsuccessfully) and then retiring to Scotland. Emily stayed to run the college.

Both sisters certainly paved the way for women to become doctors, not nurses or midwives only. This book was very readable and engaging and gives a good portrait of both women, Elizabeth predominantly. I've only skimmed the surface of what I learned from this book in this review.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased hardback
Why I read this: interested in the topic

>165 japaul22: I was fascinated by Elizabeth Blackwell as a child, but have never read a biography of her. This one sounds interesting in that it includes Emily. Was it well-written too?

>166 labfs39: Yes, I thought it was done very well. I’m not sure the author quite kept the momentum that she started with, but I thought overall it was a good biography. There are so many avenues and relationships to other famous woman that she could have explored more deeply, but I think keeping the focus narrow and book relatively brief worked. I would definitely like to keep reading about women of the era.

I recommend Edith Cavell's biography by Diana Souhami. She is a relatively unknown figure, but where I live she's famous because a road has been named after her, so we're aware of her.

>168 Jiraiya: Thank you! I've added it to my wish list.

>168 Jiraiya: >169 japaul22: Nurses often know her name. She is an honored figure in our history.

>170 sallypursell: Thank you for that info. Most nurses I've met are at least as cultured as any other rank in the medical profession.

>171 Jiraiya: I agree with that, of course.

#22 The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Allende's debut novel, written almost 40 years ago now, was my first foray into Allende's works. She is a gifted storyteller, and I was immediately drawn in to the story of the Del Valle and Trueba families. This is an epic work that follows four generations of the family through the political upheaval of the South American country where it is set. I assume it is set in Chile, where the author is from, though I don't think it was ever stated.

Allende writes vivid characters, and I loved most of the book. However, it is very long and covers a lot of generations, and there were certain times I was less engaged. I also was a little confused about the way she shifts point of view, sometimes being in 3rd person and sometimes from the first person point of view of Esteban Trueba, the patriarch of the family. At the end, she clarifies this split, but it bothered me as I was reading.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and it made me want to read more by Allende to see how her writing has developed over the past 40 years.

Original publication date: 1982
Author’s nationality: Chilean
Original language: Spanish
Length: 496 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: 1001 books

#23 The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin

Seeing that it's about lots of children dying in an epic blizzard, I shouldn't say this was a fun page turner, but it really was. It was compelling historical fiction with some good characters. I knew a bit about this topic, a blizzard in 1888 that popped up unexpectedly on the Nebraska plains, right as schools were letting out. The teachers, usually 15 or 16 year old girls, had to make hard decisions about how best to help their students survive.

The day of the blizzard was the first warm day after a below zero cold snap so everyone was out. People went to towns to stock up on supplies and children went to school dressed for weather in the 30s. In the afternoon, this blizzard popped up with no warning and hundreds of people died in the storm. Teachers often couldn't just wait out the storm in their school houses, because they were shacks with no insulation and not enough fuel. When school houses were damaged or collapsed, teachers had to try to get the students to safety. Some of these teachers made good decisions and some did not. This book focuses on two sisters teaching in different areas of the midwest and their success and mistakes.

Benjamin does a great job creating memorable characters and both describing the storm and its aftermath. She also focuses on the fact that many of these farmers on the plains were immigrants and explores the immigrant experience.

I really liked this. It's a fast read, not great literature, but a great story.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 368 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: topic caught my eye

>174 japaul22: Have you read nonfiction history, The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin? If you haven't, you might be interested. One of the things he discusses is the meteorological science behind the blizzard. I know nothing about weather forecasting and found that very interesting, as well as how the meteorologists of the time tried to race the storm to get warnings out to rural areas before it struck.

>175 labfs39: I haven't read it, but I remember several LT people reading it a while ago - probably you included! I have it on my list, it's a fascinating event. The author of the fiction book I reviewed listed Laskin's book as one of her main sources.

>175 labfs39: I know the rec was not given to me, but I do find the need to thank you.

Great comments on both the Allende and the blizzard. I've been meaning to reread House of Spirits - it has been years. Generally, I think her earlier work is her best work, at least the ones I have read. One of my favorites is Island Beneath the Sea.

>173 japaul22:
Every year I plan to pick up The House of the Spirits again. I started it years ago and ran out of time before it was due at the library. For various reasons, I've read a bunch of other Allende since then. Most people I know love her, but I have to say I'm not a fan. She does write gorgeous descriptions of Chile that I like. And I still think I'm going to like House of the Spirits, which is considered her masterpiece. I'm interested to hear what you read from her next.

#24 Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Even As We Breathe is an impressive debut novel about a young Cherokee man who leaves his reservation to work at a hotel in nearby Asheville, NC. Taking place during WWII in 1947, The Grove Park Inn is housing high-ranking enemy diplomats, creating a tense atmosphere. Cowney isn't eligible to enlist, despite being the perfect age of 19, because of a foot defect he was born with. Cowney and a young woman named Essie both go to work at the Grove Park Inn, where they slowly develop a deep friendship. Their friendship is endangered when a little girl, the daughter of a diplomat, goes missing and, of course, Cowney is the first suspect because of his race.

Cowney is torn between Cherokee, his hometown, and the path he sees leading from Asheville to college and opportunity. But back home are his grandmother Lishie and his Uncle Bud, who have secrets that Cowney needs to learn to be able to move forward.

This book is beautifully written, with a well constructed plot and intriguing characters. I highly recommend it if you're looking for something quiet and reflective, but dramatic at the same time.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Original language: English
Length: 230 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: LT review (Thanks, BLBera!), Indigenous authors

I'll agree with everyone about Allende about how her early works are lovely but since then she's become quite formulaic so every book is basically the same theme and plot but in a different setting. Her writing is lovely throughout though.

I respect Allende's success but her books make me want to quit reading.

>180 japaul22: Making note of that. It has the added bonus of being set not far from where I live.

I’ve added The Children’s Blizzard (fiction) to my wishlist, as well as the non-fiction one. I had never heard of this and I’m fascinated.

>182 Jiraiya: !

>185 sallypursell: I don't like her brand of magical realism.

>186 Jiraiya:
I’ve never noticed MR in any Allende book I’ve read. Is the type of MR you don’t like the non-existent type? I know HOS is a MR masterpiece, but I don’t know of any other of her novels with MR.

>187 Nickelini: I read only HOS.

>180 japaul22: Great comments on Even as We Breathe, Jennifer. I'm happy you liked it. I recently read a book I think you'd like The Seed Keeper. Kimmerer gives her a blurb.

>189 BLBera: thank you! I’ve added it to my wish list - it looks like just my kind of book.

#25 The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald

This slim novel packs a lot in. It's early 1900s Russia, and a British family is living there, running a printing business. In the opening scene, we find that Nellie, the mother, has run off with the children, but gotten cold feet about bringing them and left them at a train station, carrying on to an unknown destination alone. Frank, the father, is left to deal with the consequences. He is also interacting with the shifting Russian politics and philosophies, and trying to find an acceptable governess at the same time.

While there were lots of interesting things going on, I still sort of lost interest a few times. The setting was a little too foreign for me to connect with, and the plot kept taking unexpected turns.

Overall, this was good, but not great for me. I imagine I will forget it quickly.

Original publication date: 1988
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 189 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library book sale
Why I read this: off the shelf

#26 In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

Totally fun murder mystery, despite the obvious solution and some hard-to-believe character stupidity. I'll happily read more by Ruth Ware when I'm in the mood for a compulsive page turner.

Original publication date: 2015
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 352 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: whim

>192 japaul22:
Yeah, that sounds about right. I like her—Turn of the Key was better, so look for that one

>193 Nickelini: I will remember, thanks!

#27 The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal

Something about this book hit just the right chord for me. Maybe it was the midwestern setting that I grew up in? Maybe it was the down-to-earth midwestern characters who are polite and kind but reserved and rarely say what they are really thinking? Whatever it was, I really loved it.

The story revolves around two sisters who have a midwestern falling-out (no dramatic scenes, they just stop speaking) over their father leaving all his money to the younger daughter, Helen, at the older sister's, Edith's, expense. Helen has fallen in love with beer and can now start up a brewery. Edith marries and has children, never really getting on her feet financially. She suffers loss and hard times, but in a quiet, accepting way.

The younger generation, Edith's granddaughter Diana, becomes the focus half way through the novel. Diana also falls into brewing beer and creates a craft brewery. You can see where this is going - things do end up coming full circle in the end.

I wonder if this book would have the same appeal to someone not from the Midwest? The small details about how midwesterners interact and the setting descriptions made me nostalgic for the region. For me, it was fantastic and I'll gladly read the other book that Stradal has out.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 349 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf

>195 japaul22:
That's a great title

>195 japaul22: I'm glad you reviewed this one. I'll keep an eye out for a copy.

>195 japaul22: Nice comments on this one, Jennifer. I liked the first one more. I think Stradel does a good job telling a story.

>195 japaul22: There's another one onto the pile! Sounds like something I'd enjoy.

>195 japaul22: added to my wishlist....

#28 The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

This book explores the ways birds exhibit intelligence and attempts to get the reader to see intelligence as not just a human (or primate) trait. Though our genetic trees branched off millions of years ago, both birds and humans have developed their own brand of intelligence.

I know very little about birds, and I've honestly always been a little intimidated by them - swooping around, those cold glassy eyes, hearing them but not seeing them - but we've spent so much time out in our local woods and our yard this past year, and I've gotten interested. This book was a good way to learn a little more, all in laymen's terms.

Ackerman explores how birds are adept at problem-solving, especially when food is concerned. She writes about their songs and calls and how they are learned, pointing out amazing feats of memorization. Of course, their amazing navigation skills are explored. And the ability of certain species to adapt to new environments gets a chapter as well.

Overall, Ackerman keeps a narrow view to focus on bird intelligence, which I think works very nicely. I will admit that I sometimes find the prologue of a book like this to be the most interesting part and get a little lost (or maybe bored) when each chapter goes into detail. But, I think most casual bird lovers or those interested in nature writing will enjoy this. I'm definitely looking at my backyard birds with new eyes.

Original publication date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 327 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf

>201 japaul22: I think birds are fascinating creatures - I'm going to note this one. It amazes me that with only a beak they can make the most intricate nests that many humans would struggle to make with hands and opposable thumbs.

I was reading in the weekend paper about how starlings can learn to only take grubs out of a certain colour of box if the other colour has less fresh grubs, and crows of course are incredibly intelligent, counting, dropping stones in a narrow water outlet to get the water volume to rise up, etc. Last year a baby crow fell out of the nest, and for a number of days the entire crow family all stayed around protecting it. Just fascinating.

>202 AlisonY: yes, those are the types of stories she uses as jumping off points to e plies their minds. Really interesting stuff.

#29 The Executor and The Rector by Mrs. Oliphant
I couldn't help myself from joining a group read in the Virago group of Victorian writer Margaret Oliphant's Carlingford series. These first two installments are short stories, so I'm counting them as one book. The first story, The Executor, jumps right in to the reading of a will that surprises everyone. It has great characters who I hope will reappear in the subsequent novels. There was plenty of plot material to have spun this into a full novel. The Rector grabbed me less, but was interesting in that it explored whether the main character, Mr. Proctor, was truly cut out to be a minister.

I was impressed with the writing overall, and I'm looking forward to continuing this series.

Original publication date: 1861
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: about 100 pages total
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle
Why I read this: group read

#30 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

In The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett explores what happens when external perceptions clash with internal perceptions. Twin light-skinned sisters who are raised as Black, escape from their small town. One disappears, deciding to "pass" as white and marrying a wealthy white man and having a white daughter. The other twin ends up marrying a dark-skinned man and having a dark-skinned daughter. This daughter meets and falls in love with a transgender man. In all of this, there is so much to think about regarding race and gender and how our preconceived notions and biases affect how we live our lives and interact with others.

I liked that Bennett accomplished all of this without a heavy hand or any "preachiness". I was glad that I had read Nella Larsen's book, Passing, which is an obvious influence on this novel. Overall, I'd say this novel lives up to the hype and I would recommend it.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 350 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library
Why I read this: many positive LT reviews and sounded interesting

#31 Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Square Haunting is a group biography of five writers/academics connected by place, Mecklenburgh Square in London. They didn't all live there at the same time, but were all drawn to the location as a place where, as women, they could be in the middle of life and culture, but also have small place to call their own and focus on their work. The author devotes a section to each woman in the order that she lived in Mecklenburgh Square: the poet and author H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) who lived there from 1916-1918; the novelist Dorothy Sayers who lived there in 1920; academic of ancient history Jane Ellen Harrison who lived there from 1926-1928; economic historian Eileen Power who lived there from 1922-1940; and author Virginia Woolf who was there 1939-1940.

I loved reading about these women, who, across the board, struggled to balance the desire to be taken seriously in their fields with the hope of having a balanced and fulfilled life. There are many parallels to be drawn about the challenges they faced to have their work judged on equal footing with men. Overall, I thought this book was pretty successful, especially considering the challenging topic. Though these women had similarities, they weren't a circle and largely did not interact. Drawing them together through the location of Mecklenburgh Square worked very well for some of the women, but for others I thought the tie to place was less strong. Despite these few reservations, I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in the time period. I hadn't even heard of two of these women, and knew very little about H.D. and Dorothy Sayers. Viriginia Woolf I'm pretty familiar with, but the section about her brought some welcome new ideas about her life.

Francesca Wade, the author, seems fairly young from her bio, and I will read whatever she writes next.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 420 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased hardback
Why I read this: interested in the topic

>205 japaul22: I picked up Passing in a Kindle deal after reading The Vanishing Half. Now I just need to read it ...

>206 japaul22: and I'm waiting for this one from the library. There's only one copy, it's checked out and was due 4/24. I'm next in line if only they'll return it!

>207 lauralkeet: I hate it when people keep books out when they know people are waiting for them!

Great comments on Square Haunting, Jennifer. I was unfamiliar with Jane Harrison and Eileen Power and gained some books to add to my reading lists.

Me too Beth. I have a little voodoo doll but so far it hasn’t had the desired effect 😃

>207 lauralkeet: Hope you get it soon, Laura! And, yes, do read Nella Larsen soon. I really enjoyed both of her books.

>208 BLBera: Jane Harrison and Eileen Power were brand new to me as well. I already checked out a couple of Dorothy Sayer's mysteries from the library and bought a used copy of Asphodel by H.D. since it's on the 1001 books list. And I'm determined to finally read Testament of Youth soon, after hearing Vera Brittain mentioned several time in Square Haunting.

#32 A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

I'm always up for a Greek myth retelling, especially one focused on women. This book got off to a slow start for me until I realized the goal. Instead of focusing on one or a few women, Haynes is retelling pretty much a review of the whole Iliad and Odyssey focusing on the women involved. So unlike Madeline Miller's fabulous book about Circe, this feels like more of a survey than an in depth look at developing one or two female personas. At first I was really annoyed at all the characters and shifting around between points of view. But by the end, I appreciated what the author did and grew to really like it.

I think this work will work best (and maybe only work) for people who are pretty familiar with the story of the Iliad and Odyssey and other Greek myths. Haynes seems to assume that the reader will already be versed in the typical male/war focused stories.

In the end, I'll recommend this, but not as highly as Madeline Miller or Pat Barker's recent offerings.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 368 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library
Why I read this: love Greek myth retellings

>212 japaul22: I liked Circe a lot, but I think it's been too long since I read Homer, Virgil, et al for me to do well with A Thousand Ships. I loved Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, and I have Silence of the Girls on my wish list. Which of her mythology books have you read and would recommend?

>213 labfs39: The Silence of the Girls is the one I was thinking of. I really liked it.

I think you’d be fine with A Thousand Ships, but I suspect that I would have appreciated more details if I had a better background. I’ve only actually read The Iliad and the Odyssey and then just picked up stories from general reading and arts/music. But I knew enough to enjoy it and I think you would too.

>214 japaul22: Although it's not a myth retelling, a book you might enjoy is The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. It's about a Viking voyage set around 1000 CE. It's a fun read, but also interesting as it is set during a time when Europe is undergoing a lot of change.

>215 labfs39: you know me too well! I love The Long Ships. I actually leant it to my mom years ago and need to get it back for a reread.

Hi Jennifer - Your comments on A Thousand Ships seem to match many of those who feel that Miller and Barker did it better. I'll read it at some point; I have a copy and I do like the retelling of myths.

#33 The Doctor's Family by Mrs. Oliphant
My work schedule has really ramped up again as our area loosens covid restrictions. This has me behind on my reviews! Not much to say about this one - a novella about a brother pair and sister pair and their interactions. When the sisters arrive from Australia, we see Nettie taking care of her sister and her sister's children at the expense of her own life desires.

#34 Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Now this one I have more to say about. Detransition, Baby is, I believe, the first novel written by a transgender woman to be published by one of the top publishers. It also made the award list for the Women's Prize for Fiction.

This novel is important as it begins a conversation about what it's like to experience life as someone who is transgender. The plot in this novel revolves around a trio of women who contemplate raising a child together. Reese is a transgender woman (though the author uses the term transsexual a lot, which I thought was "out"), Ames/Amy is a man who spent several years as a woman and had a relationship with Reese during that time, and Katrina is a cis woman who had a relationship with Ames as a man that results in a pregnancy. It's all complicated, obviously, and very dramatic. Also, there is so much focus on what it means to "be a woman" and also about dynamics of sexual relationships.

This leads me to one of my observations about trying to understand transgender issues. I feel like there is a large non-binary movement right now that downplays gender and gender roles. But this book was all about gender roles and proving your womanhood or manhood, making gender even more important than I think it is in most heterosexual relationships that I know. That's tough for me. I prefer the thought of lessening the reliance on strong gender behavior expectations that goes along with the nonbinary movement. With a sense of humor, I will also admit that I had a hard time not getting caught up in the mechanics of sex and who had what parts. :-)

While I think it's awesome to have more voices out there and to have mainstream publishing diversifying what is published as normal, this book was not a wow for me in terms of the actual writing. The way it flips back and forth in time was annoying and inconsistent and some of the characters seemed more there to serve the author's desire to explain trans lifestyle and issues than to serve the plot of the novel. Maybe that's to be expected in a break-through novel like this.

I have no idea what a transgender person would think of this novel. It seemed very opinionated to me and I don't know if all of the opinions are currently accepted as the desired message. But overall, I think this is a book lots of people should read. It did open up a new way of thinking about what life is like for people who don't fit in the most typical lifestyles we recognize. And any book that does that is valuable to me.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 327 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library
Why I read this: buzz

>218 japaul22: Great comments, Jennifer. I'm still waiting to get this one from the library.

>219 BLBera: I'll be very curious to hear how you feel about it! There seem to be a large range of opinions out there about this one, including some controversy over including it on the Women's Prize for Fiction list.

Hi Jennifer, I’m catching up from early March, covering posts on 17 novels. Sorry. I enjoyed catching up, but a little overwhelmed because I want to comment on several.

>149 japaul22: #18 Love by Toni Morrison - just enjoyed this review

>163 japaul22: #20 The Promise of the Grand Canyon by John Wesley Powell - I was entertained as this seems outside your reading. I can say that reading about JWP is fun, but reading him - oye. He’s all about self-promotion. It was how he funded his trips.

>174 japaul22: #23 The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin - this caught my attention because Willa Cather must have written about this in her short story The Best Years. She moves it to 1899, but it’s almost certainly the same event. Had no idea it was a real and distinct event, especially regarding the schools. I’m fascinated.

>218 japaul22: Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters - your last post. This was a terrific review although I’m not sure I want to read the book. Regarding transgender authors, there is at least one big name that precedes this. See Jan Morris, who I haven’t read but who gets huge praise here. There may be others. But they probably aren’t pursuing the trans theme in their work.

>221 dchaikin: The John Wesley Powell biography was interesting - every once in a while I try to read a book about geology because I'm fascinated by that sort of big picture science. But I find it sort of mind boggling as well. This was written as more of an explorer biography.

I know there is also a nonfiction book about the Children's Blizzard that many LTers read several years back by David Laskin.

Thanks for the lead on Jan Morris. I had never heard of her. Sounds like a really interesting life.

#35 Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers

Reading the nonfiction book Square Haunting has led me to try a few authors that I hadn't gotten to yet. Dorothy Sayers is one of them. This book comes in the middle of her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series. The reason I chose it is that it is on the 1001 books to read before you die list.

I enjoyed this and will say that of the Golden Age mystery writers, I think that Dorothy Sayers' writing craft stands out. But honestly, I thought the mystery was weak and I lacked connection with the setting of an advertising company. I think there was humor there that was too dated a hundred years later for me to really appreciate. I'd consider reading this whole series from the beginning for fun, but I'm not going to make it a priority.

Original publication date: 1933
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 339 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library
Why I read this: interested in the author, 1001 books

>223 japaul22: I read the Lord Peter series starting with the first book a few years ago. The progression of his relationships was good. I think I read them more for the story, rather than for the mystery, if that makes sense. I think Gaudy Night was my favorite.

>224 NanaCC: I do think if I want to read any more of these I will start at the beginning. I like a mystery series that has good character development over the series.

#36 Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
I did not have high hopes because I do not like the title and my copy has a terrible movie tie-in cover with an enormous picture of Kate Winslet on the front. I also knew it was told from the point of view of a small child, which never seems to work well. To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed this.

The narrator (age 5) and her sister, Bea (age 7), are dragged along on their hippie mother's adventure from London to Marrakech. In Marrakech, they are submerged in the culture as they tag along while their mother does what she wants and explores spiritualism. They are often hungry, dressed insufficiently, their health is seriously neglected, and they are put in dangerous situations as they follow their mother's whims. But, they also experience the beauty of the country they are in, enjoy the food, and meet some kind people along the way. Seeing Morocco through a five year old's eyes was a unique perspective and very effective.

Freud does several things right in this book. One is that though she does use the perspective of a five year old, she doesn't use a child's language. She does this just right, where you aren't annoyed by having to read little kid language, but you realize that the perspective is different than it would be from an adult (or even from the slightly older, more worldly sister). This book would have been absolutely intolerable to me if it was told from the selfish mother's point of view. Experiencing through the five year old's POV, who loves her mother, wants to please her mother, and just accepts what is happening as it comes, made the plot and all the mistakes the mother makes tolerable.

This is my second book by Esther Freud and I'm impressed. I'm going to continue reading her novels.

Original publication date: 1992
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 186 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased used copy
Why I read this: 1001 books group read

>201 japaul22: I really enjoyed your review of the Ackerman bird book. I'm sorely tempted, but I live in the country, more or less, and am surrounded by many avian tutors nesting, eating, singing and sometimes being a nuisance on the property. We have conversations. I grew up reading (and still use) my father's copy of the Audubon Bird Guide: Eastern Land Birds from the 1940s.

>223 japaul22: I loved all the Dorothy Sayers books. I read them in the 80s when they were reprinted for the PBS series.

>227 avaland: Although I have since moved on to a well-thumbed Sibley's, I still have my grandmother's Golden bird book from 1949 complete with her penciled in notes and sightings.

>228 labfs39: Sibley is the guy.

>226 japaul22: I didn't read the book, but remember being pleasantly surprised when I saw the Hideous Kinky movie. I have a different Esther Freud on my shelf: Mr Mac and Me, a fictional account of a young boy's relationship with Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the architect. I've been putting it off; maybe I'll pull it forward!

>230 kac522: that's the only other book of Esther Freud's that my library has, so I will read it at some point. The other one of hers I read was The Sea House which I also really liked. She leaves a lot unsaid about her characters, but gives you enough to be interesting and thoughtful writing.

>230 kac522: I haven't read any Esther Freud, and had never heard of Mr Mac and Me, but I think I need that for summer reading. I'm also interested in seeing now Margaret Macdonald is treated in it.

>226 japaul22: I love Esther Freud's writing, and enjoyed this too. The Sea House was probably my favourite, but I also enjoyed The Wild. I must look out for more of her books. Her latest has just been published in the UK.

I picked up Mr. Mac and Me ages ago based on a rave from one of my reading twins, but haven't yet gotten to it. It sounds like I should, though—definitely up my alley.

#37 Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
In 1933, Vera's Brittain's memoir of her life before, during, and immediately after WWI was published. The book is an incredibly moving account of what it was like to come of age during the Great War. There are three parts to the book. The first part tells about life for a young woman growing up in a Victorian household, and all of the pressures, expectations, and naivety that came along with it. It also sets the stage for Brittain's relationships with four young men, including her brother and her later fiancé, all of whom would serve in the war. In the second section, Vera enlists as a nurse. She works several places: London, Malta, and France. She shares many details of the work, the conditions, and the emotional and physical toll. This section vividly depicts what it was like to repeatedly "say goodbye" to loved ones and the stress of waiting to hear if friends and family had survived each battle. The third section is about the immediate aftermath of the war: how she deals with the losses she suffers, her views on international politics, and whether she desires to try to balance her work with marriage and children.

I really loved this book. Brittain's writing is honest and she doesn't shy away from sharing her grief or her opinions. She writes with great emotion without being overly dramatic, even in dramatic circumstances. I was sucked right in to her world. I particularly loved the first and second sections. The third lost a little momentum for me, with the views on world politics. It felt less personal. I also read in the afterward that the man she ended up marrying didn't want to be as big a part of the book as she wanted him to be. So that probably made it harder to write with the honesty and poignancy that she achieved in the first sections.

I put off reading this book for quite a few years because it is long, but I found it very readable and I'm glad I finally got to it. It's an important viewpoint of a woman who served in WWI.

Original publication date: 1933
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 661 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: 1001 books

Does look long. That was a great review and has me really interested in the book and the idea of it. (And I’m thinking of Cather’s surely very different One of Ours)

>235 japaul22: I too was very impressed with Testament of Youth and agree wholeheartedly with your review, including how the third part wasn't as compelling. I went back and reread my review just now, and in it I wrote that perhaps one reason why the third part lagged was that it didn't include the diary excerpts that made the earlier sections feel so immediate. Evidently she stopped keeping a diary after the war.

>235 japaul22: I loved this memoir when I read it in 2014, when I read several books about WWI. Yes, it's long, but most of the book flew by.

I recently read the novel The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby, one of Brittain's dear friends. Holtby based one of the characters (Delia) in the novel on Vera Brittain. One of these days I want to read Testament of Friendship, which is Brittain's book about Holtby.

>235 japaul22: I really liked Testament of Youth, and in my post-reading enthusiasm acquired Testament of Friendship and Testament of Experience. Have I read them? Well, no. I have, however, enjoyed all of Winifred Holtby's novels.

My current read is Square Haunting, which I know you've read. I just started the section on Dorothy Sayers, which of course mentions Brittain as one of those in the first class of women at Oxford.

>236 dchaikin: I have read Cather's One of Ours yet. Some day!

>237 labfs39: that's a good point about not having the diary or letter excerpts in the third section.

>238 kac522:, >239 lauralkeet: Holtby certainly features heavily in Testament of Youth and would like to read some of her novels. I assume some are published as Viragos?!

Square Haunting prompted me to finally read Testament of Youth since Brittain is mentioned several times.

That era in British history, the crossover from Victorian era lifestyles, through WWI, and then leading up to WWII is such a fascinating time period to me.

>240 japaul22: Holtby published only 6 novels and yes, they are ALL available as Viragos. I have some in the original "green spine" editions and some with modern covers, which are equally lovely.

I love that period in British history as well.

>240 japaul22:, >241 lauralkeet: Yes, I have 5 of the 6 (missing Mandoa, Mandoa!). There is also one additional novel which I don't have, The Astonishing Island, and I don't think it is published by Virago.

ETA: just checked the Virago website, and it looks like they published 6 of her 7 novels (not The Astonishing Island), plus a volume of short stories:
https://www.virago.co.uk/contributor/winifred-holtby/

>242 kac522: Thanks for this information. I didn't know about The Astonishing Island. I wonder why Virago didn't publish it? I notice there are only 6 LTers who have it in their libraries.

I am also a fan of Testament of Youth; your comments make me want to reread it, Jennifer. I found the first sections so poignant. Her generation lost so many friends.

Thanks for all the comments! I will put Winifred Holtby on my list for sure.

#38 Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy

Consider me converted to the idea that we need to restore native plants to our respective regions. Tallamy's book lays out all the reasons that native plants are important - vital - to our conservation efforts. This book is great because he convinced me that even my small yard can make a difference. Most books on conservation and environment leave me feeling completely overwhelmed and hopeless, but here is something that I can do that should help.

The crux of Tallamy's argument is that we need to stop thinking of nature as someplace we visit and create habitats in our own yards, workplaces, and common neighborhood areas. He talks about plants that support specific caterpillars that support specific birds and how that circle is the bedrock of a healthy environment. And it sounds doable. Replacing non-native ornamentals with native plants, reducing lawn, leaving leaf litter, and adding a small clean water source - these are things that everyone can do.

This book is not really a "how-to" book; it is a book to convince you and to give you the arguments to convince your neighbors. I did read plenty of reviews that complained about this. But, for me, I'd heard a little about the benefits of native plants but had never known all the reasons why they are so important. This book was an important step for me in really being able to name the benefits of returning native plants to our landscaping.

I highly recommend reading this book if you are new to this concept or want clearly laid out reasoning about why it's important.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 243 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: gift
Why I read this: interested in the topic

>246 japaul22: That sounds interesting, Jennifer. We're paying more attention to native plants and wildlife habitats in our garden these days, more than we did before anyway. The other concept I'm intrigued by is "rewilding" -- allowing previously managed areas to return to their original state. For example, part of our property has been used as pasture as the past. We have no plans for livestock, so no need to keep the field mowed. If we let it go, we provide habitat for birds, insects, etc. That's our current plan, anyway.

>248 lauralkeet: I love the idea of rewilding! The only thing I’d consider reading up on is whether there are introduced plants taking over the area. The introduced plants have an unfair advantage because they don’t have their natural predators, or whatever was keeping it in check in its original area. And many local species haven’t had the ecological time they need to adapt to new plants. It’s all an interesting problem and one that even specialists are still trying to figure out.

Great point, Jennifer. I'll keep that in mind.

>246 japaul22: Welcome to the native plants converts club:). Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home had the same effect on me.

>251 karspeak: I knew there would be a lot of people here already knowledgeable about this!

#39 The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow

The Once and Future Witches is a powerful book about women banding together and drawing on previous generations of women to improve their lives and fight against the men who try to control them. The three Eastwood sisters grew up knowing simple spells that every woman uses, housed in nursery rhymes and songs, but find their power is stronger than they realized when they face a powerful adversary. Their story of life in New Salem in the late 1800s, as the women there fight for suffrage, are blamed for witchcraft, and then discover that witchcraft can help them, was moving and clever. Alix Harrow has weaved together bits of nursery rhymes and old sayings that most people know to create an interesting, fast-moving plot with memorable characters. My complaint, though, is that it was so, so dramatic that it may have been a little too much for me. I think if she had slowed down and focused a little more tightly on fewer characters or plot-lines it would have been a better book.

This is fun and different and I do recommend it, but it isn't a perfect book.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 529 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: sounded fun

>246 japaul22: Nature’s Best Hope sounds fascinating. I am trying to do something similar in my (very small) garden. I have changed over the years from wanting something very neat and tidy to being much more focused on the amount of wildlife habitats I can create. And it is not very tidy at all, especially at the moment as we have been doing ‘No mow May’ which is a thing in the U.K., and which it has sort of turned into ‘No mow first part of June’ as well in our garden. We have a new pond, and I have been making sure that it has native plants in it as well.

Have you read Wilding by Isabella Tree? It’s a fascinating look at the rewinding process on a British farm. It is my choice for my next book club meeting, so it will be interesting to see what people make of it.

>254 SandDune: I haven’t heard of that. I will put it on my list! We have a fairly small yard (for a US single family home), but the great thing is that when neighborhood was built in the 1970s they left as many of the mature trees as they could. We have wooded trails between our lots and my backyard has about 15 mature oak and sycamore trees. So I have a good start to work with!

#40 The Survivors by Jane Harper

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery, even though there was nothing particularly new or innovative about it. The mystery involved a modern day murder that brings up connections to a missing girl from a decade earlier. It is set in Tasmania, and Jane Harper again does a good job having the setting be integral to the mystery.

This book perfectly fit my mood and I flew through it. I've read all of Jane Harper's mysteries and I hope she keeps writing more.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: Australian/British
Original language: English
Length: 379 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: like the author

#41 Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Meh. I didn't really enjoy this and skimmed the last pages. The story has potential. It revolves around the life of a free Black woman doctor in the mid through late 1800s and her daughter, Liberties. The mother wants her daughter to become a doctor like her, but instead she marries a man and moves to Haiti. Her life there is not as promised.

There were interesting attempts at themes about escaping from slavery, creating Black communities, how these communities could and whether they should interact with whites. But in the end, I found the writing clumsy and never connected to any of the characters. The plot sort of meanders and the voice of the narrator just wasn't believable to me.

I've read much better books that cover the same general time period and themes. But, this book has also been widely praised, so don't avoid it on my account!

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 332 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: BOTM selection
Why I read this: off the shelf

>40 BLBera: I'm reading The Survivors right now. It's a fun thriller so far, and from what I've heard that's what I can expect all the way through.

#42 Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Anne Moody's memoir of her childhood and young adult years growing up Black in Mississippi is raw and honest and full of pain. Moody was born in 1940 in rural Mississippi. She grew up in poverty with a father who deserted her mother and then a mostly absent stepfather. She began working in service at a young age to earn money. A good student, Moody's education and drive are a large part of the book, but her need to make money is always present. She goes to college and starts working with the civil rights movement - participating in sit-ins and demonstrations and trying to stir up support among the Black population.

This book is hard to read for several reasons. Of course, Moody's life is a impossible-to-deny look at how hard life was for Black Americans in the 1950s and 60s. She pulls no punches talking about how all opportunities were denied for her and her family and everything was a struggle. Her language is coarse and angry at times, with lots of swearing, as is understandable considering what she was fighting against. She blames many different people for the lack of change - recognizing the systemic racism in government systems, questioning the efficacy of peaceful protest, calling out police corruption, and screaming in frustration at fellow Blacks who refuse to vote.

Her book is keenly observant and incredibly moving. It is not easy to read, but it is just as important today as it was when it was written in 1968. For me, it clearly shows why we are still where we are today. This was life in America just over 40 years ago.

Original publication date: 1968
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 434 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle
Why I read this: on my list of reading by/about Black Americans

#43 Outlawed by Anna North

The premise of this book is interesting and drew me in. It's the late 1800s in the American West, but it's set in an alternate reality. The Flu killed a large portion of the population and what resulted was a society where producing more people is key. Women are valued only for their ability to produce babies, and those who are barren are labeled as witches and persecuted. The main character, Ada, is run out of her town and is accepted into a group of outlaws based on her knowledge of midwifery and medicine.

Unfortunately, despite the clever premise, the execution was not to my reading taste. The plot was nonsensical and the characters didn't have any heart. Their relationships with each other didn't ring true. I quickly lost interest in the outcome and ended up reading just to finish.

This book has gotten a lot of great press and many people seem to have liked it. So if it sounds interesting, give it a go and I'll be curious to see what you think. But it was definitely not for me.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library
Why I read this: positive reviews

>258 japaul22: I read Coming of Age in Mississippi years ago and remember it was a powerful book, Jennifer. Certainly, it's timely.

Sorry Outlawed didn't work for you. I thought it was very original and enjoyed it. But, we can't all like the same things, right? It would be pretty boring around here.

What's next?

>260 BLBera: Your review of Outlawed made me give it a try. I'm glad I did, even though it wasn't my favorite.

Next up? Well, I just finished an nyrb, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page which was unique and fantastic - review to come soon. Today I'm playing the National Anthem with a guest artist at the July 4th picnic at the White House. We will be there most of the day and a lot of it will be waiting, so I have Lucy Foley's The Guest List on my kindle. I need something entertaining and easy to get lost in for a day like this where there will be lots of distractions. Then I'll start This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger - I've never read anything by him and I'm excited about this one!

>261 japaul22: Well that's exciting! Are we allowed to ask who the guest artist is? Hope the day goes well.

Delighted you loved Ebenezer too - I look forward to your review.

Good luck today, Jennifer. I'll watch for you! I hope it's not too hot.

I've enjoyed Krueger's series but I haven't read any of his standalones.

I'm sorry my recommendation made you read a book you didn't enjoy; I'm always nervous about recommendations for that very reason.

>261 japaul22: Ebenezer is a lifetime favorite of mine. Have you heard the Backlisted podcast that discusses the book? Worth a listen.

Looks like you got a nice day to play, whether indoors or out. I'm looking forward to hearing more about that.

>262 AlisonY: The guest artist was Jennifer Nettles, who sings with a band called Sugarland. She was very nice and sounded great!
So glad your review of Ebenezer prompted me to read it.

>263 BLBera: The weather was great for a D.C. July 4th! Don't apologize for leading me to Outlawed! Even though I didn't like it much, it was an interesting book to try and your reading has led me to way more winners than the opposite!

>264 lisapeet: I'll check out that podcast episode. I don't listen to anything very often, but that sounds interesting.

The weather was really nice. Most July 4ths it is up in the upper 90s but yesterday was only in the mid 80s. Made the day much easier since we were outdoors from about 12:30-10:30 in our full dress uniforms. The Bidens are exceptionally nice people. They take a genuine interest in the people working their events - thanking everyone and making the time to acknowledge all the work that goes on behind the scenes.

>265 japaul22: I'm glad the weather cooperated for you yesterday, Jennifer. I'm not surprised to see your feedback about the Bidens. We lived in Delaware for many years, where naturally Joe and Jill were well known. And what a contrast that must have been from ... um ... previous events.

I'm glad you had good weather; it was not too bad here either, in the 80s, but there was a steady breeze.

I'm glad I'm not on your bad list for book recommendations!:)

#44 The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards

This book was a surprise. It sounds a little boring - an elderly man telling about his life on the island of Guernsey. But the time period, which spans early 1900s through the 1960s, and the unique setting of Guernsey, which changes from an isolated and unique island to a tourist destination that begins to lose its identity is fascinating.

Ebenezer Le Page describes his deep friendships beautifully and thoroughly, without being sappy or sentimental. He describes the beauty and uniqueness of the island itself without using travel guide language or much landscape description - instead describing how the locals interact with the terrain. He reacts to two world wars without creating a war novel, but by absorbing the deaths and German occupation into the story of Guernsey instead.

It's truly brilliant. The emotions underneath a matter of fact telling run deep. It's both a simple and complex narrative. I really loved it.

Original publication date: 1981, published posthumously, manuscript first seen in 1974
Author’s nationality: Balliwick of Guernsey (this is a tough one to decipher "nationality"!)
Original language: English with local Guernsey dialect incorporated
Length: 400 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: nyrb purchase
Why I read this: nyrb off the shelf, LT reviews

#45 The Guest List by Lucy Foley

This one served its purpose as a page turner mystery, but had some flaws. It's a mystery, but you actually don't get a dead body til the end of the book and who is getting killed is part of the suspense along with the many people who have reason to commit the murder. The setting is fun, a remote island off the coast of Ireland, where a rising-star couple is getting married. The guest list, encompassing people from their various circles and times of life, brings up old secrets.

It sounds great and was pretty fun to read, but there were also some serious flaws. The main thing that bothered me was the timeline. It takes place within about 2 days, but Foley tries to have a "now" time right when the murder is happening, and then also circle back to various events. But those events aren't far enough away from "now" to be distinguishable and there are too many back and forths. And she doesn't just have "now" and then a linear story from 2 days ago leading up to "now". She jumps around within the 2 day lead up. It was annoying and I had a hard time getting past it. It felt like she was trying to mask some of the inconsistencies in her plotting but making the timeline confused.

So I'm ambivalent. I'd read another of hers if I need a "beach read" type book, but otherwise I'll pass.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 322 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: for fun, always looking for new mysteries to enjoy

>268 japaul22: It really captures the beauty of a quiet life led with good intentions. Loved it's gentle power.

>270 AlisonY: Yes, that's a great way to put it. And I loved the quiet humor. So many things to enjoy. I could see myself reading it again down the road.

>268 japaul22: This does sound like one to savor, Jennifer. I'll watch for a copy. I've always been fascinated by island life, for some reason.

>272 BLBera: Me too. I think it's partially the isolation that allows an island to be so unique that makes it interesting.

I love Ebenezer. Such a micro look at a life, in a way that I don't feel is done by authors as much these days (though maybe that's just my old-fart reflex kicking in). I'm definitely due for a reread—I could get a Bloom essay out of it too.

>265 japaul22: The Bidens are exceptionally nice people. They take a genuine interest in the people working their events - thanking everyone and making the time to acknowledge all the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Aw, that's lovely to hear. I have a friend in Delaware, and she had met them a few times and really liked them too

Your job experiences are always interesting to read about!

>269 japaul22: re: The Guest List . . . I own that one, and early this year I read the same author's The Hunting Party. They sound like the same story, just different people and settings. I will read The Guest List when I'm looking for that experience again, but I think I need some time in between.

>268 japaul22: Ebenezer Le Page went straight to my wishlist

>268 japaul22: I remember that Backlisted episode. I bought the book shortly after but haven’t got around to it yet.

>268 japaul22: - I've also added this to my interesting books list.

Love following what you are reading. It's always interesting. Enjoyed the discussion around Natures Best Hope.

Glad to see so much interest in The Book of Ebenezer Le Page!

>276 Nickelini: Noted that The Hunting Party has a similar plot. I'll save it for a time when I need to be entertained.

#46 This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

This Tender Land is the story of four children who escape from a school for Indian children where they are being abused and taken advantage of in the 1930s. They travel down rivers in the Midwest, bonding to each other, and meeting a varied cast of characters, all of whom impact their lives in some way. It's a book full of life and love and helping each other through tough times. For all of those reasons, I really enjoyed it.

It also gets a bit sentimental, a bit predictable, and doesn't hit some of the big topics as hard as it could have. The treatment of Indian children ("Kill the Indian, save the child") and Native Americans in general is always in the background of the book, but it didn't take the foreground as strongly as I'd hoped it would. Only one of the four children is a member of the Sioux tribe. The others are white (or at least identify that way). To me, this book is more about childhood friendships, family, and finding your identity. While I liked that, it also disappointed me a little.

I'd be happy to read more by William Kent Krueger, but I won't be running to do so. This book would make a great movie, though.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 450 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: a review somewhere caught my eye

>268 japaul22: Added to my list of books to look for.

>283 RidgewayGirl: Me, three (or maybe about 10!)

Hi Jennifer: I've enjoyed Krueger's series but haven't read any of his standalones. I really like the setting of his series, northern Minnesota.

#47 Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

I loved this book about two adult children who find themselves completely unmoored when their mother dies. They are 51, but have remained dependent on their mother. An early tragedy of their father's death kept them bound to each other way past the point of a healthy relationship. Additionally, they find themselves completely without money or income when their mother dies.

As the book progresses, you learn more about their relationships with each other, what it's like to live in poverty, and several family secrets.

I loved Fuller's writing and look forward to reading more of her books.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 315 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: Women's Prize for Fiction short list

>286 japaul22: Yay! Another fan! I really need to read more of her stuff.

>287 Yells: It was so good! Grateful for all the LT reviews that led me to pick this book up!

>286 japaul22: I'm looking forward to this one. I actually had it in my hand a few weeks ago but bought her Bitter Orange instead. I loved it.

>286 japaul22: This is one of three books I have on hold at the library. I just hope they don’t all come in at once.

>290 NanaCC: I'm in a similar situation as Colleen. I'm really looking forward to reading Unsettled Ground.

I'm another fan of Unsettled Ground, Jennifer. I want to read more by Fuller.

Joining the 'I want to read Claire Fuller' bandwagon...!

Just got back from an absolutely fabulous covid-friendly vacation to Michigan. We went to Sleeping Bear Dunes area for a week and then to the UP to see Mackinac Island (the only crowded place we went, though it was all still outdoor things we did) and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. I did not do a ton of reading, but I did finish the following book. I also started the scary book The Life and Death of the Great Lakes which is about the ecological disasters we're bringing to the Great Lakes. It has been particularly impactful to read during/after this trip. One small positive was that Michigan is doing a fantastic job of cultivating wildflowers. They were everywhere and we saw tons of monarchs!

Back to books . . .

#48 The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

The Song of the Lark is about a young woman, Thea Kronberg, growing up in the West who is a talented musician with dreams of success. She'll have to leave her town of Moonstone to be in the spotlight. She moves to Chicago and ultimately to Europe, but is still drawn to the beauty of the American West. The book is a portrait of an ambitious artist and the ups and downs of that sort of life.

I enjoyed this. I thought that Cather did a really good job exploring what it's like to learn a craft like being a successful professional musician. I found it much more realistic than other books I've read on this subject. I also liked that it wasn't overdramatic - this isn't a Thomas Hardy novel where everyone fails and/or dies. There's some sadness and nostalgia and typical life questions about whether chosen paths were really the best. But in the end, Cather does what I think is harder to write - creates a character with great depth and subtlety.

I don't think this novel stands out for me as much as My Antonia or O, Pioneers, but I would recommend if you enjoy Cather and haven't read this yet.

Original publication date: 1915
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 310 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle book
Why I read this: enjoy Willa Cather and hadn't read this one yet

Your vacation sounds lovely!

Great vacation, Jennifer. When we were kids we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes and Mackinac; time to go back. And I went as a (pregnant) adult to Pictured Rocks--I remember it being a bit edgy while climbing those rocks to see them. That trip took us all around Lake Superior, which was fun, particularly the Canadian side.

I keep putting off Song of the Lark--thanks for the incentive. And I just picked up Egan's book at a book sale a couple of weeks ago. So they are both waiting on the shelves for me to make them priorities. Thanks for the nudge.

>295 Nickelini: It really was!

>296 kac522: One of the reasons we went to Michigan this summer is that I remember a similar vacation when I was growing up. Plus we could drive there from Virginia and everything I planned was outdoors, so I knew it would be a good vacation no matter what was happening with covid. It was really lovely.

I'm really enjoying The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. It is pretty terrifying from an ecological standpoint, but an important topic to learn about.

#49 Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

I seem to be drawn to books this year, both nonfiction and fiction, which have human-made ecological disasters at their heart. This novel is set in a future where a mass extinction is decimating non-human animal populations. At the beginning, I sadly had to look up whether the mentioned animals were nearing extinction because it felt true to me and I wasn't sure if the book was drawing on true current events or creating a dystopian future. :-(

This book follows Franny Stone, who has led a troubled, wandering life. She is apart from her husband, the one person in her life that she trusts and loves, trying to find one of the few remaining fishing vessels to help her follow the small population of arctic terns that still exists on their migration from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica. Her dramatic past is slowly revealed as she connects with the sailors on the ship she finds.

I really liked this. It has it all - great characters, a fantastic setting, a political message, and adventure. I'm looking forward to reading McConaghy's next book, Once There Were Wolves, that was recently published.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 276 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased at Book No Further in Roanoke, VA
Why I read this: great reviews on LT

>298 japaul22: And yours makes another great review on LT. Sounds intriguing. The title of her second book makes me think it might be a similar theme?

>299 labfs39: It looks like it. The brief description of Once There Were Wolves sounds like it takes place in the Scottish highlands and has to do with reintroducing wolves to the region.

#50 The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley

I don't read a lot of Pride and Prejudice retellings or spin offs, but this novel was recommended by a friend and then I saw I signed copied in an independent bookstore that I visited while on vacation in Traverse City, MI. Molly Greeley lives there and so I felt I had to pick it up.

As this genre goes, this was really good. The crux of her story is that Anne de Bourgh was given laudanum as a baby and continued to have it administered as "medicine" into her teens. A governess finally awakens her to the fact that her illness is caused by her medicine instead of helped by it. The rest of the book follows what happens when her mind clears and she becomes part of the world.

I think this book works because it doesn't take much from Austen except Anne de Bourgh and her mother. Darcy and Elizabeth make appearances and are part of the story, but they aren't developed characters, so the reader is allowed to keep their own picture of those much-loved characters in their head. Most of the people Anne ends up interacting with are the author's own invention.

Some of the writing is a bit overdone and things work out a bit too neatly, but all in all this was enjoyable.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 357 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased signed copy at Horizon Books in Traverse City, MI
Why I read this: bookstore find

#51 The Life and Death of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan

Another excellent book on all the ways humans are harming the environment they depend on. The Great Lakes (Erie, Ontario, Huron, Michigan, Superior) are 20% of the world's fresh water supply. The pollution that humans caused in the 1800s-1900s has largely been reversed, but now invasive species, often brought in ballast water from overseas shipping vessels, has rendered the lake almost sterile. The lakes have beautifully clear water, as I noticed on our recent vacation to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. Sadly, in reading this book, I found that water as clear as these lakes' is not the sign of health. These lakes were naturally isolated from invasive species because of Niagara falls and so are ecologically immature when it comes to dealing with invasive species. The native species there have been practically decimated by alewives and mussels.

Egan discusses at length invasive species - how they are arriving and how we could stop their arrival. He also discusses pollution from farm runoff, how some of our ideas to improve the lakes have made things worse, future disasters waiting to happen, and simple (but expensive) ways to improve current practices. He also gets into the politics of who deserves access to this freshwater and what the ecological impact could be. This is an important book for all Americans and Canadians who live around the Great Lakes to read. Also, the wider implications of where we get our freshwater and how we can sustain it is important for everyone.

I thought this was a fantastic book. It reads well and seems well-documented. I highly recommend.

Original publication date: 2017
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 384 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased kindle book
Why I read this: traveling in the region described and interested in books on environment

Egan recently wrote an updated article about the Chicago River and Lake Michigan in NY Times (July 2021). I don't subscribe, so haven't read it, but if you do the link is here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/07/climate/chicago-river-lake-michig...

Ah, I don't subscribe either, but I'd really like to read that.

>302 japaul22: This is a book I would like to read, having lived for some years on Georgian Bay. Some call this the sixth great lake, and some feel at one time it was a lake before the waters of Lake Huron broke through. Was it mentioned in the book? Its water and weather is certainly part of the Great Lakes system.

>305 SassyLassy: I don't remember Georgian Bay as part of the book. I'd say Lake Michigan, Huron, and Superior were most often referenced, though really the Great Lakes operate as one enormous river flowing to Niagara Falls and so he does mainly look at the big picture issues for all of the lakes. Looking at a map, I'm sure Georgian Bay would be impacted by most of the topics in his book since it is essentially a part of Lake Huron. This book isn't so much a history of how the lakes were created, and it doesn't get into much geology except for how the isolation of the Great Lakes from other waterways and the oceans has impacted their ecological development.

>306 japaul22: Interesting. I suspect that may be because Georgian Bay is entirely within Canada, whereas four of the other lakes have the international border running through them and Lake Michigan is entirely within the US, so they could be thought of as "American" to a US writer.

It's sort of like looking at weather maps on US tv. Although you may see parts of Canada on them, the weather systems always end magically at the border!

Before trucks became a major means of shipping, items like wheat and iron ore were shipped by laker from places like Duluth, Green Bay and Thunder Bay, through Superior and Huron, down through Georgian Bay and then by rail to cities in central and eastern Canada, often to Atlantic ports for export to Europe. The creation of the Saint Lawrence Seaway and various lock systems has meant the rail link is no longer needed, so Georgian Bay is mostly for pleasure boats now, although the odd grain terminal still exists.

>307 SassyLassy: there were plenty of mentions about differences of opinion on laws governing the Great Lakes between Canada and the US. He doesn’t get into great detail on that, but it’s present in the book. So definitely relevant to Canadians as well!

#52 Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev translated by Richard Freeborn

I've never read anything by Turgenev, but I have read several other Russian classics. I was thrilled to see this novel is only 200 pages when I picked it up from the library. Fathers and Sons is the story that compares two generations, Arkady and Bazarov representing the younger generation who are nihilists. They supposedly believe in nothing. And then the book explores their relationships and their philosophical differences with their fathers and an uncle of Arkady's.

Well, that's what everyone says it's about. But to me it ended up being more focused on their love relationships and a dramatic ending, making it a bit more easy to read than I expected, but also a little less interesting. I think the politics/philosophy likely made a bigger splash if you were living in the time this was written.

I found this enjoyable and a much less dense read than many of the Russian novels I've read, but I also think that in the long run it will be less memorable.

Original publication date: 1862
Author’s nationality: Russian
Original language: Russian
Length: 201 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library book
Why I read this: 1001 books, Russian classics author I've not yet read

#53 Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux

On a recent vacation to Mackinac Island, I heard about a 19th century American woman author who was famous enough to have a statue dedicated to her and the novel she set on Mackinac Island, but who I had never heard of. I am no literary expert, but I do have a strong interest in the time period and in female authors, so I was embarrassed that I didn't know Constance Fenimore Woolson. My husband and boys had quite a good time making fun of me for not knowing her, by the way.

Anyway, I found this book in a bookstore on the island and purchased it. In reading it, I realized I had heard of her, but as a friend and companion to the more famous (male) author, Henry James. Through this book, I learned of Woolson's considerable talent as an author in her own right. Woolson approached writing with a need to support herself. She stayed single throughout her life, and her career was full of struggles trying to make it as a writer as an unmarried woman. Her first novel, Anne was very popular and sold well. It is typical of her writing in that it had a strong local American setting, Mackinac Island. It also is untypical of her later novels in that it has a "popular" feel - fast-moving plot, love story, mystery, and everything else exciting you can think of. If she had continued writing in this vein, Woolson might have been more successful monetarily because she would have better fit the mold of "woman writer" that existed then. But because she viewed her writing as a craft and wanted to write artistic works, her later novels weren't considered "women's books" but nor did they measure up to her male author counterparts - well, according to her male reviewers. Also, when women's novels were "rediscovered" in the late 1900s, Woolson's work again didn't fit the mold that this time female literary critics were looking for. Her books were often written from the perspective of male characters and didn't have the same focus on women's lives that other restored women authors did. Woolson's fame dwindled through her lifetime and certainly after her death because of all of these things.

I loved reading about her exhaustive approach to writing. When Woolson got an idea for a new novel she would begin with elaborate plot outline, detailed character descriptions, long conversations between characters, and extended scene-setting passages. She would fill multiple notebooks with this preparatory work before even beginning to piece the novel together.

Woolson was good friends with Henry James. She lived in Europe for most of her adult life and the two spent a lot of time together and had mutual friends. I was very happy, though, that the author keeps the focus on Woolson instead of the more famous James.

Woolson's life came to a dramatic end when she committed suicide while living in Italy. Her money issues, hearing loss, isolation, illness, and doubts about her writing ability combined disastrously with a genetic predisposition to depression.

I enjoyed learning about this new-to-me author and intend to read a few of her novels in the near future.

Original publication date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 391 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased on vacation
Why I read this: interested in the subject

>310 japaul22: So happy to find out about this book. I first heard of Woolson reading Colm Tóibín's The Master, an excellent novel about Henry James. When I finished that novel, I wanted to find out more about her, but didn't find much. Now I know where to look!

>311 SassyLassy: yes! I realized once I started reading this bio that I had actually known of Woolson from reading The Master. I did not make the connection, though, when we were in Mackinac. I would kind of like to go back to reread that now.

#54 The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey

One day, walking home from school, three siblings find a boy injured and bleeding in a field. This experience seems to result in individual growth, change, and secrets revealed within the siblings' family. I say "seems to" because sometimes I questioned whether this dramatic opening event truly impacted the family's subsequent decisions and changes. I felt that most of it was probably coming anyway. But, the boy does keep the story focused and also draws together the larger community, in a way.

The three siblings are teenagers who are finding love, discovering that their parents are real people who make real mistakes, and the youngest, who is adopted, begins searching for his birth mother. While I didn't particularly connect to the individual characters, I did think the book worked well as a whole.

Though this wasn't a stand-out book, I did enjoy it and would recommend.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: Scottish
Original language: English
Length: 256 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased on vacation in Cottage Books, Glen Arbor, MI
Why I read this: grabbed me while browsing the bookstore

#55 In Other Words by Christopher J. Moore
An illustrated sampling of words and phrases whose meanings are unique to a language and therefore illuminate something about the culture of the country. And about the cultures that don't include a word or saying that is similar.

It is a nice little book, but not thorough enough to be really interesting. Just a small sampling of examples.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: not sure - maybe British?
Original language: English
Length: 128 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: I don't remember where or why I bought it, but it was on my shelf

#56 Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

Davidson's debut novel is an ambitious family drama centered in a 1970s northern California logging community. The logging community is on the brink of collapse both because of conservationists who want to preserve the giant redwoods that are being cut down and also because they themselves are being poisoned by the spray used to make logging possible. This second issue is dwelt on more in the book because it is a double-edged sword. The community begins to realize that the spray that they were told is harmless to all but the thick weeds and brush that it kills is actually causing cancer, birth defects, and miscarriages. Unfortunately, they also see the poison as essential to their way of life and work as loggers. The community is at dangerous odds over whether or not to believe in the evidence that is right before their eyes.

To explore the environmental issues and the collapse of a way of life, Ash Davidson creates a cast of deeply-drawn characters. Families and friends who have been drawn together for generations in their small community react to each other and the issues at hand in wildly different ways, but all in believable ways. Rich is a 4th generation logger married to Colleen. They are struggling after Colleen has had 8 miscarriages and only one successful birth - their son Chub. Her gradual belief that their water is poisoning them creates danger for their family and a rift in their community.

I think this is an impressive debut novel. At the beginning, I was put off a bit by the harsh way of life and ultra-male logging community, but the book expands as it goes to include other points of view. The characters are so memorable, and I found myself not wanting to put the book down. It's the kind of book where you long for a happy ending and can't be sure til the very end if you'll get it (I won't spoil whether or not you do).

I don't think this book is perfectly executed, but overall I really loved it and definitely recommend it.
Another author that I'll now be following!

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 442 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: BOTM
Why I read this: BOTM off the shelf

>315 japaul22:
This one has caught my attention. I live in British Columbia where logging has been very important to our economy, and I've worked with foresters in the past. I'm definitely going to look out for this one.

I'll leave you with the Lumberjack song from Monty Python. Back in the 70s, when I was in elementary school, I think this is the first time I saw my home province of British Columbia represented in any media and that's all I cared about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRdur8GLBM Entirely inappropriate in 2021 (no need to click on the YouTube link). What was it with Monty Python dressing up as women?

>315 japaul22: & >316 Nickelini: Yes, I've been curious about this book, too. I live in Mendocino County, CA. I'm a bit south of Del Norte County, where I believe this novel takes place, but Mendocino County has substantial redwood forests, still has a logging industry (though nowhere like it was decades back) and was right in the middle of the anti-logging protests that helped change the way logging took place. I know quite a lot of folks who still make their living "in the woods" (the local euphemism for logging, for some reason) or whose family has done so for several generations.

I've been hoping the book would be nuanced, rather than one-dimensional or emotionally manipulative. Your positive review is certainly a good sign. I'll also be interested to see how folks who lived through the era react.

>317 rocketjk: I've been hoping the book would be nuanced, rather than one-dimensional or emotionally manipulative. Your positive review is certainly a good sign. I'll also be interested to see how folks who lived through the era react.

Yes, good point!

I forgot about redwood logging -- I remember our 1970s Sears Catalogue being full of redwood items for your yard. Picnic tables, trellises, decks. There just aren't enough California redwoods to provide the world with endless redwood picnic tables.

>316 Nickelini: Yes! Love that Monty Python skit.

>317 rocketjk: >318 Nickelini: The book does take place in Del Norte County. I'll be so interested to hear your take on the book if you get to it. I felt just a little bit like the author sets up a big story about the poison and then partially abandons it, but on the other end, I think she made the wise decision to focus more on the great characters she had developed and less on seeing the story of poisoning the community and environment with herbicides to the end. I think it made for a more compelling book. But I'd love more people here to read it to see if they feel the same way.

The hardest part about the book for me was that Davidson doesn't baby the reader by explaining logging terms. She really throws you right in, using jargon that I'd never heard. I felt like I needed a diagram to understand what she was describing as the loggers did their work. But again, her strongly developed characters made me able to keep going even through some of the parts I didn't fully understand.

I think this will be one of the more memorable new releases I read this year.

>315 japaul22: I've seen that book popping up on a lot of lists lately. Glad to have your review to give all the buzz a little grounding, thanks. I'll definitely take a look if it comes my way.

#57 The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen

The Unseen takes place on a tiny island off the coast of Norway in the early 20th century, where the Barroy family lives and works. It is just the 5 of them: grandfather Martin, father Hans, mother Maria, their daughter Ingrid, and Barbro, Hans' sister. They have occasional contact with the small town on the mainland and Hans goes off to fish every winter. But Hans builds a quay on their island, which opens them up a bit more to interaction. And as Ingrid grows older, a wider life begins to intrude on the island and their world expands.

This book is very Scandinavian in tone. If you've read much Scandinavian lit, you'll know what I mean - spare sentences, hard work, little fun, weather that dictates life, interior, little dialogue. I love it. The characters end up being rich, though as a reader you discover them differently than you're used to in American and British books. I love the setting and learning the small details of life in this sort of location. And there is plenty of drama - it's just not presented dramatically.

This is the start of a trilogy that follows Ingrid, and I will definitely continue it.

Original publication date: 2017
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle
Why I read this: review caught my eye

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is a DNF for me. I had put myself on the library waitlist after several readers that I work with recommended it highly, but after about 50 pages, it is just not for me. I thought the humor was silly and the translation made me feel like I'm reading subtitles. I know a lot of people loved this, but too many other things I also want to read.

Also gave a 30 second try to Beach Read by Emily Henry, also after a "real life friend" recommendation. I couldn't get past the the dedication "you are so perfectly my favorite person". I knew immediately this writer was not going to be for me.

>322 japaul22: That dedication would send me screaming away too, though the title probably would have kept me away as it is. I was going to say I own one Backman novel but looked it up and realized it's not by him at all—it's Norwegian By Night, by Derek B. Miller. My mind was totally tricked by the cover type, those single-stroke hand-drawn skinny capital letters, that are used on all the Backman books. It's funny to have such a visual memory even for ebook covers, which I never see once I'm reading, but which are as present in my ereader (and brain) as they would be on a bookshelf, just not as readily accessible as I'm walking around the house.

>322 japaul22: I never figured out what people see in Backman. Everyone around me adores him, I find him boring and never finished a book. Oh well, we all are different. :)

#58 Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon

My last unread Persephone from my shelves (I'll have to restart my subscription!) and this one is a bit of a departure for their catalog. It was published originally in the 1980s and is about a woman whose 6 year old son is abducted on his way to school. The book follows her journey through the trauma and her changing relationships. It also, of course, focuses on the investigation.

This book is a page turner and I thought the way the mother was characterized was believable. It isn't a stand-out book for me, though, and felt a bit dated somehow. All in all a good way to pass the time, but not something I think everyone needs to run out to read.

Original publication date: 1981
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 374 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased from Persephone
Why I read this: off the shelf

#59 Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg

Feast Your Eyes is a novel that explores the life a fictional photographer, Lillian Preston. She strikes out on her own in the 1950s to try to make it as an artist. The book is told through catalog notes for a retrospective of her work. By naming each photograph, describing it, and telling what was happening in Lillian's life at the time, her daughter Samantha describes a life of a woman who pursued her art through many setbacks. The most dramatic moment and the event that made Preston infamous was when a gallery displays a series of photos centered around Lillian's young daughter Samantha, in which Samantha is partially nude. The most infamous of these is a picture of Samantha looking at her mother as she bleeds on a bed after an abortion.

The book explores what it was like to be a woman artist in a time when women were expected to take on the traditional role of mother and wife. While Lillian is untraditional, she's not necessarily trying to be, nor is she trying to change the world. She single-mindedly loves her art and chooses it almost every time over other people in her life and over money, food, comforts. She isn't callous, just focused and a bit blind to the effects on others. Of course, most of this wouldn't have been an issue if she wasn't facing the obstacles that being a woman artist came with in the 1950s.

The form of the book was interesting and I became very invested in the characters. I would highly recommend this book and I think it will be one of the more memorable that I read this year.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 326 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: LT rec

#60 The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone is the story of a broken family trying to find peace in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1970s. Ernt, the father/husband, came back from Vietnam broken and mentally unstable from his experience as a POW. His wife, Cora, can't forget the man she knew before the war and stays with him through an abusive relationship. Their daughter, Leni, is growing up with only this as her example of a loving relationship. Leni, who arrives in Alaska as an 9 year old, becomes the focus of the story as she grows into a young woman who can survive the Alaskan wilderness. They live in a cabin with no electricity or plumbing and have to learn quickly how to survive the brutal Alaskan winters. The eclectic community around them accepts them and helps and teaches them. Leni falls in love with a local boy, Matthew. Of course, Matthew's father is hated by her own father. Nothing is ever easy in this book, to say the least.

Kristin Hannah seems to be a wildly popular author these days, and I can see why. This was the first book of hers that I've read and it's a page turner. It is plot driven, with characters you root for, and is somehow both comfortingly predictable and suspenseful at the same time. That being said, I think one of her novels was probably enough for me. Hannah's writing was too "movie-ish" for me. Lots of sweeping scenes and characters that you could visualize easily, but never quite seemed real or complex enough for me. It was a nice diversion and I would keep her other books in mind if a topic really intrigues me, but most likely I'm done.

Original publication date: 2018
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 576 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: friend rec

>325 japaul22: I'm pretty sure I read that one, but a long time ago. It does seem like a departure for Persephone.

>326 japaul22: Loved Feast Your Eyes. I went to a book signing for this one and Goldberg talked about how she was raising her children while writing it so that conflict between art and motherhood was very real for her.

>327 japaul22: I was bored with this one. Every single thing about it was pedestrian and predictable.

>328 RidgewayGirl: I think I probably made a note about Feast Your Eyes after seeing your review! Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

>327 japaul22: Have you read any other Kristin Hannah books? Trying to decide if this was a fair example of her work or just not her best.

>329 japaul22: No, that was my one try. People tell me that The Nightingale is her best book, but I'm just going to take their word for it. I gave the author over 400 pages to win me over and there are far too many other authors to try.

>330 RidgewayGirl: I read The Nightingale for my RL book club. To me it was exactly as you describe The Great Alone--felt like a movie script, and I couldn't finish it. This one was about WWII France. Anthony Doerr's All the Light You Cannot See was a vastly superior book about the same time and place.

>330 RidgewayGirl: The Nightingale isn't one I'll ever read because I read way too many books set during WWII a few years back and just can't revisit that time period for a while!

>331 kac522: Interesting that you had the same reaction to another of her books. I think I'll be fine keeping The Great Alone the one novel of hers that I read. It really wasn't bad - I enjoyed my time reading it - but it wasn't enough to my taste to spend a lot of time on her other work.

#61 The Land Breakers by John Ehle

The Land Breakers is a work of historical fiction following the lives of a group of American settlers in the late 1700s who attempt to create a life in the mountains of North Carolina. The first there are Mooney and Imy, who claim a remote piece of land. That same year two other families show up. The book follows this small community as they try to tame the land and create a space for human life in the wilderness. Whether or not they'll be able to come together as a community is constantly in doubt throughout the book.

I really liked this. It reminded me of some of the Scandinavian fiction I've read, like Growth of the Soil or Independent People. The people don't have a lot of time for talk - they are busy trying to survive. And the main interaction is between the individual and the wilderness. However, within that, the characters grow and you get to know them through their actions and fortitude (or lack thereof!).

One of my favorites so far this year.

Original publication date: 1964
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 344 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased nyrb edition
Why I read this: nyrb off the shelf

>333 japaul22: Nice review, Jennifer. Every time I read a book like this, it makes me think about the bravery of the people who settled the remote areas of our vast country. I really can’t imagine.

>333 japaul22:, >334 NanaCC: Sounds like a BB to me. I just finished The Pioneers by David McCullough, about the settling of the Ohio Territory. I always enjoy McCullough's portrayal of character in these historical books.

I know we're living in unusual and stressful times, but reading books about the struggles of these settlers makes you realize that we are still relatively fortunate for the advances in science, technology and the human condition in the past couple of centuries, which perhaps we don't appreciate enough.

>334 NanaCC: it's really remarkable to think about, especially since we were in the region last April so I've seen how dense and formidable it really is. Certainly was ill-judged to consider farming that sort of terrain, but it's an interesting look at the sometimes misguided, but adventurous, human spirit!

>335 kac522: Yep, it's a quiet book but really dramatic at the same time. Both slow-paced and a page turner for me. I'm sure it won't work for everyone, but I was glad to find it. And it was nice to read something that had absolutely nothing to do with current events.

>333 japaul22: I loved that book. I have looked for others in the series (apparently there are 7 Appalachian novels) but they all seem to be out of print. Maybe NYRB will pick those ones up too.

>337 SassyLassy: I saw that this was part of a series and am also sad that they aren't in print any more!

#62 Regeneration by Pat Barker

I've been looking forward to reading this for quite a while, but unfortunately I didn't connect to this WWI novel that explores the experience of several "shell-shocked" young men and their psychologist. The action all takes place away from the fighting, mainly in a home for men who are suffering from various degrees of mental debilitation as a result of their experiences at the front. The focus, and likely the inspiration for the book, is the experience of Seigfried Sassoon, a man known for his poetry about WWI and for speaking out against the massive loss of life which he began to believe was for no good reason. For this, he ends up briefly in a mental institution.

I'm not sure why I didn't connect to this. It has all the makings of a great book and is considered to be one by many. It has interesting characters and an important theme. However, I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it was just the wrong book for my current reading mood. Having read Testament of Youth, the WWI memoir of Vera Brittain, earlier in the year and absolutely loving it, I thought this would be a good complement.

Original publication date: 1991
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 256 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: 1001 books

>339 japaul22: I'm sorry Regeneration didn't work for you, Jennifer. Testament of Youth is a hard act to follow, although I enjoyed the first third of that book the most, much as I enjoyed the first of the Regeneration trilogy the most.

>340 labfs39: I also thought the first section, actually more like the first 2/3 for me, of Testament of Youth was the strongest part, but I did love the book as a whole. I don't think I'll go on with the next two books of Pat Barker's series. Too many other books I want to read! I'm glad I gave it a shot though. She's a great writer and I loved her book The Silence of the Girls.

>341 japaul22: Probably a good idea to pass on the rest of the trilogy if you didn't like the first. I thought Regeneration was by far the best, but it was the last, Ghost Road, that won the Booker. I felt like the judges were waiting for the end to recognize the whole series.

#63 The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
This was fun and just what I needed. A suspenseful page turner about a relationship between a psychoanalyst and his female patient who murdered her husband and refused to speak afterwards. Years later she is in a group home and still hasn't spoken. The psychoanalyst and narrator tries to uncover her story, connect with her, and discover what is true and false about the generally believed events.

This was a book I loved to be annoyed with. Another male narrator saving and speaking for the silent woman who should have been the main character. But, after all, I think that in this sort of genre I've found that I like to be a little annoyed and skeptical. As long as I'm turning pages, wanting to pick up the book, and at least a little bit surprised at some point along the way, I think I've gotten what I signed up for. In those ways, this book delivered and I'm glad I read it.

I can't read this sort of book all the time, but once in a while it's just fun to have a diversion.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: Greek/British? Not sure what he would consider himself
Original language: English
Length: 328 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: BOTM add on
Why I read this: for fun, and it was

I'm also sorry that you didn't enjoy Regeneration, Jennifer. I bought my copy of it years ago and haven't read it yet; maybe I'll keep it towards the bottom of my TBR pile for now.

#64 Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

Oh, this book. Filled with important data pointing out the myriad ways that women have been neglected in building society around the world. And so depressing that it took me forever to read it.

Criado Perez is thorough. She explores not just the commonly known areas where women have been historically unplanned for, like medicine and the workplace, but also transportation, public toilets, the internet, refugee camps, and the list goes on and on. She ends with summing up her work into three themes that "define women's relationship with the world". One is the invisibility of the female body - neglecting to take into account the female body in medicine, technology, and architecture - and how it has led to injury, death, and a world where we just don't fit. Two is, ironically, the hyper-visibility of the female body. Male sexual violence against women and how we don't measure it and don't design spaces to account for it or limit it. And third, the unaccounted and unpaid care work of which women do more than their fair share. In our current world, "human" equals "male".

Her main solution to all of this is getting women in the position to be involved in decisions. To me, this seems undoubtedly correct, though I think part of that equation has to be getting men involved evenly in the unpaid care work at the same time. (Please, to all my male friends who are already there and doing their fair share, I see it and acknowledge it - my husband included!) I do love her last line:

"And so, to return to Freud's 'riddle of femininity', it turns out that the answer was staring us in the face all along. All 'people' needed to do was to ask women."

This is a book everyone should read, but fair warning that it isn't comfortable or easy reading.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 436 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: interested in the topic

>345 japaul22: Great review. I've read about this book in several places over the past couple of years. My (male) partner in work is a scientist and extremely pro feminism, and he's told me lots of stuff over the years about medicine and science and how little is actually tested on women (actually, how little is tested on people beyond white males).

We were due to move into a new serviced office with work last year and I found out after signing the lease that it only has individual unisex toilet cubicles. I imagine most women in CR share my horror of unisex individual cubicles, especially during your period. Never moving into that office and never having to actually use the toilets because of COVID was one silver lining of this dreadful pandemic.

>346 AlisonY: (actually, how little is tested on people beyond white males)
Thanks for adding this comment - it reminded me that I meant to mention it in my review. The author doesn't make a big deal about this, which could be problematic for some readers, but she is often talking about white males, not minorities. Or maybe I shouldn't say necessarily white, but the dominant male ethnicity in the culture in question. She does get into a few circumstances in countries around the world, so it isn't always white males making decisions, but for the bulk of the book it is true. I also subsequently read some reviews pointing out unfavorably that she makes no mention of transgender people in her book. And some reviews think she leaves out or marginalizes women who aren't mothers. I think those people probably only read the first section.

I suppose no book can be all things to all people, but I think overall she writes a book that is thorough and important.

And, yeah, unisex toilet cubicles is definitely a male idea of a design improvement, and makes no concession for privacy or safety.

>346 AlisonY:, >347 japaul22: unisex toilet cubicles is definitely a male idea of a design improvement

I imagine it also a relief for transgender people that would no longer need to fight battles to use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.

>348 ELiz_M: I’m a fan of single room bathrooms for this situation, and I think Alison was referring to a bathroom that is one large room with side by side cubicles that are essentially all in the same room. I don’t think that’s safe or private for women or transgender men or women. Or really comfortable for anyone! I’m also personally totally comfortable with transgender people using whichever bathroom they prefer.

Great review of what seems like an essential book, Jennifer. I've added Invisible Women to my wish list.

I think that clinical trials of pharmaceutical agents and medical and surgical treatments that include an appropriate percentage of women (and certain minority groups) are significantly better than they were two or three decades ago, but it seems that this continues to be viewed as more of an afterthought by far too many researchers, especially those in which women are not one of the primary investigators or are intimately involved in designing these trials.

What an interesting book although like you I think it might take me forever to read it. Enjoying the discussion here though.

>349 japaul22: Well, if you're picturing typical US stalls with a floating door, I can understand the discomfort. I was thinking of cubicles as having floor-to-ceiling walls and doors. But I must admit (to hit the horse a few more times) that I was mostly borrowing ideas from this podcast:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/where-do-we-go-from-here/

>345 japaul22: Great comments, Jennifer. When I wrote patient education materials for Mayo Clinic, I worked with a woman cardiologist to write some heart brochures focused on women. The inequity in medical research has been around for a while.

>350 kidzdoc: Glad you added it to the list, Darryl. I believe I remember that federally funded medical studies in the US now need a representative sampling, including women and minorities, but anything privately funded does not. And unfortunately, even studies from the past that have included women haven't always had disaggregated data, so it doesn't mean much.

>351 lauralkeet: It is a lot of statistics, so it did get a bit boring and feel repetitive at times, but in the end I learned a lot.

>352 ELiz_M: I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, but I will try to make time for this. Sounds very interesting!

>353 BLBera: Yes, that's part of the problem, isn't it? Medicine builds on decades of study and since women and minorities have been consistently unstudied there's just so much to make up.

>349 japaul22:, >352 ELiz_M: The Museum of Oakland has that - unisex bathroom with I think three "cubicles", each one with a solid door and floor-to-ceiling walls. As far as I recall I've never seen a man in there when I was using it, but I wouldn't have a problem with it.

>346 AlisonY: I'm puzzled why individual toilets would be a problem during ones period. Was this a big toilet room with standard open-wall cubicles for the toilets? That's weird for a lot of reasons. But I don't see why it would be particularly a problem for menstruation.

Just wanted to hop in once more and say that in this particular book, a lot of the public toilet discussion centers around the situation in India and also at refugee camps around the world. So, sort of a different level of problem. In India there are not only few indoor toilets in individual homes, they are virtually nonexistent for women in public places. Women aren't safe to walk by themselves to the central toilets in their settlements - the routes are a place where assaults often take place. So in this case, the author is pointing out an essential human need that is not being fulfilled for women even at the most basic level.

>348 ELiz_M:, >349 japaul22:, >355 jjmcgaffey: On my toilet point (and yes, I'm referring to individual cubicles within a single bathroom), I don't feel particularly safe in certain circumstances in these shared bathrooms, but in terms of during your period I just generally find them ickier - a lot more pee on the floor, etc. which when you're spending a bit of extra time in their during that time of the month isn't very pleasant.

Now at the risk of derailing Jennifer's thread off on one of my random ramblings, now someone has mentioned those US floating doors - what is with that? Those doors can be so short they really don't feel private for whatever anyone's doing behind them.

>357 AlisonY: I think almost all of our bathrooms have floating doors - all of the public toilets I use regularly do. And, yes, I'd prefer doors and dividers that go all the way to the floor, but they are definitely not the norm.

#65 Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

I was in just the right mood for this fanciful, slightly disturbing novel. It's hard to describe, but the gist is that Mr. Fox is a writer and his muse, Mary Foxe, comes to life (I guess?), inserting herself into his real marriage with Daphne Fox. The chapters that address the situation in the Fox household are interspersed with Mr. Fox's stories, which also tend to illuminate something that is going on in his real life.

I really enjoyed this, but I can see that it won't be for everyone. Actually, I don't think it would have been for me if I'd been in a different mood either, but I loved it.

Original publication date: 2011
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 324 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased in a used/independent bookstore in Roanoke, VA
Why I read this: cover caught my eye and I was in the mood for something different

>358 japaul22: I'm guessing the floating stalls are a security/safety thing.

>360 lisapeet: You're probably right . . . I always think that they are easier to keep clean. They can wash the floor all at once. My mind goes to cleanliness before safety I guess.

In North America, if you're wanting a full private cubicle, go to a quality hotel, like the Four Seasons. Just walk in like you belong there.

"Just walk in like you belong there."

Or as my father used to say, "Act like you know what you're doing."

>362 rocketjk: absolutely! Sometimes I say that instead

>358 japaul22: My first experience of the American style toilet cubicles was in Bermuda, where I worked for 5 months at one stage. I remember initially thinking that it was just a weird aberration of the office design where I was working, and cutting down my fluid intake so I did not have to use them as often, as I did not feel comfortable in them at all!

>364 SandDune: "My first experience of the American style toilet cubicles was in Bermuda."

I think we need a "Great inadvertent first lines for short stories" thread. :)

>365 rocketjk: LOL, yes!

We went to a garden center yesterday and, to my astonishment, the restroom had full door-closing toilet cubicles. I was immediately reminded of this thread. I would have been surprised under any circumstances, but even more so because of this thread. At a garden center of all places. Who knew?

Note to Jennifer: this was at Merrifields in Gainesville, VA

>365 rocketjk: This made me laugh out loud!

>367 lauralkeet: Like Joyce mentioned, I've only seen the full wall/door cubicles at really nice hotels.
And I've only been to Merrifield Gardens once but it's lovely! A little out of the way for me though. If I go again I'll be sure to check out the bathrooms.

>368 japaul22: it's out of the way for us, too, Jennifer but their selection is amazing. They have locations in Fairfax and Falls Church, too, but those are even further.

>369 lauralkeet: Oh, right, actually I think it's the Fairfax location I've been too. We just have closer good options so it still feels far!

#66 The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

The Seed Keeper is a beautiful novel that follows the life of a young woman of Dakhóta Native American descent, Rosalie Iron Wing, who is put into foster care after her parents die. Her journey to discovering her past and the past of her people is at the heart of the novel. Entwined with this, as in most of the Indigenous writing that I've read, is a respect and knowledge of the earth that we have unfortunately all but lost. Rosalie's memories of her father are predominantly of the Indigenous knowledge that he passed to her. As an adult, she learns more and more about gardening and farming and how to take only what you need from the earth. This relationship is complicated by her marriage to a white farmer, who she loves, but whose world view is very different from hers.

The book is framed with Rosalie's present day experiences and a flashback to her high school years leading up to middle age. There is also a voice of her great, great grandmother who tells the story of a battle between the Dakhótas and the white settlers. Her family story continues with the stealing of the children to go to a school for Indian children and describes all the ways these traumas have affective their communities. An additional voice of Rosalie's friend Gaby is included. Gaby is also a Dakhóta, but has a contrasting relationship with her heritage to Rosalie.

These competing timelines and voices are the only reason I'll knock a half star off of this book that I absolutely loved. I'm not sure Gaby's first person voice was totally necessary. And I'm not sure the Rosalie's story needed to be told in flashback. I did like the earlier story that was told alongside Rosalie's - that was very effective.

I'm so glad I read Braiding Sweetgrass early in the year because it really paved the way for me to understand more deeply what I've been reading this year from Indigenous authors. The Seed Keeper is a really wonderful book that addresses important history. It is emotional but not overly-sentimental, something that always turns me off. I highly recommend it and thank Beth, BLBera, for the recommendation.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: Dakota, Mdewakanton descendent
Original language: English
Length: 373 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library book for kindle
Why I read this: fit my Indigenous book category

>371 japaul22: Sounds worth reading. Bookshop.org is currently giving 20% on books by indigenous authors for Indigenous Peoples' Day and I picked up Cherie Dimaline's new novel, but now I'm eyeing Braiding Sweetgrass as well.

>372 RidgewayGirl: oh, thank you for letting me know! I will likely buy a few.

>372 RidgewayGirl: - I'm going to check that out too.

>371 japaul22: I'm so glad you liked it, Jennifer.

I just read Braiding Sweetgrass and really liked it. Which reminds me, I should review it already...

>376 lisapeet: Oh good! It was one of those that lost a bit of steam in the middle, but overall was an incredibly meaningful and enlightening book for me. And one that I keep finding connections to in the rest of my reading.

#67 The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

A reread for me, I think the third time I've read this. Every time I find myself noticing something new. This time I was thinking the entire time of what the book would have been from May Welland's point of view. I would love to read a retelling of that - is there one??

For those who haven't read this, Age of Innocence follows Newland Archer, a young man on the cusp of marriage to May Welland and into the stifling, closed off New York society of the 1870s. When worldly, exotic (well, to their small circle) Ellen Olenska returns home to escape a bad marriage, Archer becomes enthralled. This is a love triangle but also a study of what happens when people are caught in a shifting society and whether they'll stick with the old rules or forge a new path.

The book is written from Newland Archer's perspective which wildly annoyed me the first time I've read this. Subsequent readings have made me so impressed with how Wharton manages to make this about the women, particularly about May, without giving them a direct voice.

I love this book and highly recommend it.

Original publication date: 1920
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 168 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: one of my Collector's Library mini hardbacks
Why I read this: reread

One more comment on rereads that I didn't want to include in the above review. I usually try to include 4-5 rereads per year and in 2021 this is the first one I got to. I find rereading very rewarding - I almost always get something new out of a book that I'm willing to reread. I also have a TERRIBLE memory for plot - really! - as in I almost never remember an ending until I've read a book multiple times. I remember themes, characters, and how a book made me feel, but never the plot. So this is sort of a reminder to myself that rereading 4-5 books per year, when I normally get to 75-85 total, is a small and worthwhile percentage of my reading.

I love Edith Wharton so much. It's been a long time since I read anything by her, and yet I do have some unread books on my shelves. And it's been so long since I read The Age of Innocence that I'm sure I would enjoy it again. Hmm ...

I'm pretty suer this is the Wharton on my TBR pile. You're encouraging me to nudge it closer to the top.

>380 lauralkeet: I think I've read most of Wharton's famous works, House of Mirth, Custom of the Country, Ethan Frome, etc. so I feel just fine rereading before going on to others.

>381 AlisonY: Do try it, Alison! Have you ever read anything by Wharton before?

>379 japaul22: I agree that rereads are satisfying and a good idea and that I rarely make room for them. I do keep meaning to though.

>383 RidgewayGirl: Glad I'm not the only one! Every year, I think I'll easily meet my reread goal . . .

>379 japaul22:, >384 japaul22: I've re-read more these last 2 years (pandemic and politic-demic related, I think) than ever before--about 18, with about half of these on audiobook.

Like you, Jennifer, I remember how a book made me feel, but rarely the plot, and I sometimes don't even remember the characters 😧 But it is hugely comforting to go back to old friends and emotions.

Re-reading Wharton (and reading some of her lesser works I haven't read) is on my long-range to-do list. I read 2 novella length works of hers in the past 2 years: The Touchstone and Fighting France, the latter is nonfiction about her experience during WWI, and I enjoyed both.

>385 kac522: I was enjoying rereads on audio for a while, but I haven’t listened to an audiobook in ages.

I haven’t read either of your recent Wharton reads, and not sure if even heard of them! I will add them to my list.

>382 japaul22: Only The House of Mirth, Jennifer.

>387 AlisonY: I liked that one too, but I've liked all of Wharton's work that I've read!

#68 All That She Carried: the Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

I'm a sucker for women's history, especially that which is overlooked and undervalued. This book checked all of my boxes. It's a moving account of a common item, a cotton sack, that was kept through several generations of Black women, lost, and then found. It is currently in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The story is that Ashley, a 9 year old slave, was given this sack by her mother, Rosa, when Ashley was sold and the two were separated. The sack was embroidered by Ashley's granddaughter, Ruth, in the 1920s as follows:

My great grandmother Rose
mother of Ashley gave her the sack when
she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina
it had a tattered dress 3 handfulls of
pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her

It be filled with my Love always
she never saw her again
Ashley is my grandmother

Ruth Middleton
1920

In this book, Miles tries to uncover who these women were and their life story. Little is known or there to be discovered, as is not surprising, but she also explores each object include in the sack and why it might have been. She spends time delving into common life experiences of women who lived during the times mentioned. She also explores life for the unfree living in South Carolina.

This book pays homage to authors like Laurel Thatcher Ulrich whose work in The Age of Homespun takes a detailed look at women's lives through objects and craft, and to Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass for exploring the Indigenous and Black American connection to each other and land. These are two books I loved and was happy to make a further connection to.

This is a fascinating book and I highly recommend. I'm taking one half star off because there were a few places that I felt the book was just a bit over-written and padded to make up for the lack of information available, but it is a tiny complaint and wasn't an over-arching problem.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 377 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: read a review probably in the Washington Post and it attracted my attention immediately. I think it's currently a National Book Award Finalist for non fiction

>389 japaul22: This sounds amazing, Jennifer. Onto my list it goes.

Catching up from ways back. I like your theme here, or not a theme, but a kind of trend of looking into “invisible” women. This last review the “overlooked and undervalued” women in history is clearly on that theme. I’m really happy you read and enjoyed Song of the Lark, and I appreciate your comments on Age of Innocence. In about two weeks i’ll state House of Mirth and I’m really looking forward to it.

Great review of All That She Carried, Jennifer. I'll add this to my wish list.

>390 BLBera: I'm practically positive you'll enjoy it, Beth!

>391 dchaikin: I've been enjoying your Wharton reading, Dan. I have mainly read her more famous novels, so it's been interesting to hear about some of her lesser known work. I loved House of Mirth as well.

>392 kidzdoc: It's a wonderful book, Darryl, I hope you get to it at some point.

#69 Behind the Scenes Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

My previous book led me to pick up Behind the Scenes, a memoir written by Elizabeth Keckley in 1868 about her life of enslavement, how she bought her freedom, and how she made a life for herself subsequently.

Keckley was born a slave in Virginia in 1818. The first part of her memoir details her life a slave - the splitting up of her family, the abuse she faced, included rape that led to a pregnancy, and how she strove to keep her dignity. She eventually was able to purchase her freedom through her skill as a seamstress, learned through being forced to keep her owner's family of 17 clothed. While she was in St. Louis with this family, she was able to earn $1500 with her seamstress skills to purchase her freedom and that of her son's. She moved to Washington, D.C. and began a seamstress business, sewing dresses for the most well-known women of the day, such as Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis who was soon to be President of the Confederacy. After the Lincolns came to the White House, she became Mary Lincoln's modiste and confidant. The two developed a close relationship - a friendship from Keckley's account. The middle of the book details her exclusive access to the Lincoln family. After Lincoln's assassination, she helps Mary Todd Lincoln sell some of her dresses to make money and the book becomes a bit of an exposé that Mary Lincoln apparently never forgave her for. She includes full letters written to her from Mary Lincoln. Unfortunately, this book seems to have hurt Keckley's reputation and she never financially recovered.

My feelings on this book are mixed. It's beautifully written and I want to know more. I want to know where she learned to read and write, how she managed to become so skilled as to be the best dress designer in Washington on her own, and more about the struggles and triumphs she faced personally. Unfortunately, a lot of the book is overshadowed by the Lincoln family, and especially by Mary Todd Lincoln's financial and emotional troubles after her husband's death.

I'm glad I read this because it's an important first person account of a woman's journey through and out of slavery and to personal success. But I think it's also good to know before you read it that Keckley's own intention in writing this was not just to tell her story, but also to give another view of the Lincolns. She does it well, but at 150 years removed, I personally wanted more of HER story - I can read about the Lincolns plenty of other places.

Original publication date: 1868
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 156 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: previous book led me to it

>394 japaul22: interesting find.

Nice review of Behind the Scenes, Jennifer. I just downloaded the free version of it from Project Gutenberg.

>396 kidzdoc: Thanks for the tip that Behind the Scenes is available on Project Gutenberg.

#70 Night Waking by Sarah Moss

I'm a little embarrassed, but I'm going to differ with the bulk of LT and say I didn't particularly enjoy this novel by Sarah Moss. It's written very well and has an interested double plot line, but the modern-day characters really grated on me.

The plot centers around a family that goes to stay on their family island off the coast of Scotland where Giles, the husband, is researching puffins and Anna, the wife, is writing a book. They have two young children and Anna is overwhelmed with trying to balance her work life with her life as a mother. This is familiar to me as a working mom, and I'm sympathetic, but Anna drives me nuts. She's not getting any sleep, but she's also not insisting on any help from her husband. She's not breastfeeding an infant (something admittedly hard to pass off on dad), the kids waking her up are 7 and probably 2. Just wake up your husband and make him take a turn already! I just could not stop thinking about Invisible Women, the nonfiction book I recently read that talks a lot about the unpaid care work that women are expected to do. Anyway, Anna starts demanding more equal distribution of work at home by the end, but the beginning was so maddening that Sarah Moss kind of lost me.

Back to the plot . . . the family discovers the bones of baby while planting some trees and the mystery of this baby leads to discoveries about the island's history and Giles's ancestors. I liked all of this and thought it came together nicely, but it just wasn't enough to make up for my annoyance at the beginning.

Original publication date: 2011
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 375 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased used paperback
Why I read this: LT reviews

>398 japaul22: Ah well, sorry this didn't work as well for you as for others. But that happens sometimes ...

A long book not to enjoy. I admit I’m kind of intrigued by your review…and I’m glad i read it.

>399 lauralkeet:, >400 dchaikin: I also bought her book, Bodies of Light, so I'll try that at some point. I really think that being incredibly annoyed with Anna, the main character, was what I couldn't get past. I'm ok with an unlikeable character, but I don't think Anna was created to be unlikeable. I felt like we were supposed to empathize with her and be rooting for her and I was just so annoyed instead! But, the writing was good and I liked her book, Ghost Wall, so I'll give her another try in the near future.

#71 Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

Unreliable narrator nanny, haunted house, poison garden, creepy kids, and a mysterious death.

Sometimes it's fun to read something that comes with no expectations. I just enjoyed the ride.

Original publication date: 2019
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 376 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library
Why I read this: for fun

>402 japaul22: I thought that was fun too

#72 Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert

Kolbert is an excellent writer about environmental issues. As Kolbert states in her summary, "this has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems." The essays explore the situation with Asian carp in the Mississippi (something I read about in more detail in Life and Death of the Great Lakes), the efforts to stop New Orleans from sinking, the pupfish of Devil's Hole, cane toads and genetic engineering, and efforts to trap CO2 and stop or slow global warming, among others.

This book is readable, if worrying, and a good survey of different attempts being made currently to control/help/restore/fix the environmental mess we've made. It fit very well with my reading this year and gives a mention to the subject of my next book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. It is not as good as Kolbert's previous book, The Sixth Extinction, which I remember as being much more in depth and scholarly. This is closer to essays or nature writing - still good, but not as thorough as I prefer.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 204 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle
Why I read this: interested in the topic, like the author

Nice comments about Night Waking, Jennifer. I haven't read her earlier novels yet, and your comments make me think that I should hold off reading it.

Bodies of Light is the first novel I read by Sarah Moss, and it remains one of my favorites, along with The Tidal Zone.

BTW her new novel, The Fell, will be published on November 11th in the UK, but not until March 1st in the US. I just pre-ordered a copy of it from The Book Depository.

>405 kidzdoc: Oh, I was worried that it wasn't a stellar review because I know you love her books! But, like I said, this book won't stop me from reading more - I think I just couldn't take the one character. The writing was still really good. Looking forward to Bodies of Light, which I'm sure to read at some point during 2022.
Thanks for the tip on The Fell - I hadn't heard about it yet.

Getting close on those 5-11 vaccines!!!!

>406 japaul22: No problem, Jennifer, even if you panned a book that I loved! Rachael (FlossieT) and I did not disown our mutual friend Fliss (flissp) after she thought poorly of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, or, IIRC, The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss.

I don't own and haven't read Night Waking by Sarah Moss yet. Out of curiosity, is it possible that Moss crafted that character in a way to induce an intensely negative reaction toward her by the reader? I'm giving Moss the benefit of the doubt, perhaps unfairly in this case, as I find her to be one of the most intelligent and insightful novelists of our time. (I'm going to have to read this book, I think.)

I hope to get to The Fell before year's end.

>406 japaul22: Getting close on those 5-11 vaccines!!!!

Right! The next meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled for November 2-3, and hopefully the committee will discuss the efficacy and safety of the two mRNA vaccines for younger children, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, and grant emergency use authorization for both. Fortunately cases of pediatric COVID-19 have plummeted in metro Atlanta in the past few weeks, and hopefully the same thing is happening where you are.

Great news: the FDA advisory panel approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 5-11 year olds a little while ago.

NYT: F.D.A. panel votes to recommend the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those 5 to 11

>409 kidzdoc: This is great! I read part of a blog (will get to the rest later tonight) that was reporting on the panel's discussion and was impressed with the thoroughness of the discussion.

Our county has been very strict with masking, quarantines, social distancing, and vaccine requirements for high school athletes so, anecdotally, we haven't had a lot of childhood cases that I'm aware of. I still feel it's important to vaccinate so we can more safely be around elderly relatives and to protect our community. And of course to provide protection for the kids themselves. I'm glad the FDA panel found that the benefits outweigh the risks.

>407 kidzdoc: With regards to Night Waking, it also may be that I'm still traumatized :-) from my first son's first year of life where he NEVER slept. Seriously, in the first 9 weeks of his life he never slept longer than a 90 minute stretch of time, day or night. I went back to work when he was 8 weeks old and that first year was so difficult. Reading about a sleep-deprived mother may have touched a nerve that, 11 years later, I'm still not ready to revisit!

>410 japaul22: Ugh, I hear you, Jennifer. My daughter has never been one for sleeping. She was up every two hours for her first seven months. When she was three, she used to get up in the night and do art projects, then put herself back to bed. I would wake up in the morning to find paintings drying on the table. Was your second son a better sleeper?

>411 labfs39: He was! My second son slept from the day he was born. I don't think we had a single night where he didn't give me at least a 3-4 hour stretch of sleep. And even when he woke up, he'd nurse and fall back to sleep in 20 minutes or so. We were so amazed that first couple of weeks. I was also relieved to know that it wasn't "my fault" that our first didn't sleep. It's just the baby he was! They are all so different.

>412 japaul22: I used to say that even the Geneva Convention allows for four hours of uninterrupted sleep...

>413 labfs39: Yeah. That year was actual torture. I was lucky, though, that once he hit about 14 months he started sleeping all night AND taking a 2-3 hour nap every day that he continued til kindergarten. We always joke that he's still making up all the sleep he missed his first year even at age 11.

>413 labfs39: : )

>410 japaul22: Do you follow Dr Katelyn Jetelina, a.k.a. Your Local Epidemiologist? She has a superb and detailed post about today's FDA committee announcement, the data that Pfizer submitted to the committee, the approval process, and COVID-19 in children:

Vaccines for 5-11 year olds: FDA meeting cliff notes

Her posts about the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines are at least as good, and probably better, than anything else I've seen.

I still feel it's important to vaccinate so we can more safely be around elderly relatives and to protect our community. And of course to provide protection for the kids themselves.

I completely agree. Colin Powell's death last week is proof of your first point.

Yikes, your son's (lack of) sleeping pattern in his first year of life sounds highly traumatic! I'm glad that your second son was kinder to you.

>413 labfs39: LOL

>398 japaul22: I think I got halfway through that one and just never went back. I still have two of her books left to read (out of six)....but I seem to be in no hurry. I wasn't terribly impressed with her first, Cold Earth either.

Today at noon Dr Lee Savio Beers, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), will host a Facebook Live conversation for parents who have questions about the COVID-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds on the Healthy Children page, which is the AAP's parenting website:

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=healthy%20children

>417 avaland: Glad to know I wasn't the only one - I wondered if I'd missed something!

>418 kidzdoc: Thank you! I will unfortunately not be able to watch because I'll be at work, but I'll see if they record it or if I can find a summary somewhere.

>410 japaul22: Yikes. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was three, but he did manage to stay down for a few hours at a time. We were utterly unprepared as my first born slept through the night reliably by 3 months. She also allowed me to haul her all over Munich's museums in the Baby Bjorn carrier and slept happily through long dinners out, so the adjustment was a shock.

Sorry Night Waking didn't work for you, Jennifer. I didn't find the protagonist annoying; when I am sleep deprived I don't tend to be at my best, so I thought it was a pretty realistic portrayal. But, we can't all like the same books. It is my favorite Moss so far. I'll be interested to see what you think of her other works. And some authors don't resonate with all of us equally. For example, I know many who love Joyce Carol Oates, but I have found it difficult to get through her novels.

>418 kidzdoc: Thanks for alerting us to the AAP live conversation. I only saw your message at 12:20, so I missed the first part, but was able to hear the last 10 minutes. Good info. I wish more people had been logged in, but I think it's going to be available online.

#73 Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

I've read both of Charlotte McConaghy's novels this year and I will read whatever she puts out next immediately. I really love her writing. It's current and emotional and so well-paced.

This novel, as her last, focuses on the environmental catastrophes we've created. Inti is leading a team of scientists reintroducing wolves to Scotland in an effort to rewild the land. Introducing the predators will recreate the balance missing. Of course, most of the locals, and definitely the farmers, are not happy to have her there or the wolves back. As the story of the wolves unfolds, Inti's story, and that of her twin sister Aggie, is revealed. They had an odd childhood, moving between a father living in the woods of the Northwest and dealing with mental illness, and a mother living in Australia who is a detective specializing in domestic abuse. And then Aggie marries an abusive man. Her trauma and how it has affected Inti explains some of the current events and Inti's reactions. As twins, they have an incredibly close relationship, heightened by Inti's rare condition that makes her actually feel the touch that others feel - whether loving or violent.

I'm not doing the book justice in this review. There's something magical about the way McConaghy talks about wolves and meshes the environment with the human story. I love the backdrop of environmental issues. And there's always a bit of mystery behind her characters' actions. I almost took a half star off because there is some fairly graphic violence in the book, the most troubling to me the violence against women, but for me it was an important part of the story and not put in for shock value. But fair warning for those sensitive to that.

Highly, highly recommended.

Original publication date: 2021
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: loved the author's first book

>423 japaul22: Oh good, nudging that one up the pile.

>423 japaul22: I think you did the book justice. It appeals, anyway.

You keep encouraging me to try Charlotte McConaghy. I must remember her name when I'm looking for books to order.

In non-book news, I'm super excited that I was able to get appointments for my kids to get the pediatric covid vaccine next week! It really feels like a turning point to me, to be able to offer them some protection and loosen up some of the restrictions that have been placed on them the past almost two years.

A huge relief. Great news.

>427 japaul22: I can't imagine how difficult it is dealing with young children through all this. What a relief this must be. Hurray!

>427 japaul22: Congratulations, Jennifer! The children of several of my local pediatrician colleagues were vaccinated yesterday, which their mothers posted on their Facebook threads, and I'm sure that even more will get jabs today and tomorrow.