I recently learned that the block of the park closest to my office was designed as Men Only back in the early 1900s.
There is a similar block 2 streets down that was for Women. I am glad we were equal (? At least they are the same size and both have bathrooms) but it really makes me determined to sit at the closer male side whenever I can. It's a good attitude for Nina Simone.
pickI started this the morning before Alice Wong passed, so it took me a bit longer to get through, it was sad and inspiring to hear her mentioned so often throughout LLPS's book. This is hard to rate. It isn't really about the future, it is mostly about 2020-2022 and how GD hard it was. I think this is a good read for people who want to understand the community and life more, but overall it is a bit meandering
My current co-worker
Tis the season. My therapist is out sick, the appointment is already on my work calendar so I am taking a moment away.
Reading about the incomparable Nina Simone
A new Murderbot is coming in May!!
I am actually one behind so I have to get on this series!
#WeeklyForecast
#10BeforeTheEnd this week is Peepshow
#Bookspin The Frozen River
And a couple of small nonfictions one very local about the Oregon cheese industry and one about the amazing Nina Simone
#10BeforeTheEnd
4 weeks in
I am right on track - wishing I was a bit ahead. Going to tackle Peepshow (from the Women's Prize Long list this last year) next.
This is why I follow the Women's Prize each year more than any other.
pickThis is a great look at Ardern's life to this point. Such a compassionate and thoughtful woman. It was interesting to hear how she overcame feelings of inadequacy and how she worked through so many life altering crises. I love QE2's advice to her when she asked about raising kids in the public eye and doing public work "You just get on with it."
I thought this was well written and paced, easy to read and relatable - she is quite funny
"It turns out the end of the world is easier to read about in a book, then to know how to respond in real life "
Calamity says "Men, ?"
Ardern says: Fl"For years, my love life, if you could call it that, had been beset by both minor humiliation and consistent failure [......] Or the lovely journalist who decided to move to Africa - or at least I think he moved to Africa."
Ardern is just as cheeky and relatable in this memoir as I had hoped
pickI enjoyed this. As others have said the writing style is paired down and sparse. I think that reflects both the idea of the Eastern European and the Man. This is a character study and can be taken quite philosophically.
It is also a bit depressing! István goes along to get along and that leads to some really unfortunate situations. I really appreciate how Szalay portrayed mental health in aan we would assume avoids it.
The world has lost a great one.
It is strange how you don't know someone but you might feel a connection. On Thursday I was thinking "I haven't seen posts from Alice Wong in a while" and yesterday I started a book that was heavily influenced by her (The Future Is Disabled) and today I wake up to the news that she passed away.
A sad day for the disabled community, and a sad day for all of us to lose her voice.
pickThis was everything it promised, Gothic, sapphic, a bit twisted and well written.
Lenore is a wonderful heroine. She is unraveling, but you can empathize and pull for her. Her husband is both weak and horrible
It has been a long time since I have read a book with such a satisfying ending.
@dabbe #TTT #TAKETHREETHURSDAY
I am not a big holiday movie person, but child me LOVED A Christmas Story, adult me usually watches Love Actually (shaking my head the whole time at how bad it is) and The Holiday (no way Cameron and Jude made it more than a year!)
pickLow pick, pick w/a caution
This was entirely too long. I think it would be just as impactful and would reach a larger audience if it was half the length.
With that I am impressed with Solomon's research. I also think he is a study on how to slip yourself into a book. When he spoke of his own story it never felt intrusive and always was there to relate to a point.
While the book itself is too dense, his writing at the sentence level is not and 👇
"On my name day it began to rain, so we moved the chairs into the hall to sit it out until the rain stopped. But it never ended; it came streaming down relentlessly, obscuring the horizon. Not in drops, but in stair rods."
I really loved this musing on rain and I am glad I read this in the fall the perfect time to absorb the beauty of her writing.
pickWhile I really enjoyed this I do think it is a bit too long. I really ran out of steam the last 50 pages or something.
Something Tokarczuk does so well is weave stories into one book that make you feel like you are sitting on a porch while neighbors drop by and tell you gossip. You have the story of the villager who walked up the mountain to see his childhood home, the story of a saint - and the monk who wrote her story, the story of the man 👇
It is a GORGEOUS day for a walk with an audiobook
Listening to the tagged
While I have mostly moved to Storygraph (because I hate the man who owns GR - eat the rich) I do love a vote!
Anything anyone is excited to vote for?
#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the mysterious sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior (one of the great lakes) Gordon Lightfoot has a great folk song about the sinking (The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald) and the tagged is on my TBR to read more about this mystery. Here is a short article about the basics:
The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in the Great Lakes 50 years ago: NPR https://share.google/BptHhPyCJOdUV0kDq
#weeklyforecast
Chipping away at Far From The Tree with mixed feelings, should finish this week.
Reading the tagged for a break from that. Hoping to get to Cheese War this week also. The stack behind is hopefuls for next weekend. I grabbed Frozen River on audio so might dive into that while on my walks (if I get walks it is insanely windy here!!)
so-soThis book has extremely high rating on GR. I think because mostly his fans are going to be reading this and predisposed to giving him a 5 also, memoirs are hard to rate. It is hard to not bring your own nostalgia in.
I rate memoirs only on 2 dynamics: sentence structure, and flow. I never go in thinking XYZ is what they should write about. For this I give Grohl's book a 3.5⭐ I enjoyed it. He can write allowing his voice to come through, but👇
"I am reminded of a friend who said that when she found out her husband couldn't fill her needs, she changed her needs." - No examples.
WTF. I am struggling with this book. There is a thread of misogyny in it that is really grating on me. I have noticed that in most cases he is introducing couples telling what the husband does but not the wife. And then the wife becomes a SAHM. SAH moms are great but let's give them more identity.
Booker readers!! I haven't delved into the list (I have Flesh from the library but haven't started it yet)
What book do you wish would win?
What book do you think will win?
I keep reading books from years ago lists...
I finished the chapter on Autism last night. This book was published in 2012 and it reflects the issue I often have with nonfiction, it is out of date when I get to it. Here it is okay, the past is still relevant and I am glad he was firm on vaccines. I have forgotten how brutal severe Autism can be. These days it feels like half the people I know are getting diagnosed and they are all "normal" with a small hyper fixation.
?
#10BeforeTheEnd - 3 Weeks In
I am 3 in, working slowly on Far From The Tree
Silly me I picked a lot of chunky books for this!
pickA once in a generation mind. Coates is always a pick. In this Coates strings together ideas from his travels - the slave trade out of Senegal, current day book banning in S. Carolina, Palestine occupation, and he some how threads them into a coherent telling on oppression
His cadence always blows me away, and how he can take subjects and make them not only lyrical but impactful.
Such important insights here. Should be required reading
pickThis hit the spot!
I absolutely love Jane Austen's Persuasion, so spin offs make me nervous but this was so good! I am a bit annoyed about the Taylor Swift references but I thought this was great. It is a small town romance with lots of quirky characters, but didn't feel like a Hallmark that demonizes working women - in fact Anne is the hardest worker (for obvious reasons)
I thought this was charming, and lived the goose!
The feeling when:
You take your eye off the library hold list for one minute and everything comes rushing in.
Full on Murphy's Law.
pick"I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. But I am here, so I might as well fucking enjoy it, and help my community if I can"
Words to live by!! Miss Major passed away last month. She was an inspiration as she says many times here, not many Black Trans people get to live to be in their 80s, what an amazing life she has had. Not easy, but amazing. I like how she spoke of Trans rights reminding us to be good allies by not assuming ?
"It's like being on a road, it doesn't matter if it's the yellow brick road, or pavement, or gravel. It's still a road and where it takes you is where you're going. And I think the journey is how you use that road- if you stay on it and the path that it's leading you down, or you venture off and do something else and create a path of your own."
I think this might be my last Aardvark box. I joined last year to get a few books that I had wanted to read, and I have honestly done very well, only buying books I had already read and enjoyed or books that were already on my TBR. The last few months I have struggled to find anything I had really wanted to read.
I think that $16 would be better used at the food bank, or going to World Central Kitchen.
#NonfictionNovember is here!
#WeeklyForecast
I am halfway into the tagged would like to finish tomorrow.
I am planning on reading one chapter from Far From The Tree a day, there are 12 chapters but I am looking realistically at a full 2 weeks I understand it is a dense one.
Supplementing with the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates and the inspiring Jacinda Ardern
"I didn't get to eighty years old being sweet and gentle. I'm no flower. Fuck that. I'm a cactus - get over it "
pick4.5⭐
Chef Jose Andres' is an inspiration. This is a short book.(Under 200 pages) About his life, the lessons he has learned and of course about food. It isn't incredibly deep on details but it is filled with quotable inspiration and a fantastic surface look at how he got to where he is and what philosophies keep him moving forward. Highly recommend.
The end of this honors the 7 WCK volunteers who were killed by Israel in Gaza. It is heartbreaking and infuriating that no justice has happened for these amazing people who were just trying to feed people.
This is a small book, a book about Chefs life and an inspirational look at food, but it is incredibly powerful and I am crying listening to Andres delivering the eulogy in DC for these 7. You can listen to this eulogy on Spotify.
Some of the chapters:
You don't need everything to be happy
Seek Out Simple Pleasures
Say yes to help
Commit to what matters
You're a player not a spectacular
You really don't know everything
Act with the fierce urgency of now
Serve something greater than yourself
Time is your most valuable ingredient
Your purpose is finding your purpose
What the perfect book to read after one about how horrible the Facebook people are.
"...listen not just to the policymakers but to the people on the receiving end of those policies. Just because you mean well doesn't mean that you'll do well. Just because you're doing good doesn't mean you are doing smart good."
An incredible inspiration, one who is alive, thriving and willing to pass on knowledge. We as a world need more Jose Andres'
November TBR
I have grabbed a few short nonfiction books from the library to balance out the tag and dive into #NonfictionNovermber
2 weeks in!
2 books down!
#10beforetheend
I am starting the tagged today, but it is a big one and might take me a minute so I am going to try to fit in The Message also this week.
October Reading
5 NF
8 countries (US, England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, India, Spain)
4.5 ⭐
Prophet Song
The Correspondent
4.25 ⭐
Scammer
Love Forms
Lucky Day
4 ⭐
Careless People
All In Her Head
Hole In The Sky
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
3.5 ⭐
The River Has Roots
Middlemarch
Edinburgh Twilight
3 ⭐
The Last Gifts of the Universe
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Boulder
2.5 ⭐
Murderland
September's #BookspinBingo
Bookspin ... oops.... soon!
#DoubleSpin ✔
#BookspinBingo = 3
@Thearomaofbooks
My next up reads are very yellow 💛 and black 🖤
Really excited to get into this Ardern book, Andres is shorter so planning on flying through that this weekend
pickAndrew Jackson is his favorite president?? Having a favorite Roman Emperor at all?? This man. What a douce canoe.
Not much here was shocking to ma, maybe it is my pessimism or maybe I read too much news. I do think it is interesting to hear Sarah's experience, to see her disillusionment unfold, especially from a Kiwi. I thought the writing was good, the pacing worked, and her storytelling was compelling
4/5⭐
One thing I try to do every year is read less than 50% of books from the US. I want to read globally!
So far I am hovering at 45.9% which meets my goal but I feel I can always improve! I could for sure read a wider range of places, England is a big crux for me in this, some day I would like to be under 50% for both US and England.
Countries in black I have read 1-2 books from this year.
With only 9 (NINE!!!) weeks to go until the end of the year I am starting to look at all of the challenges I set out for myself at the beginning of the year.
One challenge I had was picking 25 books I had on my shelves that I wanted to read. Slowly getting there I have 6 to go,
I am struggling if I want to read Trace of Sun or not. The books does not call to me at all, and I might just skip it. The rest I often think about and do want to read.
