Reading challenge 2021

[melk]

13/35 The Push by Ashley Audrain

Blythe is determined not to be the kind of mother that her mother was. But as her daughter grows, Blythe realizes she doesn’t behave as other children and is convinced something is wrong with her. When her second child arrives a tragedy occurs, breaking the family apart, and Blythe questions her own sanity.

This book was pretty dark for me. I only kept reading because it was a quick read, chapters are short. I needed to see if there was resolution, which there was, but still not very satisfying.

 

[Wendy1985]

Babysitters on board
Winter vacation
Island adventure

 

[Wendy1985]

@PollyannaMom

My brain is usually ready to explode at bed time so I am taking it easy for now

 

[mom2febgirls]

9/50 - Murder on Gramercy Park
10/50 - Hollywood Homicide- I thought this was going to be an actual detective mystery :/ it was too silly for me and the main character had no idea what she was doing. The narrator was good, though.

 

[bobbiwoz]

16/50 The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

From the cover
This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men and children -the violent and capricious separation of families- and the war they raged simply to make lives with the people they love.

 

[OKW8297]

16. A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy. A great book. Like wrapping up in a warm blanket.

 

[mini22]

14/30 Texas Forever by Janet Dailey

 

[Tiggerish]

War Girl Lottie by Marion Kummerow. WWII fiction. This is part of a series and was a free download. I found it unrealistic and overly simple.

The Lady of the Island by E. DeViere. Kate is burnt out caring for her older husband who is comatose after a series of strokes. Her three sons are grown. Two have moved far away and the other has married a woman who is set on keeping her out their lives and away from their children. She takes a rest break at a magical island resort and then returns there when her husband dies. She and the resort owner fall in love but he is killed in a tragic accident. She then gets in with a research project on a small, tropical island that is being preserved from commercial development. Instead of leaving with the project is over, Kate becomes a fulltime resident of the island and works tirelessly to preserve its untouched nature while improving the lives of the native residents. At the end of a long life, she dies in a tsunami but only after getting all the other residents to safety. There was some adult content.

The Stationmaster Cottage by Phillip Nefri Clark. Christie inherits an old cottage from her grandmother. In it she finds a box of love letters from 50 years earlier. By the time the book ends, she has restored the cottage, reunited the couple in the letters and found her own true love.

24-26 of 104

 

[PollyannaMom]

3 finished since my last post:

Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince (a reread from long ago, but not counted for a challenge before)

Beyond the Bright Sea, by Lauren Wolk - This one is also aimed at young people, but definitely has questions for an adult to chew on as well. A girl washes up on an island as a baby, and embarks on a search when she gets older for how and where her story began. - I was drawn to it because it takes place in the Elizabeth Islands (not too far from where I live in Massachusetts) and includes some real history woven into the story. I liked it and would recommend it.

Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn - This is a story told in letters (the postal kind) using fewer and fewer letters (the alphabet kind) as it goes along. - I had high hopes for it but was disappointed. While the ending was satisfying enough, I did not enjoy the book like I thought I would.

7/21

 

[willowsnn3]

#16/60 Walk The Wire by David Baldacci
When Amos Decker and his FBI colleague Alex Jamison are called to London, North Dakota, they instantly sense that the thriving fracking town is ripe for trouble. The promise of a second gold rush has attracted an onslaught of newcomers all hoping for a windfall, and the community is growing faster than houses can be built. The sudden boom has also brought a slew of problems with it, including drugs, property crimes, prostitution -- and now murder.
Latest in the Amos Decker Memory Man Series. I haved really enjoyed the others in this series but found this one to be lacking. Was glad when I finished.

 

[mgarbowski]

5/24 Modern Physics and ancient Faith by Stephen M. Barr.

This was a re-read for me. It's a fascinating book. The author is a professor emeritus of physics at Delaware University. The premise of the book is that religion and science are not only compatible, but that most developments in physics over the last century or so tend to favor a concept of a creator, at least as much as they favor a fully materialist interpretation of the universe. He by no means claims to prove anything. Much of the book, especially the second half, delves into fundamental concepts of quantum physics. This is not simplistic argument, and he does a good job of explaining the concepts for a lay reader willing to put some thought into the reading. I think anyone interested would find it interesting regardless of their point of view, and if nothing else it functions as a solid explainer for quantum physics.
I will warn those who favor the materialist/atheist viewpoint that I believe there are a handful, maybe 2-3, instances early on where his description of the materialist viewpoint might seem that he is setting up straw men to knock down. This is unfortunate as I believe he tries quite hard overall to be fair to those he disagrees with, but early on as he lays the groundwork for lay people to understand I think he uses some unfortunate phrasing, and I would not be surprised if he puts some people off. Later in the book he avoids this. I remember one section where he presents a series of points in favor of a theistic interpretation, followed by the strongest counterpoints. When I finished that section it seemed the counter arguments were much stronger, because he did such a reasonable job presenting them. Of course he went on to respond to them, and made his own points in a way that I believe leaves readers with enough information to reach their own conclusions.
Finally, I think it worth pointing out that this is not a culture war book about evolution or intelligent design. It barely touches on life on earth in any specific way. The subject is the very nature and existence of the universe and fundamental laws of light, particles, gravity, wave functions, and the nature of conscious thought.
*****

 

[jen7233]

#10/25: American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins.

Overall, yes I enjoyed the book. However, I had a hard time catching interest somewhere after the beginning and story unfolding, and then through most of the middle. Some of the characters and stories, didn't pull me in. My interest was picked up with the part in the desert in the latter part, and the coyote's story through his thoughts, so I picked up reading more quickly at that point to find out how it ends.

 

[bobbiwoz]

12/35 The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

Sophie, originally from Ireland, leaves New York City to become the mail order bride of a wealthy, handsome widower from San Francisco. She grows to love his small daughter. But questions arise about her husband and then the earthquake of 1906 hits and Sophie’s life is turned upside down.

This was another really good story by Susan Meissner. This was historical fiction but a mystery as well.

I enjoyed the story, but not the ending.

17/50

 

[willowsnn3]

#17/60 The Cradle by Patrick Somerville
Marissa is expecting her first child and fixated on securing the same cradle she was once rocked in for her own baby. But her mother, Caroline, disappeared when Marissa was a teenager, and the treasured cradle mysteriously vanished shortly thereafter. Marissa's husband, Matthew, kindly agrees to try to track down the cradle, which naturally means finding Caroline as well.
In another family, Adam has just joined the Marines and is off to Iraq. His mother, Renee, is terrified of losing him, and furious at both Adam for enlisting and her husband for being so mild-mannered about it all. To further complicate matters, Renee is troubled by the resurfacing of secrets she buried long ago: the memory of her first love, killed in Vietnam, and the son she gave up at birth.
Matt's search for the cradle takes him through the Midwest, and provides an introduction to a host of oddball characters who've been part of Caroline's life in the intervening years. When he finds the cradle, he also finds an unloved little boy, who will one day reunite a family adrift.

I enjoyed this one. Only 200 pages & will give it a Hallmark rating (meaning it would make a good Hallmark movie)

 

[OKW8297]

17. Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts. Excellent historical fiction about the making of The Wizard of Oz

 

[drwitz]

OK, so it has been a minute since my last update, but I took my time with these three, so here you go. I spent some time reading up on the seminal texts on anti-racism which I hadn't yet done. I have heard a lot about these three books, and in my previous reading I have skirted around them, but it felt time to dive in. I am glad I did!

8. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

So I admit to being surprised by this one. I expected much more an academic and dry text based on the title, but I was really inspired and moved by the author's interweaving of his personal story into the arc of the book itself. I definitely recommend this, and take into account the call to action this book engenders in me (more on that later).

9. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

This one took me the longest of the three to read. Important lessons about whiteness and white awakening, and I felt myself somehow reduced to more of an antiseptic read through rather than an emotional one. I admit to being a little underwhelmed by this one. But!!! I found the best one for last!

10. Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving

I LOVED this book. Maybe it is because I resonated with Debby's personal story and the way she also interwove it into her narrative, or maybe it is because having spent years in the Boston area I felt the echoes of the culture she described, or maybe it was the questions for personal reflection at the end of each short chapter. For whatever the reason, I judge that I drew deep important life-changing lessons from this book, and I appreciate the author's candor and honesty in her own observations of herself. This book has also inspired me to register for the White Privilege Conference (https://www.theprivilegeinstitute.com/white-privilege-conference-22-virtu) coming up in April. This virtual conference I would have never discovered other than this book, and the agenda looks amazing!!

Moved quickly through the next three. Two more in my exploration of race, privilege and history, and one for my love of Disney Parks.

11. The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution by Eric Foner

Eric Foner is a professor a Columbia University whose work is specifically focused on Reconstruction. I remember in high school history (which, admittedly, I took in Mt. Pleasant, SC) that Reconstruction was taught as a period when bad Northerners (i.e. carpetbaggers and scalawags) came south to take advantage of the war-ravaged and recovering (white) southerners. Needless to say, it was a biased high school education! In my work to relearn American history, and specifically this period, I am reading some pieces on Reconstruction. This is the first. Foner discusses the history behind the adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments by reviewing the process of their adoption, the historical arguments for and against each, the legal impacts of them, and their historic legacy. Foner makes a compelling case that these three amendments to the Constitution remade America. This is a well-written and compelling corrective (in part) to the "history" I was taught.

12. Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy by Eric Foner

One of Foner's earlier works, this is a more dry and academic text, but still worth reading. Broken into three essays, the first looks at the history of other Western Hemisphere Emancipations other than the one in the US (eg. Jamaica, Haiti, etc.), the second chapter tells the story of US Emancipation and Reconstruction focused on the politics and power dynamics post Civil War, and the third chapter tells of a particular riot of former slaves on rice plantations in Low Country South Carolina to show the impacts of these changes at a local level. I did learn a lot from these chapters and I look forward to reading more from Foner in the future.

13. Boundless Realm: Deep Explorations Inside Disney's Haunted Mansion by Foxx Nolte

There is something wonderfully appropriate about this being book 13 for this year! What a fun exploration of the themes and details in the Haunted Mansion attraction. A complete review of the attraction itself (with plenty of details I never noticed), this is also a history of the attraction and a deep study of its antecedents and legacy. Well-researched and well-documented (the footnotes are fun to read just by themselves), this is a must-have for any serious Haunted Mansion enthusiast. Highly recommended!

 

[RangerPooh]

#5/10 Virgin River Series: Second Chance Pass by Robin Carr
--Enjoyed as it delved it some of the characters that had remained at the edges and provided more backstory and continuation. After book 4 this was much more enjoyable.

#6/10 Virgin River Series: Temptation Ridge by Robin Carr
--Really enjoyed this one and hope that it returns to this couple again soon. It was also sad and hopefully isn't foreshadowing where the tv series goes.

 

[mini22]

15/30 Texas Tall Janet Daily

 

[Colleen27]

#20 - Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Nothing like post-apocalyptic fiction about a plague-ravaged world for a little light reading during a pandemic. I really liked this one. The premise of the traveling symphony was unique among the dystopian literature I've read (and I've read a lot) and I loved the idea of this group of people traveling through the new, dangerous world to keep art and music alive despite all of the chaos. The rest of the plot was fun and nicely paced, and it really was quite a nice, engrossing bit of fiction.

#21 to 25 - The Bridgerton series, books 1 through 5, by Julia Quinn

After hearing so much about the Netflix series Bridgerton and finally giving in and watching it myself, of course when I saw the books on my library's ebook app I couldn't resist. And they are exactly what one would expect from having seen the show - light, not particularly deeply researched or historically oriented period romances. The quality is consistent, the characters are fun (though some more than others), and they're quick reads. I will no doubt finish the series - there are eight books in all, one about each of the siblings in the Bridgerton family - but it'll have to wait until next month because I've hit my borrows limit for March and I'm not nearly interested enough to buy these.

#26 - The Bear by Andrew Krivak

A literary fable about the last two inhabitants in a post-apocalyptic world that has reverted to its natural state, this was a really beautiful piece of storytelling with a delicate tone and a message about the resilience and the limitations of human life. It is less a man vs. nature story, as might seem natural in a survival story in a post-human world, as it is a story of learning to live with the earth and in harmony with its other occupants. The lack of human characters - there are only two, and one dies to set up the heart of the narrative - and the use of voiced elements of the natural world brings a sense of that harmony with nature even into the writing itself, and the whole thing flows as smoothly as the seasons that pass in the story.

 

[MGMmjl]

6/30 - City of Refuge by Tom Piazza

Goodreads description: "In City of Refuge, a heart-wrenching novel from Tom Piazza, the author of the award-winning Why New Orleans Matters, two New Orleans families—one black and one white—confront Hurricane Katrina, a storm that will change the course of their lives. Reaching across America—from the neighborhoods of New Orleans to Texas, Chicago, and elsewhere—City of Refuge explores this turning point in American culture, one whose reverberations are only beginning to be understood."

This novel came out about 3 years after Hurricane Katrina. I had wanted to read it at that time, but never got around to it. It was a good read, but very heart wrenching in parts. I'm glad I finally read it.