Otterstamp's Books-off-the-shelf Reading Lists

Here's my reading list for October and November. I need to start tackling the enormous amount of books in this house, and I'd like to do it in a balanced way, reading two or three seasonal, one or two nonfiction, and a fun or unexpected pick each season.

Halloweenie:
The Gates by John Connolly ---Done!

Nonfiction:
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin ---Done!
Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman (added after making list) --- Done!
Work Hard. Be Nice. by Jay Matthews (added after making list) ---Done!

The Unexpected:
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett ---Done!
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows ---Done!
The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri I am taking a MOOC class on this during the fall! Started and did not finish.
Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Hahn --Done!

Welcome!

Lovely to see you - I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman

1/10

I snagged this unexpectedly on Bookmooch while browsing what was available to mooch. I knew this book was pretty popular when it came out and I expected more practical eating advice. What I got instead was an awful lot of talk about cruelty free eating and food politics. I like reading about food politics, but it was unexpected in a book supposed to be about tough love for readers to clean up their diet. I try to eat clean and have basic knowledge of nutrition. This book offered me nothing more and also some biased advice on veganism that I feel is pretty outdated. Michael Pollan does the "read the label" thing much better. And the vegan thing, honestly.

The book felt gimmicky the whole way through, which the authors admitted at the end. Their legitimacy was damaged by the strange mind-body connection discussion at the end of the book, making them sound like total flakes. There IS a mind-body link, but it is not as poetic as the examples they quote. And positive affirmations are a self-esteem movement holdover that went the way of the dinosaurs. I just heard something (on NPR?) last week about how positive visualization is actually DAMAGING to goals because it tricks your brain into thinking you already attained what you want. I haven't looked further into that report, but I'm not surprised.

My curiosity for this book has been sated. It reminded me that soda is the devil's drink, and I cringed while sipping my Game Fuel..... but still finished the can by the end of that chapter.

Thank you!

The Gates by John Connolly

6/10

I have read two other books by Mr. Connolly, The Book of Lost Things and Nocturnes. I very much enjoyed both of those. The Gates fell short of these by a great deal. The humor felt trendy and stilted. I did not become absorbed in the narrative like in his previous books. The characters felt typical. It was still a fast and light Halloween read that was enjoyable, even if not very memorable.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

9.5/10

I am very interested in positive psychology and enjoyed how Gretchen Rubin interwove many familiar positive psychology concepts with quotes and new material I had not encountered before, all within the framework of a personal narrative detailing her quest for better daily happiness. I was motivated within the first few chapters to complete my own project and when I was done this book I created a little checklist of my own to guide me towards a happier life.

I am motivated to pick up some of the books in her bibliography to further my depth of knowledge concerning happiness. I found this to be a great resource, especially if you're new to positive psychology. Lots of different studies and findings are summarized here... many of the major ones!

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

7/10

This was a wild card choice for me. I saw it on Bookmooch and thought, "I should read that." I do not read crime or detective novels. The genre is new to me.

The atmosphere of the book is pulpy and noir. The characters are pinned right out of the box, but that kind of adds to the allure. Hammett's descriptions are vivid and I feel like his voice really rings through the book, though as a newbie to the genre, perhaps that is just how these older detective novels are written. This was the most appealing part of the book. For some reason I spent half of the book waiting for it to "start." I had the persistent impression that the plot had not really picked up, yet, though plenty of things happened early on, such as Spade's partner Archer getting caught. This feeling dissipated as I continued the book.

I was able to deduce the true nature of the crime only in general by the end of the book, and was still surprised by some of the details that were revealed, that Spade had figured out and I had not. I appreciate not being told Spade's thoughts through the books, but having to equally puzzle out what he might be making of certain clues and why he might take certain actions. In the end, his piecing together of events could be linked to those previous actions and clues.

I gave this book a 7/10 because while I enjoyed the writing style and the book overall, this genre doesn't really intrigue me all that much and I wouldn't go out of my way to read it again.

Work Hard. Be nice. by Jay Matthews
5/10

I can be a sucker for an inspiring teacher story. I love reading about Rafe Esquith; he gets me all fired up, but this book left me ambivalent. There was way too much about these guys' personal lives, a strange structure that skipped around with no clear purpose, and an emphasis on details that were unhelpful. It was not a roadmap to others who want to replicate their success or an exploration of the growing charter school movement in American. All in all I would have preferred a break down of their daily schedules and more attention to their teaching methods, making it a more practical book for teachers.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows
7/10

This book was a total random find on Bookmooch that I picked up because it was a bestseller. It is not something that I would ordinarily read. I enjoyed this book very much. It had that junk food feeling of light fiction but I learned quite a bit about the German occupation of Guernsey. A win-win!

My strategy has been to have a light fiction book by my bedside so I can read before bed each night, something I have gotten out of the habit of. This was the perfect book to do that. Enjoyable enough for me to look forward to laying down, but not too exciting that it kept me up all night. I need more pre-bedtime books like this!

>10 otterstamp: I was given this one by my mother-out-law one Christmas, and it was delightful. Again, not something I would usually pick up, but I think it had me from the second the heroine dumped her boyfriend for wanting to box up her books so that he could put his sports trophies out ;)

Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn

9.5/10 for kidlit

I read this book as a child and one scene, of the little girl being drowned in the dark, weedy pond at the bottom of the hill in the woods, with the burnt old house looming from the top it, has haunted me ever since. A few years ago I tried to look it up, to no avail. I didn't have the title or author and it seemed no one else out there was looking for this book, too. Just a month or two ago I decided to look it up again and lo and behold there was an entire Wikipedia entry on it! Oh, the internet is a gloriously living, growing thing!

I hopped onto Bookmooch with my new found title and author and within a month it popped up. I snagged it and read it in two sittings. While my imagination embellished a bit of the attempted drowning scene (for some reason I thought the author had explicitly described the weeds wrapping around her legs) the tone of the novel was just as I remembered and that specific setting in the woods was indelibly rendered in my mind's eye.

And it really creeped me out!

Reading a book as an adult that I last read in thirdish grade was a trip. New details and plot points popped, but it was creepy all the same. I saw online that this book is a bit controversial due to the themes of death, but I would most definitely recommend this book to upper elementary and middle school students! Kids loving being scared and a book like this hits all the right notes: there is danger but the protagonist is not the intended victim, a history is pieced together, it touches on themes of loss, alienation, families, love, and forgiveness, and the adults are absolutely, infuriatingly clueless. While the protagonist is scared, she does the right thing and saves her stepsister who is almost unlovable.

I'm giddy that I found this!

Fall Challenege Wrap-Up

Well, I did not finish two books on my list. I intended to read some Poe around Halloween and that didn't happen, so off it came, and then I started reading Dante's Comedia with s MOOC but the pace was too fast so I'm still on the first canto.

I plan to continue Dante into my winter reading list.

Other than those, I read seven books, most from my shelves and a few I acquired from Bookmooch, which I still consider from my shelves because they're free and I give up a book of my own to get them, ultimately maintaining the status quo.

For the winter I would like to continue to be intentional with my reading but also continue to allow serendipity to throw books my way.

I give myself a 8/10 for great reading habits this season.