Mabith's 2016 Reads (meredith) II

A Silent Voice Vol 2-7 by Yoshitoki Oima
The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild
The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer
Needless Suffering by David Nagel

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
Lingo by Gaston Dorren
Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama
One Secret Thing by Sharon Olds
Long Division by Kiese Laymon

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
Hitler's Forgotten Children by Ingrid Von Oelhafen
Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang
Independence Lost by Kathleen DuVal
The Devourers by Indra Das

It Looked Different on the Model by Laurie Notaro
Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
The Broken Spears by Miguel Leon-Portilla
Spectacles by Sue Perkins
Library of Luminaries: Frida Kahlo by Zena Alkayat

The Time Machine by HG Wells
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
Everything is Teeth by Evie Wyld
Hard Tack and Coffee by John D. Billings
Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome

The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong by Gyalo Thondup w/Anne Thurston
Ostend by Volker Weidermann
Coming Out Under Fire by Allan Berube
Emma by Jane Austen
Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery

The Sheriff of Last Gasp by Carl Barks
The Naturalist by Darrin Lunde
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Seamstress by Sara Tuvel Bernstein
Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero

The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher
Marriage, A History by Stephanie Coontz
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Not-So-Jolly Roger by Jon Scieszka

The Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
Gabriella, Clove, and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado
A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir
Golden Parasol by Wendy Law-Yone
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee

Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine N Aron
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Lirael by Garth Nix
Unbowed by Wangari Maathai
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
Twilight of the Eastern Gods by Ismail Kadare
Cancer Made me a Shallower Person by Miriam Engelberg

Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen
Frontier Grit by Marianne Monson
Den of Wolves by Juliet Marillier
Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Matewan Before the Massacre by Rebecca J Bailey

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Moffats by Eleanor Estes
Lumberjanes Vol 4 by Noelle Stevenson, Kirsten Watters
The Richest Duck in the World by Don Rosa
The Price of Justice by Laurence Leamer

The Universal Solvent by Don Rosa
Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
I Will Always Write Back by Martin Ganda, Caitlin Alifirenka
The Wreath by Sigrid Undset
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 1 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson

Consciousness and the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene
The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks by Igort
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac
The Vegetarian – Han Kang

The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett
A Story of the Red Cross by Clara Barton
In the Sea There are Crocodiles by Enaiotollah Akbari, Fabio Geda
Clariel by Garth Nix
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier
From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts
If I Stay by Gayle Forman

1491 by Charles C. Mann
Liar Temptress Soldier Spy by Karen Abbott
Fatherland by Nina Bunjevac
Clotel by William Wells Brown
67 Shots by Howard Means

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
Ms. Marvel Vol 6 by Willow G. Wilson
Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey
The Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad

(When I say 'best' I mean my favorites.)

Best Non-Fiction I read in 2015:
1914: The Year The World Ended – Paul Ham
On the Brink – Ryusho Kadota
Sex At Dawn – Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
Islam: A Short History – Karen Armstrong
A World Undone – G.J. Meyer
Kitty Genovese – Kevin Cook
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History – Cynthia Barrett
Open Veins of Latin America – Eduardo Galeano
The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap – Matt Taibbi
Gulag – Anne Applebaum
When Books Went to War – Molly Guptill Manning
Being Mortal – Atul Gawande
Servants – Lucy Lethbridge
Austerity – Mark Blyth
The Half Has Never Been Told – Edward Baptist
Neurotribes – Steve Silberman
Ravensbruck – Sarah Helm
Red Land, Black Land – Barbara Mertz
Wrapped in Rainbows – Valerie Boyd

Best Fiction Read in 2015
Coventry – Helen Humphreys
A God in Ruins – Kate Atkinson
Katherine – Anya Seton
The Dust That Falls From Dreams – Louis de Bernieres
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Pushkin Hills – Sergei Dovlatov
All the Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld
Rubyfruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown
The Fair Fight – Anna Freeman
The Voices of Glory – Davis Grubb
Brooklyn – Colm Toibin
Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey
Sea of Poppies – Amitav Ghosh
Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
Doc – Mary Doria Russell

Best Children's and YA Read in 2015
Lumberjanes - Noelle Stevenson and others
Moon at Nine – Deborah Ellis
El Deafo – Cece Bell
Listen, Slowly – Thanhha Lai
Finn Family Moomintroll – Tove Jansson
The Call of the Wild – Jack London
Coot Club – Arthur Ransome
Walk Two Moons – Sharon Creech
A Corner of White – Jaclyn Moriarty

Author Nationalities for my 2016 reading (broken up by region the way the map site does it):

Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Myanmar (formerly Burma), North Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet

Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Puerto Rico

Albania, Belarus, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom

Iran, Israel, Palestine, Syria,

Canada, Mexico, USA

Australia, New Zealand

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guyana, Peru

47!

A Silent Voice Vol 2-7 by Yoshitoki Oima

I read the first volume in July and was waiting for my library to get in the final two volumes before I continued.

The first volume details Shoya, a (generally non-violent) bully, and his classmates. When Shoko, a new girl who's deaf, is added to their class Shoya treats her more and more poorly partly spurred on by his classmates not liking her presence (they also bully her). This escalates until the teacher and school finally get bawled out by her mom. When the rest of class pull back and act like they were nothing but nice to her and Shoya reminds them of their part they mercilessly bully him. The volume ends when Shoya finding Shoko and trying to apologize. The subsequent volumes detail that, and how he views his own past.

It's an interesting series, and I think a very valuable contribution to the manga scene. Oima is very young to have managed such a work (both artistically and otherwise). Japan in general has very negative views of disabled people (FYI many d/Deaf people do not view their deafness as a disability) compared to other similarly developed countries.

One thing bothered me about the series. When Shoko is treated as burdening her otherwise hearing class (and the school) simply by being there no one contradicts that. Ever. The same when she feels she's burdening her friends. Was it too much to have SOMEONE say that she's not a burden? This is something that happens worldwide for people with all sorts of disabilities, it's something we internalize and have to fight constantly as disabled people. It's part of why it's so difficult to ask for help, particularly those of us who became disabled as adults, because even when we're not asking for anything, when no one is changing the slightest thing for us, we STILL worry we're a burden on family and friends.

The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is an amazing poet. One who, in this collection at least, writes her own history and poems based on historical people, news events, etc... It's an absolutely brilliant collection, with many many high points, well worth reading through. I got this collection, originally published in 1987, and a collection published in 2012 for comparison's sake.

I got the book out from my library after having this poem show up elsewhere:

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

Knowledge of King Leopold II of Belgium's brutal regime in the Congo in the last quarter of the 19th century is becoming more widely known, probably in part due to this book. While there is likely valid criticism of Hochschild's figures for the huge numbers of deaths of indigenous peoples, I'd rather someone overestimate than underestimate, frankly. In the end, Leopold's regime was likely on par with other colonizers, there's just a bigger disconnect due to Belgium's lack of other colonial territories and a repainting due to WWI and WWII propaganda.

What is different about the Belgian takeover of the Congo territories is that this was basically Leopold's private kingdom, with almost nothing to do with the Belgian state during Leopold's life (he essentially willed the territory to the state). Given the criticism other colonial powers were facing at the time, Leopold was also EXTREMELY duplicitous and underhanded in creating the colony. He billed it as a sort of group European state in order to get initial approval for going into area, and then quietly did just as he pleased and went back on all his promises of free trade. He extracted a huge amount of money from the colony but denied that he was getting any profit from it. He also purposefully burned most of the records of the colony and later researchers were barred from accessing any records and then barred from writing about anything they read in the archives relating to the Congo.

I definitely recommend the book. The people in it range from progressive, good people who tried to get the true story out there and the absolutely despicable, such as Henry Morton Stanley (of Stanley and Livingstone). Leopold left me incredibly chilled, he was just so underhanded and calculating. The background and fringe figures are fascinating on their own.

The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer

I thought this had been on my to-read list for longer, but it turns out I only added it in April of this year, due to torontoc's review. Rojstaczer is a former college professor turned writer/journalist, and this is his first venture into fiction writing. It seems to be partially a 'write what you know' book as he shares some family history/circumstances with the book's narrator, Sasha.

Sasha's well-loved and extremely highly regarded mathematician mother, Rachela, has died after a battle with cancer. Sasha would prefer a quiet, family funeral, but hoards of mathematician's descend, wanting to join the family in sitting shiva for her. While dealing with the immediate arguments, we're treated to passing clips of Rachela's life and work (some chapters are from an autobiography she wrote and gave to Sasha). Always in the background is her work on one of the great puzzles of mathematics and the rumor that she solved it before she died.

Despite a death being at the center of the book there's a lot of humor here. It was a good, enjoyable read.

Needless Suffering: How Society Fails those with Chronic Pain by David Nagel, MD

I first developed the chronic pain problem which would eventually disable me in 2004, when I was 19 years old. It took two years of doctor musical chairs and every test known to medicine before I got a diagnosis, at which point it was too late to have any hope of reversing the pain. This book was a beautiful storm of affirmation of what I and countless others have experienced in dealing with the US medical system. It was really helpful to have a doctor affirm that yes, this is how the system is working, this is how we have failed you.

I made a lot of notes, and I am considering give this copy, which all my highlighted sections to one of my doctors.



If you work in the healthcare system you should read this book. If you know anyone with chronic pain you should read this book. If you work for the Social Security Administration you should read this book.

There were a couple of things that annoyed me about the book, one being the terrible irony of Nagel's respect for Mother Teresa, a woman who did NOT believe in alleviating suffering. A woman who purposefully kept facilities extremely basic (as in, no hot water) in her homes and did not differentiate before the dying and those who could get better with adequate medical treatment. She thought suffering brought people closer to god, but herself was always treated in the finest western hospitals. She also continuously apologized for convicted pedophile priests and campaigned hard to get specific priests reinstated at least one of whom definitely went on to abuse more children. She called one pedophile's behavior "imprudent" (which honestly tells me all I need to know about her character). Also baptizing the dying likely without their consent. Seriously, even the most cursory look into Mother Teresa brings up a lot of awful, awful stuff.

The other irration in the book was this line:
Most inspiring of all about her story is that her very physically able husband stood by her all this time, never questioning the legitimacy of her problems.

MOST inspiring? REALLY? That an ablebodied person bothers to stick by a ruined disabled person who is obviously just a burden? That the person you love who is supposed to love you too believes you? Sounds like what love and friendship is SUPPOSED to look like. Most inspiring is that the patient was still fighting and attempting to live their damn life while people pile praise on friends and family for not abandoning them in the fraking woods. This is an extremely common disability trope I hate it so much. This is part of why so many of us, especially those of us who became disabled at a young age, have so many internalized issues when we stop being able to work and 'be productive.' This is why we have trouble asking for help, this is why we feel we have to prove our worth, this is why we push ourselves so hard frequently damaging our health even more, this feeling of worthlessness is part of why disabled people suffer extremely high rates of abuse.

Ahhh Meredith, while it sounds like this book afforded you a great deal of information, it sounds like it brought you a great deal of emotional pain as well. But what a good review. I am sure that it will open more eyes than just mine.
hugs,

On another note:
Here is the link for the Emma tutored read. I am reading at my own pace (I was finding theirs way too slow) but I do go in and read all of the
Q & A & the comments. It has helped me tremendously. I have never been much of an Austen fan but with this tutored read I am quickly becoming one. Prior to this the only one of her books that I enjoyed was either Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. I cannot remember which one.
C'mon over & join us.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/231425

Thank you so much, Belva! It was one of those situations common with chronic illness and disability. I was relieved and felt good that Nagel affirmed my lived experience with doctors, but also had some secret hope that I'd just been unlucky and things weren't as bad as that. Similarly when I finally got my diagnosis for a condition that I'd been 99% sure was the issue for at least a year (which I knew had very few even semi-viable treatments), and when I was approved for Social Security Disability. Some part of you wants them to say "oh wait, we've overlooked this, it's totally curable, here's your life back."

I preferred Northanger Abbey to Pride and Prejudice, I remember, but I read the later such a long time ago now. I did just watch the new movie based on one of her shorter works, movie title Love and Friendship, which was quite funny (although it felt a bit disjointed). I tend to love my Victorian novelists so much more, but perhaps because I'm so much more familiar with their society and history.

Here are some of the especially important passages I noted in Needless Suffering:

Pg 16 --“Don't open Pandora's box. He will only want more, and he will become a burden to his doctors, forever addicted to medicine, powerless to come off it.”
I thought about that. Then I wondered, isn't the hypertensive patient equally addicted to blood pressure medication? Isn't the depressed patient “addicted” to anti-depressants? Isn't the infected patient addicted to antibiotics? I thought of all the medicines my mother took for her rheumatoid arthritis: anti-inflammatories, Cytoxan, methotrexate, prednisone—all much more toxic than the pain medication that would ease this man's suffering.
“You'll only hide the pain,” the sages said.
Maybe so, but what purpose was this man's pain serving? Pain is a signal the body uses to tell us something is wrong and encourage us to do something about it. Pain shouldn't be a means of interminably taunting us, destroying us, tearing us apart. This man's pain was not serving any useful purpose, yet it couldn't be ignored. Fire, too, serves a useful purpose. However, like the fire that burns out of control, this pain needed to be extinguished.

Pg 28 – The contribution of the Chinese to pain management, though, is not acupuncture. Many other cultures shared this treatment. The real contribution of the Chinese was that they studied their patients, listened to them, and accepted their symptoms. … Ironically all breakthroughs in medicine begin with this bold, surprisingly courageous step of listening to patients and believing them.

Pg 49 –Moreover, while acute pain is a symptom, chronic pain is a disease process, worthy of attention in itself. Medical educators always have assumed that pain is merely a symptom, and that ridding the patient of the underlying disease process will eliminate the pain. As we saw, that is not true for chronic pain. Yet medical school education too often emphasizes cure over management, which means that patients with long-standing, incurable illnesses that create long-term disability receive too little attention. The problems of type C pain patients are ignored in medical education. No wonder physicians fear them!

Pg 238 – Before looking at opioids and medical cannabinoids, it is important to explore the medical concept of do no harm, first attributed to Hippocrates, and is one of the basic principles of the practice of medicine. This phrase alone does not convey the complexity of the concept. Since virtually every medical intervention, even the simplest, has the potential to cause harm, it is important to understand what this oath actually means. For example, one of my favorite medical procedures is cleaning out someone's ears. It is one of the few “walk on water” things I do in medicine. In just seconds, I can restore hearing to the deaf, and it feels wonderful. However, it usually hurts to get impacted wax out, and occasionally the procedure results in a perforated eardrum. Usually that heals, but there can be permanent damage. Does this mean that it would be better not to do this procedure—that to avoid doing harm, we should do nothing? Unfortunately, that too can cause harm. If someone has a blocked coronary artery, there are potential complications associated with unblocking it, but not doing so will result in earlier death or greater disability.

Pg 244 – Chronic pain also kills. Government data show that there was a rise in drug-related suicides between 2005 and 2009. The assumption was that these incidents were merely due to substance abuse; the government researchers made no attempt to determine how many people attempting suicide in this manner were suffering from chronic, unresolved pain. However, risk factors for suicide in the pain population are high. A 2004 study found that 19% of pain patients had passive ideas about suicide. 13% had active thoughts, 5% had a plan, and 5% had made a previous attempt. Seventy-five percent identified drug overdose as their preferred method for suicide. A systematic review of the literature found that the risk of successful suicide is doubled in chronic pain patients compared to nonpain controls. In 2003 the American Psychiatric Association recognized chronic pain as an independent risk factor for suicide.

Still it is clear that there is an almost sixty-four fold greater incidence of chronic pain in America than of prescription drug abuse, at a substantially greater cost in both economic and human terms. This fact raises the question: Why do we invest so much money and regulatory scrutiny in preventing the abuse of opioids at the expense of treating a much greater problem—chronic pain? I believe it is because the adverse effects drug abuse are much more visible than the adverse effects of uncontrolled chronic pain, which are frequently hidden behind other issues such as suicide, drug abuse, and depression.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows RE-READ

I quite enjoyed this the first time I read it, but probably wouldn't have picked it up again except my new local bookclub picked it. Shaffer was also a West Virginian so it's nice to reread it with a bit of West Virginian lens. Curious if the bookclub knew that (given that Shaffer was born here, lived her whole childhood here, and attended a WV college she's actually a PROPER West Virginian vs Jeanette Walls or Pearl S. Buck).

It's a novel in letters, which I'm a sucker for, which begins on a volume of Charles Lamb's Elia essays which has found it's way from a writer's collection to a reader on Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands which were occupied by the Germans during WWII and who had an extremely hard time of it in regards to supplies towards the end of the war. Juliet, the main protagonist, spent the war writing uplifting humorous essays and is now looking for a new project when she gets the letter about Lamb from Dawsey Adams.

While it's definitely a cozy, light read, without too much tension, I think it's also very informative on subject that isn't hugely widely known about. It's also quite a good first book. Shaffer worked in public libraries and then at a publishing house, starting as a receptionist and ending up an editor. Some places say she wrote the book with her niece, others say her niece just finished it up after Shaffer died. Given Shaffer's death date and the publication date I'd incline towards the latter explanation (also the fact that one topic in the book seems a bit rushed, but as I say, first novel).

Recommended, if you want a cozy read. The audio edition is very well done.

Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren

First off, do NOT go with the audio edition of this book or if you do try to have the print book to refer to. While it's good to have hopefully decent pronunciation to show dialect differences, there are various things that mean this is best in print (for this reader, anyway).

It's a light book looking at odd facts, origins, and bits and bobs of 60 European languages. A good one to read in spurts, I think. Interesting, lots of fascinating little facts, but fairly insubstantial at the end of the day. It also has some sections about our current lingua franca, English, and the potential next one - Mandarin (including the fact that both are ill-suited for the role to various degrees).

I have no language skills so I can't comment on his summations of the various languages. I do appreciate that he talks about sign language and dispels the common myths about it. Taking ASL was the only real joy of my brief college career, but my chronic pain didn't let me continue learning that.

Generally recommended, but don't expect the moon.

Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama

I'm a big fan of Tsukiyama's work though she has a tendency to be very hard on her characters. This isn't among my favorites by her, and is one where I think she's especially bad to the characters (though nowhere near as devastating as The Street of a Thousand Blossoms.

The book follows the Lew family (Joan, Emma, their parents, and their aunt) of Hong Kong as their life is more and more curtailed during WWII, leading them to go to Macau for the duration. The majority of the book takes place in the post-war years, I'd say. Tsukiyama skips us through the war SO quickly it was disappointing. In character terms it could be argued that more development is required after Joan and Emma are adults, but I'd have preferred another hundred pages or more be added.

It is an every day book in same ways, with few truly extraordinary events, and I like that about it. At the end of the day it just felt far too short to cover the 25 years of the book.

Still a good read, but not up to her recent standard. I should re-read Women of the Silk and The Language of Threads, which are my favorites by her.

One Secret Thing by Sharon Olds

Published 25 years after the The Gold Cell, I wanted to get a sense of Olds development as a poet. This volume has been referred to as a bookend to her poems about her relationship with her parents. In this volume Olds deals with her mother's protracted illness and death, though that doesn't mean she'll stop writing about that relationship.

It's another good volume, though I preferred The Gold Cell, and found Olds maybe too far distant from more of these poems. It's hard to strike that balance of inhabiting a poem fully but having enough remove to see the events clearly enough to write about.

I need to read more contemporary poetry more regularly, rather than just getting little doses online. It was so easy when I worked at the bookstore and had access to all the poetry journals for free.

Long Division by Kiese Laymon

I forget where I heard about this YA time travel novel, but it made me curious enough that I was really excited to see an audio edition out. I do not have the energy to read about teenagers in print lately, and only barely energy for them in audio when it comes to realistic every-day-teen-issues stuff.

The main focus on this book is racism, and the time travel/maybe time travel element is done in a really interesting way. It's switches back and forth between what we think is the real world of 2013 and what we think is the fictional world in a book the main character City (short for Citoyen) finds in which he's a main character living in 1985. Other themes are religion, authorship, friendship, love, and celebrity.

I can't adequately describe the success of the pacing and two-books combination, but it made it a really interesting read. I'm a sucker for time travel as well, so that helped. Really impressed with the way this one works, and Laymon's ability to translate some of the teenage pack mentality things successfully into print (specifically language usage and dynamics that adults quickly lose and tend to forget about). I hope Laymon tries his hand at fiction again, because this is a pretty amazing first novel.

Recommended if you can go along for the ride and let yourself inhabit a very specific environment.

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

Shetterly seems like a slightly unlikely person to have written this book, given that her main occupations have been in investment banking and then content marketing and consulting to the Mexican tourism industry. However, Shetterly grew up in the shadow of Langley Research Center as her father was a NASA lifer. The style of writing and organization in the book worked well in the audio edition. Shetterly spend four or five years researching and writing, and I think that shows.

It was a great read for me, and a nice moment as a West Virginian, as Katherine Johnson was born and raised and educated in WV (including being the first black woman to integrate West Virginia University). I liked Shetterly's including of the changes in the college system and teaching professions when these women were in school and seeking first employment. The amount of tertiary information felt well-balanced and very necessary.

It's an important book, and these are important stories. I hope the movie based on it (due out this December) does justice to the women.

And more personally, I hope West Virginia will include and honor her in our state curriculum (maybe they are already, but I kind of doubt it). When I was in school we did WV history in fourth and eighth grades, but learned very little about actual West Virginians. We might get huffy about negative stereotypes of WV but we don't actually give kids anything to be proud of either.

Hitler's Forgotten Children: A True Story of the Lebensborn Program and One Woman's Search for Identity by Ingrid Von Oelhafen

A memoir but also a brief history of the Lebensborn program instituted by Nazi Germany. The program's origins involved a sort of legitimizing of children born out of liaisons with SS officers, where the mothers and babies were treated well and Germanized to boost the population (vs losing the potential children to abortion or abandonment and raising in orphanages where they aryan origins would not be known). It seems to have eventually extended to taking children and babies judged to be Aryan looking away from their parents in occupied countries and placing them with adoptive parents in Germany.

I say "seems to have" as there was certainly an extensive kidnapping program but the destruction of records means it was not proven to have been carried out under Lebensborn. There was a myth that the program involved coercive breeding camps that has hampered acceptance of Lebensborn children. It's a strange mish-mash of being a social welfare program with bad motives combined with horrible kidnapping.

The author's childhood was made worse by her adoptive parents refusal to be open about her past and their divorce when she was a child meaning she was placed in a children's home for some time and then passed about. Plus the fact that her own investigations were hampered by her birth parents' adoption of another baby her age which was given her own birth name (Erika Matko).

I've waited too long to review this and have lost some of the details, but it was an interesting book. A good read, if not an amazing one.

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang, translated by Karen S. Kingsbury

I learned about this book on a list for Women in Translation month, which was apparently in August, and saw another book by Chang on a 100 Must-Read Lesser Known Classics list. This was the only one on audio and my library kindly ordered it for me in record time (by now they know how good my taste is, obviously).

The book, originally published in 1948 then edited into this form in 1968, is set in 1930s Shanghai. Shen Shijun, a young engineer, is in love with Gu Manzhen and we watch their relationship grow despite their different backgrounds. Manzhen's sister, Manlu, gave up a promising relationship with a doctor, and her own reputation to work as a taxi-dancer in order to support their family so Manzhen could go to school. Manlu has now married a a wealthy man but remains resentful about the sacrifices she made.

And then things get really really dark for a bit and no one gets to be happy, which is classic Chang, apparently. It was a good, though melancholy, read and I would probably pick up more by the author. I liked Manzhen a lot as a character. She's independent and smart, but firmly tied and loyal to her family.

Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution by Kathleen DuVal

An interesting little history largely concerned with Florida before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. DuVal covers broader issues and focuses in on specific people in a way that's very effective for this type of book.

A good read, if not one I'll be evangelizing about. I don't remember anything in it that really bugged me, and there was a lot of new-to-me content.

The Devourers by Indra Das

This new fantasy book has been getting loads of press. I add these titles to my life and then once I have the copy start to wonder why I felt the need to get to it so soon. I guess I like to either be ahead of the mass-reads or well behind them. I think it was the right decision with this book, going in relatively blind was a good thing for me.

I really liked this! I wasn't totally expecting that, but I think Das has come up with something special here. There's a bit of a dual story, and while one aspect was predictable, that's not necessarily a negative thing.

From Amazon:
On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.

It's a shapeshifter tale, but probably belongs in the 'fantasy for people who don't like fantasy' category. I absolutely loved the writing, especially the dialogue, and adored the main character, Cyrah.

The audio edition is very well done.

It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Notaro. I read her second essay collection, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, when it was new and I was 18. I loved it, much more than her first book or the two after, so I fell out of the habit of reading her. I was groping for a light book and thought I'd give her another try.

When she's on it, she's hilarious in a ranting way I love. However, she's so stuck in modes of internalized sexism and a desire for normalcy that some essays are one long cringe for me now.

In this volume she got the cringing mostly out of the way in the beginning at least and it became generally enjoyable.

Zap! Nikola Tesla Takes Charge by Monica Kulling, illustrated by Bill Slavin

I'm not 'counting' this book for my yearly list, but as it's an ER book and I had to write a review I thought I might as well post it on my threads.

A very good younger-age biographical picture book. It can be hard to find a balance that includes enough about the figure without being too long or too technical. The illustrations are very well done too. While there could be more emphasis on Tesla's inventions, you could easily overpower a children's book like that. I do think Kulling has sufficiently conveyed that Tesla was ahead of his peers (and general knowledge, of course) in many ways.

While adults who have read a Tesla biography will probably feel it's a bit light on invention content, we have to remember the target audience (and people tend to forget that picture books remain good and valuable for quite a long while after a child learns to read). I wanted to try this one out on my niece and nephew before I reviewed it, but that was taking too long to happen.

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

For some reason every time my eyes slid past this cover in my to-read queue I'd think "that's by Hope Larson" and put it off. Not that I have anything against Larson but I've been an EXTREME fan of Brosgol since I was in high school and she's mostly done short pieces for anthologies and animation work, apart from an unfinished webcomic she started in high school (which was brilliant). In high school I started following this group of young, female cartoonists and while all were hugely talented, Brosgol's art and imagination were always my favorite.

Anya's Ghost is her one and only graphic novel. Anya shares some life background with Brosgol. Both were born in Russia and moved away with their families when they were five years old. Anya is in high school and has taken pains to 'be normal,' including lying about her last name. Anya has had a frustrating morning, and finally so annoyed at herself and her main friend, she walks away from the bus stop into a wooded area. Where she promptly falls down a deep shaft, and gets to keep company with a skeleton who turns out to have a ghost attached.

It's a great YA graphic novel. Interesting, inventive, layered with all the normal high school nonsense. Plus you get Brosgol's perfectly wonderful art style.

The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel Leon-Portilla

This book consists of translations of Nahuatl-language accounts of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Leon-Portilla provides a very good introduction and commentary on the accounts and sources as the book goes on. Most of the content is the original translations. This is not an exhaustive history or comparison of Nahua accounts vs Spanish ones, it is simply a compilation of some accounts.

The accounts, if I recall correctly, were mostly written within 20 years of the conquest. Spanish priest themselves wrote back to Spain that there were many who could write alphabetized Nahuatl. These are such incredibly valuable accounts, and it was really interesting reading this book, so long as you aren't expecting a complete history.

Spectacles by Sue Perkins

Memoir of the English comedian Sue Perkins, who I have long admired. Her refusal to let embarrassment keep her from, say, putting a pig's bladder on as a hat, speaks to me. I was familiar with her through QI appearances and her food shows with Giles Coren before The Great British Bake Off started.

The memoir is wonderful, especially the audio edition which is read by Sue herself. There are moments where she can't stop herself laughing as she's describing an event and that's just golden. I love her more than ever. It was wonderful to feel that Sue has always just been Sue, lacking impulse control and planning in the best way possible.

If you've never seen Bake Off, there is at least one season on Netflix and PBS has started airing it as well. It is a show where the hosts frequently eat things the contestants actually need (but they also lend a hand where stability is needed). Also the winner only gets a cake stand. No money, no cookbook deal, no kitchen remodel. A cake stand and a bouquet.

Library of Luminaries: Frida Kahlo by Zena Alkayat, illustrated by Nina Cosford

This is a sweet little baby biography of Frida Kahlo with really lovely illustrations throughout. It touches on some of the things that are frequently left out of short 'inspiration' pieces (her politics, her bisexuality).

A great little book, good for middle grades and up, I think. It's also just a pretty object. A row of the other titles in this series would be very pleasant for a guest bedroom and would make a great gift.

I do think that there should have been at least one print of a Kahlo painting. There's a bit of one but it's Cosford's take on it. One or two Kahlo prints at the beginning and end would have added something.

The Time Machine by HG Wells

Finally managed to get to an HG Wells book. I have a weakness for old 'science' fiction, and this was a fun trip down that rabbit hole. With this one I was mostly able to turn off the critical brain and just enjoy the journey, so I don't have too much to say about it. It's quite a short book and worth the time input I think

It certainly won't be the last Wells I read.

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

I've read quite a bit of Christie, but only her Poirot and Marple novels. I was struggling to find a book to start that I was excited about, and I've meant to read this for a while. It's her first Tommy and Tuppence novel. I watched a few of the 1980s episodes they did, but not all of them.

It ended up being a good choice for right now. I heartily enjoyed it and listened to the whole thing in two days. There is much grumbling and eye-rolling in my heart about all the anti-trade union nonsense in the book, but that's to be expected, really. Christie furnishes you with plenty of red herrings and confusing in a rather delightful way. This one is more of a thriller than a mystery, but I'm not sure if that continues in the other Tommy and Tuppence novels.

Good fun so long as you can ignore the social commentary.

Everything is Teeth by Evie Wyld

I am a big fan of Evie Wyld. I found her two novels stunning, and I honestly think she'll be one of the 'Classic' authors from my generation (she was born in 1980). Her second novel especially is just incredible.

This book is a graphic memoir, covering a pretty short period of her childhood when she became obsessed with sharks. Most of her childhood was spent in Australia, and summers seem to have partly been spent with her mother's family on the coast. Her interest in sharks wasn't a "how cool are they, I'll learn everything" interest, but more a fascination with shark attacks. Watching her family swim in the ocean she imagined a shark attacking and felt as long as she imagined it then it wouldn't happen.

Joe Sumner provides the art for this, and uses a very simplistic flat black and white style except for the sharks (done in grey pencil with detailed shading) and blood. It was effective in some ways, but the style used for the people I just wasn't fond of.

An interesting little read, but not a great one or a book I feel I must own. Good library checkout title (I found it unexpectedly browsing the new books at my library).

Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life by John D. Billings

This has been on my to-read list for a while, but I think when I added it I didn't realize it was about army life during the American Civil War (I was in WWI mode). I've felt a need to read some older books to counteract all the new ones I've read this year.

What a surprise this volume was! It is absolutely about army life, NOT battles, springing from Billings' experiences in the Army of the Potomac, but it is a general volume. Not too many really personal stories in it. There are plenty of soldiers songs and poems sprinkled in as well. It also had SO much humor! The whole thing was generally a joy to read.

Of course it's a very valuable document for historians but I recommend it for its own sake. Really great surprise read for me.

Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome

With every book I read in the Swallows and Amazons series I become more devoted to them. It's a big warm glass of comfort. Child me would have LIVED these books, would have acted out every single thing. Frankly, adult me still wants to live them. This one has the added bonus of gold mining and lots of technical descriptions.

One of the things that stand out to me with these books is the willingness to have a go at anything. They read a bit about whatever and then they just try it and if they fail it's not the end of the world. It's easy for kids and adults to build up failure at a task into failure as a person. It's something I try to work on with my nephew, as he hates not being perfect on the first go and I think has some anxiety about it.

Wonderful books about the best kinds of childhood adventures. This is absolutely what I dreamed of all through my childhood, which was pretty free range but we lived in a small town. There was no easy stretch of woods to explore, though I walked every inch of town and roamed the river banks.

The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet by Gyalo Thondup, edited by Anne F. Thurston

This is an edited interview style (I believe) memoir by the brother of the current Dalai Lama. It goes from his childhood to the present day, and while it's an important record, Thurston points out in an introduction and afteward some of the potential problems with Thondup's version of events, or the conclusions he draws from events.

Thondup was the only son in his family who did not become a monk. He has worked hard on behalf of Tibet and the Tibetan people, sometimes putting his trust in the wrong people (such as the CIA who wanted to Thondup and others to attack China in return).

A very interesting book, and certainly helpful in getting another perspective on Tibet.

Ostend: Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and the Summer Before the Dark by Volker Weidermann, translated by Carol Brown Janeway

I absolutely adored this book from top to bottom. I haven't read any of the authors in question yet, though I am certainly planning to, and I think this book has given me a nice base to build on. I had never heard of Irmgard Keun but rather fell in love with her character, and I hope I'm going to like her fiction. I love this bit from a letter she wrote:
"You should earn enough as a writer to be able to drink one to two bottles of decent dry champagne per day once your within eight or nine weeks of finishing a novel. It's a shitty time, and this would put you in the right mood to work, and you wouldn't get ill."

There was a strange moment where the author is talking about Keun's lover, Arnold Strauss, who had immigrated to the US. And where did he end up? A big city? Nope, right down the river from me in tiny, awful Montgomery, West Virginia. So random.

The style of the book really worked for me too, the writing was so engaging. I ended up reading most of the book in a single sitting. I highly recommend this little gem (it's about about 160 pages long, and they're not large pages).

"And I understood that the gift of the blessing of being able to think in a wide-ranging fashion and amid a multiplicity of connections, this magnificent ability, the only true way to contemplate the world from a multiplicity of vantage points at once, is only granted to the man who transcends his own experience to absorb from books what they can tell of many lands and peoples and times. I was shattered to realize how narrow a person must find the world if he denies himself books. But moreover, my very thinking about these things, the fact that I could feel as vehemently as I did about what poor Giovanni lacked in heightened pleasure in the world, that gift of being able to be shattered by the chance fate of a stranger, was this not something I owed to my preoccupation with the library? For when we read, what are we doing if not sharing the inner life of strangers, seeing with their eyes, thinking with their minds?"
--Stefan Zweig, The Book as Entrance to the World

Coming Out Under Fire by Allan Berube

I accidentally timed this one for right around National Coming Out Day. It was a very good read, and well told. The focus is relatively narrow, centered on WWII, and it is by turns fascinating, surprising, and heartbreaking.

The shifts in how the military and psychiatry treated LGBT people were interesting, and of course largely superficial. Everything was fine and dandy when they needed every person they could get in the men's and women's forces and then switching to "oh they'll just disrupt everything" when fewer people were needed. Sigh.

I wish my grandparents had lived just a bit longer and I'd been able to ask them about LGBT rights. They were both pretty calm and accepting and live-and-let-live. We have a great oral history interview with my granddaddy but my aunts didn't ask about social movements or specific historical events at all, just his personal life. I'll have to correct that if I can get my mom to sit for a similar interview (which will probably involve a minor miracle).

Emma by Jane Austen

I've read two other Austen books (Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey) and neither made me an Austen fan. I definitely enjoyed Emma more than the others and found the humor to be more apparent. It was really interesting seeing the many small nods the movie Clueless gives to the book, the little details they incorporated. Whoever wrote the screenplay did a really good job.

It won't be my last Austen read, but that's partly just because she didn't write all that much! I am eager-ish to read her novella Lady Susan, as the recent movie made based on it was really hilarious.

All the talk about Emma being a horrible person and everyone hating her, I didn't get that. I didn't think she was a great person, and I certainly don't believe her motives were 100% good, but I felt for her. She's in a small area where there's no one her age and her social position, her father is quite exasperating to live with, and her actions always seemed to spring from loneliness, frankly.

Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery RE-READ

Book three in this series. Despite being exceptionally devoted to the 1980s mini-series, I didn't read these books until I was an adult. The editions we had were those mass market ones with very grown-up/frilly painted covers which really put me off. Even as an adult I definitely didn't make it past the fourth or fifth book (it was before I kept track of my reading), as I got bored once Anne and Gilbert married.

The first three books at least are such a tonic for me. They're the book equivalent of a warm bowl of soup on a freezing day. I think any passionate reader can't help but relate to Anne. There's a new adaptation being made of the first book and I am not happy about it. The 80s mini-series was beyond perfectly cast and I would stake my life on it never being matched.

I listened to the audio edition read by Laurie Klein, and I think she does a good job. She at times seems led by the mini-series actors but doesn't just try to totally mimic them.

I loved that miniseries so, so much. It was always on during PBS pledge drives growing up, and I watched it every single time it was on. Unlike you, I also loved the books growing up, but Marilla in my head was (and is) always Colleen Dewhurst. Perfect casting.

Jennifer, yes, it's amazing! I blame my parents for lack of reading the books. Despite both of them being very bookish I'm the youngest child in a large-ish family and they saw me reading so almost never suggested any book to me. I read plenty of great books, but I do wish I'd read the Anne books and the Noel Streatfeild Shoes books when I was a kid. I'm glad I can easily go into kid-mode when reading them now though. I find in my re-reads now I love Marilla more and more (my first reading of the book I was 18, so only JUST an adult).

The Sheriff of Last Gasp by Carl Barks The Complete Carl Barks Library Vol 15

A very solid volume of shorter pieces from 1953-1955. Some real standout fun in this one, though it doesn't have any of the big adventure stories. I think at this point though those book stories more heavily featured Scrooge. Some of the volumes in this series are Walt Disney's Donald Duck and some Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and I'm not sure what the rationale is for splitting them like that (and Scrooge still appears in some of the Duck volumes and they're basically chronological so all the early volumes of Donald only as Scrooge wasn't really invented yet.

10 volumes are out now (volumes 5-15), as there is sort of an effort to get the really golden years out first maybe to help subsidize the production of the earlier and later volumes? Not sure. Only two Scrooge volumes are out so far with a third due next May. My bookshelf is really groaning, but these things have such small print runs that you really have to buy them right as they come out. The complete Don Rosa library is also being published so my comic shelves are groaning.

At some point I'll go through and work out which volumes have the least problematic social crap (mainly casual racism) and get them for my niece and nephew. Barks really was an absolutely master and Duck comics were a cardinal joy of my childhood (and frequently educational).

The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, A Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History by Darrin Lunde

Guests and cleaning and total exhaustion have kept me from getting to my reviews in a timely manner, so these reviews will be even less thorough than usual.

Theodore Roosevelt is one of those people who frequently defies categorization. Plenty of images relating to his role in creating national parks contrasting with his passion for hunting pop up. He was certainly a passionate naturalist, he read at least two books per day, he had a strict code about hunting and understood how various industries would lead to extinctions.

I've read three other books on Roosevelt (Mornings on Horseback, Island of Vice, and The River of Doubt), and he remains a very interesting figure. This book, as you would guess, strictly focuses on his natural history interest and legacy. It was definitely a valuable contribution to the pool of books about him, and interesting all the way though. Strangely though, I don't think Lunde even mentioned his Brazilian expedition (covered in The River of Doubt) at all, not a single mention.

Good book, recommended. You can also find film footage of parts of his travels through Africa on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPt_a6oCY1Q

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I had made up my mind that I did not want to read this book. Only it was this month's pick at my in-person book club, and it's a short book so I went with it. The reason I didn't want to read it? Partly over-hype but also the warped and harmful view of autism that it presents.

Haddon read one paper about Aspergers and was apparently involved in an Aspergers group for a couple years. The later doesn't mean that much to me, because many of these groups are run by (and partly for) allistic (non-autistic people) and frequently silence autistic people. Autism Speaks is like that, and their focus is on a 'cure,' but you can't 'cure' people of inborn things. What you can do is make society change to better accommodate a wider variety of needs.

It is telling to me that Haddon backed away from descriptions of the narrator as autistic once he started getting flack from autistic people but not before. I follow various disability activist writers and groups, but because I'm allistic the problematic aspects of this book will never be as obvious to me. I forward you to this review, which is very comprehensive and worth reading.

The problem is not simply that this is a character made 100% of autism stereotypes, it's that people without autism will read it and think that now they totally understand autistic people. In a world with more books featuring autistic characters this portrayal would be far less important (likewise in a world that valued autistic writers writing autism higher than allistic authors doing it).

The Seamstress by Sara Tuvel Bernstein

Seren Tuvel (they use Seren all through the book) was a Jewish Romanian girl born into a large family. She was very smart and driven with her education and received a scholarship to go to a school in Bucharest. When the teacher there began class with extreme anti-Semitic rhetoric she threw an inkwell at him and left. Her skills in sewing got her a job in a high end salon. Then everything changed, starting with the border of Hungary. She stole over the boarder to get to see her family and was then taken away (to Budapest, maybe) with her father as "spies" and forced to do labor.

Thus begins her life during the war, attempting to survive in continually straightening circumstances. Her skills sewing and work ethic protected her and some of her family until she was taken to Ravensbruck, the one women-only camp, where a minority of prisoners were Jewish.

Seren's original manuscript was written before there was ease of access to the best information about the camps, about other memoirs, etc... Ravensbruck especially was under-researched. Some of the things Seren says aren't quite right, I don't think (like non-Aryan Ravensbruck women being given plenty of food, though I do believe they were initially given a bit more than the Jewish prisoners), but her viewpoint in the camp is by necessity a narrow one. I think any reader has to admire Seren. She was so spirited and so driven.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero

I don't read a lot of contemporary YA fiction, I just don't want to spend much time with teenagers dealing with pretty normal teenage issues. However, I've got 11 nieces and nephews and I do try to keep up with the really quality YA releases.

This was truly an excellent book. Gabi is just how I want my nieces and nephews to be - smart, creative, ready to fight sexism and racism and question how those and other issues are internalized without our noticing, supportive of their friends, loving their family even when they can't understand (or necessarily agree with) their actions. Gabi is just great, though of course she also has her own insecurities and blind spots.

Wonderful book, very well-done audio edition. If you're tempted by the audio expect a fair bit of Spanish. Often books will list all the second-language phrases in online guides. Spanish is a bit easier since the pronunciation is pretty standard and it's basically spelled phonetically.

The Girls From Ames: A Story of Women and Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow

This was a great read, even if it makes you depressed you don't have such long-time friends. I think part of why I've only felt myself lately when I'm around my mom's sisters is because they've known me forever (and they're wonderful, caring people).

Randomly labeled as fiction on Overdrive (at least my state's Overdrive), it is non-fiction, covering a group of 10-11 (one died very young) women from Ames, Iowa. They're a diverse group, none of them related by blood and some who felt they were on the fringes of the group when young or when older. It's just fascinating, and also a testament to the importance of friendship, and why we need it and should work to cultivate it with people who aren't romantic links (particularly for men who tend to just overload their partner or female family with emotional labor tasks that are rarely returned).

Recommended.

The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher

Originally published in 1943, this at least in part covers the food shaping of Fisher's life starting with childhood and ending in 1941 or so. She spends her early married years in France, which has a strong impact on her food sense.

I really enjoyed the first half, she has a great writing style. Somewhere towards the middle I got a little weary of Fisher. I think partly because she skims over so much in her personal life (if you haven't read her whole Wikipedia page that might be lessened). One minute it's "having troubles in marriage" then it's talking about someone she's never mentioned earlier in the book and she never mentions the husband again. There's not enough real human feeling to balance the somewhat flippant food writing.

My aunt who is a massive Fisher fan is visiting right now, so perhaps I'll ask her.

Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz

I had to miss this one for a book club a couple years ago, as I couldn't find an audio edition. Very interesting subject and very well written.

It is one of those books that reminds you how much of 'common knowledge' is incorrect, which is basically Coontz's focus in general. Her first book was The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap It was a timely read as well, as I've been deep into my maternal grandparents' lives with transcribing letters my grandmother sent from Egypt.

Not much to say about the information. It's a well written book on a fascinating (to me) subject. Recommended.

And just for some typical 1949 wedding magic, here are my grandparents.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin RE-READ

It's fall, I'm inundated with family and extra pain, therefore I needed the absolute joy that is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The Shirley Temple movie has almost no relation to the book bar the title, and it is an extremely underrated classic. If you love Anne of Green Gables, read Rebecca, which pre-dated Anne by five years.

Wiggin knew from children, having started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878. She writes children wonderfully and so convincingly. While Rebecca is an irrepressible force of happiness she doesn't magically change people or change Aunt Miranda into a beacon of love. Rebecca grows from girl to almost-adult in this single volume.

I love this book so much, and I need to read more of Wiggin's work. Rebecca deserves a modern adaptation SO much.

The Not-So-Jolly Roger by Jon Scieszka

This is the second book in the Time Warp Trio young readers series. They're all about 60 pages long, in the first-chapter books style. I knew of the books and founds the cartoon series based on them very fun, so I got the first one for my nephew last Christmas. He was a bit too young to read it on his own, I think, but who can tell, and it's good to have those slightly more advanced books about the house and not just at the library. When my mom asked for a suggestion for his birthday I suggested the second one. I was at hers for extended periods recently during a family visit so read it when I was in the house on my own while the others were doing some activity.

This one focuses on Blackbeard the pirate, and it was quite fun. The books are good, though not great, from an adult perspective. It's harder to appreciate this type than full length children's novels though. I know I would have adored it as a kid, being a history buff. My niece and nephew have not been bitten by the history bug yet so I feel the need to help push that along.

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier RE-READ

My umpteenth reread of this one. You know you've read something a lot when you re-read them out of order on a regular basis (the second book is my favorite). The novel is a retelling of the fairy tale The Wild Swans (or the Six Swans), set in early-ish middle ages Ireland and England.

Marillier largely writes historical fantasy, which is set in real places and times and uses the people's own mythology as the fantasy elements. The characters don't have HUGE contact with the fantasy creatures, generally, and her books are character driven more than anything else. No one has a pet dragon, the fey are the fey and want to use humanity without having TOO much contact with them. Twins/close siblings can sometimes communicate telepathically, but some people STILL think twins can do that, so...

I'd say some of hers are definitely in the "fantasy for people who don't like fantasy" genre, but I think most grounded historical fiction (vs Medieval-esque other planet) falls into that. Her writing, especially in this first trilogy, isn't the most beautiful or finely wrought, but I think it's partly because she tries to keep it sounding like an oral tale, to some extent (and hers are filled with folktales). You're not going to get a beautiful quote to overlay on a field of flowers, but she's a great storyteller.

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado

I am feeling conflicted about this book. There were aspects I really liked and others that I felt I should have liked if I'd read this in 1958 when it was first written but which have become too dated now. This is largely due to the writing of Gabriela who I quite liked, but what was a bit revolutionary then is less so now when it largely revolves around her sex life/romance.

This is the plot summary from Wikipedia, which is more coherent and fully explained than I can manage:
"Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is a romantic tale set in the small Brazilian town of Ilhéus during the 1920s. The town is experiencing a record large cacao crop, which makes it a thriving place and gives it an economic upswing and great progress. Still there is a conservative streak among the town folk and they are still relying on old traditions, like violent political takeovers and vengeance against unfaithful women. The book tells two separate but related tales: first, the romance between Nacib Saad, a respectable bar owner of Syrian origin, and his new cook Gabriela, an innocent and captivating migrant worker from the impoverished interior. The gap between the worlds of Nacib Saad and Gabriela make their romance a challenge to the unwritten rules of Ilhéus society and will subsequently change the two of them forever.

The second part to this story is about the political struggle between the seasoned cacao plantation owners, with the powerful Bastos clan in pole position, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from Rio de Janeiro. It can be read simultaneously as an unusual, charming love story, a description of the political and social forces at work in 1920s Brazil, a somewhat satirical depiction of Latin American aspirations to "modernity", and a celebration of the local culture and pleasures of Bahia."

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

This is the sequel Tahir's very popular YA fantasy An Ember in the Ashes (she does know how to find a good title), which I read last year. It was extremely popular, but didn't do much for me other than admiring the world she'd created and it being nice to have a fantasy book that's not basically extra-white Medieval Europe.

I do still find the world really interesting, but almost too full. It's very cramped and we're finding about X new thing every second and I don't think Tahir is a good enough writer to be able to work all the background in naturally and easily. Also some of the writing style annoyed me, which I don't remember from the first book. She will probably be a fantastic writer eventually and I think she's a voice to cherish and watch. If world building is your happy place I'd be eager to know what you think about the books.

Not sad I read it, but if the first book hadn't ended so abruptly right in the middle of the action I may not have picked the second up. Which reminds me that I found the pacing of this one a bit odd. Not sure if I'm just noticing more since I'm familiar with the world now and had low expectations or if the pacing was better in the first book.

Golden Parasol: A Daughter's Memoir of Burma by Wendy Law-Yone

I think maybe US editions are just titled A Daughter's Memoir of Burma (at least mine via Audible was).

As the title suggests, this is Law-Yone's memoir of her life mostly spent in Burma, and also tells her father's history fighting for the country, dealings with politics, and life as editor of a large English-language newspaper. Law-Yone has her father's memoir to draw from, but also does some investigating to find out if certain stories her father told were true (she's tended to have more faith in his stories than other family members). Her father's imprisonment meant that at one point she was barred from going to university but also barred from leaving the country. She was also imprisoned after being caught in an attempted escape to Thailand.

Interesting book, very interesting life. Generally well-written if occasionally a bit unemotional.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee

A very good book. Well written, fascinating, covering a large swathe of history. Worthy of all the praise it has garnered.

I will say I chose the most depressing time to read this - right after re-reading my maternal grandmother's letters from Egypt, which lightly detail her sister's treatment for (and death from) breast cancer, and her own treatments (and death) from malignant melanoma. The fact that radical mastectomies (taking loads of tissue and even bone) were proved ineffectual for breast cancer in the 1920s or 1930s didn't stop them being performed for decades longer due to a few key surgeons. God knows what my great-aunt went through for treatments.

Absolutely recommended.

Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery

Really enjoyed this book even if it made me hideously depressed that I can't hike (I can only stand/walk for twenty minutes on a good day) anymore. Hiking the Appalachian trail was a dream of mine once.

Grandma Gatewood took to the trail in part to escape an abusive situation that she'd been living in for far too long. She'd tried before but almost died after getting lost. She was a force of nature and shone a light on the trail and how much work was needed on it in terms of marking and shelters. She through-hiked the trail twice and hiked it a third time in sections.

Fascinating book, and a woman who deserves more attention.

The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge

Serge was born in Belgium to exiled anti-Czarist Russian parents. He was an active anarchist from the age of 15 before becoming a Bolshevist after arriving in Russia in 1919 (after being released form a French jail). He declined a position working for Maxim Gorky at his publishing house Universal Literature, and instead became an inspector of schools. His early life, career and life in Russia would make one hell of a movie. The edition I listened to had a great forward about Serge, his place in history, etc...

from Amazon:
One cold Moscow night, Comrade Tulayev, a high government official, is shot dead on the street, and the search for the killer begins. In this panoramic vision of the Soviet Great Terror, the investigation leads all over the world, netting a whole series of suspects whose only connection is their innocence—at least of the crime of which they stand accused. But The Case of Comrade Tulayev, unquestionably the finest work of fiction ever written about the Stalinist purges, is not just a story of a totalitarian state. Marked by the deep humanity and generous spirit of its author, the legendary anarchist and exile Victor Serge, it is also a classic twentieth-century tale of risk, adventure, and unexpected nobility to set beside Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and André Malraux's Man's Fate.

A key component of this book is the fact that many leftists felt they couldn't criticize the Stalinist state because it would damage the cause of worldwide communism/socialism/revolution, etc... It was a really good read, and so clearly pointed to the absurdity, not just the horror, of the time.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I read this once as a child, but mainly I was taken with the 1975 BBC mini-series production of the book. It was cut up and turned into a movie-length version for the American market which we randomly had. Shockingly, it included some Yorkshire actors for Yorkshire characters and basically unknown child actors who were perfect as Mary, Dickon, and Colin.

My approach to this book was hesitant. The Victorian and Edwardian views of disability being limited to "being outside and being positive cures everything." It's a bit different with this one since Colin was never *actually* sick, let alone disabled. It's still a great book though, even with it's issues. Burnett was really a wonderful writer and I rather love that the book opens by talking about how ugly Mary is.

Burnett always sucks me into her world.

The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron

An interesting book about a very specific personality trait with an unfortunate name. I would have rather read her adult book about this type, but it wasn't available on audio. I was/am a Highly Sensitive Person, myself, as is Aron and her own son.

I think for anyone of a certain age the title will induce eye-rolling, but it's really just an unfortunate name. This book is also very much geared toward current parents, and sometimes had me doing a little eyeroll, mainly about how much attention some people seem to pay their children. I'm the youngest of five, my closest sibling is five years older than me, a lot of the time I was watched by siblings, not parents. My parents were loving and cared, but they only had so much time for us, and I was an atmosphere reader. I tired very hard to be less trouble than my siblings.

Aron partly admits that she focuses on introverted HSCs, as extroverts only make up 30% of that group. I am an extrovert, and I do feel she pretty much ignored the differences that creates in behavior. I also think she missed a huge trick in not discussing the effect birth order and older siblings have on HSCs. I'm not a big "birth order predicts XYZ" person, but having older siblings can hugely change behavior and openness.

Interesting title for the psychology focused reader.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

This is the first Poirot novel, which I'd swear I've read before, but it must have been before I started recording my reading in 2006. Also hard to tell since I've watched the BBC Poirot series so many times.

It begins with Hastings sort of investigating a suspicious death, but luckily Poirot is on hand. Hastings is at his bumbling best, which is one of the things I love most about these books.

Christie was a product of her time, but her novels cemented so many mystery tropes, and the books are always fun and interesting.

Lirael by Garth Nix RE-READ

The second book in the Old Kingdom trilogy which has now grown to a pentalogy. To me the Old Kingdom is a supremely fascinating world. One side of the wall there is magic, necromancy, walking dead, etc... and the other side is much like Britain of the 1930s or so. Many south of the wall don't believe the Old Kingdom really exists, at least in terms of its magic.

This book takes place 16 years or so after Sabriel. Sabriel married King Touchstone and had a daughter, Ellimere, and a son, Sameth, who is expected to become the next Abhorsen (a sort of official necromancer who helps protect the kingdom from the dead and free magic creatures). He cannot bear to read about or touch the tools of his trade though. Meanwhile Lirael grows up among the Clayr, a community of seers. She has not received the sight though, and feels extremely out of place and lonely.

A great evil is rising which tests Sameth and Lirael to their limit. Abhorsen picks up right where Lirael ends, and I'm rereading it now. I love Nix's worlds. I love his characters, I love pretty much everything about his books.

Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai

Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist, born in 1940 (died in 2011). In 1977 she founded the Green Belt movement which focused on reforestation, especially of native trees, and women's rights. She came of age at an extremely tumultuous time for Kenya, with the ongoing Mau Mau Uprising which began in 1952. Partly through the urging of one of her brothers, Maathai was largely sheltered from the conflict due to attending a Catholic boarding school. After high school she spent five years in the US getting a bachelors of science and a masters in biology. In 1971 she became the first East African woman to receive a PhD from University College of Nairobi.

The memoir is facts-terse in the way memoirs by women activists born in this period frequently are. There are many aspects I love more insight into, and stories I'd at least like a small overview of the 'other side' of. But it is what it is, and a very important memoir and document of activism in post-Colonial Kenya. Maathai was jailed several times, generally for short periods, and barricaded into her house at others.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

I was working at a bookstore when Larson's The Devil in the White City came out and it was on my to-read list for a long time before I read it in 2014. After years of hype, I was rather disappointed. I didn't feel mashing the two stories together did either any favors. I do recognize that Larson was one of the key authors helping to usher in a new age of popular history writing.

So why have I picked up another Larson book? Well, another local book club that the leader of my main book club clued me into. She's going and it's a new group and I'm curious if maybe they'll be focusing on non-fiction. Of course there's only three of us RSVPd for Thursday, but we'll see.

This book's subjects were even less connected than those in The Devil in the White City, it covers Marconi and the development of wireless telegraphy (particularly at sea) and the murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen. Both make perfectly interesting and lengthy subjects for books in their own right and I don't think telling them side by side adds a single thing to either, not more than a quick couple of paragraphs would anyway. Barring my primary book clubs choosing another of his books, I am done with Larson.

I don't think he's a horrible writer, I just don't see the point for myself as a heavy non-fiction reader.

Twilight of the Eastern Gods by Ismail Kadare

I'm so glad I have a friend who is a diehard Kadare fan, because otherwise I might not have encountered him. I've only read three books by him, but I feel like he's one of those authors who excels at putting layers into his books. There is a straight story that's enjoyable on it's own and then there's the allegory, the historical undercurrents, the absurdist humor, etc...

This book is quite autobiographical covering his time in Moscow at the Gorky Institute, to the extent of using the real names of his fellow students (though presenting caricatures of them). Kadare is an Albanian and was in Moscow from 1958-1960, just before relations between Albania and the USSR cooled. He was also there when Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize and witnessed the media campaign against him and this is a major focus of the book.

There was a sort of lull in the book for me occupy about the second quarter of it, too much angsty romance that didn't feel genuine. Once I got to the halfway point I reengaged and enjoyed the rest of the book. The Siege is still my favorite that I've read by him.

Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person by Miriam Engelberg

This is a collection of autobiography comic strips, very much strips rather than a cohesive memoir, which I really enjoyed. As the title suggests it deals with the author's diagnosis with and treatment of breast cancer. I actually also found a lot to relate to in it from a general long-term chronic illness point of view.

She provides a necessary critique of the "positivity all the time!" idea of serious illness, and brings humor and realism to what she experienced. I think this is an especially good work. Though her artistic skill is limited, it somehow works well, particularly her representations of herself. She initially tried to work with a professional artist but art just never came out as she wanted.

If I were diagnosed with cancer this is the book I would tell my friends and family to read. These are not platitudes, this is not about attaining magical patience or peace with the world, this is about real life.

I fell way behind in reviews due to election anxiety and malaise. I don't think the world has ever felt this scary to me, in a broad sense and a personal one.

My worldly reads are still coming along marvelously at least.



Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Myanmar (formerly Burma), North Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet

Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Africa

Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Puerto Rico

Albania, Belarus, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom

Palestine, Iran, Israel, Syria,

Canada, Mexico, USA

Australia, New Zealand

Argentina, Brazil, Guyana, Peru

45 individual countries represented! I'd like to hit 50 by the end of the year. I have counted Serge as a Russian writer, which it seems very clear is how he saw himself as a writer. Though if a writer spent birth to 18 in one country I tend to count that one (though often include a second one in my records as well if they've largely lived somewhere else since adulthood). This process will never be perfectly accurate for every author's own views, and some people never feel 'from' anywhere, so having a cut and dry system regarding age is what I feel most comfortable with, generally.

I've found it hard to focus on reading this last week, or anything else really. I spent Monday night sobbing on the couch watching PBS NewsHour, and I think it wasn't completely because my favorite journalist died, but also a reaction to this whole week. I also feel like it is a very scary time. I'm tempted to escape to comfort reading, but also wanting to read to understand how this happened.

Very impressed with your worldly reading!

Gwen Ifill will certainly be missed. I couldn't do any news or Facebook for a while, just kept crying and triggering migraines. I think I'm going with a mix or comfort/escapism reads and necessary depressing books.

I can't feel hopeful or optimistic yet. I'm disabled and reliant on SSD, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. I'm taken to be female (I am agender), I'm bisexual, I have an Egyptian Muslimah aunt and cousins living in the US. This is simply scary, and too many of the "let's look at the positives" are people who largely won't be affected by this administration and the changes they can make (republican majority, judges to appoint, etc...). Likewise the "we survived" X awful presidents people, except the "we" frequently means straight, white men.

I'm also unable to feel optimistic. I don't see how this will be anything but a disaster. And the thing with the "we survived X" people is that they seem to forget all the people who didn't survive X (Reagan, AIDS for example.)

I can't even think about SCOTUS. I just can't. I get all panicky.

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen

The classic popular history text, first published in 1931, was an interesting read. It was easy to see why it became a classic, and it's a very useful document for present day historians. The things we see as Very Important and the significance we give them, will usually be somewhat different from how contemporary people saw it. Allen turned 30 in 1920, which also made him a good person to write this book, I think.

There are, of course, aspects that are grating/upsetting/annoying to modern readers. For me one of the big ones was the regard shown to Woodrow Wilson. Sadly I've waited too long to write this review and am having trouble remembering some of the things that struck me as most interesting from the book.

Still a title worth reading.

>69 mabith: Exactly. It's just hard to see how we're supposed to eventually get back on track, what with the voting rights act having been stripped (and I'd say certainly playing a part in this election) and then SCOTUS... Thank god for books for being a light, a sword, and an escape as needed.

Frontier Grit: The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women by Marianne Monson

This is a middle grade non-fiction book, covering the stories of several women who were pioneers in different ways and different areas (and a slight range of times). It was a pretty good read, and I didn't find it too aged-down. I really enjoyed non-fiction as a kid, so I'm trying to keep an eye out for interesting titles for the nieces and nephews.

A downside to not being familiar with most of the women means I'm not sure how much whitewashing there might be in these stories. Some of them I'll be very eager to try and track down adult biographies. It is mostly white women, but an improvement from older similar works, and Monson doesn't try to wipe out all contradictions from the women's histories. She does feel the need to provide a "this is what you should learn from X story" thing at the end of each bit, which I don't believe is necessary and did feel much more aged-down. If a kid makes it through the text (this isn't an I-Can-Read or picture book, after all) I think they're capable of drawing their own conclusions.

Den of Wolves by Juliet Marillier

The third of Marillier's Blackthorn and Grim books. If Marillier usually writes historical fantasy (set in a real, historical time and place with the religion/folklore of the people being the fantasy elements but not dragons for pets or anything), then this series is historical fantasy mystery, which the central mystery relating to a particular folktale. This one might be my favorite, especially as the folktale is an extra obscure one.

Series background - Blackthorn and Grim were once imprisoned together in a particular inhumane lockup by a ruthless local leader (Blackthorn for trying to expose his crimes, particularly against women and his willful murder of her husband and child as she watched). A fey creature offers Blackthorn the chance to leave the jail if she will agree to some terms - relocating to Dalriada to set up as the local wise woman and agreeing to help anyone who asks for it. Grim ends up tagging along. They both deal with PTSD (actually there's a fair bit of PTSD in her books in general) and Blackthorn is a very grumpy character who only wants to face up to their captor and expose his crimes.

Perhaps Marillier's greatest strength as a writer is in character building, and getting you to really care about the characters in a short space of time. Unusually for her, this series shifts between first person narration chapters by Blackthorn and Grim and usually third-person chapters from some secondary characters. I recently re-read her first book (and am currently slow-rereading her second), and goodness, her writing has improved. It wasn't bad in her first books by any means, but more basic and more like an oral tale. I hadn't really realized there had been that much change.

She's a favorite writer of mine and destined to continue to be so.

Abhorsen by Garth Nix RE-READ

Third of the original Old Kingdom trilogy (there are now five books out, but perhaps the new ones count as a sort of a second trilogy). Very good, and basically non-stop action throughout.

As you'll have noticed I'm a huge fan of Nix's books, particularly this series and his Keys to the Kingdom series. This is YA fantasy at its very best, and general world building at its best too. I'm re-reading now in part because OH GOD GET ME OUT OF THIS WORLD FOR A MINUTE but also a brand new book set here just came out and I'm wanting to compare the two newer ones to the original trilogy. Abhorsen came out in 2003 and the first of the new ones came out in 2014.

I absolutely recommend the trilogy. All very good reads.

Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal, and the Roots of Conflict in a West Virginia Mining Community by Rebecca J. Bailey

The Matewan Massacre occurred in 1920 in the town of Matewan in southern West Virginia. It happened at an extremely heated time for southern West Virginia, as the drive to unionize the coal mines there had picked back up after WWI ended (during which time it was basically not legal to strike). The mining community pretty much obeyed that, in return for help getting wages up to a living standard after the war. Then of course all the promises went out the window. It took a long time for the southern mines to unionize, and it was a bloody battle. The massacre involved local police chief Sid Hatfield, other town leaders, and Baldwin-Felts agents (think Pinkertons, many mines in the area hired them all the time as mine guards).

Even though the WV Mine Wars are basically my specialist subject, it took me ages to read this. I took somewhat against Bailey quite early for a variety of reasons. One is that the writing, organization, and argument building aren't great. Her backstory with writing it was basically that it was suggested to her as a good dissertation topic slightly with the implication that it would be easy to properly publish. Her push is that contrary what many think the shootout had little to do with economic oppression and was just about local politics (only by the end she'd changed that to "it wasn't ONLY economic oppression"). Only economic oppression IS politics and the other books do describe the causes as complex. While parts of this book are good exposes of Mingo county politics, it doesn't really hang together. She spends loads of time on background information while spending very little putting together a clear argument. It also reads absolutely like a paper, without the necessary changes and expansions to make it an actually useful book.

One reason she lost me quite early: “...most historians have dismissed contemporary condemnation of Mingo's striking miners as “trash,” or “criminals” as elitist snobbery. … The revelation about Van Clay's previous criminal record requires a mild adjustment of the historical analysis of both Mingo's miners and local perceptions of the 1920-1922 strike.”
One example of a miner with a proper (as opposed to a typical WV) criminal record out of about 10,000... It was literally one example too, she didn't go on to list loads of them. Not to mention that historians are mentioning this because the newspapers accounts of the miners simply as criminals were GENERALLY PAID FOR BY THE COAL COMPANIES. Not to mention that the privileged will always try to paint any oppressed group trying to gain rights as criminals.

I'm glad I finally finished this, but it really was a struggle, even with some really good, interesting information interspersed in there. Quotes like the above make me take her analysis with a big grain of salt.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot RE-READ

Re-read for my local book club and then I ended up having to miss the meeting, so frustrating. Henrietta Lacks was the source of the first immortal cell line, which allowed for some of the most important research of the century. She was a poor, black woman who died of cervical cancer, and her family were not told her cells had been taken, let alone that they were being grown, traded, and finally sold (according to her husband he specifically denied permission when asked about it). There were opportunities for Johns Hopkins to do better which no one cared to take until most of the Lacks family were so pissed off that they didn't want to deal with anyone doing anything with the cells.

I liked it the first time, and I liked it this time, but it was certainly easier to recognize the problematic aspects of how Skloot initially connected with the family. Of course it's an interesting part of scientific (and generally human) history, but we are not OWED information just because we think it would make a good book or that the world *needs* to know. If your first ten phone calls go unreturned you need to stop calling.

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes

The 1940s classic children's novel based on Estes' own childhood in Connecticut during the 1910s (she was born in 1906). Estes was a favorite author in my house when I was growing up, but I haven't really re-read her, and didn't read most of hers on my own when I was a kid so I'm not counting it as a re-read. I think I only ever heard this one read once even, and by the time I was old enough to read it we no longer had a copy. My parents are under the impression that once a book was purchased it remained in the house forever more and never believe me that we no longer owned certain things we used to (I lived in those bookshelves, parents!).

Anyway, still a really lovely read, I think. Janey, sort of the bigger focus among the kids, is very much a stand-in for Estes and I love her all the more for it. This was Estes' first published novel. She started writing when she was bedridden due to tuberculosis.

Lumberjanes Vol 4 by Shannon Watters, Noelle Stevenson, and others

Volume four of the wonderful younger-kid appropriate comic series. I'm excited about new, fun, unique comics that are okay for kids as well as adults. One of the wonderful features is they use awesome women from history as exclamations, think "Oh, Ida B. Wells!"

It's also nice that the volumes represent a complete storyline, so you don't feel totally confused in six months when the next one comes out (I love Saga, I just feel lost a lot). I especially enjoyed this for more time with the adults.

. .
The Don Rosa Library Vol 5: The Richest Duck in the World and The Don Rosa Library Vol 6: The Universal Solvent by Don Rosa

The most recent two volumes of the Don Rosa library. After Carl Barks, Don Rosa is the finest writer and artist of duck comics. I really love him, and getting a new comic with one of his stories was a utter highlight of my childhood.

I was especially excited to have the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck series in print again, as you can't get the original run for anything like a reasonable price. Only these are done chronologically, so the last six in the Life and and Times series are broken up by some unrelated stories and hence not the best way to give the series as a gift.

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, A Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard

I'm a big fan of Candice Millard, and found her first two books just amazing (Destiny of the Republic and River of Doubt). I was a bit disappointed to see that Churchill was the subject of her new one, but with her writing skill knew it would be a good read anyway. It was, and in some ways it's more about the Boer War in general than Churchill. He is a good vehicle for a wider examination, and it probably was the making of him and caused him to rejoin the military.

I will say it had less narrative flow and tension than her other books. I was never on the edge of my seat, perhaps because Churchill is such a towering figure. Millard doesn't glorify him, or his later career in the government, and she doesn't vilify him either. Granting, he could use a little more vilification for some of his horrible views and statements and so on.

A good read, much needed illumination on aspects of the Boer War (Shirley Temple's A Little Princess not being very informative other than me knowing about the siege at Mafeking). Not the first Millard book I'd recommend to people though.

I Will Always Write Back by Martin Ganda and Caitlin Alifirenka

This is a memoir about the correspondence and friendship of two young people, one from Pennsylvania and one from Zimbabwe. Caitlin's 7th grade class were doing a penpal project and got to choose a country to send a letter to. Caitlin chose the one she'd never heard of - Zimbabwe. Unlike most of the kids in her class, she and Martin continued to write to each other and became best friends. As they get to know each other better, Caitlin comes to realize how badly off Martin is, and how different their lives are. She begins sending money that is peanuts to her when Martin's family is no longer able to pay for his school fees and enlists her family to help when his father is laid off.

The book is partly reprints of their letters and partly their own commentary on what they were feeling and doing surrounding the writing of each letter, and what they weren't putting in those letters. Also the personal growth of Caitlin who has lived a very sheltered, and insular life. She is exactly my age, and I was a bit appalled at her lack of knowledge in some areas. She stated that she couldn't name any countries in Africa when they started corresponding when she was 12 (in 1997), and really? Not South Africa? Not Egypt? Granting being a soccer fan helps you through watching the World Cup, but still... Also her field hockey coach was apparently terrible if she was letting the girls bend over their sticks all the time rather than bending at the knees.

It's a good book, and a good addition to middle school and early high school libraries/curriculum. Caitlin sometimes rubbed me the wrong way, for a variety of reasons mostly unrelated to her friendship with Martin, but our childhoods and upbringings were very very different.

The Wreath (sometimes titled The Garland) by Sigrid Undset

Set in 14th century Norway, this is the first in a trilogy commonly referred to as Kristin Lavransdatter, which is the name of the main character. Kristin is the older daughter of respected nobleman. We follow Kristin as she and her family experience various tragedies and she falls in love despite having been promised to a neighbor's son since childhood.

That description doesn't really sell it, but I loved this book, even though I read the old translation which has a lot of issues. There was just something so compelling about Kristin. I'm going to get the new translation for the next book. Highly recommended.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 1 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson

Book people I trust love this comic, so I thought I'd give it a go. Squirrel Girl is a 1990s Marvel creation, designed to allow for some lighter stories and fun comics versus the super heavy storylines common at the time (gee, wonder how they lost the kid market...). She's been rebooted almost for the same reason and slightly as a jokey "can this work" thing, I guess?

It was a fun collection, I really enjoyed her. However, I probably need to stop casually picking up superhero comics. I'm fine with stand-alone things, but when they randomly interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe characters it really breaks my focus and enjoyment. I think if you didn't start reading Marvel or DC pretty young that will always feel weird.

I'm torn about picking up the other volumes, but my library has them, and this was a really fun one.

Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering how the Brain Codes our Thoughts by Stanislas Deheane

I like my science books, and brain science is fascinating, but this wasn't a great read for me. Deheane was a maths and computer science before turning to neuroscience and psychology. In my opinion he's a little too steeped in all of that to write a really engaging book for the general public (writing the book in English, not his native language, might have also been a factor).

Other people seem to love it, so maybe it's just and me in this moment who couldn't enjoy this book. There's a lot of interesting information here, but I found it so bogged down.

The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death Under Soviet Rule by Igort

This non-fiction comic is the result of years of travel and interviews with people in Russia and Ukraine. Igort is the pen name of Igor Tuveri, an Italian artist. The book is sometimes more illustrated text than comic and it all flows around.

He has cherry picked specific people's stories told generally in their own words to present in this book. It's a great accomplishment, and incredibly well done. It touches on parts of history frequently forgotten like Holodomor, the purposefully orchestrated Ukrainian famine, and the fighting in Chechnya.

Very good book, highly recommended.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba is a Malawian man, who is now about 27 years old. He was a child during a particularly harsh famine in Malawi, which forced him to drop out of school. He was curious about electricity and particularly the small generators on bicycles that powered a headlamp. He read through his town's tiny library, and soon began to experiment with repairing electronic equipment. Eventually he built a windmill, despite the town calling him crazy over it.

The windmill attracted the notice of bloggers which attracted the notice of the TED group. He was invited to speak at a TED conference thing in Tanzania. I think the publicity allowed him to receive funds to continue his education at a private school.

It's a good book about an incredible young man. The writing is pleasant and compelling.

Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac

Okay, I get a little neurotic about graphs and charts. Goodreads, if you enter a 'date read' lets you see a graph of the books you've read by publication date. I really enjoy this, and I'd like to have a pretty solid line going back to 1850. I have a fair few gaps in those earlier years, so I admit I chose this particular Balzac book based on publication date. I've been meaning to read something by him for ages, and this may not have been the perfect start, but I am a person of strange whims.

That being said, I did really enjoy the writing and the story and will definitely be reading more Balzac. The book follows Old Goriot, who has given what money he had to set his daughters up in life but is not outside their social station, a criminal in hiding, and a young law student he befriends Goriot.

A very good read.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

One of those very very popular books. I didn't go into it with any expectation of the story, though I was pretty sure it wouldn't end up being a favorite for me. At times it was deeply uncomfortable, at times the writing was beautiful.

On that point I was correct, but it was an interesting read. It has a slightly surreal atmosphere, almost like magical realism but there's no magical realism. I didn't hate the book, and I'm very curious about the author and the intentions behind it. It seems like one of those books you could dissect forever, and diligent readers could probably find any meaning they chose to in it.

I'll be thinking about this one for a while, and maybe it's one I will reread in fifteen years or so. However, I don't quite get the hype behind it.

The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid by Pat F. Garrett

Pat Garrett was elected sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico in 1880 and set out hunting Billy the Kid before his term even started, he also received a US Marshall's commission which allowed him to track the Kid over county lines. The Kid was captured at a place called Stinking Springs (which rather amuses me), and sentenced to hang but escaped. Garrett caught back up with him a few months late and apparently coming into contact before he was ready, Garrett shot and killed the Kid in a dark room.

The book was largely ghostwritten by Marshall Ash Upson and was a commercial failure upon its realize. Part of the intention in writing it was apparently to combat the folk-hero reputation that was beginning to develop (or perhaps more so for making Garrett sound like an assassin).

An interesting read, not a bad book, and interesting for the people who were around New Mexico law enforcement at the time (including Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur, who had a ridiculously interesting life, and great facial hair to boot). It has the limitations you'd expect, but is very valuable for being written so close to the actual events.

A Story of the Red Cross: Glimpses of Field Work by Clara Barton

This is a little memoir of various experiences in the field with the Red Cross in a variety of conflicts and aid situations. Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross, after becoming familiar with the Red Cross while traveling in Europe to recover her health after the Civil War (and her work with the Missing the Soldiers Office).

I remember reading children's bios of Barton when I was a kid, but it was nice to read something in her own words. While she became involved in women's suffrage and civil rights activism, she was still a woman of her time, so be prepared for casual racism and don't expect a feminist writing.

Worth reading, I think. Not a book about the founding about the American Red Cross or a memoir by any stretch, of course. Maybe especially interesting to those in the medical professions.

In The Sea There Are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari by Fabio Geda

This is the story of Enaiatollah Akbari and his flight from Afghanistan and journey through various countries on the way to Italy. Akbari is from the Hazara ethnic group and his fathered was murdered by people from another group (the Pashtun). His life is in danger as well, so his mother sneaks him away, they walk to Kandahar, then get a ride to Quetta in Pakistan. His mother then returns to Afghanistan and his two younger siblings. Akbari thinks he is 10 when this happens.

I have some issues with how Geda has done this book. When I saw this was a novel based on Akbari's story I assumed it would be written like a novel (ala Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis), but it really isn't. The book is a straight, one-person narrative of Akbari's journey from his point of view, like one long monologue. Having some help with working out chronology and it not being 100% doesn't make it a novel, it makes it a memoir that you'd either say was written with Geda or ghostwritten by him. To make this stranger, there are interview type interruptions by Geda to Akbari which are, according to one article, 100% real quotes from Geda and Akbari.

As a memoir, fine, good, important narrative, lacking on extra detail but that's not surprising. As a novel it's absolutely terrible. Given that the introduction simply talks about chronology and having to reconstruct the journey it doesn't seem like there's any fiction involved, just the usual inaccuracies that many memoirs have. That's why most of them talk about "these are my memories and there may be inaccuracies." Of course, this is not the kind where the author can go track down the key people to see what they remember. The whole thing makes me slightly suspicious about Geda (unreasonably, I'm sure).

Clariel by Garth Nix RE-READ

Since I was reading the original trilogy and will soon read the fifth title set in this world, I thought I might as well re-read Clariel too, even though it's a prequel to the original trilogy. My first read of it in 2015 wasn't super satisfactory, but I hadn't read the originals for so long. One of my issues was the pacing, though I think it's just that it gets going more slowly than most other Nix books in general, and most of the real actiony bits are right toward the end. He generally likes to throw you into things as quickly as possible and keep the danger ramped up the whole time. Another issue is probably just that I loved the characters of the original trilogy (the second two books are really like one long book), so it's hard to welcome a new face.

In this, one wishes Clariel had a bit more wisdom, but she is quite young and that's sort of Nix's point. It toys with the line between good and evil far far more as well. I liked it more this time around, but I probably won't feel the need to read it again.

Well, it finally happened. My hero Ken Hechler died. He was a New Yorker by birth, but became a West Virginian, representing us in Congress from 1959-1977 and then serving as WV Secretary of State from 1985-2001 (he authored numerous books as well).

He was 102. Born in 1914, he received a BA from Swarthmore, an MA and a PhD from Columbia (in history and government), and before WWII was a faculty member at Barnard, Princeton, and Columbia. After being drafted into the army he graduated from Officer Candidate school was assigned as a combat historian in the European theater, and after the war interviewed many of the defendants prior to the Nuremberg trials. He was attached to the division which captured Ludendorff bridge and in 1957 published the book The Bridge at Remagen (adapted into a film in 1969). He published many other books relating to WWII.

He was a White House assistant to Harry Truman, a research director for Adlai Stevenson's campaign, and then took a faculty position (and a steep pay cut) at Marshall University in Huntington, WV before entering politics. In Congress he was most active on issues of mine safety, miner's health, and black lung compensation. He was the foremost architect of the Coal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1969.

He was the only active member of Congress to march with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma. When he was 85 years old he walked 530 miles with Doris Haddock (Granny D), in her walk across the US in support of campaign finance reform (Doris was 89!). In recent years he's been vocal in fighting Mountaintop Removal, to the extent of getting arrested at a protest when he was 95.

He married for the first time when he was 98. He said he just hadn't had the time before.

Thank you for bearing with me. Ken Hechler was truly a great American, but little known outside of West Virginia, and I just wanted to share some highlights of his long life. I was hoping he'd be one of those people who live to be 110+, but I so wanted him to at least survive 2016 and all its horror. Also he was an adorable old man.

Thanks for this excellent overview of Ken Hechler, I had never heard of him before. He seems like a good role model for older Americans (I'm one). I just requested his book The Bridge at Remagen from my library and hope to add it to my 2016 reading list. Reading through your thoughtful reviews of books you read this year, I have added The Mathematician's Shiva to my reading stack.

He is certainly a wonderful reminder that the second half of life can be even more valuable than the first. He'll be incredibly missed here (WV especially loves our feisty old folks, going back to Mother Jones). The NYT gave him a good obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/politics/ken-hechler-dead.html?_r=0

I need to get The Bridge at Remagen myself, though his book on the Mine Safety and Health Act is the one that's been on my list for a while.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

The most depressing thing is just how relevant all of this writing is. I would consider it a vital read for any feminist or activist. Lorde is very balanced in pointing out good and bad parts of society (particularly during her travels in the Soviet Union).

Lorde rather ignores disability as a type of intersectionality which i find disappointing, even considering that these were written in the 1970s or 1980s. If you don't think disabled people are devalued, keep in mind that architecture and history matter more than disability in the US (and we're one of the more accessible societies, frankly).

Great, important read.

My wish for you & yours throughout the coming year, Meredith.
warm & gentle hugs, my sweet friend.
love,
belva

Thank you so much, Belva! I hope all the same for you.

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

The remotest chance played an extreme role in the life of Ann Rule and this book. After enough murders to make it clear this was the work of a serial killer, Ann Rule signed a publishing deal for a book about it. It turned out that the man responsible, Ted Bundy, was someone she worked closely with on a suicide prevention hotline, someone she considered a friend. She even became concerned enough about a witness description of the man that seemed to match Bundy well that she gave his name to police.

Learning a friend, or even acquaintance, was an extremely active serial killer (30 confirmed victims but perhaps far more) would always be difficult to accept and process. How much worse might it have been for Rule, a former police woman, and someone who had been writing up articles for crime magazines before this book. However she coped, Rule was ideally placed to write this book, far more so than anyone else who knew Bundy.

It became a classic for a reason, and allowed Rule further book-length True Crime contracts with relative ease, I imagine. Well worth reading.

Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier RE-READ

I re-read this back in July, but it's one of my go-to 'feel better' books, and my favorite in this trilogy (also I re-read the first in this trilogy after July, tried to skip to the third, but was unable to proceed without hitting this again). Marillier writes mainly historical fantasy, set in a real place and time with real populations. Their religion/folklore is real and that brings the fantasy element, but the focus remains firmly on the humans. No dragons, no unicorns, no fey who are best friends with the humans.

I don't quite know how she does it, but Marillier makes me really, truly care about her characters in a very short amount of time. It's a strength with most of her books, even when the content isn't my favorite (as with her fully fantasy YA trilogy, Shadowfell). I am grateful for the authors who suck me into the characters this hard.

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

The Gun Club or Baltimore, Maryland, is bemoaning the end of the Civil War because of the lack of necessity for new and improved weapons (especially cannons). Luckily one member has the perfect project - launching a craft to the moon using a giant cannon. There's an interesting mix of real and false science knowledge (the real being ideal places for space centers, the one they choose predating the Kennedy Space Center by 100 years), and quite a lot of humor.

The book goes through seeing the manned craft launched but leaves the conclusion to the next book. Generally enjoyable, though for me much less so than Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

This was the pick for a non-fiction book club I joined, and was pretty enjoyable. Could a more thorough job have been done? Quite possibly, but Roberts turned out an interesting, highly readable book. It covers the well-known women in much more detail than they usually get, and many lesser known (or even unknown) women as well.

My book club spent a lot of time bemoaning how history is taught ages 12-18. The information Roberts uses is by no means new. These aren't suddenly discovered records. These women could (and should) be in our history courses. Pretty much all of them impacted the US more than President Harrison (who only spent 32 days in office), but even Abigail Adams only gets her "remember the ladies" quote mentioned in passing in most history courses.

Good initial exploration into these women.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Another book club read. I didn't hate this book, but I didn't particularly like it either. It gave me the feeling that it was written just to be turned into a movie (which it was). In the book 17-year old Mia is in a car wreck with her family. Her parents die at the scene and she finds herself hovering outside her body. She's in a coma and goes with her body to the hospital. The title deals with a nurse's comment that in those cases it's the patient who chooses whether to go or stay.

I don't really get why this was SO popular, as it felt pretty gimmicky to me. Contemporary YA isn't my field though. Again, not a BAD book, just didn't do it for me.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

This book was originally published in 2005, and seems to have become an instant classic with history readers. There are a lot of very good reasons for that, one of the big ones being how Mann covers ideas that scholars disagree on. He gives coverage to all sides, bringing up why their arguments make some sense (or don't), but then explaining flaws in them.

It was an absolutely excellent read, and should be good for those who don't read a lot of non-fiction, if you're interested in the subject. I really loved how he went about writing this, and felt very informed by the end. He focuses on a few semi-narrow areas, and also brings up common misconceptions and incorrect stereotypes (both positive and negative).

Great book, highly recommended.

Liar Temptress Soldier Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott

It was interesting reading this at the same time as Founding Mothers. The book follows Belle Boyd, Rose Greenhow, Emma Edmonds, and Elizabeth Van Lew, the first two Confederates the latter Union, and all very different in what they did. All were spies and liars, two were temptresses, and one was a soldier.

The women were very interesting and the book is well written, but it's a bit too narrative for my tastes. I want to know how Abbott got this information. Why was the diary of a man who served in the army with Emma (under her disguise as Frank Thompson) found and preserved? Where did some of the other information come from? I'd say it's a great book for people who don't usually read non-fiction, or only read memoirs, but I really missed that extra touch.

Not sure what it says that both the confederate women used sexual charms to enable their spying... Belle Boyd was certainly larger than life, and I amused myself by thinking of her as a West Virginian, which she would have hated.

Fatherland by Nina Bunjevac

A graphic memoir detailing the author's parents, their lives in Serbia, and her father's involvement with Serbian nationalist terrorists in the 1960s. As their marriage fell apart and Bunjevac's mother flees back to Yugoslavia (her birthplace) with the author and her sisters. Hiding the escape under the guise of a vacation, Bunjevac's father doesn't allow their son to accompany them.

Bunjevac's art is absolutely stunning. She uses a sort of combination stippling and cross-hatching shading style, and while the whole look is quite stylized the faces remain very realistic.

Recommended.

Clotel: or, The President's Daughter by William Wells Brown

Now this was a book and an author I'd never heard of. I was going through Wikipedia's "Literature in X-Year" pages looking for books of a certain age when I came across this. Brown was a prominent black writer born into slavery in 1814, escaping at age 20. He racked up a lot of firsts in his career, including the first published African American playwright, first history of African Americans during the Revolutionary War, first published novel by an African American, and among the first entered into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

Clotel is that first novel, originally published in 1853. It follows an imagined life of one of Thomas Jefferson's children by his slave Sally Hemmings (called Currer in the book). It sort of blew me away that anyone would think to write such a novel in that time. The book is not a literary masterpiece, and feels segmented in trying to show every aspect of the evils of slavery, but it was still an interesting read. Brown comments on 'passing,' colorism (or shadeism), the myth of the 'good' slaveholder, etc...

It is perhaps in large part a propaganda piece, aimed at white people, but still a worthwhile read, I think.

67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence by Howard Means

My parents graduated high school in 1966 and 1969, and the Kent State shootings still stand out hugely in their memories. It's probably especially big for my dad, who grew up mostly in eastern Ohio, and stayed in Ohio to attend a small, private college (Muskingum, in New Concord). I went into this book with their feelings prominent in my mind.

The story of the shootings, of the poorly arranged National Guard presence, is a shifting tale and Means does well to pull it into shape without acting like it can all be known and quantified. The book is readable, and employs a lot of first person testimony. It does not simply demonize one side or the other.

A good read, and an important one at this point in US history, I think.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

The internet and publishers disagree about whether this is very autobiographical fiction or a memoir. Jackson herself referred to it as a memoir so that's how I'm treating it.

It's a very fun book of essays which center around Jackson's family life after they move to from NYC to Vermont and focusing on her children's activities. I found it incredibly enjoyable and funny. Her description of her third child's birth in the hospital was particularly interesting to me (in terms of thinking about my grandmothers' birth experiences).

Fun, quick read.

Ms. Marvel Vol 6 by G. Willow Wilson

A very mixed volume, kind of without a continuing storyline but also without a conclusion to the Civil War thing. Will never get used to all the Marvel characters existing in the same world and interacting. The last three or so issues here also had artists I dislike.

I think I said this last time, but if my library stopped getting these I wouldn't be horribly upset or start buying them.

Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey

A memoir by a woman who begins experiencing light sensitivity, first just to her face from her computer monitor and gradually spreading to her full body and all types of light. I've seen a few articles showing disbelief in her symptoms or story, and suspicion that she uses a pen name. However, as someone with a chronic pain illness (which includes sensitivity to sunlight and some other light sources), the way she describes her life and limitations rang VERY true. I can also understand using a pen name for a variety of reasons. My search on her wasn't overwhelmed with disbelieving articles, so I'm largely ignoring that.

Starting this, I was surprised to find myself relating to it. I didn't go into it thinking of this as a pain issue, I suppose. I am not stuck in the dark, but I am mostly stuck in my apartment. Like Anna, I have been the 'burdensome' disabled partner fully depending on my partner and dealing with guilt. Like Anna, I go out wrapped up in giant hats and hiding under reflective windshield sun visor things during car trips (why didn't she think of reflective space blankets?!) . Unlike her, no amount of rest or darkness or anything I can control will result in zero pain.

I found the book very well done, and an interesting read.

The Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad

The December pick for my online book club, and a good read. I enjoy reading about Islam, though the book is more of a travel memoir than a spiritual memoir, in my opinion. Travel is the heart of it, and wide travel and wide contact with the people he encountered leads him to Islam, of course. The book is also a snapshot of the 'Middle East' before things really went pear-shaped. Asad was seeing the last of an era, and knew it.

Asad has a great capacity for language (use of and in learning multiples), though he occasionally gets a bit flowery, especially in the beginning. The book also switches in time a lot, so one minute we're on his first trip to Mecca and the next we're on his fifth trip or somewhere in between going somewhere else. There's also the issue of showing formalized language by using thees and thous. He doesn't translate abaya or galabeya into generalized "robes," it would be so much better to show phonetic spellings of the Arabic words for formal pronouns. Explain it once in the beginning and off you go.

The winding nature of Asad's tale, while initially charming, could easily annoy people. I still found it a good read and will be looking for his memoir covering the second half of his life.

Time for some statistics!

Total read - 278
61% Adult Non-Fiction to 39% Adult Fiction
64% all of reads had been on a to-read list for more than three months
62% of all authors from the US or UK
58% by women authors
65% Audiobooks
31 Re-reads (all fiction)

Happy-ish with the range of years read, though I realized due to two recent older reads that Goodreads (where this chart is from) sometimes randomly doesn't chart a book. I added the two I knew it missed, but I couldn't check everything. I'll have to make a 2017 chart myself, I guess. I'd like to have a more solid line going back to 1800.

This year I also read authors from 53 unique countries. Hoping to get to 50 again in 2017.



(Some of the tiny countries don't show up at all, and I am counting Tibet as a separate country.)

Favorite Non-Fiction Reads
Wave - Sonali Deraniyagala
Evicted – Matthew Desmond
Love InshAllah - Nura Maznavi, Ayesha Mattu (editors)
Charity and Sylvia – Rachel Cleves
Under an English Heaven – Donald E. Westlake
The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson
If the Oceans Were Ink – Carla Power
The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk
The Invention of Nature – Andrea Wulf
King Leopold's Ghost – Adam Hochschild
Needless Suffering – David Nagel
Hidden Figures – Margot Lee Shetterly
Summer Before the Dark – Volker Weidermann
Coming Out Under Fire – Allan Berube
The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddartha Mukherjee
Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde

Favorite Fiction Reads
Capital – John Lanchester
The Price of Salt – Patricia Highsmith
The Bridge of Beyond – Simone Schwarz-Bart
Bellwether – Connie Willis
Know the Mother – Desiree Cooper
The Colonel – Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
Rebels and Traitors – Lindsey Davis
The Mummy Case – Elizabeth Peters
A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Children of the New World – Assia Djebar
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
Den of Wolves – Juliet Marillier
The Wreath – Sigrid Undset

Favorite YA, Children's, and younger-age comics
Moomin Comic Strip Vol 1 – Tove Jansson
Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl – Daniel Pinkwater
Alchemy and Meggy Swann – Karen Cushman
The Shepherd's Crown – Terry Pratchett
The Cracks in the Kingdom – Jaclyn Moriarty
A Tangle of Gold – Jaclyn Moriarty
Nimona – Noelle Stevenson
Emma Vol 1 – Kaoru Mori
Long Division – Kiese Laymon
Anya's Ghost – Vera Brosgol
Pigeon Post – Arthur Ransome
Gabi, A Girl in Pieces – Isabel Quintero

New thread started here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/245235