Biography/Memoir
Sarah Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth The title of this book makes it rather obvious that the author has a chip on her shoulder. Still, considering that I have deep roots in the rural Midwest with many family members on both sides who farm, I was very interested in what Smarsh had to say. There was a lot of ranting to Steve about this one on our weekly dinner dates as we compared notes (he grew up on a farm in a rural Nebraska community). In the end, we both agree—yes, there are people in flyover country who live like this, but no, it is not the norm among the people we know. The book is on my short list of books I may have my daughter read as a teen in order to see how, especially for girls, one bad decision leads to another and can snowball into a lifetime of poverty and scratching to make ends meet. This book was a nonfiction National Book Award Finalist last fall.
Alberto Alvaro Rios, Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir A lovely post-World War II memoir written by a poet who grew up in Nogales, AZ which sits right on the border with Mexico. The prose is beautiful but not so poetic as to be difficult to read. I found his descriptions of life in a border town when the border was open especially interesting after reading Crossing the Wire last fall. Lovely book.
Classics
Charles Dickens, Hard Times This reading confirmed this book’s place as my least favorite work by Dickens. I had to read it in college, and as I got into it, the story was not unfamiliar. The characters are so extreme, though—some overly emotional while others show no emotion at all, which is the crux the book revolves around. I am also slowly reading A Tale of Two Cities along with Ben for school, and it is still my favorite of Dickens work, though David Copperfield is a close second. The Well Read Mom book club is discussing Hard Times in February.
Jane Austen, Persuasion Ironically, this reading confirmed this book as my least favorite of Jane Austen. I’ve read it once before, on my own, probably before kids, and I remember not being impressed. I am also slowly reading Pride and Prejudice along with Ben for school, and it is still my favorite Austen work, Mansfield Park being a close second. Persuasion just lacks the action of her other books. In Pride and Prejudice the plot clearly goes back and forth, but you have to get to the second-to-last chapter before there is anything more than casual random meetings between the two characters in Persuasion accompanied by long descriptions of the heroine’s angst. Anne Elliot may be feeling the tension every time she sees the man she loved and refused over eight years before, but as a reader, I’m just not feeling it. The Bookening podcast is discussing Persuasion in February.
Modern Classics
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses This book definitely lives up to the hype. It’s one of those that you read and immediately want to reread because you feel like you barely scratched the surface the first time. As soon as I finished listening to the audio version narrated by Frank Muller (which is excellent!), I checked out the ebook from the library and plan to read it this month. It’s on the level of The Power and the Glory where there is so much depth there, you simply cannot take it all in the first time even though you completely immerse yourself in it. Great book!
Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words This book is written as a diary of a woman who settled on a claim in Arizona in the 1880’s, and contrary to the impression the title might give, all of the grammar is very proper. This is one of the best love stories I’ve read in some time, reminiscent of Janette Oke (which I read as a teenager) yet not overtly written as a romance. If I were to give an award for worst book hangover of the month, this book would win hands down. So good it almost made me not want to read anything else for a couple of days.
J.A. Jance, Desert Heat Joanna Brady finds her sheriff deputy husband dying from a gunshot wound just a few miles from their home. When he dies later in the hospital, the department investigates it as a suicide, but Joanna thinks otherwise. It’s a simple book—not literary by any means—but I never felt like I had to suspend belief in order to go along with the story. Not my usual genre, it was good based on what I expected of the genre, if that makes any sense. Definitely more like John Grisham and less like Tana French. I put the next book in the series on my wish list as soon as I finished this one.
Contemporary Fiction
Leif Enger, Virgil Wander I loved Peace Like a River, and while this book didn’t quite measure up to that, it was still a lovely, leisurely read. It’s more the meandering of small town life than a plot-driven novel, but the characters and the scenes made me want to savor every word. I know some were disappointed by it, but I loved it.
Juvenile/YA
Marguerite Henry, Brighty of the Grand Canyon Another reread, this book doesn’t lose its charm. I was saddened, however, when someone posted an article online that talked about the real story and how the ending was actually quite different. Still, a lovely book that makes you feel like you know a little of what it was like to live in the Grand Canyon.
S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders Apparently this book gets assigned a lot for school, but I had never read it. We had formal reading curriculum rather than reading real books for school through the 9th grade, and then the few books we read outside our textbooks were classics. It was a good story, but I’m not sure why one would read it for school, at least not with the kind of reading we did. The boys read it, too, and it was fun to discuss at our local library book club. I checked out the movie from the library and am hoping to get a chance to watch it soon (so many big names!).
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Another reread that just doesn’t lose its charm. This book seemed much longer to me when I read it before, but even though the story was simpler than I remembered, there is just so, so much to think about. The Read Aloud Revival is featuring these books this winter with a discussion in April led by Jonathan Rogers, author of The World According to Narnia: Christian Meaning in C.S. Lewis’s Beloved Chronicles. As soon as I finished it, I downloaded Prince Caspian to read next.
Janet Briggs Martin, Snowflake Bentley Just a simple picture book, something which I rarely read anymore, this book tells the story of Wilson Bently who photographed snowflakes and brought their beauty to the world with his pictures. If I ever need to gift a picture book, this one is on my short list of great options. This was the January selection for the Read Aloud Revival.
Nonfiction
Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision, 1846 In the year 1846, President James Polk brought together the western territories under American jurisdiction—settling the boundary of the Oregon territory with Canada, and obtaining both Texas and California. This book tells the stories of the pioneers traveling west—both those traveling the Oregon Trail and the Mormons in search of a new city where they could worship without interference. It tells stories of battles fought in California against the Mexicans. And it relates details of the doomed Donner party as they attempted Hastings’ shortcut. I did not realize this was such a pivotal year in American history. A long read, but fascinating and well-done if you care even casually about history.
Jana Bommersbach, The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd In 1931, a woman named Winnie Ruth Judd got on a train in Phoenix and traveled to California with two trunks which began to leak fluids. They turned out to contain the bodies of two women, and, according to Judd, her two best friends. She served over 40 years in Arizona prison for their murders, but did she really commit them? This is Arizona’s infamous crime tale, not unlike the Starkweather killing spree in 1950’s Nebraska, which my husband has obsessively read about. The book is well researched but not written on the level of a serious journalist; the writing was a bit self-conscious at times rather than just telling the story. But all in all, a fascinating tale.
Business/Self-Help
Julie Morgenstern, Time to Parent: Organizing Your Life to Bring Out the Best in Your Child and You I liked Morgernstern’s books on organizing back in the day so was intrigued when I spotted this at the library. I liked the quadrants she set up for time invested in our children, both directly (spending time with them) and indirectly (maintaining a household and planning their activities). But it’s one of those books that could have been much shorter—the test for how you are spending time in the various areas was not at all helpful—and I skimmed large portions of the book. The idea of the book is good, though, so it’s worth at least a scan.
Science/Nature
Sandeep Jauhar, Heart: A History Jauhar is a cardiologist and writes the history of the heart—how it was the last organ the medical profession attempted to fix, how the heart-lung machine was developed, etc. The patient histories were fascinating, from congestive heart failure to full-blown heart attacks. Ironically, so many of the surgeons who spent their lives studying and operating on the heart died themselves of some sort of heart failure. Not a preachy book at all (in terms of taking care of your heart health) but rather just a casual history of what we know about the heart and how we learned it. This was the January selection for PBS/Now Read This.
John McPhee, Basin and Range I had no idea that highways cut through hills and mountains are the main research resources for geologists. In face, geology would know little of what it knows today were it not for the fact that they can stop their vehicle along the side of a highway and chip out rock samples from those cuts. This book, the first in McPhee’s 3-part series on geology, focuses largely on the basins and ranges of the western United States. It was especially interesting after our drive out to Seattle last August and the terrain we saw on the way. Not my favorite McPhee book, but still very good.
Morning Collective with the kids
Virginia Sorensen, Miracles on Maple Hill After Marly’s father comes home from the war (likely with PTSD, though it isn’t stated directly), the family moves out of the city to a rural farmhouse on Maple Hill. As an adult reading between the lines, it was interesting to see how the father improved with the change of scenery, but I have no idea if that is actually realistic. As a children’s story, it is great fun as Marly and her brother explore the hills around their home and help their neighbors make maple syrup. A fun read-aloud with the kids.
Shakespeare, Henry V The Play’s the Thing podcast by the Circe Institute discussed this play in December and January. When they posted the thread seeking questions for the Q&A episode, some clown wrote: “What does the V stand for? Victor? Vincent? The play does not address.” I took honors English classes with clowns like that, more high school than college but both just the same. One must not take themselves too seriously just because they read Shakespeare.
Reading Ahead/Along for School
Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers Some history books are hard to read—this one is not. It tells the stories of relationships between the founding fathers. It starts with the Hamilton-Burr affair: how the dispute erupted and how the duel went down. It ends with the friendship between Adams and Jefferson: from the years of their close friendship while serving in France to the strains in their relationship while they each served as President to their reconciliation through correspondence once they had both retired from actively serving their country. This book is about the people, not just dry facts. Well-written, easy to read, and highly worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it won.
What I didn’t read…
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens This was the Guardian book club selection for January. I tried to read it—I really did. I read the sample from Amazon on my Kindle but wasn’t feeling the love. I downloaded the ten-hour audiobook from Hoopla—which is very well done—and listened to two hours of it, but still just wasn’t feeling the love. Sam Jordison’s post about it on the Guardian titled “Good Omens isn’t funny? That’s hilarious” tells me I am not alone. I’d put it in the same category as P.G. Wodehouse which people also rave about as absolutely hilarious but I don’t find funny at all. Maybe at a different point in my life I will warm to these books, but for now, no, just no.