This is the first time that I’m participating in the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted by Cathy at 746books.

I’ve chosen my summer reading to include books from the Four Books in a Row challenge, suggested by Rebecca at Bookish Beck, the Bookbloggers Challenge run by Lynne at Fictionophile, and to complete the What’s in a Name Challenge hosted by Andrea at the Carolina Book Nook, but I’ve divided it into months for my ease of reference.

You’ll see that my July reading has a definite theme that, in fact, spills over a bit into August. And bonus: I was able to get all of these books off my own shelves, or in my Kindle library, except for four titles. Two of those I’ve put inter-library loan requests in for, but whether the libraries will be open remains to be seen. The remaining two, I’ll just have to bite the bullet for, and buy ecopies. (Total about $15 Canadian). Not bad for a whole summer of reading!

JUNE

1. One Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
2. Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch
3. On Tour by Noel Streatfeild
4. The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
5. Sweet William by Beryl Bainbridge
6. Something for Everyone by Lisa Moore

JULY

7. We are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
8. Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
9. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
10. The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegnor
11. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker
12. Birds of a Kind by Wajdi Mouawad
13. The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas
14. The Birds by Aristophanes

AUGUST

15. Birdcage Walk by Kate Riordan
16. Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore
17. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
18. Hour Glass by Michelle René
19. Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
20. Runaway by Alice Munro

I have one title held back that I reserve to swap in if one of these titles doesn’t work: Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. My dad recommended Hiaasen to me. Don’t you just love that cover? Have you ever read anything by Hiaasen?

P.S. The book links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

#4BooksinaRow #20BooksofSummer21 #BB2021FRC #WhatsinaName

P.P.S. I’m still trying to master this block editor thing, so my spacing is a little-not-so-much-what-I’d-like. Please bear with me. Thanks!

Erin and Vinay host a Facebook group that sets up two 4-month reading challenges with competitions each year. Participants are required to read ten books in the four months of each challenge. The most recent BCBE has run from July 1st and ends October 31st. I believe the next one will run January to April 2021. I always complete this far too late to win any prizes, so I’d don’t even bother to tally my score. This is really great fun! #bookchallengebyerin

FREEBIE (min 200 pages): The High Rise in Fort Fierce by Paul Carlucci

Paul Carlucci is a Canadian author (who seems to go to great pains to disguise that fact) of mostly, if not completely, short stories.

High Rise is a collection of linked short stories that reveal a novel’s plot by the end of the book. Somewhere, I heard that Fort Fierce is modeled on Fort McMurry in northern Alberta, and home of a lot of Atlantic Canadians – so, of course, I had to read it.

It’s one of those books that you want to read again from the beginning – but I had to return it to the library. It’s rather brilliant, really. 4 stars

 
STARTS WITH “S”: So Big by Edna Ferber

So Big is a modern classic – and the winner of the 1924 Pulitzer Prize. It’s billed as the story of Selina Peake DeJong, but was really about her son Dirk, a nobody from a little truck farm in south Chicago who made it big. Wikipedia says it was modeled on a real-life woman.

I agree with Ferber who said of it: “It had no plot at all, as book plots go”, and further remarked that “it was a story of the triumph of failure.” 4 stars

 
Title has a PREPOSITION: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
4½ stars

 
ODD NUMBER in a series: Shadow Dancing by Julie Mulhern #7 Country Club Murders

This delightful murder mystery series is set in 1971 Kansas City. Despite the fact that I really don’t like romance in my murder mysteries and that Ellison Russel would probably snub me if we ever met, I can’t help but like her and root for her relationship with the handsome homicide detective (whom the author has styled on Steve McQueen).

All of the book titles in the Country Club Murders series are based on songs from the era, and the covers are all of the same design. Especially if you are of a certain age, you just have to try it. 4½ stars

 
SET IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY: Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
4 stars

FEMALE POLICE Protagonist: The Birdwatcher by William Shaw #1 DS Alexandra Cupidi

It would take a lot for me to continue in a police procedural series and, even though I thought Cupidi was well-drawn and absolutely believable, this didn’t have it. The plot had just a few too many coincidences. 3½ stars

IMMIGRANT Main Character: Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa

Five years ago, I found de Sa’s first book Kicking the Sky to be “heartbreaking and very human”, and I really wanted to like Barnacle Love as much. I just didn’t.

Like Carlucci’s Fort Fierce, this is a book of linked short stories, telling in chronological order the story of a Portuguese fisherman washed up in a storm on the shores of rural Newfoundland in the 1950s. Eventually, the family gets to Toronto, where the kids ride their bikes in the alley, as they did in Kicking the Sky.

De Sa, who is second generation Portuguese seems to draw heavily on his own family and their experience. 3½ stars

 
Title contains “THING”: Anything for Billy by Larry McMurtry

3½ stars

 
Book has an OCTOBER CONNECTION: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid

(October 13th is National No Bra Day. Really.)
Enough said?
3½ stars

 
CITY, TOWN, VILLAGE etc. in title: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Oh – I’ve been wanting to read this for years, and now I can add it to Nonfiction November.

You all probably know that it’s about the 1893 Chicago’s World’s Fair AND about the completely mad serial killer H.H. Holmes and his World’s Fair hotel. It was riveting.

And I was so surprised to learn that the first Ferris wheel was steam-powered (duh) AND had whole rail cars where today we have one seat.

Also: I thought the “White City” was Chicago but it actually was a term applied to the main portion of the World’s Fair. 4½ stars

I may have made a mistake in how I entered this and might not even qualify – but it was fun anyway. Does anything look interesting to you?

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bookish Beck’s variation on Phyllis Rose’s The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading is for any set of four books in a row on my own shelf. I decided to choose from the books on my fiction shelves, filed by author surname. The letter M was my first dip.

The first book I tackled was Such a Long Journey which was Rohinton Mistry’s first book, published in 1991 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, which was won that year by The Famished Road by Ben Okri. Mistry had published two short story collections prior to this first novel, but it was the magnificent A Fine Balance that catapulted him to fame in 1995.

Such a Long Journey is classic Mistry: straightforward in plot development, but taking the time to build the settings, as well as the characters. Mistry is a genius in drawing us pictures of everyday 20th-century India. We can feel Gustad’s frustrations, his fears – and his loyalties to old friends that embroil him unwittingly in dangerous activities. It was important for us to realize the corner that Gustad was in and that, despite the questionable nature of the deliveries he has to make, we are fully on his side.

I have also read Mistry’s third novel Family Matters, and recommend any of Mistry’s fiction to anyone interested in late twentieth century India. A Fine Balance appears on my list of all-time favourites. His marvelous writing talent is on in display in all of his books, although the circumstances of A Fine Balance (during the Troubles and Indira Gandhi) make it the most powerful of the three.
4 stars

Anything for Billy is the first of author Larry McMurtry’s books that I’ve read. I seldom hear much about it so I assume it wasn’t his best or, at least, his most popular. The book is fiction, based loosely (very loosely) on the last few days of the life of Henry McCarty aka William Bonney aka Billy the Kid. Billy was killed in a shoot-out at the age of 21, and that much remains the same in this book. But everything else is changed and/or imagined. Since we know how the whole mess ends, it’s almost painful to watch Billy swagger toward this death.

The narrator of Anything for Billy is spinning a yarn for us. It’s a yarn that is likely pretty accurate about the Wild West, but it’s just a yarn. 3½ stars

I have more books by McMurtry on my shelves and will definitely read them.

 
I had a choice of three books that W.O. Mitchell wrote and chose Jake and the Kid.

According to Wikipedia:

“An author of novels, short stories, and plays, Mitchell is best known for his 1947 novel, Who Has Seen The Wind, which has sold close to a million copies in North America . . and later a collection of short stories in 1961, Jake and the Kid which subsequently won the Stephen Leacock Award.”

Also, according to Wikipedia, I was really wrong in a previous post when I said ´My bet is that in the prairie provinces, the stories [in the Star Weekly] were by W.O. Mitchell.’ These stories were actually radio broadcasts of a series of the same name, which aired on CBC Radio between 1950 and 1956.

Mitchell grew up in Saskatchewan and most of his stories reflect a boy’s experiences growing up on the prairies. As I said in that earlier post, I’m keeping this book ‘forever’. 5 stars
 

And finally, there was The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. This novel won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize regional prize (South Asia and Europe); was long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, was one of Time Magazine’s “Best Books of the Year” (#4 Fiction), was a Globe & Mail best book, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the 2011 Walter Scott Prize. It’s also my brilliant cousin’s (well, one of my brilliant cousins) favourite book so I approached it with some degree of trepidation, fearing that in my ignorance of the finer points of literature, I wouldn’t properly appreciate it.

The amount of research that had to have gone into The Thousand Autumns is phenomenal. Not only did Mitchell have to authentically create the Dutch East Indies trading post of 1799, and also Japan (not limited to the port of Nagasaki) of that time but, as well, the complicated relationships that the Japanese had with any foreigner to their land.

In the Reading Guide at the end of the book, Mitchell posits that historical fiction endures in popularity because “it delivers a stereo narrative: from one speaker comes the treble of the novel’s own plot while the other plays the bass of history’s plot.” Mitchell seems to have done a masterful job of all of these details and the book is fascinating for the window it opens onto the land and the time. It plays the treble and the bass equally well, and blends them into a harmonious whole.

The only complaint I have is the ending that seemed rushed to me – although at nearly 500 pages the story was probably long enough as it stands. 4½ stars

 
Now I have an empty space on my book shelf that I’m actually quite proud of and, surprisingly, have no urge to fill again. What about you? Would you want to get more books to fill that empty space?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I’m not sure if I signed up officially for the very popular What’s In a Name challenge, hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook, but I have been reading in order to finish it. Here are the titles I’ve read.

Title that contains an ampersand: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I’ve also used this book for two other challenges this year. That’s probably the greatest satisfaction I’ll get out of it. Lots and lots and lots of hype, but I was disappointed. It just seemed clichéd.  

Title that contains antonyms: I had difficulty finding a title for this category but finally settled on Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Somewhere in all those ‘ships’ there must be opposites. Munro also gets lots of hype – but it’s well-deserved and her work is enduring. I loved these stories.  

Title of four letters or less: Akin by Emma Donoghue. The problem with having such a phenomenally successful book as Room was, is trying to live up to it ever after. I did enjoy Akin, the story of an 80-year-old man given temporary custody of his eleven-year-old great-nephew just before his scheduled departure to Nice. It was, actually, delightful, if a little predictable.

Title that contains a given/first name: Autumn Laing by Australian author Alex Miller. I’ve had this book on my shelf for years, entranced every time I picked it up while dusting, by its cover. An elderly Autumn tells the story of an affair that she had with a man in her and her husband’s group of friends. These things are always entered into so selfishly, with little regard to the consequences, both short and long-term. The fact that it would happen, though, was evident from nearly the beginning, but Autumn kept us waiting far too long and I expected something much more spectacular by the time she finally got the story out. All in all, not really a very spectacular book.  

Title that has a reference to children: Jake and the Kid by W.O. Mitchell, a collection of short stories about a Canadian prairie farm boy whose dad is overseas in WWII, and the hired hand who’s keeping an eye out for him. Canadians of a certain age will remember the “magazines” that came with the weekend newspaper: Weekend Magazine or the Star Weekly, depending on where you lived. I think I read both over the years and as a teenager fell in love with the stories of Gregory Clarke.

My bet is that in the prairie provinces, the stories were by W.O. Mitchell. These are heartwarming family stories: the kid is loveable and naive about the ways of the world, and Jake is a hero – and not just the kid’s but also the reader’s. This book is going up on my “keep forever” shelf next to Greg Clarke.

Title with the word water, air, fire or earth: The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz. The referenced edge of the earth is an island off the coast of California in 1898. The thing about Schwarz is that she’s enjoyable enough to read at the time, but other than scattered scenes,almost immediately I forgot what happened. I found the same thing when I read her highly acclaimed Drowning Ruth in 2012.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Have you read any of these? Are you participating in this challenge this year?
 

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

When my daughter was young, she brought me a copy of The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn, set in what was then modern day (1970s) Eastern Ontario and in Civil War era New York and Washington, and asked me to read it. We both fell in love with that book and have had special copies over the years, mine autographed by the author when she was one of the speakers at Read by the Sea in 2006. Now my daughter is reading it to her daughter. I decided it was time for another reread so that it would be fresh in my mind and I would be able to intelligently discuss it with my granddaughter.

In my reread yesterday, I came across this passage:

They startled a big blue heron away from his breakfast. He gronked crossly at them as he took off, his huge wings pumping up and down like some great prehistoric bird.

photo: Pennington Seeds

 
Isn’t the word ‘gronk’ just a perfect fit? I can hear him making that noise but, as usual when I run across words I haven’t seen, I turn to the mighty Google for a definition.

Here are the results:

From the Free Dictionary:
1. A repulsive substance, typically the dirt and lint that collects between the toes. Aka toe-jam
2. To go to sleep
3. To crash or stop working, as in a car or a computer

From the Urban Dictionary:
1. A person that is totally lacking in fashion sense, motor skills and/or social skills. Usually an extremely unpleasant person or an unwanted guest, but sometimes just someone who embarrasses himself. (mainly in Australian slang)
2. The super virus /sexually transmitted disease that has resulted from New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski having sex with everyone’s girlfriends, wives and favorite porn stars (yuck!)

I don’t know about you, but I prefer the way Janet Lunn used it, decades before it was ruined by a football player.

How about you? Have you ever used the word ‘gronk’?

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Even though Bill was soaked through from running errands on Tuesday afternoon, Hurricane Teddy turned out to be almost cuddly. We didn’t lose power or internet, and there were no branches down on the lawn. In fact, we had no clean-up at all. Not something you want to be out in, but not much of a storm either.

I’m on to thinking about other things. My inbox today contained a book review by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best, of a nonfiction book about death and grieving.

My inbox also contained mail from BookBub, with ebook bargains including this “lucid and inspiring guide to modern marital bliss”.

The covers are startlingly similar. Or is it just me?
 

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

When I was in high school I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and I was bowled over it. I always intended to read more by John LeCarré, so over the years I picked up his books here and there.

I now find myself with five of his titles on my shelf, and another book cull in progress. So I’ve decided to keep one of these listed below, so that I can read another LeCarré before I die. But which of these should I keep? Please help!

I have:
(from the George Smiley series)
#6 The Honourable Schoolboy (published 1977) and
#7 Smiley’s People (published 1979)

Standalone novels:
A Small Town in Germany (1968)
The Night Manager (1993)
The Tailor of Panama (1996)

I think I’d rather read a standalone than items published later in a series that I haven’t followed. But I’m open to one of the Smileys if it does standalone.

So what do you think? Was Le Carré’s earliest work his best? Or did he mature into a knock-out artist? What title do you recommend? I’m open to your thoughts, whether acquired by experience or reputation.

There’s space on my shelf for only one; all others are going the way of the charity store. Please help.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Some of you may have been around in 2012 when I lost my mind and entered 63 (yep – you read that right: sixty-three) reading challenges, 48 of which I successfully completed.

Since then, I’ve sworn off challenges publicly.

Privately, I sometimes see if I can’t meet the criteria for a favourite few. This year I’ve decided to officially throw my hat in the ring for three challenges. Each of them can draw from books across a wide cross-section of topics and genres, and I like that variety. I hope to also make a couple of my months’ reading “thematic” because I always find that fun to do

So here are the three:

The very popular What’s In a Name, hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook

the brand new Bookbloggers 2020 Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Lynne at Fictionophile,

and the first Book Challenge by Erin of 2020 which runs from Jan 1st to April 30th. Erin hosts this through a Facebook group

I’ve-sort of- picked out some titles already, but I’m not committing at this early date.

Have you entered any of these? Which challenges sound like fun to you?

PhotoBucket was down, guys! You might have noticed since every blinking image on my blog was “unavailable” for over a week!

Until I googled my problem, I’d been trying for three days to get my First Book photo to upload to my PhotoBucket account, so I missed getting this post up in time to join in with Sheila (again!)

ANYWAY – my first book this year was to be Marina Endicott’s The Difference. As with last year’s book, it’s by a Canadian author and I hope that sets the tone for me to keep including lots of Canadian writing in my 2020 reading list. I say ‘was to be’ because I’m not quite finished the Penelope Lively novel I started on December 31st. (blush) Endicott is next.

What are you reading first this year?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re in Week 5 of Nonfiction November: New to My TBR. (If you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads. This week is being hosted by Rennie from What’s Nonfiction.
 

It’s been a great month of reading fabulous posts about supercali nonfiction books. I had to rein myself in to keep my additions to my TBR to a (baker’s) half-dozen.
 

I’m beginning to realize that essays are what thrill me in a nonfiction read. Three collections that I added this month:

How Life Imitates the World Series by Thomas Boswell.

Jane at Hotchpot Café tipped me to this one. I’ll be reading it and thinking of my late dad.

So You’re a Little Sad, So What? by Alicia Tobin.

Brandon at Every Read Thing says “I would put Alicia Tobin’s first book up against the best of David Sedaris – it’s that good. I had a great time reading this one and I hope you do too.”

And Tobin is Canadian!

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman.

RaiderGirl at An Adventure in Reading says: Feynman (winner of the Nobel Prize in physics) is “well known for popularizing physics, and his ability to tell a great story”. Science isn’t usually my thing, so I’m looking forward to stretching a little to take this one in.

Non-essay nonfiction that I added:

Shelleyrae at Book’d Out listed several books about true crimes by women. True-crime is another area I’m not usually much interested in reading but Cargo of Women by Babette Smith caught my eye.

Shellyrae said that it “focuses on the experiences of one hundred women who were sentenced to transportation to Australia, often for petty crimes, in 1829. It’s a fascinating exploration of their experiences as convicts.”

Sue at Whispering Gums reminded me that I must be the last person in the world to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skoot. But since there are new readers being born every minute, if I tackle it this year, I won’t be last anymore (right?)

Deb at ReaderBuzz also prompted my memory- this time about H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.

I’ve been meaning to put this memoir on my TBR pile for a while now.

And last but not least, as they say, Annabel at Annabookbel let me know that Julie Andrews has a sequel to her memoir Home, which has been sitting unread on my shelves for years.

Now I must get to it and read the follow-up that Annabel recommended: Homework: a Memoir of my Hollywood Years

That wraps up Nonfiction November for me. I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone else added to their TBR lists.

Have you read any of my additions? Which would you recommend that I read first?

P.P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re into week 3 of Nonfiction November: Be/Ask/Become an Expert (if you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads. This week, I hope to be early enough to get my name in on the link-up, hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey

This past summer I had the pleasure of reading Celtic Knot, a fictionalized account of the assassination of Thomas Darcy McGee.

In school, we learned about McGee’s death, significant because his was the first political assassination in the new country of Canada, taking place just eight months after Confederation. Beyond that and the fact Fenians were allegedly somehow involved, I knew nothing. Although I realize that Ann Shortell, the author of Celtic Knot, took certain liberties with the facts as in any historical fiction, I am certain that I understand a lot more about the political situation in Canada at that time now that I’ve read this than I ever learned in school!

But, I’ve decided, not enough. Over the past 50 years, I’ve owned several cats, all of whom have been named after Canadian historical figures: (Sir Charles) Tupper, (Allen Napier) MacNab, Ikie (Isaac Brock), Laura (Secord), Nelly (McClung), (Pierre) Elliott (Trudeau), Fenian, and not least (Thomas D’Arcy) McGee. I think I have an unfed hunger for Canadian history!

My interest piqued, I found this two-volume biography of McGee by David Wilson: Passion, Reason, & Politics 1825-1857 and Volume 2 The Extreme Moderate 1858-1868. There are also free ecopies of McGee’s own writings: his poetry and Popular History of Ireland.

So – time and cost permitting – I’m going to become somewhat of an expert on Thomas D’Arcy McGee. Thanks to author Ann Shortell for rekindling that flame.

P.S. The protagonist in the novel Celtic Knot is McGee’s (fictional) Irish Catholic maid Clara Swift who was the closest to a witness to the murder that there was. Fifteen-year-old Clara is intelligent and observant and it is through her eyes that we see the tangled mess that is motivation for the alleged killer, the investigation, arrest and then trial of Jimmy Whelan. If you have any interest at all in Canadian history, political or not, I highly recommend that you read Celtic Knot.

Thanks to James who blogs at The Mirimichi Reader who brought this book to my attention, and to the author who kindly sent me a beautiful hardcover copy to read in exchange for my unbiased (except for my love of Canadian history!) review.

P.P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

We’re into week 2 of Nonfiction November: Book Pairings (if you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads. This week, I hope to be early enough to get my name in on the link-up, hosted by Sarah at Sarah’s Bookshelves
 

 
Since I didn’t read a great deal of NF this past year, I have only one real pairing – and not an original one at that. Way back in the spring when I was eagerly waiting for my turn to borrow Jennifer Robson’s The Gown from the library, one of the bloggers I read recommended the nonfiction book My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle edited by Susan Whelan and Anne Laurel Carter. Unfortunately, I didn’t record who it was who mentioned this book; if it was you, please let me know so that I can give you credit, because it was delightful.

The editors, Canadian writers themselves, issued an invitation to a number of women writers, all with links to the Canadian writing scene, to submit an essay about their wedding dress. Amazon describes the book thusly:
“These are intimate stories about relationships; not just those between men and women, but between women and their mothers, friends and children. And, of course, with their wedding attire – a relationship that is sometimes simple, sometimes complex, but always fascinating in what it tells us about individual lives and aspirations.”

But don’t be put off by the lace and tulle: this book contains a wide variety of wedding dresses, some not dresses at all, and covers a lot of different types of weddings ranging from very traditional to not-even-close. Each essay is accompanied by one or more photos submitted by the author.

I loved every story – every one, I say.

I did read The Gown later in the year, but I was disappointed by it.

Would you have a story to tell about your wedding dress?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Although I’m a little late out of the gate for this event (if you need an introduction to Nonfiction November, please visit the original post on Julie Merilatt’s blog JulzReads; Julz is also hosting this first week) I hope to keep up as the month progresses.

Here’s the list of nonfiction books I’ve read since last November, from my highest rating to my lowest. I’ve included an asterisk next to those that I read at the urging of my fellow event participants.

1. *Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss
2. My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle edited by Susan Whelan and Anne Laurel Carter
3. *Micro Living: 40 Innovative Tiny Houses Equipped for Full-Time Living by Derek “Deek” Diedriksen
4. The Golden Age of Murder: the Mystery Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story by Martin Edwards
5. The Clever Gut Diet: How to Revolutionize Your Body from the Inside Out by Dr. Michael Mosley
6. *The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders
7. *Year of Clutter by Eve Schaub
8. *Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis
9. Marty Mann Answers Your Questions about Drinking and Alcoholism by Marty Mann
10. *Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air by Philip Jodidio
11. *A Glorious Freedom: Older Women Leading Extraordinary Lives by Lisa Congdon
12. The Blue Satin Nightgown: My French Makeover at Age 78 by Karin Crilly
13. *Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates

And two I did not finish:
* The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delaney Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 by Molly Peacock
All Things Consoled by Elizabeth Hay

 
Favourite and Most Recommended

The title of ‘favourite’ is a close race between My Wedding Dress and Micro Living, but, honestly, the book I recommended most was Dr. Suess’ Oh the Places You’ll Go. It probably seems flighty of me but I found some profound life advice in this book. You know: life is wonderful. Until it’s not. But pick yourself up, work hard, have patience, and life will be wonderful again, although perhaps in a different way. This book is so much fun to read that I think everyone should!

 
While many participants seem to have been reading memoirs, my nonfiction treats this past year have been, in large part, books recommended to me during last year’s event. I asked for advice on downsizing, simplifying, and major life changes after age 60. I received many suggestions, and have had some fine reading experiences this year because of them.

This year, I hope to broaden my nonfiction reading and beef up my TBR list with titles about a wider variety of topics. I feel a good month coming on!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I’m too late to officially join in the First Book of the Year post hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. But I thought my photo was too good to pass up.

I’m a big fan of Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce “mystery” series. I say “mystery” because these books have become more about Flavia and her family than the actual mysteries, but are no less likeable for it.

This entry, Thrice the Brinded Cat hath Mew’d is #8 in the series. Number 10 The Golden Tresses of the Dead debuts this month so I figured I’d better get caught up before I can’t (get caught up, that is.)

Whatever your first book is, I hope you have tons of reading pleasure in the coming year!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Nonfiction November is being hosted this week by Katie at Doing Dewey.

Oh, my! I’ve seen about a hundred books this month that I want to read. I had to narrow it down, guys. Sorry for anyone I missed.

First – the answers to my call for experts on making big later-in-life changes, and for downsizing. Thank you to all who commented on this post!

Life Changes:
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Suess (to be covered in a separate post, coming soon) recommended by Brona at Brona’s Books

The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 by Molly Peacock also by Brona, and seconded by Rebecca at Bookish Beck and Marcie at Buried in Print (Doesn’t this look luscious?)

A Glorious Freedom: Older Women Leading Extraordinary Lives by Lisa Congdon also cited by Rebecca

Heather at Gofita’s Pages praised Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak a Language from Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis

 
Downsizing:
Duane Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Life That is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich was applauded by Jane at Hotchpot Cafe as the “bible” of downsizing from a cultural perspective

Rebecca also appreciated Year of No Clutter by Eve O. Schaub

The Year of Less by Cait Flanders was cited by Jade of Reading with Jade as being thought-provoking in terms of downsizing

Genevieve Parker Hill’s Minimalist Living: Decluttering for Joy, Health and Creativity was recommended by Michael at Inexhaustible Invitations as dealing with lifestyle shifts in general, in addition to offering practical advice about how to declutter

I also picked up a couple of other helpful resources:
GrowingBolder.com website and podcast also endorsed by Jane and
The Minimalists podcast applauded by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best

I already have Voluntary Simplicity and Eva Schaub’s book on my bedside table, and have the rest of the above list reserved at the library.

Further down my TBR I added:

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
and
Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Languageby Eva Hoffman
I’ve misplaced the names of the bloggers who recommended these. If it was you, please let me know!

 
Although not part of a Nonfiction November post, Christie at the Ludic Reader highly praised Orchestra in My Garden: Lessons Learned from Digging Deep by Linda Brooks
 

I saw Educated by Tara Westover on many blogs this month, but it was Rebecca at Bookish Beck who was either the first who mentioned it, or the first to convince me to read it. She called it “one of the most powerful and well-written memoirs I’ve ever read.”

And last, but certainly not least, two books on race because I have biracial grandchildren and because I can’t see race as anything but a social construct:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

and

 

Good White People: the Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism by Shannon Sullivan, both brought to my attention by JoAnn of Lakeside Musing who has done a prodigious amount of reading on this subject.

What a great month. Thanks for all the great recommendations – it was really hard to narrow my list down.

Do any of my choices tempt you?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Nonfiction November is being hosted this week by Rennie at What’s Nonfiction. The prompt is

Nonfiction books often get praised for how they stack up to fiction. Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques? What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

Whew! It’s these kind of questions that make me feel totally inadequate and unqualified to be discussing books.

Sure, I like narrative nonfiction, and it helps if there are real-life examples but nonfiction doesn’t necessarily have to read like a novel to keep my interest. Especially if it’s a book that is ‘teaching’ me: I don’t want just dry facts or a school textbook, but I don’t need it sound like fiction either, although history often can! And I doubt I differ from most casual (or even noncasual) readers of nonfiction here.

Memoirs are a slightly different kettle of fish, but even then, I don’t need to think they’re novels, although I think that many do have that feel – and thus seem to be the most widely read area of nonfiction. But what makes them seem so? I will leave that up to the more qualified to discuss.

The one memoir I read this year Truck: a Love Story is the account of a few years in the life of a man while he is having his beloved derelict International Harvester truck restored. IH trucks were never widely sold and have become something of a rare collector’s item. Perry, however, wanted a working truck – and got one, despite having very little cash to work with. I recommend it.

Do the memoirs that you read need to have ‘novel’ qualities?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

NONFICTION NOVEMBER is being hosted this week by Julz at JulzReads.
 

This week we can be an expert, ask an expert, or become an expert.

I don’t feel like an expert on anything right now but I do need some inspiration.

What’s happening:

My husband and I are preparing for retirement which means selling our large home and drastically downsizing.

We are also thinking about making a big move to South America – for six months of the year anyway.

What I need:
1) memoirs of people who have made major life changes (or maybe learned a new language?) AFTER AGE 60;

2) the best books about downsizing, especially for when retiring and thinking about where the things you do keep will eventually end up.

 
Any experts out there? Bring on your recommendations – please!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

NONFICTION NOVEMBER is being hosted this week by Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves. The prompt is to pair one of our nonfiction reads with a fiction title.

Fortunately, one of the few nonfiction books I read in the past year was The Crown: the Official Companion, Volume 1: Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, and the Making of a Young Queen.

I don’t know how many of you have watched the Netflix series The Crown starring Claire Foy and Matt Smith but I was in love with it. I suspect most viewers felt the same, as it has a 90% rating at RottenTomatoes.com

The Companion book contained many photos of the series, but also of the real-life royals. It also provided history for each episode about the political and personal disasters taking place at the time. Although we googled the events as the show progressed, I found many things in this book that I had not previously known.

Reading the book greatly enriched my understanding of the time period and of the challenges facing the Queen and Winston Churchill, and I wish I had read it concurrently with watching the series.

* * * * *

My fiction pick for this is a book I read in 2016 titled The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. It had originally been recommended by Shannon of River City Reading.

It’s a chick-litty romance which is not something I usually read, but I was intrigued by the royal connection. It features all-American Rebecca (Bex) Porter, who goes to Oxford and falls in love with the guy across the hall, who just happens to be the heir to the British throne. It was sort of based on William and Katherine, but would make great reading now in light of Harry & Meghan.

There are the meetings with “the family”, procural of the queen’s approval, the protocol, the protocol, and more protocol. If you’re a fan of the Duchess of Sussex and her handsome husband, I’m pretty sure that you’ll really enjoy this book.

So, tell me, are you a royals watcher?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

It’s been almost six months since my last post and I expect that quite a few of you didn’t expect to see me blog again. Truthfully, the longer I went, the more unsure I was that I would return. But more about that in another post.

For now, I’m breaking radio silence by taking apart in NONFICTION NOVEMBER hosted by five fabulous bloggers. To kick off the month, I’m looking back on my year of nonfiction and linking to this week’s co-host Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness.
 
My reading overall was down dramatically in the past year, and I had only 3½ nonfiction titles in the mix. They represented a wide range of topics: medicine, history and lifestyle.

I enjoyed all of them equally and rated each of them four stars out of five, but the one that has stayed with me is In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s by Joseph Jabelli.

In the foreword, we’re warned:

As the world’s population ages, Alzheimer’s is expected to affect 135 million people by 2050, overtaking cancer to become the second leading cause of death after heart disease.

and in Chapter 1:

[N]ew acceptance highlighted Alzheimer’s as ‘a major killer’—the fourth leading cause of death in America alone—and something far more ominous than previously thought. With the world’s population steadily ageing, Alzheimer’s could now be seen for what it truly is: a global and inescapable epidemic.

The author tells us about the origins of Alzheimer’s Disease, the research that’s being done, what we can personally do to prevent it, and what’s happening in experimental treatment.

He also includes a quote by Professor Nick Fox on a tour of a Science Museum:

‘One in three people in this room will get Alzheimer’s,’ Fox continued. ‘One in two will look after someone with Alzheimer’s.’ He paused and turned again. “As a society we’re sleepwalking into this.’

Don’t sleepwalk. Given those odds, you’ll be affected in some way by this disease. So, read this book.

I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to in their nonfiction reading. Be sure to visit the list of participants at Sophisticated Dorkiness.

It’s good to be back.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I saw this first done by Lisa at ANZLitlovers, then by Bev at My Reader’s Block and Karen at Booker Talk. It originated with Fictionophile.

The rules are:
*Spell out you blog’s name using books from your TBR that begin with each letter.
*No adding books from other sources.
*Have fun.

Pressed for time, I decided to use my Kindle TBR ‘shelf’, and limit myself to fiction that wasn’t a mystery. I nearly succeeded, needing to include a cozy mystery title for that elusive “X”.

E The Elephant’s Journey by Jose Saramago

X An eXhibit of Madness by Kerry J. Charles (#1 in the Dulcie Chambers Museum Mystery series)

U Us by David Nicholls

R The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain

B Boys and Girls Together by William Goldman

A Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington

N News of the World by Paulette Jiles

I The Illegal by Lawrence Hill

S Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

It looks like I have good reading to take on vaction with me this year without carrying paper books. What’s on your ereader?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.