Another very slow reading month with 12 books. And as far as I can recall I only watched 3 movies and streamed only 1 show. I don’t feel like I’ve taken full advantage of the extra day this month!
I loved quite a few of the books I read this month…
We took a lovely road trip the Lake Norman in North Carolina last week, our third February in a row. Jason has clients in the Charlotte area so he always works a few of the days leaving Gage and I to our own devices. This week we were able to be away for 6 days, even though that meant Gage missed 2 days of school. On our way home we stopped in Wytheville, Virginia and toured the Edith Bolling Wilson First Lady Birthplace Museum, even staying in the hotel dedicated to her history in the town. I considered this a 2 day field trip. Once a homeschooler…
We had a great book club discussion this month. Take My Hand is historical fiction that drew its inspiration from a real 1973 court case. It found that government family centers were sterilizing girls of color as well as those in poor neighborhoods reliant on government help.
Well written and a shocking part of this country’s not so long ago history. I really liked this one. Highly recommend.
This is the sequel to Then Came You that I finished a few weeks ago. An innocent author comes to London to research her next book, only to shoot a man and fall in love with the owner of a gambling club. Loved it.
I’ve read a few other books by Pema Chodron and I always finish feeling inspired and content. She is an American Buddhist nun and writes about Buddhism in such a welcoming and relatable way. I take a lot from Buddhist teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh being my introduction. I’m a Christian, but I’ve really grown personally from books like these. Maybe you will too if you give one a try. This one deals especially with some life strategies that all can benefit from.
“The most straightforward advice on awakening bodhichitta is this: practice not causing harm to anyone- yourself or others- and every day, do what you can to be helpful.”
“Buddha was pointing out that the fixed idea that we have about ourselves as solid and separate from each other is painfully limiting.”
“Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted. Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger just might be what it takes to save the planet from extinction.”
I started this series with book one and haven’t looked back. I realized I was a few behind so I’m making quick work of the last few. If you like police procedurals you should definitely give this series a look. He started as a Minneapolis police detective, but is currently a US Marshal still based in Minneapolis. He has a recurring partner, Lucas Flowers, and an adopted daughter, Letty, who each have their own spin offs.
Most people are familiar with Malala by now. The girl was shot in the face by the Taliban on her way to school in Afghanistan. But there is a backstory if that’s all you know. I already knew everything in this book, but it’s an easy one hour listen on a road trip with your kid!
*I’ve read 22 books so far this year.*
Currently reading
Watching
Jason and I watched Season 1 of White Lotus. What a crazy, beautiful trip. Any other fans out there?
Plans for the Weekend
There are a few hours left that will be spent on Friends of the Solon Library duties. I need to connect with a few members about Facebook stuff and I need to start finding volunteers for our next big book sale. Anyone want to help out in April?
I first read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende when I was the manager of a B. Dalton bookstore in the Washington DC area 25ish years ago. Each month the staff would have to choose a recommendation for a display and I would pick one to read. This was one of those recs and it was my first foray into the world of magical realism. For that it will always have a special place in my heart. I’ve long had this on my list of top 100 books, but this was my first reread and I had forgotten much.
I can’t believe that I’d forgotten what a monster Esteban was. Seriously, this is more his story than anyone’s and I remembered the women with the green hair and the seers more that I remembered the rapes. So much to discuss if you have a book group waiting to take it on.
The last third of the book had more of a focus on Chile’s history and was fascinating (based on actual history of the 1970s). Allende provides such a rich picture of the South American country. Still relevant today. The ‘right’ overthrew the ‘socialists’ by a coup, only to empower a dictator who ended democracy for the country. A cautionary tale if anyone is paying attention.
After some thought I think I’ll go ahead and put it on my favorites list for now. We’ll see if anything comes along and beats it as I reread favorites.
Have you read it? What did you think?
“…she did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously if He himself never had.”
“Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change”
“She tried to recall the cold, the silence, and that precious feeling of owning the world, of being twenty years old and having her whole life ahead of her, of making love slowly and calmly, drunk with the scent of the forest and their love, without a past, without suspecting the future, with just the incredible richness of that present moment in which they stared at each other, smelled each other, kissed each other, and explored each other’s bodies, wrapped in the whisper of the wind among the trees and the sound of the nearby waves breaking against the rocks at the foot of the cliff, exploding in a crash of pungent surf, and the two of them embracing underneath a single poncho like Siamese twins, laughing and swearing this night would last forever, that they were the only ones in the whole world who had discovered love.”
“thought about the years I still had left to live and decided that without her it wasn’t worth it, for I would never find another woman with her green hair and underwater beauty. If anyone had told me then that I would live to be more than ninety, I would have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.”
It’s been a busy two weeks. I took a road trip with a friend, celebrated my parent’s 55th anniversary, my dad’s 77th birthday, sat through my son’s IEP meeting and helped with a luncheon at his school, and even did a minimal amount of planning for an upcoming trip and possible high schools for the boy. Gage had a day off of school and I took him with me to sort donations at the library and he worked hard without complaint!
Bell has a white mother and black father and it’s his mother who is the one to first tell him that when world will see him as different. She embarrasses him when she causes a scene calling out bias and yet his father remains largely silent when he needs to hear from him the most. This book starts when he is 6 and has a run in with police and they take his water gun and ends after the George Floyd murder when he has to decide if it’s the right time to have the talk about race with his own young son.
Bell was the first Black editorial cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize. Highly recommend. Its’s engaging, touching, honest, brave.
This book manages to do many things well. It will benefit parents, teachers, or anyone who knows or works with a kid with an autism diagnosis. In the 9 mindsets it also has something for every stage of the child, from child to older teen. I especially like the section on the medical comorbidities, too often treating the medical issues is completely overlooked.
Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas. 4.5/5 stars, Historical Romance, 371 pages, 1993
I loved this book, but both main characters did some horrific things to each other. I will read and most likely love anything she writes.
“That is the power of our differences to make us smarter and more creative. And that is how all those infusions of new cultures and ideas, generation after generation, created the matchless alchemy of our melting pot and helped us build the strongest, most vibrant, most prosperous nation on the planet, right here.”
I’m not in menopause, yet, but I am of a certain age so I wanted to prepare myself. In many ways I wish I hadn’t 🤣. I wish I could say reading this made me feel empowered, but mostly it just depressed me. I’m glad I read it and I’m glad I’m done reading it. I took some useable knowledge and am better off for it. Make sure you’re taking extra calcium ladies!
Currently Reading
Movies
On my weekend road trip we went to the grand old theater in town and finally saw Killers of the Flower Moon. Yes, it was 3 1/2 hours and I had to get up for a 10 minutes break in the middle, but I really liked it. Lily Gladstone was phenomenal.
We watched Little Italy on Netflix. It had a fun cast and some laughs.
Stacy's Books 