Category: Monthly lists

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot, 2010 – quotes pulled, TBD
• The Changeling King (Estranged #2) – Ethan M. Aldridge, 2019
• The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life – Robert Fritz, 1989 – quotes pulled, TBD
• Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood, 1998 – quotes pulled, TBD
• A History of Loneliness, 2014 – John Boyne – quotes pulled, TBD
• Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying) – Bill Griffin, 2015. Not bad… Griffin’s a little too into himself, but clearly explains why it’s all about exercise and purpose (ikigai is my biggest takeaway).
• The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything – Neil Pasricha, 2015. Wait, he talks about ikigai as well… now I’m not sure which book I’m remembering it from. This was also not bad but evaporates from my memory like many self-help books. I did like very much that the main messages from each chapter are added to each time, so that the first ones get repeated – that really helps anchor them together. The full set is: be happy first; do it for you; remember the lottery; never retire; overvalue you; create space; just do it; be you; and don’t take advice, which is a great way to end a self-help book! But seriously, that list refreshes my memory enough to call this one above average.
• Double Star – Robert Heinlein, 1956 – One of my favorite Heinleins, a taste I share with Connie Willis! I re-read it this time because of remembering “politics is the only sport for grownups.”

• Pachinko – Min Jin Lee, 2017
• The Sam Pig Story Book – Alison Uttley, 1965 – Comfort re-reading. Delightful stories with images that have lived in my mind since I first read them (around age 8-10?). The memory that drove me to pick it up this time was the story “Magic Water,” in which the pig family invite a Stranger (the rain personified) into their house, and he plays the fiddle for them:

He stood in the doorway and the rain poured from him in dancing cascades to the floor. He was dressed in black and and a long cloak hung from his shoulders. His hair was shining with water; the hands which held the great cloak around him were wet and rain fell from the long pointed finger tips. His bright eyes were like stars shining from the darkness. He carried a sheaf of long arrows, glittering like glass, fine as spun gold, thousands of them packed into the silver sheaf.

… He drew the bow across and the low wail of a coming storm filled the room. Then he changed his tune, and played airs so entrancing they brought pictures which seemed to float before their eyes, of rainbow days when light flashes after rain, or spring days when sun and rain strive for mastery.

• T. Tembarom – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1913 – CRR (comfort re-reading, of which there was lots this month, perhaps making up for last month. One Burnett always leads to several more!) – One of my very favorite FHBs, with great characters and a classic plot.
• Little Lord Fauntleroy – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1886 – CRR
• An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro, 1986 – quotes pulled, TBD
• Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? – Frans de Waal, 2016 – quotes pulled, TBD
• Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life – Michael Lewis, 2005 – Picked this up at the LWV book sale so essentially free, but it’s going straight to next year’s donations. I normally love Michael Lewis, but is an OK essay turned into a gift/impulse purchase: skinny but $12.95 hardcover (in 2005!) with arty/sentimental BW photos of kids playing ball, fireworks, dogs, etc., some by Tabitha Soren (his wife). Interestingly, the title page verso has two copyright listings, one in each of their names.
• Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift, 1726 – quotes pulled, TBD
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – James Clear, 2018 – quite good but already mostly evaporated from my mind, like most self-help…
• At Swim-Two-Birds -Flann O’Brien, 1939 – quotes pulled, TBD
• Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life – Steve Martin, 2007 – It was Trent Hamm who got me to read this, and wow, it is very good and interesting about the “how” and not just the “what” of Martin’s career.
• The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life – J. L. Collins, 2016 – Everyone who tried Invested should read this instead—much better advice.
• Earth Abides – George R. Stewart, 1949 – I love classic post-apocalyptic fiction and had never heard of this one until recently, but zillions of people recommend it. It’s excellent and I might re-read at some point as I do my other favorites.
• The Ordinary Princess – M. M. Kaye, 1980 – I’ve owned a copy from a book sale for a long long time but finally got around to reading it—same impulse as comfort reading but not a re-read. Very good and satisfying!
• A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1905 – CRR for the umpteenth time!

• Fall, or Dodge in Hell – Neal Stephenson, 2019. I love most Stephenson, but this was a snore. The VR Paradise Lost is an interesting idea but dragged out way way too long, and the elevated diction was clumsy.
• The Liar’s Club – Mary Karr, 1995.
• The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water – Charles Fishman, 2011.
• The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck, 1939
• Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha – Roddy Doyle, 1993. Irish Writers book group selection. Most of us got kind of tired of the 10-year old’s voice and found it a slog, but we had a great discussion. We wondered why it won the Booker! It re-pointed me to Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village“: ” And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew / That one small head could carry all he knew,” and I looked up Clarnico Iced Caramels.
• Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying – Sallie Tisdale, 2018. Wonderful and yes, very practical, if you’re ready to think about such things. A great companion to Being Mortal (Atul Gawande, 2014).
• Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over – Nell Irvin Painter, 2018. Enthralling and thought-provoking. I identified in many ways, as I’m slowly working my way towards a second bachelor’s in CS.
• Estranged – Ethan M. Aldridge, 2018

Wow, no re-reads this month! Pretty unusual for me—but that’s one of the advantages of belonging to so many book groups, keeping me focused on new stuff (or purposeful re-reads, not just comfort reading).

• The Welsh Girl – Peter Ho Davies, 2007
• The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature – David George Haskell, 2012
• Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize to Make Room for Happiness – Gretchen Rubin, 2019 – Not much content, but it was pretty good I guess? A little cotton-candy-ish: enjoyable going down but barely remembered afterwards.
• The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy – Tim Pat Coogan, 2012 – quotes pulled, post tbd
• Wanderers – Chuck Wending, 2019 – I’ve followed Wendig on Twitter for a while, to get his nutso morning encouragements (like Lin-Manuel Miranda but 5x), so I saw a lot of promotion of this as a doorstop masterpiece, like The Stand, etc. And yeah, it was good and kept me engrossed! I don’t think I’d re-read when there’s so much else out there, but enjoyable.
• O, Pioneers! – Willa Cather, 1913.

• Warlight – Michael Ondjaate, 2018. Quotes pulled, review tbd.
• Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming – Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2019.
• All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir – Erin Lee Carr, 2019. I loved David Carr (enjoyed Night of the Gun, re-found him through Ta-Nehisi Coates), and I actually stayed up way too late to finish this, which I hardly ever do any more, but ultimately I didn’t think it was great despite being compelling. This came across my radar because “Always Love” by Nada Surf (my brother’s band) is the soundtrack for the book trailer, so I was super-excited about it—and I guess Carr was a fan too, because they feature in “Things I Learned from David Carr: A List”: “Always love (See band: Nada Surf).” I’m sorry I didn’t like the book more—it had a lot of potential but needed more structure and more depth. I am interested in Carr’s documentary work now!
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain, 1884. Re-read (3rd time maybe?) Quotes pulled, review tbd.
• Sabriel – Garth Nix, 1995. I can’t remember if I read the whole thing when I first picked it up about two decades ago—Mogget, a white cat with a red collar who turns out to be a bound magic being, stuck in my memory, but after the first hundred pages the rest was unfamiliar. A great fantasy which has deservedly become a classic, and now I’m in the midst of the second volume of the trilogy.

• Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History – Dan Flores, 2016.
• Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders, 2017. Quotes pulled, post tbd.
• The Book of Delights – Ross Gay, 2019.
• Whoredom in Kimmage: Irish Women Coming of Age  – Rosemary Mahoney, 1993 (later subtitle changed to The Private Lives of Irish Women).
• Annihilation – Jeff VanderMeer, 2014. I saw the movie when it came out and then read the book (March 2018) but I had completely forgotten the experience of reading it. The Forbes Far-Out Film group watched the movie and so I picked up the book (again); it took me a while to remember I’d already read it, but the biologist’s nickname of “ghost bird” (love that!) and the Crawler generating text in the “tower” woke up the memory. I still prefer the movie but enjoyed the book enough this time that I’ll plan on reading at least the second in the Southern Reach trilogy.
• Silence – Shūsaku Endō, 1966; translated by William Johnston. Quotes pulled, post tbd.
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams – Matthew Walker, 2017. Oh man oh man. I read William Dement’s The Promise of Sleep shortly after it came out in 1999, and it got me to change my behavior to truly prioritize sleep; the content of this book makes that one look like a mild argument in favor. Unfortunately some of the writing is a little cutesy, but my annoyance at that was totally drowned out by the galvanizing message that enough sleep daily is critical to every part of our physical and mental health. One of the few books I’ve been recommending to everyone!

• We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver, 2003.
• The Aeneid – Virgil, 19 BCE; Robert Fitzgerald translation, 1983. Quotes pulled, post tbd.
• The Uncommercial Traveller – Charles Dickens, 1869. I read this on my phone over the course of about a year and a half, continuing in my Dickens/phone tradition. A mish-mosh of essays, which worked well to read in fragments (I’ve since started Our Mutual Friend and I’ve already forgotten who’s who!)—some sentimental, some funny, some perceptive.
• The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future – Ryder Carroll, 2018. I enjoyed it very much and might try the method at some point—probably not before I retire. It sounds like a lot of work to ramp up but potentially rewarding. Currently I use very small notebooks (no spine) that fit in my purse, just for running notes, and plan/list separately; I can see the advantage of combining them.
• Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape – Lauret Savoy, 2015.
• The Islandman – Tomas O’Crohan, 1929; Robin Flower translation, 1937.
• Skippy Dies – Paul Murray, 2010. Quotes pulled, post tbd.
• Assassin’s Apprentice – Robin Hobb, 1995. I saw rave reviews and I’m glad I read it—will go on to the next in the series eventually. Wonderful dog characters.

• Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love – Dani Shapiro, 2019. I read it because Gretchen Rubin picked it for a podcast book group – but I haven’t yet listened to the podcast episode! A completely compelling book on a topic that has personal interest to me. And wow, she keeps mentioning how people insist she doesn’t look Jewish, but since there are no photos I had no idea how much so until I looked her up after reading.
• Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure – Amy Kaufman, 2018. I have a soft spot for reality TV and have watched a couple of episodes of Bachelor/Bachelorette, but reading about it is actually more up my alley. This was good-not-great.
• Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England – Tom Wessels, 1997. Nature and Environment selection. I wasn’t able to make it to the group meeting and read it quickly, so no quotes pulled, but I very much enjoyed it. Tom Wessels is a legend around here—I haven’t been able to attend one of his talks or walks yet because they fill up so quickly! This is a useful and interesting primer on recognizing evidence of what’s happened in a section of forest, from fire to clear-cutting, long after the events. The illustrations throughout the chapters help identify specifics but I wish at least some had been in color. Makes me want to go back to the Harvard Forest, which is not that far from us (Petersham) and has a teaching trail showing some of these features.
• Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money (with a Little Help from My Dad) – Danielle Town, 2018. A potentially mildly-good book ruined by howlers at the beginning that could really hurt financially naive people. I may write up more details at some point.
• The Sea, the Sea – Iris Murdoch, 1970.
• La Belle Sauvage – Philip Pullman, 2017. I so loved revisiting Lyra’s world, and Malcolm is a great character—this book doesn’t really stand on its own without His Dark Materials, but I’m eager to read the rest of the trilogy when it comes out and then re-read HDM.
• Sharp Objects – Gilliam Flynn, 2006. I really enjoyed Gone Girl, but this… UGH! I finished it because I wanted to know what happened, but I kind of wish I hadn’t. Gratuitously disturbing but also entirely preposterous, which is sort of a saving grace I suppose. Oh, and unlike GG the “twist” ending was pretty obvious.
• Death in Venice – Thomas Mann, 1924. Great Books selection.

• Lethal White – Robert Galbraith, 2018 – I love the Robin and Cormoran story but I’ve already forgotten the details. I look forward to re-reading down the road.
• The Incomplete Book of Running – Peter Sagal, 2018 – Wanted to love it… good not great.
• The Sellout – Paul Beatty, 2015 – quotes pulled, review tdb
• What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude and Environmental Conditioning will Renew our Lost Evolutionary Strength – Scott Carney, 2017 – I’ve taken a cold shower every day since about 2016 and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Not quite the same as this for now, but it’s intriguing.
• Door to Door : the Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation – Edward Humes, 2016 – quotes pulled, review tdb
• The Spinning Heart – Donal Ryan, 2012.
• Miss Mapp (1922), Lucia in London (1927), Mapp and Lucia (1931), The Worshipful Lucia/Lucia’s Progress (1935), Trouble for Lucia (1939) – E. F. Benson
• All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque (1929) – quotes pulled, review tdb

Short stories and novellas:

• “The Miracle of Purun Baghat” – Rudyard Kipling (1894) – I read and re-read the Jungle Book stories a zillion times as a kid, but this is the one that really sticks with me as an adult. I love the depiction of the various stages of life, and the idea of age bringing purity and nobility.
• “Souls” – Joanna Russ (1982) – Another story I first read as a {teenager? | young adult?} that haunts me years later and which I re-read every few years at least. Radegunde is both deeply humanly sympathetic – and ultimately detached from the “poor old puppies.” Like Jim Woodring’s Frank, it’s as though there something deeply true here that I can’t express or put my finger on.

• Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival – Bernd Heinrich, 2003 – quotes pulled, review tdb
• Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi, 2016 – quotes pulled, review tdb
• Queen Lucia – E.F. Benson, 1920 – re-read of a super-duper favorite of comfort reading
• The Untouchable – John Banville, 1997 – quotes pulled, review tdb
• 48 Peaks: Hiking and Healing in the White Mountains – Cheryl Suchors, 2018 – An impulse pick at the lovely Lilly Library in Florence when I had a little time to kill. Like Wild it didn’t make me want to do huge hikes, but these are closer to the types I do enjoy – the White Mountains are within reach, and a friend had already mentioned the Franconia Ridge Loop as  a someday/maybe/bucket list adventure. As a memoir it’s nice enough. I very much enjoyed the author’s honesty about the ups and downs of hiking with friends, especially interpersonal issues.
• The House of the Spirits – Isabelle Allende, 1982 (tr. Magda Bogin) – quotes pulled, review tdb

Notable magazine article: The Structure of Equality – Nathan Heller – New Yorker, 1/7/2019 – fascinating, thought-provoking, and rings true to me