What are you reading the week of August 7, 2021?

I'm almost done with Earth System History. Time to start thinking about my next book. I'm thinking I need something lighter. Perhaps another Maigret mystery.

I knocked off Questland. I'm about 90% done with Ghost Division. I've basically just started "Faster" by Neal Bascomb. Maybe I'll get back to The Anarchy; that work seems to have an anachronistic quality that's annoying to me.

I've switched from The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, only because I have to get to the latter for my upcoming book group meeting. Both are very good.

Adequate Yearly Progress– Roxanna Elden
Audiobook narrated by Roxana Ortega.
3***

From the book jacket:Each year brings familiar educational challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling urban high school in Texas. But the school’s teachers face plenty of challenges of their own. … And this year, a new celebrity superintendent is determined to leave his own mark on the school – even if that means shutting the whole place down. The fallout will shake up the teachers’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.

My reactions
I’m not a teacher, but I have friends who have worked as teachers, and I’ve volunteered as a reading tutor for a couple of years. And I felt that the depictions – while somewhat stereotypical – seemed accurate to me. From the teacher-training conference (how many times must we hear the “starfish”story?!) to lunchroom monitoring to science fair disasters to parent interactions and finally to efforts to quantify success, all the elements seemed familiar and relatable.

I really liked science teacher Hernan Hernandez, who pines for English teacher Lena Wright. Meanwhile Lena is focused on fellow spoken-word artist, Nex Level. And idealistic history teacher Kaytee Mahoney struggles to connect to her students while secretly writing a tell-all blog and bowing to her parents’ wishes by applying to law school. And Coach Ray, who is always ready to lend a hand (or the hands of his football players when some heavy lifting is involved), is struggling to connect with his two daughters, by two different women, and NOT repeat the mistakes of his father.

Elden includes scenarios that are familiar to anyone who has ever been required to attend yet another motivational speech or meeting to discuss implementation of a new process. There are moments of serious reflection, scenes of tenderness and of hilarity.

Roxana Ortega does a fine job narrating the audio version. She had a lot of different characters to handle but she was up for the challenge.

still reading The Mists of Avalon, Ancestral Night, and Victories Greater Than Death.

I finished Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker today. Fascinating and heartbreaking.

Up next is The Regulators by Richard Bachman.

Struggling through Ulysses and enjoying A World Lit Only by Fire and Unfamiliar Fishes

Finished listening to True Evil.

Next up for listening is The Survivors by Jane Harper.

I'm reading Autopsy of a Boring Wife by Marie-Renee Lavoie. Light, but well-told.

Started this new OverDrive audio selection ~

The Stranger in the Mirror: A Novel
by Liv Constantine

Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck
4/5 stars
In 1960, Steinbeck at the age of 58 takes off in a camper with his dog, Charley to explore and talk with the people of America. He starts off on the East Coast and travels to the West Coast and back. It was wonderfully written and is an interesting look back at the slices of life in the US in that time period.

Finished listening to the very good The Survivors.

Next up for listening is Intimacies by Katie Kitamura.

Somehow I missed this book when it was all the rage. Like Water for Chocolate had some amazing images built with its magical realism but overall I was disappointed with it.

Started This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber
It's the first entry in the Verity Kent Mystery series. I've read all the Lady Darby Mystery series (available so far) so I'm giving this post WWI mystery series a go. The latest and #5 entry Murder Most Fair will release at the end of August.

In her latest newsletter blast to subscribers, Mrs. Huber announced she's contracted to write more "Verity Kent" novels up to Book #9.

Finished listening to Intimacies, an interesting novel of interpersonal connections.

Next up for listening is The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers.

Enjoying this very informative audiobook via hoopla ~

Radar Girls: a novel of WWII
by Sara Ackerman

Chirp audiobook playing as I type:

The Court Dancer by Kyung-Sook Shin

Full of details about court life, religious chaos, and international politics in 19th C. Korea that is just opening to the West, China, and Japan.

Tippi: A Memoir
Tippi Hedren
4/5 stars
Tippi Hendren writes about her time in the film industry including problems with working for Hitchcock, her family and her famous daughters, her work in charity and her animal rights advocacy which resulted in starting Shambala, a big cats’ preserve in California. Very interesting!

Finished Autopsy of a Boring Wife by Marie-Renee Lavoie. Very good book - it's about a woman, Diane, left by her husband of twenty-five years by a husband who thinks she's boring and plain. She isn't. She's a smart, vibrant woman and I really admired how Lavoie revealed the anyting-but-boring nature of Diane's character. The book is also laugh-aloud comical, and a delight to read.

Am very excited about my next book: Yaa Gyasi's second novel, Transcendent Kingdom. Her first book, Homegoing is on my list of top ten books ever and I'm looking forward so much to reading more of her skilled story-telling.

I finished the book Real Philly History, Real Fast. This book presents 51 sites of interest in Philadelphia. Other than 4 of them, they are all in Center City, east of Broad. Each is presented with a quick overview of its historical and/or architectural significance. Living in the City, the book did not add to my knowledge significantly but it did provide a few new places to check out.

I'm reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. It is good but disturbing, which means it is not a light summer read. I find myself reading only a few minutes each day.

Finished reading:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, the best book I've ever read. Extraordinary!

Currently reading:
1. The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway ( a chapter left)
2. The body keeps the score by Bessel A van DER kolk

Will start reading:

1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
2. Don Quixote

I finished Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is an intriguing and memorable book that effectively melds memoir, Native American history and philosophy, ecology and plant science, with a reverie about nature and a sad, frustrated, pained warning about the destructive nature of Western civilization's highly commodified* nature. Kimmerer is herself a Native American who has melded her people's ancient philosophies of human's integral role and caretaker's responsibilities with Nature to the scientific establishment's perspective as scientist as observer rather than participant via her own academic studies as a botanist and ecologist. Kimmerer takes us through several personal memories, such as making maple syrup with her two daughters from the trees that stand on their own property, and shares a lot of fascinating information about the ways that diverse species of plants and animals cooperate in nature to the benefit of all. Her book is in many ways a plea that humans return to a role of participation in that cooperation rather and discard industrial society's determination to obstruct and destroy these cycles in the service of profit and material comfort for those with the wherewithal to buy it. You can find a bit longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

This was a reading group selection, and since our group meets this Sunday, I interrupted my reading of The Slave Ship: A Human History to be sure I'd be ready for the meeting. I now return to that excellent but understandably depressing book.

Dived fairly deeply into my Kindle backlog over the weekend, which was spent in the hospital being pumped full of fluids. (Long story short: dehydration & various complications therefrom)

Drive, Ride, Repeat, by Al Macy, was a mildly amusing tale of a road trip from the northern California coast to St. Louis and back, with lots of bicycle side trips, camping, and tips for folks who enjoy that sort of thing. (I love road trips but am a hotel girl, myself!)

Comstock Lode, by Louis L'Amour, which I'd had for some time. This is longer and a bit more complex than his usual oaters, with interesting background about the development of the massive silver strike in Nevada at the beginning of America's Civil War.

Currently reading Bridge of Scarlet Leaves, by Kristina McMorris, and A Country Called Home, by Kim Barnes.

Finished the tender tale if The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers.

Next up for listening is The Maidens by Alex Michaelides.

Currently reading:
Unsex'd Revolutionaries: Five Women Novelists of the 1790's(Theory/Culture by Eleanor Ty;
Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac;
The MacDermots of Ballycloran by Anthony Trollope;
Memoirs of Emma Courtney by Mary Hays;
Pamela by Samuel Richardson;
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte; and,
The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless by Eliza Haywood.

>24 LyndaInOregon: I hope you're feeling better!

>22 aladyinredpolish: Anna Karenina is one of my all time favorites as well. I read it first at age 14 or so and every 25 or so years since.

>23 rocketjk: Your description inspired me to put that book on hold for myself at the library. I'm number 80 so it'll be a while.

The new thread is up over here.