I continue to have a tough time getting absorbed by stories, often persisting to finish, but without feeling drawn in or impacted. Here are some exceptions from the past year, books for which I’m grateful, and would recommend… These are from my reading notes from Jan. 2024 to now (end of Feb., 2025).

The Crescent Moon Tearoom, Stacy Sivinski
I was close to giving up on this. We had a stack of library books all at once, and this one seemed not my type—a story of sisters who are witches and have magical powers. But I am so happy I stuck with it. A perfect book to push my way through on this day off in February.
This is Sivinski’s first book and she’d definitely got the gift for fiction writing. I love the three sisters, and it wasn’t long before I was fine with the magically empowered home and tearoom, the ghosts and witches if different powers and types. It’s mostly about family love, and how we eventually have to follow our pathways and passions out from that core of family love.

Pearly Everlasting, Tammy Armstrong
Mont asked for this from the library. He read about it somewhere. Armstrong is a young Maritimes writer.
It took me a little while to fall into it, mostly due to her poetic style, mixed with different language—from the region, and from the logging workers community language too. But I was soon absorbed.
I loved Pearly as a strong and fascinating character, sister of Bruno, a bear nursed by her mother.
The story took turns and twists through so many adventures, landscapes, and other circles of individuals. But it never lost me. I read it in record time, actually, which was a rare treat.

Totto-chan; The Little Girl at the Window, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi,
This sweet little book was a Christmas gift from a friend. It’s a true story, told by Kuroyanagi and translated. By Dorothy Britton. I didn’t know it was true until I got to the afterword. I totally enjoyed it, buoyed along chapter by chapter through the glimpses into this little girl’s life, and her beloved school in Japan.

Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf
I was happy to be back in Three Pines with Gamache and his family and friends. But I also have to say that this complicated mystery was extremely hard for me to follow. So many twists, and so much hidden evil and deception. It takes another spin at the end, and will be continuing in another book I expect. Armand is deaf and has suffered a concussion, but is slowly recovering.
The notion that top government officials would poison the population through its water supply is just too horrible, with all the horrible things going on these days, to comprehend.

Percival Everett, James
This was a Christmas gift from Mont, and definitely a special book. Also the first time I can remember when I read a book in not quite three days. I was absorbed immediately, and learned so much. It was not a light or easy read for sure, but was wholly engaging, incredibly insightful, and often warm and funny. I can barely remember Huck Finn, but the version of him Everett creates I might never forget. Among the countless fascinating insights was how slaves had to hide their intelligence, and to create and then teach their children to speak in a dialect that reflected illiteracy and unintelligence, in order to protect themselves, and to support the unimaginable levels of inequality they then endured.

Louise Erdrich, The Sentence
I don’t think I’ve read Erdrich for years.
This was not an easy read. It’s fascinating, but often confused me with the complexities of the Indigenous cultures, and the spiritualism. I think I related more with Tookie’s husband Pollux than with her. Their love was inspiring. So interesting how he had to arrest her, and then waited for her to serve her sentence, and then married her. She works in a bookstore, and the focus on books and reading was compelling. That I could relate to. On page 186 is a list of “Short Perfect Novels” including
• Train Dreams, by Denis Jonson,
• Sula, by Toni Morrison
• The Shadow-Line, by Joseph Conrad
• All if It, by Jeannette Haien
• Winter in the Blood, by James Welch,
• Swimmer in the Secret Sea, by William Kotzwinkle
• The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald
• First Love, by Turgenev
• Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys [the only one I think I’ve read of the list]

Between Two Kingdoms, Suleika Jaoud
A tough read, but with insights that seem worth it. This is the memoir of a young woman living through cancer, which includes becoming close with those she would lose to cancer. It’s about the strain on loved ones, becoming care-givers and coping with so much change and emotion. I was growing tired of the sometimes self-pitying (for good reason) perspective, but was, in the end, pleased to have pushed all the way through. There’s lots her to learn, and I should retain my empathy for those of us who suffer with cancer.

Left Neglected, Lisa Genova
Interesting, though it took me a while to engage with the characters. It was the mother who probably most pulled me in, by the end. In fact, she passes away at the end, but much loved and very much part of the family now. Left Neglect is a neurological condition, rare and not well understood, and Genova is a doctor of neurology, exploring the rare condition through her main character, Sarah Nickerson. Sarah got in a car accident and suffered brain damage. It must be so tough to recover only to realize you have a debilitating condition you may never recover from. But she pushes on, with help from her mother and husband. She learns to snowboard along the way, which provides a wonderful level of peace and independence, and joy. Overall, a good read. The kids didn’t fully develop as characters, but were also fun and fulfilling in their own ways.

Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones
Another successful read!! The ending was growing increasingly sad, with three central characters killed, but then the central characters, Matilda, leaves her homeland to go out and find her father, and learn more about Mr. Watts, or Pip, who opened her mind and her world. He was a lone white man in their village of black people, and I learned so much about race and diversity in this context. Mr. Watts took over as teacher of the kids in this small, war-ridden community. He introduced them to Dickens, and transformed their sense of the world. I’ll admit I didn’t understand aspects of this complex and fascinating man, but I enjoyed it all.

Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Finally, a book pulled me in and kept me engaged. The story of a daughter one woman was forced to give up, and another adopted, swings between the two couples and their struggles both to manage, to sustain their relationships, and to raise their children, was compelling. While sexism was a main reason the baby girl was given up, that gets contextualized such that it’s seen as the flaw it is, but also provides an understanding why individuals give in to it out of fear or ignorance. Jasu is not a bad man or father. He’s a product of his culture and family, and flawed, as we all are. That this daughter will go one to succeed and to bridge the cultural gaps, she will also create emotional challenges for her mother, which later she’ll realize and attempt to reconcile. The ending, while complex, was a happy one in many ways. I loved the grandmother, one strong and independent character who created lots of the chances for goodness.

A Reunion of Ghosts, Judith Claire Mitchell
Nina lent me this one. She said it was good, but maybe not great. I really enjoyed the ending, having finally gotten involved and become more attached to the three sisters, and their aunt, when she showed up, and then her son, their cousin. He was the one who brought about the resolution, and it felt right. Before then, I was having trouble keeping track of the generations, following the timelines as they shifted, and making the connections. I expect some of that is my old, tired brain, worse while I’m not sleeping that well. Lady, Vee, and Delph, and then Danny, were the ones who held things together, before the three sisters finally followed through with their plan and took their own lives. Sad for sure, but also interesting and in many ways, relatable

Paul Doiron, Pitch Dark
A pretty good story and mystery, with characters I was finding interesting. It’s set in Maine. I could read Doiron again.

J. Courtney Sullivan, Saints for All Occasions
Nina recommended this and lent it to me when we were visiting them. It was a good story, about a complicated family over two generations. They’re Catholic, and Irish (or that’s where the parents were born and raised). There are the usual family tangles and complexities, and mysteries. I cared about many of the characters, though sometimes I would lose track of a few details. I loved the ending, despite the sad death of Patrick, a special young man. I should find and read Sullivan’s book Maine.

Hozar, Aria
A long story, complex and often disheartening, yet with wonderful central characters I became attached to. The Iranian context was insightful, but brutal and too much for me to remember and keep track of. Hozar is a good writer though, which was why I kept going. She now lives in BC, which must feel like such a positive change.

Anne Berest, The Postcard
Finally finished this long and complex story of what it means, and has meant, to be Jewish. It was heartbreaking, but also sometimes hard to hold together, making way through 4 generations of a family, and many friends and neighbours, and many locations as those poor prosecuted families relocated again and again, to try to keep their children safe. Timely, with what’s happening now, too.

Giles Blunt, Cardinal: Forty Words for Sorrow
A decent read, and great for my first full and fast book during this month off and at home. It was sad for sure, but good and complex characters and a fast moving plot. Murder is horrible enough, and this was the more credible account of two pathetic and sick individuals perpetrating the violence.

Elin Hildebrand, Summer of ‘69
Still back east, but back in Canada again, and just finished the book, the first I haven’t had to abandon on the trip. I have the names of the two I ditched someplace in the stack of folders. But wanted to enter this one and leave it with Kim. It was actually okay, though not great. The story of a family—3 girls and the brother who’s in Vietnam. Each sister is as different as I am from mine, and each was interesting and credible, too. I did get pulled in. …. The writing is simple, but vivid.

Kelley Armstrong, The Boy Who Cried Bear
A pretty good read—well written with interesting characters. Should have read first in series first, for more context. And while it seemed to flow fine, I didn’t really understand the end. Likely meant to unravel more in the next of the series.

Anita Shreve, Rescue
A good story, focused on three main characters. I found Webster’s work as a paramedic so interesting. His marriage to Sheila, an alcoholic, was complex, and sad, but their daughter would eventually bring them all together. I enjoyed this story, and was grateful that it ended on a positive note.

Anna Quindlen, After Annie
I found this tough to get through, mostly sad, but I’ll admit I enjoyed the last chapters, and found the resolution worthwhile. It’s about Annie, a mother, wife, friend, care-giver, dying suddenly and far too soon, and about the struggles for all of those her life impacted, living without her. It’s endlessly sad, just when I so feel I need something uplifting, something to make me laugh. But in fact, I cared lots about many of the characters, and felt for their struggles and vulnerabilities. By the end, they all hold her memory dear and present, but they carry on. And the impact she had on them also carries on.

Lori Lansens, The Wife’s Tale
Another book sale find, and though I’ve enjoyed Lansens in the past, I nearly gave up on this. Glad I hung in there, though. It turned out to be an interesting story. The woman at the heart of the story is, or was, an obese woman without much confidence. But the end, she’s found her way to being a stronger, more interesting individual, with some good friends, and maybe a new lover.

Muriel Spark, Aiding and Abetting
I must have picked this up at a KSO book sale. It was wonderfully short after the Irving one, and seemed a fast read at first, but I did get a bit bogged down in the swirling details as the mystery was unraveled. It’s apparently based on a true mystery, of an upper crust earl who, intending to murder his wife, murdered their nanny instead and never was caught or charged. Lots of fraud and deceit in this one.

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese (700+ pages!)
It was hard to struggle through such a long (and heavy!!) book, but having just finished, I’m so grateful Mont got me this for Christmas, and for persisting. The ending was amazing, bringing back the core of characters I’d been most attached to, some of whom had seemed to be left behind in the shifting narratives. I do still think this would have been a better read carved into two parts, but hard to say. Maybe not, revisiting the early pages, though. It’s coherent! And Verghese’s love of medicine is woven throughout.

Hamnent & Judith, Maggie Farrell
A tough read, in some ways—dark and evocative. O’Farrell tells an amazing story, with great imagination and details, but the deaths and cruelty were pulling me down. Then, the ending shifted and the conclusion was so heartening, so uplifting. Agnes, accompanied by her brother Bartholomew, perhaps my favourite characters, have made their way to London, to see what on earth Shakespeare had done writing a play named for their dead son. But it turns out to be a beautiful thing, and will draw them back together and honour his memory.

Bill Bryson, Shakespeare, The World as Stage
Mont found this at the KSO book sale this spring. It wasn’t up to most of Bryson’s work, but was worth the read, and reminds me of how much I enjoyed Shakespeare. I looked up the amazing prof I had at Cornell, Paul Gottschalk, only to learn that he died the year after I graduated, still such a young man (with two small kids I used to babysit for sometimes). That was sad.
This is Bryson diving deeply into the history of Shakespeare (or lack of). So little is known of such a famed writer! Perhaps my favourite part were the two pages on his contributions to our language, in words first found in his plays, and as amazing, the phrases he coined. I’m going to scan those pages (114-115) to have the record. Among the many intriguing facts was the one about Guy Fawkes (p136) whose day lives on, from November 5, around 1604. It was a scheme by some rebel Catholics to challenge (or destroy) Protestant rule, with heaps of explosives hidden in Westminster Abbey. A tip off, prompted by the concern about Catholic Parliamentarians who would also be killed, led to authorities discovering Guy Fawkes “sitting on the barrels, waiting for the signal to strike a light.”

October (almost November!), 2023… A few additions to post:
First, an article from The G+M on notion called “commonplace” which resonates with my Reading Notes, in a way:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-commonplace-book-where-early-modern-thinkers-collected-ideas-was/

Beyond That, the Sea, Laura Spence-Ash
A wonderful story, historical fiction, centred on a young girl, Beatrix, sent from England during the war, to live with a family who divided their time between Maine and Boston. The story brought back so many memories of Maine… Gerald and William are brothers who couldn’t be more different, and Bea turns out to love both of them, both as brothers, and soul-mates—and later more like lovers. The characters are fully formed characters and I grew fond of most all of them. It’s about family, and love, and forgiveness, and story.

An Immense World, Ed Yong
An intense and fascinating read. At times it verged on too much, but then Yong’s voice is so real—passionate and also amusing and humble. He kept pulling me in and along. I have so many marked pages noted with excerpts gathered in my journal…

Paul Doiron, Dead Man’s Wake (2023) set in Maine, this was a good story and a fast read (perfect for a quiet long weekend). It felt great to read of familiar places in Maine, and I enjoyed the characters and the families involved.

News of the World, Paulette Jiles
Another amazing book and gifted writer, too. This is historical fiction at its best, drilling into another time in all of its complexities, and weaving a story to pull us into this other world. This is the 1870’s and mostly set in Texas, with Captain Kidd, and older man and widow, taking a young girl back to her relatives after she’s been stolen and then raised by an Indigenous band, but then been stolen away from them. She’s now a Kiowan at heart and by habit, and lost in this strange white world. Kidd is a news reader, in itself a fascinating trade and perspective. They gradually grow to care for and love one another. It all feels so credible.
And as if that weren’t enough, Jiles is a stunning writer, with a poet’s ability to describe setting and to focus on nature. I have so many turned down page corners.

Perry Chafe, Closer by Sea
Wow: Yet another really good story—and read in a single day!! It’s been quite a while since I’ve had that kind of indulgence. The story is of a few kids growing up in a Maritime community threatened by the diminishing fish stocks. Some lovely characters, and a fast-moving story… I was fond of the boys, and Emily, and Solomon, and even the Arseholes get a second chance at decency. There’s loss, and laughs, and loyalty, as young Pierce grows up. A great coming of age story.

Michael Robotham, Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven series)
Must have heard about Robotham from Margaret Cannon. A good story—fast moving, with interesting characters (though lots of them!!!). I enjoyed the narrative alternating between Cyrus’s and Evie’s perspectives. Both are compelling individuals, with a complex and also interesting relationship.

Jojo Moyes, Someone Else’s Shoes
Another good story! A great month for reading. Got a stack of books from on hold, but these have been a pleasure to push through. At first, I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy this one. The main characters, Nisha and Sam, just didn’t pull me in. Nisha seemed so shallow and arrogant and Sam, so lost and driven. But they drew me in, or Moyes did. By the end, I loved the core of women, who’d become fast friends, and enjoyed their interactions. The notions of attire, of projecting confidence and class, were also interesting, with those red shoes central. Aleks, the cook, is a sweet character too, a good man. Between him and Jasmine, the power of small acts of kindness and caring work their magic and transform Nisha and her life.

This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger
I don’t know where I heard about this, but a wonderful, absorbing read. Krueger is a gifted storyteller, as is his main character, Odie. I loved the cluster of kids at the heart of this story: Odie, Albert, Emma, and Mose. The story is set in the 1930’s, and yet it’s the complexity of relationship, and the challenges of thriving and of forgiveness that make it seem so very relevant to today. The epilogue is also wonderful, flashing forward from Odie’s 12th to his 80ths year. The tale of the four orphans who set sail together on an odyssey wasn’t really finished. Their lives went far beyond… their meanderings of that summer…”

Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
This was an engaging story. I really enjoyed the main character, Elizabeth Zott, and Calvin Evans, too. Actually, I was fond of and admired a cluster of central characters. The cooking show was fun and fascinating, and also credible. But some parts were less so —the daughter Mad was a beyond belief in some ways, and the dog, too, though in ways more fun that disturbing. But while I’ve seen bright kids with amazing capabilities, the spurts of maturity this kid demonstrates so early on seem over the top. But that was not enough to push me away, and I enjoyed this and read it quickly and with pleasure, despite the sad and frustrating parts. The sexism and racism, and absorption with religion, of the 60’s is all too easy to remember (and noticably arising again today).
The way chemistry figures into the story and propels it along is wonderful.
Oh, and I loved the rowing, and notice Garmus is a rower!! Fun to have that special physical outlet and ability woven in. Garmus seems a powerful writer, and story-teller.

July 25, 2023     Just finished Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson, which was on my wish list for years, maybe from a NY Times recommendation. A wonderful, quirky story which was just what I needed in my time away from work.

At the heart of the story, two close friends who couldn’t have less in common. Madison is wealthy, protected, full of confidence and ideas; Lillian is poor, ignored, alone, but bright and eccentric. Their lives mesh in as teens, and then separate abruptly. Letters keep their lives connected, until the troubled and abandoned twins of Madison’s husband brings their divergent lives back together, and draws Lillian’s life into a whole new trajectory. Fire and heat and love and connection are at the root of this surprisingly uplifting, funny and sad story.

***

It’s been a stretch since I updated, and I see some satisfying and insightful reads among the entries in my reading notes. Here’s three highlights that got me from November to January:

January 15, 2023 Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Wow. A long haul, but just finished and so thankful for Kingsolver’s story, and touched by her acknowledgements too. It was special that both my daughter and I got the same book for Christmas, and have been reading it at the same time. I was worried at times, especially closer to the end, that it would end badly, and while that would make sense, it would be so terribly sad. I loved the characters Demon, and Angus, and June and so many others, though it was a challenge to keep track of them all.

The insights into this level of poverty and neglect were stunning, and Kingsolver does us all a service by bringing us there, into foster care (or lack of it), neglect, hunger, addiction, abuse. It’s easy to dismiss, an yet a persistent reality.

The final section, set in a detox centre in the city, probes the fascinating distinction—cultural, social, economical—between city life and rural, between sophisticates and hicks. Kingsolver mentions her Appalachian roots in the final pages, and clearly understands this distinction deeply. I’d never really thought about it this fully, and yet I’ve known the difference, intimately.

January 6, 2023 The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
This was a sobering, clear and engaging read. The writing is strong and effective, but doesn’t call attention to itself. It pulls a person right into the world of the Indian immigrants to the US, into the ways of adjusting and sustaining themselves even as they have children who will both be at home with and resent the ways they preserve from home. I was pulled in from the start, and read it fairly quickly.
I loved how Gogol figured into the father’s life, and became the son’s name. Gogol’s own story is more tragic than I’d remembered, but I always enjoyed his stories….

November 10, 2022 Justin Gregg, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal
I don’t remember where I learned about this book or writer, but it was a good read. Gregg is bright, and funny, too. His style is humble and thoughtful and easy to take in. His arguments are sobering, depressing sometimes, but they make all too much sense, especially today, with the absurd and distressing political and ecological crises we face. He’s analyzing and exploring why—for all the gifts of intellect, imagination, and comprehension humans have evolved to possess—we make such stupid and dangerous decisions, or avoid the wise and compassionate ones. By comparison, he explains how insects, chickens, crocodiles all seem masters of survival, and have what seem satisfying lives.

Among the human capacities he explores is our capacity for deception, for lying. We’re deceptive creatures. He examines how the US keeps dealing with fake news and deception, day to day, incident to catastrophe. Humans keep evolving, meanwhile, to lie and to believe lies—“to dupe and be duped.” He examines death and our sense of it, our comprehension of time, and also our social and cultural norms and biases—always comparing us to animals. He argues that our moral aptitude might constrain our behaviour and cause us to do harmful and destructive things to one another. “Animals, with their less sophisticated normative systems, are the ones living the good life.” (p154).

P190-192 tells of Capability Brown, England’s celebrated gardener, who managed to hook us all on the manicured lawn, “symbols of Americana” and of success, and yet these “monocular wastelands” are responsible for unimaginable waste and ecological damage. This is an example of what he calls prognostic myopia. This is the notion that we can imagine, but not really feel for the future. We seem hard-wired to base decisions on short term, immediate goals and needs. He refers to other thinkers I admire (e.g. Gladwell, Kahneman, and others), who explore human decision-making, flawed as it seems to be. Overall, “intelligence sometimes results in very stupid behaviour.” (227). We may be exceptional and complex creatures, but that doesn’t seem to set us up to evolve and thrive. Sad.

August 1 (BC Day), 2022
It continues to be a challenge to find those books that pull me in and hold me in their grip, but I’ve been fortunate to stumble upon a few in the past months. Today I finished one: A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain, by Sara Manning Peskin
Peskin is a brilliant and caring neurologist who also knows how to write and to tell a compelling story. She approaches the brain with a narrative outlook, telling us the story of the cells and molecules and DNA of the brain, and how those provide us with “empathy, memory, language, and other critical parts of our identities” and also what can go awry, robbing us of those traits. Woven into the science are the extraordinary stories of the extraordinary individuals who made the discoveries over the centuries to shed light on these complex intricacies of our anatomy. Equally powerful and gripping are the personal stories Peskin tells of the victims of an array of neurological disorders. She clearly won the trust of the individuals and their families, and shared those stories with compassion and respect. I learned so much (which I’ll try to remember), and loved reading this.

Another good find was Emma Hooper’s Etta and Otto and Russell and James:
A moving and gripping book, but also hard to fathom, and hard to summarize. I have no turned down pages to help, only a happy memory of a Canadian story (both character and landscape-weaving in a vast and diverse array of individuals and an impressive swath of the landscape, too). Not a perfect book or story, sometimes a bit convoluted and tough to follow, but still well worth reading.

And another, given to me by a special student back in 2019, and waiting for me since: Florinda Donner, Shabono. I found this one intriguing on so many levels. It’s not fiction, though the name of the people, place, and society are fictionalized to protect their privacy.
This is the account of a tribe of the Yanomama Indians who live between Venezuela and Brazil. Donner is an anthropological field researcher who traveled there to learn and study the ways of their curing practices, which were intriguing. She finds her way into a community, is accepted, cared for, and taught their ways and language until she is a skinny white version of them, though never, according to her, fluent in their language. She’s taken in by two young wives, who become her sisters and don’t let her out of their sight. A recurring theme is the different perspective towards time and memory and mortality.

Finally, there’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr finished in April. A giant book (600+ pages!) that sat on our bookshelf for ages, and which I almost gave up a few times. Then I had one of those insomnia nights, and after 3 hours of reading, I was committed to finishing. Doerr is brilliant, and a beautiful writer, but there’s a staggering number of threads to this story: not only complex individuals, each with her or his own context, but also leaping from ancient times into the future, from Constantinople (1452) to space (2146). There’s the two world wars and Korea, the current pandemic (there’s even a character called Omicron!!). It’s brave and brilliant, but was close to too much for my poor brain. I became attached to a few characters, but had a hard time, as their their chapter would end, being catapulted into another world.
Doerr was himself pushing through COVID as he writes this, and he cares deeply about things I care about too: finding the good and kindness in humanity, connections with our natural world, and yes, libraries and books and story.

A long time since my last post… and I continue to struggle with letting myself fall into stories, still am abandoning more than I finish. But a few great finds in the very long time since I last posted… I recently finished Ann Patchett’s book of essays, These Precious Days. A couple of the essays were wonderful, but think that with Patchett (as with Kingsolver), I love their novels most.

August into Winter by Vanderhaeghe was an impressive–and amazing read, but I was relieved to be done with it. Another heavy book, with troubled or even crazy characters.

I’m still enjoying Ann Cleeves, with The Heron’s Cry one of my recent favourites. It’s something about the appeal of ordinary people, and their ordinary working lives, I think, that Cleeves does so well and that pulls me in.Proust and the Squid, Maryanne Wolf

A wonderful discover was Maryanne Wolf‘s Proust and the Squid, full of astonishing details about our reading brains, and our brains, on reading.

A favourite of the fall was New Girl in Little Cove, Damhnait Monaghan: slow and steady, warm and funny, and uplifting. Plus, well, it’s Newfoundland…

I had been excited by Miriam Toews’s Flight Night but then grew disappointed with the single perspective through the eyes of the kid (Swiv). I wasn’t about to give up on Toews,though, and kept reading. I loved the ending, so we glad I stuck with this one.

Firefly, by Philippa Dowding, turned out to be a young adult or kids’ book, and I loved it. Fascinating setting (a costume factory!), and some very cool perspectives from that alone. But Firefly is a lovely central character, and her story unfolds so beautifully. Fun, funny, and uplifting. Just what I needed.

Will finally end my too long post with a short note: em, by Kim Thuy was a slender, beautifully written, and tough read.

I’ve rediscovered Ann Cleeves this past couple months. Her characters are many-layered and complex, and their stories are both gripping and grounded. I get pulled in and come to care about her characters (Vera Stanhope being a favourite currently). Cleeves’s story-telling has the power to pull my mind from the billion things I need to let go of, to fall into sleep.

Reading’s been harder, through the pandemic. I give up on as many books as I finish. Some stories are just too dark, and others seem too trivial. Sometimes it seems as if I just can’t focus. When I can, it feels like a gift and reading becomes even more vital.

After so much screen time, the physicality of the books seems so right. They’re solid, with such a simple and yet beautiful design. I find myself noticing the binding and the texture of the pages.

Recently finished and still astonished by Bill Bryson’s The Body, and

Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.

Also discovered in a dusty stack and loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

― Groucho Marx