And That Was April, Twenty Twenty Four
Only three books read in April:
Only three books read in April:
Posted by Bybee at 2:29 PM 0 comments
Labels: classic literature, memoir, nonfiction, reading project
Yes, it's true. I could not come up with a more clever title. There were no basketballs, polished gym floors, hoops, or three-point shots involved in the making of this post.
Posted by Bybee at 6:37 PM 1 comments
Labels: fiction, memoir, nonfiction
Posted by Bybee at 10:00 PM 2 comments
Labels: birth of a blog, dreaming in literature
I read six books in January. I was on the verge of the verge of finishing two more books, but then I fell asleep and the calendar page fluttered to February. They will do that, won't they?
1. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg. Novel. Audiobook. I read this for book group. I went in, fully prepared to dislike it, but this tribute to the WASPS and their gutsy contributions during WWII absolutely charmed me, and filled me with the deepest respect.
2. Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond - Henry Winkler. Memoir. Winkler's memoir is a good one to read in conjunction with Ron and Clint Howard's The Boys. Winkler is quite a bit more introspective, though.
3. Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend - Karen Blumenthal. Nonfiction. Audiobook. Written for the Young Adult set, but the author didn't write down to her audience. Every bit as good as Go Down Together, the quintessential book about the pair.
4. Who Was Salvador Dali? - Paula Manzanero. Nonfiction. I think it's really difficult to capture the full flavor of the enjoyable weirdness that was Dali, but I loved the anecdote about Dali walking an anteater in the Paris Metro.
5. The Witches of Worm - Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Novel. I do wish I'd saved this novel for October. Troubled latchkey child Jessica adopts a newborn kitten she names Worm who seemingly talks to her and tells her to act out in school and at home. Excellent dark, moody atmosphere, although Worm scared me a lot less than Jessica's feckless mother and the mother's douche boyfriend.
6. Child Star - Shirley Temple. Autobiography. So very glad to be done with this book! I've been wrestling with it since July. July 13, to be precise. Child Star covers Temple's life from birth to approximately her late twenties. Her life was fascinating, her research was impeccable, but her writing is stodgy. She wrote the book long after she had entered political life, and it definitely shows.
Posted by Bybee at 4:34 PM 4 comments
Labels: autobiography, memoir, nonfiction, novel
This was a book group selection, and although I started out well, I was out by the 100-page mark. There was a scene involving rats on the attack, and I could not, would not continue. Call me squeamy. I'd DNF this a thousand times if it were possible.
Posted by Bybee at 3:47 PM 0 comments
Labels: disgusted bookworm, DNF
Above is my resolutions list for 2023. I'm afraid that I didn't make much headway, but it is fun to see the reach and the fullness and optimism that was there for me at the beginning of the year.
Wolf Hall trilogy again: No (regretfully)
Who was? Who is? Yes
Read Canadian Literature: No
Read a Bulwer-Lytton novel: No
Only read literary biographies: No
Finish "Bronte" project: No
No Self-Help: I read How to Keep House While Drowning and loved the hell out of it.
Read PKD: No
Finally get around to Heart of Darkness: No
Finish Tess of the D'Urbervilles: YES THANK GOD and F#@k Angel Clare!
Read MacBeth: No
Read We: No
Rearrange bookshelves into Dewey Decimal Order: OMG, Past Self, don't make me laugh. No, and they're worse than ever.
Read in the car before work: Yes
Read A Girl of the Limberlost: No
Reread The Bell Jar: No
Stick to wish list: Bwahahahahahaha
Buy local: Yes
Read Icelandic Lit: No
1920s Lit: No
Finish Kopp Sisters: No. (sad face)
More science: No
Popular culture: I don't remember what I thought I meant.
Posted by Bybee at 9:12 AM 1 comments
Labels: reading resolutions
When did I become such a nonfiction girl? The answer starts from decades back. In second grade and part of third grade, I was an avid reader of fairy tales. Then in third grade, the girl sitting in front of me told me about Helen Keller, and I found myself in the biography section on Library Day that week. Once I was there, I saw other names I recognized Daniel Boone! Geronimo! Florence Nightingale! Amelia Earhart! and that began my second bookish obsession. The Little House series, that beautiful and problematic bonnet string tangle of fiction and fact, was still two years in my future.
As an adult, Tracy Kidder seems to have been the author that helped open the nonfiction door wide for me. Two years in graduate school led to reading that was almost exclusively nonfiction, and added polish and confidence to my reading self. (Surprisingly, I found myself swooning over tomes about linguistics. Steven Pinker. Sigh.)
Age has also helped because I've acquired a good amount of background knowledge about historical and cultural events, so everything feels connected in some way. Is schemata the word I'm looking for?
I'm convinced that 2024 will be yet another year in which nonfiction dominates my reading.
Let me also mention the Who Was...? books, because they are very much a part of my reading list. The Spawn is always finding new books in the series for me to read. (My current one is about Salvador Dali.) The series can be uneven -- a little bit like the little girl with the curl -- some are very very good (World War I) and some are horrid, (Hello, Kitty) but I'm always eager to have a new one in my hands. I wish that those books had been around for eight and nine-year-old me.
So anyway, below is list of nonfiction read in 2023. I've noted my favorites in green.
1. The Man Who Invented Christmas
2. Who was Michelangelo?
3. Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book
4. Who is Shaquille O'Neal?
5. Starring Steven Spielberg
6. Ducks
7. Spare
8. Last Rampage
9. Hey, Kiddo
10. The Year of Less
11. Who was Alex Trebek?
12. Who was Maria Tallchief?
13. The Rainbow Comes and Goes
14. Who is LeBron James?
15. What is the Story of Nancy Drew?
16. Forget the Alamo
17. Ice Cream Man
18. Library Girl
19. A Perfect Fit
20. Blast Off!
21. The Brilliant Calculator
22. What was The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921?
23. Happening
24. All You Can Ever Know
25. Shy
26. What is the Story of Anne of Green Gables?
27. What was World War I?
28. Who was Frank Sinatra?
29. Who was Jim Thorpe?
30. Scrappy Little Nobody
31. Sharp
32. Napoleon vs. The Bunnies
33. Jerry Changed the Game!
34. Who is Simone Biles?
35. Who is Nathan Chen?
36. The Wager
37. Good Books for Bad Children
38. What is the Story of the Headless Horseman?
39. Five Days at Memorial
40. Who is Harry Styles?
41. What Do We Know About the Winchester House?
42. Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
43. Who was Betty White?
44. You Could Make This Place Beautiful
45. What Do We Know About the Children's Blizzard of 1888?
46. Hollywood: The Oral History
47. Madly, Deeply
48. Abridged Classics
49. How to Keep House While Drowning
50. The Man Who Loved Books
51. Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte
52. What was The Donner Party?
Posted by Bybee at 8:38 AM 0 comments
Labels: reading stats