What are you reading - 2021?

[rosarugosa]

I just finished Canada by Richard Ford, another that has been on my list for a long time. It was decent, but it started off so strong that I expected to love it, and then didn't quite live up to my expectations. In brief, it is the (fictional) story of two teens whose parents rob a bank and how that impacts their lives.

[Rogar]

I just completed the audio book just out, Exercised by Dan Lieberman. My expectations were not especially high but I was pleasantly surprised. It dispels some of the current myths about our culture's emphasis on exercise and how it relates to health. He has scientific information and studies on a variety of cultures including hunter gatherers, agricultural societies, and the famous running Tarahumaran Indians of the Copper Canyon as well as modern desk dwellers. I was enlightened on quite a few things.

[Yppej]

We Keep the Dead Close, true crime set in Cambridge, Massachusetts

[frugal-one]

National Parks of Europe.... very interesting reading. I have earmarked a few places to go that I would not have thought of otherwise.

[varrs]

I have been reading everything I can find on Natural Living, Essential Oils, Blogging, etc. Lots of self help stuff and learning stuff. Very Interesting.

[JaneV2.0]

I'm currently reading Echo of Distant Water by JB Fisher. It relates the facts surrounding the mysterious disappearance of a Portland family in the fifties that lived near one of the houses I grew up in; the girls went to a grade school I attended briefly. It's a nice, meaty, non-sensational true crime tome. Or maybe it was all just a tragic accident...

And I'm listening to Together: the Healing Power of Connection...blah blah blah Which interests me just about as much as Bowling Alone did. It briefly pays grudging lip service to the idea that there are individual and cultural differences involved in solitude versus loneliness, and though It's easy to listen to, if he doesn't come up with something I haven't heard pretty soon, I'm sending him back to the library. It's read by the author, who employs an odd, annoying form of uptalk, which doesn't help.

[Tradd]

I just finished When Books Went to War The Stories that Helped Win World War II. HIGHLY recommend it. It was a suggestion from Amazon based on my recent World War II reading. It starts off talking about the Nazi book burning in 1933, then the need for books when the US went to war. There was a book drive for donated books, but hardcovers aren't good for being deployed. The Army and Navy actually supplied small paperbacks (PBs were not popular at the time with the publishers) that were handy to stuff in a pocket and VERY popular with the troops. They had very little to do and they devoured any reading material they could get their hands on. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was on of the Armed Services Editions and VERY popular. Hi

[Yppej]

Washington Black a peripatetic novel

[rosarugosa]

I recently finished Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston, another one that's been on my list for a long time. It's a dramatic novel about a family whose child goes missing. It was a decent read, but not one of my favorites. I think he probably did a good job describing the emotional impact on family members, but that's speculation on my part because I've never been in that situation.

[rosarugosa]

OK, my two latest reads were a little heavier than my usual:
Black Boy by Richard Wright - this was his memoir about growing up in the south early in the twentieth century, and then moving north in his later teens. I found it really engrossing early on, but then got bogged down a bit during the years of his involvement with the communist party. It was a worthwhile read, but towards the end it felt more like work than pleasure.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - I read the annotated version and there were loads of notes, so this one felt like work from start to finish. I'm glad I read it, since references to it are so common, and now I can better understand those references. I find it odd that some books (that seem relatively harmless to me)are being criticized for being culturally insensitive, but this book, which is quite explicitly about a pedophile and his 12-year-old sex slave, gets a pass as a literary classic.
Anyway, I'm hoping my next book falls into the lighter entertainment category.