read

Grown up, grown up, grown up books, as far as the eye can see. My Shiny New Library has a Shiny New “Lucky Day” collection. Does your library have such a shelf? These collections have different names, but they are all designed to provide browsing patrons access to high-demand titles. Instead of waiting in interminable hold lists, patrons who come in to the library will find a collection of new books that do not fill hold requests, but also cannot be checked out for a full 3 weeks or renewed. So it’s the luck of the draw. After hearing some persuasive pitches for Ann Leary’s The Children at PLA in April, I found it on the Lucky Day shelf and decided to check it out. It was quite fun. I like a good book about rich people who live in rich vacation homes. This one reminded me of a grown up We Were Liars but replace Lockhart’s gravitas with dark humor. Also,  notable – the single 20-something protag runs a fake mommy blog.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest felt like a similar read in terms of audience, but not in tone. Both books sit in that enjoyable middle ground that lies between “literary” and “commercial” adult fic, but where The Children is acerbic and little mysterious, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is more earnest. There’s a new narrator for every chapter, all of whom are players in the life of one Eva Thorvald, who grows from an orphaned, awkward child into a successful chef. All in all – pretty light, pretty fun.

I also continued my recent string of memoirs with Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face. This has been on my to-read list since I read Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty. Truth and Beauty is Patchett’s memoir about her friendship with Grealy – they met in college, and Patchett watched Grealy struggle with mental illness, addiction, and traumatic reconstructive facial surgeries. Autobiography of a Face is Grealy’s own memoir, focusing on a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, first battling cancer and then attempting to repair the radiation damage to her face. As a reading experience, I enjoyed Patchett’s story more, but I do have to say that Grealy says some startling truths about growing up with pain, illness, and difference. Given that I read a lot of children’s and teen books that feature characters who suffer in this way, it was really fascinating – and heartbreaking – to read a firsthand experience.

reading

As promised, it seems that my postpartum Super Reading Days are drawing to a close. The baby is a speedier eater and a fussier napper; when I do have a spare moment, it’s hard to keep my mind centered on a book. I’m trying to maintain a bit of momentum, though – trying to sit down and just read at least once a day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. But instead of barreling through books, I’m dipping in and out of whatever is handy, to mixed results. Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow and Beverly Cleary’s memoir, A Girl from Yamhill, for example, are strangely similar in tone – I find the details of the two stories confusing in my mind. And with less time to plug into my headphones, I’ve had to renew Rainbow Rowell’s Landline twice now – maybe I need to temporarily give up Overdrive’s 14 day check out in favor of Hoopla’s 21? Given how much I loathe Hoopla’s interface, this is a significant departure.

What’s the same? My slow plod through A Song of Ice and Fire. For a long time, I read one chapter each morning with my coffee. I could do that now, but usually that morning coffee is gulped down quickly as my baby begins to stir. So my pace has slowed from chapter by chapter to page by page. Maybe I’ll finish reading it before my child heads off to college. Or not.

 

to read

Aside from a few upcoming review books, I’ve got nothing in particular guiding my reading these days. I’m also not reading at a particular fast rate, so it seems strange to think about books I’m not yet reading when I’m still far from finishing four. Who knows what kind of mood I’ll be in, what holds will be in, or what else the future holds?

So I’ll just throw out three guesses. For my next audiobook, perhaps Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You? I’m next in line on the holds queue, everyone on the planet has read it, and it’s a contemporary romance, which is a genre my brain can handle on audio right now. For my next eBook, perhaps Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which I’ve wanted to read for years but isn’t available on audio and I always have a more important print book to read. And speaking of print books, how about a Summer Reading List title that is short and sitting on my shelf, ready to read at any moment? Kwame Alexander’s Booked it is.