It's Monday 11/16! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Wow, November 16? Almost Thanksgiving? Where has this year gone? Oh, yeah, don’t remind me. 

I had another decent week health-wise last week and have gradually been resuming my own version of “normal.” I went to the grocery store for the first time in six weeks, and it felt like a huge victory! Very exciting. My husband was celebrating, too, since he’s had to do all the shopping lately. Best of all, I have been able to start taking walks again. I soaked in all the fall colors at the start of the week, before two days of rain brought all the leaves down. This is my favorite tree in the neighborhood:

And I was able to take a short hike with my husband on Saturday, after treating ourselves to take-out lattes and scones and before we enjoyed a nice outdoor visit with his 95-year-old father. It felt glorious to be outdoors on such a lovely day and soaking up the sunshine!

Of course, I always make time for reading, too, and also enjoyed a Zoom book group discussion last week. Here’s what we’ve all been reading this past week:

Just last night, I finally finished reading White Trash: the 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg. It starts by busting the myths of the U.S.’s original colonies that we all learned in history class: the staid, hard-working Pilgrims who came here seeking religious freedom and established a successful, class-less society. Instead, the author cites a wide variety of historical documents that show that the first settlers brought England’s strict class society with them, with landed gentry given access to the property here and ships full of vagrants, criminals, homeless children, and other poor people sent here to provide labor for building and planting. The book goes through each period of U.S. history, revealing what life was really like for poor whites and what leaders’ (and the general population’s) attitudes were toward the lower class, right through to modern times (one chapter is called Deliverance, Billy Beer, and Tammy Faye!). It was absolutely fascinating from start to finish, and I drove my husband crazy interrupting his own reading to tell him random, crazy facts I’d never heard before. I learned so much; it’s a very thought-provoking book. Now I need to choose my next pick for #NonfictionNovember.

I also finished When All Is Said by Anne Griffin, a novel set in Ireland, for my book group that met last week. It’s an unusual framework for a story, with an 84-year-old man sitting at a bar in the town he grew up in, “talking” (in his head, I guess) to his son who lives in the U.S.  in what seems to be a good-bye speech. He makes a series of five toasts, with five drinks, to five people who have been an important part of his life. Each toast is a different chapter in which he explains who the person is/was and how they influenced his life, delving back into his childhood, his married life, and more, and including a long-buried secret. Most of us agreed it was very good, an interesting and unique way to tell the story of a life. It reminded me a bit of the concept behind Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, though the story itself is quite different.

Meanwhile, in between books, I have been reading a nonfiction graphic “novel” for middle-graders called The Roanoke Colony: America’s First Mystery. It is part of the History Comics series. As usual with books about history, I am learning so much! Why didn’t they teach any of this in school?? It tells the story of not only the colony itself (which was established 100 years before the pilgrims arrived) but also the background of what was happening in Europe and why Queen Elizabeth I sent people to the New World to start the Roanoke Colony–believe it or not, the purpose of the colony was to provide a base of operations for privateers (i.e. pirates) to raid Spanish ships! The narrators are two young Native American men who went back to England with the first scouts to learn English and share knowledge and then returned with the ill-fated colonists. It is fascinating and filled with interesting historical details about history, lifestyles, and culture on both sides.

On audio, I am still listening to The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, a historical and literary classic written in 1903. Du Bois was an African-American who graduated form Harvard in 1895 (a feat in itself at that time) and was a renowned historian and sociologist. This famous tome reviews a portion of U.S. history with respect to African-Americans. Coincidentally, at the same time I was reading White Trash, I was also listening to Du Bois’ narrative about the same periods of history–for instance, the post-Civil War era–from two different perspectives: that of Blacks, both freemen and freed slaves, and of poor, rural whites. It’s been fascinating to fit these two different points of view together, as both are a far different story of U.S. history than what I learned in school! I especially like the chapters where Du Bois shares some of his own experiences, as a teacher and later, a father. I’m enjoying it so far and learning a lot. Apparently, this book is considered an important book in the study of sociology (which Du Bois helped create), and it feels especially important to read it at this moment in time.

My husband, Ken, is reading one of my top reads of 2020 (maybe THE top one), Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. I’ll let my Monday update from August speak for itself here: “I LOVED THIS BOOK! It was amazing, and I just want to tell everyone to read it! I always enjoy time travel plots, and this book is part of her Oxford Time Travel series, which also includes To Say Nothing of the Dog, which I also enjoyed (they are loosely related and don’t have to be read in order). This time, in 2155, a young female student, Kivrin, has traveled back in time all the way to the 1300′s, in England’s Middle Ages. It’s the first time they’ve sent anyone back that far, and there are all sorts of concerns since so little was recorded about that era. Hours after Kivrin leaves, though, a contemporary emergency occurs when one of the techs working on the project comes down with a devastating virus, and says that something went wrong with the time travel, just before he passes out. This shouldn’t happen, given the high-tech medical precautions used in this future (no one even gets colds), so there is a scramble to figure out what the virus is and where it came from. Meanwhile, the team at Oxford doesn’t realize it, but the reader knows that Kivrin arrived in the Middle Ages with the same debilitating symptoms. What a premise–a contemporary woman horribly sick in the Middle Ages and all alone. The action goes back and forth between the present-day and the past, and the suspense is incredibly compelling. The mystery in the present and the happenings in the past continue to evolve and intertwine, and I came to care about the characters so much that I can’t stop thinking about them, a week later. Ok, yes, there are two epidemics involved in this novel, and some similarities to our present situation (the book was written in 1992) are a bit unnerving, but the story, characters, and suspense are so great that I didn’t care.  I loved every minute of it! (My review is at the link above).” So far, Ken is enjoying it, too!

I texted our son, 26 (and recently moved out), to see what he’s reading now. He set the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind aside temporarily (but just bought book 4, so he’ll be back to it before long!). He’s now reading The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett, book one of The Demon Cycle. Amazon says it’s a series about humans versus demons, in a world where humans must live in magical wards to protect themselves from the hordes of demons that come out every night. But the demons are winning, with more humans killed every night. Three young people dare to stand up to the demons and sleep outside the magical ward in a desperate attempt to rediscover the secrets of the past that used to keep people safe. He must be enjoying it because he already bought book two!

Blog posts last week:

Movie Monday: Rebecca – creepy & suspenseful adaptation of the classic Gothic novel

Teen/YA Review: All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban – super-twisty teen thriller

Fiction Review: August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones – action-packed suspenseful thriller

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

What are you and your family reading this week?