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Category Archives: Adult

After everyone

Cue Semisonic’s “Closing Time” and that’s how I’m feeling about reading Delia Owen’s Where the Crawdads Sing.

Yes I know that the movie was just released in 2022 and no, I haven’t watched it. I know that whenever a movie comes out there’s a resurgence in reading the book if it hadn’t been read before (or lovers of the book re-reading it) but still, the height of obsession with the book is well past since it was published in 2018 which seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at once. Yet the most wonderful thing about books is there really isn’t ever an expiration date and it can be read and reread at any time. It was a few days ago that finally after seeing it pop up again somewhere in my internet travels that I decided it was time.

I listened to the audiobook which annoyingly had a cover update from the movie (I hate that) but beside a captivating narrator, I found that for as popular with book clubs and reading circles, pop culture lists and Goodreads Choice Awards, I didn’t know anything about the book. It was what I hold dear about reading the book for the first time in 2023 because other than it’s general popularity, I didn’t know a single tidbit of what awaited me which is why my respect for the book deepened. I got to read the book as myself, not as anyone else or through anyone else. My own experiences interpreted what Kya was experiencing. My own experiences sensed the marsh. My own experiences greeted the characters.

For readers who have moved on, having a conversation about the book has well-passed since vivid thoughts about the book fade over time as new books crowd out the memory of the older books. But I wanted to celebrate here that a book is evergreen. It never goes out of style whether it’s 10 days old or 10 years old. As I wrote this sentence, I remembered Chicken Every Sunday by Rosemary Taylor, a book published in 1943 that was often read by soldiers during World War II. It was mentioned in the book When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning. I promptly went to my indie bookseller who found a 1943 copy of Chicken Every Sunday that I bought, took home, read cover to cover with a cup of tea and my blanket, and sat in the experiences of from a half-century ago, but felt like it was yesterday.

Cheers to timeless stories.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 18, 2023 in Adult, Audiobooks, Fiction, Reflections

Last and first

01 Jan

Other bookish people likely do the same thing, right? They plan their last book of a calendar year and the first one of the new year. I have been doing this for a few years now and while they don’t always work out to the five-star reads I want them to be in my head, not all books can be winners and that’s life.

But this year I can confidently say I chose well.

My last book of 2022 was

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I bought this about a month at my indie bookstore on a whim. I rarely buy books that I haven’t read before but the hype around the book has been so overwhelming that I went ahead and bought it. Then it was clear by the beginning of December that I would save it for my last book of the year.

Vacation reading is often trying to cram as many books in as I can while still being productive and extroverted for holiday activities, so I actually waited until December 30th to read the first few chapters and then I could roll into the rest of the book on New Year’s Eve. The problem is that we had company for the better half of the afternoon, but I hunkered down with my champagne and white cranberry and finished about 11:45pm- in time to watch the ball drop and be filled with the love and admiration of Garmus’s writing AND how she created the most loveable and unique characters. It’s as funny as it is sad reminding me of a combination of The House in the Cerulean Sea by Klune and Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.

So the clock strikes midnight, I toast my cranberry champagne with my husband and kids, get a good night’s rest and wake up knowing that my first book of the new year awaited.

My first book of 2022 was

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

In part, I chose this one because the color palette matched Garmus’s book. It’s a book that I saw a lot via social media and I also have read (and loved) Poston’s YA, plus it came in from the library several weeks ago so it was already on my TBR pile.

Just like Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry, Florence Day is a main character I’ll remember. Her voice is unmatchable. With its mix of magical realism and new adult humor, it combines nicely with the sexy romance and Day’s day job as a ghostwriter of romance novels who does not believe that love wins anymore. As a book nerd, Day’s day job makes our word-loving hearts sing. In addition, I’m a cemetery walker who is curious about death, so Day’s family’s ownership of a funeral home and her unique upbringing is My Girl meets The Lovely Bones and would be something a Colleen Hoover reader should check out. The two twists in the last third of the book make it all the more indulgent and creative.

Now, onto a year filled with books in all their iterations with plenty of tea on the side.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 1, 2023 in Adult, Authors, Fiction

Top 5 of 2022: Favorite blog posts

30 Dec

I needed one more TOP list of 2022, so I decided to look back at my posts from this year and highlight my five favorites.

Obituaries: I’m still reading the obituaries every day. I’m still always looking out for an old cemetery to wander around. And I love discovering articles like this one about etching recipes on gravestones (and the woman who went on a quest to make the recipes and revisit the graves).
Fifteen Years: I waxed poetic about my fifteens years in school librarianship.
She’s A Ten, But…: I took the meme and made it my own. Anyone else pack a pile of books to bring to a place that you wholeheartedly know you won’t be able to read ANYTHING but yet, you still need to be prepared?
Down the Rabbit Hole: When one book leads to another or a learning opportunity or a documentary to learn more. I did this with Chernobyl but I’ve also done it with fungi, medicine, and more.
Saga‘s Lesson: Patience: My ode to the best comic series because as much as I want Staples and Vaughan to hurry the heck up, I also never want the series to end.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 30, 2022 in Adult, Blogging, Graphic novels, Miscellaneous, Reflections, Shows

Top 10 of 2022: Adult books edition

26 Dec

The last week of the year is here! I spent last week looking over my reading from this year to pick the best of the best. As always, my lists are books published in 2022, not everything I’d read in 2022 that would make it to my top 10 lists, which makes it a true listicle of the best books of the year.

For 2022, I have four lists I’ll share each day this week, starting with my top 10 adult books. It’ll continue with children’s books, then middle grade, and end with YA.

In a few sentences, I will sum up my top 10 adult books– a mix of fiction and nonfiction in all of the formats that I love from audiobooks to graphic novels. They are books that are escape or slice-of-life, they are true stories that will make you cringe and others that will help to celebrate the good in life. Either way, I can’t help but look over the covers and remember a time, a place, a favorite part that I will take with me from 2022.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 26, 2022 in Adult, Audiobooks, Authors, Comics, Cover Love, Fiction, Graphic novels, Nonfiction

Readers advisory for October ’22

31 Oct

If there ever was a month to label as “mixed bag”, it would have to be October.

This is just a smattering of the books I read either in print, digitally, or audio and they range from a true crime audiobook of two women murdered in the Shenandoah National Park to the GOAT of horror manga, Juji Ito’s Uzumaki. Then there are middle grade fiction titles like Key Player by Kelly Yang and my continued obsession with Spy x Family. All told there were sixty-three books read for the month.

It was a result of several converging events, committees, and activities:

With a conference presentation a few weeks ago, at the beginning of the month I was trying to squeeze in some anticipated titles of 2023 while also reading a few 2022 titles to be ready to talk books.
Sitting on a “Best of” books selection committee for nonfiction so I had a few nonfiction titles that I didn’t know about to read to better argue which were the best!
A little countdown to Halloween on my Instagram, I read a spooky book a day for the last week that included the wacky spirals of Ito’s imagination to reliving the dramatic 1990 movie The Witches based on Roald Dahl’s The Witches which I had never read and decided to listen to the audiobook of today while traveling in the car. Plus I discovered the delightful Ghoulia.
And of course, fitting in the general love of certain series or titles that sit on my endless TBR that I pick up based on length, topic, and format.

November is my birthday month, so I’m planning a few personal reading challenges and organizing my own readathon. Any suggestions?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on October 31, 2022 in Adult, Audiobooks, Authors, Book of the Month, Childrens, Comics, Cover Love, Fiction, Graphic novels, Manga, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Young Adult

On the eve of my favorite booktalk of the year

17 Oct

This post would have been done last Thursday, but the school’s homecoming weekend spirit celebrations shortened every class period last Friday, which meant that Ms. Donohue rescheduled classes for tomorrow. It was the right thing to do because talking nonfiction needs the whole 43 minutes. And even that is pushing it.

Here we are, the eve of my favorite booktalk of the school year. I’m really not exaggerating. I can get behind every booktalk done throughout the year, but there are ones that are special, such as this one. AP Language 11th graders do a project using a nonfiction text of their own choosing. No students in all of the classes can repeat the same book. It needs to be robust enough for the requirements of the project, engagingly narrative enough to hold their attention, pertinent to their interests. This means I hustle for my money presenting them with these such books through a whole-class booktalk before giving them time to browse, search, select, and check out. This last third of the class is for one on one readers advisory too. The challenge to find a book for a kid who wasn’t bowled over by anything I had to say in the first two thirds of class is one I’m willing to accept. And nonfiction is my jam.

Who are some of my favorite authors to recommend? I’m glad you asked! Mary Roach, Jon Krakauer, Erik Larson, James L. Swanson, and Candace Fleming.

What are some of my favorite titles to recommend this year? I’m glad you asked! In no particular order (and because my battery is running low): A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein, You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell, and Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge.

I’ll get a good night’s rest tonight because tomorrow you’ll find me fangirling nonfiction in the library.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on October 17, 2022 in Adult, Authors, Nonfiction

Who would have thought?

04 Sep

If you would have told me five years ago that I would be listening to audiobooks while running or that I’d be running a half marathon and I would have told you you were lying. But here I am, running while listening to an audiobook and training for a half marathon.

This past weekend, I ran the longest I’ve ever run (well let’s not kid here, there were long pauses of fast walking) and I finished Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Shah and the End of Time before sliding into Dina Nayeri’s The Ungrateful Refugee.

I can’t tell you why I made the switch from listening to music to listening to audiobooks but I can tell you that a good audiobook keeps me running farther than music might. I’ve had that distinct feeling twice: Christina Tosi’s Dessert Can Save the World and Liz Nugent’s Little Cruelties.

If you haven’t tried walking or running with an audiobook, try it!

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on September 4, 2022 in Adult, Audiobooks, Fiction, Middle grade, Nonfiction

Saga’s lesson: Patience

07 Jul

I did not grow up reading comics and definitely didn’t know where the local comic book store was. I am now an adult and read comics and definitely know where the local comic book store is. All of this was firmly solidified over Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga series.

Now, I had been reading graphic novels for some time, but almost exclusively as original novels or trade paperbacks. I didn’t know the world of serialized issues and a weekly or monthly stop to the store to pick them up. Heck, I came to Saga dozens of issues in because my first experience (thankfully, because I couldn’t get enough) was the trade paperback volumes 1-7 or 8. Then though I still waited for volume 9 and that’s when I realized I knew better and needed the stories issue by issue. Well, a hiatus and pandemic sure didn’t help.

Joyously, issue 55 came out in January to return me to the monthly pickup. The endorphin hit of knowing what will unfold mini-story by mini-story is the best kind of reading and the most painful. The lesson? Patience. For all the comic fans, especially the ones who were living this life way before I now do, what a lesson to learn.

Yesterday, I walked into the store to pick up issue 60 with my son– leaving with a big smile and the delayed gratification of sitting on the couch with a cup of tea to indulge in the next story that evening. I settled in for which I was rewarded with a phenomenal story and the next “please be patient” author’s note that issue 61 will hit stores in January 2023. Deep breath in, deep breath out. I can be patient. I do have the entire collection to re-read for the fourth time.

In fact, the best defense is a good offense. So as I count down to the release of volume 10 in October, I’ll backwards plan a re-read of the series. Then maybe in between October and January I’ll finally start working on cosplaying Alana or Izabel to stay connected to what is one of the most epic series of all time. Now, coming from a bookish gal like myself, a statement like that might seem devalued because I love all books, but no really, Saga is truly one of the most epic series of all time. As in, each of these cliches is true:

If I were trapped on a desert island and had to choose only a few books to bring, the Saga series would be one.
Every re-read of the series offers new insight. I would know, since I rarely re-read anything and I’ve re-read this series three times so far.
Authors and illustrators are my rock stars and thus, I look forward to the day where I can meet Staples and Vaughan.
The best things come to those who wait. I’ll be over here patiently waiting for the issues… and that meet-up.

The creativity, artwork, writing, story arcs, characters, social commentary, and allusions to name a few elements are the building blocks of great reading. Heck, the fandom seeped it’s way into a Taco Bell commercial. People have tattoos of characters. Hats-off to this winning team. I’ll be over here in your cheerleading section… patiently waiting.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on July 7, 2022 in Adult, Authors, Book Birthday, Comics, Cover Love, Graphic novels

What I did

25 Jun

Yesterday, Friday, June 24th was the last day of school which ended with a few last booktalks to my colleagues to set them up for the professional reading groups I run over the summer for staff, moving the last few items over to the new library (where we’re still waiting for the furniture), and a picnic lunch.

Today, Saturday, June 25th was the first day of official summer vacation. There will be plenty of time for work this summer that’s generally bookish in nature. But today had to be a *little* special.

The breakfast of champions after a morning training run and sauna session included water, bagel and lox, rose cider, and tea while reading the paper. The runs usually include an audiobook (who am I? I thought I would never be the person listening to an audiobook while running- only motivating music please- but I am now that person). I was actually able to finish Nugent’s Little Cruelties this morning what a twisted piece of literary fiction.

I moved to doing some grading and prep work for the summer grad classes and picked up a flat of strawberries from our CSA which promptly turned into me making biscuits and homemade whip for strawberry shortcake after dinner.

Some more reading.

A dinner of grilled pizzas courtesy of my grill-master husband and sitting out on the patio where I started another book that I’m loving so far, an arc of All Signs Point to Yes: A Love Story for Every Star Sign short story anthology edited by Davis, Montgomery, and White. Then, the strawberry shortcake.

And last, a blog post while also plotting a personal readathon for this summer.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on June 25, 2022 in Adult, Audiobooks, Blogging, Short Story, Upcoming Releases, Young Adult

The joy of vacation reading

23 Apr

… and by vacation I mean staycation,. I have no picture of a book sitting on my sunkissed thighs with a drink to my left. This past week was our spring break from school that’s typically associated with the Easter holiday however it also coincided with Passover and is the monthlong celebration of Ramadan. For me that did include a handful of religious and family obligations plus a visit from my mother-in-law, but she was going to be flying out by early in the week and I would be able to tackle some to-do items like cleaning and organizing certain parts of the house but also hang with my kids also on break, and of course, read.

I had amassed quite a few galleys via Edelweiss and Netgalley, plus I have an upcoming author panel I’m moderating, and then other print books on my shelf and from the library that I wanted to dive in to. I certainly got my reading time in with several gems in my favorite subcategories. Here were some highlights:

What in particular do I like about vacation reading? I think it’s the relaxed reading atmosphere, the deft movement between audiobooks and print or ebooks when I take a quick break to walk the dog in the middle of the day or decide it’s time to tackle that downstairs closet. The choice is all mine. And it feels extra special because it’s vacation time and it’s my choice and that’s what I choose to do. After all, Jung got it right– “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” I am a reader.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on April 23, 2022 in Adult, Fiction, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Upcoming Releases, Verse, Young Adult