I’m cheating a little for this month and choosing one graphic novel, one adult nonfiction, and one fiction title for my outstanding book(s) because I had some fabulous reading material (including the secret kind that I can’t tell you about). So here goes for the month:
What were your favorites of the month?
I knew I wasn’t going to create my book of the month post yesterday to post for today because I was in the middle of the book I was going to bestow that title to. I would carve out time today after an early morning walk with my librarian friend, Stacey, a little food shopping, and some other reading, to finish this book. And I was not wrong. And I was not disappointed. Behold, my June selection!
Published this past August, I have been on the wait list at the public library for quite some time. Once it came in, I brought it home and immediately felt the apprehensiveness of cracking the spine because I could feel the magnetic pulse of a book that would move me.
Nezhukumatathil is a poet, so it’s without question that she has a command of words. And as an avid lover of nature as evidenced by these vignettes, she has a command for sharing it with others. She’s like a literary Sy Montgomery and I say that as kindness for both. Montgomery is a scrapper, woman’s woman scientist who gets her hands dirty, her armpits sweaty in the forest, and rolls up her sleeves for the work. Who then parlays that into fascinating books for kids (and adults) about her adventures and learning from tarantulas to octopus. Nezhukumatathil is an explorer and an observer who won’t shy away from the experience, but isn’t in it for the scientific study but rather the enlightenment it will provide. And that is equally beautiful.
The vignettes of birds, plants, and animals are only several pages in length but leave a life lesson within each that pulls the reader closer to nature and asks the existential questions along with it. The writing was magical. The descriptions were breathtaking. And the muted illustration was a cherry on top to this tiny but powerful book.
More novella than novel, Sy Montgomery wins my heart over again with her magical storytelling about the most nonmagical magic– the natural world. Clocking in at 96 pages or just about two hours on audiobook, her newest: The Hummingbird’s Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and the Renewal on Wings is a special gift for readers and why it’s my favorite for the month.
Her deep connections to the animal world allowed her to weave her scientific escapades with her art of writing that allows the couch scientist to experience animals hidden deep inside jungles or the ones that we rarely think about right outside our windows. This story is a rescue mission; the rehabilitation of several hummingbirds by a friend of hers while she was able to help caretake alongside. The interwoven history of hummingbirds and their significance to groups worldwide is evidenced by their names in other cultures is given equal status in the book with the health of the bird’s of the story.
My recommendation would be to listen to Montgomery tell you the story via the audiobook version as I did because nothing can replace the emotional and logical approach to keeping the hummingbird’s alive. It’s an action-adventure in real life– will they or won’t they survive? What is the ethics of saving them? How do they experience the world? It’s all packed in this slim volume that feels as luxurious as a bite of dark chocolate.
Is it that time again? Looking at my calendar, it is! My outstanding pick was a recommendation from a kindred book friend who said I must listen to the audiobook. Now I’m recommending it to anyone who will listen that you must listen to the audiobook.
I was crushing on Barrie Kreinik and Peter Ganim who narrate Nancy Wake and Henri Fiocca. Kreinik brought the French accent by way of New Zealand perfectly along with the zest and spunk of the real-life Nancy Wake that Ariel Lawhon presents to readers in Code Name Helene. Wake was a woman on a mission of resistance living many lives at once at the onset of World War II. And Fiocca was the man she fell in love with and married. Ganim brings the sex appeal to their romance through the ears from the pages.
It’s not often that I feel a certain way about narrators as my friend Stacey Rattner does, but when they’re good, I can see how it can happen. Yet their presentation can only be built from the impassioned foundation of Lawhon herself to approach this subject matter. I was lost in the details, the adventure, the romance, the espionage. It was dangerous and it sometimes had to be funny. It needed to be bawdy but also indulgent. And the treachery!
If I’ve said nothing that has stuck, remember this: listen to Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon.
Before it went defunct, I contributed to the local newspaper’s books blog online and had shared my recent audiobook recommendations under the title Audiowalking. This title sums up when I’m often listening to audiobooks as was the case today with Dolly Parton, Storyteller: My Life in Lyrics. I don’t think there could be a better way to engage with the book other than the audiobook spoken by Dolly herself. But this post isn’t only about recommending the audiobook but my realization in listening to her explain her life’s experiences and turning them in to poetry and songs that the reason I’m a reader and a country music listener is for exactly that reason: it’s all about the story.
Yes my first exposure to country music was from my parents, but I loved it all the same. And, I was an avid reader from the get-go remembering fondly my insistence in re-reading Heidi, the American Girl books, and The True Adventures of Charlotte Doyle. And, I also started my first two books when I was in fourth and fifth grade- one about a pirate ship and one about an Indigenous girl and her younger brother. Then I became a librarian. And all of these have a commonality- storytelling.
Even now when I read, I often take pictures of the text or Post-it a passage to keep in a folder on my computer to revisit when the mood strikes me because words have power. But the story the words create is stronger. Dolly knows it. Country music creates it. I get lost in it. Dolly’s audiobook re-centered my gratitude to authors and songwriters for being able to weave the magic of words into the stories that embed in our lives. Aside from asking everyone to listen to her audiobook, I’ll also leave you with one of my favorite country songs. You be sure to let me know if you missed the story in this song.
Why does this not get easier? Too many amazing books, that’s why!
Without further delay, here is my pick for the outstanding book of the month read in February 2021. Unlike my Top 10 lists at the end of the year that focus ONLY on books published within that year, my outstanding book of the month picks are anything that I’ve read in the month that may be a little older or yet-to-be-published.
Lives of the Stoics: From Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
This book is a game-changer. I would add this to my list of books that changed me (a post for another day) because I didn’t really know Stoicism. I knew of the oft-quoted men (and none of the women) in the book. I had read quotes shared on social media that they had written or spoken, but I didn’t know it was a life philosophy. This is my life philosophy and I didn’t know it, until I read this book. Now I’ve got others coming from the library both from the Stoics themselves and by the authors to do a deep dive. And isn’t that the way the best kind of learning happens?
Like my colleague always said, it’s like pulling the thread of the sweater. I pulled the thread… and I’m excited to see what I discover next.
I often post about my participation in the Dewey’s 24-hour readathon. It’s a break from reality which involves snack planning and stack prepping in addition to the amazing experience of focusing on your reading life for 24-hours (or as close to that as you can get).
Well from great ideas come more great ideas. One of the participants was inspired by her participation in Dewey’s but also knew that 24-hours straight was an unrealistic expectation for her so she created #24in48 in 2012 which expands upon the concept: in this one you strive for reading 24 hours over a 48 hour weekend that begins at 12am Saturday morning and ends at 11:59pm on Sunday night.
This was my first participation and I’ll now keep these events on my calendar alongside Dewey’s. Did I manage at least 24 hours this weekend? Yes, I managed more than 25 and probably could have done more but I did take the time to enjoy the Superbowl on Sunday night. I filled the time with audiobooks and unadulterated print books throughout the weekend which included finishing two audiobooks and several e- and print books.
What I liked most was the inclusion of social media posts to include in an Instagram story centered around current reads and progress but my favorite was the “quotables” where readers could share a quote from a book they were reading with the book cover. I’m a quote lover, so it’s something I’m going to take from the readathon and share more of on social media: quotes that resonated with me in the hopes they lead to discussions with other readers.
Here’s what I read:
Are there reading events that you participate in? If so, which ones and why do you love them?
It’s easy to feel like you’re not a serious reader if you don’t have a list of classics that you can readily discuss the merits of because you’ve read them and adored them.
I consider myself a serious reader and realize all of the classics that I’ve never read and instead of feeling bad about it, I add them to my list when the mood strikes me and I’ll get to them when I feel like it. I’ve written before about being a mood reader. Recently, I’ve been in the mood for a few classics: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Each was inspired by another book that finally pushed me to read them. For Moby Dick it was Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. For Silent Spring it was Bryan Walsh’s End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World: Asteroids, Super Volcanoes, Rogue Robots, and More. For The Wonderful Wizard of Oz it was Marvel’s adaptation of the book into a graphic novel by Eric Shanower and illustrated by Skottie Young.
There’s often a push to read a classic before you’re ready for it, simply because it’s a classic. There is such a thing as the time being right: I remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school and hating it, then reading it in college and loving it. Would I have been ready for Moby Dick 10 or 15 years ago? Probably not. But I wanted to now and that has made all the difference.
And the receptivity to the book has to play a part in the enjoyment of reading, which is why it is important that kids have choice in their reading because choice (be it mood, interest, level, background) plays a part in how we read the book. Have you read Frankenstein to an adult is akin to have you read Harry Potter to a kid. Not all are interested nor ready for it and that’s okay. We will be some day. Or not.
Give yourself a break if you’re staring at the stack of oldies that you should read but aren’t. You’ll be ready one day. Or not. And that’s okay. But if you are, enjoy the ride. Know your own reading life. And know when to read that book recommended by a friend or that classic or that book that’s been sitting on your TBR for three years.
Netflix is the pleasure I reserve for early morning workouts on the elliptical in the garage and Friday and Saturday nights usually. Netflix in the mornings is whatever I want to watch while the weekend watching is usually with my husband and sometimes even the kids. Last night we watched two episodes of two different series: one called The Surgeon’s Cut (episode two “Sacred Brain”) and one Chef’s Table: BBQ (episode two “Lennox Hastie”).
My takeaway from the first series having watched the first episode as well as the second now is that the body is an amazing thing. Having recently read the deeply bibliotherapeutic memoir The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper, I can’t help but connect the two. The doctors in the docuseries and of her own memoir are passionate about their work because they can throw themselves into something that helps others when they themselves needed a hero growing up– for each of them, they became their own rescuer and in that metamorphosis, they now fight for others. A powerful message indeed.
My takeaway from the second series you can likely connect to my affinity for reading food memoirs which I’ve shared extensively here and on the other blogs I contribute to. Especially this second episode, Lennox Hastie has created something entirely his own for his own benefit– the love of the heat of an open flame and his restaurant that took a career to open in Australia– is all flame-cooked from the salad to the dessert. Whether it was the crafters of the episode and thus the series or Hastie himself, the episode hit me deep down. His quest for scrumptiousness and his enjoyment in watching others moan with the pleasure of the taste sensations is the chase that he yearns for. But it is more than pleasing others, there is also a deep satisfaction with himself in the process of exploring and creating that should be honed. Everyone should find their passion the way he has. It’s the constant practice that connected me to one of the last books of 2020 that I listened to: James Clear’s Atomic Habits coupled with Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks.
How do we unlock our passions? How do we keep the drive alive to excel and find our purpose? What is your story?
It’s not as much about saving the best for last as using it as the last opportunity to highlight the coolest books that came out in 2020 that defy categories. If you’ve stuck with me over the last few days, I appreciate your willingness to read through my picks and share yours with me too. With this, is there anything that you’re looking forward to in 2021?
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Readers Be Advised 