TBR List Update: November

             

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In November 2024

Books read: 3

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: I think I want to read more food writings by MFK Fisher before attempting her journals/memoirs.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 45

Best book of the month: Love Comes Softly

Kind of a funny choice, but it was a soothing bit of fluff.

Worst book of the month: None. They were all okay.

I don't think I'm going to summit Mount TBR this year. Too much disruption and too little reading time. But I'll keep swimming, just keep swimming.

TBR List Update: October

            

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In October 2024

Books read: 7

Books I decided NOT to finish: 3

Low-Demand Parenting: This is useful info in general, especially for parents and people who work with kids, but it was most relevant to the foster kiddo who's recently left our house. I'm going to let it go.

Model Home: See below about Rivers Solomon.

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat: I realized that my library system only had one volume available, and it wasn't the first one. I didn't want to read this manga badly enough to seek it out from interlibrary loan.

Brown Girl in the Ring: I don't know why. I've previously read excerpts and it just doesn't sound so appealing anymore.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 45

Best book of the month: Bloodchild and Other Stories

Yummy, chewy morsels of Octavia Butler's work, with an accompanying author's note on each one.

Worst book of the month: An Unkindness of Ghosts

*sigh* This is the second Solomon book I've not connected with, and at this point I'm not up for reading another. There's so much character development and interesting worlds/life circumstances, and you start to really care about the characters' choices, but then what happens in terms of plot? Is there resolution? No! Very unfulfilling.

TBR List Update: September

           

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In September 2024

Books read: 3

Books I decided NOT to finish: 4

When the Angels Left the Old Country: I started this before going on sabbatical, and found my interest in demons and dybbuks and demonstrations at sweatshops waned.

Delicious Foods: Maybe it was the "daring and shape-shifting prose" (as advertised in the jacket copy) , but when I was sorting through my pile, I decided to turn it in unread.

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: Science written for a popular audience -- which is fine, but I thought from the introduction that I'd be reading the author's personal experience with his family. It didn't make the back-to-work cut.

Cane River: This one WAS the author's family's story... and as interesting as it might be over a glass of sweet tea, it doesn't have the systemically crafted plot twists of a novel.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 41

Best book of the month: An Unkindness of Ghosts

Space-age SF with social justice along multiple axes.

Worst book of the month:

They were all fine.

TBR List Update: August

           

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In August 2024

Books read: 3

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

The Mountain in the Sea: Looked forward to this for ages based on the sf premise and a colleague's recommendation, but found it slow going and the loan expired.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 

Best book of the month: Aft

This read

Worst book of the month: Cu

What the heck was this?? 

TBR List Update: July

          

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In July 2024

Books read: 9

Books I decided NOT to finish: 2

The Orphan Collector: Usually books like this are my cup of tea, but I just couldn't get into it after a second or third attempt, and decided not to spend my vacation time on it.

The Apple:  Eh. Not as racy as I'd been led to believe.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 55 (I pulled some from Hoopla recommendations, not the list)

Best book of the month: After We Were Stolen

This read like a long and twisty episode of Criminal Minds or Law & Order: SVU, with a little nod to the second half of Room. I appreciated the glimpses into safe house etiquette and the perspective of our unreliable narrator as she learns more about the outside world.

Worst book of the month: Cutting Lisa

What the heck was this?? I finished it because it was short, but I regret it. No explanation of character motivation. If you didn't already think just like this guy (an old white straight man), you don't get a clue as to what he's feeling or why. No plot development! Characters would have conversations, and either nothing at all would change about the situation (so why have the conversation on the page?) or somehow it would trigger a bold action, without explanation. I selected this because of the acclaim given to the author's latest, James, but reading this doesn't incline me in the slightest toward his other novels.

Spent the whole month on leave (and much of the reading occurred on an airplane or ship), but it often felt like I was just substituting work at home or travel for work at the office. I finished up a few that had been hanging out half-read, and succumbed to a sequel in a series I don't think I want to finish,

TBR List Update: June

         

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In June 2024

Books read: 2

Books I decided NOT to finish: 3

Predators: Who They Are and How to Stop Them: Going through some stuff right now that made me not want to read more. Good advice in what I did read, though.

REMY: I *had* to try a book with my own name! Then I couldn't get through the writing in the first pages. Too much telling without showing. Slow and ungainly. I gave up on myself.

The Orphan Collector: Started it again, got half a chapter further, skimmed a bit, and decided it was too slow/boring.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 58 (yes, it's getting bigger now)

Best book of the month: There's not much to choose from...

Mad Honey was fine; I saw the twist coming (not always true with Jodi Picoult!) and it was handled well. Perhaps groundbreaking at the time it was published? I wrote, until I checked and found it it was from 2022. I liked the setting and learning more about bees!

Worst book of the month: I haven't finished enough to say!

I had a lot of balls to juggle this month, between work and home responsibilities. Starting in July I'll be on sabbatical/family leave, and there will be traveling, so hopefully some free time to read.

TBR List Update: May

        

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In May 2024

Books read: 6

Books I decided NOT to finish: 5

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life: After reviewing this slim volume, I realize that I've read it before.

The Husband Hunters: I added this to the list in 2020 (when I was working with the Main Library collection during its pandemic closure), having watched a lot of Downton Abbey. Since then I've also viewed The Gilded Age, and closely enough to recognize a number of real-life personages that those characters were modeled on, from the photographs in the book. The text reads like Debrett's -- too many names for me -- so that was sufficient.

Miss Pym Disposes: a recommendation that would've been all right had I nothing else pressing to read; since I do, and was looking for something to cast off, I have disposed of it.

The Echo Wife: I have enjoyed Sarah Gailey's previous work, but I just couldn't get into this one. I ended up skipping through and getting the gist of the plotline, then turned it back in.

Lives of Girls and Women: I tried the first chapter and couldn't see what all the fuss was about. But there's also a book club reading it, so many people on the hold list who do want it.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 56

Best book of the month: The Women Could Fly

At about the halfway point, I hadn't yet decided whether I liked this book. Reserving judgement until the last page was turned, I'm still a little perplexed, but I'm falling on the side of no. It's a little too acid-trippy in its musings on witchcraft and magic, and the realistic aspects -- a Handmaid's Tale-like authoritarian government bent on eradicating witches, and by TOTAL COINCIDENCE I'M SURE oppressing women, gender minorities, POC, and under-resourced people -- were grim but not all that insightful. I'm still interested in the social effects of having all unmarried women under suspicion of terrible acts, requiring them to leave the workplace by 30 if they haven't married, putting them under formal control by a male relative and/or government monitor, etc. The main character in this story is conflicted about what she wants and needs, and so was I. Was this a happy ending? Would I have preferred a different one? It's all a twisting, foggy path.

Worst book of the month: I'm not prepared to name one. The Echo Wife would've been it, if I had read the whole thing.

TBR List Update: April

       

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In April 2024

Books read: 9

It was my birthday month, and I had some protected time alone to read. But then I got sick at the end of the month and didn't get to read ANYTHING. It balanced out.

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

Appalachian Reckoning: I put this on my list at the same time as Hillbilly Elegy, because I wanted to get a rounded perspective of the issues raised. However, I didn't find myself fully believing or supporting the author of the memoir, so when reading the response was slow-going, I eventually decided to pitch it.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 65

Best book of the month: The Wishing Game

Wish fulfilment in so many ways!! I sobbed over this book. It's published for grownups. There is darkness in it -- and confrontation of the darkness. And yet I would hand it to a middle-schooler without hesitation. There is so much hope. I can see why there was a waiting list.

Worst book of the month: How Can I Help You

So... nothing HAPPENED in this mystery about murderous librarians. I did not care about the fate of either of the main characters, and the anticlimactic ending ground my gears. Also, I'm annoyed about the lack of punctuation in the title.

TBR List Update: March

      

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In March 2024

Books read: 5

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

The Outrun: I didn't realize that it's an addiction recovery memoir, not fiction. I'd honestly rather read about imaginary people's struggles sometimes, especially when real life is being difficult.

I quailed at the size of Stephen King's Desperation, which I've started a few times in the past, but decided I really do want to finish it, so I won't include it here. Just... set it to the side.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 75 (It went up -- I found new titles to add)

Best book of the month: The Murder of Mary Russell

A selection in the Mary Russell series that actually had very little to do with Mary! Most of the book was taken up with the backstory of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady/housekeeper for Sherlock Holmes. As previously intimated, she led quite a different sort of life when she was younger. I adored this (and in my mind I kept seeing the fashions from the TV series The Gilded Age).

Worst book of the month: Dancing Girls

Having loved The Handmaid's Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, I thought I'd explore Margaret Atwood's short fiction. I found the collection uneven, though; the first few stories were confusing to me and I didn't find much that resonated with my experience. A standout: "When It Happens", which played to my looming sense of dread and social apocalypse. "Rape Fantasies" was a clever conceit. But overall, it was a slog, and I'm reconsidering the other two anthologies of her work on my list.

TBR List Update: February

     

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In February 2024

Books read: 7

Books I decided NOT to finish: 2

The Tropic of Serpents: #2 in a series I started last year. Just not compelling enough to keep.

Secrets of Happiness: Honestly, I got it in person, flipped through it, and decided, "Too literary." It won a lot of awards, though.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 72

Best book of the month: Hench

This is the first title I added to the 2024 list, way back about a year ago. I deeply enjoyed the witty repartee between the main character and her friends.

Worst book of the month: 

Most of them were disappointing, but none were really bad. I'm not going to name a "worst".

I've started adding a few new titles to the current TBR List, rather than maintaining a separate one for next year. I'm hoping that I'll have it whittled down enough by the end of 2024 that I won't need to keep up the challenge next year and can just read what I want to and happen across.

TBR List Update: January

    

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In January 2024

Books read: 7

Books I decided NOT to finish: 3

The Devil in Silver: This one seemed like it would make a good suspense film, but the novel opened too slowly for me. I wanted to know more about either the police corruption angle or the supernatural factors, but I didn't stick with it.

Life from Scratch: I picked this up again after a couple months and just couldn't get through it. Is the whole book about the author's disrupted childhood, or does she do something interesting later? Dunno.

Unexpected Magic: I'd already read this! Didn't remember having done so from the title/cover, but as soon as I opened the first story...

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 78

Best book of the month: Dreaming Spies

This is one of the handful of remaining titles in the Mary Russell series that I started two decades or more ago and have been trying to finish up. Although there was a definite whiff of Orientalism (suitable to the era in which the story is set), I think the implausible storyline -- ninjas! the emperor of heaven himself! -- acquitted itself well. I also found myself reading with... anticipatory nostalgia? the scenes of the shipboard travel, as I was lucky enough to book a cruise this coming summer.

Worst book of the month: Garment of Shadows

Funny that the least interesting of the half-dozen this month would be the novel directly preceding the most interesting (in the same series)! Russell had amnesia throughout the first half of this book, which did cut down on any reminiscing about past cases or training with Holmes if not her quick-witted deductions. Maybe I missed that.

Not a bad start to the year!

Reading List 2023

Here's an archived copy of my reading list for this year. I'll be keeping up the new list here: http://mlisunderstanding.blogspot.com/p/reading-list.html

I would recommend the bolded titles with enthusiasm, and I enjoyed the italicized titles but probably wouldn't read them again.

#VirtualMountTBR2024

I'm doing this for a second year! The Virtual Mount TBR (to-be-read) challenge is hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block. Participants start with a list of books they don't own but have been meaning to read, and the challenge is scaling a virtual mountain by either reading or deciding to remove them unfinished from the list. You can sign up here! (If you have a literal pile of books, #MountTBR2024 is for you.)

Here is my list of books read in 2024: https://mlisunderstanding.blogspot.com/p/reading-list.html

Here is my TBR List: https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/v2/users/1947049039/shelves/for_later

I am aiming for Mt. Mindolluin (75 books). I will be updating at the end of each month (and sporadically otherwise) with a running total and some commentary.