Monday Reads Update
Oct 24
Days ago, I was 5 books away from my reading goal for the year. Now, I have 3 books left to read before I reach 52 books! In years past, I have read more than this, and other years I have read less. It depends how I feel at the start of each year. It is only the last week of October. There are 2 whole months left to read, and I think I can take it easy for a while until the new year begins.
I have made progress on two books over the weekend. I read to around the 60 per cent mark of The Innocents by Michael Crummey. It feels like a story for young people. It has the whimsey of a children’s book, has children as the main characters, and draws from the Bible. It is bleak and dreary story to read, with an uncomfortable subject.
The second book I have made progress with is Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It also has religious themes, and is also by an Atlantic Canadian writer. The author recently released a new book called Fayne which takes place in the 19th century. I am finding the older work very interesting, and reflective of the time it was published in the 1990s.
Monday Reads Update
Oct 17
It is already halfway through the month. As the colder air settles in, I am finding a renewed interest in reading again. It could be from the knowledge that it school is in session once again, although I personally do not attend classes. I have made reading a job in my mind, so I feel the need to be productive in a way I did not feel it was before. There are times when I am a mood reader, but at this time, I have reached a point where I find I can read the books in my TBR, even when I might have lost interest in a few titles since I put the list together.
I read two books this past week that I found interesting and compelling.
The first was Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, which is a YA Novel about Lina, who is taken from Lithuania with her mother and younger brother and sent to a work camp in Siberia in 1941. It is a poignant read with the current war in Europe.
The second book I read was How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao, which is about an Asian American teenager who has become a ghost and it is up to her best friends to solve the mystery. They go to school at a prestigious preparatory school where the academic expectations are high. This is also a YA title.
I am normally an adult fiction reader, but for some reason I have found myself reading more YA than I would typically read.
Monday Reads Update
Oct 10
It is Canadian Thanksgiving and I am thankful to have fresh roast turkey for the second time this week. I already had turkey last week!
Anyways, I don’t really have much to say in this post. I have finished one book since Friday.
I read Actress by Anne Enright which follows the life of famous Irish actress Katherine O’Dell. It tells of the more realistic and messy life of a woman behind all the glamour the public gets to see when seeing her on a theatre stage or on their movie and television screens.
This was the perfect book to read after spending a week at a film festival during the last week of September. It discusses the nature of fame, the personal sacrifices an artist might have to make to remain in the public eye.
I am also still reading two more books this weekend. They are Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King and How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao. Green Grass, Running Water is about the Indigenous community in Southern Alberta, and How We Fall Apart is about an Asian American high school student who ends up a ghost. I hope to finish one or both this week.
Monday Reads Update
Oct 3
A week has gone by since my last post. I had a long week, and it was worth it taking in the stories and ideas on the silver screen and from the written word.
I made progress on my reading this weekend and I hope this mood sticks around for a while with the many reading goals I have.
I resumed reading a book I had started from last year. That book is The Forest of a Stolen Girls by June Hur. It is a YA historical mystery set in the Joseon-era Korea in the 13th century. A young woman sets out to find her father and ends up finding girls had gone missing from the the island of Jeju.
The book explores the roles and expectations society had for women at the time, had a compelling mystery that involved social status and politics, and fast-paced action.
While I did not read the book in one day, I was really drawn into the story and was able to complete it on an afternoon when other things were happening around me.
I also made progress reading another book. That book is Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. An Indigenous author who has lived in the United States and Canada, this is the third book by King I have read.
The previous books I have read were The Truth About Stories, the Massey Lecture King gave in 2003. I also read the Inconvenient Indian, a non-fiction account of colonization that is delivered with humour and pop culture references, which has been part of King’s writing from an early stage of his career.
The approach is present in Green Grass, Running Water from 1993. I had reached almost to the halfway point of the book as I type this, so hopefully I will find the time to read the rest. If it does not happen during the week, then perhaps during the weekend.
October TBR
The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Actress by Anne Enright
The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Carry-Overs
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
Shelter by Jung Yun
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Extras
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
I.Q. by Joe Ide
Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh