August:
88. The Sea of Adventure by Enid Blyton (Adventure #4) - In this 4th entry of the Adventure series by Blyton, the children are recovering from a lengthy bout of the measles. Still a bit wobbly and pale, their doctor forbids them from returning to boarding school, instead prescribing a holiday to regain their strength. When their old friend Bill returns and says he must go into hiding from the bad guys who are pursuing him, he agrees to take the children up north to camp within a series of islands known for their bird population — a great place for the boys to view and photograph birds. But, when Bill is kidnapped and the children are left on their own on a remote island with no way to communicate with the outside world, what will they do? Have another adventure, of course! Enid Blyton was a plotting genius. It's amazing to me how each book varies from the rest and yet they're all equally exciting. Also, the young characters are intelligent and resourceful, so it's always fun to see what clever ideas they'll come up with to deal with danger.
89. A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen - It took me an entire week to read this book because I'm in the midst of a summer slump, as I type (just after finishing) but it wasn't the book's fault! A Quantum Love Story tells the tale of Carter Cho and Mariana Pineda. Carter is a technician at a large science facility and Mariana is a neuroscientist who arrives at that facility on a tour. Her job involves studying memory. Carter is stuck in a time loop and he does something to get Mariana stuck with him, so that he won't be alone. They both wake up on Monday morning and then the loop resets when the Hawke facility blows up. They can't take anything with them from loop to loop beyond what they can remember. So, they set to work trying to figure out what caused the explosion and how they can escape the time loop by preventing it from ever happening in the first place. And, as the title indicates, they slowly fall in love. But, when Carter's memory starts getting wonky and anomalies from the past begin to show up, what does it mean? Will Mariana be left on her own in the time loop, stuck forever? A sweet sci-fi but a bit hard to read, at times. I didn't always understand the science.
90. Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (The Wolves Chronicles #2) - Published in 1965, this second book in a series is essentially a stand-alone as the only connection I noticed (admittedly having forgotten nearly everything about the first book, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase <-- link to post with one-paragraph review) was the wolves. Simon was found wandering in the woods in Yorkshire when he was small, spent time in a poor house, and then lived on his own in the woods. Now, he's been invited to London by a friend, Dr. Fields, and he plans to study art. When he arrives, though, Dr. Fields is nowhere to be found and the landlords he was renting from are extremely shifty. Simon rents from them anyway, quickly finds a job and makes friends, and gets to know Dido Twite, the daughter of his landlords. But, things become hazardous when he stumbles upon a plot to replace the king. What an amazing book! There's a kidnapping, a shipwreck, a ride in a hot air balloon and much more but what really makes this book is Simon, his friend Sophie, and young Dido. You can't help but root for them.
91. Wallace the Brave by Will Henry - I've never heard of this comic strip (and, in fact, don't ever see comics since we no longer receive a paper newspaper) but I happened across the ebook on Hoopla when I was looking for something else and I enjoyed it immensely. If you're looking for something short that will make you laugh, I recommend this book. I noticed Hoopla has more books of this comic strip, so I may eventually read on.
92. The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava - Ember has been taking accounting courses at a community college and working a dead-end job but she can't afford to continue her classwork. So, she lies her way into a good job and falls for the hunky IT guy. But, when the lies begin piling up and he sees through them, what will happen? The lying is so unnerving in this story that you can see the black moment coming from a mile away and you know it's going to be awful. But, at the same time, the book makes you think about how difficult it is to break out of a poverty cycle and how racism impacts the ability of some to become gainfully employed. I love what happened after the black moment; it's very satisfying and I'm glad I briefly broke my book-buying ban to get a copy of this book. I particularly enjoyed the fact that it's set in Oklahoma.
93. Nightbirds on Nantucket (The Wolves Chronicles #3) by Joan Aiken - Hoopla fortunately has this series, so I was able to continue on and find out what happened to Dido, who went missing in Black Hearts in Battersea. In Nightbirds on Nantucket, Dido awakens on a ship where she's been sleeping for 10 months. There's a nasty first mate but everyone else is pretty nice and the captain sets Dido to the task of luring his daughter, Dutiful Penitence (Pen), out of the store closet in which she's been hiding since her mother's death. When they land on Nantucket, the captain goes off in search of a pink whale while Dido and Pen are minded by Pen's Aunt Tribulation, whom readers will recognize as an imposter from the first book in the series. When they come across another plot to kill the King of England, what can they do? This series is amazing. So much excitement and Dido Twite is a character you can't help but love.
94. The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 10 by Kousuke Oono - Sadly, this is the last manga that I own so I'm going to have to check the library for future manga reads. In Volume 10 of The Way of the Househusband, Tatsu goes out to eat with some housewives and is horrified by the dried lips that keep splitting on one of the women as she speaks. Tatsu tells her about his homemade lip balm and suggests that selling homemade balm might be a decent business. The humor is in watching all the lips split. It must have been really dry out when this one was written. There's also a missing cat story that's pretty funny and then a second story that goes back in time to when the cat got lost, showing how another cat tried to help. I don't think any of the stories in this volume made me actually laugh out loud but I was smiling. Such a great series.
95. The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg - A children's picture book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick opens with the story of a fictional character leaving a series of illustrations with an editor. Each is accompanied by only a few words. The editor, impressed but never able to contact the artist, says the illustrations and their words have spawned numerous stories attempting to describe exactly what the artist was trying to say. So . . . did I tell you I fell off the book-buying ban wagon? Well, I don't know how Chris Van Allsburg ended up in my cart but I'm glad he did. As in the fictional tale, I think the illustrations and accompanying few words would be excellent to use as jumping-off points for storytelling. I'm always looking for story-start ideas. I didn't know who Van Allsburg was when I bought this book (and one other by him) but then I looked him up. Oh. He's the Jumanji author. We had a copy of that book when my kids were little. It freaked us all out. Harris Burdick is fortunately not a freak-out kind of book.
96. Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson - Again with the broken book-buying ban, I purchased 5 of the 8 books in the Moomin series and would have loved to find them all but not all of them were available. Comet in Moominland is the first in the series (although there's another that's considered a prequel because the author fine-tuned her characters after the original book's publication). Moomintroll and his friend Sniff explore a path, find a cave, dive for pearls, and then realize something is wrong in the sky. Moominmamma says it's fine if they want to go to the observatory to find out exactly what's happening and packs them up, sending them down the river on a raft. They experience many challenges and when they're told the comet is going to hit the Earth in about 5 days, they rush home, picking up new friends along the way. I found myself smiling a lot while reading this book. Great characters, some grumbly and difficult, but there's a sense that anyone can be part of the Moomin family because of its generosity of spirit, even if they happen to be a bit curmudgeonly. It's also a rollicking fine adventure and obviously was written during a time when children were allowed to roam free with little concern.
97. Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh - Not your typical book about climate change and our part in saving the planet, in Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, Thich Nhat Hanh focuses on the individual and collective, how we need to take care of ourselves and be a part of a community in order to spread the concept of "inter-being"— that is, the understanding that humans and Earth are interconnected and that harm to one is harm to the other. Much of what Thich Nhat Hanh says about connection to Earth is the basis of my own beliefs. In Christianity, the Bible says that we're the "stewards" of the Earth. You see much of the same in Native American writings. This concept of responsibility for keeping our planet livable has always resonated with me, even when I was quite young, and I enjoyed reading another take on how to save the planet. There's some crossover with Christianity; Thich Nhat Hanh never disparages other beliefs and often incorporates them into his writing. I've oversimplified because there are a lot of concepts covered beyond what I mentioned but bottom line: good book, lots to think about, talk about, and put into action. My thanks to friend Buddy and his Contemplative Reading Project for the nudge to finally finish this book.
So . . . August was a very slumpy month, which led me to making a Book Outlet purchase and reading children's books, a manga, and comic strips to try to break the spell, all of which helped. As usual, I liked or loved everything since I'm quick to abandon books that aren't grabbing me. It strikes me that series books (children's and manga, anyway) seemed to work well for me during an ADD reading month. I'm not normally a series reader but all of these series are excellent and I'm looking forward to reading on. Well, except for the manga, since it's my last. Sigh. I may have to start rereading my manga collection if I can't find any at my library.
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