July:
78. How to Survive Camping: The Man with No Shadow by Bonnie Quinn - I read The Man with No Shadow for book group discussion. This is the first in a series and it takes place at Goat Valley Campground, a place that has been owned by the same family for generations. It's Old Land and therefore inhabited by monsters and Kate's job as owner is to keep the monsters under control as much as possible to protect the nearby townspeople. But, sometimes they become too hungry or angry to control and sometimes campers simply don't follow the rules. "The Man with No Shadow" is one of those monsters and he wants Kate to give up the campground so that the monsters will be set free. And, he's willing to kill anyone to make it happen. I'm prone to nightmares so I opted not to read this one at night, at first, and didn't take it along on our mini vacation in June; but, eventually I began reading at night and had no issue. There are lots of monsters and it's mildly scary with a bit of gore. I found it very tolerable and liked the story and how the main character learns from her mistakes and from the monsters willing to give her advice.
79. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 4 by Beth Brower - After deciding I shouldn't wait months between entries of Emma's journals but I should at least wait a week or two, I overrode my own decision and dived right into the next volume. In Volume 4, Emma's friendship with her tenant, Pierce, the vicar, Young Hawkes, and the Duke of Islington continues to grow, Emma is summoned to the country for a weekend, gets news about the burial of her former fiancée, is forced to do a favor for the scoundrel Jack, and contemplates potential ways to earn money (aka, jobs). So good. This series. I just love it. As I finish each month, I am piling the volumes together and plan to shift my books around on the shelves to make space for the series. I just know I'll read them again if I live long enough (life feels very tentative, right now, doesn't it?)
80. The Time Capsule by Connie Lacy (ebook) - Hannah Myers has tired of her PR job in Atlanta and is getting ready for a fresh start in another state. But, first she plans to play a role in a local theater production. To practice her role, she asks if there are any parasols in the props and is led to a room in the theater basement. There, she finds a music box that takes her back in time to 1918. The Spanish Flu is taking hold, the Great War is nearly over, and Hannah has no idea how to get back home. So, she settles in while she tries to figure out how to get home. I don't want to spoil what happens so I'll just say that The Time Capsule is a time travel romance in which the heroine has to make a decision about whether or not to stay in a time that is simpler (she appreciates the lack of technology) but also more difficult (none of the nice appliances and she has to learn how to cook). Is love worth giving up ever seeing her family again and living a modern life? I like time travel and a touch of romance so I enjoyed The Time Capsule. It's not brilliantly written but I thought the author did an excellent job of placing the reader in Atlanta in 1918 and showing how things have changed, particularly for women. I would definitely read more by Connie Lacy.
81. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy - When Rowan washes up nearly drowned on the shore of a remote island, its inhabitants (Dominic and his three children: Orly, Fen, and Raff) are suspicious of her. Who would come to an island so remote? Does she have an ulterior motive? While Rowan recovers and gets to know the family, both she and Dominic are lying to each other. What are their deep, dark secrets and why are they unwilling to share them? The island used to have a research center but it's now empty, the communications for the island completely destroyed, and the seed vault that is normally a safe place to preserve the world's seeds warming and starting to flood. With only 8 weeks to select the seeds to save, no way to communicate with anyone off the island, and a dangerous secret being kept, will they all survive to leave the island? The story jumps back and forth in time to slowly reveal the characters' pasts.
My friend Susan sent me her copy of Wild Dark Shore (thanks, Susan!) and while I expected but didn't love the ending, in general I did appreciate the story for its focus on the beauty of life and the senselessness of human-driven climate change in a world that has figured out how to stop it but won't because of greed. It's atmospheric and evocative. My favorite line: "But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die." I would substitute "people" for "things" but I think that's what the author meant. I also learned a new word. "I am woozy with love. I am limerent." Limerence means a state of blissful, usually temporary, infatuation experienced during the early part of a romantic relationship (or that feeling you get when you're first falling in love). Highly recommended but definitely dark. Maybe don't read this one if you're feeling blue.
82. Birdlands by Anthony McGowan - I needed something a wee bit less taxing after the darkness of Wild Dark Shore so I grabbed a middle grade book off my stacks (a new middle grade, mind you — I'm still guilty of breaking my so-called Book Buying Ban repeatedly, this year). Birdlands tells the story of 3 damaged birds. The crow, Herman, has a broken wing. Beaky, a jackdaw, was born with a defective beak that makes it difficult to eat. And, the pigeon and comic relief, Pidge, was recently injured and now is afraid to fly. They've been fighting for scraps at a train station but when Herman recalls his mother describing a place called Dump as a paradise for birds, they decide to walk together. They face many dangers. Will the 3 birds make it to Dump? And, what will they find when they arrive? Well . . . it's tragic, but the journey focuses on nature's beauty and harshness (much like Wild Dark Shore) and the ending was so incredibly moving that I cried! I was so stunned. Clearly, Award-Winning Author Anthony McGowan has a big heart and a love of nature. While the story is bittersweet, I highly recommend it and, oops, I already ordered another book by this author. At least I bought secondhand.
83. Spy x Family, Vol. 13 by Tatsuya Endo - Volume 12 of this delightful manga series ended on a cliffhanger so I'm surprised I didn't immediately read #13. It was sitting on the shelf, after all. In #12, Twilight was searching for a spy who had stolen documents from Westalis and was trying to escape to Ostania. In #13, he's injured and helped by his fellow spy Nightfall, who is infatuated with him. He and Yor's brother, also injured in the conflict between spies, must explain away their injuries. Meanwhile, Anya meets an elderly man who is lost, helps him find his way home, and then becomes his student as he was a former professor who taught the subject she finds most challenging, Classical Languages. Loid (Twilight) is a little suspicious of the old man and his wife. Yor has decided she doesn't need conflict as a married person and she and several of her co-workers attend an event where a discussion about trauma from the recent war becomes a little heated. A good entry in the series with another minor cliffhanger. I gave this one 4 stars but to be honest, I have no idea how I felt about it on a numerical scale. They're all great.
84. A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings - This memoir describes growing up in a Baptist church that was extremely misogynistic, in which fear was a driving force for keeping people (especially women) in line, and in which purity was emphasized. The author married an abusive man who believed that patriarchy was what God demanded and, regardless of how hard she tried, she couldn't please him. She was also led to believe that every imperfection in their marriage or home was her fault; doctors, libraries, and movies were dangerous and likely to lead her astray; and, she should give birth to as many children as possible. A Well-Trained Wife is mostly about the author's life within that abusive structure, how her marriage and religious trauma affected her, and how and why she finally escaped. But, she also describes her life after divorce and the therapy that helped her face her trauma and work through it. Part of the point of this book was to make people aware that the church leaders believe in mixing politics and religion and they are the ones taking rights from women, right now. It's important to know how dangerous this is. A difficult book but good for a look into a truly radical and dangerous belief system that demeans women and even encourages physical and emotional abuse. The bottom line, though? Nobody was happy. Too many rules made both Levings and her first husband exhausted, stressed, and miserable.
85. The Rise of Neptune (The Dragonships #2) by Scott Reintgen - The 2nd in a middle grade series in which each planet and moon has a dragon associated with it and spaceships are entirely created by technology so they only are in existence when the proper chips are in place. The 1st book was about Lunar, a boy who collected scrap items to survive but then came across a dragon and was trained to be his rider or dragoon. In The Rise of Neptune, Lunar and his crew have recovered from a major battle and regrouped while a back-up crew is being trained. They learned in the first book that Neptune (the dragon) is coming to start a war. Now Mars is recovering, Earth is sending people to live on Mars, and Neptune is coming. There's a lot to this book: secrets and lies, a shapeshifter and seer named Proteus (fantastic character) who can only see possible futures, deceit, sacrifice, and more. I waited a bit too long between books and had forgotten the details of characterization, apart from that of Lunar himself but eventually got to a point that it didn't matter; I knew enough to get by. The ending is a cliffhanger and I'm pretty sure he's roped me into pre-ordering #3.
86. A Village Life by Louise Glück - This volume of poetry is my introduction to Glück, an award-winning former poet laureate. There were some lovely poems but I have to say, she won't be a favorite. I think her tendency to offset anything light with a dark thought was just too uncomfortable for me. Having said that, her poetry is very accessible and I didn't hate it. I just felt a little squirmy, much of the time. In fact, I found myself reading passages that were all airy and light, followed immediately by some harsh thought, aloud to my husband to see if it was just me. He just smiled. Who knows what he was thinking. I didn't mark my favorites, unfortunately.
9 books read. Not horrendous. Not up to my usual but also unsurprising. My month was once again centered around kittens and cat; and, I found it difficult to squeeze in reading unless I stayed up too late or literally hid in the bedroom with the door closed (which I did at least twice to finish up books that were in progress). If not, I ended up with kittens tap dancing on my head or parkouring off of my body, complete with very sharp little claws. I gave up a few attempts at reading. The kittens are growing fast, though, and we're enjoying their youthful energy. They keep us on our toes. When they're not wrestling, having the zoomies, or eating, I am happy to say that they are already good friends. The top photo shows Percy at left and Pippin on the right and the second and third photos show them in the opposite order.
I liked or loved everything I read, as usual, but I think I found Wild Dark Shore, the 4th Emma Lion book, and The Time Capsule the hardest to put down. And, I always enjoy Spy x Family. The book I found the most challenging was A Well-Trained Wife because it could have very easily been me. I didn't grow up Covenant Reformed Baptist, so I didn't have anyone telling me absolutely everything except being a cloistered and submissive wife was bad (and I certainly would have ignored anyone who told me not to vaccinate my child or go to a doctor) but as a former Southern Baptist I was familiar with the fear tactics and I read some of the same books as Tia about being a nice, little submissive wife as a newlywed. Fortunately, my husband was neither abusive nor interested in ordering me around. It's worth reading for the warning about how this fundamentalist and evangelistic branch of Christianity mixes with politics.
Back to kittens, when we took little Mr. Pippin in for his first shots, we found out he had previously been named Nugget (he was born at our veterinary clinic and adopted from there) and he looks a little nuggety so we added it back to his name and his full name is now Pippin Henry Nugget, Intrepid Explorer. One of my favorite husband moments was when I was looking for Pippin and asked if he knew where Pippin was —because I like to know where my cats are hanging out, just to make sure they haven't been closed into closets or run outdoors. Husband replied, "Oh, he's probably off somewhere being pleasant." He is a very sweet-tempered kitten, for sure. But, he's no less crazy than Sir Percy when he gets wound up.
At any rate, we're having fun. Hope you're all tolerating the heat. My thoughts are with absolutely everyone dealing with fire and flood and any other challenges caused by climate change. Hmm, I think I have one more unread climate change book, maybe two, lying about. Maybe I should sneak one of those in for August.
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