Currently Reading

Books In Progress

History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

This book came into my library with my Junior Library Guild subscription just last week. I started this one yesterday and read it while waiting to pick my daughter up from swim practice. I read and loved Silvera's previous book, More Happy Than Not, so I'm expecting similar engagement from this one. I'm only about 30 pages in, but it seems like it will grab me soon. The perspective of the current day funeral interspersed with the flashbacks to the beginning of the boys' relationship is providing good contrasting dimensions to it so far. This is the print book I'm carrying around with me right now and read it whenever I get a chance.

Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina

I started this one on Sunday when I finished my last book and needed something to read. I semi-randomly selected it from my daughter's shelf. I believe I got this one through either Uppercase or the Book Riot YA Quarterly subscription services a few months ago. I've also had a copy at my library for a few months with the intention of reading it. I've heard good things about it, so I chose it when I got desperate and was out of my own books I'd taken home for the weekend. So far it's not grabbed me, but I'm only 25 pages into it right now and it shows promise. I read this one during times that I have classes in my library and I model reading while they read as well. It sits on the corner of my desk until those times. This will make for slow progress through it.

The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s edited by Robert Cohen

I picked this one up through my public library about 2 weeks ago because I'd been reading articles about the changes in higher education that had taken place during Reagan's term as governor of California. I've not read all of it, nor do I intend to. I am reading portions of each of the essays within it, and generally gathering a feeling for what it was like on the UC Berkeley Campus during the era. I have difficulty seeing the abbreviation FSM and not reading it as Flying Spaghetti Monster. I read this one mostly during small chunks of time between other household duties on the weekends. I'm maybe 60% through the skimming of it.

Shadow Magic by Joshua Khan

A friend of mine insisted on gifting me an ebook of this title for Christmas/Birthday against my insistence that I'd just get it from the library when I had a chance. That said, I finally got around to picking it up and reading it when I hit a point where I had finished my last ebook and didn't know what to go to next and lacked the brainpower to make that decision right away. This one was ready and waiting for me. It's a rather standard high-fantasy set-up with a middle-grade interest level. It's not particularly compelling to me, but I'm keeping at it. I'm about 60% through it, and the character relationships are just beginning to develop in ways I find interesting. I'll probably keep slogging through it, as I mostly read it before bedtime to put me to sleep - because I can read on my Kindle paperwhite in the dark. :-)

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

This is my current audiobook. I started it a long while ago, and since I only listen while walking/cooking/cleaning/driving when there aren't others around, my chances to make progress are slower than they used to be. However, I'm finding it compelling to listen to, even if I can't really tell where the narrative is taking things. The starting point of hiding out in another country and mention of a murder is enough to keep me listening to this boy's account of growing up even though it doesn't quite seem relevant yet. And the characters are so much fun! I chose this one because I had to spend some Audible credits a few months back and went ahead and used them on the last 4 years of Pulitzer fiction winners.

Books finished in the last week

Moo by Sharon Creech

I picked this one up to be a quick read one day. It was so sweet, I almost want to run off and raise cows myself now.

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kapur

This one came into my awareness because several of the teens at my school had been asking about it and a few had been carrying around their own copies of it. Also, another librarian I work with had read it and recommended it. I borrowed a copy from my daughter's friend and read through it in an afternoon. It's rather good. A bit emotionally difficult, but good. Cathartic, perhaps.

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

I LOVED this book. Alex was just such a bad-ass. I rather wish we'd get a sequel following her off to college and kicking ass on the college scene, but if you've gotten to the end you know why that can't happen. Still, amazing character.

Books I became interested in reading this week

Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik

I saw this one listed on a Book Riot list of works in translation by Egyptian authors and it sounded really good, so I've added it to my radar to seek out in the near future.

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

I got a copy of this through a subscription box a few months ago and my daughter read it and loved it, but I've not yet picked it up. This week I saw a lot of good reviews on the interwebs about it, and bumped it up closer to actually getting read.

Books in imminent To-Be-Read queue

Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King

I love everything that A.S. King writes. She can do no wrong in my eyes. I've put off starting this one because I already don't want it to end. Nevertheless, it is on the top of my ever-growing TBR pile. And still I manage to pick up something else rather than start a book that I know will eventually end by an author I love so dearly.

Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Once I begin this one I suspect it will go quickly, being a novel in verse. It's in the stack to be a quick read.