The Books, They Keep Coming

There is a quote I keep on my refrigerator:

A book—a real book—is one choice, taken from a pile, opened and entered as its own singular, separate world. Once chosen, you are not holding the constant opportunity to alter and improve your choice, or simply change it just for the sake of restless change. You are there, now, without the relentless pressure of the fact that you could always be, and maybe you should be, maybe you’d be happier or more productive or different, doing something else.

That beautiful line is by KJ Dell'Antonia, a writer and blogger, and as I continue to move through 2018 making my reading choices, I think of her words. (It helps that the quote is where it is, tucked between photos of Ramona, Warren, and others: I see it every single day.)

So what have I made my "one choice" lately? Here are the titles that have moved from "waiting" to "done" since last time:
87. Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown by Laura Hilgers (this nonfiction work follows a Chinese family from rural China to New York City because of political activities by the husband)
88. Works and Days by Hesiod/new translation by A. E. Stallings (I learned of this poem when I first read Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," but it took me almost 50 years to read it; the translation is beautiful)
89. Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder by Amy Butcher (Amy teaches at Ohio Wesleyan, here in Delaware, and this is her account of a close college friend who committed murder, was found guilty, and incarcerated; Butcher threads her way through the friendship in college, the murder, her guilt over her life moving on post-college while his shrank to a prison cell, her realization that she blocked from her thoughts the reality that a young woman died, and coming to grips with the trauma that his violent act and the aftermath caused her)
90. High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing by Ben Austen (what went wrong with the public housing movement in Chicago in the 1950s forward, this is a disheartening and hard look at how we (we the people, we the nation) have failed, from the outset and sometimes deliberately, to take care of the least of us in society)
 91. Bury What We Cannot Take by Kirsten Chen (set in 1950s China, this novel looks at the age old question: what happens when a parent escaping to a new land has to leave a child behind?)
92. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (I had forgotten how much I loved this novel and how carefully Walker structured it until I reread it for the first time in three decades)
93. Dreamland: The True Story of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones (Mexican black tar heroin, Oxycontin pushed by Purdue Pharma, and Portsmouth, Ohio as Ground Zero of an epidemic that we in this community deal with daily)
94. Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith (Smith is the present Poet Laureate of the United States and this book of her recent work shows why)
95. The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison (Jamison's memoir of her years as an alcoholic, her attempts at sobriety, alcoholism and drug addiction treatment, writers who were also alcoholism, and how hard sobriety is; as the ex-wife of someone who was an active alcoholic during almost all of our marriage, this book brought up lots of painful moments of recognition)
96. Circe by Madeline Miller (a novelization of the story of Circe, the Greek witch, told from her viewpoint, this had an absolutely stunning ending that I did not see coming until almost the very last paragraph)
97. Meet The Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames (I have been following the Frugalwoods online for many months and was delighted that Elizabeth (Mrs. Frugalwoods) wrote a book about how she and her husband became the Frugalwoods; I enjoy reading books about frugality and lifestyle changes—I am always challenged to try to trim our budget and lifestyle a bit more after such a read)
98. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How To Free Yourself and Your Family From a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson (although this book has been getting a lot of hype, I found it tedious, cutesy, and preachy, perhaps because I find myself becoming more ruthless about getting rid of stuff, which is the whole point of the book)

For the first time in several weeks, I have read all the library books I have in the house (they come in waves). Fear not: I have some coming in tomorrow or Friday at the latest.

The books, they keep coming.