To Everything There Is A Season

 And this is the season for books.

Many have expressed to me their amazement at my rate of reading, either catching up with the count in this blog or asking me outright. What can I say? I read quickly and I read a lot. A whole lot. Given my uneven energy levels on any given day, an evening spent with a good book or two is sometimes the very best of all worlds emotionally, mentally, and physically.

So what have I read since I last posted? Oh, lots. LOTS:
109. Mean by Myriam Guba (this is a memoir with an attitude by a queer, mixed-race Chicana growing up in a small town)
110. (((SEMITISM: Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump))) by Jonathan Weisman (I can't describe how much this book impacted me, especially given that one of the most pointed personal attacks I have experienced for being Jewish came recently not from the alt-right but from a very close friend of very liberal bent; Weisman correctly points out that at some point on this topic, the far right and the far left are not that far apart)
111. How To Survive Without A Salary: Learning How To Live the Conserver Lifestyle by Charles Long (before Amy Dacyczyn [the Frugal Zealot], Dave Ramsey, Katy Wolk-Stanley [the Non-Consumer Advocate], or the Frugalwoods (#97], there was Charles Long and his wonderfully wacky treatise on truly doing without; this was a reread of a copy I have owned for 30 years)
112. Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation (updated edition) by Tom Bissell (essays about writing and filmmaking and the creative process)
113. Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover (Westover grew up in an isolated family of survivalists in Idaho; this is her breathtaking and heartbreaking memoir about what it took to break from her family to save herself)
114. Kudos by Rachel Kusk (the concluding novel of Kusk's trilogy (see #105 and 108), a review on the book's back called the tale "alienating" and I cannot disagree; having read the entire series, I can safely say I do not care one whit for Faye, the center of the novels)
115. Whiskey & Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith (heartbreaking, heart-lifting , beautifully written novel)
116. Happiness by Aminatta Forna (this novel has many threads, including urban fox populations and habits; while I was reading it, Warren casually mentioned "You know what I saw today in our yard? A fox!")
117. Disoriental by Négar Djavadi (Kimiâ is many things—a child traumatized fleeing Iran, a bisexual person in a culture that cannot accept anything other than heterosexuality, a daughter, a sister, a political refugee, a writer—and she narrates her stories in fits and starts in this patchwork novel)
118. Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (excellent short stories that keep interconnecting and interweaving with each other story in the collection)
119. Being Mortal: What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (I read this book in 2014 when it first appeared; rereading in 2018, I am hit and moved even harder by Gawande's views on the disservice the medical profession does those of us with progressive, terminal diseases by refusing to talk meaningfully about end-of-life choices)
120. Calypso by David Sedaris (Sedaris is a writer I cannot read without laughing out loud; thank you forever Ben and Alise for introducing me to his wit)
121. There There by Tommy Orange (this first novel is getting a lot of well-deserved attention; Orange writes knowingly and devastatingly about urban Indians in Oakland California, pulling several characters into a horrific event at a powwow—I told a friend who has it on her "to read" list that it is superb, but remember to breathe)

122. Chasing Slow: Courage To Journey Off the Beaten Path by Erin Loechner (this book is about minimalism and, perhaps, about finding oneself; I enjoyed it because Loechner has the humility to laugh at her own ludicrous lifestyle choices along the way)
123. Sick: A Memoir by Porchista Khakpour (a memoir of Lyme disease, of dislocation (Khakpour's family fled Iran), of addiction, of mental illness, of PTSD, of racism, of writing; this book is not for the faint of heart)

I'm curious where I will be a week from today, at the year's midpoint. You'll find out.