How are we already one month into the year? Looking at my January TBR, true to form, I read all of the novels. To paraphrase Buddy the Elf, novels are my favorite. I didn’t make as much progress on the nonfiction books in my pile as I found other books that were just as interesting (The Script, Singled Out). And possibly I did other things besides read.
The February list has a few rollovers from January:
The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us about Life After Loss by George A. Bonanno – This one is a rollover. I’ve checked it out from the library but haven’t started this book on resilient grief, which is the more common experience of grief.
Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Making a Living by Liz O’Donnell – also a January rollover, on caregiving for your parents while trying to hold down your job.
New books on the list this month are:
There Is No Good Card For This: What to Say and Do When Life is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to the People You Love by Kelsey Crowe, PhD and Emily McDonnell – When I picked up The Other Side of Sadness, I happened across this book at the library. Everyone faces big losses and often our friends and coworkers are struggling with things we may not have experienced ourselves. Yet we want to be supportive or let them know we care. How do we do that? Is saying something that sounds lame better than saying nothing at all? What I’ve read just scanning through looks encouraging and empathetic and easy to understand. Plus there are tons of doodling style illustrations. (One of the authors is a greeting card artist.)
Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World by Michael Harris – So this looks really interesting to me. I saw it while looking for another book at the library. From the front flap: “The capacity to be alone, properly alone, is one of life’s subtlest skills. Real solitude is a powerful resource we can call upon – a crucial ingredient for a rich interior life.” Solitude is different from loneliness and in fact might be an antidote to it.
The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us by Jeffrey Kluger – I’ve been reading this book off and on for the past year and would like to finish it. It’s been a balanced mix of science and stories from the author’s own childhood and family exploring how our brothers and sisters affect us – and how we affect them.
I’ve tried to add fewer novels to the list this month since I’m behind on the nonfiction. But I am looking for some by my favorite authors.
I really want to find Marcia Willett’s Bird Cage which I read long ago and remember loving.
Brother and Sister by Joanna Trollope – Read this long ago and have had it on my bookshelves ever since. So it must be good. Natalie and David, “brought up by the same parents but different mothers,” decide to find their birth mothers. Of course, this decision affects their own spouses and children.
And on audio for the commute, I finished Jodi Picoult’s House Rules which I may review for the blog. Not a favorite though good.
The one I have playing now is a nice change of pace. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler – Willa Drake, in her sixties, is drawn into the life of her son’s ex-girlfriend. It’s enjoyable though I’m very alert to why the cover blurb says it’s Anne Tyler at her peak. And I’m still unclear how the earlier scenes connect to the second half of the book. Other than my wondering about that, it hasn’t been that mind-blowing yet. But I’m not finished.
And since Clock Dance is not very long, I’ve got The Rooster Bar by John Grisham waiting. I love his voice and storytelling style. Very clean and concise and the pacing is always great in his books. And for some reason the detail of how his main characters spend each hour or minute is fascinating to me.
Have you read any of these? What are you reading – or listening to – this month?