How is everyone doing during quarantine? Eric has been back in the office off and on, getting laptops and tablets prepared for teachers and students and handing them out. When he's working from home, it's non-stop emails and work orders from teachers and parents who need help. So shout out to all the IT techs keeping our new world up and running.
Even though I'm a homebody, I'm starting to go a little stir-crazy. I wish I could got to Home Depot so I can get stuff to work on my yard. I want to buy paint for my living room. Supplies for an art project. Go out to dinner with my husband. However, I'm thankful for these protective measures.
As we tiptoed to the end of this month, I was worried that I wouldn't have five books recommendations for you. Most of the time I have trouble narrowing it down to just five--and some months I cheat and add bonus books. It's not that I haven't read a lot of books this month--I have--I just haven't read that many that really grabbed me. Luckily, some books came through at the end of the months that I really enjoyed and can't wait to share with you.
1. Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood
I typically don't like short stories. I don't like to read them or write them. But I do adore Margaret Atwood, so I decided to give her book of short stories a try, and I absolutely loved it. I don't think I'm going to fall in love with short story format any time soon, but I might be willing to give some other collections a try in the future.
In this extraordinary collection, Margaret Atwood gives us nine unforgettable tales that reveal the grotesque, delightfully wicked facets of humanity. “Alphinland,” the first of three loosely linked tales, introduces us to a fantasy writer who is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. In “Lusus Naturae,” a young woman, monstrously transformed by a genetic defect, is mistaken for a vampire. And in the title story, a woman who has killed four husbands discovers an opportunity to exact vengeance on the first man who ever wronged her. By turns thrilling, funny, and thought-provoking,Stone Mattress affirms Atwood as our greatest creator of worlds—and as an incisive chronicler of our darkest impulses.
2. Liar, Liar by Gary Paulsen
Gary Paulsen has very quickly become one of my favorite middle grade writers. So far I've enjoyed everything I've read of his. He writes his characters how kids think and behave and not how adults think kids should think and behave, if that makes sense. When I was a kid I used to know a boy a bit like the protagonist and his name was also Kevin, which made the book all the more special.
Kevin doesn't mean to make trouble when he lies. He's just really good at it, and it makes life so much easier. But as his lies pile up, he finds himself in big—and funny—trouble with his friends, family, and teachers. He's got to find a way to end his lying streak—forever.
3. The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen
This books has plague doctors and witches; it was bound to be fantastic. I look forward to reading the rest of this YA series when it comes out.
One way or another, we always feed the crows.
A future chieftain
Fie abides by one rule: look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime.
A fugitive prince
When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses―and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.
A too-cunning bodyguard
Hawk warrior Tavin has always put Jas’s life before his, magically assuming the prince’s appearance and shadowing his every step. But what happens when Tavin begins to want something to call his own?
4. The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
This book was first published in 1991, so I wasn't sure how relevant it would still be to our current beauty culture. I needn't worried. This book got under my skin so deeply that I was posting highlighted sections on my IG stories. While it is a good and important read, it's also infuriating because beauty myth is infuriating. I wish I would have read this book when I younger.
In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."
5. Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
I really enjoyed the movie (it stars Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer and is worth watching for the scenery alone, though the story and acting is superb) so I decided to read the book . . . yeah, read it in one sitting, staying up to two in the morning to do so. Do yourself a favor and read this book.
Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.
Comments