I started my week with Shrill because pretty much every end of the year book list had it. I kept resisting it for some reason but then finally broke down and put it on my hold list at the library. I am so glad I did. It was absolutely fantastic. It made me sad, it made me angry, it made me think. it made me cheer. it was really good. I highly recommend it.
I then read In Defense of Food because I saw it come up in the library’s list and I’ve been trying to educate myself about food. While I can’t get behind Gary Taubes’ recommendations because it’s just not possible for me to sustain eating like that, I really liked Pollan’s book. I like the idea of eating as fresh food as possible. I like shopping at our farmer’s market and decided to do it more. I don’t mind paying more for better food. My thought is that if it’s better, we will likely eat less of it to feel full and we will get much better nutrition. I’ve also signed up for a CSA again and I am buying my eggs and fruits and veggies as fresh as I can. I had a long talk with the kids, too, and we will move to eating bread (sandwich) only for lunch and we will experiment with buying better bread until we can learn to make our own. (I just bought a breadmaker to see if we can give it a try.) I am also looking into solutions around moving away from the ritz and graham crackers my kids eat for snack. We are considering extra fruit and nuts. One step closer to eating healthier. I love the idea of eating food where we can pronounce all the ingredient’s names and food that has no more than 5 ingredients total. This will be an iterative process of course and I am sure we will make mistakes along the way. Let’s see how far we can get.
I then read Chasing Secrets because it’s the book we’re reading for our Lit Club so I needed to read it first. It takes place in the 1900s in San Francisco. It’s about the plague outbreak. It was a book I would have never chosen to read on my own, but I really enjoyed it quite a bit.
I then decided to tackle The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck because it also kept coming up as a recommendation. I knew nothing about the author and nothing about much of the premise. I decided I’d give it a shot and see if I liked it. I will say that even though I curse and colorful language doesn’t often bother me, I wasn’t a fan of some of the comments the author made. I didn’t care for all of his verbiage but I did like the book. I liked the idea of picking the things you value and choosing to care about those. And not care about the other things. You can’t care about all. You have to choose and I know this and it was a good reminder to keep it at the forefront of my mind.
And finally, I started reading A Gathering of Shadows because it was about to expire in my library so I was able to get about two thirds of the way there so I am going to have to finish it in a creative way. The third book is coming out in two months and I am looking forward to it.
A middle grade, one young adult, three nonfiction this week. Not terrible, though I miss reading literary fiction, too. Will have to grab some of those next week.
Books I Read this Week 2017 is a year-long project for 2017. You can read more about my projects for 2017 here.
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