It's Monday 1/13! What Are You Reading?

Happy 22nd Birthday to my youngest son! We will be celebrating tonight with dinner at his favorite restaurant, which also happens to be where he works 5 nights a week right now (during college break) but hey, it's his choice! He doesn't get sushi there when he's working, so that's the attraction. Then, cake and presents back at the house. We love celebrations in our family!

My son's 1st birthday

I have been scrambling to catch up on my 2019 reviews (December was crazy, not only with the holidays but with losing my laptop for a week for repairs in the middle of the craziness!), and I am almost there. I plan to post my 2019 end-of-year wrap-ups this week for books and TV shows. My movie wrap-up will have to wait until next Movie Monday, since we have the birthday dinner tonight. Then, I can finally sign up for my 2020 reading challenges! I know I am way behind on all this. I have had to accept this - my life motto is "Better late than never!"

Here's what we've all been reading this past week:

I finished my First Book of the Year, the selection for my neighborhood book group: Running on Red Dog Road: And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood by Drema Hall Berkheimer. I loved this warm, funny childhood memoir about growing up in rural West Virginia during and after WWII. Her stories of living with her grandparents while her mother was in New York working as a Rosie the Riveter (and after her mom came back home) are lively, charming, and often hilarious and include encounters with gypsies, snake handlers, and moonshiners. Most of my book group also enjoyed this light-hearted memoir, though many of the members rated it lower than I'd expect, mainly because there wasn't much depth to it in terms of serious issues, I guess. We tend to be a thoughtful group! But we did have a lively and fun discussion, with lots of nostalgic memories of our own.

With my book group obligation finished, I moved on to what I had planned as my First Book of the Year, Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, a Christmas gift from my son. I've wanted to read this novel since its release in early 2018, and it appeared on many Best of 2018 lists that year. So far, it is living up to my expectations! I am about two-thirds of the way through this novel, which so far has been in two parts. In part 1, called Folly, a young assistant editor named Alice falls into a romance with a much older, famous writer named Ezra Blazer in the years after 9/11. Part 2, Madness, centers on an Iraqi-American man named Amar who gets stopped in customs at Heathrow while trying to visit his brother in Kurdistan and spends a long time in a holding room there, all while flashing back to his childhood, college years, and earlier visits to the war-torn region and how it differs from the only home he has ever known, in America. The writing is exquisite, completely pulling me into each story, making me care about the characters, and wondering how their stories will eventually intersect. It is a thoughtful, intricate pair of stories filled with details that make you feel as if you really know these people.

On audio, I finished my first audiobook of 2020: Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center. This is a novel I'd been wanting to read since its release last year, after hearing so many rave reviews from other book lovers. It's about a female firefighter named Cassie whose carefully constructed life shatters when she has to leave the Austin fire department where she's done so well to move to Massachusetts to help her estranged mother who is now blind in one eye. Her new job there is with a fire department that has never even seen a female firefighter, so Cassie must prove herself all over again. To make matters even more complicated, there's also a new rookie there who Cassie is attracted to ... and Cassie does not date, not ever. I enjoyed this multi-faceted novel even more than I thought I would, with its unexpected depth as Cassie gradually begins to come out of her self-imposed protective shell and to heal from past hurts, even as she deals with current challenges.

Now, continuing my focus in January on books I've wanted to read for a long time, I am listening to A Man Called Ove, my first-ever Fredrik Backman! I've heard such great things about this novel, its author, and all the other novels Backman has written since. The novel begins by describing the daily routines of Ove, a grumpy, solitary man living in Sweden who's recently been forced into an early retirement that he never wanted. Ove is very practical and wants to be useful, but he is also set in his ways and quite judgemental about those who approach life differently than he does! I started laughing from the very first minutes of listening, so I am definitely enjoying it so far.

My husband, Ken, is still reading a new Christmas gift that our son gave him, The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie. The two of them enjoy the same kind of fantasy novels (they are also watching Game of Thrones together on DVD!), so our son had fun picking this one out for his dad (he hasn't read it yet either). I see that this is Leckie's first fantasy novel, but she has won Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke awards, so she must be a good writer! Patrick Rothfus, an author whom they both enjoy, said of this novel, "It's a delight to read something so different, so wonderful and strange." I'm sure our son will want to borrow it after his dad finishes it - like mother, like son! Ken wasn't so sure about this unique novel at the beginning, but he is still reading it.

And my update last week was wrong. I said our son, 25, was now reading Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski, book 1 of The Witcher series. However, when he came home, I noticed that was not the title on the book! It turns out he is reading The Last Wish, which is not officially considered book 1 but is a prequel explaining how the main character got his Witcher start. You have probably heard all the hype recently about the new Netflix TV show (and apparently, a best-selling video game, too) based on this book series, and even though he hadn't read the books yet (usually a requirement in our house), my son jumped into the Netflix show the first day it was released and is enjoying season 1. So, when he received The Last Wish as a Christmas gift, he quickly set his other book aside to read it. He's enjoying it so far and says that having watched the TV show isn't ruining the book for him, since the action in this book takes place before the TV series. He's loving both!

Blog posts from last week:

Fiction Review: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward - powerful tale of death, family, coming-of-age, and racism in the American South

Graphic Novel Reviews: 3 Graphic Novels for All Ages - reviews of great graphic novels for middle-grade, YA, and adult readers

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?