Three Thoughtful⏳☕️, Sometimes Difficult 🍽️🤑, Books 🕌🧕

 

painful, eye-opening, sensual, tactile

    I found Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang challenging, not because it wasn't well written and complex, but because the topic is abrasive and terrifying. Zhang skillfully juggled many themes like rich versus poor, weak versus strong, insider versus outsider. She creates a dystopian world covered in a cloud of smog that causes crops to fail and vegetation to die. An aspiring chef with a failing career applies for a restaurant position that caters to the 1%. It's located high in the mountains where the sun can still penetrate. What does it take to work for the ultrarich in a time of famine? What is uncompromisable? How much of the chef's uniqueness can she retain and still be herself? In the book, at least partly about identity, the main character is never named. 

    Zhang's writing gives fleshy and sensual descriptions of food and pleasure against a backdrop of poverty and separation. It is disconcerting. It feels obscene. This was a powerful book that has caused me to examine personhood afresh. That's good, not fun.

🍓🍎🍫🍽️🤑

    I have read Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Tashikazu Kawaguchi (review here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Before+the+Coffee+Gets+Cold) and was excited to read the sequel Before Your Memory Fades. It is an uplifting collection of different characters and why they would want to travel back in time knowing they can only stay fifteen minutes. During their visit, they can't change the present or get up from their chair. This book is an excellent answer to the aphorism, "You can't change the past." However, you can change how you perceive the past. That's important. Before Your Memory Fades revolves around an imaginary book called What if the World Were Ending Tomorrow? 100 Questions. The answers reveal what the characters value and point them to their true desires. The book is both thought-provoking and heartwarming.

🕰️⏳☕️💝

    I was browsing my local Barnes and Noble on Saturday, thinking about Christmas gifts, and I checked out the award winners in the children's section. I picked up Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga. The goal of the book is to represent those like the author. It is a peek into a world I know little about. Jude is a  child sent to America with her mother because of the unrest in her home country of Syria. She encounters misinformation and prejudice, but also makes new friends and has new experiences. Warga depicts the conflict within Jude well and how people can be a mix. Some are generous and friendly, others unkind. Jude rises to the occasion. 

🕌🧕 

Two Books by Women Who Use Initials and A Magical Librarian 📚

 

       As I listened to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audiobook by J.K. Rowling, I slowed it down because I didn't want it to end. And so I went to YouTube! I found an interesting  long video (30 minutes) that hilariously, in a British way, discusses the Christian symbols and themes in Harry Potter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBg2VDST2v8

    My favorite book of the series is the first one, Happy Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Children being rescued for cupboards and attics makes me happy. 

    My least favorite is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Harry comes into his adolescent anger, and his losses have crushed him. It feels like he loses hope. I see the necessity of this to the story and Harry's development, but it is heartbreaking.

 Here is my list of Favorite to Least Favorite, but I think they're all good:

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
5. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

    While the series author, J. K. Rowling, has come under criticism, I admire what she has created. It shows imagination, intelligence, and incredible planning. 

🪄🚂👹🐍

kind, self-care, morality of keeping house, neurodivergent, quick read

    When I was first married, I struggled with how to keep up with cooking, laundry, and cleaning. I wish I had How to Keep House While Drowning: a Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis. I would have been much kinder to myself. Davis emphasizes that having a "clean" house is morally neutral. Because she is neurodivergent, she needed to find strategies that worked specifically for her. Another lesson is that your living space should serve you, not you your living space. Instead of beating yourself up for not being motivated, consider how can I help future me? I think that is a great idea. I've used it myself. I will stop and get gas in my car--a job I dislike--so tomorrow, Barb won't have to do it when she's running late. I also imagine I'm the only one who struggles with staying on top of it all and it's good to know I'm not alone. When it comes to a clean house, perhaps it can happen, but maybe not everything on the same day. 

    I still can't motivate past, present, or future Barb to dust. Yuch.

🧹🧼🧽🧺

    What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama lifted my spirits. I listened to the audiobook read while I lay on the couch with the flu. It was engaging and magical. I love a book with a library at its center with the quirky people that staff it and the desperate souls that go there for answers. This book is a translation and takes place in Tokoyo, Japan. I probably didn't get all the cultural references, but it did not slow down the book. Some things are universal to all cultures--I feel like I'm going nowhere, I'm stuck, I'm trapped--the reference librarian has a list of titles and a felted mascot for you. 

📚🦀✈️🍳🗾

Marriage💔❤️‍🩹National Security🔐📱👂and Time Travel⏳💔

 

    How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key is a truly crazy story. Reading about Harrison's struggle with his wife's infidelity made me squirm. It sounded like a nightmare. He credits his ability to love his wife through everything to his faith in God, the support of good friends, his church, and an understanding of his wife's past hurts. Harris doesn't gloss over how painful her betrayal was or how angry he felt. Key lays bare the hurt. He avoids trashing his wife and her lover. He demonstrates the need to own his part of the breakdown and to ask and to extend forgiveness. It is miraculous to me that their marriage survived. As a bonus, he's quite funny. 

💍⛪️ 💔😍🏩

    I heard about Going Zero by Anthony McCarten, and it intrigued me. It is a technical science fiction thriller relating to how individual privacy is endangered. Ten contestants are challenged to "go zero"--not be found--for thirty days by an agency that has full use of everything electronic. I've watched NCIS, where the first step in an investigation is to look into the victim's emails, messages, phone records, bank transactions, and closed-circuit television. This book moves beyond police access and into national access in the name of preventing mass shootings and terrorist attacks. How far can we go, and how far should we go to keep people safe? I asked a security-minded friend about some of the incredible claims of the book, like can your television be used as a listening device when you think it's off? Answer: maybe. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-stop-smart-tvs-from-snooping-on-you I choose to have an Alexa device and Siri, understanding that they are always listening, but not always responding. After reading Going Zero, I'm slightly creeped out about what those who gather data on me know. Do they know Ed Sheeran's song "Thinking Out Loud Makes" me cry? That too much dairy makes me gassy? Do they know I fought with my husband because he solved all the crossword clues before me? Oh, please, no. That's not even the worst of it. 

    This book has a technicality that is similar to The Martian by Andy Weir, a book I greatly enjoyed. I found the science in Going Zero accessible and exciting, if somewhat fantastical and scary. It generated good discussion as it became the book I talked to everyone in my orbit about. You're welcome!

🔐📱👂🙉🪪

Reece's Book Club choice. It had an interesting premise and an engaging protagonist. Cassandra, a neuroatypical woman, gains the ability to time travel. Can she use it to engineer herself a happier, less lonely life? Cassie is losing her job, her living situation, and her boyfriend. A tragedy in her past haunts her. It took too long to get to the good part of the book. There is a thread of Greek mythology that hadme guessing if Cassandra was a modern day prophet. The set-up could have been more succinct and the action streamlined. It felt like the book couldn't decide what it wanted to be: romance, redemption, an exploration of being neuroatypical? In the end, I'm glad I finished it, but the book felt uneven, like a cake baked in a wonky oven; some parts were overdone, others underdone, with occasional spots of just right.

🏺🏛️⏳💔

Many Books Where Someone Dies 🐋🦊🐰🧙‍♂️

SPOILERS AHEAD

    Every book I've read this week featured the death of someone crucial. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling is book six in the Harry Potter series, the second to the last. It stands in a difficult position of setting up the final book, but not outshining it and still telling a worthwhile story. It accomplishes that. The book ends with the death of Dumbledore, the protector of Hogwarts and Harry Potter. The defeat of Voldemort is all up to Harry now. 

    As a reader, I know Rowling is willing to sacrifice beloved characters, making for intense, compelling reading. I badly want to read the final book even though I've read it before. Not enough to actually pay for it, though. 

🧙‍♂️☠️🐍😵

    In The Last Devil to Die, the fourth in the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman, the adventures of four dissimilar seniors continue. In this book, I learned about the antique field, more about Alzheimer's and dementia, the background of Ibraham, how drugs travel into England, and online romance fraud. It's a lot. Like the previous books, The Last Devil to Die is humorous, with unexpected hijinks. Osman tackles the nature of death and the morality of euthanasia. It gave the book a different, deeper flavor from the previous ones. Even though the main characters are elderly, in their late 70s or early 80s, they change and learn. This keeps Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibraham exciting and me wanting to read more of their escapades.

🦊👺👴🏻👵🏻⚱️😵

 

    Reviews of Whalefall by Daniel Kraus have compared it to The Martian in its scientific depth and imagining. The premise of Whalefall is a scuba diver is swallowed by a sperm whale. It is set in the Monterey, California area. I lived there for a year and a half and recognized many locations. John Steinbeck's book Cannery Row features prominently in the book and the setting. When I lived there, I also read Steinbeck. It seemed appropriate.

    The young scuba diver, Jay, is trying to find his father's remains in the Pacific. The story moves between Jay's predicament of how to get outside of the whale and recalling his relationship with his erratic, larger-than-life, recently deceased father. The story is one dangerous episode after another. I read it in a day because I wanted to know what happened. 

🐋🤿🐳😵

    When I heard my grandson was reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, I also wanted to be one of the cool kids. I enjoyed other Kate DiCamillo's books like Because of Winn Dixie and Tales of Despereaux. Edward, the well-dressed china bunny and narrator, did experience a journey of discovery both in the world and in his heart. Initially, he is a self-centered, adored toy who needs to learn to love others. It is hard, and he finds it costly, but, in the end, it is worth it. He does go through extraordinary adventures.

    This was not my favorite Kate DiCamillo's book. Edward Tulane grew in his ability to love others; however, I didn't warm up to him. My ten-year-old grandson likes the book, so I may not be the target audience. The story gives many opportunities to discuss love, sacrifice, and death. 

🐰❤️💔❤️🐰

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