I dragged my feet on picking a NONFICTION winner for #2024ReadingBrackets to move on. For March, the clear winner was the tagged book, a true story about police corruption in Baltimore. I first saw the HBO series about the scandal, produced by David Simon (“The Wire”). Once I heard it was based on a book … I flew through it. It was a great read (and TV show). But I keep thinking about Raskin's book, so I had to move that through.

So far I‘ve been late with every single one of my # #2024ReadingBrackets. #Consistency! 😊 For my March FICTION bracket, I went with a two-fer. Before reading “Tom Lake,” I took @dabbe ‘s advice and read “Our Town.” And I loved them both. You don‘t need to read “Our Town” first—but I believe it adds an even richer, deeper dimension to an enjoyable reading experience.

When you work at the polls for your state‘s primary elections and the candidates for both parties are already decided, you‘d better bring a large book. And a fully charged e-reader that‘s loaded with more. Yawn. 🥱

Have library book and full travel mug of tea, will wait 3 hours at car dealership for service. 😖

The irony of this made me laugh. 😄

#weirdwordwednesday
#weirdwords

1. “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King
2. “Night” by Elie Wiesel
3. “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” by Katherine Ann Porter
And a bonus:
4. “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” by Thornton Wilder

Thanks for the tag, @dabbe !
#ThreeListThursday
#TLT

I have a love ❤️/ meh 😏 relationship with Ann Patchett. (The Dutch House: ❤️; Bel Canto, Commonwealth and State of Wonder: 😏). Add this to the ❤️ pile. I adored this story—how it unfolded, the characters, the plot, everything. Read it! And take @dabbe ‘s advice and read “Our Town” first if you haven‘t already —it definitely adds a richer dimension to the experience.

Book 3 ✔️ for #DiseaseoftheMonthBookClub (prompt: Read a book about the brain)

This is a memoir of Rosen‘s friendship with Michael Laudor, who, despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia, breezed through Yale as an undergrad and law student and was heralded as an example of how people can triumph over the stigma of mental illness—until he killed his girlfriend. It‘s also an examination of how society has failed those with mental illnesses.

I decided to mix it up and use a different template for my NONFICTION reads in #2024ReadingBrackets because why not? 🤷🏻‍♀️ February‘s pick was this detailed biography of baseball legend Ted Williams. And I don‘t have to pick between it and January‘s book by Jamie Raskin, which was also great. Winning! 🏆

I made my #2024ReadingBrackets for February and then forgot to post them. Sheesh. 🙄 For FICTION, my pick was “The Marriage Portrait.” O‘Farrell does a masterful job of creating tension throughout a book whose end we already know from the very beginning. That‘s a talent, for sure. But in the matchup I had to lean towards “Wellness” to move on.

Yesterday a friend called and said, “wanna do breakfast and bookstores tomorrow?” Um, YEAH. 😍 So we drove up to Providence, had brunch in a hipster-y restaurant near Brown University, and browsed through two used bookstores (one of which had a furry, fairly friendly bouncer at the front door. 🐈) Based on my stacks I‘m apparently in a nonfiction state of mind right now. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I regret nothing.

I adore good narrative nonfiction, so picking only 3 is very difficult! So I‘m going to cheat. 😀

1. Tagged
2. “And the Band Played On”
3. “My Own Country: A Doctor‘s Story”
4. “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl”
5. “Eleni”

@dabbe #ThreeListThursday

Completed my “Chunkster” read for #ChunksterChallenge2024. This biography of Red Sox great Ted Williams is well-written and very readable. A lot about baseball, yes —but also much about Ted‘s childhood, his troubled personal life —and all the gory details you can handle about his head being frozen for posterity. 😳 Definitely recommend, @GinaKButler !

#Nonfiction2024

Book 2 ✔️ for #DiseaseoftheMonthBookClub
(Prompt: Read a book about a virus)

Fascinating look at the scientific research that was being conducted on coronaviruses after the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which enabled scientists to quickly pivot to create a vaccine when COVID-19 spilled over into the human population. A bit technical so I‘m glad I had at least a semester of college-level biology.

There‘s a word for everything! Even a word for things that aren‘t words.

#weirdwordwednesday
#weirdwords
@CBee

I love everything about this: the word “vellichor” itself, the definition of it, the concept of a dictionary of obscure sorrows and the reason for its existence— EVERYTHING. 😍

#weirdwords
#weirdwordwednesday

@CBee

Thanks for the tags, @dabbe and @Cuilin !

1. Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro
2. Armand Gamache
3. My OG detective girl Trixie Belden! I wanted to BE Trixie when I was a kid. 😍

#TLT

Saw this word and couldn‘t resist for #weirdwordwednesday #weirdwords ! 😀

@CBee

Written by Coates as an essay/letter to his son, this is a powerful narrative about what it‘s like to inhabit a black body in America and how to find your own way to live with it. Like the protagonist in the prompt book, Coates was also profoundly affected by the death of a college friend at the hands of the police. And like Angie Thomas‘ novel, this book has also been banned by schools and libraries in the south.
#Nonfiction2024

It‘s about time. SOMEBODY needed to catch that guy. 😬😖 😄

My last NONFICTION read of January was also my favorite for #2024ReadingBrackets. Jamie Raskin writes beautifully about his sorrow over the death of his son by suicide and Trump‘s attempted coup against our country —both of which happened within the same week. He tells the story of how these two disparate events collided and merged in his personal and professional life. Highly recommend.

My #2024ReadingBrackets FICTION pick for January was the tagged book. I loved the witty snarkiness of the story about two people who meet as college students in the 1990s and how their lives progress into the present while dealing with the challenges of parenting, marital boredom, mindfulness apps, Facebook algorithms, and relatives brainwashed by fake news. It reminded me of a John Irving novel as the tangled plot strands merged into one.

Wonderful narrative by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) as he recounts the week between 12/31/20 (when he lost his son to suicide) and 1/6/21 (when Trump incited his supporters to attempt an insurrection to stop Biden‘s election win from being certified). As Raskin details his subsequent role as impeachment manager, he (like Orwell) discusses the role of truth and facts within societies and how they can be manipulated by a demagogue.
#Nonfiction2024

Thanks for the tag, @Cuilin ! This is #MotivationalMonday Not Spotted Until Tuesday. 😬😀
1. Work, yoga, reading, TV. My typical winter-blah-month activities here in New England.
2. Re-reading the tagged book, plus “Breathless” by David Quammen
3. Inquisitive and skeptical

@Cupcake12

For this week‘s entry, I present a word that was apparently invented for an episode of “The Simpsons” and is now an actual entry in Merriam-Webster. I‘d say that‘s a perfectly cromulent way of adding to the English language.

#weirdwords
#weirdwordwednesday

My anxiety and my blood pressure are ticking higher now that we are into 2024 and another presidential election.

It‘s 21 degrees outside with a gusty wind that makes it feel even colder. 🥶 Where else would I be but right here with my stack of books currently in progress, a hot mug of tea and a skeptical cat?

Where are my fellow journalist peeps? I‘m reading a bio of Ted Williams and came across this paragraph, which made me laugh out loud. My husband wanted to know what was so funny, so I read it to him. He still didn‘t get it. I told him, trust me — if you are a journalist, it‘s funny!! 😄

Book 4 off my #AuldLangSpine list from @MallenNC . A historical fiction set in 1948 with dual storylines for Ruby and Eleanor, whose lives become intertwined by pregnancy. I sympathized with both characters and the book was well written, but I thought it was fairly predictable and the ending felt rushed. Still, a decent read.

First book ✔️ for #DiseaseofTheMonthBookClub
(prompt: Surgical procedures)

This is the story of Harold Gillies, a pioneering physician who worked to rebuild the faces of soldiers who were injured during World War I —and in the process created the foundation for modern-day plastic surgery.

“Fashionably late” to the party—thanks for the tag, @GinaKButler !

1. I have an affinity for the Revolutionary War-era and early America.
2. First read of 2024 was a biography of P.T. Barnum
3. I‘ve read most of the biggies: War and Peace, Les Mis, A Suitable Boy. But I think “Clarissa,” which I read last year with the esteemed #Clarissa group, beats them all at circa 1,800 pages.

#wondrouswednesday

Thought this would be an appropriate one right about now. It is in my neck of the woods, at least. 😬

#weirdwords
#weirdwordwednesday

1. I learned how to drive a car on a manual. My dad took us to a local street, parked on a hill, and then said, “ok, now drive.” 😖 Anyone who has ever driven stick knows that once you have mastered the art of not rolling backwards on an incline, you‘re golden. 😀
2. Had to tag this book. Although it was a van, not a car. That still counts, right?

#Two4Tuesday

This book was terrible. Read for “1984” in the #192025 challenge, I assumed it might be dated. And it was —in all the worst ways. Most of the men are patronizing, sexist jerks. The female protagonist lets her husband treat her like crap and makes excuses for him for most of the book. Stilted, awkward dialogue—it‘s like the author never heard people talk before. I hate-read most of it. This is like Hall of Fame horrible. Good riddance. 😖

I debated about using this book for this prompt in #Nonfiction2024, but I‘m finding this challenge more difficult this year. 😬 This biography of showman P.T. Barnum, known (some may say infamous?) for his exhibits that included dwarves (i.e. General Tom Thumb, Lavinia Warren, Commodore Nutt), was interesting to me as a Connecticut native. It delves into the history of Bridgeport and the various civic activities to which Barnum contributed.

Since I‘ve already read the Trevor Noah memoir, I used this #AuldLangSpine recommendation from @MallenNC to fit the “Born a Crime” prompt for #Nonfiction2024. It‘s the story of an upper middle-class soccer mom who steals and commits identity theft to support her drug addiction, which lands her in jail. Hardin is brutally honest about her crimes and her struggles, and how she found redemption and forgiveness —and a career as a ghostwriter.

Spotted this in a book (but forgot to mark down which book, of course). But I remembered the word! Because it‘s a glorious one.
#weirdwords
#weirdwordwednesday

Second book (and first fiction pick) off my #AuldLangSpine list from @MallenNC . It was perfect timing because I JUST finished watching “The Crown.” The book was a nice, gentle read about nice, gentle people — with a slightly thriller-ish subplot about sabotage that kind of took away from the rest of the story, in my opinion. I just wanted a sweet story where good things happened to the characters.

Using a memoir by Cody Keenan, President Obama‘s chief speechwriter, to check off this prompt in #Nonfiction2024: “Speak”

I picked this first off my #AuldLangSpine list from @MallenNC because I spent 2023 watching all 155 episodes of “The West Wing,” and I thought it would be a nice segue to read a memoir by President Obama‘s speechwriter. And it was. But it was also a story of hope, redemption, the power of forgiveness and how we can make the world a better place if we try. That‘s a message that‘s been lost in the past 8 years. Oh, how I miss this president. 😕

2024 is off to a great start! Loved this. It kind of reminded me of a John Irving book —nonlinear story arcs that appear to be random and going nowhere, but which come together seamlessly in an unexpectedly beautiful way. And just like an Irving book —it‘s definitely not for everyone.

At 624 pages, this checks off “Almost a Chunkster” for #chunksterchallenge2024.

Well, that challenge is completed! Now it‘s time to just enjoy reading for the rest of the year. The heck with chasing an arbitrary book total. 🎉

I‘m fascinated by the history of medicine and health, particularly the relationships between science, culture and politics. As such, I‘ve collected a large stack of nonfiction books that directly relate to these topics. My husband refers to them as my “Disease of the Month Book Club.” So I‘ve created a challenge mostly to get these books off my shelves! If you‘d like to join the #DiseaseoftheMonthBookClub, welcome! Storygraph link in comments ⬇️

Raising a mug of tea (ok, yes, it‘ll be more than one—I‘m planning on a long, lazy day on the couch) to @MallenNC as I embark on the first read from your #AuldLangSpine list. Cheers!

And that‘s a wrap on 2023! I‘m particularly tickled by the productive reading month that was October, especially since that was the month we finally finished the #Clarissa challenge! It‘s a buddy read that will live in infamy. 😀

On to the NONFICTION winner of #ReadingBrackets2023! This quarter belonged entirely to Hampton Sides—he battled himself the whole way. December‘s pick about the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir was excellent. It moved on against “Ghost Soldiers” to face “Hellhound on His Trail.” For me, it was an easy pick: “Hellhound,” a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, sweeps the board and emerges as victor. In fact, it‘s my favorite book of the entire year!

And we have a #ReadingBrackets2023 FICTION winner! My December pick by Thrity Umrigar was very good, and moved into the quarterfinals where it met a fierce competition with “Dear Edward.” In the end “Edward” moved into the finals because it grabbed me from the start while “Museum” took a while to get revved up. But in a head-to-head with “The Covenant of Water,” the winner was clear. Congratulations to Abraham Verghese!

Finally settled on my “official” book for #ChunksterChallenge2024 — a biography of baseball legend Ted Williams, written by newspaper legend Ben Bradlee, Jr. At 864 pages, it‘s a bit shorter than my usual annual chunkster picks. But this year I‘m taking my cues from @GinaKButler and @Kelly326 and aiming to read several large chunks throughout the year. Viva la chunkster! 🙂

Visiting Middlebury, VT, with my husband. Stopped into this adorable used bookstore that is located inside a former mill where they used to cut and shape marble.