2021 Reading Year in Review

I started doing a specific "Reading Year in Review" post last year, in 2020. I figured that since I was doing an overall year in review post (which includes some book information anyway), and a blogging year in review post -- and since keeping track of my books is a big thing I normally do on my blog -- my reading life deserved its own year-end wrap-up post too.  :) 

• I increased my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal from 30 books in 2020 to 36 books in 2021, reached it by mid-July and wound up with almost double that number of books finished by year end, with 59 books to my credit, 164% of my goal. (I was secretly hoping to reach 60, when it became apparent that goal might be in reach -- but hey, still not a bad showing!) All books read were reviewed on this blog and tagged "2021 books."
• My Goodreads 2021 Year in Review report tells me I read 59 books with 17,944 pages. 
• The shortest book I read was "Before and After" by Alison Wilson (168 pages);  the longest was "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown (559 pages). 
• Average book length was 304 pages. 
• The most popular book I read ( = shelved by Goodreads readers) was "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens;  the least popular was "Unimaginable" by Brooke D. Taylor. 
• My average Goodreads rating in 2021 was 4.1 stars. 
• The highest-rated book I read was "The Mother of All Dilemmas" by Kathleen Guthrie Woods (average 4.8 stars). 
• I also started tracking books on The StoryGraph (which Brooke told me about), which provides slightly different stats (and even more, with a paid subscription). Only 54 of my 59 2021 books (16,652 pages) made it there in the transfer of data from Goodreads. 
• The "moods" of my books were overwhelmingly reflective and emotional. 
• Most of my books were medium or slow paced (45 & 38%, respectively) -- just 17% were considered fast-paced. 
• 55% of my 2021 books were 300-499 pages;  40% were less than 300 pages and just 6% were over 500 pages. 
• 65% of my 2021 books were fiction;  35 non-fiction. 
• My most-read genre in 2021 was historical, followed by memoir, then romance and biography.  
• StoryGraph also tracks the format of your books, but selects print as the default. It tells me 83% of my books this year were read in print format -- which I know is not correct. I suspect the format data didn't translate well in the transfer of data from Goodreads. Hopefully the data will be somewhat more accurate next year! 
• Most-read authors in 2021 (no surprise here):  D.E. Stevenson & L.M. Montgomery. 
• Average rating 4.04 stars. (Unlike Goodreads, The StoryGraph allows fractional star ratings.) 
• For the first time in many years, fiction choices outnumbered non-fiction (many of them re-reads, but still...!):  36 fiction, 22 non-fiction and 1 volume of poetry.
• Re-reads -- which I started counting as books read in 2020 -- accounted for 9 books of my 2021 total. (I think I calculated that correctly?)  
• My library book club held its last meeting in late February 2020 -- just before the pandemic hit -- but online, the Gateway Women book club, D.E. Stevenson fan group, L.M. Montgomery Readathon on Facebook, and "Clever Name" online book club  have helped boost my 2021 reading totals and provided me with a lot of reading/discussion pleasure during a very difficult year.  
• I read 8 books for GW, 10 for DES (6 different books, including 4 counted twice as re-reads), 7 for the L.M. Montgomery Readathon (5 different books, including 3 counted twice as re-reads, as well as one LMM book ("Emily's Quest") read on my own)., and 6 for Clever Name. 
• Since I reached 36 books fairly easily this year (by July), I've decided to stretch a bit and increase my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal to 45 books ( = 3.75 books per month on average) for 2022. I've read more than 45 books in two of the past three years (2019 & 2021, and almost 45 in the third year -- 43 in 2020), so I think that's a reasonable/realistic goal to set. 

• It's always very hard for me to pick a single book as "the best." I read some really, really good books this year -- very few disappointments or "meh" choices -- and I gave lots/most of them four and five-star reviews on Goodreads. (4.1 stars was my average Goodreads rating this year.)  A few of my favourites (and forgive me for not including links!): 
• "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman 
• "Confessions of a Forty-Something" by Alexandra Potter 
• "The Bright Side" by Cathrin Bradbury 
• "The Blue Castle" by L.M. Montgomery (a re-read of one of my all-time favourites) 
• "Widowland" by C.J. Carey 
• "American Baby" by Gabrielle Glaser 
• "The Windsor Knot" by S.J. Bennett 
• "Sorrow and Bliss" by Meg Mason 
• "Us" by David Nicholls 
• "Hungry" by Grace Dent 
• "The Storyteller" by Dave Grohl 

Did you meet your reading goals for 2021 (if you set any)? What great books did you read this past year? 

"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

I bought a paperback copy of  "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver years ago, after Oprah picked it for her book club, back in 2000. I didn't get to it right away (plus ca change...), and my mother "borrowed" it a few years later when she was visiting me. The last time I saw it, it was still among the books in her bedroom at home. There are plenty of fish in the sea/other books on my shelves, of course ;) and I hadn't thought much about it until it was announced as the November pick for our "Clever Name" book club. (This time, I got an e-copy.) 

Subsequently, we agreed to a hiatus of the club until after Christmas -- so now we won't be discussing this one until January -- but I was already 1/4 of the way into it -- and finding it pretty interesting -- so I decided to keep going. 

I will admit that my reading tastes tend to run to Euro/North American-centric settings and authors. I was not entirely sure I was going to like a novel set in the Congo at the end of the colonial era, beginning in 1959 and spanning 30 years (even if it was a tale told from an American perspective). 

I was wrong. 

"The Poisonwood Bible" is, in part, the story of the Congo's transition to independence. It's also the story of the Price family of Bethlehem, Georgia:  Nathan Price, a fiery Baptist minister, his wife and their four daughters, ages 15 through 5, who arrive in a remote Congolese village at this precarious time in its history to preach the gospel and convert the heathen residents.  It's pretty clear that they are totally unprepared for what awaits them. 

The novel is narrated in turns by Nathan's wife, Orleanna, and each of the four young girls. Five different narrators might sound like a recipe for disaster, but Kingsolver pulls off the feat of making each voice unique, distinctive and memorable, each with a different perspective to offer on the family's story and on Africa. There is Rachel, the petulant teenager, who wants nothing more than to return to her carefree high school life in America;  the twins -- Leah, who idolizes her father, and Adah, whose disabilities have not affected her keen powers of observation or description; and little Ruth May, who despite her youth is not as innocent as she seems. 

It's a LONG book -- Goodreads tells me the e-copy is 546 pages, but on my Kobo e-reader, with the font size and spacing adjusted to my liking, it was more than double that (almost 1,300 pages). There's a lot about the history and politics of the Congo, which sometimes had my eyes glazing over a little.  But the writing is amazing, the characters are vividly drawn, and it kept me reading to find out what ultimately happened to them.  As Rachel observes near the end of the book, "You can't just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style, without expecting the jungle to change you right back." 

4 stars on Goodreads (maybe even 4.5, but not quite a 5 -- see the caveats above). 

If you've read this book, I'd love to hear what you thought about it! 

This was Book #54 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in November), bringing me to 150% (!) of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. (I've exceeded my best-ever showing in the Goodreads Challenge since I joined in 2016 -- which was 50 books read in all of 2019.)  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 23 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

"The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore

I've been meaning to read "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women" by Kate Moore for quite some time now. Thankfully, so did my friend who organizes our "Clever Name" book club:  she made it our October selection, which gave me the nudge to finally pick it up and read it on my trip west to visit my parents last week. I started the book on the flight there, and finished it on the flight back home.  ;)  We'll be discussing it (as well as September's book, "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig -- which I read late last year and reviewed here) at a Zoom meeting in early November. 

When Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898, it was regarded as a miracle substance. During the First World War, radium was mixed into paint to create luminous dials for airplane instruments, clocks and watches. Hundreds of women -- mostly teenaged girls -- were hired for highly coveted, well-paid jobs as dial painters for companies in Orange, New Jersey; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Ottawa, Illinois (NOT Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada! lol -- we drove by there on a road trip to Iowa via Michigan and northern Illinois a few years ago and were quite amused to see the signs pointing the way to "Ottawa."). The women were taught to put their paintbrushes in their mouths to hone them to a fine point, dip them in the radium-laced paint, paint -- and then repeat the process, over and over and over again. At night, their clothing, skin and hair would glow from the accumulated radium dust. The girls would even paint glow-in-the-dark designs on their skin and teeth to entertain each other. 

And then, one by one, they started getting sick. And one by one, they began dying -- prolonged, horrible, painful deaths. 

This is a horror story of sorts, made all the more horrific because it really happened. What makes it even more horrific is the companies' response -- or rather, the lack thereof -- to their workers' plight. They lied to the girls about the hazards of working with radium -- even after the hazards became well known and documented -- they refused to disclose the results of medical tests they required the workers to undergo, and they did everything they could to cover up what was going on -- to avoid acknowledging responsibility or compensating their former employees for their pain and suffering, or even to improve conditions for current employees. It took many long years for "the Radium Girls" to receive a modicum of justice (and some did not live to see or benefit from it), but their courage and tenacity led to changes in workplace safety regulations, a greater awareness of the hazards related to nuclear weapons and energy, and ultimately saved countless thousands of lives. 

From an ALI perspective, as you might expect, many of the women experienced infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births.  "...how many women were crippled or suffered the unique pain of childlessness as a result of their poisoning is also unknown," Moore writes in the book's epilogue. Poignantly, she also writes there how one Radium Girl's nephew "picked his way through the items Pearl kept in her loft:  a baby stroller, a crib -- strange things for an old lady to have in her attic, but perhaps Pearl found herself unable to let go of these final traces of the many children she had wanted, but could never have."  

This is a long and detailed book, written in a very readable style, focusing on the personal stories of some of the key women involved. Some readers will find it all fascinating and gobble up all the details -- but I can understand that it might be a lot for others to absorb. My main issue/complaint:  there's a very large cast of characters spread over several locations, and it was sometimes difficult to keep them all straight. It probably would have helped to have them listed at the front of the book for easy reference. 

Whether or not you read "The Radium Girls," it's a story that deserves to be much better known than it is, and Kate Moore deserves credit for bringing it to our attention. 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #51 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in October), bringing me to 142% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. (This exceeds my best-ever showing in the Goodreads Challenge since I joined in 2016 -- which was 50 books read in all of 2019.)  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 23 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

"How to Pronounce Knife" by Souvankham Thammavongsa

How to Pronounce Knife  by Souvankham Thammavongsa is the August read for my "Clever Name" book club. It was on many "best of 2020" lists and nominated for many awards, including the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize here in Canada.  

Thammavongsa was born in a Laotian refugee camp in Thailand, but grew up in Toronto and still lives here. Not surprisingly, her stories are mostly about the immigrant experience, and specifically the Lao community. The book is a slim little collection of 14 short stories that didn't take very long to read, about parents and children -- factory workers and manicurists and bus drivers and worm pickers -- trying to find their way in a strange new culture and make better lives for themselves. 

I found myself thinking about my dh & his family. He was born and raised here, as were his brother and all of his cousins, but their parents all came to Canada from southern Italy in the 1950s and 60s. I wrote a bit about their experiences when my FIL passed away three years ago.  I think anyone who has some degree of familiarity with the immigrant or refugee experience will recognize themselves and/or their families in these stories, no matter where they came from. (Dh is currently reading "The Bone Setter's Daughter" by Amy Tan, and even though it's about a Chinese-American immigrant family, he says it's all very familiar territory, lol.)  

I rated this book 4 stars on Goodreads. I'm not a huge reader of short stories. These were well written  (sometimes beautifully so) slices of life/snapshots, often with a little twist at the end. I think the ones I liked most were "Randy Travis" and "Chick-a-Chee" and "A Far Distant Thing." But they were all so brief and sparse and sometimes bleak... I found myself wanting more. (Which, I suppose, is ultimately a good thing...!)

This was Book #41 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in August), bringing me to 114%! of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I have now completed my challenge for the year, and am (for the moment, anyway...!) 19 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

"Love Lives Here" by Amanda Jette Knox

Back in high school, in the late 1970s, one of my classmates was a girl -- at least, she had a girl's name (I'll refer to her here as J and "her," since that's how I knew her then) -- but she looked, sounded, dressed and acted like a boy. She was painfully shy in the classroom -- although she was in her element on the sports field.  We all knew J was "different," but kids back in the 1970s (and certainly in small Canadian Prairie towns like ours) simply did not have the vocabulary to name and talk intelligently about it. (Kids? Heck, adults too.) 

Remarkably for those less enlightened times, no one ever openly harassed J (that I knew of). On the contrary, it seemed to me that J commanded a certain level of respect because of her athletic ability.  Even so, J skipped our high school graduation ceremony (the only classmate to do so), which seemed very sad. Everyone whispered it was because she would be expected to wear a dress. Coincidentally or not, my class was the last where girls wore long formal dresses and guys wore suits to grad. The following year, when my sister graduated, her class voted to adopt caps & gowns for everyone. I sometimes wondered whether J would have attended grad, if we'd done the same thing. 

*** *** *** 

I thought about my classmate, and about how much has changed (and how much hasn't), as I read "Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family" by Amanda Jette Knox, this month's pick for my "Clever Name" online book club. We'll be discussing it at via Zoom later this month.  

I did not realize until I opened my copy that Knox is Canadian, from the Ottawa area -- or that she was a blogger (known as "The Maven of Mayhem" -- she still uses this handle on social media).  I knew there was some "buzz" around this book, and that it involved a member of Knox's family "coming out" as transgender.  It does -- but let's just say there's a whole lot more to the story...!   

Amanda had a troubled youth, dropped out of high school and spent some time in rehab, got pregnant and got married at the relatively young age of 20.  The one thing she felt she was good at was parenting. And then one of her children sent her an email that changed her life forever and challenged her self-image as a successful parent.  Although she struggled to come to terms with this revelation and what it meant for her family (especially at first), she quickly became a fierce advocate for her child (and, later, for trans and LGBTQ issues generally), and realized that leading with love was the key to making this transition as smooth as possible.  

(As a blogger, I found it interesting that her first inclination was to shut down her blog to protect her family. She kept blogging after her children challenged her to be honest about their family's experiences. She continues to blog at her website, and you can go there to find out what's happened since the book was published in 2019.)   

This was one of those book club picks that I probably wouldn't have read on my own, and I learned a LOT from it. It's very readable/accessible, written in a chatty, conversational style (one Goodreads reviewer said Amanda's writing "reminds me of the blogging days of yesteryear").  As a non-mom, I sometimes struggled a bit with the "fierce momma bear protecting her cubs" stuff, but overall, I was impressed by Amanda's honesty, heart and sense of humour.  I haven't read a lot of (any??) books on transgender issues, and (for me, anyway) this was a good introduction to the topic. 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #37 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in July), bringing me to 103%! of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I have now completed my challenge for the year, and am (for the moment, anyway...!) 18 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

"Anxious People" by Fredrik Backman

Perhaps a book titled "Anxious People" is not the greatest reading choice when you have anxious tendencies yourself  -- at first glance, anyway, lol. I have to admit I felt a little jittery at times as I read this book. Something about the staccato prose, the repetition, and reading about the personal anxieties of some of the different characters (particularly Zara). 

But I was compelled to read "Anxious People" for several reasons -- first, because it's been on my "to-read" list for quite a while;  second, because it's by Fredrik Backman, who wrote "Beartown," one of the best books I read in 2019 (review here);  third, because it was the June pick for my "Clever Name" online book club. (We'll be meeting via Zoom to talk about it tomorrow.)  

And finally, because one of my friends, in her review on Goodreads, wrote: "Read this book. Stick with it. Seriously won’t regret. There. That’s my review. LOL."

And so I stuck with it -- even though I will admit I struggled a bit, particularly through the first half/two-thirds of the book. There are so many different characters featured (many of them unlikeable -- especially at first), with different back stories, and the time frames shift back and forth between the present and the past. It was hard to keep track and remember all the details -- especially after a day or two or three away from the book.   

But I will admit -- like "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig (review here), this book slowly grew on me, and ultimately won me over.  The closer I got to the end, the more I wanted to keep reading.  Huge props to the author for how he drew together all the different storylines, wove connections among the different characters (who slowly became more likeable as the book went on), and resolved some outstanding questions/mysteries. (I may have to re-read the book just to make sure I caught them all.)  There are some wonderful messages about mental health and kindness, too. 

Oh yeah -- the plot (lol): as the book jacket blurb explains, it's "a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined."  

The Goodreads description adds:  "Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths."  

I think that's enough information. :) 

I wound up rating "Anxious People" 5 stars on Goodreads. Maybe more like 4.5, rounded up -- it did give me some jitters, after all.  ;)  But my friend was right. I am glad I stuck with it. :)  

This was Book #34 read to date in 2021 (and Book #2 finished in June), bringing me to 94% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 17 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

Right now

Right now...* 

*(an occasional (mostly monthly) meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"). (Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first "The Current" post, here.)

Pandemic update:  (This almost deserves a separate post of its own...!)  May was Month #14 going on 15 (!) of living with the COVID-19 pandemic.  The rollercoaster ride continues...!  The U.S. is opening up and abandoning masks (whether they should be is, I suppose, debatable...), and my social media feeds are full of my American friends & relatives, mostly maskless, gleefully meeting up with & hugging each other, toasting each other in bars, eating out in restaurants, etc.... 

Meanwhile, north of the border, it feels like we have been under lockdown since well before Christmas -- hereabouts, if not province- or country-wide:  the region I live in entered a lockdown on Dec. 14th, joined by the rest of the province on Dec. 26th. This ran 10 weeks until Feb. 22nd (and probably should have gone longer, but didn't -- thus setting the stage for Wave #3...!). Our most recent lockdown/stay-at-home order, which began April 8th, was initially scheduled to end on May 20th (after six weeks) -- just before our Victoria Day long weekend -- but was extended until June 2nd. 

Then, on May 20th (just before the long weekend), the provincial government announced  a new, staged reopening plan, tied to specific metrics (finally!!), including increases in vaccination rates (which I mentioned here). Assuming things go well and the metrics are met, some things will start to reopen in mid-June, including outdoor dining and some non-essential retail. (Unfortunately for me, hair salons likely won't reopen until stage two of the plan, i.e., probably not until sometime in July. Heeeellllllpppppp....) 

After hitting an all-time high of 4,812 on April 16th (shortly after the latest restrictions began), daily new case numbers have been declining. Yesterday, they dipped below 1,000 for the first time since March, with 916 new cases reported. A big improvement, but still...!!  Hospitalizations and ICU numbers remain too high for comfort, however.

Unfortunately, things have not been much better in some other parts of Canada.  At one point this past month, the city of Calgary (in Alberta) had a higher per capita case rate than INDIA.  My home province of Manitoba -- which has fared relatively well for most of the pandemic -- is currently a global COVID-19 hot spot and under its own strict restrictions (and the region where my parents live is one of the province's hot spots, outside of the city). New case numbers there reached a record high of 560 on May 13th -- the equivalent of 5,992 new cases here in Ontario (!). Cases in hospital ICUs are also at record levels, and some patients have been transferred to hospitals in neighbouring provinces to receive care. Needless to say, I (still!) won't be heading there to see my family anytime soon... maybe in the fall or for Christmas, if I'm lucky...  :(  

The one bright spot:  vaccinations, which were (very/agonizingly) slow to begin rolling out, are now galloping along... to the point that Canada has now surpassed the U.S. in terms of the percentage of people who have received at least one dose of vaccine!  (Who would have thought THAT, back in early March??)  As of yesterday (May 31st), 56.5% of Canadians (56.8% here in Ontario) have received at least one dose. 

Just 5.3% of Canadians (including 4.8% of Ontarians) have received both doses ( = are considered fully vaccinated), but second vaccines for the general population are now beginning to happen. Until just recently, the protocol was to wait 16 weeks/four months for second shots of all vaccines, to give more people the opportunity to get those critical first shots and receive at least some measure of protection from the virus. Last week, however, the government announced it will revise that timeline to 12 weeks in most cases. 

Dh & I happily received our first shots of AstraZeneca on April 5th (and BIL & SIL got theirs the following day -- also AstraZeneca). Since then, my parents, sister & her partner in Manitoba, and both nephews and their wives here have all received their first shots (all Pfizer). Most Canadian provinces have paused using AstraZeneca for first shots because of the risk of blood clots (and also because enough Pfizer was becoming available to meet current demand, as well as some Moderna).  After some dithering by both federal and provincial governments, it's been decided that those of us who received AstraZeneca for our first vaccinations *may* receive AZ for our second shots, 10-12 weeks after the first, so as not to waste any of the AZ currently in supply or due to arrive shortly. Whether there will be *enough* AZ vaccine to give a second shot to everyone who wants it remains to be seen. (It also remains to be seen whether AZers will be offered Pfizer or Moderna  for their second shots, as some would prefer (and assume will be possible) -- the governments are still waiting for more study data on the side effects, efficacy, etc., before making a decision on that front.)  

Under the 16-week protocol, dh & I would have received our second shots around July 26th;  now it's possible that might happen before the end of June. We would both be more than happy to receive the AstraZeneca again, versus the prospect of "mixing" (especially if, as with our first shots, it means we can get vaccinated sooner). Apparently the risk of clotting drops dramatically with the second AZ dose. But will there still be enough AZ supply by the time we qualify for our second shots? I guess we'll see what happens...!  

*** *** *** 

On top of dh's usual (once or twice weekly) trips to the supermarket for groceries and for takeout dinners on Saturday nights, this month, we went (together -- with some trips including multiple stops): 

•  To BIL's three times:  
• On May 8th (Saturday of Mother's Day weekend) to drop off cards for the nephews' wives (who share a birthday -- same day, same year! -- what are the odds??). It was just BIL, SIL & Little Great-Nephew at home -- we've all had our first shots (the adults, anyway), SIL has stopped working, and the weather was nice enough to have the balcony door partly open, so we figured the risk was minimal, and we wound up staying for coffee (despite the stay-at-home order -- cough...!). We hadn't seen any of them in 4+ weeks, since April 6th. :( 
• Back again on the morning of May 19th to visit SIL & Little Great-Nephew (and the dog, lol). 
• And again on the morning of May 26th. :)  He's still pretty shy around us (much to dh's dismay) -- hid behind Grandma when we arrived! -- but waved and said "Bye!" when we were leaving. (And closed the door on us!  lol) 
• Before heading there on May 26th, we stopped at the bank to make an ABM deposit. 

Otherwise, we've continued to stay close to home (both by edict & by choice).  

*** *** *** 

Reading: I read 9 (!) books in May (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads, & tagged "2021 books"):

• "What's Not Said" by Valerie Taylor (NoMo/Gateway Women book club pick for May). 
• "Sorrow and Bliss" by Meg Mason. 
• "Us" by David Nicholls. A TV version will be shown on PBS, beginning June 20th. :)  
• "Katherine's Marriage" by D.E. Stevenson (a re-read along with my DES group -- previously read and reviewed here, and a sequel to "Katherine Wentworth," reviewed here and here).
• "The Windsor Knot" by S.J. Bennett
• "Before and After" by Alison Wilson (see "Watching," below) 
• "Chronicles of Avonlea" by L.M. Montgomery (a re-read with my LMM Readathon FB group -- previously read & reviewed here)  
• "Summerhills" by D.E. Stevenson (for my author fan group -- a sequel to "Amberwell," which we read and discussed last year). 
• "Still Glides the Stream" by D.E. Stevenson (also for my DES group... this will be the book we'll discuss after "Summerhills").  

This brings me to 32 books read so far in 2021 -- 89% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books (!!). I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 18 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  (Dh is currently at 62 books (!) -- albeit he stopped tracking on Goodreads for a while in April, so the real number is likely higher.)  

Current read(s): 

• "Anxious People" by Fredrik Backman (next pick for my "Clever Name" virtual book club). 

Coming up: 

• "Emily of New Moon" by L.M. Montgomery -- the next selection for my L.M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group. :)  I haven't read the Emily books in many years, so I am looking forward to this!
• "Poisoned" by Jennifer Donnelly (next pick for the Gateway Women/NoMo book club). 

A few recently purchased titles (in both paper & digital formats, discounted or purchased with points):   

• Used copies of three out-of-print titles by D.E. Stevenson, to be discussed later this year by my online group (none of which I've read before, at least that I can remember): "Gerald and Elizabeth,"  "The House of the Deer,"  and "Charlotte Fairlie" (which also goes by the titles "Blow the Wind Southerly" and "The Enchanted Isle").  They were all fairly reasonable prices and are supposed to be in good condition. We'll see...! 
• All three "Emily" novels by L.M. Montgomery, for my FB Readathon group (see above) -- "Emily of New Moon,"  "Emily Climbs" and "Emily's Quest" -- currently on order and due to arrive soon. :) 
• "Empire of Pain" by Patrick Radden Keefe (about the Sackler family and Oxy-Contin -- from the author of "Say Nothing," one of the best books I read in 2019).  
• "Just As I Am" by Cicely Tyson. 
• "JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956" by Fredrik Logevall
• "The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America" by Lara Freidenfelds
• "His Truth Is Marching on: John Lewis and the Power of Hope" by Jon Meacham.

My "Clever Name" virtual book club discussed "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman (which I already read & reviewed here --and thoroughly enjoyed!) at our recent May meeting. Because I'd already read the book fairly recently, I did not re-read it for the book club. 

Watching: 

• I finished watching "Atlantic Crossing" on PBS (8 episodes). It's based on the true story of how the Norwegian royal family fled the country after the Nazi invasion of 1940, how Crown Princess Martha and her three children wound up spending the war as refugees in Washington, D.C., and how her friendship with  U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped influence U.S. policy during the war. I'd give it 3 stars overall. Interesting to see WWII from a different (Norwegian) angle, lovely sets & costumes -- and I loved the period film footage shown at the very end of the last episode -- much of it filmed by Martha herself. But the scripting was a bit clunky and soap opera-ish at times, with plenty of historical embellishments (e.g., a tearful Martha singing "Happy days are here again" to an ailing FDR on his near-deathbed in the final episode?!). 
• Dh often rolls his eyes at my Masterpiece Theatre dramas ;)  -- but he was hooked within 10 minutes of watching "Mrs. Wilson" with me -- a three-part British drama, based on a true story. Actress Ruth Wilson plays her own grandmother, Alison, whose grief over the death of her husband in 1963 becomes complicated when another woman claiming to be his wife shows up on her doorstep... and that's only the beginning! This was originally shown on PBS a few years ago but I didn't watch it then. I'm glad I had the chance to do it now in reruns.
• This drama was based in part on Alison Wilson's memoir, "Before and After" (reviewed here -- see above under "Reading"). 
• I've now watched 7 of the 10 episodes of season 4 of "The Handmaid's Tale," which is airing Thursday nights on the CTV Drama channel (formerly known as Bravo). Most of the action and characters have moved to Canada this season, which has been kind of interesting...! 

Listening:  To a lot of great podcasts (and wrote about some of them here). 

Zooming: Among other Zoom chats recently, I caught up with two of my former coworkers, including one I only recently re-connected with on social media (all of us childless, too!). So nice to chat, and we're looking forward to doing it again soon!  

Buying (besides books, lol):  Not much!  Most stores here (aside from supermarkets and drugstores) are still offering curbside pickup only right now. I did order a few pairs of earrings and a necklace from my favourite sterling silver jewelry crafter when she had a flash sale to get rid of inventory before moving everything over to her new website. Always happy to oblige, lol. ;)  They were delivered yesterday. My squeegee/window cleaning kit, which I think I mentioned last month (ordered in April) should finally arrive this week too. And I ordered my 2022 Filofax datebook insert from Amazon last week.  

Appreciating:  The ability to order a wide variety of merchandise (especially books, lol) and have it delivered to my door while so many stores are closed right now. But also appreciating the efforts of those in the warehouses, etc., who are working (and in many cases endangering their own health and safety, and that of their families) to bring it to us.  :(   (These kinds of workplace settings are a leading driver of new cases here.) 

Eating/Drinking:  Our usual rotation of favourite takeout choices, including amazing thin crust/wood oven pizza (twice!), spaghetti rapini agli e olio, rotisserie chicken, and chicken fingers and fries.  

Wearing:  Bare feet in the house (finally!). (Dh goes barefoot year round, while I'm generally wearing both socks AND slippers during the winter months -- and still freezing, lol.)  (I did have to put on slippers again when the weather turned chilly again last week!)  

When our weather turned warmer during the week before the Victoria Day long weekend, I screwed up my courage, brought out my capris from the depths of my closet, and tried them on. They still fit!! (Well, they're maybe a *little* tight... but still wearable!)  :)  (I also tried on my shorts, with similar results!)  Not having to shop for new ones during a pandemic (with stores currently closed, and changing cuts and uncertain fits making online shopping a gamble...) was a big relief. 

Celebrating: Older Nephew and his wife take possession of their new house today!! BIL is on vacation this week, and he's enlisted dh to help move some of their things up there over the next few days. They are painting and having a new kitchen and some built-ins installed before they actually move in, though. That likely won't be until later this month. 

Wanting:  To wash (the rest of) our windows, now that the weather is nice (but waiting for the squeegee kit I ordered -- see above). The condo board hires window washers every spring -- and they just got done last week -- but they won't come onto our balconies -- so the balcony doors are ours to do, as well as the inside windows. And they really need doing!  

Once they're done, we'll bring up the patio chairs & little table from the storage locker. I'm looking forward to spending some time out there with a book and a glass of iced tea. :) (Before the weather gets too hot & humid...!) 

Loving:  The days when the weather is warm enough (but not overly hot/humid) to have the balcony door open all day, letting in the fresh air! 

Feeling: Mostly happy lately. :)  The warmer weather and sunshine really helps (as do the visits with Little Great-Nephew, lol).  

Right now

Right now...* 

*(an occasional (mostly monthly) meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"). (Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first "The Current" post, here.)

April was Month #13 going on 14 of living with the COVID-19 pandemic.  In last month's "Right Now" post, I wrote: 

The region where I live (near Toronto) came out of lockdown on Feb. 22nd (and there are some businesses in Toronto & Peel regions that STILL haven't been allowed to reopen! -- hair & nail salons, gyms, no indoor dining at restaurants, etc.). However, case numbers are almost as high as they've ever been, including a huge surge from the new, more contagious variants -- and it's almost a certainty that there will be a THIRD shutdown/stay at home order soon... sigh... 

(I REALLY hate being right in this case.)  I started trying to write a summary of the rollercoaster ride and twists & turns this province has experienced over the past month (alone!), but gave up when it started reaching "War & Peace" length (and I'm only slightly exaggerating)...!  It's one of those things that needs to be seen/experienced to be believed.  

Suffice to say the provincial government doesn't know what the frack it's doing and basically has been throwing things at the wall to see what will stick. It took months & months of begging from the medical experts before they FINALLY agreed to a paid sick leave plan last week for those workers whose companies don't offer one (just three days, when most experts were asking for 10 to 14, to accommodate the recommended length of quarantine). Daily new case numbers reached an all-time high of 4,812 on April 16th, and the seven-day average only just dipped back below the 4,000 mark again this week.  Hospitals are jammed, and ICUs are at capacity. The patients being admitted are both sicker and younger.  Tragically, a 13-year-old girl living one town over from mine (one of the hardest hit regions in the country) died at home last week:  her mother was already in the hospital with COVID;  her father hesitated to take her to the hospital because he was afraid she would get transferred to another hospital far away (a possibility), and because he thought that since she was young, she would bounce back. She didn't.   

At the moment, we are under our third lockdown/stay-at-home order of the pandemic, scheduled to last until (at least) mid-May.  Almost everything is closed, including all non-essential retail (curbside pickup only). For the first time, however, larger "essential" stores, such as Walmart and Costco, are restricted to selling groceries and pharmacy items only (something other provinces have done, but Ontario had not yet).  All schools are closed (at-home learning only again). The provincial government has continued to resist closing down most construction sites and non-essential factory production -- so several local municipalities (including Peel Region and the City of Toronto proper) have taken matters into their own hands and have ordered any business with five or more cases of COVID-19 to close for at least 10 days.  

Meanwhile!  Vaccination efforts FINALLY began to ramp up (albeit the rollout has been messy). Dh & I happily received our first shots of AstraZeneca on April 5th (and BIL & SIL got theirs the following day). We likely won't get our second shots/become fully vaccinated until at least mid-July (the current protocol is that second shots come four months -- yes, FOUR MONTHS (16 weeks) -- after the first, in order to give more people the chance to get that critical first vaccine, with at least some protection against the virus).  As of yesterday (Friday), 32.4% of Ontarians have received at least one dose of vaccine, but just 2.5% have received both ( = fully vaccinated). In Manitoba, my parents and my sister's partner both received their first shots recently (Pfizer), my sister's boyfriend got his earlier this week, and she will get hers tomorrow/Sunday. Yay!! 

On top of dh's usual (once or twice weekly) trips to the supermarket for groceries and for takeout dinners on Saturday nights, this month, we went (together -- with some trips including multiple stops): 

• to the pharmacy on April 5th to get our first vaccines!! (see above)
• to the supermarket (after getting our shots).  
• to see Little Great-Nephew (oh yeah, BIL & SIL too!  lol), twice (earlier in April, pre-new lockdown), including once (maskless, on April 6th)to stay with him while his grandparents got their first vaccines and his parents were at the lawyer's office about their new house. 

Otherwise, we've continued to stay close to home (both by edict & by choice). 

*** *** *** 

Reading: I read 7 books in April (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads, & tagged "2021 books"):

• "Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer is No" by Kate Kaufmann
• "The Bright Side" by Cathrin Bradbury 
• "The Princess Saves Herself in This One" by Amanda Lovelace (poetry) 
• "I Had a Miscarriage" by Jessica Zucker 
• "Lady in Waiting" by Anne Glenconner
• "Shang-a-lang" by Les McKeown (lead singer of the Bay City Rollers, who passed away last week). 
• "She I Dare Not Name" by Donna Ward.

This brings me to 23 books read so far in 2021 -- 64% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 12 books ahead of schedule. :)

Earlier this month, dh decided that Goodreads was stressing him out and so he stopped tracking his reading there. Last week, he went back on again. (Recall what I said about his social media use in a previous post...!)  By mid-February, he had already blown past his 2021 Reading Challenge goal of 24 books; by the time he stopped tracking, in early April, he'd read 49 (!).  He's now at 52 (and likely higher, if he counted the books he read in between). 

Current read(s): 

• "What's Not Said" by Valerie Taylor (our next NoMo/Gateway Women book club pick). 
• "Katherine's Marriage" by D.E. Stevenson (my DES group's current selection under discussion, previously read and reviewed here, and a sequel to "Katherine Wentworth," reviewed here and here)
• "Chronicles of Avonlea" by L.M. Montgomery (currently under discussion by my LMM Readathon FB group -- previously read & reviewed here)  

Not being counted as an April read, but previously read and discussed at an online/Zoom meeting of my "Clever Name" book club held earlier in the month: "The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett. We'll be talking about "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman (which I already read & reviewed here --and thoroughly enjoyed!) at our May meeting (date TBD). 

Coming up: 

• "Summerhills" by D.E. Stevenson (for my author fan group, once we finish "Katherine's Marriage" -- a sequel to "Amberwell," which we read and discussed last year). 
• "Us" by David Nicholls, which has been in my TBR pile for a while, but has been moved up -- there's a four-part TV version that will be shown on PBS, beginning on June 20th. :)  

A few recently purchased titles (in digital formats, discounted):   

• "Outlawed" by Anna North 
• "And Furthermore" by Judi Dench 
• "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry 
• "The Great Believers" by Rebecca Makkai

Watching: I started watching two new shows on PBS on Sunday nights this month:  

• "My Grandparents' War," sort of a variation of "Who Do You Think You Are?" in which British celebrities explore the stories of their grandparents' lives during World War II.  Unfortunately, there are only four episodes (starring Helena Bonham-Carter, Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Carey Mulligan). I don't know if they're planning on making any more, but both dh & I thoroughly enjoyed it. 
• "Atlantic Crossing," based on a true story about how the Norwegian royal family fled the country after the Nazi invasion of 1940, how Crown Princess Martha and her three children wound up spending the war as refugees in Washington, D.C., and her friendship with  U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Some of it's a bit contrived (e.g., FDR's secretary, Missy LeHand, is jealous and resentful of her boss's relationship with Martha, and Eleanor is a bit of a sourpuss), and some of the details have obviously been embellished beyond historical fact, but I'm enjoying learning about a part of WWII history that goes beyond the usual British/American-centric narrative that we're used seeing and hearing about. 
• At the end of episode 2, there's a very moving scene that had me reaching for the kleenex box -- set in a stunning fjord (supposedly in Finland), where a small boat is taking the Crown Princess and her children to a ship that will take them to safety in America. They are trying to hide their identity, but some Norwegian fishermen recognize them, stand up in their boats and begin singing the national anthem. One by one, sailors on the other boats follow suit. Martha acknowledges them by holding up her young son (Prince Harald, the future/current King Harald V), and he waves to the men in the boats as they sing. This really did happen! 
• The show reminded me of a children's book I read and loved as a kid -- "Snow Treasure" by Marie McSwigan -- about how the Norwegians managed to smuggle millions of dollars in gold bars from the national reserve out of the country, right under the noses of the Nazis, by using children on sleds as cover. Also based on a true story!  Anyone else ever read it? 

We also watched Ken Burns's three-part documentary, "Hemingway," about the famous writer, also on PBS this month. (I've never read much Hemingway -- but "The Sun Also Rises" was, I think, the first novel I read in my first-year university English class -- 20th-century literature, I think it was called.) 

I stayed up to watch the Oscars (again) -- even after I considered setting the PVR and watching my regular Sunday night shows instead. 

We recently stumbled onto (and started watching) reruns of "Soap," which I watched faithfully when I was in high school in the late 1970s... it now comes with a content warning!! lol  It was very controversial in its time, and some of the content is politically incorrect these days, but it was a groundbreaker in many respects (for example, the character of Jodie Dallas, played by a young Billy Crystal, was one of the first openly gay characters on prime-time TV).  

And the first two episodes of season 4 of "The Handmaid's Tale" aired Thursday night on the CTV Drama channel (formerly known as Bravo -- three episodes were released on Hulu in the States on the same day). Part of me wonders (not for the first time) just how many times June can ALMOST escape Gilead?? -- it's getting a little monotonous.  But I've come along this far, so....  

Listening:  I caught up on the last couple of most recent episodes of The Full Stop podcast -- including one with author Kate Kauffman, one with Jody Day, celebrating Gateway Women's 10th anniversary, and one with just the three hosts chatting, which is always fun to listen to!  

I follow supermodel Paulina Porizkova on Instagram, and I listened to an interesting (and very frank) conversation she had recently with Ashleigh Banfield about aging, the death of her estranged husband Ric Ocasek of The Cars (and the fallout from that, including finances), and more. (I gather it was aired on TV;  there are video clips available, but this link is a sound file of the entire conversation -- or almost the entire conversation;  it cuts off rather abruptly at the end.)  I was thrilled to see her at the Oscars as Aaron Sorkin's date, looking gorgeous as always! 

Following: Bruce Arthur's columns in the Toronto Star about the pandemic and how the Ontario government is (not) handling it. Unfortunately, they may be behind a paywall, but if you can read them, they are excellent.  (And scathing, lol.)  

Buying (besides books, lol):  Ordered some (more) essential oils from Saje to replenish my supplies (I previously ordered some, including some Christmas scents, during from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales last November. Haven't been to a store in more than a year now, and probably won't be for a while still.  

I also ordered a nifty squeegee/window cleaning kit, as recommended by my house cleaning guru on Instagram, @gocleanco. ;) It was on back order when I ordered it, but should be here in a few weeks. I can't wait to try it out on our balcony doors, and maybe even on my nemesis, the shower cubicle!  

And I ordered some chequebook registers. I don't write many actual cheques these days, but I still keep track of all our debits & credits/deposits -- what's going in and what's coming out -- in a paper register (and balance it every month or so). (Hey, my dad was a banker! And I worked as a teller at a credit union one summer while at university, too -- at a time & place when we were still using paper debit and credit slips...!)(And yes, I CAN get it to balance! -- sometimes...  lol...) When I was working, I would just go downstairs to the bank branch and request one from one of the tellers. Even before I lost my job (summer 2014), it was taking longer and longer for them to hunt one up for me. 

Then we moved here in April 2016. I went to two different branches of our bank here, trying to explain what it was that I wanted to clearly bewildered young tellers, raised in the age of Internet banking, who had never heard of such things. Thank goodness at the second branch an older teller overheard me and came to my rescue. Apparently the branches no longer stock them (!), but she was able to order me a bundle via the bank's website. The last one from that batch is almost completely filled in... I found where to order new cheques on the bank's website, but not the registers. I wound up ordering some from (guess!)  Amazon.  Hopefully they'll last me at least another five years. Apparently some people now use Excel for this purpose, but I'm not very well versed in that program. Sigh... 

Celebrating: Dh's 64th birthday, mid-April  :) -- his second during this pandemic. This time around, I managed to buy him a proper birthday card (pre-lockdown) and (Eating/Drinking) we baked a chocolate cake (from a mix we had on hand in the cupboard, with icing from a can... it was still pretty good!). 

Mourning: The death of yet another one of the Bay City Rollers, the boy band of my youth -- my sister's favourite, lead singer Les McKeown, at the way-too-young age of 65 (on top of bassist Ian Mitchell last fall, age 62, and founder Alan Longmuir in 2018, age 70). See my recent post, here. Humming:  BCR tunes in the shower since then! 

Enduring: A last blast of winter, with snow flurries two days in a row last week (followed immediately by temperatures in the high teens)(Celsius = mid-60sF).  This past week has been mostly grey & rainy.  Gotta love Canada in the spring...!  

Smelling: Cannabis. :p  It's nice to be able to open the balcony doors now that the weather is starting to be nicer -- but some people are obviously using the opportunity to sit out on their balconies and indulge. (More noticeably so than the previous springs that we've been here since the stuff was legalized.) Sigh... 

Wearing:  Brought out the short-sleeved T-shirts when the weather turned warmer -- only to have to add a cardigan when it got cold again. (Soon! Soon!!)  

Trying (and failing):  To get up the motivation to start walking again regularly...!  

Wondering:  If and when things will ever return to some kind of normalcy. :(   It's been a very LONG winter/year!  

Wanting:  The people I love to stay safe while the new virus variants run rampant and vaccines slllloooowwwwwlllly roll out...  

Loving:  That I seem to have found my reading mojo again. (For now, anyway...?!)  

Feeling: Like I'm languishing. Not looking forward to (eek) Voldemort Day. The ads and emails have been flooding my TV screen and email inbox for a few weeks already, since Easter.  

But, it's May!  Yay!! 

"The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett

Two years ago, I was looking forward to attending my first meeting of the book club run by the local library, where we'd be discussing "The Alice Network" by Kate Quinn, which I'd recently read on my own. My happy anticipation over (finally!) getting to be a part of a real live book club was somewhat tempered when I learned the name of the next book I'd be receiving at that meeting -- a novel called "The Mothers" by a young, first-time author named Brit Bennett. 

"What are the odds, right?" I complained in a post on this blog (which I titled "The mother of all book dilemmas ;)" ). "Just one more reminder of what I am not. :p "  (I also said:  "Yes -- I am ashamed to admit -- I am literally judging a book by its cover/title.") 

As luck (?) would have it, there was a huge snowstorm the night of the book club meeting... the meeting was cancelled. I never went to the library later in the month to pick up my copy of "The Mothers" and didn't attend the next meeting either, where it was discussed. I finally got there, three months after I had first planned, and happily read books and attended meetings for a full year... until they were cancelled by COVID-19. 

*** *** *** 

I found myself thinking about "The Mothers" when I heard that Brit Bennett had a new novel coming out last summer called "The Vanishing Half." It quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed books of 2020. I will admit my interest was piqued when I heard that it was about the complex relationship between twin sisters.  I've always been fascinated by twins and other multiples -- and I wrote about this in a couple of early posts on this blog, here and here.  As I said then: 

...my sister & I were close enough in age (21 months apart) & looked sufficiently alike (especially when were little, although we never really saw it -- and our personalities were certainly not the same) and, when we were younger, dressed alike, that many people would mistake us for each other & ask whether we were twins.

I already had a copy of "The Vanishing Half" in my TBR pile when it was chosen as the first pick of the new online book club I recently joined, to be discussed at a Zoom meeting early in April. (The organizer dubbed it the "Clever Name Book Club," assuming that we'd choose another permanent, clever name... so far, it's still the "Clever Name Book Club," and I'll use that title here until we come up with something different/better, lol.)  

"The Vanishing Half" is the story of twins Desiree and Stella Vignes, who grow up in the tiny community of Mallard, Louisiana, where everyone is black, but light skinned, and dark-skinned people are shunned. Their father is lynched in front of them when they are children. At 16, they run away together to New Orleans... and then their paths begin to diverge, driven by their different personalities. Stella gets a secretarial position after "passing for white" at the job interview. A while later, she disappears in the middle of the night. Desiree moves to Washington, D.C., marries "the darkest man she could find," and later returns to her mother's house in Mallard with her daughter, Jude. Years later, Jude is working as a server at a Hollywood party when a chance encounter changes her life -- and many others. 

I found the book interesting but a little slow to get into at the start, as the characters and situations were established. Then, somewhere around the middle, things got REALLY interesting, and I zoomed through the latter two-thirds in a single afternoon/evening.  There is lots and lots to think about here:  questions of identity, the different roles we play (acting/performance), creation and reinvention, visibility and invisibility, the push and pull of family relationships, secrets and lies and the toll they take -- and, of course, the lasting impact of race, which influences everything in the story. 

4 stars on Goodreads. I'm looking forward to our book club discussion. (And thinking that maybe, just maybe, I will give "The Mothers" a try...)  

This was Book #15 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in March), bringing me to 42% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 8 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books."