Category: Book

Though actually only about the digressions…

In the A & B post I mentioned the TPL 2025 Reading Challenge. So I’m going to try and do that.

There was also this thing on social media to read 12 books recommended by 12 friends. So I’m also going to try and do that.

Those are both “2025 goals.”

I also bought two “scratch off” posters: 100 Essential Novels and 100 Challenging Novels. There is no time limit on these ones!

I’m still trying to mostly read my shelves but occasionally, as I am sure to no one’s great surprise, I get sidetracked.

First: McFadden, Freida: The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Lie. When someone in the TPL fb group mentioned this one I giggled for a while. I had to read it. Listen actually because it’s an audiobook. It was ridiculous. Intentionally. It’s a satire full of all the usual whodunit tropes. McFadden has written dozens of books so it works for the TPL category: a book by an author who has written 25 or more books.

And then Rogers, Janet: Ego of a Nation. TPL category: a book of Canadian poetry. I’m not sure where I heard about her but she is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band here in Ontario. Poetry is not one of my usual genres and I think I just put it on hold as soon as I found it so I wouldn’t forget. I’m glad I did.

And then the big diversion: Lewis, Sinclair: It Can’t Happen Here. When I finished it I noted that it took me 38 days to read about 380 pages. It was written in 1935. The language has changed enough since then that it isn’t quite the same; large parts of it are the same. It’s all just a little bit different too. And I read slowly. Like really slowly.

And then, of course you have the fact that I had to take breaks while reading it. You know, a break after reading the part about the intellectuals fleeing the US to come to Canada. A break after the dissidents were all rounded up into “not concentration camps”. A break after the book burnings. And so on. And it broke my heart so much that when it was done I walked down to the library on a cold dark rainy night, so I could return it and get it out of my house.

And I couldn’t read anything else at the same time for fear I wouldn’t have the nerve to get back to it. So yea. That was a bit of a side-quest from the reading.

Maybe that’s enough for today and I’ll actually get to C & D in another post…. but I’m going to leave the title lol

October 2024 to January 2025

Yea, I made it to N I think by May 2024. Then fell out of reading again. And clearly out of blog-posting too.

In October 2024 I started the alphabet again; Toby says he’d switch his surname to Allen or something to be sure I would read whatever he wrote lol

Anyway, just a list to catch up with a line or two if I remember anything:

Allan, Clare: Poppy Shakespeare – it centres on day patients at a mental health facility in the UK. It was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award in 2006. It was really well done I think. And it’s been made into a movie.

Adams, Douglas: The Salmon of Doubt – This was okay but not great. I mean, lovely to find out I was right to like the guy and made me sad he was gone so soon. But I love his fiction best of all. This was also Book 1 of 2025. My goal at the outset was 25 in 2025 just to be sure I got back into reading again. I don’t think I’ll have any difficulties with this goal.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi: We Should All Be Feminists – Yes, yes we should. An amazing short read. I borrowed it from the Toronto Public Library.

Barry, Kevin: Night Boat to Tangier – I bought this out of the “last chance” box at Book City ages ago I think. I’m going to use it for the TPL 2025 Reading Challenge in the “A book with an unethical main character” category lol. Dark and emotional.

Burton, Jessie: The Miniaturist – Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam, this is not my usual read at all. I quite liked it though. Also a good example of why I don’t like reading reviews by “regular people.” Half of them “so unrealistic, she would never be so worldly in 1690 Amsterdam” and the other half “how the heck did she not realise X before she was forced to? I mean, how stupid is she.” Sigh.

Bradbury, Ray: The Halloween Tree – I hadn’t read this before. It was pretty nifty. A sort of children’s horror story. No photo. I got this one from the Library too.

I’ll update C and D (Feb – May 2025 with a HUGE break while I read – and took forever reading – It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis) soon I swear.