I'm so excited for January To Be Read List !!

 If you know me, you probably know that I do a lot of reading. My house is full of books. I'm also a part of three different book clubs, and then I also read for my own pleasure.  So, here are the books that I'm hoping to get to/finish by the end of January 2021, mostly in order of how they are stacked on my desk and when I need to read them.

How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith: Nearly every every every list of recommended books from 2021 has this book on it. I grabbed a copy from Literati's Atlas Obscura club (my first love in Literati is Malala, but they opened me up to a lot of books), and I'm about halfway through with this. Completely amazing prose about the places in our country touched by the taint of slavery. So far, it's wonderful, and exciting, and just infuriating at the same time. (The chapter on the Blandford cemetery incensed me, but in a good way.) I'm probably going to write a much deeper review on this for the blog next week. It is so good!

The Renunciations by Donika Kelly: I picked this up a few months ago with the Literati book club hosted by Roxanne Gay (one of my very favorite people), and never got around to reading it, so I'm going to try and start. I have read through the first few already and love the blackout poetry that she includes. I don't read nearly enough poetry for someone who teaches it. 

Rosewater by Tade Thompson: This is for Life's Library and I have until February somethingth to finish it. I'm about three chapters in. I am loving the premise of an aperture in the dome that heals people of all of their illnesses, but at the same time I wonder what the price of that healing will be and how the main character is related to it.

The Mindful Writing Workshop by Richard Koch: This one is for school. I picked up last summer hoping to get some ideas for my Creative Writing class, but I fell behind with it. Originally I picked it up as a Kindle book, but decided that I needed the physical book as I like to annotate and sticky note books, especially when they're for studying. I like to be a good role model for my students.

All the Stars and Teeth  by Adalyn Grace: One of my reading Discord servers (Life's Library Readathon! Amazing people and wonderful readers!) recommended this one. Another writing discord server (Yay That Writing Place) is having a reading challenge to read one book from each letter of the alphabet so I'm starting with this one.

Call us What we Carry by Amanda Gorman: I'm reading this with Malala's Literati Book club (another one of my favorite people in the world and also one of my personal heroes. I'm going through her Masterclass right now), but also by Amanda Gorman and Yay more poetry! Amanda Gorman was the beautiful young poet who read at Joe Biden's inauguration. I hope these are just as inspiriting.

Goodreads Links and what I've just finished reading.

 I read a lot. I read so much that my husband thinks I should read less, but I love the written word.  On my Goodreads page right now, it says that I'm currently reading eight books. Eight! That seems crazy to me, but when I review the list, they are books that I am "currently" reading, though some of them have been laid aside for other books, I will come back to them.

My mother and my sister- who read, but aren't "big" readers- ask me how I can keep up with eight books- or even three books- at a time.  This is how I explain it. People watch television series all the time, and they can keep track of three or four storylines a week at the very least. (My mom LOVES the soap opera, Days of Our Lives and records it so that she never misses it!) For me, reading is the same way. I can pick up a book and immediately remember the characters, the story, where we were going and what I was expecting.

I'm one of those people who will cry because of a book, who will hug a book to my chest because it is so wonderful or the character needs a hug. I'm a sucker for romantic stories, or stories where people grow, so my most commonly read genres are Young Adult and Romance, but I read practically anything put in front of me. If it's well written, the characters are well developed and the storyline intrigues me, I will read it.

So, some books that I have finished recently:

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo: Far and away 5 stars for this one. I would recommend this to everybody who wants to be a writer and I would love to teach this book. The character, Xiomara, is incredibly relatable in her fights with her (excessively) religious mother especially about what it means to be a proper young lady in modern day New York City. The way the character develops, and finds her voice and her courage make for a wonderful story. I also loved the LGBTQ+ representation- though I want to hear more of that story!

The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: Five stars! Again.. another book I would love to teach to my students, but most of all I think every teacher and social worker should read. This book had me looking at my students in a completely different way, and made me want to hug every single one of them. The way that Mr. Parnassus deals with trauma affected children is amazing, and the way that the reluctant social case worker, Linus, deals with his own emotional growth is incredibly well written. It's so wonderful to have a character that you're rooting for and then watch him grow a heart. I loved the philosophical discussions that Linus and Arthur have around the idea of moral imperative. It was perfect.

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller: Three stars, but mostly because I don't really like reading non-fiction too often. The writing is well done and pushes you forwards into the narrative quite a bit, but the reveal about the subject of the book, David Starr Jordan, and his philosophies was disappointing. I felt like I had been given a team to root for and then told that the team was involved in kicking puppies or something. I listened to this one mostly on audiobook (Thank you Life's Library for that!), but found myself putting it down - or turning it off- a few times. The ending was a bit redemptive for Miller, who weaves in her own memoir amongst the research on RSJ, but I still wasn't entirely thrilled with this book.

That's what I've been reading. What is currently on my desk and will get reviewed as I finish them:

For Jolebokaflod: Hubby picked Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells out of a stack of books that I already owned- since I didn't need to buy more books- for our traditional Yule book reading. I'm excited about this, since I love Murderbot!

From Life's Library: Rosewater by Tade Thompson: Only two chapters into this sci-fi story and loving the narration so far. Trying to keep with the LL accelerated calendar so I can participate in the discussions this time around. I'm not great at that!

Also reading: How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith: I'm already almost halfway through this book and loving the personal reflection and history of places that I will probably never visit, but which are so important to the story of slavery.