This IS NOT my 2024 best of list. I am just playing catch up for Wendy’s TBR Challenge. In a conscious effort to post on all the TBR topics for 2024, I put together a quick post for the previous 5 months.
Reading Note 80: August – Everyday Heroes
Hello, Stranger by Katherine Center
I became a bit obsessed with Katherine Center this year. I have yet to read one that tanked. In Hello Stranger the protagonist Sadie is a portrait artist who after winning a place in a national competition has a critical head injury when she has a fall in the middle of the street. When she comes to, the result of the fall is that she has aphasia – face blindness. Which, as a portrait artist, is a bit of an issue. While she is trying to navigate her new world, Sadie meets her grumpy neighbour Joe who somehow helps her through the various issues she is experiencing. And of course, they fall in love but not without their own issues.
Sadie has so many circumstances that go against her. An absent father, an evil step-sister, an ambivalent step-mother. A friend who seems supportive but is not at all, sometimes bordering on cruel. When Sadie gets into the portrait competitiion, Sue says to her “You’ve been tragically failing at life for years and years! We have to celebrate!” Sadie thinks “Tragically failing at life seemed a bit harsh. But fine. She wasn’t wrong.”
This month, I have decided to ignore the usual order, and I am backtracking to July’s theme of SuperWendy’s TBR challenge and I am going to post on the theme of What a Wonderful World. I will find a way to catch up on August and September at another time.
July – What a Wonderful World
Reading Note 78: In July, I found myself reading Kate Clayborn’s The Other Side of Disappearing. This novel is not the focal point of this TBR post but I will discuss it in short.
I am a big fan of Kate Clayborn with several Shallowreader posts proselytising about her books and I waited several months on the library holds list before getting access to this novel. It is a story about two age-gap half-sisters whose shitty mum has abandoned them. Jess has been caring for Tegan for many years, and now that Tegan has come of age, she wants to seek out her mother who ran off with a con-man. With the awkward involvement of two journalists, Adam and (secondary but important character) Salem. The four of them go on a road-trip, following the trail of the few postcards sent by shitty mum. The road-trip allows for the slow reveal of the characters motivations, soul-searching and psyches, as well as their relationships with each other. And of course, it builds up to Jess and Adam’s romance.
I was expecting a wonderful story, however, unlike most of my romance blogger friends, I was left unmoved by the novel. It was an OK story, I could see the complexity of the numerous characters development and their story arcs but it didn’t give me the joy that Claybourn’s other books have given me. If anything, it left me frustrated, as the storytelling felt disjointed which I will attribute to the function of the “he said/she said” structure where each chapter alternated the point-of-view of each protagonist, both of which were told in the first point-of-view and in a mostly linear trajectory.
I personally love two point-of-view/head-jumping romances where you get an insight into each character’s thoughts. The last decade (and more) trend towards a first point-of-view and only from one of the main characters, annoyed me immensely. It was like romance fiction had reverted to the 1970s and 1980s when this was the standard. I loved the 1990s which shifted the storytelling to allow for multiple characters’ perceptions of the relationship build. I am glad that we are now seeing a return to two (or more) perspectives, however it is like a pendulum. The he said/she said style of alternating chapters are jarring to read as they move from one character to the other.
At the end of last year, I once again committed to taking part in Wendy the Super Librarian’s TBR challenge. I don’t know if and where Wendy is posting everyone else’s posts but I rarely go to my old social media haunts (I still have accounts but I am rarely posting). I am not across the older apps these days. If anyone knows, or if Wendy is reading this :: waves wildly ::, I would love to know where I can follow along in the laziest possible way (because I know I can just click on everyone’s link on the TBR link but shhhhhhh!).
I have been too lazy to write full reviews with blurbs and plots synopses. Instead I am just giving you my irrational, emotional reader-reacts. Hold on to your hats. There will be swearing!
Reading Note 72:January– Once More With Feeling
The Only Purple House in Town by Ann Agguire.
This book had been recommended to me by many readerly friends. I had several false starts and I found myself dragging my feet rather than read it. I borrowed it from the library three times until in January, I fully committed myself to reading it once more with feeling. And the feeling was loveliness.
This story didn’t overwhelm me with intense with emotions, it didn’t make me swoon or get angry or cry. And though it wasn’t intense, it went deep into the feelings of being on the outer in your own family, to finding your own place at your own pace. The story was gentle and lovely, set in our real world and the paranormal elements weren’t so fantastical that I cringed (Yes – I am thinking of the Black Dagger Brotherhood et al., of yesteryears).
Happy New Year to you all! I hope these first few weeks have brought you all lots of calm, quiet and happiness. And if you love a party, I hope you have also had lots of loud, musical connections.
In what seems to have become my signature style, I stopped blogging in August of 2023. Mostly it was because I only read 2 books from August through to December whereas I read 93 books in the first half of the year, many of which I have already written about. During my August – December months, I was overwhelmed with three contract jobs and I found myself unable to read or write (here or on any social media). Even my viewing was limited to reruns of old favourites and TikTok favourites. Now let me go back to my books for 2023. This is purely a list and it is devoid of extra commentary. I may not have written anything further about my fave books but I have hyperlinked them back to my original posts.
I’m not going to list all 25 books here as quite a few were the set readings for the subjects I teach (yes – I am that special level of nerdy). Instead, I have chosen my best of the best list.
Unlike last year, I do not have a Best What-The-Fuck-Did-I-Just-Read book though I certainly had several worst What-The-Fuck-Did-I-Just-Read books (I am looking at you Jimenez’s The Friend Zone, and you’re not that far behind Bellefleur’s Hang The Moon) . However, I did have a best of What-The-Fuck-Did_I-Just-Watch movie. The Barbie movie captured me so deeply and profoundly that I went and watched it at the movies three times in as many weeks. I have tried crafting a blog post to describe the movie several times but I keep floundering. Perhaps that will be my next post.
Meanwhile, my plan for 2024 is to read whatever comes my way that captures my attention and hopefully I will be motivated enough to blog about. I will again attempt to take part in SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge. I will watch all the reruns of shows that give me comfort, I hope I stay riveted to TikTok creators who give me such joy – dance, cooking, urban design, cute critters and academic TikTok (very little booktok for me!). I have no plans on becoming a creator at this point but I am convinced that it is the most engaging of social media platforms in the current time, and I am there as Shallowreader despite their dodgy data mining.
A belated post which will cover my three months of quiet.
Observation note 118:Pain Again. I have come to realise that winter is not my best time to write. For many years now, I start with semi-regular posts early in the year, just to drop the ball when I actually have the most time to write. I think it is because I am a sunshine person. It drives me and invigorates me and even though it is usually quite bright in winter Sydney, it still is not bright enough for me. In Observation note 117, I had discussed my couple of months of pain, having just started limping after sciatic and intercostal pain. Well, it ends up pain likes the number three because I thought the limping was muscle strain with perhaps some arthritis in my ankle, was much more. As the x-ray showed nothing, I assumed it was arthritis, so I kept moving my foot, even going to a Fat Boy Slim concert trying to get circulation to counter arthritic stiffness. I eventually I got an MRI which showed my ankle was broken (gah!!!!), and possibly I shouldn’t have tried to dance (or walked or moved).
So I was in a moonboot for 8 weeks (!). This also kept me from driving during that time because it was my braking/driving foot. Housebound in winter is crappy but this year I was living with my mum and “caring” for her. I couldn’t shop, I couldn’t clean (lucky!) so we spent the weeks talking and watching old Greek movies and soaps, as well as spending time on mum’s weirdass tiktok feed (all octagenarians should have one!!!). This was much more complex than what I write here and for the most part I was deep in busy-ness in that time. I am happy to be home again and reading again while preparing for Spring semester teaching starting in a few days. The moonboot is off and I even went for a super-long walk on the weekend.
Meanwhile, throughout May, June and July, I managed to read 18 books. I won’t discuss them all but I will point out a few which stay on my mind. And I would stop reading now if you object to spoilers. Here are some pretty book covers to give you time to look away.
I tried to write this post in the depths of Autumn semester, when I rarely have time to spend time reading for pleasure nor much time to blog. I failed. Instead, I have finished it after the last week of classes.
Observation Note 117: Pain.I unwisely took on an overwhelmingly large teaching load in February. I had nothing offered to me in Spring semester last year, leaving me stuck doing some contract work in road safety education which is totally fine but not what I want to be doing. So when I found myself drowning in offers in February, I decided a heavy teaching load was fine as I was feeling strong and healthy in February (despite the plague having finally befallen me). I was fine until I literally fell off the end of my bed injuring my back. I lay on the floor for half an hour, unable to get up, with hubs away on a work trip and my son taking a long hot shower. I was calm but winded. I couldn’t call out and my phone was nowhere near me. When my son finally came through he freaked out, helped me into my bed, checked me for breaks, concussion etc. But in the end, we decided I was just winded. I limped and was bruised, I saw my doctor who agreed with me. I felt mostly fine until a fortnight later when I started the gargantuan task of marking 170 student essays and then my whole body went to pot. Sciatic pain I had never experienced on my right hand side took hold of my life and pierced me with spasms and continues to do so. Weeks later I injured my ribs while I was doing some gentle gardening, giving me more grief and the inability to breathe deeply. And then last week I injured my ankle just by standing up. No rolls, no trip over, nothing. Once again, I am off my feet, because of pain, but I can’t lie down because of my ribs, and I can’t sit because of the sciatic pain. Because life needs to come in threes when it hurts. I found that I could not sleep, mark, function, at all. So, with all that, there is little surprise that I only read two novels in April, and one text book on web usability which is set reading for my students. No surprises, I won’t be discussing the text book.
Along with being late posting my April books, I also have spoilers because when I am in pain, I have not filters. At all. You are warned. Look away. Especially for the schmoushy fab Harlequin I discuss in Reading Note 65 (I wanted to end on a happy note).
Reading Note 64: Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path. Let’s start with the blurb: Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home and livelihood is taken away. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.
The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
For many of you who have been reading my blog for a long time, you will know how much I hate camping and the fact that Raynor Winn and her husband choose to camp wild while they walk the UK’s South West Coast Path when they were rendered bankrupt and homeless was nearly the worst nightmare possible for me (pipped to the post by the thought of plummeting to my fiery death on a plane though that would be quicker torture than camping, right?).
In my attempt to write a post every month addressing SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge, I am mentioning ever-so-briefly the one and only Unusual Historical I have read this year (in February). Having seen so many readers laud this book, I feel that I am an outlier. And a heads up – the blurb to this book is longer than my commentary.
Reading Note 63: India Holton’s The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels.
A prim and proper lady thief must save her aunt from a crazed pirate and his dangerously charming henchman in this fantastical historical romance.
Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She’s also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it’s a pleasant existence. Until the men show up.
Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he’s under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake. Never underestimate a woman.
When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her–hopefully proving, once and for all, that she’s as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.
Sooooo….this paranormal historical romance novel was a rather unremarkable read for me. Floating houses, strong magic women, enemies, foes, lots of tea drinking and rules of decorum? I felt like I should have loved this book but instead I gave up after ten chapters (I think?) when a house lands in a field where Cecilia is sparring with love interest Ned Lightbourne. I skim read the rest. My biggest impression is that I had this book on my TBR since 2021. I feel let down by the nearly two year wait. I couldn’t lose myself in the story.
PS After I wrote the above paragraph, I thought I would return to my GoodReads entry and this is what I wrote:
I liked the concept, I liked the way the chapters were introduced, and it was rather clever however the cleverness overwhelmed the story and I ended up skimming the second half of the book. That said, I really liked the last chapter. Jolly library ending and all that.
I guess that I couldn’t even remember that I thought it tried for cleverness. This may have been its downfall. Oh and the romance….totally forgettable too. I gave it two Goodreads stars.
Being in the thick of Autumn Semester plummeted my recreational reading to a dismally low seven books (though during lockdown years, this would have been quite the achievement) across the month of March. This thick of it includes making time today to write this post despite having nearly 200 assessment submissions waiting for me to mark. So I will be quick!
Observation note 115:Moral to the story is “do not read books when you are overwhelmingly busy”. Of the seven books, I rated none of them above a 3.5/5 stars. At best, I was only partially engaged, and at worst, I was bored and annoyed. So why did I even bother to read the books? Well…they were all library reservations which I had waited for months upon months for them to arrive. They had all been on my TBR for a long time, and some of them I had deferred from borrowing several times, so I gave up and just borrowed them at a bad time instead. I realise this is due to my own reading baggage*. Despite knowing I was strapped for time, I persisted where I probably should not have. I think that I did most of the books a disservice. I hope to post about some of them in the next week or so (after marking has been completed). I have drafted notes for the other books I read in March but I will only discuss one in this post.
Reading Note 62: Richard Fidler’s The Book of Roads and Kingdoms.
The blurb: A lost imperial city, full of wonder and marvels. An empire that was the largest the world had ever seen, established with astonishing speed. A people obsessed with travel, knowledge and adventure.
When Richard Fidler came across the account of Ibn Fadlan – a tenth-century Arab diplomat who travelled all the way from Baghdad to the cold riverlands of modern-day Russia – he was struck by how modern his voice was, like that of a twenty-first century time-traveller dropped into a medieval wilderness. On further investigation, Fidler discovered this was just one of countless reports from Arab and Persian travellers of their adventures in medieval China, India, Africa and Byzantium. Put together, he saw these stories formed a crazy quilt picture of a lost world.
The Book of Roads & Kingdoms is the story of the medieval wanderers who travelled out to the edges of the known world during Islam’s fabled Golden Age; an era when the caliphs of Baghdad presided over a dominion greater than the Roman Empire at its peak, stretching from North Africa to India. Imperial Baghdad, founded as the ‘City of Peace’, quickly became the biggest and richest metropolis in the world. Standing atop one of the city’s four gates, its founder proclaimed: Here is the Tigris River, and nothing stands between it and China.
In a flourishing culture of science, literature and philosophy, the citizens of Baghdad were fascinated by the world and everything in it. Inspired by their Prophet’s commandment to seek knowledge all over the world, these traders, diplomats, soldiers and scientists left behind the cosmopolitan pleasures of Baghdad to venture by camel, horse and boat into the unknown. Those who returned from these distant foreign lands wrote accounts of their adventures, both realistic and fantastical – tales of wonder and horror and delight.
Fidler expertly weaves together these beautiful and thrilling pictures of a dazzling lost world with the story of an empire’s rise and utterly devastating fall.
Way back in the Before Times, I named Fidler’s Ghost Empire (Reading Note 10) not only as my favourite book of 2019 but in my Top 10 books of all time. Richard Fidler is a radio presenter on the Australian public broadcaster ABC where he conducts these sublime hour-long interviews with relatively unknown but incredible people (on the rare occasion he will interview someone famous but only if they are amazing like his interview with Angela Lansbury). A few weeks earlier, a friend of mine asked me who would I invite to my ideal dinner party and Fidler was on my very short list. So when I heard that he would be the first author at my local (and reknowned) bowling club’s new monthly book group (interview with an author), I grabbed my friend Monica and I was there with bells on!
Unlike the last three months, my reading has slowed down as I am back at work and prepping for the teaching semester. However, I still managed to read (nearly) 18 books, including two books which I DNF’d – I am going to argue that reading more than 25% of a super long book counts, especially as I had to tolerate reading a book that already is boring or annoying me. Notable books which I won’t go into detail include Lea Ypi’s Free: A Child and a Country at the End of the World on living through the Albanian shift from socialism to the “free market”, David Sedaris’s Happy-Go-Lucky with a fresh series of essays including the essays on his difficult father’s death, and only one reread – Lauren Layne’s Walk of Shame which continues to be delightful and flighty reading fun. So here are my favourite five starred books for this month:
Reading Note 58: Emily Henry’s Book Lovers. I didn’t know what to expect from this book. I hadn’t read the blurb before I picked it up, and I usually avoid books with bookaholic characters (LOL – so much for readers wanting to see themselves represented in books). Nora Stephens is an urbanite. She loves her city, she loves her job, and she is not one to go on holidays. She has this small problem with (ex)boyfriends who all seem toleave her for women who live in small-towns and she is not a fan of small-town romances. However, her pregnant, younger sister Libby (named for the library app perhaps?) coerces her to spend a month in a small-town which is where her sister’s favourite book was set. Annoyed but loyal to a T, Nora agrees and joins her sister. The irony is that she keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, an editor she knows from New York City. The story unfolds beautifully. Nora is revealed as being still-waters-run-deep, and has so many levels of worries and anxieties. I love the way that she and Charlie found commonalities in their life aims but also stuck to their own convictions, until the end moment (no spoilers but I did like the ending).
This book does get a bit meta with its mentioning of popular culture and book trope, yet it is done comfortably and the mentions fit the narrative well. Far from being clever add ins, they moved the story forward, and gave it richness. I would definitely reread this book and I certainly recommend it.
Shallowreader 