WWW Wednesday April 1, 2020

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Lord knows I have been trying to keep everyone on a schedule (for all our sakes).  So of course, I added reading to our daily routine!  Here’s what I have been up to in the reading category.

The Three W’s for WWW Wednesday are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Currently, I am reading Barrel Fever by David Sedaris which I am totally enjoying.  I have to say, I loved his last book of essays a bit more.  I think because they were about him and his family and because the last book was an audiobook that Sedaris read – and he knows the timing of his own jokes to really make them enjoyable.  I find myself reading this book with his reading in mind, getting the delivery he intended down, which really helps!

What did you recently finish reading?

Before this I read The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May.  This book was kindly sent to me by fellow blogger My Dream Walden.  From Goodreads: A life-affirming and perspective-shifting memoir of one woman’s walk in the wilds as she comes to terms with an Asperger’s diagnosis.  This book is a life-affirming exploration of wild landscapes, what it means to be different and, above all, how we can all learn to make peace within our own unquiet minds.  Very good read!  Thank you My Dream Walden for sending it to me!

I also read The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri.  I came across this book at a book fair and remember pondering it previously, so it only seemed natural to pick it up for a dollar.  And it was a dollar well spent.  From Goodreads: Udayan – charismatic and impulsive – finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty. He will give everything, risk all, for what he believes, and in doing so will transform the futures of those dearest to him: his newly married, pregnant wife, his brother and their parents. For all of them, the repercussions of his actions will reverberate across continents and seep through the generations that follow.

I also finished listening to Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski.  I was excited to listen to this book, but it happened again.  To me, I feel like the reader of this book butchered it.  I would read the story differently than the way he drawled through half, but overall, I did enjoy the story.  From Goodreads: Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol and women, “Ham on Rye” offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast’s coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan was before that.  If you have ever read Tan before than you she is capable of ripping your heart out, which is why I was hesitant to pick this book up.  Good news!  I came out of this one unscathed.  Bad news, I guess, I didn’t find the story really remarkable.  It was okay.  Makes me wonder what I am going to get the next time I pick up a Tan book.

I finished listening to Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo.  If you haven’t read my previous post on this book, it can be found here.  Overall, once you get passed the “OMG, did he just say that?” it was a good book, filled with well-developed and interesting characters.

I also finished The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.  Like other Kingsolver books, I enjoyed this one as well.  From Goodreads: Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goal of getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.


What do you think you’ll read next?

I think I saw an Ann Patchett book on top of my TBR pile – but we’ll see!

Happy reading!

Thank you, Sam, for hosting another WWW Wednesday!

20 thoughts on “WWW Wednesday April 1, 2020

  1. Will certainly look out for the Katharine May book. I was reading a Carl Sagan book but when the Asterix creator died I’ve been reliving my childhood reading the old comics about Gaul. Tried son on them but he just doesn’t seem to bet the humour. Look after yourself.

  2. First, I love this. As a literacy advocate, this is wonderful. I am currently reading Jen Hatmaker’s new book Fierce, Free and Full of Fire: The Guide To Being Glorious You. I recently finished Finish by Jon Acuff. I think I am going to read The Giver of Stars next … if I get distracted which is really easy for me to do … I may switch to something else.

    1. Awesome! Sounds great! You can jump in if you like too! I put the link to Sam’s WWW post where we all share – be great to have another reader in there sharing!

    1. Oh no! I usually just do a WWW post once a month – I guess it looks like I read a lot per week, but I don’t. This was over the month. 🙂 I’ll check yours out!

  3. I loved listening to Sedaris tell his Christmas elf story and his Billie Holiday impersonation… That, you couldn’t experience in a book…

    1. Yeah, I think I would do better just listening to his stuff. It definitely isn’t the same when I read it alone.

    1. They’re both good! If I had the chance to do it over, though, I would have read Ham on Rye instead of listening to it. Hope you like them!

    1. Yeah, it was good! Sometimes when I pick up a book set in a different country it takes me awhile to sort out all the different names, places, customs – you know, everything that is foreign to me. I didn’t get too lost with this one at all. Hope you enjoy it!

  4. I’m glad you’re still getting time for reading!
    I’ve got so many ‘want to read’ books, plus 3 overdue library books sitting next to my bed…
    My brain still wont stay focused long enough to read anything longer than a blog post or short story. That’s okay. My love of books wont go away, and neither will books. We’ll meet again😉😂💌

    1. You know I read a lot of people say that yesterday – they were having trouble sticking to their reading in the midst of all this. It is a lot!

  5. I have finished reading Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty. Horrible in my opinion. This is the first book of hers I have not enjoyed. I really enjoyed my most recent read, The Story of Arthur Truluv. I am currently reading The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less, which I am finding very helpful during our current circumstances. I read The Bean Trees years ago. Maybe it’s time for me to pick up one of Barbara Kingsolver’s books again.

    1. I got another one of hers at the book fair I went to – I do like her stuff and am excited to pick another one up again.

  6. I revisited Barrel Fever a couple of years ago, and I found that as an “adult” I wasn’t crazy about it. I once read that Sedaris doesn’t like it anymore either, It’s on my shelf. I think I’ll give it another read.

    1. to be honest, I’m not enjoying it as much either. At least, not as much as I thought I would. It’s not a big book, which is good. Just seems like it was sexually driven and I can skip reading about all that.

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