January 2021 Reading

I am doing my reading a little differently this year because I did not do a vision board or take a picture of all the things on my to-read shelf.  Instead, I am reading more or less without a goal to put the fun back in it.  And, to see what the results of this new method turn out to be, I will be doing my book blogs monthly with a photo of what I actually read.

 

So:  This month, I read five books, two nonfiction and three fiction and rejected one book as too boring to finish.  The first nonfiction book was Kyoto:  An Urban History of Japan’s Pre-Modern Capital by Matthew Stavros.  It was interesting, but not totally fascinating.  The bar for this kind of book was set pretty high by the Beijing book I read last year.  I’m glad I read it, but that’s all.  I don’t remember the title of the similar book I started about Korean urban history, but it was written in that impenetrable-because-I-want-you-to-know-I’m-a-scholar kind of prose that bores the pants off me.  (Digression:  it irritates me that “academic” books have to be written in jargon; if someone is that smart and educated, they should be able to get the bulk of their ideas across in clear English.)  I gave up after about ten pages and I am not sorry.

 

The second nonfiction book I finished was Peter Kropotkin’s book The Conquest of Bread.  I had been wanting to read it for some time because I was thinking about anarchism and he is The Guy.  It was a book that provided a lot of food for thought.  Some of his ideas were very… optimistic… but he writes from a perspective that is far more humane than what we have presently.  I liked it.

 

In fiction, I finished the last Tamora Pierce Circle of Magic book, Briar’s Book.  It was just as good as the others in the series.  Thumbs up.

 

Because I have a really cool kid (actually, I have two, but one is relevant to this topic), I get Terry Pratchett books for holidays.  Christmas brought me Raising Steam.  It was just as hilarious and deep and wonderful as all his work seems to be and I loved it.  I just like hanging out with the characters he creates and I love rolling around in his language.

 

Finally, I read The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.  Talk about beautiful language!  The story was wonderful, the characters both lovable and compelling, and just WOW.  Go read it.

 

Spring Reading Total:  5

2021 Reading Total:  5