February 2025 Reading Report

This month I will start with a caveat.  I did not read all of Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau.  I read the part of the other writings that was A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.  Even that, it turns out, was a selection.  So I am giving myself half a credit for the book.

 

How was it?  It was interesting, if not always good.  Thoreau writes some very long sentences, but his observational skills are unparalleled and his love for his subjects runs deep.  It was, if nothing else, a detailed picture of what those rivers were like in his time.  Even then, he was perceiving the changes that humans were making to river systems and the environment as a whole.  While I like some of his other works better, I did enjoy this one.

 

My other nonfiction read of the month was Peter Gleick’s The Three Ages of Water.  I am talking about it in chunks in my Year of Water postings (more on Thoreau over there, too).  It traces water in science and culture from the beginning of the universe to the present day, dividing the ages as beginning to roughly the Enlightenment, from then until now, and from now into the future.  He outlines the choices that lie before us and the probable consequences of those choices.  Spoiler alert:  if we choose wrong, it’s going to be bad.  Gleick is a knowledgeable and engaging writer and the book was fun to read without sacrificing anything in the thought-provoking department.

 

I listened to one audio book.  I continue through the Elizabeth George mysteries, this time In the Presence of the Enemy.  I like them all and this one is no exception.

 

I have the best kids ever.  As proof, I will offer that my kid was in a bookstore, saw a book I needed, bought it, and sent it to me.  The book in question is A Stroke of the Pen:  The Lost Stories by Terry Pratchett.  There is no way better to fix a troublesome day than to spend some time in Pratchett’s imagination.  The stories in this collection were early ones, before the development of the Discworld.  They’re very fun, if not as polished as his later work.  They were mostly published pseudonymously (is that a word?) and were only discovered again due to a happy accident followed by some very hard work.  I am duly grateful.  (I feel like I need to add that there is a foreword by Neil Gaiman, a person who has moved himself to my Do Not Read list, but it is easily skipped.  Your mileage may vary.)

 

In my own ramblings in bookstores, a pleasure I try to limit due to the exorbitant expense, I bought Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss.  It is a beautifully written book about a girl with an abusive father who is obsessed with early English history.  A field trip with students essentially role-playing stone age villagers goes sideways.  Despite the dark subject matter, it was a lovely book.

 

One way I keep down the expense of books is by shopping library book sales.  They are much cheaper and my money supports libraries!  Plus you get to keep the books!  This is how I acquired Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams.  What a great book!  It’s set in Arizona in the 1980s and focuses on two sisters and their newly-diagnosed with Alzheimer’s father.  There’s something for everyone:  Indigenous people, environmental issues, cockfighting, mining, railroads, piñatas, orthopedic shoes, teen pregnancy, and dancing.  It’s hard to describe.  Sometimes it is so sad that I felt my heart breaking.  Other times, it was funny and joyous.  Overall, it satisfied.

 

February total:  5.5

Spring total to date:  14.5

2025 year to date:  14.5 

January 2025 Reading

New year, same reading habits!  I read or listened to nine books in January.  This post will be, perhaps, slightly shorter than usual because all the water-related books are part of my writing for Year of Water (check out my Substack https://janetsalsman.substack.com/  for details).

The three strictly water-based books were Water:  A Visual and Scientific History by Jack Challoner, Water:  A Natural History by Alice Outwater, and Longing for Running Water by Ivone Gebara.  All were interesting and there’s more in my Substack for those interested.

 

Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba also ended up having some tangential relationship to Year of Water, but that was not why I read it.  Hayes and Kaba are longterm organizers working for social justice and general goodness in our world.  This is their book explaining how our care for each other is a radical act in these disconnected and disconnecting times.  We create social change by doing big actions, yes, but also by making sure that everyone in our movements has food and shelter and rent money.  There is a lot to think about in their book and I would recommend it.

 

My church book group is reading Seculosity by David Zahl.  As a group we aren’t done yet, but I always just jump in and get finished.  Zahl’s premise is that in contemporary society we set up lots of things that are not traditional religions as our secular religions, whether that is parenting or love or busyness or food.  We do this, in his view, to try to prove to ourselves that we are enough.  He suggests that eventually all these things will fail us and that we need to revitalize our actual religion instead.  Not for everyone, but definitely a thought-provoking book.  I liked it.

 

Medieval history through a feminist lens?  Sign me right up!  Femina by Janina Ramirez shines light on some pretty amazing women who have been downplayed or erased from history due to being women.  Some of them, like Margery Kempe, were familiar to me, but I learned a lot.  The book is engagingly written and fascinating.  Each chapter begins with an archaeological discovery or a fortuitous look at a manuscript or artifact and then unpacks the life and impact of the woman involved.

 

In audio, I continue to listen to the works of Elizabeth George.  This month, I listened to Playing for the Ashes.  I liked this one better than the last few because I liked more of the characters, but they’re all worth a read/listen.

 

Deanna Raybourn is turning out to be one of my favorite writers.  I have liked every one of her books that I’ve read.  City of Jasmine is no exception.  Set in the 1920s, the book features an aviatrix/adventurer, an archaeological dig, and many shenanigans.  The book is stylish and snappy, the characters fun, funny, and clever, and it’s all good fun.

 

Finally, I read Kristin Cashore’s YA book There is a Door in This Darkness.  It’s a pandemic novel that captures the difficulty of that time and also a novel about grief, friendship, power, and love.  It is just beautiful.

 

January total:  9

Spring to date:  9

Year to date:  9