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