Happy New Year! I hope that each of you have gotten your personal reading journey off to a good start with the beginning of 2020. As promised in my New Year’s Day post, I will offer brief weekly updates on Saturdays throughout the year as an accountability on my own reading in addition to the regular posted reviews.
I’m working my way through 3 books right now.
1) At the Wolf’s Table (Rosella Postorino). This novel is the latest installment in My Library Shelf project. For any new readers, I was challenged to read my way through a shelf of my local library that was chosen at random (with a few stipulations, of course). The shelf had to include at least one classic novel, a minimum of 10 unique authors, and no author could be represented more than 7 times. Unger Memorial Library in Plainview has a limited selection, so I had to bend the rules a tiny bit….one author (Terry Pratchett) has 12 books on my current shelf. Still, I’ll be exploring works by 13 authors in the process.
At the Wolf’s Table is the story of a group of women who find themselves commanded to serve as food tasters for Hitler in Nazi Germany. The women eat the glorious food prepared for the dictator and are then observed for an hour to see if they are the victims of poisoning. If they show no ill effects, the meal is taken to Hitler’s lair. I have about 100 pages remaining in the novel and will share my thoughts in an upcoming post this week.
2) Johannes Brahms: A Biography (Jan Swafford). Is it really surprising that I would begin the year with a biography of one of my favorite composers of the 19th century? I actually started reading this work several years ago when I discovered that my copy was defective and was missing over 150 pages! I finally got around to replacing the book earlier in the Fall semester and just began to re-read it while in Arkansas for Christmas break.
The Brahms biography will be one of my biggest reads for a little while – clocking in at just over 600 pages. I’m reading rather slowly and making notes along the way, so this one will probably remain a fixture in my weekly updates for a while. I’ve made my way through the first 75 pages of this fascinating examination of the composer’s life and work.
3) Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing and Hope (Karamo Brown). Audio books have long been part of my reading routine. I especially enjoy “reading” memoirs in this format when the author reads his own words. I first encountered Karamo as a cast member of MTV’s The Real World. Now better known as a member of The Fab Five of Queer Eye, his story is one of struggle, addiction, and triumph. I’ve got about 2 hours of listening left and should have it done early on my drive back to Texas on Monday.
So….I anticipate two reviews coming up in the days ahead that will give a little more detail about the books and my responses to them. Until then, continue to enjoy your own reading journey.
~Kennith
Reading for Me 