I’m late with this week’s post again. Last minute packing for a much needed trip to Arkansas to rest with family meant that I didn’t get around to writing when I had planned. Enough about my current situation — let’s talk about last week.
Last week was BUSY! In addition to my normal responsibilities, I had nightly rehearsals for the opera workshop performance, a recruiting trip to Hobbs, New Mexico, and a masterclass to accompany. It was a fulfilling week of music that I greatly enjoyed. However, it did have an impact on my reading life. When I got home each night, I was more interested in crawling in bed than cracking open a book.
What I’m Currently Reading
JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by Rosemarie Terenzio and Liz Neil (4:38 of 14:54). Can I find an excuse to do a little more driving for someone? I get to listen to my audiobooks while I’m on the road and I’m anxious to do some more listening! This week, I have learned about John’s time in high school and at Brown University. Of course, he was defensive about his father’s presidency and the men that surrounded him. Who wouldn’t have been given his personal history? I love reading about his friendships with both celebrities and everyday Americans. It seems that the Kennedy family longed to simply have the freedom to live their lives away from the public eye. John’s journey to India and his interaction with the people there was heartwarming and reminded me of why America — and the entire world, for that matter — absolutely loved John-John.
Owning Jacob by Simon Beckett (p. 193 of 343). I can’t decide whether I’m loving or hating this book. As I told you last week, I was fascinated with the premise: Ben’s autistic stepson was not the biological child of his dead wife — she kidnapped him from the delivery ward! The 6-year-old has now been returned to his biological father’s care, but Ben is obsessed with the child’s new stepmother and fears that the boy may be in grave danger from his father’s negligence. The story is fascinating and I’m deep into the obsession. What I’m not enjoying right now is the dark turn the book has taken. I’m not sure if I’m watching a man lose his sanity through his obsession or if he is going through a very sexualized mid-life crisis. There’s no question that I will finish Beckett’s novel because I have to know what happens. If all goes well, I’ll finish it up on today’s flight to Memphis.
What’s Ahead
As the year begins to draw to a close, all sorts of reading challenges are appearing online. While I’ve never finished a 52 book challenge, I do enjoy looking at the prompts and seeing how things will align. For 2024, I used The Booklist Queen’s Reading Challenge. The prompts were fun, but a lot of times I found myself stretching to make a book fit one of the prompts so I could push forward to the end. For 2025, I’m in the process of changing my approach. I have found The 52 Book Club and their challenge for the upcoming year. This group does a very good job of including suggested books for each prompt, so I’m planning to sit down in the coming month and have a basic plan for my year of reading. I think that my brain may benefit if I know what books I hope to read in each given month. It will also give me the opportunity to shift my plan if a book doesn’t strike my fancy at the moment rather than wallowing in a sea of uncertainty as I try to find something to read. I’m especially noticing that happens more frequently when my schedule gets incredibly busy. Having a plan makes it more likely that I’ll actually follow through.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy time with family and friends. Take some time to curl up with a good book along the way!
~Kennith
Reading for Me 
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