Book #5 of 2023 was The Hawthorne Legacy, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. This is the second in the Inheritance Games series. I finished the first one last month, and the third one is on hold.
Book #6 was I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown. The first chapter of this book is called "White People Are Exhausting." As an exhausting white person, I admit I had to fight feelings of defensiveness as I read this book. But I kept telling myself that it is a great opportunity to get such a clear picture of someone else's perceptions. I really get that it's hard to be in a minority, and the history of race in the United States is a brutal one. I will try to be less exhausting henceforth.
Book #7 was Rescue, by Anita Shreve. There's lots of rescuing going on in this novel. The protagonist is an EMT, and he meets a woman in the course of his job who needs rescuing. Then later others need to be rescued from her, and in the end there are still more rescues. I like Anita Shreve's books, and I just found that I have reported on six of her others on this blog.
Book #8 was One Day, by David Nicholls. Dexter and Emma meet in 1988, and the "one day" of the title is July 15th of that year. The rest of the book takes us to July 15th of each succeeding year, and shows us the ups and downs of "Dex and Em." I did enjoy this book, and I liked the structure. It went in some directions I didn't see coming. I understand there's also a movie.
Book #9 was Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding, by Scott Weidensaul. This was a fascinating read, with lots of great bird stories and ornithological name-dropping. It's thirteen years old, so it's not up to the minute on current birding culture, and there's a tiny bit too much griping about people who are more interested in adding to their Life Lists than they are in actually learning about birds. I highly recommend this book for people who are as obsessed with the topic as I am.
Book #10 was one of the best books I've read in a while, Solito: A Memoir, by Javier Zamora. Wow! Wow! This is the story of nine-year-old Javier, whose parents are in the US while he has been left in El Salvador, and how he attempts to join them. It is so full of vivid detail and emotion that I felt as though I was along for the journey. There's a lot of Spanish in the book. I've been studying Spanish for just over a year now, and I was pleased with how much I could understand, but since a lot of the point of the Spanish is to show the different ways the language is spoken in the different countries Javier passes through and how that affects everyone, a little glossary in the back would have helped me out. I felt as though I missed out on some of what was going on, just as I would have had I really been in this group in 1999. But oh, what a read! I could hardly put it down, and my heart was with Javier each moment. I couldn't help thinking of the Haitian children living some version of this drama right now.
