I am thinking about getting a different device than a kindle for my e-book reading.
Kobo? Are there any others? Suggestions and commentary are welcome on this topic.
As of mid-month, I had not completed reading a single book. What was I doing instead? Up to Nov 4th I was door knocking and/or obsessing about the election. On Nov 4th I was in the polling place all day as an election officer. On Election Day it’s not possible to concentrate on reading, as there are usually a steady stream of voters.
Then we had 6 days to celebrate our wins, until the federal government reopened. Yes, we all knew we would not get what we wanted from the government shutdown but it was super important to put on high blast what was going on. You can read elsewhere about the nefarious things in the bill to reopen the government, and I mean BESIDES gutting the money for health insurance. Since then I’ve been dealing with medical stuff I put off until after the election. And my brain has been stuck in Youtube mode. Must get out of the rut.
The other thing halting my reading progress was that the ONE BOOK that I needed to read before book club on Nov 24th was on hold FOREVER for the kindle version. I was trying to read it in physical copy. I find it difficult to read a real print book because I now do most of my reading in the middle of the night, on a dimmed kindle screen. Reading a print book requires a blazing lamp and sitting upright.
I managed to finish 4 books this month, two fiction and two nonfiction = 1,224 pages. I am satisfied with that outcome. There were three more that I read a few pages of and decided not to read. I am not even counting them as DNFs because I basically didn’t start them.
Book 1
Why measurement matters
The very first measurement, like the first word or first melody, is lost to time: impossible to localise and difficult even to imagine. Yet it was a hugely significant act: another addition to that nest of primeval consciousness that grew in the brains of our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago.
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| Measuring this morning's snowfall: 3 inches. |
Book 2
Tomoka, 21, womenswear sales assistant
When Saya sends a text to tell me she has a new boyfriend, I instantly write back: What’s he like? But all she replies is: He’s a doctor.
Book 3
Sunday October 19, 1919
I thrust open the taxicab’s door, and the moment my T-strap heels hit the pavement, a cacophony of city sounds welcomes me.
Book 4
1. The Grand Staircase
In the basement of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, below the Arms and Armor wing and outside the guards’ Dispatch Office, there are stacks of empty art crates.
The titles and authors revealed:
Book 1
Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants
By James Vincent
The text is 346 pages. Total with notes, etc 416 pages • first pub 2022
nonfiction history
I recommend this book, although it is a slow read. Perhaps no one else would find a book about metrology, i.e. measurement, interesting. But this book also includes examination of philosophies behind some systems of measurement, and discussion of the effects of measuring things. The final chapter about national and international standards was quite fascinating to me, although I read it SO quickly, in order to finish before the library snatched it back. And, get this, it includes information about producing a cup of tea! That bumped it up from a 3.75 to a 4.0 rating in Storygraph.
Book 2
What You Are Looking For is in the Library
Michiko Aoyama with Alison Watts (Translator)
253 pages • first pub 2020
fiction literary
For book club in November.
It should not have taken me this long. I had a slow start, and ended up enjoying this book, especially the last chapter. It’s like 5 short stories but the characters weave in and out of each story. The larger message is one that I have been hearing from many directions these days: be a part of your community; reach out to others.
Book 3
Harlem Rhapsody
By Victoria Christopher Murray
385 pages • first pub 2025
fiction historical literary
For TOS book club
This is a fictional portrayal of part of the career of Jessie Redmon Fauset, literary editor of The Crisis in the 1920s, and her relationship with W.E.B. Du Bois. For book club in December. We will have a lot to discuss.
Misogyny, racist oppression, white do-gooders, the importance of poetry, who gets to write whose story – these are just some of the facets of life broached in this book. In short, human beings are complicated, and so there is plenty for a book club to dive into.
Do we give a moral pass to a man who doesn’t ascribe to traditional marriage ethics but whose wife does? Does the man get to say with impunity, “I have different needs.” Do we give a moral pass to the woman he has an affair with? What if that man and that woman are spending their lives breaking down unfair racial barriers, fighting against the deeply immoral Jim Crow system?
Book 4
All The Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
By Patrick Bringley
240 pages • first pub 2023
nonfiction art memoir
This is a memoir with a most interesting perspective on museums and art and grief. Recommended by C.B. And now I recommend it to you.
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| Self portrait in The Broad Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Einstein in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh |
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