Are you really reading those books?

I was just checking out my list of books that I am supposedly reading on the ole sidebar.  And, I see I need to change these out.  To be honest, I have been reading the same books for months without getting very far.  It seems every time I sit down long enough to read anything, I start to fall asleep.  Hmmm . . .  I am hoping to remedy this over the Christmas holiday.

But what happened to those books I have on the sidebar?

1.  Keeping the World Away This is a book by Margaret Forster that I picked up from the library.  I thought I would enjoy it because I had really liked Forster’s novel, Lady’s Maid, a fictional biograpy of the maid of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  I guess the possible story of painter Gwen John did not have a strong enough appeal to me since I had never heard of her until I picked up this book.  So when the 2-week loan period at the library ended, this book went back to the library shelf.

2. Parenting Today’s Adolescent  I am still trying to read this one, but I guess I’ve been too busy trying to parent my own adolescent to spend much time reading about it.

3. The Solace of Leaving Early This is another book I picked up at the library because I read and enjoyed another work by the same author.  Haven Kimmel wrote A Girl Named Zippy, which is a quirky, funny memoir about the author’s upbringing in rural Indiana.  It is one of my favorite books.  Solace is well-written, and it has elements of Kimmel’s voice, but it is much darker.  So once again, when thw 2 week loan period was over, I returned Solace to the library.  But I like Haven Kimmel enough to give it another try . . . maybe very soon.

In the next couple days I’ll change out my reading list with what I am really reading.  Until then, maybe some of my cast offs will appeal to you, and you can convince me to read them.

2 thoughts on “Are you really reading those books?”

  1. Oh, I hope you return to Solace of Leaving Early! That was one of my favorite books of last year. There ARE some humorous sections, almost Shakespearean breaks in the rhythm between the nearly-crushed academic woman and the terribly sad theologian who is doing his best. I think it’s a far more honest book than Zippy, and I think her fiction far superior to her non-fiction. (I grew up in the next county, and though the incidents are humorously written, poverty is just too grave to treat it without reflection that way. My opinion, anyway.)

    Kimmel has a blog that is insane, really, and makes me laugh so hard I snort painfully. She is edgy and amazing in person– lotsa bite to her.

  2. Hey Denise,

    I appreciate your comments. I really want to get back to the Solace of Leaving Early, and your thoughts may push me that way.

    I read Secret Life of Bees over the Christmas holiday, and I finished the Memory of Running right after the new year. Secret Life of Bees seems sort of cliche now that there’s a movie based on it, but I enjoyed the book. Memory of Running was a memoir-like novel about a middle-aged man’s journey across the country on his bike after his parents died. He was going from RI to CA to retrieve the body of his dead sister. I think you would like it.

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