Sep '22 Wrap Up Pt. 1

So far, this month, I've finished 4 books. It feels like less than usual, but I am also slowly working through two big, fat books which takes some of my reading time. Let's look at what I have done.

Quietly In Their Sleep by Donna Leon - This is the 6th book in the Guido Brunetti series that I love. I went through the titles of the books and realized I've read about half the series. That's pretty good, considering there are over 30 titles. I really enjoyed this one. I thought it was going to be about people killing off old wealthy people in care homes, but it turned out to be a secret societies in the Catholic church and priests behaving badly.

Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema by Lindy West - My kid got me this for Christmas last year and it finally seemed like a good time to read it and mark it off my 50 by 50 list. I laughed out loud numerous times while reading. Even when she was ripping apart a movie I loved, I was entertained.

Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork - This is a YA thriller about 2 teens in Juarez, Mexico. Sara is a newspaper reporter who gets threatened for investigating what happened to her best friend who disappeared 4 months ago. Emiliano is her brother who has big dreams about becoming rich, who gets a chance to enter that life if he will start running drugs in crafts sent to America. It meets the Read Harder Challenge to read a political thriller by a BIPOC author.

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty - I read this to meet the challenge to read a book that won an award the year you were born. It won the Pulitzer in 1973, so that definitely counts. And it was interesting. Laurel is the grown daughter of Judge McKelva who needs to have an operation to save his eye. His second wife, Fay, who is about the same age as Laurel, doesn't want him to have the operation. She hopes it will just go away. I liked Laurel. I hated Fay. Their small town is peopled with all the usual suspects of small Southern towns. I got a kick out of Fay's family coming from Madrid, Tx, which they pronounced correctly (like Mildred, not like the city in Spain).

Okie dokie. There are the four books I've finished up to this point. It's been a pretty good reading month so far!