May 2025 Wrap Up
Back on May 15, I did the mid-month wrap up and reviewed 3 books. Hold on to your hat, because my reading picked way up in the latter half of the month. Let's go.
Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives by Gretchen Rubin - I read this entire thing in one day. At work. It's just a bunch of "aphorisms" she has collected over the years. After reading it, I'm not sure what "aphorism" means. This kind of read like "Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" but like, more literary. It was fine.
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green - I had to read this kind of slowly since it hits close to home. When I felt my anxiety going up I would set it aside for a few days. It's a very short book, and could probably be read in one sitting, but not by me. Green talks about the social history of TB, like, how in the Victorian era it was romanticized and people thought people with TB were fragile and beautiful (when they weren't vomiting blood.) Then they realized it was a contagious disease and it was less beautiful. The fun parts were the times he related any random thing with Tuberculosis. This person had it. That person studied it. Stuff you wouldn't even think of as being related. I felt like some of his info was off, like the one woman who was so upset that she had TB instead of cancer because of the stigma. lolwut? It is not like that in the real world.
In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante - The story behind this book is more interesting that the book itself. Ferrante was asked to write some speeches for a conference. In 2020. Needless to say, the conference was canceled. Since no one knows who Ferrante really is, another woman or women was going to read the speeches at the conference. Instead, they were published in this book. She is way smarter than me, so I had no idea what she was talking about much of the time, as well as not having her writing experience. I can't really relate to the drama of writer's block. It was fine.
The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe by Ann Morgan - Morgan is British, which made her experience of reading the work of people from former colonies of GB rather entertaining for this American. (The U.S. was once a colony of GB, but now we are also a colonizer. I recognize this.) Once I got over the expectation that she would be describing the experiences of reading the books, I enjoyed it. The book is actually about her experience of planning and executing the project of reading a book from every country in the world. She talks about the difficulty of finding books in English by every country. She ended up getting personally translated versions of unpublished works for some countries. At the time she did the project, South Sudan had been a country for less than 6 months. At the end, she does give a list of all the books she read, and the country they came from.
Don't Sleep With the Dead by Nghi Vo - This book follows The Chosen and the Beautiful by 20 years. It's 1942 and Nick Carraway is a journalist in NY. He has recently published The Great Gatsby to great acclaim (I realize the original was published in the 20s, not later, but this whole book takes liberties with reality.) He starts hearing Gatsby's voice, and then a demon (because those hang around in the skeezy places Carraway haunts) saves his life. A man from Carraway's past shows up trying to blackmail him for a thing from high school that Nick doesn't even remember. The demon turns out to be Gatsby back from the dead. Sort of. This a fever dream of a book, but it's beautifully written.
Cat + Gamer, Volume 7 by Wataru Nadatani - The kitties are back!!! The kitties get their owner to play hide and seek. One of them is a great hider, but the other keeps forgetting to hide her tail. Then the owner (she has a name, but I can never remember it. I'll call her Jill.) gets the news that her company is moving to entirely remote work. Jill is known at work for being on the ball and having all the "I"s dotted and "T"s crossed. When they move to video meetings, the cats get involved. Suddenly, she's seen as more human. She's trying to stay focused and her coworkers just want to see the cats. Lol. While trying to entertain the cats while she works, Jill discovers catnip. That's a pretty great scene. This was another fantastic volume in the lives of these ridiculously adorable kitties.
The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis - At some point during the month, I started this one. A few days later, I marked it as a DNF and took it back to the library. It was fine until the unplanned pregnancy trope showed up, and suddenly I knew how all the characters were related. I hate the unplanned pregnancy trope. It feels like such a cop out. I don't have real drama to write about, Oh! how about an illegitimate baby! Great! no.
So, I finished 9 books in May. I started a tenth, but I didn't finish it in May, so that one will be in next month's wrap up.