Reading In/Out 9-10-2025

I realize this usually comes to you on Tuesday, but I was sick yesterday. I thought about it once, and never again. Either way, I have news!

OUT

Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel by Claudia L. Johnson - I finished it! It took nearly two months, but I did it. I had to cancel all my events this weekend because I caught something, so I suddenly had plenty of reading time and no energy to do anything else. By the end of it, my book had fallen apart and is now prickling with post it tabs. I really enjoyed this. The overarching theme is that Jane was writing during a time of conservative reaction to the French Revolution. The focus on maintaining the patriarchal country house gentry and keeping society segregated by class, was the best way to ensure people behaved appropriately and were good, upstanding, Christian, citizens. Each one of her books tackles a facet of said society and shows its dark underbelly and how women in particular suffered from it, and how her characters were rebelling against it, even when it seemed like they weren't. I love being nerdy about Jane Austen.

IN

The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado by Holly Bailey - I have finally started another book on my 10 Oldest Books List. I sat down and blew through 2 chapters. Specifically it is about the May 20, 2013 tornado that hit Moore Oklahoma. It was the biggest storm ever recorded at that point (11 days later, its record would be broken by the El Reno tornado). This is the one that hit an elementary school and killed children. The first chapter points out that usually, tornados strike in the evening near dusk because the heat from the day is meeting the wet weather coming in and a tornado is born. But this one hit in the middle of the afternoon. It marked a change in tornado patterns. The author grew up in and around Moore. She was in NYC when this one hit, and came back to report on the carnage.

Now I Rise by Kiersten White - I'm still working on this one. I'm officially half way through now. It's really good. I'm enjoying the telling of it from each sibling's perspective. They are in different countries, dealing with different wars, but their thoughts still revolve around each other.

Sisters In the Wind by Angeline Boulley - I am halfway through this one, now, too. The first time I wrote about it, I said it was set 20 years after the first book. I was wrong. It's only 5 years. I couldn't remember when the first one was set and the characters from the first book had done so much in the intervening time that I thought they were much older. I'm enjoying this one, as well.

Navigating Difficult Situations in Public Libraries by Margaret Ann Paauw - I'm still picking away at this one. I read a couple of chapters last Saturday. It's helpful, but kind of boring.

So there it is. I finally finished that book!