Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid

This book was a relatively recent Library Sale Shelves addition to my TBR pile and readers, this was the perfect book to give this blog a fresh start. I loved it. The writing is amazing and the story is rich with symbolism (including the meaning of the title) and themes that one could discuss in a college class or write papers on. When I finished it my first impulse was to go back to the beginning and start reading it all over again, and that's not something I typically feel like doing at all. It's a good thing my secondhand copy is in such good shape because it will move from the TBR shelf to a space in my permanent collection. Highly recommended.

This book is a good candidate for the Color-Coded Reading Challenge, but frankly I am not sure if the cover is a shade of green or a shade of blue. I guess for now I will put it as green. Let me know what you think!

Color-Coded Reading Challenge 2020

Bev at My Reader's Block is also hosting this fun challenge, which you can read all about and sign up here. Over the years I have really enjoyed finding books to fit this challenge, with brown being the most challenging overall. I'll update this post with links as I fill in the categories.

Read nine books in the following categories:

1. A book with "Blue" or any shade of Blue (Turquoise, Aquamarine, Navy, etc.) in the title/on the cover. The Refugees - Viet Thang Nguyen (see linked post for photo of book cover)

2. A book with "Red" or any shade of Red (Scarlet, Crimson, Burgandy, etc.) in the title/on the cover.

3. A book with "Yellow" or any shade of Yellow (Gold, Lemon, Maize, etc.) in the title/on the cover. Orphans of the Carnival - Carol Birch (see linked post for photo of book cover)

4. A book with "Green" or any shade of Green (Emerald, Lime, Jade, etc.) in the title/on the cover.
Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid (see linked post for photo of book cover)

5. A book with  "Brown" or any shade of Brown (Tan, Beige, Sand, etc.) in the title/on the cover. Gingerbread - Helen Oyeyemi (gingerbread is usually brown)

6. A book with "Black" or any shade of Black (Jet, Ebony, Charcoal, etc.) in the title/on the cover.
Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe (see linked post for photo of book cover)

7. A book with "White" or any shade of White (Ivory, Eggshell, Cream, etc.) in the title/on the cover. Selection Day - Aravind Adiga

8. A book with any other color in the title/on the cover (Purple, Orange, Silver, Magenta, Pink, etc.).

9. A book with a word that implies color in the title/on the cover (Rainbow, Polka-dot, Plaid, Shadow, Paint, Ink, etc.).

Mount TBR Challenge 2020 - Continuing in 2021

Bev at My Reader's Block is once again hosting this great challenge - you can read all the details and sign up here. I am going to commit to the Mount Kilimanjaro level of 60 books, and see if I can manage more.

1. Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid
2. Butterfly Skin - Sergey Kuznetsov
3. Orphans of the Carnival - Carol Birch
4. Behold the Dreamers - Imbolo Mbue
5. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
6. Daughters of the Samurai - Janice P. Nimura
7. Blindspot - Jane Kamensky & Jill Lepore
8. Selection Day - Aravind Adiga
9. Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin
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Pike's Peak
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Mount Blanc
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Mt. Vancouver
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Mt. Ararat
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Mt. Kilimanjaro
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El Toro
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Mount Everest
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Mount Olympus (Mars)

Happy New Year! I'm back!

Hi everyone. Sorry I was gone for so long. There were lots of life-related reasons, which resulted in me not reading very much at all for the past couple of years (ouch, it hurts to type that). I've really missed this blog, and of course reading, so I am going to start back up for 2020. You will see some backdated entries as I post about books I actually managed to read since my absence, with the exception of logging re-reads I did of books that have already been reviewed on this blog (there was some comfort reading going on). Of course, I'll log my reading going forward.

Longtime blog readers know I normally participate in lots of reading challenges. It looks like some of them aren't being hosted this year, unfortunately. For many reasons, I think I will forgo participating in too many challenges this year, and concentrate on 2 of my favorite challenges: the Mount TBR Challenge, so I can focus on TBR pile reading, and the Color-Coded Reading Challenge just because I really like it. I'll also keep track of the ongoing Planet Earth Challenge just because. Look for sign up posts later today.

Best wishes to all in 2020! Happy reading :)

This Is Where You Belong - Melody Warnick

Another fortuitous dollar store find. They really get an odd assortment of books at the one I occasionally go to just to poke around. The subtitle of this book is "The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live" and that sums it up nicely. I probably didn't mention this earlier, but one of the many reasons I didn't read much in 2018 and 2019 overall is a move, so this book is timely for me. To be honest, I love my new living place, so in a way this book doesn't apply, but on the other hand it has lots of practical suggestions for getting to know a new place (or even a place you have lived I for a while - there are sure to be surprises!). In fact, I have done some of them and it's been fun. So this book is great if you want to explore your home town, whether you're a new arrival or a native.

You Are A Badass - Jen Sincero

This book's subtitle is "How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life" and that pretty much sums it up - it's a self-help book about motivating yourself to fulfill your goals and dreams. It was ok... I never read that book The Secret but I do kind of know what the central premise of that book was, and to be honest this book seems to tread similar ground. It does have practical steps to take so it's not all theory, which is good. All in all I guess this isn't a bad way to motivate yourself if you have a goal in mind that you can't seem to take steps toward getting to.

This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else - Jon Savage

Subtitle: "Joy Division: The Oral History"

You probably don't know this but I am a huge Joy Division fan. I have loved their music since the beginning (I'm old, kids, ha ha) and I have enjoyed the relatively recent biographical movie chronicling how the band formed and their career up until the moment of Ian Curtis' tragic suicide. This book, published very recently, is a compilation of first-person accounts of the band's history, and it makes for fascinating reading. It really evokes the feeling of what Manchester was like in the late 70s/early 80s (not that I was there, mind you, just that the book is evocative) and the music scene that spawned this amazing band. If you have already read a lot about the band, there aren't going to be huge surprises or anything in this book, but it's still a fascinating read all these years later.
For some reason I was out of the loop of this author's previous book about the band, and I will have to rectify that. Highly recommended.

This Is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper

Yet another Library Sale Shelves book, but not a winner. I like to read contemporary novels as they read faster for me than, say, Jane Austen books do, and sometimes I just want to be in a relatively contemporary setting with modern vernacular and settings and stuff like cell phones and whatever. This book wasn't awful, but it just didn't grab me. Maybe because it was more about men, father/son relationships, and that sort of thing - who knows. My copy happens to be a movie-tie-in version with a photo of the cast on the cover, and they got some great actors for the movie, so maybe I should give that a try. I guess this one is a "meh" for me.

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All - Jonas Jonnasson

This book was found at a dollar store and it looked interesting so I picked it up and read it on two flights for a work trip. It was an entertaining novel and kept me quite content on the plane, which is as good of a recommendation as I can make for it. I liked the characters and how the story changed them (or didn't, as the case may be). I'd definitely read other books by this author.

The Girl on the Velvet Swing - Simon Baatz

Evelyn Nesbit is a name I have run across while researching my vaudeville-era obsession, so when I ran across this book in the library, subtitled "Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century," I had to pick it up. The crime central to this book isn't well known today but at the time it was the scandal on every front page. This book is really well researched and well written and the story is bizarrely tragic and doesn't quite end how one might expect. This book is well worth a read.