Our House in the Middle of Our Street

  view from Abby Grind hike 2020 was not a great reading year for me. It wasn't terrible, but it was worse than the past number of years. I had focus issues, read a lot of books I didn't care for, and abandoned more books in this past year than I have in nearly my entire year combined. It was fairly frustrating, since all we had was time with the pandemic keeping us home and without many of our normal activities to look forward to.  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  - I started 2020 with finishing this absolute symphony of a book. I still think about this book regularly, and am making plans to read everything he has ever written (which isn't much, to be honest, because he takes his time). This WWII story is clever, tragic, intriguing, and descriptive in the most beautiful way-I still think of the wall of snails he wrote about and it *still* can take my breath away. I could have ended this post with just this book. Stay the course-the first 150 pages can be qu...

This is nearly 6 months after the fact, but better late than never. I wanted to write about our Cumberland vacation in July because I wanted to share this wonderful little town (and larger Comox Valley) with anyone interested in an outdoor-focused, local(ish) vacation.  We travel light, and expect most of our activities to be somewhat free (hiking, biking, swimming) with our money mostly going to a nicer Airbnb rental and a few treats/meals out in the week. We mostly make all our food, and that helps keep our costs low. This was a really affordable trip for our family of 4, and frankly, the majority of our money went to our lodging and the ferry ride (oof), our splurge was surf + boogie board, wetsuit rentals.  We found so many of these great spots from friends who had been in the area, or had previously lived within a 20 mile radius. Always ask a local!  With our large Europe trip cancelled because of Covid, I wanted to go to the Island because it would feel like we "wen...

  The Christmas book bin next to the tree As I'm finally getting down to the wire to create any last blog posts about book titles and whatever else, I'm realizing that although I felt I didn't read as much (and my Completed amount says so), I realize I did still manage to finish quite a bit of reading even though it was about 40 titles short compared to other years. I'm okay with that; 2020, the year of unmet expectations! The lost focus was real.  Did any of you experience the inability to read deeply this year? Or did you plunge into the hobby ever-deeper, reading more than you would in a normal year because there was so little to do outside our homes? I hope it was the latter!  The Color of Compromise by Jamar Tisby -  This was probably the most interesting and important book I read all year. It's a look at the Christian church in America's complicity role in racism throughout American history. It. Was. Fascinating. Tisby is a Christian who presents the read...

  Canoeing down Pitt River in Pitt Meadows  This is a good spot to stop you---before I'm even ahead-- and tell you that by putting off the reflecting on these books before months have passed, that I don't remember all the details now. When I talk about a book with someone, I can typically remember the general jist, whether I liked it or not, and how I *felt* reading it (or completing it). This is what I can offer you right now, in these reviews. Some, I will not remember much detail, but the jist.  The Tradition by Jericho Brown - This book of poetry was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner, so I knew I wanted to check it out after I heard Brown on the On Being podcast and was entranced by his conversation. I remember liking this book of poetry but not loving it. It was mostly about the body, and it's connection to the world in many different ways.  Master of None by Jordan Raynor - This is the second book of Raynor's that I've read, and I enjoyed both of them. I had my l...

  late summer beach time with long-time friends Well, we are already down another month in 2020. It is September. The year where time is so bizarre it's equally surprising that we're rotating into Fall and wishfully hoping we'd fast-forward into a new year with better realities. My attention and focus has taken such a hit in the last 6 months that I barely have any books to share, so I have to double up months for my list to look normal.  The pandemic (et al.) has affected everyone differently, but my lack of ability to read deeply, or well during this time has been an interesting shift in my normal life. I expected things to look differently.  Now, each book feels like a small victory! Over the last month, I've felt a shift in my ability to consume literature; it's creeping back. I'm starting a lot of books but trying to really push through the sleepiness, distractions, and restlessness that have marked my reading year.  *Edit in December* The inability to com...

Showing a page from "The Little Book of Lykke" by Meik Wiking I feel behind in my reading. The libraries have recently reopened two weeks ago and I now have a stack of three books I can't wait to read, and yet, I'm struggling to read them. My brain won't sit still long enough to relax into a book. It has nervous energy and I'm finding sometimes reading feels like a chore. There is so much going on in the world and reading is my happy and relaxed place; somehow the firm boundaries of my mind have been disrupted and distressed to the point of just shoving away the comfort foods of words and paper and turning off the light instead.  This looks like a big list, but it is two months worth, and most of it was either already half-completed, or read aloud to my kids. I recently led our kids' co-op in an Upper Level Book Club (gr 5+) with two of these books, also helping my reading on track. I know I'm not behind in anything (in what?), but at this point in  y...

This has taken me much longer than I anticipated to get a book list together from my libraries' archives, type out, and fill out with links. The links are primarily from Massy Books , an Indigenous-owned bookstore in Vancouver, BC, but when they couldn't be found there they are on amazon.  I didn't give any descriptions of these books because you can click on them to know more, and there are  so many listed. Each and every one of these picture books and young adult (YA)  books,  have been read by my family. Yes, some of them are about political figures or events during the civil rights, but most are about black or people of color who have done amazing things: art, science, inventions, history makers or  fiction books with diverse characters.   With the Black Lives Matter movement happening right now in the US, I thought I'd share some that stood out to us in the past two years of our reading. Diverse books are important in any home, and every single on...