Reading Envy 190: The Good Life with Alex

Alex Wieckowski of of Alex & Books joins me to talk about books. Alex prefers books where he can learn something that can be applied to his life, and this will come across in his selections. He also talks about a book he has coming out in June about reading habits.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 190: The Good Life

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Books discussed:



Atomic Habits by James Clear
Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass


Other mentions:

The Reader's Journey by Alex Wieckowski
The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
How to Write Copy that Sells by Ray Edwards
Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath
To Be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers


Related episodes:

Episode 114 - Raised by Wolves with Karen Acosta
Episode 181 - An Awkward Woman with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 186 - This is Gravity with Jeff


Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Alex and Books blog
Alex's book The Reader's Journey
Alex is @alexandbooks_ on Instagram

New Zealand November: One Week In

   

Hot October: An autobiographical story by Lauris Dorothy Edmond
A Man Lay Dead: Inspector Roderick Alleyn #1 by Ngaio Marsh
One Whale, Singing (Stories From New Zealand) by various authors
Wulf by Hamish Clayton

It is one week in to New Zealand November and I am making slow progress. I'm still doing more research and requesting more books from other libraries, so I may spend Thanksgiving break reading everything that comes in between now and then!

Lauris Dorothy Edmond is a well known New Zealand poet. I have some of her poetry on the way but as of right now I have not read any. She wrote a three volume autobiography, and Hot October is the first. It is the story of her childhood up through her college years, coinciding with the second world war. Because she wrote detailed and open letters to her mother, she was able to include many of them with her actual younger voice. She is a normal person but living inside a country I don't know much about, so I thought it was interesting.  When she gets to the training college, she discovers a love for the theater, and encounters Ngaio Marsh who comes through as a guest instructor. (You can read more in my review.)

Ngaio Marsh is a well-loved crime writer from New Zealand, but most of her books are set in London. Her Inspector Roderick Alleyn series seem (from the first one, A Man Lay Dead) to be a traditional whodunit along the lines of Agatha Christie. The one I read had quite a few over the top characters and hidden clues, but not a lot of New Zealand to it.

I read the first few stories from One Whale, Singing - the stories are good and I'm starting to see what New Zealand literature has as themes. I will wait to really weigh in until later, but the publisher is about putting out literature by women, so most of the stories (if not all) are by female authors.

I'm about 100 pages into Wulf. Here's the publisher's summary:

Early nineteenth century New Zealand the great chief Te Rauparaha has conquered tiny Kapiti Island, from where Ngati Toa launches brutal attacks on its southern enemies. Off the coast of Kapiti, English trader John Stewart seeks to trade with Te Rauparaha, setting off a train of events that forever change the course of New Zealand history. Narrated by two English sailors on board Stewart's ship, these events are also eerily resonant of a more distant memory, stretching back into mythology, of the charismatic leader Wulf and an ancient lament. History, it seems, may be repeating itself.

What the description does not say is that the novel is also an homage to Beowulf, and written in an incredibly lyric style. Despite reading Beowulf several times in school, I'm not sure I have it internalized enough to see all the parallels. It does seem to also capture a specific moment in time - the first English settlers/invaders of New Zealand, which is probably the farthest back of any of the New Zealand novels that I have. It will be interesting to see where the author takes it.

Books Added July 2015

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
The Big Sea: An Autobiography by Langston Hughes
Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman
The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg

The Dornenburg and Ruhlman were birthday gifts. I have already made pancakes out of the Ruhlman!

I knew I would be seeing the VanderMeers when they were in South Carolina for Shared Worlds, and was very fortunate to interview Ann VanderMeer for the next episode of the podcast. I really enjoyed talking to her and hope you will enjoy that episode, posting next Tuesday.

Reiss is for my in-person book club, and the Hughes was near the Reiss on the shelf in the "African American" section of the used book store.  Mental note: check out all these divisional groupings of history and literature because they are taking books away from the "literature" and "history" sections where I might expect to find them.

Top Ten Books on my TBR List for Winter

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish; every week there’s a new topic to discuss and this week’s is:

Top Ten Books On My TBR List For Winter

Oh, man.  I am so excited for winter reading.  First there is that 2 week chunk of days off, and this year contains no traveling, no family, no visitors.  Other than getting ready for my class spring semester, I will have a few commitments.  I should be able to read a lot.  Add to that the Around the World in 52 Books Challenge that I'm participating in, and you have one excited reader.  Here are ten of the books I'm looking forward to reading in the next few months!

1. The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
I have previously enjoyed other books by Houellebecq, and although I have not read his entire oeuvre, it has been a while since I've read anything by him.  Looking through Amazon, it looks like something by him came out last year, and I completely missed it (Whatever is the title).  A lot of critics are praising The Map and the Territory, and it sounds like this might be one of the more significant works by the author.  I won't be reading it for my Around the World Challenge, despite the fact that he is French, living in Spain, because I have previously read work by him.  (I believe I'm reading Balzac for France!)

2. Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea
I loved The Hummingbird's Daughter, because of its blend of magical realism, Spanish language (while it is translated, quite a bit of dialogue is still in Spanish), and the healing powers of the main character, Teresa Urrea.  It looks like Queen of America has the same main character, who I will be happy to return to, and it also looks like it takes place along the border of Mexico with other countries (USA, Cuba, etc).  Even better - I recently won a copy through the GoodReads publisher giveaway.  Since I was going to read it anyway, getting a book for free doesn't hurt.  I'm also not planning on using this for my Around the World Challenge because I'd read Urrea before, but I might read it the same week as the other Mexico pick just for kicks.

3. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
I have already read Snow Crash at least once.  I think twice.  It is the pick for one of my online book clubs for January, and I am looking forward to reading it again.  When I re-read the Sprawl Trilogy when we did the Neuromancer readalong on SFF Audio, it was remarkable how much more I got out of it since I had read so much more science fiction in the past few years.  I'm expecting to have a similar experience at this point in my reading life with Snow Crash.  Except this time, I'm going to listen to the audio book.  Scott from SFF Audio claims it is one of the best audio books, and he would know!

4. Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
Speaking of audio books!  I keep hearing good things about Lauren Beukes.  She just won the Arthur C. Clarke award for her second novel, Zoo City.  I have audiobooks of both at home, waiting to be listened to.  The other thing that makes me excited about these particular books is that they are the very first audiobooks published by the new (2009) publisher, Angry Robot Books. They seem to be doing publishing in a way friendlier to the 21st century than most publishers - their eBooks do not have international restrictions or DRM.  In other words, they want us to READ them.  Thank goodness.

5. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
On the other side of that 21st century publishing coin, I will be happy to finally have access to Half-Blood Blues at the end of February, which is still technically the winter.  After all the acclaim (award nominations, award wins) and all the frustration in actually getting a copy, I want it more than ever.  (Want me to do something?  Just tell me I can't... Yeah, I'm one of THOSE people.)

6. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
This comes out in March, which gives me just enough time to read the two books by Winterson that I haven't read yet (see books 7 and 8! aha!).  Jeanette Winterson is one of my favorite authors, and my two favorite books of hers are The Powerbook and Written on the Body.  Such beautiful language.  This is her autobiography, and from what I've read (and from what I suspect just in her writing), it is bound to be an interesting and powerful story.  The title sounds like a question I've heard from my own mother.  Maybe Winterson and I have some things in common?


7. Art & Lies and 8. Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson
I don't actually know much about these books, I just stumbled across them at an amazing used bookstore in Asheville, NC, knew I hadn't read them, and purchased them on the spot.  I think I will have read everything by the author when I finish these two.  These are good candidates for reading during the December holidays, actually.  Her prose is beautiful, so I will be reading these with sticky notes in hand.

9. From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjon
In all of this international fiction reading that I am going to be doing, I am most excited for the books from Iceland.  I only get to officially pick one, and this is one of the many on my to-read list.  From the Mouth of the Whale has a winning combination.  Ancient culture!  Cold weather island!  Good writing!  Could someone find me a way to get paid to read books from Iceland and travel there as well?  Dream job!

10. The Old Man and His Sons by Heoin Bru
Another cold-weather-island book and possibly the book I'm most excited to read for my Around the World challenge.  It may also be the only Faroe Island work of fiction that has been translated into English.  I looked for a long time, and many are available in Icelandic but very few other languages. 

Part of me feels like I should include 1Q84 on this list, since I am still in the middle of reading it, and it is really great.  But I'm not sure I can look forward to a book I'm already reading.  What are you looking forward to reading?