What I Read: November

We got Carter a Dog Man (Hombre Perro) book at the book fair and he was so excited about it, he read it all night when we got home. He prefers to read in Spanish because English is "tricky". The next morning he woke up at 6:30am to read more and read all morning once he was dressed and ready for the day. When he got home from school I asked him if he wanted to read some more and he said, "I don't want to finish it yet because I want to make it last longer." Now, that's one of the best feelings in the world! Having a book that is so good you can't stop reading, but wanting to stop reading because you don't want it to end. I remember feeling that way when I was reading the Harry Potter books as a kid and I love it when I find a book that good now! None of my books this month were quite that good, but I did enjoy them all. 

Books:

• The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri- I love Lahiri so when I saw this book at Goodwill, I snatched it up. I was a little disappointed because it was a lot more depressing than her other books and I wasn't quite prepared for that. She has a way with writing about people where you feel how helpless they feel over their lives. In this one it really weighed me down. There was a lot about India's history that I didn't know and this sparked my curiosity. Even though I didn't like this one as much as her others I've read, I kept coming back to the characters in my mind.
  

• In Pictures and in Words: Teaching the Qualities of Good Writing Through Illustration Study by Katie Wood Ray- This was a book all the kindergarten teachers were raving about back when I was teaching. I ordered it to read when Carter was younger so I could help him with writing through illustrations before he could write letters and words. I thought it would be a good one to read to help me inform my teaching of 3 year olds as well. It really changed how I think about illustrations as I read books. It has also informed how I discuss illustrations in books I read with the kids. Discussing illustrations with the kids as we read books is a great way to start talking about qualities of good writing right now.

• Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler- My mom spied this book one time when we were out and about together and I just had to read it. It was cute and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It didn't quite rank with The Jane Austen Project as far as Austen-themed books that deal with going back in time. Now that I know it's the first book in a series, I'm excited to read the next book.

eBooks:

• City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert- This was our book club pick and I was a bit hesitant because I didn't really like Eat, Pray, Love by Gilbert all the much and actually only read the Eat and Pray sections and never made it through Love. I downloaded it as an ebook thinking I wouldn't be that into it and I'd just read it in snippets here and there. But it was so good! I ended up not starting another regular book when I finished Lowland because I wanted to read this instead. My favorite quote in the book was, "Love like that is a deep well, with steep sides. Once you fall in, that's it--you will love that person always." After loving this book so much I feel like I should go back and try reading Eat, Pray, Love again sometime. Maybe I'll do it as an ebook too or an audiobook.
  

• The Library Book by Susan Orlean- I kept seeing this on the quickpick shelf at the library and then my mom mentioned really liking it. I knew it was nonfiction so I thought it would be a good one to read as an ebook because I usually have an easier time reading nonfiction in snippets here and there. I ended up liking this one so much that I again didn't start a regular book and stuck with reading this one as my main book. I did start reading In Pictures and In Words while also reading this one, but took forever to get through it and really only read it while brushing my teeth. I thought it was interesting that there are more libraries than McDonald's in the United States. I wonder how it compares to Starbucks! The book also discussed the use of ebooks and how OverDrive is a mega-collection of ebooks used by many libraries. I read that on my phone using my OverDrive app, haha! I also read a section about the library's issues with dealing with homeless patrons while sitting in the library by our house and being interrupted by the family having an hour visitation because the kids are in foster care.

Audiobooks: 

• What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan- I liked that this was written with multiple different narrators. It gave an interesting point of view. It reminded me of If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim. Both books deal with marrying someone while actually loving the person's relative (brother in one, cousin in the other). It was interesting that I was listening to this during the same period of time when I was reading Lowland which also had a weird brothers/marriage situation going on.
  

• The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin- At first this reminded me a lot of Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. It involves a large family with the children mostly unsupervised and fending for themselves. I had this bad feeling the brother was going to die due to Commonwealth and then she started alluding to that. It was interesting how she chose to narrate the story as an old woman retelling her past. She threw some interesting curve balls in about the state of our country in the future without really explaining it or giving away too many details, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps. I thought that was interesting.