Here is where I am about halfway through the year. Read 52 books. A half of 52 is 26. I am a few books ahead at 34. My Goodreads user challenge. Read at least 50% by female authors. Of the 34 books read so far, 28 are by female authors, so I am on well above with 82%. Weightlifting: Bench 185 pounds (1RM…
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book accounts for Harriet Jacobs’ life as a slave, hiding for several years in the South, escaping to the North, and finally obtaining her freedom. She presents some letters documenting the tale. Given the…
Gods and Fighting Men The story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory by Lady Gregory My rating: 3 of 5 stars This set of Irish tales reminded me of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Barely organized; mostly miscellaneous. Several seemed to cover the same…
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton My rating: 3 of 5 stars A story detailing upper class “society” New York of the 1870s as the backdrop. Wharton details parties and mores. As the story goes along it feels more and more critical of them. A couple oddities: 1) Newland Archer, the protagonist, visiting the…
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot My rating: 4 of 5 stars Part biography of Henrietta Lacks and her family. Part explanation of the contribution the cells taken from her have had on medicine. Part memoir of Rebecca on the challenges brought in even getting to write this story. It jumps around…
Go read “Science Fiction Is for Slackers.” As a rule, science fiction may be the laziest of all genres, not because the stories themselves are too facile—they can be just as sophisticated and challenging as those of any other genre—but because they often revel in easy solutions: Why walk when you can warp? Why talk…
Táin Bó Cúalnge. English by L. Winifred Faraday My rating: 4 of 5 stars I put out a call on Facebook for suggestions on Gaelic mythology to read. This was the top suggestion. This strongly reminded me of Norse and Saxon epics. All account for the names of places by describing the battles undertaken there.…
So at five years later, I happened to run across a photo and blogged about the progress I had made by that point (47). I decided to go through the photo and mark all the books onto a Goodreads shelf “z-photo-reading-shelf” to better track this. Of the 77Â books, it looks like 62 are marked read.…
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick My rating: 5 of 5 stars PKD writes about my favorite topic which is how we perceive reality. What is real? Can we actually tell? I may need to read more of his books. Sensation and Perception was my favorite class doing my Psychology major.…