Unraveled, Week 23, 2021

Good morning, friends! It's Wednesday again (already!), so it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers to talk about what I'm knitting and reading.

The knitting won't be a surprise -- I'm still working on my Threipmuir (closing in on finishing sleeve number one), and my brother's socks have been getting some attention, too. I've finished the heel of the second sock, so this pair is about 3/4 done:

I should have no problem finishing these by the end of the month, so they will be an early birthday present for my brother (his birthday is next month).

As for reading, I have been on a tear this past week and finished five books!

I know many of you read (and loved) Gilead years ago, but I'd never gotten around to reading it. I knew only vaguely what it was about before I started it; to be perfectly honest, I picked it up because it was so widely praised and because it neatly filled a square on my bingo card. I am sorry to say that I didn't really enjoy it. While I found the writing to be good, it ended up reading too much like a theology lesson to me, and for someone who is not of that religion and not particularly religious in general, that made for a less-than-ideal reading experience. I gave it 2 stars.

Bingo square: Pulitzer Prize winner

I bought a Kindle copy of The Fire Next Time last year, I think, and had been meaning to read it for quite a while, and really there was no good excuse why I hadn't gotten around to it given that it's such a quick read. The fact that it's short shouldn't overshadow just how powerful it is, however. There is a wide array of books to read today that address racial inequality in our country, but Baldwin was really masterful in addressing it so succinctly and directly. It should tell you something that for a book that's just a little more than 100 pages long, I have 27 highlights. I gave it 4 stars.

Bingo square: Less than 200 pages

Lincoln in the Bardo was a reread for me; I first read it three years ago when it was much hyped and didn't care for it. Several friends, however, urged me to listen to the audio and give it another try, so that's what I did. And while I still found it strange, I did like it much more and have a much greater appreciation for what Saunders was able to do with it as a writer. I think this is a book that is really better as an audiobook because it really comes alive when it's performed -- to me, it works better when thought of as a play rather than a novel. I can't say I loved it this time, but I certainly enjoyed it, and on this reread I bumped my rating up to 3 stars.

Bingo square: Audiobook with multiple narrators

The Yield is a new-ish book (it came out last summer) that I heard about on a recent episode of the What Should I Read Next? podcast. Written by an Australian author of Indigenous descent, it tells the story of an Aboriginal family and native culture through three narratives: in the present day, the story of August Gondiwindi, a young woman who has been living in England but returns home to Australia when her grandfather dies; Albert "Poppy" Gondiwindi, her late grandfather, who was trying to revive his family's culture by compiling a dictionary of their native tongue; and a letter written by a German missionary who had founded the mission where the Gondiwindi family eventually lived. The novel addresses the heartbreaking realities of racism and colonialism in Australia and the subjugation of native culture as well as the personal struggles of one family -- a family that, though fictional, is representative of so many native families in the country. For the most part, the writing is beautiful, particularly the dictionary chapters; the words and terms that are chosen for definition are illustrative of the bigger picture here. I gave it 4 stars.

Bingo square: Free space

Someone mentioned Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine in our weekly Zoom this past Sunday, and I immediately borrowed it from the library. This is one I could not put down -- it was excellent! I so enjoyed Hamnet last year and really love O'Farrell's style, so I have a feeling I'll be working my way through her back catalogue. This book has two parallel narratives, one following a young woman in 1950s England as she leaves her sheltered family home and breaks out on her own, the other following a new mother, a Finnish artist living in London with her partner, who is adjusting to motherhood after a traumatic birth. These two storylines seem completely different, but they are connected, and as you get further and further into the book, you get really amazed at the skill with which O'Farrell has managed to weave them together. I tore through this book and had a hard time putting it down -- and I was very sad when I finished that it was over and there was no more to read! I gave it 5 stars.

Bingo square: About art/artist(s)

I am still reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and really need to give it some serious attention, because I am less than 100 pages in and it's dense! But I'm also anticipating some library holds to come up soon.

How about you? What has been capturing your attention lately?