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Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Reading All the Books, All the Time

Happy Wednesday, friends! Wednesday means linking up with Kat and the Unravelers and an update on my reading.

I mentioned last week that I'd been inundated with a bunch of holds from the library. I use the Libby app, and usually when I put books on hold I try to space out when I'll get them based on the wait time estimates. Unfortunately those estimates aren't always reliable; often if a book is really popular, the library will add more copies, which moves the list faster, and even if that's not the case, the estimates are frequently longer than reality, perhaps because they're based on average reading times. Regardless, I found myself with four library books checked out at once last weekend, which is a lot more than I usually have. I've really only recently found myself able to keep track of more than one book at a time (reading a Kindle book and listening to an audiobook, for instance), and even though I'm a pretty fast reader and haven't ever had a book taken back from the library before I finished it, there's something about seeing "Due in XX days" that always makes me a little anxious. So, needless to say, I was highly motivated to get through all those books.

Since last week's update, I have finished four more books:


I am getting closer and closer to catching up with Louise's Penny's Inspector Gamache series, and I'm simultaneously looking forward to and dreading that moment -- dreading because it means having to wait for her to write another before I can read the next! I love these books, and I continue to be impressed by how well Penny can make each book feel fresh without feeling contrived. I think what I enjoy most about the series is the great mix of actual serious mystery and lighthearted humor. The citizens of Three Pines are such lovable characters, even if they are a bit unrealistic, and I love spending time with them. I gave this installment 4 stars.


Everyone I know who has read Hamnet has raved about it, and now that I have read it, I see why. This book is extraordinary and may very well be my favorite book this year. The writing is absolutely beautiful. I got completely lost in this book and had trouble putting it down to do things like eating and sleeping. It is so wonderfully descriptive and so exquisitely captures the love and the grief that take over the characters that it's amazing to think that it's entirely supposition on the author's part and not completely biographical. I also found it really interesting that William Shakespeare is a major character but is never actually named in the book. If you haven't read this book yet, you absolutely must! I gave it 5 very enthusiastic stars!


I borrowed the audiobook of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead after several of you recommended it, and I had high expectations because of that and because the author had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. And I kept waiting for it to get good -- but for me, it never got there. Assuming the translation is an accurate representation of the original, the writing is excellent, but I found the story to be bizarre. I gave it 3 stars as an average of 4 for the writing and 2 for the story.




I think it's well known that we were big fans of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in our house, so naturally I wanted to read Conversations with RBG. I found it to be a quick and interesting read, but in truth I don't think I got as much out of this book as I could have. The author is a lawyer by training, and I think because of that he took it for granted that most of us are not and may not understand a lot of the discussion about laws and statutes. I felt that there was a lot of legal nuance I was missing, and that took away from my enjoyment a bit. But I'm still very much in admiration of RBG and of her legal mind. I gave it 3 stars.


I am now down to just one library book, James McBride's The Good Lord Bird, and hope to finish it up in the next day or two. It looks like after that I have a bit of a pause before the next flurry of library holds comes up, so I will probably read some of the many books I've either bought or gotten for free that are in my Kindle library (or maybe even a physical book!). If you have any good recommendations, though, I'm always happy to hear them!

12 comments:

  1. Spacing out library holds is a perpetual problem for me also! I am glad that you got to read Hamnet and enjoyed it as much as I did. I've tried reading several of Maggie O'Farrell's previous books but I think Hamnet spoiled me and I didn't find them as captivating. I'm currently reading The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian. It's not great literature but the suspense and wanting to know what happened are keeping me reading.

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  2. I'm with you - one book to read and one to listen to. And also I think I got three books yesterday! I did push them off though. Saving Hamnet for the Thanksgiving holiday. I want to be able to savor it!

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  3. Thank you so much for this post! Hamnet is a funny book for me - I hear that it's very good about it and that people rave all the time, but I never got to see one single rave somewhere (maybe it's all on goodreads), and I never got to know what it's about. Is it a novel? Is Hamlet a character? I think I'm going to google it, but I think it's junny how the literature bookvine works sometime.

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    1. You likely already found out from your googling, but Hamnet is a fictionalized account of the death of Shakespeare's son. All that's known is that he died at the age of 11, and it's believed that his death inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet. The novel gives an imagined explanation for his death but also goes beyond that, imagining how Hamnet's parents met and fell in love and how Shakespeare went from being the son of a glove maker to a celebrated playwright.

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    2. Thank you so much!! Okay, that is definitely something I'll watch out for in the library!!

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  4. Your reading rate is so inspiring, Sarah! As I sit here in my reading rut, I'm ashamed to say I had Hamnet on audio but couldn't finagle the listening time it required (so I'm holding out for the hard copy). (I'm also trying to remind myself that it's my pattern, my ebb and flow of both quality & quantity of reading time. I like Patty's idea of reserving Hamnet for Thanksgiving!

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    1. I think in some ways the reading has been a way of dealing with my uncertainty and anxiety about our times -- it allows me to forget, for a brief period, what's going on and escape into the plot.

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  5. I love the Louise Penny books and she just does not write them quickly enough for me - lol. I gave up on Plow - just could not get into it. I'm on the Overdrive wait list for Hamnet. It seems like ALL my holds come in at once!

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  6. I still have Hamnet on my nightstand ... I guess I'll dive in at Thanksgiving! almost finished with The Night Watchman and The Book of Longings. Seems like my reading is staying at the 4-5 star level ... and I'm not complaining one bit! (I saw this today https://www.etsy.com/listing/731531185/ruth-bader-ginsburg-quote-book-lover and thought of y'all ... and me!)

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  7. I'm so jealous that you're reading such great books right now. I also loved the first two books on your list, but haven't read the second two!

    Library holds are always frustrating to me. I love technology - Libby DOES make it easier to manage. I just had two audiobook holds come up but was able to delay them for a couple of weeks. Whew!

    I hope your reading mojo stays with you through the holidays!

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  8. I am with you, I loved Hamnet... it was such brilliant writing! (and Gamache... yeah, most days living in Three Pines sounds idyllic but boy, I'd move there in a heartbeat lol)

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  9. Great book reviews Sarah. I very much want to read Hamnet and am considering buying a copy. I'm on the waiting list for Gamache and finding it hard to wait.

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