Unraveled, Week 47/2023

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, friends! I'm currently (as far as I know) the only one awake in my house as I type this; Mo is off school and the Mister may or may not work from home today but decided to sleep in. We got word late yesterday afternoon that the office will be closing at 2 this afternoon, so at least I don't have to work a full day -- but I did have a bit of a work emergency pop up yesterday afternoon, so I'll be wrapping that up today.

As it is Wednesday, that means it's time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers. I have not done any knitting at all since I last posted, but I have done some more spinning -- I've now got one finished bobbin of singles and a second started:

If you can't tell, it's still dark and gloomy here!

And there has been some good reading since last week, with three books finished!

A friend had recommended Stealing a couple of months ago, so I bought it when it was a Kindle deal recently. The story is told by Kit, a young Indigenous girl who, we learn, is living in a Christian boarding school in the 1950s after the death of her mother and the imprisonment of her father. Over the course of the book, we learn how she ended up there and about many of the injustices experienced by Indigenous children taken from their families and placed in residential schools. There are some pretty hard things to read in this book, including sexual abuse, so it won't be for everyone. I found it really interesting that the author noted that she wrote this book years ago, but it was only published this year, in the wake of many horrifying revelations about what happened at residential schools here and in Canada. I gave this one 4 stars.

Mary recommended the audio version of Lost Children Archive, a title that was given as a pairing for The Lacuna. This is a really difficult book to describe, as it has an unusual structure, especially on audio. It follows a blended family as they drive across the country for the parents' separate work projects, the father seeking to record the echoes of the Apaches and the mother the sounds of children being deported by border patrol. Their marriage is starting to fall apart, something sensed by the children. Over the course of the novel, the stories of the family, a book the mother brings with them, and two of the children who may be among those being deported start to intertwine, making it murky what is actually happening and what is imagined. The audio was interesting because there are sound recordings interspersed (both parents work as audio documentarians, and they met working on a project recording the sounds of life in New York) as well as inventories of the boxes of work materials they bring with them on the trip. I think this is one of those books I'll have to read again with my eyes to fully appreciate, but I found it to be inventive and smart, even if I don't feel like I got the full impact of it on a first read. I gave it 4 stars.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, in a break between work emergency-related tasks, I finished The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. I spent most of this book wondering where James McBride was taking me, but I had faith he'd bring it all together in the end as he does in his other books -- and he did. I found myself smiling at the end, especially after reading the author's note. My initial reaction to this book is that I don't think the writing was as strong as some of his other books, but the story is great. This is the next book we'll be discussing in the Read With Us group, and I know that my appreciation for the book will grow the more I talk about it. So my initial rating for this is 4 stars, but it's possible that will get upgraded in the future!

Last night I started a new book, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, which I also got a Kindle deal on.

Today, after work is put to bed, Mo and I will be baking dozens of pumpkin muffins, and then we're having dinner this evening with some family friends with whom we used to get together for dinner and the latest Disney movie the night before Thanksgiving every year when my brother and I were growing up. Now there will be a third generation participating!

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, I hope it's a wonderful day full of good food! See you back here on Friday!