What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

Fifteenth challenge finish of the year.

Checked this one out from the library.  I wasn't sure what prompt to put it under, but then I figured out that its Dewy Decimal number is 813.6 (as is all other American Fiction since 2000).  :)

Very interesting story set on the remote Korean island of Jeju from the 1930s to present.  I knew nothing of Korean culture or history.  As it opens, only women are allowed to be divers to harvest sea creatures and plant life.  Their husbands traditionally stayed home and cared for the children.

Be warned, there were some situations of war-time atrocities during the island's occupation, as well as domestic violence.

Sixteenth challenge finish of the year.

I love this author.  His writing is spare, but full, if that makes sense.  All of his books are written without quotation marks, I believe.  But that doesn't feel at all awkward.

Plainsong has been on my Kindle since 2015, and somehow was mistakenly marked as read.  Since I couldn't remember it, I spent some time going through my Reading List which goes back to 2010.  Turns out I had never read Plainsong, so I am happily ticking the box of another one that has been on my TBR list forever.

While I was reading through my Reading List, I realized how much I have neglected it the passed couple of years.  I think since I've been adding books I've read to my Goodreads bookshelves, I have stopped writing my short critiques/opinions on my Reading List page here on the blog.  Perusing through past books reminded me that there are quite a few I rated "10" that I want to go back and reread.  I started one of them yesterday which will count toward the challenge next week.

Story time...

Here's something I learned from my mother...the beauty of a Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich!  I've had them with both dill and sweet pickles, and they're good both ways.  But you can't beat a thick swath of peanut butter with good quality Bread & Butter pickle slices piled on.

Here's something else I learned from Mom.  When you put the sandwich fixins on one side of a slice of bread, and fold it in half, it's called a Zeecher.  LOL  At least in my family.

When my mother was growing up on her grandparents' farm in the 1920s and '30s, they would have men who came by in search of work and/or a meal.  One fella, who stayed and worked for awhile before moving on, would come in for meals, and before leaving the table would grab a single slice of bread and slap some of whatever was left from the meal on the bread and fold it in half.  He would then put it in his pocket for later in the day.  

The story goes that nobody in the family had seen this done before.  And that from that day forward the family called folded-over half sandwiches Zeechers, after the first fella they had seen make them: Mr. Zeecher.  We definitely called them that at our house while I was growing up.  Even my dad had started calling them that.  :)

My parents were both in their forties when I was born.  My mother being raised by her grandparents with aunts and uncles still at home, and her grandparents' siblings living nearby, means that I was lucky enough to hear stories of family history that went further back than that of the families of a lot of kids my age. 

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Fourteenth challenge finish of the year.

This one has been on my Kindle since 2012.  I continue to try to satisfy the challenge prompts using books that I already own (and the longer I've owned them the better it feels to complete them). 

At 433 pages, this book took me two weeks to read.  Frankly, that's ridiculous.  Like one of the books I read last year, I can only assume that the print size in the book was tiny and closely spaced to allow a smaller page count.  I thought it would never end.  Carey checked in on me at one point, and I said, 'Not now, I'm at 96% and I just want to finish it!"  An hour later, I finally emerged.

The story, (written and set in the mid 1970s) was interesting.  An elderly brother and sister in Vermont, James and Sally (both widowed), are sharing their childhood home after the sister ran out of money to stay in the home she had shared with her husband.  Their relationship suffers due to their differing viewpoints on society, politics, etc., which is sort of a current issue isn't it?  I could really relate to their struggle.

After a heated argument, the sister escaped to her bedroom and locked herself in.  The brother, from the outside, then bolted her in.  

Neither one would 'say uncle', and it got to be big news (with a little help of the "nosy neighbor character" listening in on the party line phone conversations.

The thing that I thought was unnecessary was the inclusion of a book within the book.  Sally found a novel about drug smugglers in the room and read it as a distraction during her enforced and then self-enforced seclusion in the room.  The entire text of that book was included in this book.  That addition did not add to the story at all, in my humble opinion.  Luckily the sections of the 'other' book were in a bold font, and as the smugglers' story got weirder, I finally just stopped readinng those sections.

October Light won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1976.  It often seems to me that awards go to books that are too...high brow?...scholarly?...to be an entertaining read.  This one did not change that opinion.

Now I am reading:

I'm not far into it, and I'm not sure yet what challenge prompt it will fit under, but this author is a personal favorite.

This and that...

1.  Rudy's comfort is the only comfort that matters.  LOL  This is his preferred spot, making a little nest inside my two knees.  Which is fine except that one of my knees has to be moved every few minutes or the pain sets in.

    He is going to be ten years old in a couple of months, and he doesn't ask for much (except for us to jump when he alerts us that there are deer or squirrels out the window, so open that door NOW!) and to be near us at all times.  

2.We put up springtime decorations on the mantel today.  The wreath is new, and looked too small on its own, so I asked Carey to hang an old window frame behind it.  He's so handy and willing.

    It all looks rather washed out with the light on over it.  The wreath is lamb's ear (artificial).  Its fuzzy light green leaves look nice next to the ceramic lettuce under its right corner.  The chicks on and near the books on the left were an Easter gift to me when I was maybe eight?  Ten?  I think the mantel will stay like this through April.

3.  I have a wellness visit with doctor tomorrow morning.  

4.  I need to gather donations for the creative re-use center for Saturday, and we have no empty boxes to put things in.  :(

5.  I made a double batch of Peanut Butter and Banana Baked Oatmeal today.  When I'm sure it is completely cooled, I will package individual servings to go in the freeezer for breakfasts.

6.  A new pair of Birkenstocks arrived today.  Last summer I wore out a pair, so these are their replacements.  Purchased pre-owned on E-bay, but they look and feel brand new, but at less than half the price ($40!).  I like the bronze-y crocodile print.  (My feet look weird in this photo, but I wanted to catch the reflexive quality of the print, so they are at an odd angle.)

ps:  My current book is going about as fast as Moby Dick.  

What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

Thirteenth challenge finish of the year.

Goodreads has a community page for the 2026 52 Book Challenge group.  It's very helpful for finding book suggestions for each prompt in the challenge.  When I saw this listed for the "genre defining read" prompt, I thought I'd give it a go.  I've seen the movie several times, and was curious to see if the movie changed much from the book.  

I listened to the audiobook, and didn't love the narration (as per my usual).  As a suspense stirtm the ending of the movie was more satisfying than the ending of the book, but other than that it stayed pretty close.

I've started another book, but it is slow going.  I'll wait till at least halfway to decide and how I feel about it.

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Eleventh challenge finish of the year.

I was watching a YouTuber talk about his favorite books of all time, and he discussed this one.  I like a good time-travel story, but what really made it a go for me was that its publisher started with the letter "B" (Ballantine Books).  I wanted to fill that prompt before it got late in the year.

It was okay.  It reminded me a little of Kate Atkinson's Life after Life which also had many repeats of the same life.

This one delved more into the ethics and dangers of using a time machine for medical, governmental, and economic uses.  I found it imaginitive, but it wasn't un-put-down-able for me.

Twelfth challenge finish of the year.

This is next month's book club selection.  I wasn't sure about the first 1/3 of the book, but it did pique my interest as the main character matured.  It was a fairly quick read at 163 pages, but it did challenge my vocabulary, and I had to look up quite a few words; I could elicit the meaning by the context, but I always like to read official definition for an unfamiliar word.

I had a lot of questions that came up, which were mostly answered by the ending.  Still, it was a bit strange.  And yet, I liked it.

What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

Have spent very little time reading this week.  Maybe a quarter of the way through this one.