nomadreader

Yesterday, I posted my last review of 2015, even if it wasn't an actual review. Starting tomorrow, this week I'll be posting my favorites of 2015 as follows: Monday: Hawthorne's favorite board books (these make up a lot of my reading time--over and over and over again!) Tuesday: My favorite comics Wednesday: My favorite mysteries Thursday: My favorite nonfiction Friday: My favorite fiction Saturday: My 2015 reading wrap-up On the reading front, I'm deep in 2016 releases, some of which would be making my Best of 2015 if I were able to post reviews for them before their publication dates. As I continue to read farther ahead, my Best of 2015 will represent the best of what I've reviewed in 2015.  I set a goal to read 130 books in 2015. As of this morning, I've read 126, so I hope I'll have enough time reading this week to meet the goal. Hawthorne got a play kitchen for Christmas, and it is new and exciting enough to steal more time reading whil...

The backstory: Between the World and Me  won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The basics: Written in the form of a letter to his teenage son, Between the World and Me  attempts to answer these questions: "What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?" My thoughts: Between the World and Me  is a deeply personal, and deeply moving, book. Reading it while Hawthorne napped was such an experience I felt like when he woke up I was changed. My reaction to this book is incredibly personal. I cannot know what it is like to live in a black body or a male body. I will never stop wrestling with what it means to live in a white body at this time and place, and with certain privileges not afforded to all white women, let alone men and women of other races. But my reaction to Between the World and Me was more of a parental reaction than a pers...

Need a last minute holiday gift for a bookish friend or family member? I suggest Last Night's Reading! The backstory: I've enjoyed Kate Gavino's Tumblr, Last Night's Reading, for years. Warning: if you don't live in New York but love books and authors, it will inspire an extraordinary amount of envy. The basics: Artist Kate Gavino lives in New York City and goes to a lot of book readings, festivals, and author events. While there, she draws the author and adds a memorable quote from the event. My thoughts: Gavino's drawings are deceptively simple. She does each one in a single color in what appears to be marker. But the quality of the drawings are amazing. Seriously: scroll through her Tumblr and find an author you know. Amazing, right? Her choice of quotes and emphasis turns her work into something quite powerful. The verdict: I first read this book in a single sitting and was wowed, but it's also a great book to give (or receive) as a gift, beca...

narrated by Erin Bennett The backstory: I've never read Elin Hilderbrand, and I was in the mood for a Christmas book, so I started her Winter Street series when it was available at the library. The basics: The Winter Street series is centered on the Quinn family, who own the Winter Street Inn, a bed and breakfast on Nantucket island. When the first book begins, patriarch Kelly and his second wife, Mitzi, run the inn, while two of Kelly's adult children, Ava, who is a music teacher, and Kevin, a bartender, also live at the inn. His third child, Patrick, lives in Boston with his wife and kids. Kelly and Mitzi's son Bart is a Marine in Afghanistan. Kelly's first wife, Margaret, is a famous evening newscaster in New York City. My thoughts: Fun fact: Elin Hilderbrand is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop. I learned this while listening to Winter Street , which I listened to a lot of as I drove to and from Iowa City for a meeting this month. I'm embarras...

The backstory: State of Happiness  was longlisted for the 2004 Orange Prize . The basics:  "Cindy Frier, author of a popular treatise on maps called Dis-location, meets Jack Stratton, a successful British news producer, at a party in New York City. Shortly after they become a couple, Jack receives a career-making promotion that takes him and Cindy to the beachy environs of Los Angeles."--publisher My thoughts: This book captured my attention right away. The book opens at a dinner party, and the characters and setting felt so alive. Cindy and her friendship with Kelly are beautifully real. Their friendship was so interesting to me that I was initially sad when Jack became the primary focus of Cindy's attention. But this isn't a novel about female friendship. It isn't even really a novel about Jack and Cindy's relationship. For awhile, I thought it was a novel about the rich metaphors of mapping and cartographer. Cindy 's work fascinated me. It'...

narrated by Mozhan Marno The basics: In Missoula , Krakaeur takes the reader deep into the investigation of how the University of Montana and Missoula police are handling the epidemic of sexual assault and acquaintance rape. This epidemic isn't unique to Missoula. My thoughts: I work in higher education and even serve on my campus's anti-sexual violence coordinating committee, and I considered myself pretty well-versed on the issues surrounding sexual assault on college campuses and acquaintance rape. I read Missoula  more out of a desire to see how the issue was perceived to those outside of higher education. From the opening scene, however, I found myself shocked, appalled, and completely engaged in this book. Krakauer uses the stories of several women and their attackers to humanize the larger epidemic. Statistics are also plentiful, and much of their power comes from these heart-wrenching stories. There are some vile moments in Missoula , but those moments are part ...

The basics: Academy Street  is the life story of Tess Cohen. It spans her entire life, from her childhood in Ireland to her emigration to the United States and the rest of her life here. My thoughts: I am drawn to slim novels that cover a lot of ground, so I was quite intrigued by Academy Street , which has only 160 pages but covers Tess's entire life. As I read, I was enchanted, both by Tess and by Costello's writing and narrative choices. To cover a life in such a slim volume, it's obvious many things are left out. Costello emphasizes some times more than others and manages to write away years in a single sentence without feeling anything is lost. For most of Academy Street , it works. Aren't most years of our lives utterly ordinary? That's exactly what drew me to the character of Tess. Without divulging exactly what or how, there is a major synchronous event that stripped much of my enjoyment out of this story. As I pondered why this choice of Costello...