1,000+ Pages of Reading This Week

 

My husband and I will be leaving for a hiking trip to Arkansas on Friday. My sister and her husband will be going with us. Doesn't a hiking trip sound great?

What I Read Last Week

I made these books big for a reason: These books ARE big. The Book of Form and Emptiness is 560 pages, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is 487 pages. That's a combined total of more than 1,000 pages of reading last week. 

What did I think of them? Click on the book title to read my complete review.

What I Am Reading Now

I downloaded a bunch of books from Overdrive at my library last week. I'm taking these along for our trip to Arkansas. We'll see what I decide to read, but it's nice to have lots of choices.

Renewal: How Nature Reawakens Our Creativity, Compassion, and Joy 

by Andrés R. Edwards

The Hummingbird's Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings by Sy Montgomery

How to Draw Anything Anytime: A Beginner's Guide to Cute and Easy Doodles

Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith by Henri Nouwen

Art Before Breakfast by Danny Gregory

The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay

Hummingbird Salamander: A Novel by Jeff Vandermeer

Extraordinary Insects: Weird. Wonderful. Indispensible. The Ones Who Run Our World.

by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor

Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wislawa Szymborska

Which one should I read first?

Any recommendations?

I need your help! Public nominations for the Cybils end on October 15. There are still lots of wonderful books that have not yet been nominated. The Cybils social media director has made some great #Cybils2021 Idea Boards. Please take a look around the boards and nominate books here!

A petition by 400 parents in nearby Katy, Texas caused books written by Newbery-award winning author Jerry Craft to be pulled from the shelves of the schools' libraries and his upcoming speaking event to be postponed. Parents claim that his works promote critical race theory. New Kid, his first graphic novel for kids, is the story of a boy of color who is sent by his parents out of his neighborhood to a school in the affluent parent of town where there are few children of color. To find out more about this story, read newspaper articles here and here. For more about critical race theory, take a look at this NY Times article here.

Have any of these parents even read Craft's books? Have any of them met Craft or heard him speak? Have these parents looked into what critical race theory is? I have read his books and I have met him and heard him speak, and he and his books are the best of the best. I can't tell you how this saddens me. 

I've been eagerly anticipating turning 65 so that I can take a college class or two for free each semester Until then, I discovered the next-best thing: OLLI. OLLI is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UTMB in Galveston, and it's designed for adults 55 and older. This semester OLLI offers an eight-week class on the poetry of Adrienne Rich, conducted through Zoom, and taught by a retired UH professor, Dr. John Gorman. Absolutely mesmerizing. 

Good Thing #1

I got my flu shot.

Good Thing #2

The temperatures dropped into the 60s at night this week.

Good Thing #3

We are headed off for a week of hiking and forest bathing in Arkansas!

I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below.