A Whole Stack of Short Books; Children Are Reading Less Than Ever; and Rewilding

Our cucumbers and zucchini, started in a hotbox, are almost ready to join our tomatoes, peppers, carrots, rosemary, and strawberries in the ground. After a couple of mid-70s days, I got my hair cut for summer. It won't be long until I start back to my swim class at the Y. 

I finished a lot of very short books this week, including Haiku Before Haiku (poetry), I Really Needed This Today (a book of aphorisms), Notes from a Public Typewriter (a collection of notes typed on a typewriter in a bookstore), The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories (very short stories), and 300 Arguments (not sure how you'd classify this one, but it consists of 300 sentences that sounded like aphorisms). 

I also finished the most poorly edited ebook I have ever read, a translation from French to English, of old French fairy tales. It was unreadable at times, with the wrong use of verb tenses, incorrect pronouns, and incorrect translations. There were many pages that were scanned so badly that they could not be read. I am very unhappy with that ebook. I wish I could get my money back for it. At least I can warn others.

I read Rewilding, a book that encourages us all to get closer to nature. Some of (quite a lot, actually) it sounds as silly as you might be imagining, but I think the basic idea behind it is solid.

I finished three wonderful books this week. After watching the recent Masterpiece version of the classic book, I read and loved Howards End. A fascinating story that I think I will probably reread one of these days. Thank you, Kathy of BermudaOnion's Weblog, for your review of Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope. It's a wonderful examination of the problems of America along with some solutions. I finally finished Paris in Winter, a memoir of all the winters American author David Coggins spent in Paris. My post about Paris in Winter is here.

I'm reading Dreyer's English, recommended highly by Wendy of Falconer's Library (who, in an odd twist, thought I had recommended it to her...who did recommend it to her, btw?) I do not want this book to end.

Anne of Head Full of Books inspired me to post Favorite Books I Read Published in the Last Decade.

I liked this podcast this week: How to Get More Pleasure and Fulfillment Out of Your Reading. Alan Jacobs, author of The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, speaks to this topic. I love the idea of Reading at Whim. His focus on limiting social media appeals to me. And I should do as Jacobs recommends and do more rereading.

Oh dear. From the Guardian: Children Are Reading Less Than Ever, Research Reveals

The Mindful March calendar, from Action for Happiness, is available here.

My husband and I started out the year with a plan to watch all the Star Wars movies in the correct time order. We only got a few movies in when we decided to start over and watch them with my sister and brother-in-law for our Sunday movie get-together. Here's where we are:

• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (set 32 years before A New Hope)
• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (22 years before)
• Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (19 years before)
• Solo: A Star Wars Story (about a decade before)
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (ends moments before ANH)
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope 
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (three years after A New Hope)
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (four years after)
• Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (34 years after)
• Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (34 years after)
• Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (35 years after)

I'm very happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. There are no real requirements to linking up at Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is simply a place for us to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. Sunday Salon is 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.

Favorite Books I Read Published in the Last Ten Years

Thank you, Anne of Head Full of Books, for suggesting this list of our favorite books published in the last ten years. 

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2019: Henry, Himself by Stewart O'Nan

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2019: The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M. Graff

Best Children's/YA Book of 2019: The Undefeated written by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Kadir Nelson

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2018: The Overstory by Richard Powers

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2018: The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Best Children's/YA Book of 2018: The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld

Best Adult Fiction Books of 2017: The Heart's Invisible Furies by 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2017: American Wolf by 

Best Children's/YA Book of 2017: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2016: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2016: Lab Girl by 

Best Children's/YA Book of 2016:  Some Writer: The Story of E. B. White written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2015:  The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2015: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

Best Children's/YA Book of 2015: Mango, Abuela, and Me written by Meg Medina and illustrated by Angela Dominguez

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2014: All the Light I Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2014: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Best Children's Book of 2014:  The Farmer and the Clown written and illustrated by Marla Frazee

 

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2013:  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2013: Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Best Children's/YA Book of 2013: Mr. Tiger Goes Wild written and illustrated by Peter Brown

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2012:  A Man Called Ove by Fredrik 

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2012: Quiet by Susan Cain

Best Children's/YA Book of 2012: Wonder written by R. J. Palacio

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2011:  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2011: In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson

Best Children's/YA Book of 2011: I Want My Hat Back 

written and illustrated by Jon Klassen

Best Adult Fiction Book of 2010:  Room by Emma Donoghue

Best Adult Nonfiction Book of 2010: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption written by Laura Hillenbrand

Best Children's/YA Book of 2010: Bink & Gollie written by Kate DiCamillo and Allison McGee and illustrated by Tony Fucile

For a more detailed list of my favorite reads of the decade, take a look at my Best Books of the Decade.

Other favorite book lists:

Best Books I Read in 2019

Best Books I Read in 2018

My Favorite Books of 2017: 53 Books You Must Read Now

Top Ten Best Books of 2016

Best Books I Read in 2015

Best Books of 2014

Best of 2013

Best of 2012

Top Ten Favorite Books I Read in 2011

Top Ten Books I Read in 2010

The Post In Which I Brag About How Many Books I Read in 2009

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

Paris in Winter: An Illustrated Memoir by David Coggins

My sister has been to Paris many times. "I can't count the number of times I have been to Paris," she tells me.

Often she comes in the winter. Her son is a wine merchant. He comes to France several times a year for business. My sister comes along to help his wife with the kids while her son works.

This year she asks me to come along.

We arrive on January 27. We stay until February 12. Winter in Paris is cold. And wet. And beautiful.

I load up my Kindle with Paris books...travel guides...cookbooks...histories of Paris...poems from Paris...

But I only take along one real book. It's Paris in Winter: An Illustrated Memoir by David Coggins.

It is the perfect book for my trip.

Here's the first page:

"What do you do in Paris every winter? You stay for such a long time."

"We look at art, which makes us hungry. So we eat, which is really why we go to Paris."

"How many years have you been doing this?"

"Twenty or thirty."

"Always in winter?"

"We've gone to France in all seasons."

"Why winter? We were there in winter once. It was cold."

"Fewer tourists. Sometimes it's cold. Often it's very pleasant. It's beautiful really, the spareness outside, the warmth inside."

"You've been to lots of places."

"We like to travel."

"Don't you ever get bored going back to Paris?"

Books With Single-Word Titles

Anagrams.     Atonement.     Beloved.     Bilgewater.     Blindness.     Bookworm.     Candide.    Chalk.     Chemistry.     Circe.     Civility.    Clown.     Coraline.     Corduroy.     Cranford.     Disgrace.     Divergent.     Dreamers.    Dubliners.    Dumplin'.      Dune.      Emma.     Eragon.    Evicted.     Extinct.     Fingersmith.     Firegirl.     Flow.     Foundation.     Frankenstein.    Justice.    Ghost.    Gilead.    Grimpow.     Gulf.     Happenstance.    Hatchet.     Hawaii.     Heidi.    Holes.    Home.     Homegoing.     Housekeeping.     Hug.     Imagine.    Inkheart.     Jump.    L'Assommoir.    Lila.     Madeline.    Maigret.     March.     Matilda.    Maus.     Moby-Dick.     Moonshot.    Mythology.      Nanaville.    Night.     Nothing.    Pachinko.     Persepolis.     Persuasion.    Pinocchio.     Plainsong.      Poldark.     Pollyanna.    Poser.     Possession.      Rapunzel.     Rebecca.      Redwall.    Redwoods.    Refuge.     Rewilding.     Ribsy.     Rhoda.     Rooftoppers.     Room.     Rumpelstiltskin.     Saturday.     Seabiscuit.     Silk.     Skellig.     Sounder.    Speak.     Stargirl.    Stoned.     Tightrope.     Troy.     Uglies.     Unbroken.    Unsheltered.     Waiting.     Walden.    Warcross.     We.     Wicked.     Wife.    Wild.     Window.    Woman.    Working.    Zeitoun.

It's not a definitive list. There are oodles and oodles of children's books with one-word titles...after all, there may only be ten words in the entire story. Many science books and history books have one-word titles, as though the book is the best book you can buy on the subject, I think.

Nevertheless, it's a nice sampling of some of my favorites with one-word titles.


I found that one-word titles often fall into three groups.

One-word titles are the name (or nickname) of the title character(s): Beloved, Bilgewater, Bookworm, Candide, Circe, Clown, Coraline, Corduroy, Dubliners, Dumplin', Emma, Eragon, Fingersmith, Firegirl, Frankenstein, Ghost, Grimpow, Heidi, Lila, Madeline, Maigret, Matilda, Moby-Dick, Pinnochio, Rapunzel, Rebecca, Rhoda, Ribsy, Rooftoppers, Rumpelstiltskin, Seabiscuit, Skellig, Sounder, Stargirl, We, Zeitoun.

One-word titles are the name of the setting of the story: Cranford, Dune, Foundation, Gilead, Gulf, Hawaii, Home, Redwood, Refuge, Troy, Walden.

One-word titles are the theme of the book: Anagrams, Atonement, Blindness, Chalk, Chemistry, Civility, Disgrace, Divergent, Dreamers, Evicted, Extinct, Flow, Justice, Happenstance, Hatchet, Holes, Homegoing, Housekeeping, Hug, Imagine, Jump, L'Assommoir, March, Moonshot, Mythology, Nanaville, Night, Nothing, Pachinko, Persuasion, Plainsong, Poser, Rewilding, Room, Silk, Speak, Stoned, Tightrope, Uglies, Unbroken, Unsheltered, Waiting, Wicked, Wife, Wild, Woman, Working.


What are your favorite books with single-word titles?




Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.