#IMWAYR June 5, 2017

Hello Everyone!

#IMWAYR time again, when readers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to in the past week. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. Whatever you are looking forward to in your next great read, these are fabulous places to start your search.

Gardening takes up a huge chunk of my time these days. I keep thinking that when I have everything weeded and planted, I will have more time to read, relax and do housework. 

I know better though.

I'm finishing up a couple of quilts that were started by other people. One is a postage stamp quilt that my mother didn't get a chance to finish before she died. The other is a baby quilt abandoned by a sister in law. I'm hoping to get that one finished for a new nephew of ours.

Other than all that, around here we are all in a heightened state of excitement. Both of my daughter-in-laws are due anytime within the next couple of weeks. My partner and I are eagerly looking forward to joining the grandparent club. My sons are thankful that they are going through this together. 

NOVELS

4 stars

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

I think I enjoyed this one even more than Blackbird Fly. These characters: Virgil Salinas, Valencia Somerset, Kaori Tanaka and her little sister Gen, and even Chet Bullens, the bully, became important to me. I appreciated the magical realism components and how their stories all came together.

4 stars

Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk & Jorjeana Marie (Narrator)

Crow lives on an island with her father figure, Osh, and their close friend Miss Maggie. The other islanders fear her because she has come from a nearby island that housed lepers. Crow's desire to find out more about where she comes from ends up putting all of them in terrible danger. As in Wolf Hollow, Wolk has created another truly evil character. The difference this time is that he is already fully grown and his lack of dimensionality didn't bother me. It helped that Crow is such a strong independent character, and that the adults in her life are solid and approachable.

NONFICTION

I am in an adult nonfiction phase these days. The more I read, the more I want to read. 

5 stars

The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taube & Mike Chamberlain (Narrator)

I quit eating all forms of sugar earlier this year because of how addicted I had become. It wasn't easy to stop, and I haven't been completely sugar free since. I can't begin to tell you how much better I feel. Then my daughter-in-law was diagnosed with gestational diabetes.

I picked up this to find out more about the 'white death' as my partner calls it.

The book is fascinating. Taubes takes us through the history of sugar and our relationships with it. He reveals the machinations of the sugar industry's research foundation and how they have managed time and again, to obfuscate results, deter research and focus away from the amount of sugar now in our diets. Did you know that "we now eat in two weeks the amount of sugar our ancestors of 200 years ago ate in a whole year."

Part of what was both depressing and enlightening is the realization that the tactics of the sugar consortium were later implemented by the tobacco industry (often with the same scientists) and we can see the same game plans in place with the fossil fuel industry.

No wonder people have a hard time accepting science.

In the end, Taubes acknowledges that there is no definitive evidence that sugar is responsible for diabetes, heart disease, cancer and a plethora of other illnesses, but the circumstantial evidence is very powerful.

I will definitely purchase a copy of this for myself.

5 stars

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande & Robert Petkoff (Narrator)

This book has been on my radar ever since it was recommended to me last year when my mother was dying.

These days I have been spending time at the hospital with an aging cousin whose prospects are not looking good.

This book is a reminder of how important it is to ensure that people live their lives to the fullest before finally dying. I wept a number of times while listening to the different stories.

I'm going to be sixtyfour soon and if I live as long as my mother, I will have a couple of decades left, but after reading this book, I'm aware of how fleeting this living business is, and how important it is to have hard conversations about how we want to spend the last days of our time on this earth.

CURRENTLY

I haven't started a new audiobook yet. I'm reading The Impossible Fortress: A Novel by Jason Rekulak.

UP NEXT

I've just downloaded The Scourge by Jennifer A. Nielsen so tomorrow while I am out gardening I will listen to it. I plan to read Amina's Voice by Hena Khan and Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded by Sage Blackwood. I've also got a pile of picture books to get to. I'm determined to start At Home: A Short History of Private Life, a book my son gave me.

PROGRESS ON MY READING GOALS

#MUSTREADIN2017 13/36

#MUSTREADNFIN2017 4/12

50 Books by Canadian Indigenous Authors 13/50

Chocolate Lily (CL) 51/51

Goodreads Reading Challenge 178/333

-->