#IMWAYR November 16, 2020

Hello out there. It's #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.

I had big plans to finish the Piet Mondrian quilt last week, but I ran out of fabric for black sashing. I ordered more online and hope to have it finished soon. In the meantime I have started knitting a pair of socks for my partner as a Christmas gift. He loves his homemade socks and wears them all year long - even in the warmer weather with sandals. 

I'm thinking that while I wait I should start on baby quilts for my two newest grandkids. I've finished designing them based on the goslings from the Gossie and Friends series by Olivier Dunrea. I'm just not sure how to execute these plans. 

I might have gotten more reading in this week but my partner and I started watching The Queen's Gambit and ended up loving it so much we kind of binged on it. Then we watched Okja. It was a wonderful TV watching week. I wish there was more like this!

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian Author and or Illustrator. 

Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book. 

RECENT BLOG POSTS

The Paper Boat by Thao Lam

GRAPHIC NOVELS

5 stars

The Paper Boat by Thao Lam 🍁

This wordless graphic novel is a refugee tale. It tells the story of a Vietnamese family escaping from Vietnam at the end of the war. Here is the official book trailer.

NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars

The Boy Who Thought Outside the Box: The Story of Video Game Inventor Ralph Baer by Marcie Wessels & Beatriz Castro (Illustrations)

I can imagine my two sons devouring this book back in the days when video games were their passion and before they grew up and took on other responsibilities. I bet youngsters today will be fascinated to learn how the games they play today first began. This will be an important resource for students working on research projects. I sure wish it had been around to pique the interest of students who had a hard time coming up with topics that interested them. I appreciated Beatriz Castro’s gorgeous artwork here. 

NOVELS

4 stars

Ghosts (The Reckoner #3) by David Alexander Robertson 🍁 

This was a spectacular finale to this YA superhero/science fiction/fantasy trilogy.

Since the end of the last book, Mihko Laboratories has ramped up it's nefarious research in Wounded Sky. The community has been cut off from the rest of the world. More people have gone missing. The Upayokwitigo is still around.

How can Cole and his friends deal with all this since Cole was killed at the end of the last book? How can a ghost still dealing with anxiety, be of any help at all?

I was on edge all the way through this book. I kept anticipating something terrible and then it would happen. That would get dealt with, and then my anxiety level would ramp up again as I waited for something terrible to happen again.

Robertson has talked about dealing with anxiety himself. I've been wondering if this pattern of tension and release in the story parallels dealing with anxiety in real life.

5 stars

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi & Bahni Turpin (Narrator) 

This is my book club book for this month. On Sunday we attended a zoom session sponsored by the Vancouver Writers Festival. We will meet later this week to talk about the book among ourselves. 

This is a beautifully written and profound book that looks at the intersection of faith, mental health, addiction and science. Gifty and her family nestled their way into my heart. Bahni Turpin's narration was brilliant as usual. 

DISCWORLD NOVELS

5 stars

Lords And Ladies by Terry Pratchett & Nigel Planer (Narrator)

This is another witches' novel. Plans are set for Magrat and Varence's wedding. A young wanna be witch makes a deal with the queen of the elves. Then the Lancre Morris Team gets drunk and dances on a fairy mound. This allows the elves to enter through a portal into the Discworld. Thankfully Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Og, and Magrat Garlick are there to deal with them. 

If you have not read any Terry Pratchett here is what you need to know. At the same time as his books are absolutely hilarious, they are also serious novels that reveal important truths about humankind.

“Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute.”

CURRENTLY 

I've started Bloom by Kenneth Oppel. I'm listening to Sourcery by Terry Pratchett. I've started Class Act by Jerry Craft, but it's hard for me to focus because it has to be read in my browser and I am easily distracted. 

UP NEXT 

My next audiobook will be either How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa, or The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde. Reading with my eyes I hope to get to A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat. I've got a pile of books for must #MustReadIn202 lists that I have to get to soon!

PROGRESS ON MY READING GOALS 

#MustReadIn2020: 21/25 one in progress

#MustReadNFIn2020: 11/12 

Books by Canadian Indigenous Authors: 22/25 

Books by Canadian Authors: 123/100 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 297/333