Shaina Reads

Goal #1 of 2019 is a go! I've finished two books in my Audible backlog since mid-January, bringing my unlistened-to total down to 20. My thanks go out to dishes, laundry, and a giant, truly-too-difficult jigsaw puzzle.

First, I listened to The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, narrated by Carly Robin. This was fun and steamy, and Carly Robin did each character justice with only occasional voice-changing corniness. A few things pulled me out of the story, though, and some are hard to talk about them without spoiling. The protagonists kept making out and feeling each other up in front of one of their families. Why? Not trying to clutch pearls too tightly here, but it's family dinner, ya 30-year-old adults. Also, there was a sexual assault scene that... got worse, when I think the author meant for it to get better? I loved hearing the story of a character on the autism spectrum falling in love, written by someone also on the spectrum. However, what felt like endless would they-won't they + the issues I shared above made it a cute meh.

Next up was Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, narrated by a full cast. This was a second try for me. It turned out to be a great audio thriller, high on personal drama with the added bonuses of giant robots, ancient aliens, and the people behind the scenes investigating/covering it all up. Told in dossier format, you get insight into every character's head through personal diaries and one-on-one interviews, and then the occasional news dispatches about how broader society is handling the supposed-to-be-secret giant robot and ancient alien thing. I saw some of the twists coming, but as much as I expected another "meh," the ending left me wanting more. I wanted to buy the other one via Audible immediately, but the library came through with no wait list. I've already blown through the sequel, Waking Gods, and currently have the finale Only Human out from the library. I found Waking Gods even more interesting than the first novel; it built off well-laid character foundations by throwing them into even more morally gray situations. I'm having trouble sinking into the final installment so far, but I have faith it will click with time.

I have had Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction by Maia Svalavitz out from the library since January, but I haven't touched it in a couple weeks. Svalavitz frames substance use disorder as a learning disorder, using scientific evidence and her personal experiences with cocaine and heroin to build her case. My job has me wading into the weeds of opioid use disorder treatment strategies every day, and I often see substance use disorder framed either as moral failing or chronic disease. I've appreciated Svalavitz's willingness to think outside those boxes. The book is fascinating but dense; I started it in the thick of my concentration issues, and I stalled out halfway through. I want to give it another go now that those are subsiding.

ETA: Also entering my eyeballs lately is Rising Strong by Brene Brown. I don't have any coherent thoughts on it yet, but so much of it is speaking directly to my darkest beliefs about myself and others and helping me reconsider them. More soon!

I've struggled with how to start this post, but you know what? I'm just going to start.

I've finished graduate school, and I'm back in the world of full-time work and part-time rediscovery of what I like to do when I'm not at work. I keep thinking that second part should be simple now that I'm not a student, but I've never been great at transitions.

I still love to read and am thrilled to have more time for it now, but I've been circling my TBR hesitantly. I've had a harder time than normal focusing, retaining information, and sinking into narrative in any lasting way. Maybe I overstretched those attention muscles for school. It's possible facing the dung heap of the United States on a daily basis is training my brain to shut down as self-preservation.

What I do know? I want to try writing again, especially about the books I'm reading.

Here are a couple of my 2019 aspirations:

Chip away at my Audible backlog

I've waffled over cancelling my Audible subscription for months. It's felt especially handy ever since moving to Seattle. I never thought I'd be mad about living in a city full of readers, but the library holds lists for every medium are often backed up for weeks, if not months. For what's felt like a reasonable fee, I'm able to snap up whatever I want to listen to when I want to listen to it through Audible. But, joke's on me: for $17 a month, I've now got 22 books I couldn't wait to read at the time gathering virtual dust bunnies. Those holds lists don't seem so ridiculous now.

I've also recently realized 1) how much better I absorb and understand information when I'm reading it, and 2) how much longer it takes to listen to a book than to read it. Sometimes that information retention factor is less important, and often the audio versions of books have made my experience far better than they would have been if I'd read them. Sometimes, though, I want to better remember what I've read, and I also want to get through what I'm reading faster than an audiobook allows me to.

My Audible subscription is on hold now, and I'm going to cancel it when the time comes. I want to whittle away at my current backlog, shift more of my reading back to books and e-books, and give those interminable library holds lists a try.

Host a readathon or other event for Heather of Bits & Books

Just under two years ago, a fellow book blogger and dear friend Heather passed away. It was one of those accidents that felt fiercely unjust because of its complete randomness. I wish I'd known her better than I did, but I knew her enough to see how her enthusiasm (for budgies, baked goods, and especially books) and warmth touched not only me, but everyone around her. My heart still lurches when I see her blog in my RSS feed or her Twitter account pop up as I'm doing a search for something else. Knowing her, she'd probably just want me to smile at her memory and then find a delicious pastry and equally delicious novel.

Even while I've been out of the blogging world, I've kicked around the idea of hosting an event for Heather, perhaps in June for her birthday. I'm not sure what it would look like, but let me know if you'd have any interest in brainstorming or hosting with me.

It's funny how intimidating it can be to try to reenter a space you've left for a while. My blog was once the coziest, safest room I could find in which to put my feet and think things over by writing them out and sending them into the Internet tubes (and to a few lovely friends!). Now it feels alien in a way I could never have anticipated.

But then graduate school happened, and my quiet, introspective bubble expanded. My program centers case studies, group work, and intense personal and interpersonal reflection. We spend a ton of time talking about our work and how we can do it more effectively or equitably. This is both hella stressful and the most fulfilling way I've ever worked with others. I've forged a lot of strong bonds in that crucible of team work and trial and error. I never expected such an interpersonal program to work well for non-confrontational me, but, hey, personal growth, right? I'm leaving this program* with a better idea of what I value, personally and professionally.

I'm still trying to figure out where a book blog (or any kind of blog) fits into this new understanding of myself. Since I last posted here fourteen months ago, I've read a total of 26 books, a bit fewer than two a month. I still read, but it's slower. I savor picking up a book for fifteen minutes a day when I can, or squeezing audio in while I do the dishes. I did not expect it, but I'm enjoying that pace. I'm a distractible person, and I find books blur together when I try to read them back-to-back. I take more time now to embody the author's universe, more time to mull the characters and the big ideas over. Oh, and it has to be fiction, fiction-based, or told like a story. Ain't nobody got time for hard nonfiction in grad school.

My favorite books from the past year and change have been Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper, and Lilith's Brood, the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler. Two audiobooks, two paperbacks, all standouts during a time when nonessential content fell by the wayside. Part of me thinks they mean more, somehow, but it could also be they came to me at the right moments. I'd recommend any of them if you want to get swallowed up by a story or let a narrator whisk you off. Everyone and their mother knows Noah narrates his own audio and how excellent it is. Rebecca's narrator was just aces at bringing the spooky factor to the story). Right now, I'm making my way through One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. I put it down for a month or so, but the benefit of Márquez's meandering magical realism is not losing any plot threads.

I plan to tinker around a little more here and see if the mojo returns. I can't say how it will turn out, but I'll feel better knowing I didn't let this space perish from sheer inertia.

*Did I mention I finish school in three months? What the hell. When did that happen?!

Many thanks to Heather of Bits & Books for turning me on to this weekly post! It's hosted by Christine over at Bookishly Boisterous.

1. Can I first just say how excited I am that I get to write a blog post in list format? Despite having some ideas for real, fleshed-out, non-list posts kicking around in my brain, they just aren't coming out of my fingers lately. A list it is for now.

2. Did you guys hear about #Diverseathon? I'm not sure who originally started the tag and event (and, in fact, I managed to completely miss the nasty tweets and YouTube videos that led to its inception, which I'm counting as a score), but the bookosphere is all about reading underrepresented authors this week. If you need some tips on where to start, my dear friend Memory put together a list of 37 reads under $5 by queer authors and authors of color.

3. On the subject of #Diverseathon, I found a book that would be perfect for it yesterday. I'm only 15 or so pages in, and I'm already sad about how relevant this 20-year-old book still is in regards to police brutality and people fundamentally misunderstanding white privilege.

Today in $2 thrift store scores. // #bookstagram #igreads #nonfiction #diverseathon #booksbooksbooks #amreading

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Sep 13, 2016 at 10:02pm PDT

4. MY BOYFRIEND AND I FOUND AN APARTMENT THIS WEEK. We planned to stay with family and house-sit until October to save money when we first got here, but we were starting to worry about being able to afford our own place (and, in particular, affording our own place that wasn't, well, a dinky, miserable broom closet). Lo and behold, we found ourselves a perfectly reasonable, perfectly nice place this past Monday. I can even bike and (take a rather long) walk to school if I want to! I cannot adequately describe my relief. I am already plotting out creative book storage solutions.

5. I went on the nicest hike last Sunday with two of my best friends from high school and our significant others. It wasn't anything intense (3.5 miles roundtrip with only 500 feet of elevation gain), but it was glorious to get outside in the fresh air and look at some beautiful scenery.


I fell (though not from the log) and busted my ass in this creek. No regrets.

6. I start orientation for school next week, and I'm starting to feel the jitters. I know it's going to be awesome, but your girl doesn't do well with schedule/environment change at first. Relaxing and getting myself into the right mindset are top priorities this week.

7. After reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals and thinking a lot about how the food industry shapes dietary and nutrition recommendations in the United States, this New York Times piece about how the sugar industry diverted attention away from the link between sugar consumption and heart disease is entirely infuriating and entirely unsurprising.

8. I've been spending a lot of time poring over Scentsy's wax melt offerings lately. Have I ever once used a wax melt? Nope. Whatever. One of my blogger friends Elle is a Scentsy consultant, and I'm considering taking the plunge and making my new apartment smell freaking awesome. Plus, I could melt the wax in a fox or an owl! Don't you want to melt scented wax in adorable woodland creatures?

I recently read two books that most struck me because they reminded me of, well, me. This is not to say they weren't good on their own merits, but the reasons they will ultimately stick with me are entirely selfish.

The Ghost of Shaina Past - The Girls by Emma Cline

The Ghost of Shaina Yet to Come - ???

*Y'all should know that I had this stuck in my head the entire time I was writing this post. You're welcome.

• Being done packing and moving for the near future (until we find an apartment of our own in September/October, eek).
• Reuniting with my best friend from middle and high school.
• Knowing I have the opportunity to reunite with another best friend from high school.
• Spending time with friends from college (have I mentioned I'm excited to have friends here already?).
• Eating inadvisable amounts of delectable local cheese.
• Seeing a bald eagle flying about the park pictured above.
• This sunset:

Those of you who've stuck around here for a while have witnessed my transformation from an adamant audiobook denier to a born-again audiophile. Nowadays, I always have an audiobook going in addition to whatever I'm reading in physical format. After listening to more than 15 books in just under a year, I've noticed a few specific situations in which audiobooks work better for me than their print brethren.

I want to note that everything I am about to say is very dependent on a book's narrator. I have been lucky so far to avoid any truly terrible (or even lackluster) performances, but even the most wonderful book will suffer at the hands of a sub-par narrator.

When the print doesn't work 

(This is Captain Obvious, reporting for duty.) I have wanted to read The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin ever since Julianne started raving about it. Despite having the print copy out from my library for months now (yes, some libraries have check-out periods that long, may your hearts be still), the story just hasn't clicked for me in print. After listening to and loving Jemisin's The Fifth Season, I realized that her stories may flow better for me in audio format. I'm happy to report that I'm an hour into the audiobook of The Killing Moon and foresee smooth sailing from here on out. The next time you aren't getting into a book and can't put your finger on why, consider giving the audio version a shot.

When the prose is spare 

Lush prose certainly works well for audiobooks (hello again, The Fifth Season), but I find that narration can make the biggest difference when you're dealing with leaner writing. Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death is an excellent example of a book that I may have abandoned had I read it in print. Okorafor's story of a young sorceress on a journey is gripping, but her straightforward writing style might have lost me if I'd had to use my eyes to read it. Read aloud by the fabulous Anne Flosnik, Okorafor's short, simple sentences crackled with life. I felt the same way about Donald Sutherland's narration of The Old Man and the Sea, which I had previously abandoned mere pages from the end.

When a book is very info-heavy

In the past, I have been wary about listening to nonfiction rather than reading it. What if there are fascinating details that I miss? Now that I've got two long but worthwhile nonfiction listens under my belt—Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow and NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman—I can safely say that I would never have remembered all of those details no matter the medium through which I consumed them. I also firmly believe that the narration helped carry me through some of the denser sections that I might still be wading through in a print copy.

After struggling to dig in to anything over the last couple of weeks, I finally caught my stride and devoured the last two-thirds of Nicole Dennis-Benn's Here Comes the Sun. I am so grateful that I sat in on her panel at BEA, because her debut novel is stellar. Here Comes the Sun tackles the struggles of working-class women in Jamaica through the turbulent story of one family, and it should be on everyone's wish list for when it comes out this July.

And now that I've got debut novels on the brain (and on the Kindle—I'm keeping in this vein with Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller), I have started wondering what, if any, relationship I have with first works. Glancing through my Goodreads ratings over the years, there are not any trends that pop out. (This is further complicated by the fact that I am sure I have read books that I didn't know are their authors' first works offhand.) Some have been great, some less so, with my ratings converging on the middle of the road.

I think this ambivalence reflects how I think about debuts as well. Slapping the word "debut" on the marketing copy for a new book can work against it for me. I am particularly wary about requesting review copies of debuts because I don't have any prior experience with the author and cannot investigate any of their earlier work. I will often wait to see reactions from trusted bookish folk and then head to the bookstore or library. On the other hand, knowing that a novel I'm already digging is an author's debut can heighten my enjoyment of it. It can often take a book or two for authors to hone their voices, so writers that shine in their first titles never fail to impress me.

My super-scientific Twitter survey about this topic reveals that you all seem to have mixed feelings about debuts, too! Some of you love them and find yourself hesitating more over second novels (what if it doesn't live up to the first one?), others of you are picky about the types of debuts you seek out, and others among you could not care less if something is an author's first work.

So what's the deal with debuts, then? I suppose all this is to say that there isn't a deal with debuts, at least not for me right now. I do want to devote more time to reading them, and I will be keeping an eye on my thoughts as I read Fuller's novel and work through my BEA stack (also, perhaps unsurprisingly, full of first novels).

T'was the day after Readathon, and all through the street, not a reader was stirring, not even to tweet...

Another Readathon has come and gone. So, how did I do this year? Pretty well, if I do say so myself! I finished two in-progress books, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman and Some Possible Solutions by Helen Phillips. I also took a chunk out of At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell and got through nearly half of the audio of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. All told, I read 82 pages and listened to eight hours of audio, but I've got more on my mind than specific stats today.

I remember when I first found out about the Readathon back in October 2014. In an effort to fill my life with more great reading suggestions and bookish folk, I'd joined a subreddit dedicated to people trying to read 52 books per year. Some wonderful human posted a link to the Readathon website, encouraging people to participate, and I was instantly intrigued. I had nothing going on that weekend—my boyfriend was out of the country for his work, and I was still in the process of cobbling together a social group in Connecticut after moving a little more than a year before. Besides, a whole day devoted to reading? Nothing sounded better. I stocked up on some munchies, built a stack and dove in headfirst.

It's hard to believe that was just a year and a half ago. Just eighteen months ago, I didn't have a book blog. I didn't tweet about my reading and I didn't post book covers on Instagram. I hadn't experienced the joy of being approved for my very first review copy, nor had I experienced the stress of having too many books to review. I also didn't know anything about the book blogging community and hadn't met any of the lovely people whom I'm so happy to count among my friends today.

And the people, man. That's what Readathon is really all about. Having dedicated reading time is wonderful, and I am a huge proponent of snack planning and eating. Unexpectedly scoring a prize is a joy. But really, at the end of it all, I'm just so grateful for the people whom I know are just a tweet or text away on Readathon day, ready to talk books, the universe and everything. I'm even more grateful for the people who stick around the other 363 days of the year.

So here's to you all. Thank you for being such an important part of my life, one I never could have imagined when I signed up for my first Readathon all those months ago. Let the countdown to October—and my fifth Readathon—begin!

All book covers from Goodreads.

Remember how I was going to #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks this year? Yeah, well... I'm still technically doing that, but three upcoming reads got me excited enough to contact some publishers and add some new paper to my shelves. Oops. With any luck, they'll be more than worth it.

Here's what I've got on tap for the next few months:

At the Existentialist Café, by Sarah Bakewell (March 1)

Some Possible Solutions, by Helen Phillips (May 31)

Disappearance at Devil's Rock, by Paul Tremblay (June 21)

Tremblay can join Bakewell on the list of authors I read and loved last month. A Head Full of Ghosts was equal parts horror story, portrait of mental illness, and examination of the deleterious effects of the media on personal life. It was also just plain engaging; the guy clearly understands his genre, and I was more than happy to go along for the ride. Tremblay's latest work looks to bring more scares along with the mystery of a fourteen-year-old boy's late-night disappearance at a state park. Combining the supernatural with the painful truths of Tommy's childhood, Disappearance at Devil's Rock promises to shock us in the end. HarperCollins/William Morrow might not be releasing this until June, but I'm already getting my popcorn ready over here.

Some honorable mentions go out to two books I got from the illustrious Julianne this week. She sent me The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America by Ann Neumann (out last week from Beacon Press) and Toward a More Perfect University by Jonathan R. Cole (out last month from PublicAffairs). Important and fascinating nonfiction, ahoy!

Also, @_ulianne is my #nonfiction #bookmail fairy. #towardamoreperfectuniversity #thegooddeath #beaconpress #perseusbooks #jonathanrcole #annneumann

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Feb 23, 2016 at 3:39pm PST

Three weeks ago, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I had the good fortune of attending a free screening of the stunning James Baldwin documentary The Price of the Ticket. In just under 90 minutes, the film tells the story of the iconic writer's life, from his earliest days in Harlem to his death by stomach cancer in 1987, and all of the stories, essays and novels that he produced in between. The film was followed by a discussion with writer, producer and director Karen Thorsen.

    "There Are Days When You Wonder" from DKDMedia on Vimeo.
Having scarcely scratched the surface of Baldwin's oeuvre with Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time, I went into the film with a limited knowledge of the man. (Fun fact: Either it doesn't come up in those collections or I was asleep while reading them, but I had no idea that Baldwin was gay. Thanks for informing me, The Price of the Ticket!) I walked out in awe, not the least because of how much we got to see of Baldwin himself. There is a lot of archival footage and photography of James Baldwin out there, and not just from his television interviews. I guess that's what happens when you make friends with a bunch of visual artists. (Another fun fact: Baldwin agreed to be filmed for a student's thesis, which resulted in a super staged shot of him getting out of bed in his tighty whities.)

When she set out to make her film, Thorsen did not know that some of the first footage she would end up shooting would be at Baldwin's funeral. Paraphrasing the website and Thorsen's own commentary at the screening, she had originally intended to make a film with Baldwin about the process of writing his next book. They made this plan in 1986. The following year, Baldwin was dead, but not before personally mailing Thorsen a letter apologizing that he would no longer be able to be involved with the film. Instead, Thorsen crafted a portrait of Baldwin as told in his own words and the words of those he worked with and those he loved (and who loved him). More often than not, those two latter categories overlapped.

I didn't want to let the first part of January go by without paying some homage to my favorite reads of last year. Just a single one of these picks was published in 2015; I found the majority of my joy in backlist books and, to no one's greater surprise than my own, backlist audio books. I can't believe I was staunchly refusing to listen to them back in July. Your loss, past Shaina.

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

All the Birds, Singing, by Evie Wyld

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, by Johann Hari

Tell the Wolves I'm Home, by Carol Rifka Brunt

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey (audio)

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving (audio)

Next year, I hope more than one nonfiction selection makes this list. My nonfiction reading picked up considerably at the end of last year and the start of this year (*cough* 36-hour Hamilton audio book *cough*), and I hope this trend continues and helps me find some new, semi- to fully-factual favorites.