Read:
A Place for Us – Fatima Farheen Mirza (Random House Audio, 2018)
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau – Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey, 2022)
Chivalry – Neil Gaiman & Colleen Doran (Dark Horse Books, 2022)
Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday Canada, 2022)
Pallbearing – Michael Melgaard (Astoria, 2020)
The Collected Short Stories of Eudora Welty (A Harvest Book, 1980)
The Beauty Chasers – Timothy D. Willard (Zondervan Reflective, 2022)
I’m Still Here – Austin Channing Brown (Penguin Random House, 2018)
Burntcoat – Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber, 2021)
Did Not Finish:
Under This Unbroken Sky – Shandi Mitchell
This book sat on my TBR for a long time after I really enjoyed Mitchell’s more recent novel. I borrowed it from the library but was never really able to engage in it. It begins with a Ukrainian family who has immigrated to Canada, a topic I find interesting, and yet I simply never felt the urge to pick it up.
Girls Burn Brighter – Shobha Rao
I started listening to this one on audio and, again, just never felt really engaged. I don’t know if it would have been different to read it but I found myself not looking forward to my time spent listening to this book.
Currently Reading:
The Phantom Glare of the Day – M. Laszlo
A Room Made of Leaves – Kate Grenville
Good Inside – Dr. Becky Kennedy
Away – Amy Bloom (my current Audio)
2022 Goals:
Books Read: 79/80 (9 in October)
Books Reviewed: 59/79 (8 in October
Translated Works: 9/10 (0 in October)
Reading Books I Already Own: 15/20 (The Beauty Chasers)
Books from the TBR pre-2020: 22/20 (A Place for Us has been there since 2019 and Eudora Welty’s Short Story collection since 2013)
Current TBR: 223 (previously 233) I did read a lot from my TBR this month and I did cross off a couple of titles that I am no longer interested in but….this seems like too much of a drop. And yet, I have decided to revel in it and not recount.
Thoughts:
One of the bonuses of having two kids in school now has been having time to browse the shelves of my local library. Don’t get me wrong, I have visited the library regularly over the past seven years. But my time there has been pretty focused on the kids’ section. The books I borrow for myself are ones I’ve put on hold or snatched quickly from a display as I pass by. Now I take a little time once a week and really browse. And it turns out I’m really optimistic about the reading I can accomplish in a 2-week span. Sadly, I’ve returned a couple of books without really reading them (though I hope to borrow them again), but I’ve also been spurred to read more in order to get through the titles before they come do. And I’ve borrowed some books (like Burntcoat) that I never knew about previously. I’ve also started using the Inter-Library Loan system again for the first time since pre-Covid.
What’s Next:
I’ve just picked up Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng and The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford from the library. I ran out of time to read Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson but I’ll definitely put my name back on the waitlist.
A friend also loaned me Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr which I hope to start as soon as I finish Kate Grenville. My next non-fiction will probably be Timothy Keller’s new book about forgiveness, which recently came out and I purchased right away.
I expect November to be a good reading month (knowing that December most likely will not be one for me) and I’m excited to continue knocking titles off my TBR!
Karissa Reads Books 
I always wildly overestimate how many books I will read in my allotted borrowing time too 🙂
Somehow I walk into a library and think, Yes, I will read 7 books this week!
🙂
I didn’t know Tim Keller had a new book out – I’ll definitely be picking that up! And that’s an impressive drop in TBR, even if you’re not quite sure how you managed it…
He’s a definite read for me every time he has a new book out! This one is called Forgive.
Oooooh, Pallbearing sounds interesting, like it may be both sad and funny. You ever notice how some people really get giggly at funerals? It’s almost like they’re letting off some of the emotions that they had trapped inside. I do remember the days of wandering the library very slowly when I was a kid. I’m glad you’re able to do that now. Some of my favorite books that I’ve remembered for decades are ones that I found by just wandering around.
It was a good story collection. I struggle to review short stories though since they can be so different in one book. The first story – the one called Pallbearing – really nails that funeral experience, I think.
It’s so lovely to browse the library shelves again! You’re right that it’s different finding books on the shelf versus simply looking for a specific book I’ve pre-selected.
I love the ASL sign for funeral. It looks like four people carrying a casket, just walking away for forever.
A reduction of 10 is magnificent! As is the fact that your TBR is so much worse than mine… 😀
It’s never too bad if someone else’s is worse!