Read:
Dandelion – Jamie Chai Yun Liew (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022)
Good Inside – Dr. Becky Kennedy (Harper Wave, 2022)
A Room Made of Leaves – Kate Grenville (Text Publishing Company, 2021)
Away – Amy Bloom (High Bridge Audio, 2007)
Trinity, Trinity, Trinity – Erika Kobayashi (Astra House, 2022) (translated from Japanese by Brian Bergstrom)
And Yet – Kate Baer (Harper Perennial, 2022)
Our Missing Hearts – Celeste Ng (Penguin Random House, 2022)
The Good SoldierI – Ford Madox Ford (Oxford University Press, 1999)
The Other Black Girl – Zakiya Dalila Harris (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2021)
Suck it in and Smile – Laurence Beaudoin-Masse (Groundwood Books, 2022) (translated from French by Shelley Tanaka)
The Phantom Glare of the Day – M. Laszlo (SparkPress, 2022)
Did Not Finish:
This month I got brutal about DNFing books. I think this was a record for me. A couple of these had been on my To-Read list for a long time and I wanted to take a look at them but then quickly decided they were not for me.
A Snake Falls to Earth – Darcie Little Badger
(This caught my eye on my library app and so I borrowed it on a whim. The premise is intriguing but the timing wasn’t right and I had too much to read and so let this one lapse. I would not be against returning to it eventually.)
Restoration – Rose Tremain
One that had been on the TBR for a while. I think someone recommended it to me? I read the first little bit and simply found that I kept forgetting about it entirely. Not a great sign.
The Coddling of the American Mind – Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
I saw this book a couple of times when it first came out and thought it could be an interesting exploration of modern education. But reading the introduction told me that the authors and I were probably too far apart in our opinions for me to get much more out of this than frustration.
How the Light Gets In – M.J. Hyland.
Another longterm TBR. I took advantage of the inter-library loan system to get this book about a young Australian girl who goes to the USA on an exchange. But as soon as I saw her compared to Holden Caulfeild, I began to suspect this book wasn’t for me. In the third of the book that I read, she blushes a lot, is unhappy, is super awkward, and every member of her exchange family made me extremely uncomfortable.
Currently Reading:
How It Went – Wendell Berry
The Promise – Damon Galgut (on audio)
(I really thought I was reading more books but I haven’t actually started any of the ones I’m about to read.)
2022 Goals:
Books Read: 90/80 (11 in November)
Books Reviewed: 61/90 (2 in November)
Translated Works: 11/10 (2 in November)
Reading Books I Already Own: 16/20 (And Yet)
Books from the TBR pre-2020: 23/20 (The Good Soldier has been on it since 2014)
Current TBR: 217 (previously 223)
Thoughts:
This month seemed to fly past and I’m surprised to see how much I read because it didn’t feel like I did much reading. Perhaps because two of those books were audio books and so I was able to listen to books during times when I otherwise couldn’t have read. My initial thought about my November reading is “meh”. As in, I read a lot of books that weren’t bad but weren’t amazing either. Yet looking over my list, there were some standouts and some I definitely still hope to review here. Some of those were: Our Missing Hearts, And Yet, and The Other Black Girl.
What’s Next:
I’m keeping my reading expectations for December super low because I know the next month will be busy. Christmas is simply a busy season in our family, as well as a busy one at work for me. However, I am excited to announce that my Annual Literary Awards will be returning next month, hopefully with the first category on Friday. Stay tuned!
Karissa Reads Books 
Looking forward to your literary awards! I am doing a little awards ceremony for the first time this year too – it’s such a fun idea.
It’s a really fun way to look back over the year! I’m excited to hear that you are going to try it out too!
Interested to hear your thoughts about ‘Good Inside’ – I’ve heard Dr Becky as a guest on several podcasts recently. Her concept of the Feelings Bench really resonated with me – both as a parent, and as I have been learning more about experiencing my own emotions as an adult!
We should chat! I had some issues with some of the basic premises that she laid out but I did really like a lot of her approach, especially the focus of dealing with your own emotions as the parent and adult.
I’m always seriously amazed by how many books you read per month simply because you do so much with your children, too. I assume children keep parents busy constantly. There is this whole side of your life that is quiet and internal.
There are a lot of other things I don’t do! I’m not really a big TV or movie watcher and the kids still go to bed early so most evenings I’m reading. I’ve also realized that that quiet internal time is necessary for me to be a good and involved mom when I’m with them. There’s a reason I get up an hour and a half before them on weekdays!
Oohhh, I forget kids go to bed super early. I’m so glad you’ve got a great balance between you as mom and you as individual. From what I’ve heard, that’s no easy feat.
The cover of A Room Made of Leaves is gorgeous!
What did you think of Dandelion? That’s another cover I love – which makes me think I should read it. Lol
It’s a great cover! Suits the book well too.
Dandelion is worth reading. The writing is a little clunky in places and it feels more like a memoir than a novel a lot of the time but it’s a unique story and well handled, I think.