David Litt’s memoir, Thanks Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years, begins with his work as a campaign worker in Ohio and follows his career as a speechwriter to the President. It’s witty, insightful, self-deprecating, full of interesting information about the Obama White House, and, despite the ups and downs of working for the government,…
It’s really a miracle that Pete Fromm survived the winter he accepted a job to maintain a salmon breeding pool way off the grid in Idaho. His job takes 0-15 minutes each day (once it’s freezing, he has to clear away ice, and once the salmon hatch, he has to check on them and count…
On the blog: A slice about reading serendipity and my favorite bookish podcast and why I almost never ask anyone what they’re reading right now In reading: Normally on a week when I only finished one book–which is strange and unusual in itself–I would just skip my Monday post. But I am trying to re-establish…
On the blog: Three things I need more of right now (includes very cute kitten photo!) In reading: I don’t think I’ve ever met a Barbara O’Connor novel I didn’t love, and Wonderland has plenty to recommend it. It’s told in three voices, including Henry’s, a greyhound who has run away from a dog track…
I feel like I should have far more to show for myself as a reader given that I’ve barely posted reading updates over the last two months and I have been reading, though not at my usual pace. But somehow, I don’t. Keep Going is Austin Kleon’s best book yet, a thoughtful and helpful exploration…
You’d think that after taking several weeks off of Monday reading posts to focus on other challenges I’d have plenty of books to share. But I returned my last stack of picture books to the library unread and otherwise have way too many books started to finish many. I really enjoyed Weike Wang’s novel, Chemistry.…
In reading: It’s hard to believe that Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea qualifies as historical fiction, but it’s set in 2002, shortly after 9/11, and even though that feels like about five minutes ago to me, it’s definitely historical. I loved the main character, Shirin, a Muslim teenager who chooses to wear…
