November Reading

 I finally had a chance to get back to reading more.  Things have settled down some here. I had been taking care of my in-laws the last few months, but now they are both in places where they can get the help they need, so I'm back to a little more normal schedule ... though normal for me has changed.  One of the biggest changes is that I am now working two part time jobs.  And one of those is a bit of a dream job for me.  I'm now a librarian!  I've wanted to do that since I was a little kid. :)  I used to organize my books and make cards so my sister and I could pretend to check them out.  

So now I have a great reason to say my reading is necessary ... research for work, right?  :)  And my other job includes a lot of down time where I am free to read (and get paid for it lol).  So here's what I read in November...

November Totals:
Total books - 4
Total pages - 1,754
Total inches - 7

Year to Date Totals:
Total books - 56
Total pages - 16,514
Total inches - 65
(in other words, WAY behind where I expected to be, and where I was last year)

I read:

1. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, a Turkish author.  This was for my evening book club which focuses on books from different countries, written by people native to those places.  I couldn't get into this book.  It was about whirling dervishes and the Sufi poet Rumi.  The book is written with a connection to present day, so parts of it are present tense and parts are history.  The historical parts were interesting, but I couldn't buy into the present day story.

2. The Bone People by Keri Hulme, a New Zealand author - also for evening club.  I really liked this book.  It was very well written, though poorly titled, I think as it was hard to even understand why she chose that title.  It's a pretty depressing story, but I did enjoy it.  She writes well.

3. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult.  Talk about depressing subject matter.  This was about a school shooting.  I really like Picoult's writing, and will probably eventually read all of her books.  This is the third one I've read.  Very well done, but not nearly as good as The Storyteller, which is one of my all-time favorite books (but extremely depressing and heavy, dealing with the Holocaust).

4. A Sudden Light by Garth Stein. This was probably my favorite of all of these books.  I wanted to read this new book by Stein because I loved his previous book - The Art of Racing in the Rain - which you really should read if you haven't.  He's a very good story teller, and I couldn't put this one down.