What I’m reading

While ignoring the things I think I should do

It’s raining again in Southern California so once again I’m berating myself for not reorganizing a closet and ridding myself of things I should never have saved in the first place. Those are perfect rainy day activities.

Instead I’m reading, but the “I should read this” pile of books never seems to get any smaller.

There are several reasons for this, including reading Substack posts not written by me.

I spend a few hours each week working in the Friends of the Heritage Park Library bookstore where we accept donations often from the people who spend their rainy days cleaning off their book shelves. Those books are sold at incredibly low prices to support various library programs, including the summer reading program for children. Some of those books also seem to think they need to come home with me.

Then there’s the “required” reading that comes with belonging to multiple book groups, a holiday book exchange and a tendency to give and get books as gifts.

So many books: some read, some started and abandoned, some recommended by friends, some I’m sure I want to read.

The pile grew even bigger this year when a friend alerted me to The Last Bookstore where they’ll send you a box of books based on your reading taste. Book bundles start at $25 (and go much higher if that’s your budget), and you can request new, used or both new and used books after listing your favorite genres, favorite books and authors, and books you want to avoid. You can approve them ahead of time or be surprised. I couldn’t resist what seems like the perfect surprise.

I’ve been working my way through the box of five books (down two, half way through a third). None are books I’ve already read or even ones I would have plucked off the shelves of the Friends of the Library bookstore at first glance. So far I’ve liked them all.

Here’s what I’ve read between all these stacks of books during the rainy season.

• “The Tattoo Artist” by Jill Ciment, from The Last Bookstore. Billed as historical fiction, it’s a fascinating novel about art, ambition, love and loss. It also changed my perspective on tattoos, although I still won’t ever get one. (This one has already been donated to the Friends of the Library bookstore)

• “A Grave in Gaza” by Matt Rees from The Last Bookstore. Not the most brilliant murder mystery I’ve ever read but despite being written 15 years ago, it has nuggets of truth and insight to the current war and the multiple challenges faced by Palestinians. (Already donated.)

• “I’m Staying Here” by Marco Balzano from The Last Bookstore. A missing daughter, World War II as experienced in the Italy’s South Tyrol, which like so much of that world had been part of Austria, then part of Italy, then taken over by Hitler’s Germany. Definitely not a part of the world usually covered in WWII fiction.

• “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride, read for a book group and a Christmas present. Great writing, great storytelling, heartbreaking and hopeful, and probably the best book I’ve read in the last year, although I have a tendency to say that.

• “Take My Hand” by Dolan Perkins-Valdez, read for an online book group. Fictionalized story about the sterilization without consent of two Black teenagers (two of many), a case that went to the Supreme Court in mid-1970. Given the disparity in healthcare still happening, it’s an important one to read and a reminder of the price women pay when they don’t have the final say about their bodies and reproduction.

• “An Altar in the World, a Geography of Faith” by Barbara Brown Taylor, read for yet another book group. One I would not have read otherwise, but interesting weaving of personal stories and “a field guide to spirituality.”

• “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell, another book group book. This is a fictionalized version of Shakespeare’s young adulthood and marriage with an emphasis on the short life of his son Hamnet. It took a few chapters to appreciate this one, but ultimately a worthwhile read.

What’s next? “White Teeth by Zadie Smith, “A Person of Interest” by Susan Choi, “A Fairly Good Time” by Mavis Gallant, “Eye of the Storm” By Terry LePage (who happens to be a friend) and all the random reads that have come home with me.

“We are doing our reading on the run, snatching time pledged elsewhere.” Jerome Weidman, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and novelist.

I guess I should hope it keeps raining or learn to read in the sunshine.

What are you reading?