Last monthly wrap up of 2017. So many DNFs.....

Challenges

BL/GR: 166/150 Complete!

Pop Sugar: 52/52 Complete!

Library Love: 2; 54/36 Complete!

16 Tasks: 32 points total

Books Read:

1. Saga Volumes 2-4 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples - 4 stars to each volume

2. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterley - 5 stars (Recommend especially to the Flat Earth Society reading group, but I am going to be recommending this book to EVERY DAMN BODY in 2018)

3. Let Us Dream (from the anthology Daughters of a Nation) by Alyssa Cole - 2.5 stars

4. Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected by Kelle Hampton - 0 stars

5. Selected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes - 2 stars

6. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang - 3.5 stars

7. I Know What I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee - 3 stars

8. Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxanne Gay - 4 stars

Books Re-Read:

9. Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples

Currently Reading: Beyond Belief: My Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill (50% completed)

What a sanctimonious piece of cooking advice. I could really not deal with the author's passive-aggressive "hints" and opinions about everything in a person's home - from the clutter of non-cooking essentials in the kitchen to which pots and pans are acceptable for use. I picked this up from the library because I want to make vegetables and grains more a part of my diet, moving them from side dishes to main events. I did not need a lecture on the morals of animal-based diets or farming. And for someone who insists that her love of cooking made her unsuitable to go to cooking school or become a chef, the author sounds like any other foodie when she harps on only using fresh herbs or a thousand ingredients for her dishes.

The author has a cooking show on public broadcasting television, and you can feel the NPR/PBS-smugness coming off in waves during the introduction sections of the book, which included her background, what kitchen tools and supplies are needed, and what to stock your pantry with (hope your budget can take all her "good" suggestions). What the book lacks in pictures or descriptions of techniques, it makes up for with trying to complicate dishes such as tomato bruschetta or mashed potatoes. The fifteen pictures found in the middle of the book were of the aforementioned bruschetta and asparagus spears dressed in lime juice....nothing from the more complex dishes. There is an abundant reliance on tofu, tempeh, and TVP based dishes, none of which interested me. The very small desert section featured either fruit with honey/maple syrup or some kind of tofu pie. She mentions all the different grains in the stocking the pantry section, then uses pasta for almost every dish in the entrée sections. Bulgar and quinoa each gets one recipe.

I will say the one dessert I liked was a Basmati Rice Pudding (made without dairy or eggs). The recipes I want to try come from the salad and appetizer sections, along with eggplant meatballs (so I can make a vegetarian version of Italian Wedding Soup). Nothing new or original, no pictures, plus condescending tone equals a lackluster effort.

A balanced mix of non-fiction and romance for reading in April. Most of my reading will be off my physical TBR bookshelf, so I hope to start making a noticeable dent in the TBR pile and get these books donated to a good home afterward.

1. We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese by Elizabeth M. Norman (Library Love)

2. With Every Letter (Wings of the Nightingale #1) by Sarah Sundin (Pop Sugar prompt - book of letters)

3. A Suitor for Jenny (A Rocky Creek Romance #2)  by Margaret Brownley (Pop Sugar prompt - Title with character's name)

4. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (Pop Sugar prompt - a book by someone I admire)

5. The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin

6. A Promise by Daylight by Alison DeLaine

7. Weddings Under a Western Sky by Various Authors (Pop Sugar - a book with multiple authors)

8. Whispered Promises by Nora Roberts

9. Three Fearful Days by Malcolm E. Barker

10. Touching the Clouds (Alaskan Skies #1) by Bonnie Leon (Pop Sugar - first book in series)

11. In the Midst of Life by Jennifer Worth (Pop Sugar - Interesting woman)

12. Lowcountry Book Club (Liz Talbot #5) by Susan M. Boyer

13. Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones (Library Love)

 Overall a not great reading month, with some serious low-level ratings. A lot of disappointment in the content of some of these books. But I am either on track or ahead on some challenges, so at least I am not falling behind while traveling around.

Best part of my reading this month is finally visiting the British Library and its long standing exhibit (the BL is between special exhibits at the moment)! Unfortunately, visitors can't take pictures of the documents/books in the exhibit so I don't have any to show you. I am going back for the upcoming exhibit on the Russian Revolution, which turns 100 this year. The British Library will also do an exhibit on Harry Potter this year.

Highlights, Lowlights, and Challenges

Best Books: Major Conflict by Jeffrey McGowan; Moneyball by Michael Lewis; The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler; Travel as a Political Act by Rick Steves

Worst Books: The Girl's Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir by Brianna Karp; Elegy for a Disease by Ann Finger; Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Sarah Morgan

Library Love Challenge: 8; 19/36 for the year

Pop Sugar Challenge: 8; 18/52 for the year

BL/GR Reading Goal: 42/150

1. Polio: An American Story by David Oshinksy (Pop Sugar prompt - On the TBR a long time) - Currently reading, not counted in my stats yet

2. The Girl's Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir by Brianna Karp (Library Love Challenge) - .5 star

3. Battlefield Angels: Saving Lives Under Enemy Fire from Valley Forge to Afghanistan by Scott McGaugh (Pop Sugar prompt - set in wartime) (Library Love Challenge) - 3 stars

4. Major Conflict: One Gay Man's Life in the Don't - Ask - Don't - Tell Military by Jeffrey McGowan (Library Love Challenge) - 3.5 stars

5. The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler (Pop Sugar prompt - Difficult Topic) (Library Love Challenge) - 3.5 stars

6. Cat Trick (A Magical Cats Mystery)  by Sofie Kelly (Pop Sugar prompt - Cat on the cover) (Library Love Challenge) - 1 star

7. Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio by Anne Finger - DNF

8. Travel is a Political Act by Rick Steves (Pop Sugar prompt - Involves Travel) (Library Love Challenge) - 4 stars

9. Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Sarah Morgan (Pop Sugar prompt - Set in a Hotel) - 0 stars

10. Echoes in Death (...In Death #44) by J.D. Robb  (Pop Sugar prompt - Published in 2017) - 1.5 stars

11. Moneyball by Michael Lewis (Library Love Challenge) - 4 stars

12. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (Pop Sugar prompt - bought on a trip) - 3 stars

This was a fast read, but heartbreaking look at the America's "golden era" (post-WWII to 1973). The author is an artist and art professor who works mainly in video and photography; this book is more or less a literary version of her gallery work. It is also deeply personal, as the author was one of the babies surrendered and adopted during this era. The book opens and closes with the author's journey to finding her birth mother.

This book is HIGHLY repetitive, to the point that the repetition becomes almost satirical. Every woman profiled is/was white, middle class or upper middle class, Christian, from a two-parent heteronormative family, and never had sex education (either by parents or an organization). Their stories started to blend into one another. The author does broach the subjects of class, race, and religion in the last two chapters devoted to the women and explains why the women profiled were all from the same background. Those chapters were the most interesting from a intersectional feminist historian angle. There were inclusions of women who were date-raped, but at the time did not have the information (or even the words) to understand they had been raped until much later in life. For most of the women, they went in search of their children or made it possible to be found by their children; the author does go into the methods and organizations that are working with both groups to reunite families.

These are heartbreaking stories, even if they run together in the readers' heads. Families were particularly cruel to the pregnant teen, but the staff at hospitals and homes for unwed mothers were even more so. They sheer amount of lies, money, and judgment the adoption industry created in the post-WW II years was astounding. However, this book is not anti-adoption, a claim that is brought up in many reviews. They adoption process/legal rights is vastly different today than it was during this time period (much of that is credited to the work of the unwed mothers and surrendered children of this time, who banded together in the late 1970s and early 1980s).

I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in maternal issues or women's history.