The Vinland Sagas by Anonymous, Keneva Kunz (Translator) , Gísli Sigurðsson (Introduction and Notes)

 genre: history and myth, non-fiction

This slim volume contains not only translations of the two sagas The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red's Saga, it also has an extensive introduction to the context of the sagas themselves as well as an index with maps and illustrations.  

Did I try to keep all the names straight?  Not even a little. But having read them both, one right after the other, finding the similarities is interesting. From the introduction we learn that there is a crazy high probability that these oral stories that were written down hundreds of years after the fact really do tell about the exploration of North America by Greenlanders and Icelanders.  And this happened WAY before Columbus.  Also, the women in these stories are brutal and tough as nails.  

I definitely was educated but not crazy entertained.  

How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island by Egill Bjarnason

 genre: nonfiction

While preparing for a trip to Iceland, I saw this book at a thrift store and immediately grabbed it. I have been there twice before and genuinely love this beautiful and wild country. Several things about this book made it a really enjoyable read for me. First off, I learned a lot of things I just did not know. Second, it was organized in such a palatable way, with sections based on a theme that also was still chronological. it just really worked for how my brain likes to learn. And third, the the writing style is not stuffy historical writing. You're learning history, yes, but it's put into modern context and is incredibly readable.  Sagas and volcanos, world wars and the space race, it's all in there.  Even if you have never been, if you’re at all interested in this country, this would be a great introduction to how Iceland has played a part in world history.

Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself by David Archuleta (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

I was never obsessed with David Archuleta.  I obviously knew of him and, as an active Mormon at the time, felt excited about a fellow church member being so much in the public eye.  His music was great but I didn't think about him much until he came out.  I remember THIS being shocking, especially because of how close I knew he was to those in the leadership of the Church.  I wondered how it would work out for him.

And now I know.  And it is a hard story to read.   I enjoyed learning about his start in performing and his professional journey was such an interesting one.  What most sticks out to me, though, is how David's relationships with his family were so traumatic and complicated.  I had no idea.  But even more than that is his suppression of his homosexuality to appease his family, yes, but even more, to appease a God that he believed could absolutely never love or accept him as a gay man. 

It is heartbreaking to experience his struggle with him.  My heart ached for his view of the world - one that I shared myself for more than forty years - a view that said that there is only one kind of way to be a person that could ever be with God again.  His faith deconstruction brought up a lot of my own painful feelings from this same process and he articulate so well how truly agonizing it is.

My only compliant about this book is that the writing is sometimes rather juvenile.  No shade on David - this is a super important book - but sometimes it feels like a truly complex memoir and other times he goes into a kind of colloquial mode full of swears and sexual language that feels like it was thrown in there to show that he's a tough guy now.  I think it was the flip flop between the two that just felt performative.   

That being said though, HIS STORY IS IMPORTANT.  The leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints could genuinely benefit from listening to former members like David whose heartbreaking experiences need to change the way that lgbtq+ folks are treated across the church.

Also, the song at the end of the audiobook is touched a really raw place for me.  Absolutely beautiful.

Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China by Jung Chang

genre: memoir

I read Wild Swans nearly 20 years ago now.  I probably wouldn't have ever picked it up if not for my book group that chose it and it ended up being one of the most memorable reads from that part of my life.  When I was at the library and saw that the author wrote a follow-up book, I immediately grabbed it.  I think you can still appreciate this if you haven't read Wild Swans already but it would be preferable if you had.  What I appreciated most about this is her journey to publication of the book and what happened right after.  By the time I read it, it had been out for several years already so I didn't have the context that I have now gained from this book.

I did like Wild Swans a bit better.  This is told in a more vignette style with more jumping back and forth in time that made it a bit more complicated to keep things straight.  It's also, obviously, a lot more about her personal life, as well as all her interactions with all KINDS of people.  Jung's circle of contacts within this book is astonishing, especially as she writes her book about Mao.  I kept being amazed by how at-the-forefront Jung is as she negotiates trying to live outside China but still be a researcher and author as well as active participant in her mother's life IN China.  No easy feat!  

I honor her courage to put her family's story out into the world and while it is so sad at times, I know that my worldview is expanded by reading her words.

The Other Girl by Annie Ernaux, Alison L. Strayer (translator)

genre: memoir

This book is a letter to the sibling that the author, Annie, never knew. A sister, who lived and died before Annie was born, was not someone she was able to ever have a relationship with but whose existence took up a huge invisible space in Annie’s family. Sparse and literary, Annie’s reshaping of her childhood based on this information is so resonant, this book fairly zings with Annie’s desire for place and validation. Well done.

Two Lives of Charlemagne by Einhard and Notker the Stammerer

 genre: history

This book is two different volumes written in the 800s about Charlemagne.  The volume by Einhard is a more factual account of Charlemagne's life and experiences, especially important because Einhard was a contemporary and friend of the king, so he did have an eye on Charlemagne's inner world.  Notker's volume is mostly full of anecdotes that even my brain had a hard time believing.  Luckily, the scholarly introduction to the book even tells us that most of this stuff is made up. HOWEVER, even knowing it's made up, you DO get a pretty good idea of what life was like over 1100 years ago.  The church was so vitally important.  Red heads were feared.  God and the universe always punished bad people in horrible ways (like a church bell falling on you and squishing you flat).  Women were viewed as property but also, sometimes had a brain.  This is a direct quote, translated from the Latin, by Notker the Stammerer, "It is the way of all women to want their own particular plan and solution to take preference over the decisions made by their menfolk."  HELL YEAH, ha ha.

I do like that this book gives you an idea of Charlemagne as a person AND as the giant he became in the minds of future generations.  He really was just a dude who was good with a sword and loved learning.  THAT is a good thing to know.  Also, this made me laugh.  This was by Einhard, who would know, "Even then (Charlemagne) continued to do exactly as he wished, instead of following the advice of his doctors, whom he came positively to dislike after they advised him to stop eating the roast meat to which he was accustomed and to live on stewed dishes."     It tracks that the Holy Roman Emperor would ignore his doctors if they told him to eat healthy. I just love that Einhard felt like this needed to be written down in this document that he was intentionally writing for posterity.  

I feel like unless you are interested in the subject or in period literature in general, you should just not read this. 

Roots of Hope: a Memoir by A.V. Neidermyer

genre: memoir

I have really found myself drawn to women's stories lately - not stories ABOUT women but the real stories that women write about their own lives.  I know I lean towards historical diaries and autobiographies, as I like to imagine what my life might have been like centuries or even decades ago.  But when I saw this memoir of a women who is essentially my age, sharing her story of both abuse and hope, I knew I wanted to give this book a try.

I honor what the author has overcome.  I want to hug that young girl and take care of her the way she deserved.  It's almost more than one can bear, as a reader, to understand how horrifically the author was treated by those she had the right to count on for both love and care.  Her home life, her path through mental health care and the power of her own conviction and resilience made this a fast and engaging book. I felt so grateful for those who DID see her and watch out for her, even if it felt like there were crowds of people purposely always looking the other way.

The fact that she came out the other side as such a grounded and loving human being is a testament to the power of the human spirit.

If you also appreciate stories of triumph over unthinkable odds, I truly recommend Roots of Hope.

Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-Reum , Shanna Tan (Translator) (audiobook)

 genre: non-fiction

This book is exactly what it professes to be in the title.  It's a cozy love letter to books and reading, 53 short vignettes about a way that books can be a part of your life.  As a fellow avid reader, I can't say I learned anything here that I haven't already done/am doing/have thought of, but it genuinely is just a nice way to think about my favorite hobby for a while.  I also loved that she speaks a different native language than me and so has grown up with a whole different canon of literature - along with many titles I am familiar with.  Most of all, this just reminded me with how happy I am that books are where my heart landed when I was a little girl myself and that they still give me as much pleasure now as they did then.

The Wisdom of the Beguines: The Forgotten Story of a Medieval Women’s Movement by Laura Swan.

genre: non-fiction, history

As I've been learning more about Belgium, more than once I have heard of the "beguines."  In fact, in the lovely newly released book Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards, the main character becomes intimate with one of these communities of religious women who manage to stay out from under the thumb of the clergy.  This book is a non-fiction look at this fascinating medieval European women's movement and the individuals who stand out for their piety, their resourcefulness and the spiritual guidance that they provided to the men and women in their circle.

It is so hard to wrap my head around how long ago this happened.  These women were preaching and owning property and illustrating their own books in the 13th and 14th centuries! I haven't known much about the mystics either until the past year and I saw several familiar faces among these pages.  I am so glad that their wills and their teachings survived until this time so that we could learn more about them and what they valued.  It's not a quick read, unfortunately, it is mostly just straight history with a lot of Christian theology interspersed, but if you're interested in the subject, this is very straightforward and does share a lot of information.   I finished the book feeling both angry for what they were up against but honestly proud of all the things they managed to do.

The Wright Sister: Katharine Wright and Her Famous Brothers by Richard Maurer

genre: history

Until I was visiting Kitty Hawk last year and noticed this book in the gift shop, I had no idea that Wilbur and Orville had a sister. How sad is that? And she was SMART, a Latin teacher! She was capable and educated and her life exploded just like theirs did when they because famous. This is a slim book with lots of wonderful photographs from the period and while it is a lot about the brothers (too much so, if I'm honest), it does focus on her life and how it was woven into the Wright family. She was an avid letter writer and a sincerely dedicated sister and daughter. It is sad to think about how limited her options were in the time when she happened to be born a woman, but it's still impressive all that she was able to see and do.

Daily Life in the Age of Charlemagne by John J. Butt

genre: history, non-fiction

Yes, this is niche title.  But I need to learn about Charlemagne and I found so many books that looked far too long and too boring, even for me.  This was just right.  A straight up history book only JUST about Charlemagne and his time period.  The chapters are divided up nicely into lots of small chunks so my brain could handle it, ha ha.  I actually learned SO MUCH I am on the verge of embarrassed by how little of my European history is still in my brain. I'm sorry Mr. Mitchell, teacher of AP European!  My mind is so full! But now I remember about the huge impact Charlemagne had on literacy and education.  I learned about Carolingian science and medicine, how their economy worked and what people ate.  I even learned about writing scripts and sword production!  It's pretty repetitive and not particularly exciting, ever, but I ended up even reading with a pen because I was learning some cool stuff.  I love that even with giant gaps in our knowledge, we can piece together what life was like the 700-800s surprisingly well.  

Homeschooled: A Memoir by Stefan Merrill Block (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

Stefan’s early life with his parents and brother is practically idyllic. He knows he’s loved, he feels safe and secure, the world is a good place. But then, near the end of elementary school, they move from Indiana to Texas and his mom’s way of looking at reality starts shifting. She stops trusting institutions and starts mourning the loss of her little boy. And so she pulls him out of school and starts doing something that is still fairly eccentric: she homeschools him. And this is when Stefan’s life takes a turn that he and his family will never come back from.

Wow. I listened to this book in one stretch on a car ride from Maryland to New York and I was engaged from beginning to end. Engaged, horrified, stunned, all of it. His mom isn’t a horrific “abuser” but you can just watch the trauma and the disorganized attachment manifest itself. It is a hard look at homeschooling and the absolute necessity of making sure kids are protected from parents who willingly or not really can hurt their kids in all kinds of ways. If you liked Educated, I think you’d like this. Author reads his own audiobook and he did a fine job.

Dancing Into Battle: A Social History of the Battle of Waterloo by Nick Foulkes

 genre: history

What did I know about Waterloo before I read this book?  Literally as much as I could glean through the Abba song.  Embarrassing, I know.  But NOW?  I've got it!  I understand why it matters so much and I understand why it is a turning point.  I genuinely enjoy social history and this is a perfect example: yes, it is about the Battle of Waterloo, but probably two chapters are about the battle itself.  Mostly this book is about all the people who are involved and how they are all woven together.  It's about British society and being an ex-pat and how by 1815, war was like...an aristocratic past time.  It's fascinating and horrible.  It is hard to wrap one's brain around how complicated communication was during this period - how you'd find things out days and weeks after the fact or how in even one day's ride you could hear seven different "true" accounts of the same experience.  

The author's tone is sometimes sarcastic in a way I enjoyed.  He's clearly British in how he rips his own to shreds but then explains why they are all adored anyway.  I think I can appreciate now how so much of the British "vibe" can be traced back to this one particular window of time.  If you enjoy history centered around individuals and the roles they played in big world events, I think this is worth reading.

Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory by Sarah Polley

genre: memoir, essays

Sarah Polley was such a familiar figure in my childhood. I didn't watch Road to Avonlea until I was older, I adored her performance in the Canadian TV series Ramona. My grandpa had recorded the episodes onto a VHS tape in Chicago and then mailed them to me in Utah to watch when I was the perfect age to appreciate Romona's antics. When I heard she'd written a memoir, I was interested enough to look it up and when I read the blurb, I knew I wanted to read it. She did not let me down. The six essays in this book are a raw look at a life of performing and the way it impacted Sarah both physically and mentally. It is about the challenges she was born with and, heartbreakingly, the ones that happened to her. It is about sexual assault and the way our society treats those who have been assaulted. It is about being a mother and being a daughter and the sinewy bits of life that make us human. I truly wept during one particular essay, she so perfectly articulates the emotions of early motherhood. I don't usually read books in essay format (is this maybe my first? ) but I was so impressed by how Sarah put her words together, how the ideas flowed and make me think. If you are interested in the impact of the entertainment industry on child performers, if you are a mom or have a mom, if you feel betrayed by your human body sometimes, if you appreciate vulnerable stories of grit and perseverance, I think you'd appreciate this collection.

Libby: The Alaskan Diaries and Letters of Libby Beaman 1879-1880 by Libby Beaman , Betty John

genre: nonfiction memoir

Libby Beaman is the daughter of a well-connected Washington DC family. After her youth is disrupted by the horrors of the Civil War, finding work in the aftermath proves to be another challenge. Thus, when there is a chance for Libby's husband to have a stable job, she encourages him to take it, even though that job is on the unthinkably remote Alaskan Pribilof Islands, newly acquired by the United States from Russia.  Not only that but she packs up her skirts and joins him, despite everyone's insistence that she stay home. This book is a collection of her diary and letters, a memoir of place never before seen by an American woman.

It is amazing, the books I find at the thrift store. What a story! Libby Beaman is a fiercely independent woman who also, you can see in her writing, knows she is a pawn in a man's game. With society's expectations in her mind of what a good Victorian lady ought to be, she can look the part but she has a hard time playing it! The things she experiences in Alaska are fascinating and harrowing. I hadn't anticipated learning so much about the life cycle of seals but if you are an animal lover, this book might be hard to read. The job her husband is there to do, overseeing the seal pelt harvesting, is such a bloody, stinking job. And there's really nowhere that Libby can go to escape it - or her husband's boss - who is his own problem.

She definitely sees herself as a proper American and that the indigenous people whose island she now lived on are backwards natives who not only were "uncivilized" but also had been influenced by the Russians for years. Her feelings of cultural superiority are sometimes very glaring, which is not surprising.  But you can see her learning and trying too. I like how this book is both her diary and her letters - you get her brutal honesty in the diary and then you can see how she tells family back home, making it all so much more smooth and chill than real life. I try to imagine BEING her. She was a real woman, living in this real place where you are iced in for MONTHS. She was a witness to a changeover in national loyalty, with old customs slowly being meshed into new.

This is one of the best memoirs/diaries I have read. Libby had an incredibly unique experience and I'm so glad she took the time to write it down.

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin , Raymond G. Dobard

 genre: non-fiction 

The premise of this book is that quilts and their patterns were used during the time of slavery in the United States in order to help escaping slaves know where to go and what to do.  It's a fascinating idea that really captured my imagination.  And while I learned a LOT in this book about the Underground Railroad and several of the key players in this emancipation organization, this book did not actually convince me of the quilt code, unfortunately.  Hidden in Plain View is based on a story told by one woman that the authors met at a market in Charleston and from there, a LOT of conjecture was made.  The authors are honest with the fact that nearly all of their ideas are unsubstantiated but good "guesses," based on various children's book plots, narratives and spiritual songs.  To be clear - I enjoyed learning all I did about the spirituals and the escape routes etc.  I just couldn't get my brain to be convinced by what the authors were hypothesizing regarding the quilts, even though I do still love the idea of it, I can acknowledge that it just may not be true.

Curveball: The Alabama Son They Never Saw Coming by Joshua Cole

genre: memoir

This book was recommended to me by a friend of the author, otherwise it may have never made it into my hands - and I’m so glad it did. Joshua is a good storyteller, willing to share both the both raw and funny of his journey to finding the kind of life he was meant to life. It is so good for me to read real accounts of gender transitions because I always finish feeling so much compassion and respect for the price that so often has to be paid for authenticity. The little vignettes are sometimes a tiny bit out of chronological order but I never had a problem keeping my footing. I wish Joshua all the best.

Vagabond by Tim Curry (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

I have been a fan of Tim Curry all my life. I first adored him in Annie and most especially in Clue, where he hilariously stole my heart in way that has endeared him to me in a real way I’ve watched him as the Pirate King on YouTube and loved him in Oscar, which I saw in the theater as a kid. OH and now I’ve seen him in Home Alone 2 now 17 times because my kids were obsessed, ha! I was too young to have Rocky Horror be a part of my life but I’ve always been aware of it out there in the zeitgeist. But my most favorite thing he’s done is his guest role on Psych as Nigel St Nigel and his deadpan lines in that episode will live on in our family forever.

I bought the audiobook both to support him and to hear him read it, unaware ahead of time that he’d suffered a stroke several years ago, so his voice is different. He’s still in there and you can hear the sarcasm and sometimes he actually laughed while reading. It was slow enough that I read on 2.3x but it really endeared him to me even more, learning about not just his hardships but all the opportunities he took advantage of, many I’d forgotten about or never even knew of. I had no idea about his childhood and I enjoyed learning about his early years as much as his time on the stage and screen. He’s vulnerable and honest and I just found myself grateful that he and his work have been a part of my life.

Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

genre: social history

I've been on a quest for the last decade to read the stories of women from the past, written in their own words.  There is a part of me that literally yearns to understand what it was like to be a women in times so different from my own.  When I saw this book at the thrift store, it immediately went into my cart not just because of the title but because of the author.  The two other books I've read by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich have had a deep influence on me and on how I look at a woman's place in early America.  This book, while admittedly sometimes a bit dry and slow, is also a fascinating look at the role women DID play in colonial time.  I think what's important about it is that whenever we discuss that period, we really only ever talk about men and what they were doing - with the exception of the Salem Witch Trials (which is briefly discussed in the book).

In this book we learn, with primary source documentation, that women were not just influential but a profound and necessary part of our country's growth and development.  We can also see the beginnings of some social movements (away from midwifery to obstetricians, for example) as well as how the Patriarchal order impacted the roles women could and did play.

It's a history book and it's not the kind that's written like a story.  It is a well-researched and deeply important treasure trove of knowledge of our fore-mothers and the context in which they learned and grew.

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green (audiobook)

 genre: non-fiction

I remember learning, years ago, that the illness I kept reading in my classic novels called "consumption" was actually Tuberculosis. It blew my mind, that this Romanized death was in actuality an infectious disease. From that point I knew that TB had been around as a THING for a long time but until I read this book, I had no sense of the SCOPE. I loved learning about how TB has truly impacted global history not just in the epidemiological sense but in complete societal shifts. This disease has literally changed the world. 

 John Green takes all of the big and upsetting ideas about TB and sprinkles in between the stories of intimate devastation about individual people whose lives have been turned upside down by this bacteria. It is full of compassion and hope, while being bluntly honest about the injustice that exists between people who can afford care and people who cannot - and how this divide is both socioeconomic and racial. Millions of people are dying from a disease that is curable and it is up to us to decide that it matters. This is an excellent and informative book, narrated beautifully by the author.