VioletBramble's 2020 Category Challenge

Hi!. I'm Kelly. This will be my tenth year participating in the Category Challenge. I did pretty badly last year at keeping up, reduced mostly to reviews and monthly recaps. I'll try to do better this year. These days I am actually getting a decent night's sleep more often than not, thanks to decreasing my reading. It is frustrating to see al the books on the shelves and know I can't possibly read more than a small percentage of them this year when I want to read them all right now. I'm *possibly* reducing my reading even more this year because I have a couple of projects happening at the beginning of the year. Time will tell. I'm sticking with my same no-frills categories from last year.

My 2020 Reading Goals:

1) Read 50 Books
2) Listen to 9 audiobooks
3) Read primarily from my TBR pile
4) Participate in the NonFiction CAT, #NewYearWhoDis (at Litsy) and sporadically in the SFFFKit, ScaredyKIT and RandomCAT when topic and free time coincide.
5) Limit Facebook time to 5 minutes a day. Just to make sure everyone is okay.

Fiction
1) Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
2) A General Theory of Oblivion- José Eduardo Agualusa
3) The Winter Sisters - Tim Westover
4) Star- Yukio Mishima
5) Who Put This Song On? - Morgan Parker
6) The Starless Sea- Erin Morganstern
7) Upright Women Wanted - Sarah Gailey
8) We Ride Upon Sticks - Quan Barry
9) The Golden Orchard- Flora Ahn
10) The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune
11) The City Born Great - NK Jemisin
12) The Flying Flamingo Sisters - Carrie Siem
13) A Murder of Manatees- Larry Correia
14) Beach Read - Emily Henry
15) The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
16) Empire of Gold - SA Chakraborty
17) The Girls - Emma Cline
18) Opium And Absinthe- Lydia Kang
19) Make Mine Magic - Sharine Swendson
20) 11/22/63 - Stephen King
21) Clap When You Land - Elizabeth Acevedo
22) Elevation - Stephen King
23) Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
24) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Path of Night - Sarah Rees Brennan
25) NOS4A2 - Joe Hill
26) The Lending Library - Aliza Fogelson
27) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season of the Witch - Sarah Rees Brennan
28) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Daughter of Chaos- Sarah Rees Brennan

NonFiction
1) Ten Days in a Madhouse - Nellie Bly
2) Year of the Monkey- Patti Smith
3) Letters From an Astrophysicist - Neil DeGrasse Tyson
4) Acid for the Children - Flea
5) Sunny Days: The Children's Television Revolution That Changed America - David Kamp
6) Climbing With Mollie - William Finnegan
7) Voices From Chernobyl - Svetlana Alexievich
8) The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin
9) The Hidden Life of Trees- Peter Wohlleban
10) Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany
11) Beastie Boys Book
12) Fascism: A Warning - Madeleine Albright
13) Sylvie

Old and New to Me Series
1) Gideon the Ninth- Tamsin Muir
2) Greenglass House- Kate Mitford
3) Muse of Nightmares- Laini Taylor
4) Stranger Things: Runaway Max- Brenna Yovanoff
5) The King of Crows - Libba Bray
6) Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song - Jenny Colgan, Various
7) Doctor Who: The Missy Chronicles- Various
8) One Word Kill- Mark Lawrence
9) Empire of Gold- SA Chakraborty
10) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season of the Witch
11) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Daughter of Chaos
12) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Path of Night

Illustration by Vector Story

Audiobooks
1) Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
2) The Starless Sea - Erin Morganstern
3) Acid for the Children- Flea
4) The King of Crows- Libba Bray
5) Nothing is Okay - Rachel Wiley
6) We Ride Upon Sticks - Quan Barry
7) The Golden Orchard- Flora Ahn
8) Upright Women Wanted- Sarah Gailey
9) The House in the Cerulean Sea- JT Klune
10) The City Born Great - NK Jemisin
11) The Flying Flamingo Sisters - Carrie Siem
12) A Murder of Manatees - Larry Correia
13) Sunny Days: The Children's Television Revolution That Changed America - David Kamp
14) The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
15) Climbing With Mollie - William Finnegan
16) The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin
17) Beastie Boys Book
18) When You Finish Saving the World
19) Unspoken
20) Letters from Camp
21) Make Mine Magic
22) NOS4A2
23) Doctor Sleep
24) Clap When You Land

Everything Else
1) Mooncakes - Wendy Xu, Suzanne Walker
2) Just Peachy - Holly Chisholm
3) The Shortest Day- Susan Cooper
4) Poems to See By- Julian Peters
5) Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft- Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez
6) The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion - Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba
7) FCBD: Our Favorite Thing is My Favorite Thing is Monsters - Emil Ferris
8) Locke & Key: Head Games
9) Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows
10) The Snow Dancer

CAT and Kit Planning:

January:
NF: Journalism/News: 10 Days in a Madhouse ✔
SFFFKit: Should have read in 2019: Gideon the Ninth ✔

February:
NF: Travel: Year of the Monkey✔
SFFFKit: Transformation: The Muse of Nightmares ✔

March:
SFFFKit: Series: Stranger Things: Runaway Max ✔

April:
SFFFKit: Time Travel: Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song, ✔ Doctor Who: The Missy Chronicles,✔ One Word Kill ✔
ScaredyKit: Paranormal: The King of Crows ✔

May:
NF:Science: The Hidden Life of Trees ✔ , Letters From an Astrophysicist ✔

June:
NF: Society: Sunny Days: The Children's Television Revolution That Changed America ✔

August:
NF: History: Voices from Chernobyl ✔
SFFFKit: Female author: Empire of Gold ✔
ScaredyKit: Serial Killers: The Girls ✔

September:
Horror Kit: International Horror: Mexican Gothic

October:
NF:The Arts: Symphony for the City of the Dead, Beastie Boys Book ✔
ScaredyKit:Halloween: Season of the Witch,✔ Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Occult Edition

November:
NF:Food, Home, Recreation: Braiding Sweetgrass
ScaredyKit: King Family: Elevation,✔ NOS4A2,✔ 11/22/1963,✔ Doctor Sleep✔

December:
NF:Adventures by Land, Sea, or Air:Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, Deep
SFFFKit: Short stories: Doctor Who: Twelve Doctors of Christmas

Planned Reading for January:

Where the Crawdads Sing
Cursed

SFFFKit: Gideon the Ninth

NewYearWhoDis:
10 Days in a Madhouse - (for NonFictionCAT as well)
Greenglass House
A General Theory of Oblivion

Welcome back and happy reading!

Great to see you back for another year of Challenges. I've dropped a star and look forward to following along.

>2 VioletBramble: >7 VioletBramble: Love the meme/pics!

Good luck reading in 2020!

Have fun with your reading this year.

Glad to see you here again even if it turns out to be limited.

Glad to hear you're getting a decent night's sleep! Good luck with all of your projects this year :)

Welcome back! Have a good reading year!

I like your FB time limit challenge - that's something that would help increase my reading (along with avoiding other phone apps...).

Love your pics, especially the cup o' books and the cat on the tower of books.

Have a great reading year!

>9 MissWatson: Happy reading to you!
>10 DeltaQueen50: Hi Judy! Thanks
>11 NinieB: Thanks
>12 Tess_W: Good luck with your reading Tess
>13 hailelib: I hope you have a fun reading year as well
>14 dudes22: Thank you. I'm hoping to be more organized this year
>15 rabbitprincess: Thanks rp
>16 thornton37814: I hope you have a good reading year too
>17 LisaMorr: Oh yes, FB is the great time suck. Plus I find myself in political fights with total strangers and past acquaintances and getting upset. I need to stop. It's pretty much going to be: Happy Birthday, glad you're alive, cute kids, etc from now on. If FB wasn't the way I keep in touch with my cousins and former co-workers I would delete my profile.

I've actually managed to complete 7 books so far. Two were pretty short, but still, I'm way ahead of where I thought I'd be.
I'm going to list them and attempt to review them tonight and tomorrow.

1) Ten Days in a Madhouse- Nellie Bly
NonFiction, Journalism, Mental health, NonFictionCAT, NewYearWhoDis
Pages: 96
Rating:

Nellie Bly was a young journalist in 1887 New York City when she was asked by World magazine to go undercover to expose conditions in the Blackwell's Island Asylum for the Insane. She fabricated a new identity, took a room in a women's residence, and slowly began to exhibit signs of mental illness. Within days she was a patient in the asylum. While there she witnessed the unsanitary conditions, the rotten food, the physical abuse, the lack of any medical treatment, and the lack of any recourse for those placed there under false pretenses. Her editors rescued her after ten days. After The World published her article she was asked to testify at a grand jury about all that she had witnessed. Her story resulted in the city granting $1,000,000. for mental health care.
I have known the story of Nelly Bly for years, but I had never read her story. I live on Roosevelt Island -- formerly Blackwell's Island -- where the madhouse in the title was located. My friend Judy is the Island historian. She has shown me papers in the Island archives about Bly and the asylum for the Insane. Judy also dresses up as Nellie Bly and gives tours to tourists.
In December i decided to participate in the NewYearWhoDis challenge at Litsy. You switch lists of your favorite books from 2019 with another member. The list I received included this book. I thought it was long past time that I read the story in Bly's own words.

2) Where the Crawdads Sing- Delia Owens
Fiction, Abandonment, Marsh, North Carolina, Loneliness
Pages: 368
Rating:

Kya lives with her family in a shack in a marsh in coastal North Carolina. When she's 6 years old her mother leaves. Over the next four years all her siblings leave. For a while she lives with her father who remains sober long enough to teach her to use the boat, catch fish, and various other ways to survive. One day her father leaves and never returns. At 10 years old she is left to survive on her own. Knowing only how to survive by living with the marsh and its feathered inhabitants, she stays. She survives by selling mussels and dried fish. She trades these for gas (for the boat) and supplies. She trades at Jumpin's shop. Jumpin' and his wife Mabel (and everyone in town) know that she is on her own. They occasionally give her care packages of used clothing and some food and supplies. They are the only people in town that help her. The rest of the town refer to her as Marsh Girl and consider her trash. After a few years of living on her own she runs into Tate one day while out in the boat. Tate was a friend of her brother and was a frequent visitor to the shack. Tate brings her books and teaches her to read. They share their knowledge of the wildlife of the marsh. Kya becomes an expert in the science of the marsh. When Tate leaves for college he promises to keep in touch and visit. He doesn't keep his promise. Once again abandoned, Kya becomes even more reclusive and strange. She spends her time painting pictures of the marsh. Years later Tate attempts a reconciliation. Kya is unable to trust him. While at the shack Tate sees her paintings of the marsh. He contacts someone he knows and gets her a publishing deal for a number of art books about the marsh, its wildlife and science.
One day the town's golden boy (now a man) is found dead in the marsh. The town suspects "the Marsh Girl".
The book is mainly about abandonment, loneliness and being an outsider. it's also about knowing what kind of person you are and living the life you need to live to feel alive. I started the book twice -- I was a little bored the first time-- but once I got into it the book kept my interest and was a fast read. Owen's prose is lovely, esp. when describing the marsh, the water, and the birds.

3) A General Theory of Oblivion- José Eduardo Agualusa
Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Fiction, Portuguese literature, Angola, Civil war, NewYearWhoDis
Pages: 250
Rating:

The story of a woman, Ludo, who survives 28 years alone in an apartment during the Angolan civi war. Ludo has agoraphobia. When her sister, Odette , marries Orlando they both move with him from Portugal to Angola. There is a revolution brewing in Angola. Also, Orlando is involved in some bad business. But Orlando is wealthy. They live in a penthouse apartment with a terrace with fruit trees and garden beds.
Odette and Orlando go to a party one night -- the Portuguese colonizers are throwing parties just before they flee Angola -- and never return. When a man comes looking for Orlando and threatens Ludo she shoots him. She then builds a brick wall in the hallway blocking entry to the apartment. For the next 28 years she will survive by eating pigeons, fruit from the trees, and vegetables she grows on the terrace. She will burn the furniture, the art works and most of the books for warmth and cooking fire. She will write her memoirs on the walls. She will overhear the conversations of her neighbors, people on the streets and radio programs. Ludo's story is interspersed with the stories of others, mainly revolutionaries. These short vignettes seem all over the place but by the end it all makes sense.
This is a work of fiction but is based on the real story of Ludovica Fernandes Mano and her diaries. The translation is very good.This is a story about story telling. Some of the vignettes seem unimportant on their own but taken as a whole the story is near epic.

4) The Winter Sisters- Tim Westover
Fiction, Georgia, Witches, Herbal medicine
Pages: 322
Rating:

Dr. Aubrey Waycross of Savannah, Georgia is invited by the Mayor of Lawrenceville, Georgia to become the town doctor. When Dr. Waycross arrives he discovers that Lawrenceville is a small mountain town with no paved roads and few niceties. He soon realizes that the town Preacher is a man he knows - and despises - since childhood. The people of Lawrenceville have little interest in being the patients of Dr. Waycross given the standard of medical practice in 1822 -- lancing, bleeding, and amputation. The people prefer to hike dangerous miles through the woods to Hope Hollow, the home of the Winter Sisters. These three young sisters, Rebecca, Sarah, and Effie are mainly practitioners of what we, these days, would call herbal medicine. In 1822 it would have been considered witchcraft. Rebecca and Sarah practice ritual magic and herbal medicine. Effie heals people by looking at them - if she feels like it. The relationship of the sisters is strained because of a recent episode when Effie "preferred not to " heal Rebecca's lover.
After meeting the Winter Sisters and seeing how they heal the people of the town, Dr. Waycross invites them to join in a practice with him. When a beloved daughter of the town is diagnosed with rabies the Winter sisters are blamed for infecting her. (rumor is that the rabid panther roaming the woods is their familiar). The Preacher tries to turn the town against the sisters and "their witchcraft". Dr. Waycross and the Winter sisters must use all their knowledge to win against superstition.
As a nurse who studies herbal medicine this seemed like a book I would love. But, the story moved slowly at times and I found myself getting bored and setting the book aside. I think the book could have used more sections on herb lore.

5) Gideon the Ninth- Tamsin Muir
Fiction, Fantasy, Space, Necromancers, SFFKit
Pages: 448 (16 hrs 15 mins audio)
Rating:

Gideon Nav is an indentured servant of the Ninth House. She plans on running away. She is stopped by her nemesis, Harrowhawk Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, and defacto ruler of that House. The Emperor Undying, ruler of the First House, to whom the other Eight Houses are loyal, has called for each House to send their best Necromancer and Cavalier (bodyguard/fighter). They are invited to take part in a contest of wits and skill. Since Harrowhawk's actual Cavalier is a terrible fighter she decides to get rid of him and take Gideon. The contest takes place on the planet of the First House, in the enormous mansion belonging to the Emperor. The Lyctor's, powerful Necromancer's that serve the Emperor, are tired after 10,000 years. They want to be replaced by new Lyctor's. Any Necromancer that can pass the test can become a Lyctor, and therefore immortal. The trial involves attaining entrance to various rooms, one from each House, and deciphering the part of the thoerem developed by that House, and combining all the parts into one theorem to obtain Lyctorhood. To gain entrance to these rooms the participants must battle monstrous skeletal constructs using their necromantic skills. Long story short -- it is a bloodbath. And, of course, there is a final, horrible, twist at the end.
The tagline for this book is "lesbian necromancers in space!" Sounds amazing. I bought this book as soon as I heard about it. Unfortunately I bought it on audiobook. There are more than 20 important characters in this story. They all have really long names, with titles, plus shortened names and even nicknames. This makes it very hard to keep track of the characters. Plus, once the trial starts there are almost constant battles with body parts and people flying everywhere. Characters died in battles and I would be unaware of that until another character mentioned their death a few chapters later. Even the dramatic ending was lost in this confusion. I'm definitely going to have to get a copy of the physical book and re-read this at some point. And I am definitely reading the second book in the series when it's released this summer.

6) Greenglass House- Kate Mitford
Fiction, Young adult, Ghosts, Christmas, Smugglers, NewYearWhoDis
Pages: 400
Rating:

Milo Pine lives in Greenglass House with his adoptive parents. Greenglass House was originally built by a famous smuggler. The Pines run an Inn in the house that caters, mostly, to smugglers. It's the start of Christmas vacation and Milo is looking forward to relaxing, sledding with his parents, drinking hot chocolate and all his other favorite Christmas and winter related activities. Then, unexpectedly, five guests show up with plans to stay over the holiday. Each of these guests has a connection to Greenglass House. When things start disappearing from the guests rooms Milo, and his new friend Meddy, begin playing an RPG with the goal of finding the missing objects and the identity of the thief. The mystery becomes bigger as the story progresses. So does the danger. There is also a paranormal plot twist near the end.
This middle grade read was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it start to finish.

7) Star- Yukio Mishima
Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett
Fiction, Fame, Japan
Pages: 94
Rating:

This Japanese novella/ short story was first published in 1961. It was translated into English and published in 2019. Yukio Mishima was a famous Japanese author, poet, actor, and director. He committed ritual suicide after a failed attempt at a coup against the Japanese government. (He was pro-Emperor). This story is a study on how fame affects people.

Rikio Mizuno is a 23 year old movie actor. A "heart throb" with a mob of screaming fans following his every move. He spends the majority of his time with his assistant, Kayo. Rikio is starting to feel that he is about to lose everything; that he is done. He is exhausted from working almost every day, late into the night. He is exhausted from being unable to escape the gaze of others and whatever it is they think about him. His fame and the constant of filming scenes out of sequence leave him disoriented.
I read about this story on a list of recommended but obscure books. A few days later I was in the Strand and saw it on one of the book tables. Overall it did not live up to my expectations but there were some good passages about fame sprinkled throughout.

It's useless trying to explain what it feels like in the spotlight.The very thing that makes a star spectacular is the same thing that strikes him from the world at large and makes him an outsider.

Given the choice I'd much rather have a girl masturbating somewhere to my picture than actually trying to sleep with me. Real love always plays out at a distance.

It's become a tradition for me to pin up the life-size poster from current project right inside the front door. Every night, when I get home, I'm the first one there to greet me.

Ten Days in a Madhouse sounds interesting. I've heard of Nellie Bly but don't really know much about her. Also, Greenglass House has been popping up for me lately and it looks like you enjoyed it too... I'm going to have to check it out myself!

Wow - book bullets galore here! Definitely interested in Ten Days in a Madhouse and your review of Where the Crawdads Sing intrigues me. I've visited Angola several times on business and A General Theory of Oblivion sounds really interesting!

January Recap:

Books read in 2020: 7
Books off the shelf: 4
Fiction: 6
Nonfiction: 1
Poetry: 0
Graphic novels, etc: 0
Female author: 4
Male author: 3
Pages read in 2020: 1978

Planned reading for February:

NonFictionCAT: Year of the Monkey - Patti Smith

SFFKit: Muse of Nightmares - Laini Taylor

Other potential reading:

Cursed - Frank Miller
The Starless Sea- Erin Morgenstern
Who Put This Song On? - Morgan Parker
Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

8) Muse of Nightmares- Laini Taylor
Fantasy, Series, SFFKIt
Pages: 544
Rating:

The second book in the Strange the Dreamer duology. After an opening chapter set centuries in the past, featuring two sisters, the story starts right where it left off. Lazlo Strange, once human, now a God, and Sarai, once a Goddess, now a ghost, are trapped in the Citadel in the skies above Weep. Minya, learning of Lazlo's new gift of being able to transform the godsmetal, wants to use him to get down to Weep and kill all the citizens. She's able to manipulate him because she holds Sarai's ghost in the world. If Minya lets Sarai go he will lose her forever. Lazlo, Sarai, and the other godspawn come up with a plan to get Minya out of the way so Lazlo can go to Weep and get help. While doing this they discover what really happened the day of "The Carnage" - when the humans slaughtered the Gods and most of the godspawn. Lazlo is able to go to Weep and speak with his old friends about making peace between the two factions. Three of the humans, including Sarai's father, Eril Fane, go to the Citadel to help. It's at this point that the story of the two sisters from the opening chapter becomes a part of the main story, and things go from bad to worse.
In this second book we not only learn what really happened the day of the carnage, we learn what happened to all the godspawn babies that disappeared, and how the Mesarthim (the Gods) travelled to this world in their giant, floating, metal Citadel. We also learn how the Gods get, and keep, their powers.
I really enjoyed this series. It's filled with characters I instantly liked and cared about, amazing world building, beautifully written dream sequences, and a story I didn't want to stop reading. Heartbreaking but beautiful, I highly recommend reading this book series if you like fantasy.

I'll take a BB on the Strange the Dreamer duology!

>29 VioletBramble: I am also taking a BB for the Strange Dreamer duology.

>30 LisaMorr: >31 DeltaQueen50: Yay! I hope you enjoy the books. I really loved this duology. I haven't read anything else by Taylor but I'll be looking into her Daughter of Smoke and Bone series.

I'm so far behind. I have no memory of what I was doing for the remainder of February that caused me not to post but March has been busy busy with Covid-19 drama. I sometimes wish I had decided on botany over nursing. I had Friday - Sunday off to attend a wedding. I ended up not attending. I didn't want to spend three hours each way in a car with my 78 year old, diabetic mother and possibly pass anything on to her. Instead I ventured out to the farmers market and grocery store to see what I could procure. My neighborhood has been fairly calm and store shelves were fully stocked. Until Friday. I did manage to get a good amount of beans, canned and dry, soups and grains. It's not as if I'll be isolated in my apartment. I am expected at work unless I myself become positive. Luckily I work in Pediatrics, and children - for the most part- have a much easier course with the virus. I hope all here at LT are doing well and will get through this safely.

I'm going to try to remember my thoughts on the books I've read since last posting.

9) Year of the Monkey - Patti Smith
Memoir, Travel, NonFiction CAT
Pages: 173
Rating:

Starting on New Years Eve 2016 this is Smith's memoir of that year. Like her other books this one consists primarily of entries from her journals and notebooks, musings on those entries and, Polaroid photos of some her her favorite places and objects. Through 2016 Smith traveled through California, Arizona, Kentucky, and back home to New York. Throughout the year Smith deals with the illness of two close friends and her own aging process (she turned 70 in 2016). As usual Smith's musings are descriptive, but this time they are a mix of reality and dreams. This is my least favorite of Smith's books.
I enjoyed the section where she discussed Bolaño's 2666 with three strangers in a diner. I added that book to my reading list for 2021 because of that conversation. This felt to me like the least personal and the most disjointed of her memoirs.

>32 VioletBramble: Keeping you and all those on the front lines in my thoughts. I have the ability to work from home and am taking full advantage to keep myself out of the community as much as possible. I'm low risk, being in my 30s, but I could unwittingly transmit the virus to someone who is higher risk. Unfortunately, my workplace has not yet taken the pandemic as seriously as I think they should -- telework is still at the discretion of individual managers. All it takes is one "bums-in-seats" sort of manager in an open-plan office to jack up the number of cases :-/

10) Who Put This Song On? - Morgan Parker
Fiction, Mental Health, Music, Young adult
Pages: 325
Rating:

This is the debut novel from Morgan Parker. Parker is known for her poetry, esp. her recent collection, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce. This is listed as fiction but is based on Parker's real life. The main character is an African American teenaged girl, named Morgan, who lives in a predominantly white suburb, goes to a high school that doesn't teach Black History, listens to "white music" and has depression and fits of rage. The story is about identity, wanting to express your identity, both personally and in your work, (Morgan writes about topics in Black History for her History class and gets reprimanded by her teacher), mental health, writing and music. Morgan has great taste in music.
This was a pretty good book, the writing was somewhat simple, but the story had depth.

>34 rabbitprincess: You are very lucky to have the option to work at home. I hope you get to continue doing that through this outbreak. I feel bad for people who work at businesses that have closed because they have lost customers, whose employers will never be able to pay them for time off, and the owners whose businesses may never recover from the financial loss of having to be closed. At work we were discussing how we have to go to work while others stay at home but at least we have jobs and at least we are getting paid and would most likely be paid if we became positive and had to isolate. Esp. if exposure could be said to have occurred on the job.
It is so important that those who are at low risk and are able to isolate do so in order to protect those that are most vulnerable. Too many people seem unable to grasp this concept of community responsibility.
Luckily things at the hospital are still calm - at least as of Thursday - but we know things are going to get very bad at some point. I'm just going to take it one day at a time. My biggest fear is that there may come a day when they won't let us leave the hospital because so many staff will be out sick or isolating, and they won't want to take the chance that we won't return for our next shift.

>36 VioletBramble: I know, I am very lucky and will fight to telework as long as needed. Fortunately, my manager is awesome and has allowed me to do so. I asked for at least as long as the libraries are closed, and then I think once the libraries reassess, so will we.

Sending you strength for the days ahead.

11) The Starless Sea- Erin Morganstern
Fiction, Fantasy
Pages: 512 (Audiobook time: 18 hr 38m )
Rating:

A story about stories within stories set in a fantastical underground land with a starless sea made of honey. There are multiple storylines, some set in two alternate timelines that intersect for a short time. There are multiple locations - a library, a hotel, a pirate ship, a ballroom, a wine cellar. Certain people have access to this world through doors that appear suddenly in strange places. This world is controlled by a secret society.
I listened to the audiobook which had multiple readers. Each reader would read a specific storyline. The storylines alternated throughout the book. Now, more than a month after listening to the book I don't remember much about the characters. What I remember is the dream like quality of the stories and the overall theme of love of story, myth and folklore.

12) Letters From an Astrophysicist- Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Letters, Science, NonFiction
Pages: 245
Rating:

A collection of letters sent to Dr. Tyson from fans, students and unbelievers, with his responses included. Most of the letters are from people with questions about astrophysics, but there are also a lot from very religious people who try to persuade Dr Tyson that he is wrong about the universe and the Bible is correct.
I liked this -- it's more personal and less educational than his other books.

13) Mooncakes- Wendy Xu, Suzanne Walker
Graphic novel, Magic, LGBTQ
Pages: 254
Rating:

A cute graphic novel about a witch and a werewolf rekindling their childhood friendship into something more while also fighting an evil force. Not bad but I really expected more based on all the good reviews.

14) Just Peachy: Comics About Depression, Anxiety, Love, and Finding Humor in Being Sad- Holly Chisholm
Comics, Mental health
Pages: 136
Rating:

Just okay collection of comics about mental health issues.

15) The Shortest Day - Susan Cooper
Illustrated by Carson Ellis
Children's Literature, Poetry, Illustrated, Solstice, Ritual
Pages: 32
Rating:

A beautifully illustrated poem about Winter Solstice. I ordered this last year, hoping to get it for Solstice. It had sold out very quickly. The publisher has finally reprinted and I received my copy earlier this month.

The Shortest Day
Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing, behind us - listen!
All the long echoes sing the same delight
This shortest day
As promise wakens in the sleeping land.
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year, and every year.
Welcome Yule!

16) Acid For the Children- Flea
Memoir, Music
Pages: 400 ( Audiobook time 9hrs 4mins)
Rating:

Possibly the most random memoir I have ever read. Well, listened to, since I have it on audiobook.
Flea, the bassist from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, always seemed to me like a cool, laid back guy. I don't have any music from the RHCP in my collection, but when I saw this book n the store I just knew I had to read it. This is the story of his childhood, teen years and young adulthood pre- Chili Peppers. Much of the book goes like this: When I was this age I lived here and these were my friends and these are the things we did. As Flea and his family move and age he becomes involved in petty crime, drugs and music. There is a section near the end about his time in the band Fear but nothing about the Chili Peppers.

>36 VioletBramble: All my best for the days ahead.

>36 VioletBramble: Thank you for what you do!

My daughter-in-law is a nurse and she's concerned about bringing it home to her husband and then him going out and passing it along.

Waving hello. >41 VioletBramble: Is this by the Susan Cooper that wrote The dark is rising series? Yay - my library owns this one!

Best to you and your colleagues as you work during this time.

>44 MissWatson: >45 Tess_W: Thank you both.

>46 dudes22: Luckily, I don't have anyone at home to worry about infecting. Since we are not allowed to wear masks at work, except with infectious patients, I worry about giving it to my Pediatric oncology patients.
One of my coworkers has been intubated in the ICU for over a week now. The hospital refuses to test those of us that work with her unless we become symptomatic. Since asymptomatic people are known to spread the virus this doesn't make any sense to us. We were just told we need to make ONE mask last for multiple 13 hour shifts. I know it's not their fault that there are no supplies but it is so infuriating.

>47 markon: Hello! (waving back!) Yes, that book is by that Susan Cooper. I posted the poem up in >42 VioletBramble:.
The book is lovely; totally worth the time spent waiting for a copy after it sold out so quickly.

17) Stranger Things: Runaway Max- Brenna Yovanoff
Series, Science fiction, SFFKit
Pages: 231
Rating::

One of the series of books based on the Netflix show Stranger Things that looks deeper into the histories of some of the characters.
This one tells the story of Max Mayfield, the new girl in season two. We learn about Max's life in California, her parents, her stepfather and her stepbrother, Billy. Most of the story is season 2 of Stranger Things from Max's POV, with her history thrown in intermittently.
This is a really enjoyable, quick read, that made me feel that I understood the character and her motives much better now. It definitely added to the story from the show.

Kudos to you and your co-workers for continuing on under such difficult conditions. My daughter is nurse here in British Columbia, but she has been doing more training and teaching than actual nursing lately but I worry about her nonetheless.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on your reading in the middle of all this - I'll take a BB for Who Put This Song On?.

Thank you for everything you are doing; I'm so sorry about the mask situation. This whole situation seems so crazy to me - how can we be so unprepared? I just hope that wisdom will prevail and the right decisions will be made to help us get through this as quickly as possible; unfortunately I have my doubts.

>50 DeltaQueen50: Thank you. Well, if your daughter is training and teaching with HCW anywhere near patients she is still right there in it. My unit will definitely be needing our educators on the floor in the upcoming weeks. I hope that you both make it safely through this pandemic.

>51 LisaMorr: Thank you. HCW are also wondering how we could be so unprepared. Those that speak out risk being fired. It seems the height of stupidity to fire HCW in the midst of a pandemic but hospitals seem to think that the general public has no idea what the real situation is inside hospitals. Thankfully our Governor is intelligent, calm, and taking care of things as best as he can.

There have been some major changes in my work situation. We have sent our Pediatric patients to our uptown campus. My coworkers and I are currently "orienting" on adult units learning to care for adult patients __how things work, what's different, what things they chart that we don't, what procedures they do that we don't, etc. Meanwhile others are preparing our unit for adults. They will also be turning at least 7 of our 30 beds into ICU beds. Hopefully they have ICU nurses for those ICU beds. We are a general, not intensive care, unit. Most of us only have experience with pediatrics. One person has PICU experience. We are hoping that the Nursing Educators for the adult units can be resources and maybe quickly teach us ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support). In Peds we use BCLS (basic) or PALS. In the medical world it is a general rule -- Adults code when their cardiac status is disrupted and Children code when their respiratory status is disrupted. So it's a whole new way of thinking for us. The Governor just released a statement that states that we can dump most of the charting we usually do - the hospital is busy removing now unessential elements from out computer charts - told us what is essential to chart and that as long as we act in good faith we cannot be sued for anything that happens during the pandemic. We will be working with doctors we don't know, that we have not built trust with, in possibly emergent situations. We are scared and feeling unprepared but are determined to remain the positive, strong team that we are, and to help each other through this situation. I'm hoping not to kill anyone and to make it through this well and alive. I'm immunocompromised and not even sure I should really be working at this point. I will reassess my situation as things progress.

In reading news, nothing much is happening. I will try to read the last Early Reviewers book I got, (a volume of illustrated poems), but I am re-shelving the biographies I was reading for Non-fiction CAT. I'm also going to, for now, not read my planned ScaredyKIT reads because I just can't do horror right now. Though I will continue to listen to King of Crows on audiobook, in part because it has been so effective in lulling me to sleep. But I will definitely try to get to some of my Time Travel books for next month as time travel books are among my favorite things. Should definitely be back by April 15th to open the NonFictionCAT Science thread for May.

The Pediatric Oncologists I work with are now working from home and apparently bored. They have started writing COVID haiku and posting them online. I know some of you are working from home and many of you are isolating at home so i thought I'd share some in case you can relate.

Bought a standing desk
Work from home ass-spread is real
Where are all my snacks?

We need PPE
Med teams dying left and right
This cannot go on

I no longer bathe
Alone I eat all the carbs
Go away Rona

ICUs are full
Social distancing can help
Stay the fuck at home

COVID caused by dogs?
Work at home snuggles abound
Walks and walks for days.

Government doesn't
Care about healthcare workers
Not even a bit

I need more cheese please
Shampoos so outdated
Why don't my pants fit?

It smells like fear here
Fuck you, Coronavirus
That is all for now

Patients overflow
Hospitals at DEFCON 1
How do we stay safe?

What day is today?
Weekend, weekday, feels the same
Cheese tastes good all days

>53 VioletBramble: The first one and the last one are so true. I made myself a standing desk last week, and I have a hard time remembering what day it is. Thanks for sharing those! Thinking of you all and hoping you stay safe.

>52 VioletBramble: Wow! Thank you again for what you are doing. I hope you stay safe and well and sane through all of this. Sending my best wishes to you.

>53 VioletBramble: And thank you for sharing the haikus - very good!

>52 VioletBramble: - Wow, that is quite the change and quickly. Thanks for sharing here and for all the work you and your colleagues are doing. Stay safe, healthy and sane.

>52 VioletBramble: Wow. It really staggers the mind. Thank you for sharing and thank you so much for everything you and your co-workers are doing. I'm wishing you well.

I can't believe it's only been 15 days since I was here last. In my head it feels like months. The Monday after I last posted I started orienting with another nurse on an adult covid unit. Everything went well. My coworkers and I realized that adults were just larger versions of our pediatric patients and most of the skills needed were the same. We also got some great tips on working with covid positive patients and not contaminating anything outside. We were like "We can do this! Go Team Peds!" This good feeling was short lived. On Thursday morning we were called in to a meeting with the head of our department. The hospital had chosen to become a completely covid ICU hospital. All non ICU patients would be moved to other hospitals. All non ICU staff would be trained to be ICU staff. All beds would be converted to ICU beds. We started training that morning. Normally it takes someone 4-6 months to become an ICU nurse, depending on where you work. On Thursday and Friday I shadowed a nurse in the MICU for 5-6 hours. In the afternoons I helped with admissions on the no longer Pediatric step down unit. Late on Friday there was an incident with a rectal tube -- I won't disgust you with details -- that would have later repercussions. I spent my three day weekend studying ventilators, sedatives, paralyzers and other fun ICU things. On Tuesday morning I had a 2 1/2 hour ICU Crash Course class. Unfortunately I had woken up not feeling well and barely made it through the class. I most likely got a nasty gastritis from the rectal tube incident. I was sent home, put off work by employee health, had virtual MD and covid test appointments made. Before my test results came back - negative - I developed upper respiratory symptoms as well. The doctor was concerned that the emergence of URI symptoms might mean I was one of the 20-30% of people with false negative test results. So I am at home, isolating, until Wednesday. At the end of last week there was another work development. The covid virus can damage other organs besides the lungs. Many patients require dialysis. Hemodialysis is preferred in adults, but, the virus causes the blood to clot, and the clots were clogging the machines. It was decided to start peritoneal dialysis on these patients. In pediatrics we do peritoneal dialysis. We don't do it a lot any more, but in the past we did it frequently. The hospital decided to use the pediatric nurses as a Peritoneal Dialysis team. We have been brushing up on PD via webinars, e-learning and videos. At this point only two nurses a shift are needed for PD so we are still pretending to be ICU nurses the rest of the time. As a team we are happy that we get to use this, apparently rare, skill that we have. Plus, it gives us at least some time at work when we don't feel scared, incompetent, and useless. Because every day we just try to get through the day, take care of our patients to the best of our abilities, while feeling scared and useless. It's so depressing. And every week they say "Next week will be the bad week" Ugh!
Then, my 75 year old friend and neighbor, who I have been checking up on, handed me a bag with an envelope in it, and told me to call her later. The envelope had money in it. I called her to see what it was about. She outlined her plan to die, with her 77 year old sister, in her sister's apartment, of covid, because she says that at their ages the hospitals won't do anything for them. Neither of them are sick. I tried to be really reassuring, telling her that hospitals aren't making those kinds of decisions at this point, etc. She gave another neighbor copies of important papers and her apartment key. So, I figure she wants me to do something with the money in the envelope. She tells me that the money is for me and then hung up on me. I burst into tears. I've talked to her since and she has calmed down and is less depressed. I left the envelope on my table with her name and address and told my mother to make sure she gets it back if I don't make it through this.
In less depressing news my family and friends have been so good to me. Sending me care packages of Lysol spray, Tylenol, N95 masks, aromatherapy and lots of chocolate. Many of them check on me every couple of days.
Sorry for ranting. I just needed to vent.

>54 rabbitprincess: >55 LisaMorr: >56 lkernagh: >57 madhatter22: Thanks for visiting my thread. I hope that you and your families are well and make it through this pandemic.

>58 VioletBramble: Yikes! That is a lot for you to be dealing with. Vent away -- it is good to see your typing. Thinking of you.

18) The King of Crows- Libba Bray
Narrator: January LaVoy
Audiobook, Supernatural, Series, Ghosts, ScaredyKIT
Pages: 560
Audiobook Time: 22h 20m
Rating:

The fourth and final book in The Diviners series. The story picks up where the last book ended - after the explosion at the World's Fair. The Diviners are accused of collaborating with the bombers. The FBI, the KKK, and Jake Marlow's men are hunting for them all over the United States. The Diviners travel together to Death Valley to destroy Jake Marlow's Eye -- the machine that opens doorways between worlds - and to kill the King of Crows. The story of the ghosts of New York City becomes a story of the ghosts of "America": slavery, racism, poverty, the struggles of those that work the land, and the evils of Capitalism.
I listened to the audiobook at bedtime. January LaVoy's voice was perfect for lulling me to sleep at a time when I thought it would be impossible to sleep. I had to rewind this story every day until I finally heard the entire thing.

My thoughts and prayers are with you - I am in absolute awe at what you and your co-workers are doing.

Thank you for your service!

19) Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry - Julian Peters
Early reviewers, Poetry, Comics
Pages: 159
Rating:

A collection of 24 well known poems interpreted in comic form by Julian Peters. My favorites, based on the illustrations, were Juke Box Love Song by Langston Hughes and Birches by Robert Frost. I also loved Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay, because she's my favorite poet, but I don't remember seeing this poem before. I thought it was clever to illustrate Wordsworth's The World is Too much With Us with images of a man looking at his phone.
Recommended for those who love poetry and art.

Thanks for sharing how it's going for you. So sad about your neighbor's view of this situation. Take care of yourself.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts at such a busy time. All my best wishes for a good outcome.

>58 VioletBramble: Thank you for all you are doing to fight this pandemic! It's a tough time for everyone, but I can't even imagine how hard it must be for you and your fellow healthcare workers. I hope you are keeping well.

>58 VioletBramble: I hope you'll keep venting as much as you need. This is such an unreal situation you're in. I hadn't considered nurses being required to transition from their usual specialties and quickly retrain. I agree with >61 DeltaQueen50: I am so in awe of the job you and your co-workers and healthcare workers everywhere are doing right now.

>58 VioletBramble: Oh my goodness, so sorry to hear everything you are going through, including your neighbor's concerns. Thank you for all you are doing, all the best to you and vent away!

Thanks to you and health care workers like you who are all doing a fantastic job under scary circumstances. My thoughts are with you. Take care.

20) Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song- various authors
Time travel, series
Pages: 224
Rating:

A collection of short stories featuring River Song, companion and wife of The Doctor. The stories are told from River's point of view which makes them great for imagining them in Alex Kingston's voice. The stories are written by multiple authors but each of those authors got the voice of River Song just right.
Enjoyable, fun collection.

21) Doctor Who: The Missy Chronicles - various
Time travel, series
Pages: 218
Rating:

A collection of short stories about Missy, the latest regeneration of the Master. I don't think I was in the right mood to read this collection. Other readers seemed to enjoy these stories more than I did. Honestly, I found the stories a combination of boring and ridiculous. Which amazes me because Missy is a great, fun, albeit evil, character.

22) One Word Kill - Mark Lawrence
Time travel, Series
Pages: 194
Rating:

The first book in a new time travel series.
Nick is a 15 year old science prodigy. He has a small group of friends with whom he plays Dungeons and Dragons every weekend. Nick has just been diagnosed with leukemia. He hasn't told his friends about his diagnosis or that he misses school at the end of every week because he is having chemotherapy administered. One day Nick meets a man who tells him that he is a time traveller from the future. He needs Nick to steal something very important- and extremely rare in this time period- to enable this future time travel. The stranger tells Nick that if he can do this he guarantees that Nick will survive the cancer and have a future.
There were aspects of the story that I didn't like. The mechanics of the time travel were muddled. I did really like all the young characters. Nick and his friend group seemed like real teenagers. I have never played D&D, only seen it depicted in movies and on television. I think people who play D&D would really enjoy the game parts of the narrative. The D&D story and its twists seemed inventive to me. And of course, as happens in numerous time travel novels, the plot of the secondary story (D&D) foreshadows the plot in the primary story.

23) Nothing is Okay - Rachel Wiley
Audiobook, Poetry
Time: 2 hrs
Rating:

I bought this slam poetry audiobook (read by the author) after seeing a few of Ms.Wiley's videos on YouTube and Facebook. I definitely wanted more. These poems are about body positivity, feminism, dating, racism, and sexuality.
Highly recommended.

24) We Ride Upon Sticks- Quan Barry
Fiction, YA
Pages: 384
Time: 14 h 44 min
Narrator: Isabel Keating
Rating:

This is possibly my favorite book of the year so far. Maybe it will just be my favorite Covid-19 book. I definitely needed a fun and engaging, but sorta light, read to get me through these days.
Set in Danvers, Mass - home of the Salem Witch Trials - in 1989. The Danvers Falcons Women's Varsity Field Hockey team is determined to have a winning season, including becoming State Champions. At summer field hockey camp they were losing every game. One night the team goalie, Mel, performed a ritual involving an Emilio Estevez notebook. After that she was able to stop any ball that came at her net. One by one the 10 girls and 1 boy that make up the team visit Mel, they sign their name in the book of Emilio and have a piece of blue tube sock tied around their upper arm. When the season starts the Falcons win every game. To keep their winning streak going the 11 team members routinely write their confessions in Emilio and perform rituals and sacrifices to Emilio. As the season goes on the rituals and sacrifices become more consequential and dangerous. When the team wins the championship was it because of Emilio or their faith in themselves?
Each character has a chapter where their story is told; their history, family life, what they want from the team, and the rituals and sacrifices they perform in order to keep winning. The book ends with a chapter set in 2020 where we find out what happened to each team member.
Highly recommended.

25) The Golden Orchard- Flora Ahn
Narrated by: Kathleen Chloe
Audiobook, Time travel, Food
Time: 5 hr 15 min
Rating:

Maya and her grandmother cook family recipes together. Her grandmother shows her that the women in their family have the gift of time travel through food. When Maya's grandmother -- and eventually Maya -- cook a food that is connected to a strong memory for them, they are able to travel back in time to that memory. They can not interact with the people or change anything. Maya's grandmother cautions her against traveling forward in time because there are multiple potential futures and people have become lost in time. Maya befriends another time traveller in one of her grandmother'e memories. He shows her time travel techniques that her grandmother doesn't know. He also shows her the Golden Orchard where everyone has a tree that contains their memories.
This was cute. Recommended for those who like time travel and/or food.

26) Upright Women Wanted- Sarah Gailey
Narrator: Romy Nordinger
Audiobook, Librarians, LGBTQ
Pages 171
Time: 3 hr 52 mins
Rating:


Esther witnesses the death by hanging of her best friend, with whom she is in love. Esther's father wants to quickly marry her off to the man that was supposed to marry her best friend. Esther runs away, hiding in the back of the Librarian's book wagon. This book is set in a future United States, possibly post apocalypse - it's unclear. In this future Southwestern US, Librarians travel from town to town, bringing papers on public health, decency and news of the resistance to the revolution. Librarians are the only ones allowed to possess this information in paper form. Esther is hoping the Librarians will let her join their ranks. The Librarians aren't so thrilled about Esther tagging along. They may have some transactions in the works that they don't want made public. Oh, I forgot to mention that all of the Librarians are women or non -binary.

27) The House in the Cerulean Sea- TJ Klune
Audiobook, Magic, Fiction
Narrated by : Daniel Henning
Time: 12 hr 12 mins
Rating:

So I just said that We Ride Upon Sticks may be my favorite book so far this year. I may have to change that. This book was equally fun, plus the story is completely charming.
Linus Baker is a caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He visits orphanages and homes run by the department to make sure that the children are safe and cared for appropriately. He gets sent to a beautiful tropical island to check out a house with six children that is in the charge of Arthur Parnassus. The six children are a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, a shape shifter, a blob with eyes, and Lucifer, the Antichrist. I don't want to give anything away so I won't write any more.
A lovely story about family. Highly recommended.

28) The City Born Great - NK Jemisin
Story, Fantasy, NYC, Audiobook
Narrator: Landon Woodson
Time 46 mins
Rating:

A stand alone story about the birth of New York City as a living, breathing entity. The story is told by a homeless man who acts as midwife to the city, protecting it and singing it's song as it is birthed.
Very fast paced story. Also a little weird. Recommended.

29) The Flying Flamingo Sisters - Carrie Siem
Audiobook, Fantasy
Narrator: Christine Mull, others
Time 2 hrs 13 mins
Rating:


Set in early 20th century America. Three sisters from a famous flying family must venture out on their own when their parents and family dog go missing on a flight over the Pacific. They have to avoid their evil Uncle who is trying to claim custody of them and steal the map to the family fortune.
This story is told in the style of an old radio play, with multiple narrators.

30) Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft- Joe Hill
Illustrations: Gabriel Rodriguez
Graphic novel, Series, Horror
Pages: 154
Rating:

The first in a series of 6 graphic novels about the Locke family. Upon the death of Rendell Locke his family moves across the country to his childhood home, Keyhouse. Keyhouse is special. There are a number of keys hidden in the house that give the holder of the key special powers. The keys allow you to walk into any door anywhere if you have seen it, change your face, become a ghost, control other people, etc. The Locke children have discovered some of the keys and have let a demon out of the well house on the property.
This novel is pretty dark. Much darker than the television show based on the books.
I like the illustrations - they're not too busy and the color palette is nice.

31) The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion - Gerard Way
Illustrations: Gabriel Ba
Graphic novel, Series
Pages: 200
Rating:


The third graphic novel in the Umbrella Academy series. In this one Sir Reginald Hargraves has trapped numerous evil doers in The Hotel Oblivion in a time seam. Some other evil doer discovers this and releases them all.
I find these graphic novels confusing. There is no background on the bad guys. The UA characters rarely act consistently -- except for Klaus and Diego.
I also don't like the illustrations. I had planned not to buy this book. I don't remember why I actually did.
I love the show and will continue to watch that but I am done with the novels, for sure this time.

32) FCBD: Our Favorite Thing is My Favorite Thing is Monsters - Emil Ferris
Comic
Pages: 32
Rating

The free comic book from 2019 Free Comic Book Day. This contains a short autobiography about Ferris and her health issues that led to her creating My Favorite Thing is Monsters. Includes a new 16 page comic about Karen and Deeze.

Ugh, my book covers keep disappearing. I will try to fix that later.

33) A Murder of Manatees: The Further Adventures of Tom Stranger Interdimensional Insurance Agent
- Larry Correia
Narrated by: Adam Baldwin
Audiobook, Humor, Politics, Science fiction
Time: 2 hrs 8 mins
Rating:

I'm not sure what to say about this audiobook. This is one story taken from an audiobook collection of 5 stories. The story is kinda insane -- time traveling insurance agents, dolphin mafia, a multiverse, and a whole lot of things coming at you really fast. The best part was feeling as if Jayne Cobb from Serenity was yelling wacky things at me really fast. I actually had to check that I had it set to x1 speed.The author couldn't help but bring his personal politics into the story. At first it seemed that he was trying to be bipartisan -- mentioning marchers in oddly shaped pink hats and another group of marchers who had to stop by Home Depot to pick up pitchforks and tiki torches before the march. But then it all went downhill into Trump love and ruined what story I was able to make out of the wackiness.

May recap:
I've read 14 books in the last two months. Not the books I was planning to read. Only 4 of them were for challenges. I still haven't read either of my Science books for the NonFiction Cat - although I have started them both. For June I'm just hoping to read those two Science books, Sunny Days for the June NonFiction CAT and Barbarian Days for the RandomCAT.

I've had a few days off this past week.Managed to catch up on reviews and do my spring cleaning.
Things are better at the hospital. We have moved all the adult covid patients out of the Pediatric ICU and Peds. Both units are in the process of being thoroughly aired out and cleaned. Then they will be stocked and readied for pediatric patients, hopefully, by June 15. Unfortunately the Peds Step-down unit will continue to have adult covid patients for as long as it takes for the adult step down and general units to get back to a particular (unknown to me) patient level. This could possibly be the remainder of the year, depending on if we get a second wave of infectious patients after things open. In the meantime I will be working on step down, doing peritoneal dialysis some days (I love this!), or roaming around the hospital checking central lines and pressure ulcers. I haven't done this last thing yet - it just started - so I'm not sure how it will be, but it's got to be better than cleaning feces off of adults multiple times a day. But it is in general so much better at the hospital these days. In a couple weeks I will go and get tested for antibodies to covid. I don't think that I ever had covid, but so many people had it and were asymptomatic, that I want to check. Maybe then my mother will feel safe being in the same room with me. I haven't seen her at all this year, except on Zoom.
I hope anyone who visits my thread is well and that their families have gotten through this pandemic okay. Thanks for all your posts and support during my crazy, stressful covid days. i keep hoping for things to get back to normal. I'm not sure when - or if - that will happen. Things won't feel right until I can walk around and browse in a bookstore again.

It's good to see you're okay!

>77 VioletBramble: I have heard so many good things about this book and for some reason, the hardback is extraordinarily expensive. More so than any hardback I've ever seen. The paperback isn't out until February 2021! I hope my library will purchase a copy.

>85 VioletBramble: Glad to hear things are calming down at the hospital and that you are doing well!

34) Sunny Days:The Children's Television Revolution That Changed America - Davis Kamp
Narrated by David Sadzin
NonFiction, Children, Television
Time: 8 h 45 min
Rating:

In the early 1970s a group of people got together to create an experiment known as Children's Television. Their primary goal was to see if television could be used to better prepare disadvantaged preschoolers for kindergarten. They developed a number of shows designed to help children learn. They did this at a moment of monumental political and social change in the United States. They started a cultural revolution in which children were treated like thinking, reasoning individuals.
Kamp covers the history of those involved in creating this great experiment - the television executives, writers, actors, publishers, musician, directors, and producers. The shows that are discussed include: Captain Kangaroo, Mr Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, The Magic Garden, New Zoo Revue, Schoolhouse Rock, Free to be.., and my favorite, Zoom.
My favorite part - besides the chapter about Zoom - was learning about Ursula Nordstrom. Nordstrom is first mentioned in a chapter that discusses how children's television shows of the time lagged behind children's publishing in treating children as people. Ursula Nordstrom was a publisher and editor in The Department of Books for Boys and Girls at Harper & Row. Her goal was to publish books that "gave children credit for innate intelligence' and she liked to 'cultivate authors who took seriously the interior lives of children" She liked to say that she was publishing "Good books for bad children" while the rest of the industry was publishing parent approved bad books for good children. Among the books she is responsible for publishing are Harriet the Spy, Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Giving Tree.
One sad note -- which I was unaware of, because I don't have children- is that Sesame Street has been bought by HBO and can now be seen exclusively on that cable pay-network. This potentially takes Sesame Street away from many of the disadvantaged preschoolers it was initially created to help. Children whose families can't afford HBO or a streaming service may never get to see Sesame Street.
I listened to this on audiobook. The narrator, David Sadzin, did an excellent job.
I bought this book after seeing a story in the paper based on the chapter about Zoom. The book did not disappoint, it held my interest throughout - and in audiobook format, that is unusual for me. Recommended.

35) Beach Read - Emily Henry
Fiction, Writers, Romance
Pages: 380
Rating:


I picked this book to read during a reading slump. It looked light and maybe fun. I didn't realize it was a romance until later. I rarely read from the Romance category. But this story is about two writers and a writing contest so I figured I'd give it a go. Gus is a writer of literary fiction. January writes women's fiction. They were in the same writing program at college. After many years and relationship troubles for both of them, they find themselves living next door to each other in a lake front community. Both of them are behind on books owed to their publisher. They challenge each other to write a book in the other's writing category. They help each other out by giving lessons on romance and research. This part was interesting. But then, of course, a romance blossoms between the two. Now, neither of these characters seem like very nice people. But January in romance-mode is whiny and annoying. Plus, when any little thing happens where Gus's attention is not on her, she becomes despondent and overly dramatic. Also, I thought the sex scenes were very vanilla and over written.
I gave it 3 stars for the writing contest portions of the story.

36) Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane
Live performance, Music, Writing
Audibook - 1 hr 23 min
Rating:

An Audible Original, live performance by Patti Smith. Includes musical performances (with her children), reading from her books Just Kids and M Train, and Smith's general musings on life. I love Patti Smith so this was an automatic 5 stars for me.

37) The Tea Shoppe - Josie Adams
Narrated by Nicola Barber
Audiobook, Sleep, Tea
Audiobook time: 40 mins
Rating:

Another Audible Original. This is one in a series of audiobooks designed to help you fall asleep by listening to a story without a real beginning or end. This one is about Eleanor who manages a tea shoppe in a tiny English village. There is a lot of talk about tea, spices, books, daydreams, and cats. The choice of words used and Nicola Barber's soothing voice lulls me to sleep every time. I have listened to it at bedtime every night for weeks and have only made it to the end, still awake, twice. But even on those two times, the last words: "and prepares to drift off on another journey as easy and effortless as gently slipping into a quiet peaceful dream" , has me saying "Don't mind if I do" and finally falling asleep.
I'm counting this because I listen to it every night and it's the only "reading" I've managed all month.

I have no idea why those last four book covers are so large. I don't think I'm doing anything different than I usually do when posting covers. But then, I have been away for a bit.

Recap of first half of 2020:

Books read in 2020: 37
Books off the shelf: 16
Audiobooks: 15
Fiction: 23
NonFiction: 5
Poetry: 2
Graphic novels, etc: 7
Female author: 25
Male author: 14
Pages read: 5031
Audiobook hours: 120 hrs 15 mins
Goodreads says this equals 8390 pages

This is a photo of me and some of my co-workers as we welcomed our patients back to Pediatrics on June 11th and said good-bye to adult Covid patients. You can tell we are outside the Covid zone because none of us are wearing surgical caps. Except Bernie, our clerk, who is wearing one because he hasn't had a haircut in months. Things are off to a slow start, people are still afraid to come to the hospital. Unfortunately we have a bunch of new patients diagnosed with cancer, who waited to come in because they were afraid of the virus. Because our numbers are still low 4 of my coworkers work in the clinic doing Covid swabs. 10 hours a day. Everyone is getting Covid tested. We are no longer doing Peritoneal Dialysis on the adult Covid patients -- the one's we were managing mostly got well and went home. Two passed away. Management has asked us to make a poster presentation about our Team journey from Pediatrics nurses to Adult Covid ICU/Dialysis Team nurses. We like the idea of a poster, but none of us are in a place emotionally or mentally to work on that right now.
Overall things are better here in NYC. I went downtown one day and went to all the Union Square bookstores- The Strand, Forbidden Planet, and Barnes & Noble. It was so nice.
I thought that once we were back with Pediatrics patients things would sorta get back to normal. Nope. I have decided I am in "decompression mode". I spend all my free time watching shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime, and eating junk food. I have read nothing. I just listen to the same short audiobook nightly. As of today i am on vacation/holiday. Tomorrow, when the train schedules are better, I'm going to go see my family for the first time in nearly 7 months. Plus, we plan to go to the beach. I'm really excited to see my family and be outside for an extended period of time. Hopefully I can get some beach reading done.
I hope you and your families are all well and not in any hot spots.

>95 VioletBramble: Enjoy your time with your family and your extremely well-deserved vacation. May the sun be warm and the beach reading exactly what you are looking to read.

You have definitely earned all the decompression time and junk food that you can handle.

I’m in awe that you were still posting reviews thanks for >74 VioletBramble: - this sounds quite enjoyable.

Enjoy the time with your family!

>95 VioletBramble: - Lovely to read your good news post and what a great picture! Enjoy your well-deserved family time.

How great to read that you are able to have some vacation time and to see your family - enjoy!

I have no Reading Stats update for July as I haven't completed any books in July. I am not even close to finishing any books at this time. I'm just constantly switching between books as per my reading mood at the moment.

Books in progress:
Fascism: A Warning - reading since May 2019
The Hidden Life of Trees
Braiding Sweetgrass
Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
Opium and Absinthe
The Shell Seekers - audiobook
The Empire of Gold -- August challenge book SFF Kit - Female author

other August challenge books, not yet started, but will try to get to:
The Girls -- Scaredy Kit - serial killers
Voices From Chernobyl - NonFiction CAT - History

I look forward to seeing what you think of The Shell Seekers! My mom keeps telling me I'll love it, and I even bought a copy, but I just haven't felt the urge to read it yet.

Testing

This is an anthology of poetry, from around the world, about the Covid pandemic. The topics covered in the poems range from poems about isolating at home, being allowed to send only one person out to shop for food and supplies, not being able to touch other people, working from home, Covid patients, and many others. As I nurse who was pulled from Pediatrics to work in Adult Covid ICU I identified the most with the poems written by hospital staff. (Visitor Restrictions is my favorite poem in the collection) The poems are very good and I think the anthology will be seen as an important piece of history for futures generations.

I wasn't tracking that you were a nurse or that you were converted to COVID patients -- congrats on getting through that, and I hope that things have gotten a bit more normal with more decompression time for you. I certainly see my own reading volumes rise and fall depending on what's going on locally, but it is also good to see you post again -- even if a test message. :) Hope all is well!

Echoing >104 pammab: and glad to see your post :)

>104 pammab:, >105 rabbitprincess: Hello. Thanks for visiting my thread. Sorry about the test post. I bought myself an Amazon Fire Tablet on Prime day and I was checking to see if I could get to LT and post.

Things are still weird at the hospital. Our census in Pediatrics has remained low most of the time with some spikes where all of the beds in the department would be full. Since September we have been on notice that our unit might close and combine with the Pediatric Step Down Unit. It almost happened multiple times, but then we would get patients. It finally happened on Saturday. Unfortunately we are all working on their much smaller unit, crammed into inadequate work space. We hear rumors that our unit and the now completely empty floor above us (all the newborns and mothers have moved to a gorgeous new building across the street) will become Adult Medical/Surgical units. Ugh. I hope it's temporary but no one has any answers to our questions. We're somewhat hopeful that as Covid is surging again they may leave us with the PICU and Step Down instead of sending the Peds patients uptown again. I'm sure we won't get that lucky. I feel completely unmoored. All summer I felt like I was waiting for Spring to start. Now I feel like it's summer but I have inexplicably been writing the month as September since September. Ah well, one day at a time. I am on vacation this week and I will just be relaxing.

Having vented in my thread about my Covid experiences I wanted to share something else. 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse. There is a Traveling Journal that has been going around the world so nurses can share their experiences. In my hospital it went to every unit and each unit had a few pages to tell our story. This is a page from my unit which features a poem from my co-worker Jillian Lerner. She gave me permission to share it here.



Here's another photo of my work group on Nov 7th - our last Saturday on our unit - when we were celebrating some news that had just broke. We jealously watched our fellow New Yorkers dancing in the streets and parks. We did quietly jump up and down in celebration. (I'm not in this photo, I took it)

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I am very far behind in posting. I'm just going to list the books that I've read since I last posted. I do have one ARC to review and I'm considering reviewing another one on the list as it's in my top 5 for the year.

Books read since August:

38) The Shell Seekers - Rosamund Pilcher - 5 stars
39) Climbing with Molly- William Finnegan - 5 starts
40) The Empire of Gold- SA Chakraborty - 5 stars (in my top 5 for the year)
41) The Girls - Emma Cline - 4.5 stars
42) Voices from Chernobyl - Svetlana Alexievitch - 4.5 stars
43) The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin - 5 stars
44) Opium and Absinthe - Lydia Kang - 4 stars
45) The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wehlleben - 4 stars
46) Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany - Jane Mount - 5 stars
47) Beastie Boys Book - Michael Diamond, Adam Horowitz - 4 stars
48) Fascism: A Warning - Madeleine Albright - 4.5 stars
49) When You Finish Saving the World - Jesse Eisenberg- 3 stars
50) Letters from Camp - Boco Haft - 3 stars
51) Unspoken - Luke Daniels - 4 stars
52) Sylvie - Sylvie Kantorowitz - 3 stars
53) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Daughter of Chaos - Sarah Rees Brennan- 4 stars
54) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season of the Witch - Sarah Rees Brennan - 4 stars
55) Locke & Key: Head Games - Joe Hill- 5 stars
56) Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows - Joe Hill - 4 stars
57) Make Mine Magic- Sharina Swendson - 4 stars
58) 11/22/63- Stephen King - 5 stars
59) The Lending Library- Aliza Fogelson - 4 stars
60) NOS4A2 - Joe Hill - 4 stars
61) Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom - Joe Hill - 4 stars
62) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Path of Night- Sarah Rees Brennan - 3.5 stars
63) The Snow Dancer - Addie Boswell - 5 stars
64) Doctor Sleep - Stephen King - 4 stars
65) Elevation - Stephen King - 5 stars
66) Clap When You Land - Elizabeth Acevedo - 4.5 stars

current books in progress:
from October:
Mexican Gothic
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad
for November:
Braiding Sweetgrass
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Convenience Store Woman

I'm happy for you that you can make time for books during all these difficult times. It must be very unsettling not to know how the unit will be deployed. And thanks for sharing the photos!

Great pictures and wonderful to see the smiles on the faces of people who are at the forefront of helping all of us get through this horrible time. I was happy to see several 4.5 and 5 stars amongst your recent reads.

Hurray that you've had so many great books to read! I hope you have a restful vacation.

>107 VioletBramble: I'm glad you enjoyed Voices from Chernobyl as that is on my TBR

Final Books for the Year:

67) The Mysterious Affair at Styles- Agatha Christie
68) Braiding Sweetgrass- Robin KImmerer
69) Mexican Gothic -Silvia Moreno-Garcia
70) Witch - Finbar Hawkins
71) Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Mirata
72) Deep : Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves - James Nestor
73) Doctor Who: Twelve Doctors of Christmas - various

74) Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis