The 2023 Nonfiction Challenge: Favorite Pastimes in February!

Some of us are addicted to music, books and, well, our cats? Others enjoy genealogy, travel, gardening, etc. etc.

This is the month to read a nonfiction book about whatever floats your particular boat. It can't be related to your work -- this is about your leisure time (yes, I know how hard it can be to find that commodity, but...) You can read a cookbook or a book about cooking; read a book about music, or listening to music, or whatever.

Enjoy!!

Maybe I'll grab this spot to add cover images.

Since I am not only an avid reader, but an avid board gamer as well, so I will be reading GameTek by Geoff Engelstein for this challenge.

I like to read read travel books. It makes me think that I could actually go someplace exotic. Most of the travel books make me feel like I am going somewhere exotic. That is great fun! I am currently reading a travel book Volcanoes, Palm Trees & Privilege: Essays on Hawai'i by Liz Prato.

I also like to read books about gardening, and art, so I will probably read a book about those. I just haven't decided which books I will read.

Well, I think I will read Browse - Love Letters to Bookshops Around the World, a collection of essays by 15 writers about the bookshops that have shaped them. I glanced at the table of contents and admittedly, I am not familiar with all the writers here but let's face it, browsing bookshops anywhere and everywhere is a passion for me. If truth be told, I find it difficult to *just* browse. I rarely leave a bookshop empty-handed. I may also read another book for this category this month but, as per your >1 Chatterbox: description, books are what floats my boat and this was an easy choice!

I love reading about writers and their craft - how they do what they do. So I have picked up a book by a favourite author, Tom Cox, called Notebook - it's basically just a selection of stuff he's taken from his various notebooks over the years that haven't made it into his previous books. It's quirky and fun (and short), I'm really enjoying it.

I'll be reading Strangers No More, a memoir by journalist Bill Griffeth about the biological family he learned about in his last memoir. He learned through a DNA test that the man who raised him was not his biological father.

Since cats were mentioned, and I've already started Dewey's Nine Lives, the follow-up to Dewey: the Small Town Library Cat, I'll join in and count this one. It tells more stories about cats and the humans they touch. I'm sure I'll also have more nonfiction to read later this month.

Would Bobby Fischer Goes to War work for this?

>9 benitastrnad: Do you play chess or routinely follow big chess matches?? If so, then yes!

As most of us do, I love books about reading and about writers lives.

Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life (Pamela Erens) (02/02/23) ****1/2



Another enjoyable addition to the Middlemarch appreciation collection.

Erens, like many readers, revisits the novel periodically, and is enriched by reading it at different times in her life (maybe every decade). She credits its resilience to Eliot's compassion and empathy to a wide range of characters, to beautiful writing, and the imperfect humanity Eliot depicts.

Talking about her own trials and tribulations as she goes, and sharing how this reengagement with the novel has supported her in personal growth, and growth as a writer.

She has managed to communicate the sheer joy that can be had in regularly rereading a book that gives you deep pleasure in revelling in the words on its pages. And being at the mercy of the quill in mistressful hands (despite her having to present herself as a master!).

I'm planning my fourth reread in March/April.

I've also added a couple of other volumes in the 'Bookmarked' series to my cart (Woolf's Mrs Dalloway - Robin Black/Baldwin's Another Country - Kim McLarin).

>11 Caroline_McElwee: Oooh, on to the WL it goes!

ETA: Looks like my library just got this book; I'm #1 on the Waiting List!

>10 Chatterbox:
No. I am interested in it because it seems to be so important on a global scale. Makes me wonder why? I tend to use this challenge/reading group as a way to widen my reading patterns and I started thinking about games. That made me think of chess. I found another book in my list on the history of the game Immortal Game and that seems more general and in line with idea of this thread - hobbies. I also found a book on the history of board games that I might read. I read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels a few years ago on video games and enjoyed that history, so that is what made me think of board games as a pastime or hobby.

>13 benitastrnad: OK, go for it!!

>11 Caroline_McElwee: That looks fascinating! A definite book bullet...

Notebook is a quirky book by one of my favourite writers, Tom Cox. It's a collection of random sentences and paragraphs from his notebooks over the years, that didn't ever quite make it into any of his other books. I liked his way of explaining each chapter as like a mixtape, so just random bits and bobs which seem to complement each other well even if they're quite different. Full of his trademark weirdness and psychedelic whimsy, I really liked it. (also: gorgeous cover!)

I just have to share my review of Strangers No More by Bill Griffeth for a reason that will be obvious if you read the last paragraph!



In The Stranger in My Genes, journalist Bill Griffeth wrote of his discovery through DNA testing that the man who raised him was not his biological father. Strangers No More continues Griffeth’s journey of discovery as he learns more about his biological family. He also shares stories from his DNA Club, comprised of individuals who reached out to him after experiencing their own DNA surprises.

I recognized one of the stories he shared from his DNA Club. He described a group email he received from someone in Europe who was helping his brother search for his American biological father. The email went to several of the brother’s closest matches. Along with Griffeth, I was one of the recipients of this email. Griffeth shared in the book that wasn't sure how he was related to this person, but guessed it was on the European mother’s side. I think I am probably distantly related to the American father, but I don't know how. As far as I know, I am not related to Griffeth, and he is not one of my DNA matches. We just have one probably distant cousin in common.

A good friend of mine just gifted me with a book "just because", and it fits this challenge!

Compost This Book!

I'm planning on starting it sometime later this week.

I finished Dewey's Nine Lives yesterday, so I'm on to my next book. This month's challenge helped me pick out what to read next. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I've collected a lot of books about the Cubs over the years, and have quite a few on my shelves that I haven't got to yet. I've started reading The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse for my next book.

>18 atozgrl: Looking forward to find out how the Cubs book fares...very good timing to get ready for Spring training. I'm a life-long Chicagoan and life-long fan (of several generations). But I think the only Cubs book I have is Hawk by Andre Dawson (an autographed copy!), along with a very old notebook filled with Dawson baseball cards. Mark (msf59) and Linda (lindapanzo) are 75ers who are both big Cubbie fans.

>19 kac522: Thanks! You are right, the timing is great with spring training starting next week.

How cool that you have an autographed copy of Andre Dawson's book! I don't have that book. But I did get his signature. The Myrtle Beach Pelicans had a fan fest in 2017, where they showed off the World Series trophy. Myrtle Beach is close enough for us to get to pretty easily, so we got weekend tickets. Andre Dawson was there signing autographs on the first night. I stupidly didn't think of bringing something with me to sign, so just had him sign the game program. I had old Vine Lines or other items I could have brought to sign if I had thought about it. I also got to see Eloy Jimenez play a few weeks before the Cubs traded him.

Thanks for letting me know about other 75ers who are also Cubs fans. I'm glad to know there's a group of us here!

>20 atozgrl: So cool that you got him to sign something! I remember I was so nervous waiting in line for him at the bookstore (I think it was a bookstore!). I got it when the book came out in 1994.

Oh, and I think Julia (rosalita) is a Cubs fan, too. She's not in the 75ers; she has a thread in the 2023 ROOT group. She currently lives in Iowa City, but lived in Chicago for a time.

You can add me to the list of Cubs fans, although I haven't followed any sports as closely since COVID hit. Our local minor league team, the Tennessee Smokies, is a Cubs affiliate (AA). The year the Cubs won the world series, I had seen half the roster play at Smokies Stadium within the prior three years. Some I had seen earlier that year either as up-and-coming players quickly rising through the ranks or on a rehab assignment following an injury.

>21 kac522: I was nervous too, so I know what you mean!

Thanks for letting me know about rosalita. I wasn't even aware of the ROOT group. Looks like it was hidden under the Show More link. I may need to join that group too, given the mountain of books I've collected and haven't read yet! That's basically my goal for this year--to read a lot of the books I already have on hand, and focus on that more than buying new books.

>22 cbl_tn: Wonderful! Glad to know you! I've been thinking maybe someday I would get to a Smokies game, if we were traveling in Tennessee at the right time of year, but it hasn't happened yet.

>22 cbl_tn: how exciting!

I'm not a Cubs fan, but we were visiting family in Chicago when the Cubs had a home game during the World Series. Madhouse.

I was very happy for Cubs fans, I was raised in a Red Sox family...

>23 atozgrl: yes! Join us in our quest to remove books from our shelves.

>25 fuzzi: Thank you! I'm looking into it. I guess I'll have to figure out how to make a ticker.

I rooted for the Red Sox for years. It always felt like we were brothers under the skin, never able to win the big game. 1986 was unbelievable. Of course, the Red Sox at least got to the World Series! The Cubs couldn't even do that much. I'm glad the Red Sox have had so much success this century, even with the rollercoaster ups and downs.

>26 atozgrl: A few years ago, a member of the Root group set up this "how-to":
https://www.librarything.com/topic/314887

After you have your ticker, be sure to
1) Join the ROOT group here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/23888/2023-ROOT-CHALLENGE
2) Add your ticker to a new message here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/347068#

>27 kac522: Thank you!

>27 kac522: Done! My new thread over there is at https://www.librarything.com/topic/348422.

I'm currently traveling, and reading a book about traveling. My read for this month is Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capr Town by Paul Theroux. I also just picked up two tiny travel books A Nile Anthology: Travel Writing through the Centuries and Women Travelers on the Nile which I'll probably dip in and out of.

I finished reading Volcanoes, Palm Trees & Privilege: Essays on Hawai'i by Liz Prato and enjoyed it. I have never wanted to visit Hawai'i and this book has not induced me to put it on my bucket list of places to go before I die. The reason I read it was because I want to know what other people see in the place and why it ranks so high on many peoples lists of places to visit. I knew about this book because I saw it reviewed in a trade journal when the book was first published and the review was positive. That was enough for me to put it on my LT list. I had to get the book through Inter-Library Loan, but it was worth the wait.

This book is not a screed but I could easily see how some people would view it as such. The book is a series of essays about the tourism industry in Hawai'i. The author traces the development of tourism as the number one industry in Hawai'i and then discusses the impact of the huge numbers of tourists on the indigenous people and wildlife of the islands. There is also an essay on the impact of the numbers on the land and water. It is the kind of book that makes you stop and think about why you are vacationing in that particular area and induces you to weigh the environmental impact of what you are doing. The last time I felt this kind of guilt was when I read Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science by Philippe Squarzoni back in 2019 for this Nonfiction Challenge.

One of the most interesting essays in the book was a short insert about the Hawaiian language - both written and spoken. I did learn that the proper way to write Hawai'i is with the apostrophe. However, the phonetic symbol for the full glottal stop between the i's in Hawai'i should be a backward apostrophe. Since this symbol is not on most keyboards the single apostrophe is used instead. I was amazed to learn that the White missionaries who came to Hawai'i in the 1820's developed the written language for the islands in an effort to preserve it. They even developed a special printing press to print books in the indigenous language. Who knew that they actually might have done something good by going there to life and work?

This book is not very well known, but if you can find it, I recommend it.

>26 atozgrl: the neighbors upstairs must have thought I was crazy in 1986...from the cries of frustration at Buckner missing an easy grounder. Talk about breaking my heart.

>32 fuzzi: I'm sure you heard us screaming in Chicago. Even though the Cubs weren't playing, we were rooting for him (and how can a true Cubs fan root for the Mets anyway?). Billy Buck was my sister's favorite player. She was really sad when he died a few years ago.

>32 fuzzi: Yes, that game made me feel even closer to the Red Sox. The Mets broke my heart in '69, and then they did it again to the Red Sox in '86.

>33 kac522: I was yelling too loud to hear you in Chicago. I woke up my children (3 and almost 5 at the time), ha. Hubby was on second shift, he missed the fun.

>34 atozgrl: my dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and my best friend apart from my husband is an LA Dodgers fan (Sandy Koufax era), but I could never root for the Mets. I can grudgingly appreciate the Yankees, but never the Mets. ;)

Pity me, a Bosox and Cincy fan, back in 1975. That was actually a really good Series.

>35 fuzzi: I still remember the 1975 World Series. That was one of the great ones of all time. The Cincinnati Reds at that time were my second favorite team (and not in the same division as the Cubs, which helped), and I hadn't yet come to appreciate the misery of the Red Sox, so I was happy with the outcome then. Those Reds had some of my all-time favorite players.

I finished The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse over the weekend. Here are my thoughts:

In The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse, Rich Cohen investigates the cause of the famous "curse" that supposedly afflicted the Cubs for decades. Besides the famous curse of the billy goat, he also mentions possibilities going all the way back to Cap Anson, who was instrumental in the segregation of baseball in the late 19th century. Other theories he raises include the famous "Merkle's Boner" incident which allowed the Cubs to defeat the Giants for the 1908 NL pennant, poor management by P.K. Wrigley, and having to play in Wrigley Field. Cohen tries to understand how the team broke the curse in 2016. Interwoven into the various stories of Cubs' history is Cohen's own experiences as a Cubs fan.

I was not expecting as much Cubs history as he covers in this book. He tells the stories of several of the early Cubs, especially from the 1908 team. He also writes about Grover Cleveland Alexander, Hack Wilson, Ernie Banks, Leo Durocher and the 1969 Cubs, Bill Buckner, and the 1984 Cubs, among others.

Honestly, this was a really good read. I think all fans of baseball would enjoy it, though not as much as a Cub fan. But I highly recommend it for anyone who follows the Cubs.

Quite coincident to this challenge, I just finished On Rereading by Patricia Meyer Spacks, a professor emerita. The beginning chapters enchanted me, sending me to books I knew well to check on what she was pointing to in her rereading. After a while, it became more professorial, but still interesting, as she reread books she used to like or used to dislike.

Beth (BLBERA) sent me this book, in hard cover! I'll probably keep it, as rereading selected chapters seems to be in the cards.

I almost forgot to add a note here that I finished Fly the W: 2016 World Champions, since I read it for this challenge. I had added it on my main thread (https://www.librarything.com/topic/347822#n8070083), but want to also mention it here.

"Fly the W" is a coffee table book from the Chicago Cubs celebrating their 2016 season from spring training through the playoffs and culminating with a World Series victory. There are hundreds of pictures in the book, covering most of the highlights from the 2016 season, with a particular focus on the playoffs. The photos are gorgeous and the book is assembled beautifully. It is a great book for all fans of the Chicago Cubs, and a wonderful way to remember the 2016 championship.

>38 ffortsa: I have that somewhere Judy. As a rereader, I'm surprised I haven't already got to it. BTW I think it is 'Spacks'.

>37 atozgrl: Huge Cubs fan here! I am going to have to see if I can find a copy of it!

>38 ffortsa: I just picked up a copy of that one thanks to yours and Beth's recommendations.

>41 alcottacre: Wonderful! Always glad to meet another Cubs fan. There seem to be several of us on LT!

>40 Caroline_McElwee: absolutely right. I've fixed it. Can I blame autocorrect? Probably not.

I know it is late in the month, but I started All the President's Gardens last night and so far am enjoying the reading of it. I like to garden and in particular I am interested in heritage vegetables. This book seems like it is right up my alley.

A Game of Birds and Wolves by Simon Parkin
I've always enjoyed board games. This book was a disappointment, though.

A book I had on hold at the library has now come in, so I'll be reading Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: the Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather by Mark Seal next. When I was in high school and college, I had a real fascination with classic movies, and collected a lot of books on the topic (which I have not yet cataloged on LT). Ironically, that was around the same time that The Godfather came out, and it's now also a classic movie. Movies being a favorite pastime, this book fits the current challenge. However, I'm not sure I'll finish this one by the end of February.

I am now deep into reading Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales by Marta McDowell and loving it. It is well illustrated with both drawings and photographs (most in black and white) and is easy relaxing reading. I am reading this one for this month's challenge because I am also reading a behemoth of a biography about Potter and saw this title on a list of other books about Potter. This book manages to be a travel book and a gardening book at the same time. There are plenty of pages describing the plants in Potter's gardens and the design of each of the gardens that make an appearance in the books that she wrote. This one is very entertaining.

I chose a book about genealogy for this month’s theme. A few of them grace my shelves. As it was a short month, I chose a slim volume, Trespassers in Time: Genealogists and Microhistorians. It defined the categories of history that most useful to family historians. By using Irish examples, the book showed the use of microhistory to create a family history narrative.

I read Browse and finished it last week. Here is my synopsis:

A bookshop accident launched a lifelong passion.
It's this phenomenon that Mark Forsyth addresses in his essay "The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What you Wanted". When we shop online it's easy to find what we want, yet, when it comes to books, "it's not enough to get what you already know you wanted. The best things are the things you never knew you wanted until you got them. " "A desire satisfied," reflects Forsyth, "is a meagre and measly thing. But a new desire!"

Sasa Stanisic's piece in this volume likens the relationship between vendor and reader to a drug user's link with his dealer: "One of you has the goods, the other wants a supply of them."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most of the essayists in this collection I have not heard of though there are some familiar to me, such as Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, Alaa Al Aswany, Elif Shafak.

Overall, this was quite an enjoyable read, easy to dip in and out of, which, to be honest, was exactly what I need right now. Recommended.

Glad that so many of you found so much interesting stuff to read this past month! I didn't manage to complete a book that would fit into this category -- does this reflect negatively on my work/life balance and lack of 'pastimes', or just on what i felt like reading in February??

Be that as it may... the March challenge is now up. Here's the link and please remember to star the new page, as your stars will not carry over...

https://www.librarything.com/topic/349010#n8082874

Like >49 jessibud2: I also read Browse: The World in Bookshops, mostly because if I've got free time, I generally spend it at a used bookstore or library sale.

I enjoyed these essays by authors and their love of books and bookshops. I particularly liked that the authors are from around the world: Scotland, China, Egypt, Kenya, Italy, India, Turkey. Where there are booklovers, there are bookshops that are loved. Most of the essays, like Ali Smith's, begin with a love of bookshops in childhood. Michael Dirda's account of his 15,000-20,000 books on shelves, in boxes and occupying storage units made my overflowing bookshelves seem like hardly any books at all.

I had previously read a work of only one of these authors (Yiyun Li), but I found almost all of these pieces engaging. Thanks for the BB, Shelley!

>49 jessibud2:
That's a book bullett for me as well.

I also finished up a second book for this month's challenge. Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales by Marta McDowell. I am in the midst of reading a biography of Beatrix Potter and had run across this title some time ago. I decided that this month was the perfect time to read it since I was reading the behemoth biography as well. This book is about the gardens that Potter observed and that are the settings for her books. It is also about the gardens she created at Hill Top Farm and at Castle Cottage in the Lake District of England, as well as about her efforts at reforestation at the farms that she purchased.

The book is an easy book to read and it is beautiful. It is heavy. It is made up of those heavy glossy pages and there is a reproduction of Potter's drawings or photographs of the gardens on every page. There is an extensive index and notes at the end. But best of all, there is an index of all the plants mentioned in every one of her books and short stories. The index even tells the page numbers where that particular plant can be found. It also has a further reading section that starts out with telling the reader about the Beatrix Potter Society. This is just a lovely book that is designed for readers and gardeners. It was a very nice pastime book. So much so that I am tempted to purchase a copy for myself. I had to place an Inter-Library Loan request for this one.

>53 benitastrnad: My library system has that one and I have requested it. It sounds wonderful!

I finally finished Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: the Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather by Mark Seal, later than expected. If February were a normal length month, I would probably have finished it in February. But I didn't manage that, and MrA. and I wound up spending a fair amount of time working in the yard. It's been so warm so early this year that the flowers are already blooming and pollen is in the air. We needed to do a lot of pruning and I started on the weeding. It's finally cooling back down to normal temperatures, so we may get a bit of a break.

In any case, I have finally finished the book. It was a terrific read. It tells the full story of the making of the movie, starting first with the writing of the original book. Seal introduces us to all the major players in the making of the movie, as well as everything it took to overcome the large number of obstacles to actually making the movie. It all makes for a great story. Highly recommended, especially to movie buffs or anyone who loves the movie.

>55 atozgrl:
That's a BB. I like books about movies and movie making.

It has been exceptionally warm down here as well. My night blooming jasmine is blooming already and that shouldn't happen until April. Climate change - its real.

It sure is! Everything here is a month ahead of schedule. Even the cherry trees are already in bloom. But we're going to have lows back down around freezing next week (which is normal for this time of year), so that's going to hit some things hard.

I'm sure you'll enjoy Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. It was a fun read, and it's amazing to see how many things they had to overcome to make the movie.

I finished my second book for this category. All the Presidents' Gardens: Madison's Cabbages to Kennedy's Roses, How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America. This one was also by Marta McDowell. I liked the one on Beatrix Potter better than this book. I thought there would be more personal anecdotes about the presidents, their wives, and families as well as the various gardeners and garden designers than there was. There really wasn't that much about the plants either. The most interesting chapters were the beginning ones, and the big surprise was John Qunicy Adams, who was an avid gardener and took a personal interest in the White House gardens. It turns out that it was John Kennedy, who cared about what roses and what colors they were and where they should be placed outside of the Oval Office - not his wife, even though there is a garden named for her on the White House grounds. Jacqueline Kennedy tried to not have the garden named for her, as she said it was her husband who was interested in gardens, but she gave in to the pressure. Then right at the end, a little bit about Michele Obama and the new kitchen gardens. I was also surprised as the author seemed to treat Ladybird Johnson's beautification plans for the White House grounds and other areas around Washington, D. C. lightly and in an off-handed way. Clearly, she wasn't as interesting as John Kennedy hiring Bunny Mellon to design other gardens on the White House lawns.