detailmuse ROOTs two score

My main ROOT goal is to read 40 books acquired prior to 2026 -- likely lots of contemporary fiction, nonfiction and memoir, and some re-reads. I’ll keep a list of the ROOTs in Msg#2 and non-ROOTs in Msg#3.

ROOTs Read in 2026:

Fiction
20. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa (3)
19. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan (4)
13. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan (re-read) (4)
12. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (4)
7. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (4.5)
1. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (4)

Biography/ Autobiography/ Memoir
18. The House on An Irish Hillside by Felicity Hayes-McCoy (3.5)
6. The Uncool by Cameron Crowe (4.5)
2. Bread of Angels by Patti Smith (5)

Nonfiction
16. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020 (3.5)
14. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021 (4)
11. Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder (4)
9. Writing About Your Life by William Zinsser (4)
8. Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal by Alexandra Johnson (3.5)
5. Practical Office Orthopedics by Edward Parks (5)
3. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys by Sonya Huber (3.5)

Other
17. A Year Unfolding: A Printmaker's View by Angela Harding (4.5)
15. I'm Too Young to Be Seventy: And Other Delusions by Judith Viorst (3.5)
10. Daily Mindfulness: 365 Days of Present, Calm, Exquisite Living (5)
4. The New York Times Monday Through Friday Easy to Tough Crossword Puzzles Volume 9 (4)

Non-ROOTs Read in 2026:

Q1
• Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary by Timothy Snyder (4)
• 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi (4)
• Small Stories: 2018-2022 by Quinn Cummings (4)
• The Price of Honey by Liane Moriarty (3.5)

Q2
• The New York Times Best of the Week Series 2: Tuesday Crosswords: 50 Easy Puzzles (4)
• Vigil by George Saunders (DNF)
• You've Been Pooping All Wrong by Trisha Pasricha (3.5)
• The New York Times I Love Tuesday Crosswords: 50 Easy Puzzles (4.5)
• The Land and Its People by David Sedaris (4.5)
• This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page (3.5)
• The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson (3)

Q3
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (3.5)
•
•
•

Q4
•
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Short stories, essays and articles
•
•

About my reading last year
Total books read: 53
• Fiction: 38%
• Nonfiction: 57%
• Other: 5% (e.g. poetry, lit journals, puzzle books)

Original publication date:
• before 2000: 17%
• 2000s: 17%
• 2010s: 21%
• 2020s: 45%
• Of ROOTs, the mean duration as a TBR in my library: 7.5 years (not counting re-reads, many of them first read decades ago)

• Paper copy: 47%
• e-Book: 49%
• Audiobook: 4%

• Male authors: 38%
• Female authors: 49%
• Mix of genders: 13%
• “Favorite”-ed authors in this year’s books: Claire Keegan, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Rebecca Solnit, Abraham Verghese
• I’d like to read more by E. Jean Carroll, Helen Garner, Bruce Holsinger

• Acquired 50 books in 2025
• Decreased my TBRs by net 21 (9%) in 2025
• Decreased my Your Library (books in my possession) by 81 (18%) through donations in 2025

• I rated 42% of my 2025 reads at 4 stars or above (i.e. “good” to “great”) and another 23% at 3.5 stars (“okay”). I skimmed or DNF’d most of the rest. Older ROOTs sometimes disappoint; I’m hoping for more good-greats this year.

Some books that have stayed in my mind:
Foster by Claire Keegan
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll
Abscond by Abraham Verghese
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson by Gardiner Harris
Rear Window: The Making of a Hitchcock Masterpiece in the Hollywood Golden Age by Jennifer O’Callaghan

Welcome to a new year of ROOTing, MJ.

Love your stats, particularly the mean duration as a TBR. And congrats on decreasing the TBR last year! Hope you have a great reading year in 2026.

Happy ROOTING for 2026, detailmuse

>5 connie53:, >6 rabbitprincess:, >7 Robertgreaves: Thanks for coming by! Looking forward to this year of reading.

Welcome back and Happy New Year! Good luck on meeting your ROOTing goals.

Best of luck meeting all your ROOTs goals in 2026, MJ!

Happy ROOTing!

>9 atozgrl:, >10 Familyhistorian:, >11 MissWatson: Thank you! I still notice when books make me want to pick them up even with just two minutes' spare reading time, and I'm going to prioritize them.

Best of luck with your reading goals in 2026, MJ, and I hope it’s a good year for you and yours!

Hi Donna, and the same to you!

1. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, ©2025, acquired 2025

Sometimes, like a test, I wander that house in my mind and see if I can still open every door and see what was inside…*

In this epistolary novel, a prickly, aging, lifelong letter-writer comes to terms with the consequences of her past actions with colleagues, family and friends. I enjoyed it, though there were lots of characters to keep track of, and a gripping, menacing sub-plot was resolved too easily.

* I do that, too, and sometimes draw floorplans. I’ve also enjoyed several books that are collections of floorplans e.g. from TV show sets

>4 detailmuse: i absolutely love the stats! where do you get them from?

>16 handshakes: Hi Scott, I keep a spreadsheet with features that I'm interested in tracking. It could be tedious to maintain, but I see it as a little celebration to fill in the cells when I finish a book :) I also create an LT Collection for each year, and then I can see if the predominance/absence of any tags surprise me.

>17 detailmuse: I like to keep spreadsheets too. I have one per year for all the ROOTers and filled them every the year with things like; is there a ticker in the tickerthread, real name, where to they live (USA, UK, Europe), member or not. Keeps me doing things ;-)

>18 connie53: Happy Tuesday, nerd sister!

Thank you, I think! ;-))

>20 connie53: Absolutely! (I'd included a heart emoji but forgot that the "less than" symbol and anything after it doesn't appear when posted)

So nice to hear you calling me a sister. We are ROOTing friends, that's an honour too.

>22 connie53: :))


2. Bread of Angels by Patti Smith, ©2025, acquired 2025

I don’t know what brought me to Smith’s Just Kids back in 2012. Her music is not to my taste, but she absolutely is: I loved the memoir and have pursued her entire list. This new memoir is my favorite of everything.

It includes lots of her childhood and family; some of her music and fellow musicians/industry; some of her marriage and children; a revelation (which I beg readers to discover on their own rather than via reviews or tags); and less of what she’s already written about elsewhere. Much of her writing after Just Kids seemed ephemeral and even indecipherable to me (I characterized Year of the Monkey as a fever dream). Here, Smith is more linear again, deeply communicating with the sense evocation of the poet. It's gently sad and full of loss, and also brave and optimistic.

(edited to remove embedded review and replace with text...I'm being told embedded reviews don't show up in some browsers?)

>17 detailmuse: wonderful! thank you for sharing.

Hi MJ! I used to follow you, but somehow lost track of where you called home. I'm glad I found you again and dropped a star. Of your memorable books from last year, Demon Copperhead was a standout novel for me as well. I love Verghese and am glad to see that Abscond made your list, as I have it on my Kindle.

>25 labfs39: Lisa! So happy to see your post! I recently acquired The Covenant of Water so am happy to have more Verghese in my queue. I was going to recommend anything by Claire Keegan to you...saw you've already read/rated two...my first by her was Small Things Like These which, while still very short, has a bit more story to it, so that may have primed me to her. Off to find your thread :)

>26 detailmuse: Oh, you are in for a real treat with The Covenant of Water. I listened to the audio, narrated by Verghese himself, and he did an amazing job. Something not many authors can pull off well. I liked CoW even more than Cutting for Stone. I really need to read some of his nonfiction too. I know you recommended My Own Country to me long ago, and I bought a copy, but I still haven't read it (hangs head in shame).

>27 labfs39: never shame, just a good fit or not :) I liked it for the medical history and humanity. I read it 15 years ago, about a period 20+ years before that, and everything covered (LGBTQ, AIDS, small-town South) had gotten more optimistic. Or so it seemed.

Dropping by to say hi, MJ, I hope you're well! (apart from all the real-life world stuff, obvs. Sigh)

Looks like you've made a good start on your ROOTs, MJ. I recently read The Correspondent too and was surprised at how effective it was. I haven't read many books that were told through letters.

>29 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie, we are well. We're in a polar snap (UK and Europe, too?) so we've brought out the early-Covid cloth masks and they are great at warming our breath/faces on walks.

>30 Familyhistorian: Meg, I also thought she did a good job at developing story in that format...a little harder in ebook because it's not as easy to flip around to prior letters to clarify details. IMO best-ever epistolary novel is We Need to Talk About Kevin, although the letters are more so just straightforward storytelling vs. inter-cutting and off-the-page story development.

3. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys by Sonya Huber, ©2017, acquired 2025

Prejudice against disabled people includes, among the spectrum of discrimination, a gut-level assumption that physical ability equals personality and cognition.
…
The implication {toward chronic pain and chronic illness}: If you tried harder, you could fix it.
…
I don’t want to be a problem {patient} because I don’t want to close off access to my current level of treatment. Not ever again.

This collection of essays (some of them personal about Huber’s own decades-long experience of rheumatoid arthritis; some of them more philosophical or political) was characterized as inventive and even fun. None seemed fun to me, but some did evoke her physical and psychological experience, and many can be applied to the experience of individuals with other invisible illnesses/disabilities.

4. The New York Times Monday Through Friday Easy to Tough Crossword Puzzles Volume 9, ©2023 with puzzles published in the newspaper in 2021 and 2022, acquired 2023

Another volume of puzzles ranging from easy-Mondays to difficult-Fridays, and my current Goldilocks fit remains Wednesdays.

5. Practical Office Orthopedics by Edward Parks, ©2018, acquired 2025

I’ve loved podcasts with this fun orthopedic surgeon, who also conducts seminars for general-practice physicians who want more familiarity with orthopedic topics. He mirrored this textbook after his seminars and it’s terrific with excellent discussion, illustrations and x-rays…it’s one of the books this month that I couldn’t wait to get back to in every spare moment.

>34 detailmuse: it’s one of the books this month that I couldn’t wait to get back to in every spare moment

I had to smile at this. We each have our unique interests!

Double post. Sorry

>35 labfs39: LOL true!

6. The Uncool by Cameron Crowe, ©2025, acquired 2025

Cameron Crowe -- music journalist and filmmaker -- was on the far periphery of my radar and I’m not sure how I came to this memoir, but I loved it. An older sister introduced him to music when he was a kid. By the time he was sixteen and on his own tenacity, he was interviewing and touring with top musicians and bands and writing for Rolling Stone magazine … while promising his mom he wouldn’t take drugs and trying to avoid getting thrown out of venues for being under-age. Those years, including a scary incident with Gregg Allman, resulted in his screenplay for “Almost Famous.” He’d skipped two grades in school and was perennially “uncool”; years later he attended a different high school undercover, which led to “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” He doesn’t cover much of his other film work that is less autobiographical, but he does write a lot about his childhood family, particularly his mother (the closing material reflects maybe too-fresh a grief).

So I add this to other music/film-oriented bios/memoirs I’ve unexpectedly loved: Cher; Buddy Guy’s When I Left Home; Michael McDonald’s What A Fool Believes; Mark Harris’s Mike Nichols; Keith Richards’s Life; Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Bread of Angels; Barbra Streisand’s My Name is Barbra; Jeff Tweedy’s Let's Go (So We Can Get Back).

January
Beginning total TBRs: 225
ROOTs read: 6
Other books read: 1
Books acquired: 2 (includes one that was already in my TBRs but not entered into LT until now)
Ending total TBRs: 220
YTD ROOTs read: 6 (year-end goal=40)

>38 detailmuse: We got this one for my dad for Christmas (at his request), so I'm glad you liked it!

>40 rabbitprincess: Oh I hope he enjoys it!

7. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, ©1986, acquired 2024

Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse for some.

Forty years after publication, I finally read this. And I’d argue that it’s a more unsettling read today than at any time in those forty years, because today some are on a real path to mandating some version of it. As to the writing, I loved the slow rollout and reveals, including a couple great twists. It was another book I was always eager to get back to.

8. Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal by Alexandra Johnson, ©2001, acquired 2005

With examples from classic and contemporary writers, Johnson contemplates keeping journals; re-reading them to find patterns and meaning; and using those insights toward a creative work.

Stationary stores are the kingdom of childhood enjoyed in adulthood.

Journals contain ten categories of life patterns: longing; fear, mastery; (intentional) silences; key influences; hidden lessons; secret gifts; challenges; unfinished business; untapped potential.

A diary or journal isn’t necessarily something that should be done daily so much as it is a clue to how to see the daily world around oneself differently.

{J}ust below the surface of quickly jotted facts, there’s always a more interesting story waiting to be claimed.

To find the deeper stories, {focus} only on “details that shimmer.”

February
Beginning total TBRs: 220
ROOTs read: 2
Other books read: 2
Books acquired: 8
Ending total TBRs: 224
YTD ROOTs read: 8 (year-end goal=40)

>43 detailmuse: Ooh, that sounds interesting, MJ.

>45 labfs39: I get creative inspiration during a good walk outdoors, and I also like to read books-about-writing in the early phase of a writing project. This one was pretty good, with some passages and exercises that had me making connections and notes.

>42 detailmuse: "Forty years after publication, I finally read this. And I’d argue that it’s a more unsettling read today than at any time in those forty years, because today some are on a real path to mandating some version of it. As to the writing, I loved the slow rollout and reveals, including a couple great twists. It was another book I was always eager to get back to."

Same here. I just finally read this important book last year, and I agree with your commentary, too.

>47 rocketjk: LOL: Scrabble! But that really opened things up.

I'm excited that many of this year's Oscar-nominated short films (documentary, live-action, animated) are available via streaming. I've watched a few and will get a list together, but one to recommend right away is "The Singers" on Netflix, an adaptation of a short story by 1800's Russian writer Ivan Turgenev -- gritty, funny, heartwarming. It's just 20 minutes, don't read about it beforehand.

>43 detailmuse: I read this book a few years ago and thought it was surprisingly good (I don't know why I was surprised - maybe I've just read too many mediocre writing craft books). I'm not much of a journaller, but I can definitely see the value and enjoyment in it.

>50 Jackie_K: I'm not much of a journaller
Nor I, though I have phases of writing Morning Pages (3 pages stream of consciousness), using them as a "brain dump" and don't return to them. I've kept calendars for decades, though, and have some interest in mining them.

>49 detailmuse: In case anyone is interested before Sunday's Oscar Awards, here are the nominations for short films and where to stream (will vary by country):
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/2026-oscar-nominated-shorts-how-to-wa...

I ended up with access to eight of the 15 films and loved “The Singers” (live action, Netflix), “The Girl Who Cried Pearls” (animated, YouTube), and “Butterfly” (animated, YouTube). I liked “All the Empty Rooms” (documentary, Netflix) and “Retirement Plan” (animated, YouTube). Three others via YouTube, “Two People Exchanging Saliva” (live action), “Jane Austen’s Period Drama" (live action), and “Forevergreen” (animated) were technically excellent but meh for me. I look forward to eventually seeing the others.

Hi MJ. Just popping in to see what you have been reading and say Hi!

Hi Connie, happy Spring!

9. Writing About Your Life by William Zinsser, ©2004, acquired 2000s?

Zinsser writes about his life -- school, various work, various writing, people and places -- in this collection of memoir-ish essays. It’s less a how-to writing-craft book, though there is some specific advice and of course his writing itself (which I liked much more than I remember in his On Writing Well) is a guide. I reviewed the passages I’d highlighted and was struck by his emphasis on (and my interest in) the importance of “reducing,” so here are a few:

Make … reducing decisions … choose one narrative that tells a coherent story and discard everything else.

Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them it’s because they contain a larger truth…

Only small pieces of a life make an interesting memoir.

Always look for ways to break your long projects into manageable chunks of writing time and energy.

10. Daily Mindfulness: 365 Days of Present, Calm, Exquisite Living ©2017, acquired 2025

Anthologies are usually hit-and-miss but this daybook of 365 inspirational quotations, a gift from a friend, is almost completely hits. The words are from ancient times and into the 2010s, in categories of self-affirmation, purpose, presence, intention, calm, connection and gratitude. The accompanying full-color images are wonderful. I marked dozens of quotes to come back to, here are some:

Never place a period where God has placed a comma. (Gracie Allen)

Friendship…is born at the moment when one man says to another, “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself… (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)

It’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it. (Lou Holtz)

Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move. (Osho)

Look closely at the present you are constructing; it should look like the future you are dreaming. (Alice Walker)

This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before. (Maya Angelou)

The test of an adventure is that when you’re in the middle of it, you say to yourself, “Oh now I’ve gotten myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home.” And the sign that something’s wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure. (Thornton Wilder)

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses. (George Eliot)

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. (Pablo Picasso)

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude. (Thornton Wilder)

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. (Leo Tolstoy)

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. (Edith Wharton)

>55 detailmuse: I read On Writing Well some years ago and probably should revisit it now I'm a bit maturer as a writer. I'm currently doing a short memoir course, and it is definitely challenging me towards the edges of my comfort zone! I'll put Writing About Your Life on my wishlist (next on my actual pile to read is Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir).

>57 Jackie_K: Your memoir course sounds very good. I don't recall specifics about The Art of Memoir except a pleasant memory of reading it in part on a vacation...and that it inspired me to then read her The Liar's Club (which had been in my TBRs for eight years!) and loved that.

hmm so many books started in March, so few finished:

March
Beginning total TBRs: 224
ROOTs read: 2
Other books read: 1
Books acquired: 6
Ending total TBRs: 227
YTD ROOTs read: 10 (year-end goal=40)

>56 detailmuse: Those two books, Writing About Your Life and Daily Mindfulness sound quite interesting, thanks for sharing some sample quotes (more for the TBR pile!).

>60 kaida46: Hi Deb, yay for TBRs and wishlists! I was especially pleased about the last quote I excerpted (Wharton, >56 detailmuse:) because it's one I'd written into a quotations notebook that I kept decades ago in high school!

>52 detailmuse: Thanks for this. I'm going to try and watch some of these short films.

>62 labfs39: Enjoy! You've read a lot by Austen so will likely appreciate “Jane Austen’s Period Drama"!

>63 detailmuse: OMG! That was hysterical! I'm so glad you mentioned it. I needed to laugh.

>64 labfs39: Yay! Highest rec goes to (the category winner) "Singers" -- gritty but also funny, and then heartwarming.

11. Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder, ©1989, acquired 2025

Near the end of a year, a teacher can’t help facing the fact that there’s a lot she hoped to do and hasn’t done, and now probably never will. It is like growing old, but for teachers old age arrives every year.

I pulled this out after Kidder passed away in March. Like his Old Friends (which was set in a nursing home), it’s a year-long documentary, this one with him embedded in a late-1980s fifth-grade, lower-income, public-school classroom in a declining Massachusetts industrial town. His main focus is the teacher and her students in the classroom, but he also examines the context -- home life, public education and public policy. Here again, he’s open-eyed and compassionate and always backstage.

I also enjoyed Kidder’s Good Prose (about writing nonfiction), and have eyes on his House (about having a home built) and Mountains Beyond Mountains (about Dr. Paul Farmer and global health).

>66 detailmuse: I read Mountains Beyond Mountains earlier this year and enjoyed it. It was both informative and as you mark compassionate. I'm glad his other works bear this signature as well.

>67 Cecilturtle: I thought I had heard lots about Farmer recently and assumed he had died, but now note that he passed in 2022. Perhaps he was in the news because of the US severe cuts to international health aid :(

>66 detailmuse: I've added Good Prose to my wishlist. I have Old Friends on Mt TBR, and it sounds from your review like I'd enjoy Among Schoolchildren too.

>69 Jackie_K: I'm eager to hear about any you encounter!

April
Beginning total TBRs: 227
ROOTs read: 1
Other books read: 3
Books acquired: 5
Ending total TBRs: 228
YTD ROOTs read: 11 (year-end goal=40)

12. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, ©1968, acquired 2025

”Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?” What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers.

* * *

Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

* * *

So it goes.*

Twenty years after the end of WWII, Vonnegut here weaves a fictionalization of his military service (specifically during the firebombing of Dresden), his post-war years, and some galactic alien commentary about humans. This is my second by Vonnegut and I love his playfulness and tenderness.

* Concludes every atrocity and unbearable sadness, easily a hundred times in the novel. Could be a response today, too, but it feels so impotent.

13. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan, ©2007, a re-read now

I first read this novella in 2007 and have since remembered it warmly. It’s set as one shift at a Red Lobster restaurant in snowy, pre-Christmas Connecticut, on the last day before the restaurant closes for good and some of its employees will move on to a nearby Olive Garden. Through the viewpoint of the manager, we see cliches of customers and we see the staff struggling and being there for each other (or not). Upon a re-read now, the emotion seems more like melancholy, yet still warm and possibly hopeful.

>73 detailmuse: I read my first O'Nan last year and really liked it. This one sounds like it would be a good read for me.

>74 Cecilturtle: I've read only two by O'Nan but think he writes very quiet stories very well. I'd like another and think it'll be either A Prayer for the Dying (maybe too bleak) or Wish You Were Here (a family reunion set in summer on a lake, so good timing for me on all three).

>73 detailmuse: After reading your review, I started listening to Last Night at the Lobster. I'm having a bit of a hard time keeping the workers and their backstories straight, but it may be my fault for not being a more accomplished listener.

>76 labfs39: Me too, I felt solidly in Manny's mind. And I definitely feel more distanced when listening vs. reading. Almost all of the audiobooks I've loved have been nonfiction or memoir.

edited to add: my trouble in keeping his current and former lovers straight may have represented his own emotional conflict

14. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021, ©2021, acquired 2024

This 2021 anthology of 2020 science writing is heavy on Covid (11 of the 26 entries), and I was interested to read them in review -- particularly one about the first nursing home outbreak, and another about finding resources to harvest a cherry crop during lockdown (I wonder if it was inspiration for Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake?). Several entries touch on climate change, and a couple other memorables include the dramatic decline in babies born with Down Syndrome over a generation of prenatal testing; and a struggling initiative to provide end-of-life care amid China’s taboo on acknowledging mortality.

15. I'm Too Young to Be Seventy: And Other Delusions by Judith Viorst, ©2005, acquired 2023

In addition to writing literature for children and nonfiction psychology for adults, Viorst has published collections of poems that address each decade of her life. I’ve read most of them and rated each at 3 or 3.5 stars -- light, mostly universal, always too brief a collection. I’m not at the age of this one yet but nodded in recognition at the fast-passing of time and the eternal need to keep trying (to improve self and world).

16. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020, ©2020, acquired 2024

Catching up on another anthology, with interesting entries about:
• dogs’ sense of smell and progress toward developing an “electronic nose” to non-invasively detect diseases;
• the devastating Paradise, California wildfire;
• vaccine association (specifically live-virus vaccines) with greater reductions in overall mortality than what is expected from their direct effects against the infections they prevent;
• CAR-T therapies against cancer;
• whether the extinction of dinosaurs occurred before or after an asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago;
• language bots and AI language programs (as of seven years ago), with this distressing passage: One can envision machines like GPT-2 spewing superficially sensible gibberish, like a burst water main of babble, flooding the internet with so much writing that it would soon drown out human voices, and then training on its own meaningless prose; and
• on aging, which had a few passages I wanted to save:

Aging, like bankruptcy in Hemingway’s description, happens two ways, slowly and then all at once.

The concentration that each {ordinary} act requires {in older age} disrupts the flow of life, which you suddenly become aware is the happiness of life, the ceaseless flow of simple action and responses, choices all made simultaneously and mostly without effort. … {W}hat it is to be young is not to be in a state of ecstasy but merely to be unimpeded

From zero to twenty-one is about eight thousand days. From twenty-one to mid-life crisis is eight thousand days. From mid-forties to sixty-five -- eight thousand days. Nowadays, if you make it to sixty-five you have a 50 percent chance you’ll make it to eighty-five. Another eight thousand days!

{H}ormesis” -- the practice of inducing metabolic stress by short intense exercise or intermittent fasting. “Every day, try to be hungry and out of breath” is his neatly epigenetic epigram.

May
Beginning total TBRs: 228
ROOTs read: 5 (including one re-read that counts as a ROOT but doesn’t decrease the TBRs)
Other books read: 1
Books acquired: 5
Ending total TBRs: 228
YTD ROOTs read: 16 (year-end goal=40)

Hi MJ. Just popping in to see what you are up too with your ROOTs. You'r on the right track for completing your goal. Way to go!!

>82 connie53: Hi Connie! Whew, May was a good catch-up for ROOTs!

The categories for adult readers in a library summer reading challenge are:
• a book featuring a journey or road trip
• a book where nature plays a major role
• a book you picked entirely for the cover
• a book you own but have never read

I’ve pulled some possibilities, all ROOT-eligible:

>84 detailmuse: Hi MJ, you reminded me of a local library's Summer Reading Challenge so I signed up. We'll see how I do.

Looks like you are doing well with the ROOTs.

Hi Meg, each year I think, No Problem -- about the quantity of books in the challenge, and then forget about the categories! My possibilities all being ROOTs is a good thing, since so far in June I've only read new acquisitions :0

>84 detailmuse: The Covenant of Water is long, but oh so good. I listened to it on audio, read by the author, who did a great job. The Parable of the Sower is good too. The Book of Chameleons is on my wishlist. So many good choices!

>87 labfs39: Love hearing book feedback!

Early in January 2025, I read an intro about The Parable of the Sower that exactly matched the real-life moment, something like: “It’s 2024, California is on fire, the gap between rich and poor has never been wider, and an authoritarian has just been elected President of the United States.” The timeliness of the novel shocked me, but WHAT?! -- it had been published in 1993! I don’t enjoy dystopias, but the prescience captured me.

>88 detailmuse: I wonder if I had read it in 1993 in addition to 2021, how my reactions would have differed. I almost think it makes more of an impact now for being so spot on.

>89 labfs39: I love that books transport me into unfamiliar spaces, but their sideways look into familiar situations is sometimes even better. I confess to wondering how the Sower characters will solve things (or, yikes, not).

The next two are book bullets from Jackie_K’s threads:


17. A Year Unfolding: A Printmaker's View by Angela Harding, ©2021, acquired 2024

This wonderful collection of the artist’s linocut silkscreens is full of birds, flowers, trees, animals and landscapes of the English countryside, with commentary about their inspiration. There is variety here, and yet a style so distinctive that I have instantly recognized her work elsewhere.

18. The House on an Irish Hillside by Felicity Hayes-McCoy, ©2012, acquired 2025

When you learn to relax…

This memoir (almost a biography of place) is set mostly on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula and includes much about the land, people, history and lore. At times I had difficulty with the author’s multiple timelines there (her youth, married adulthood, retirement) and my unfamiliarity with rural Ireland (I’ve only tourist-sampled the neighboring peninsula, via the Ring of Kerry road trip). But when I did relax into it, oh my I felt I was there.

Ah, so pleased my BBs hit! (I haven't actually read The House on an Irish Hillside yet, but I guess the title must have been enough to grab you!).

>93 Jackie_K: Yes and when I looked up the book, I was captured. I didn't mark the passages that put me right there where the author was, so I can't excerpt them here. But several times I felt so immersed that it brought to mind the same feeling I'd had while reading Gabrielle Hamilton's first memoir, Blood, Bones and Butter:

Slowly the meadow filled with people and fireflies and laughter -- just as my father had imagined -- and the lambs on their spits were hoisted off the pit onto the shoulders of men, like in a funeral procession, and set down on the makeshift plywood-on-sawhorse tables to be carved. Then the sun started to set and we lit the paper bag luminaria, which burned soft glowing amber, punctuating the meadow and the night, and the lamb was crisp-skinned and sticky from slow roasting, and the root beer was frigid and caught, like an emotion, in the back of my throat.

>86 detailmuse: I've started counting new acquisitions as ROOTs as soon as they're on my shelves or else I'd never get any of my own books read and, if that was the case, they'd all become ROOTs anyway.

>95 Familyhistorian: I'm giving some thought to that. It does seem sad to let the excitement of a shiny-new book just fade, so about 1/3 of my 2026 reads so far have been new. I want to clear out (read and donate) a lot of my older books though, and honestly this challenge keeps my attention on them.

19. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, ©2025, acquired 2025

Set in a small town in northwest Ohio, this saga explores two families over three generations amid 20th century history, particularly wars. It opens very slowly -- “opens” equaling about 150 pages :( -- and although it was pleasant enough to read, I did think several times of DNFing it. Then suddenly it took off and I was eager to read it every chance I could. The characters are developed in depth, all are interesting, and I particularly rooted for a few of them as they do the work of accepting their true selves.

20. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn, ©2004, acquired 2013

{Felix pinned the Polaroid} photograph to the wall. Then he took three steps back to consider the effect. The living room wall facing the window is now almost completely covered in photographs. All together they make up a kind of stained-glass window

Via several dozen very short vignettes, a gecko tells of Felix Ventura, an Angolan who loves books and creates his own stories by crafting new biographies/identities for people who want to live more impressive lives in post-colonial, post-civil war Angola. There is wonderful imagery and playfulness but I got lost a bit in its dreamy/magical wandering, not appreciating it fully until the last several vignettes, when some things came into focus and wrapped up quickly. I had finally read it now so that I could clear it from my library; but argh, I think I want to re-read it with the new insight :0

P.S.
Hmm, this is the second book in a row with themes about identity and personal reinvention and where a main character is named Felix!

June
Beginning total TBRs: 228
ROOTs read: 4
Other books read: 3
Books acquired: 10!
Ending total TBRs: 231
YTD ROOTs read: 20 (year-end goal=40)

Of 11 non-ROOTs I read so far this year, three warrant a note:

The Land and Its People by David Sedaris -- this collection of essays felt like a literary version of snacking on M&Ms, and I send a thousand appreciations for the wonderful reprieve of satire

Small Stories: 2018-2022 by Quinn Cummings -- a collection of little anecdotes compiled from Cummings’s Twitter threads back in the day; another reprieve

And on the other hand, Vigil by George Saunders -- I loved Lincoln in the Bardo and this is similar in its vignettes of spirits; but the characters bored and annoyed me and I DNFed it; I later tried again, on audio, and DNFed it again

>98 detailmuse: I'm glad you ended up enjoying The Book of Chameleons. It's been on my wishlist forever. I need to be more aggressive about obtaining a copy.

>100 detailmuse: I do love David Sedaris, and really need to read some more of his stuff. I love listening to him reading, too.