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Wednesday, March 29, 2023

First Quarterly Report, 2023

Primroses in the morning

I stopped keeping running lists as a sidebar but still keep my own lists of Books Read. So far in 2023 the total is fifty-seven, with one more day left in the first quarter of the year. I’m sure my reading pace will slow once I’m back in Michigan, busy in my bookstore and at home, selling books, mowing grass, and hanging laundry on the line, but for now, here is the list as it stands on March 29. If it were annotated, it might be more meaningful, but I don’t have the heart. The sad, crazy state of my country is too much with me. 


Bajada lupine

1. Spragg, Mark. An Unfinished Life (fiction)

2. Moor, Robert. On Trails (nonfiction)

3. Brontë, Charlotte. Shirley (fiction)

4. Irving, Washington. A Tour on the Prairies (nonfiction)

5. Swan, Walter. How to Be a Better Me (nonfiction)

6. Maxwell, Gavin. A Reed Shaken by the Wind (nonfiction)

7. Ferber, Edna. Show Boat (fiction)

8. Simeti, Mary Taylor. On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal (nonfiction – uncorr. proofs, 1986)

9. Fellowes, Julian. Snobs (fiction)

10. Keillor, Garrison. Pontoon (fiction)

11. Sumner, Cid Ricketts. Tammy Out of Time (fiction)

12. Jance, J.A. Unfinished Business (fiction)

13. Jance, J.A. Until Proven Guilty (fiction)

14. Abels, Harriette. Mystery on the Delta (fiction – YA)

15. Rhodes-Pitts, Sharifa. Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America (nonfiction)

16. Robertson, Mary E. I’m Sorry For Your Loss: One Woman’s Journey Through Love, Loss & Recovery (nonfiction – ms.)

17. Postgate, Raymond. Verdict of Twelve (fiction)

18. Jance, J.A. Taking the Fifth (fiction)

19. Robinson, Shauna. The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks (fiction)

20. Sanders, Michael S. From Here, You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant (nonfiction)

21. Durrell, Lawrence. Mountolive. (fiction)

22. Collins, Billy. The Trouble with Poetry (poetry)


Cain, Susan. Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (nonfiction)

23. Frank, Bruno. The Persians Are Coming (fiction)

24. Hoag, Tami.; The Bitter Season (fiction)

25. Gallico, Paul. The Abandoned (fiction)

26. Abram, David. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (nonfiction)

27. Collins, Billy. (poetry)

28. Elliott Andrea. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City (nonfiction)

29. Simenon, Georges. Maigret and the Saturday Caller (fiction)

30. Trollope, Anthony. North America (nonfiction)

31. Jance, J.A. Moving Target (fiction)

32. Gooley, Tristan. The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs (nonfiction)

33. Murie, Margaret E. Two in the Far North (nonfiction)

34. Spender, Matthew. Within Tuscany: Dead Ned Reflections on a Time and Place (nonfiction)

35. Fukuoka, Masanobu. Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security (nonfiction)

36. Warner, Sally. It’s Not About the Money (fiction – YA/juv.)

37. Henkin, Joshua. Morningside Heights (fiction)

38. Jance, J.A. Without Due Process (fiction)

39. Masefield, John. Dead Ned (fiction)

40. Leon, Donna. My Venice and Other Essays (nonfiction)

41. Leon, Donna. Doctored Evidence (fiction)

42. Backman, Fredrik. A Man Called Ove (fiction)

43. Smith, Mark G. Tuscan Echoes: A Season in Italy (nonfiction)

44. McMurtry, Larry. Literary Life (nonfiction)

45. Kalanithi, Paul. When Breath Becomes Air (nonfiction)

46. Virgil. Eclogues; Georgics

47. Masefield, John. Live & Kicking Ned (fiction)

48. Jance, J.A. Name Withheld (fiction )

49. Bornerud, Marcia. Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth (nonfiction)

50. Verne, Jules. Paris in the Twentieth Century (fiction)

51. Greene, Jayson. Once More We Saw Stars (nonfiction)

52. Airgood, Ellen. Tin Camp Road (fiction)

53. Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending (fiction)

54. Huxley, Aldous. Beyond the Mexique Bay (nonfiction)

55. Greene, Stephanie. Falling Into Place (fiction- juv.)

56. Bailey, Gwen. What Is My Dog Thinking? (nonfiction)

57. Estes, Eleanor. The Middle Moffat (fiction- juv.)


dock (edible)




4 comments:

Karen Casebeer said...

Whew! You are prolific! When do you come home?

Unknown said...

I'm very impressed that you've read 57 books so far this year. I thought I was doing well with having read 15! Two of the best books I've read this year: "The Hero of this Story" by Elizabeth McCracken and "Giving Up the Ghost" by Hilary Mantel. I highly recommend them.

Jeanie Furlan said...

I do understand wanting to read all the time, and sometimes two at a time. But I’m a slower reader than you, Pamela! You probably have a richer vocab, too. I look up words when I want to really understand what the author wants to convey, that I might not know the nuance of a word which will help me to understand something.
YES! The state of the country, and in extension, the world, and in my present place of residence, Brazil which is teeter-tottering and divided like the “Os Estates” is driving me nutzoid!! When will the guns go away?! When will the SO divisive people, realize they’re oppressing, smothering and burdening others with their criticisms and abuse?!
Well, I know I’m ranting. Many people feel similarly, I’m thinking.
But, please do send pictures of you and Sunny J and close-ups of flowers and wide views of your vast landscapes: I am calmed and happy seeing them! Beijos 😘 and Ciao (everyone says that here for “Bye!”)

P. J. Grath said...

Some of the books on my list are kid books, you should notice. A couples of others, e.g., WHAT IS MY DOG THINKING? had a lot of pictures. Then there were the ones that took me ages to finish, in part because I kept setting them aside for something else. BEYOND THE MEXIQUE BAY was one of those slow ones, as was Trollope's North America. Jeanie has got my number, though: a lot of my reading these days is escape -- not from the natural world around me but the social/political world. I will be back in Michigan in May, however, getting Dog Ears Books ready for its 30th anniversary season. Wow! Thirty YEARS! I shake my head in wonder at my good fortune, keeping a dream alive this long and still loving it. Thanks to everyone who has helped!