Creative,  Reading

January 2024 Reads

January started off as a really good month for reading. I set my goal for 40 books again this year, back up from 30 last year. I’m intending to go into this year reading good books and by that I mean by reading books I want to read and especially more fiction. I think I’ve read a bunch of filler books in recent years which have been less appetizing to the reading palate than I thought they would be. I’m going to get back into monthly or quarterly summaries here so I hope those who enjoy reading will also like this! And as always, please share what you are reading.


The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

I’ve wanted to read this for a couple of years now after I started seeing it as one of the targets for book bans by school boards and county library systems. I had to know if it was all that bad—and it’s not, unless you are pro-Holocaust! This is a graphic novel telling the story of Spiegelman’s father’s time living in Poland and time at Auschwitz. It’s harrowing. As difficult as the content is to grapple with, the book is a page turner. The book paces back and forth from present day (late 70s/early 80s) as Spiegelman interviews his father and then telling the story in flashbacks. If you can get through Schindler’s List, read The Diary of Anne Frank, or visit any Holocaust museum, you can get through this. There’s nothing “graphic” about this graphic novel other than the travesty of humans treating other humans like shit and murdering them for their race and religion (or to extend it, because not just Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, those who were disabled, too old, LGBTQ, Romani, Catholic, and more). It’s hard not to see where our country is heading right here, right now when you read the book.

One of my Top 10 Lifetime Books.


Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Continuing on the theme of The Past is the Present….

I read this book for freshman Honors English in 1994 and it has always been high on my favorite books list. I had never re-read it but thought now was as a good a time as any so I borrowed the audio from the library. I mean…*stares into camera* let’s talk about prescience! The obsession with tech is what really hits more than it would have in 1994, I think, though I am looking back at some older media from that era and you can see stirrings of our present position even back then. This book still hits, you should read it this year!


The Texas Native Plant Primer by the LBJ Wildflower Center

This is one of those filler books that I ended up requesting from Netgalley. I was definitely interested, mostly for curiosity’s sake, because I do like to keep my ear on what’s going on in the gardening world. This is a pretty great native plant book for Texans, though it is definitely focused for beginners. I would say most of the plants showcased are ones commonly known and even though they do try to share plants from all of the eco-regions in the state, it is definitely slanted for central Texas. Worth buying for any Texas gardener.

schools
They Came for the Schools by Mike Hixenbaugh

I followed Mike’s reporting on this when the story was breaking about what was happening in Southlake and the Carroll ISD a few years ago and had this on my TBR for a while. I was stuck in wait-list hell for the audiobook (months and months and months) so I finally put the hardback on hold and it got it pretty quickly. I grew up in a neighboring district and had been wondering how that district had escaped the mayhem of what happened in Southlake (book banning, rollback of any kind of DEI policies, overtaking of the school board by the far-right) but realized there’s a huge reason why: half or more of my old district is very, very diverse. This isn’t the same for Carroll ISD, though, as you will read in the book, it is slowly diversifying despite its affluent and generally white demographics. All of what happened here is or has played out in other districts in the state and is in reality a mini-version of what’s going on at the federal level right now.


Through the Dark Wood by Dr. James Hollis

This turned out to be a really surprising book and one I am going to have to re-listen to with a journal. I believe it is audio only because it is set more in a lecture type series. If you’ve ever listened to anything from Tara Brach on her podcast, I would say it has a similar format. There were lots of nuggets of wisdom that, like I said, I’ll have to come back to in the future. Highly recommend, no matter if you are mid-life or not.

weneednowings
We Need No Wings by Ann Dávila Cardinal

I downloaded this on a whim last week after I let another book I had lapse by accident and then couldn’t download it again because I was out of credits on Hoopla for the month. Alas, this one sounded good and it was relatively short at 8 hrs (and at 1.75 speed, much shorter). Teresa Sanchez is a professor in Vermont of Puerto Rican descent who has been on leave for a year since her husband died. Then she starts levitating. Oh, I should mention, this is magical-realism! She starts floating and pondering her next steps—return to her professorship or do something else. She instead starts thinking about St. Teresa of Ávila, whose many mystical religious practices included levitation. Teresa realizes she has distant relatives in Spain and thus takes an extended trip there to search for reasons behind her mysterious new levitation abilities. I won’t spoil the rest but it is a light, easy read and worth check out if you need something not too heavy in these trying times.

I don’t think I’ll make six books again for February. Please tell me what you are reading right now!

One Comment

  • judy

    I did not read the book on the schools but listened to a podcast series. I am from another place and time and found it shocking. My kids also graduated from public school before all this stuff started happening. They all moved up north and found gaps in their education involving evolution and the Civil War.

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