For the past few days I’ve been trying to read as much as possible for the Thankfully Reading Weekend. I read a memoir, short stories, and children’s books.
Books read
- The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks by Robin Romm
- Library Mouse: A Friend’s Life by Daniel Kirk
- If I Were You: A Daddy-Daughter Story by Richard Hamilton
- Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute by Jarrett Krosoczka
- South by Patrick McDonnell
- Scorpions by Peter Murray
- Only a Witch Can Fly by Alison McGhee
- Wolf by Becky Bloom
- Stay Away from Rat Boy by Laurie Lears
Short Stories
From the collection, Love Stories in This Town by Amanda Ward
- “Should I Be Scared”
- “Butte as in Beautiful”
- “The Stars are Bright in Tears”
- “On Messalonskee Lake”
- “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison
- “Medley” by Toni Cade Bambara from the collection, The Sea Birds are Still Alive
- “Lullaby” by Leslie Marmon Silko
- “Somebody Up There Likes You” by Shalom Auslander from the collection, Beware of God
- “Heimish Know All” by Shalom Auslander from the collection, Beware of God
Event Highlights
My favorite read during this event is the short story, “Medley” by Toni Cade Bambara. Bambara is a new-to-me author. I discovered the short story through one of my classes because it was last week’s required reading. The story’s main character, Sweet Pea, works as a manicurist trying to save enough money to send for her daughter and buy a place of her own. In the meantime she learns how to be a woman and mother as she deals with her boyfriend. The rhythm and language of the short story was better than anything else I’ve read in a long time.
Event Lowlights
I wished I read more! I wasn’t really in the mood for long works. The Mercy Papers was barely 200 pages long and at times that felt too long. The short stories were perfect for my finicky mood. The children’s books were mostly read to my kids.
This was a great event. I have to thank everyone behind it for hosting. What did read this weekend?
I feel like everybody’s doing short stories nowadays! I hope to read more of them generally, but I only really ever read them in compilations, or collections by the same author. I am not sure if that is the best way of going about doing it, but at the same time… I’m not sure how else to come across good ones.
Glad you had such a successful weekend of reading!
I finished Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008 today – the book you so graciously sent me earlier this year! It had several wonderful short stories in it. I also finished Life As We Knew It by Pfeffer and Visions of Sugar Plums by Evanovich, which was a perfect read for a holiday weekend – nice and short and very funny.
Have a great week, Vasilly!
I think that looks like a very successful weekend of reading! I didn’t sign up because I didn’t think I’d be reading much, as I tend to read most in the week while hubby is at work, but I did end up reading two books, so I should have!
You really got an amazing amount of reading done. Way to go! I wasn’t that successful, but I did like giving myself permission to spend a lot of time reading.
Lots of reading got done. We are never satisfied with ourselves . You did great.
You had a great reading weekend! I didn’t get too much read but was happy with how the weekend turned out. It was fun!
I read one novel and nearly finished a collection of poems, but I have to say that unexpectedly I spent the weekend building bookshelves.
You had a great weekend of reading! I hardly got any reading done this week since my husband had the week off, our son was here all week and our nephew was here for the long weekend.
It sounds to me like you did a great job! I wish I’d been able to read as much.
Sounds like you had a very productive reading weekend! I got about halfway through The Gathering by Anne Enright. If I can ever tear myself away from my Google Reader I might even be able to finish it tonight!
I didn’t know about this challenge until it was over! But I really couldn’t commit too much to reading anyway with 2 of my kids home from college. Rather spend time with them, on their timetable, naturally. In fact, I started a couple books in the middle of others, which is not necessarily the best way to go about things. One I actually finished was a family novel, for lack of a better description, “Love Tag,” by Peter Shianna. Greed, love, family, infidelity, (even adoption, with a son seeking his birth mother) all wrapped up in a well-written package.
Sounds like a decent weekend of reading!
You read a lot! I finished Soulless and Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Looks like you got a lot of reading accomplished! I wish I could have devoted more time to reading–I was really looking forward to it! Unfortunately other stuff kept popping up.
I go through restless phases when I just can’t get anything read too. It drives me insane, but if I try to force myself to read more it doesn’t work, lol.