On Goodreads, the book social media website where I like to log my reading, I have set a 2023 reading goal. My goal for 2023 is 25 books. Right now I have finished 16 books. I am happy to say that I am on track to reach my goal.
Today I wanted to tell you about my most recent read.
I chose this book because it has a pretty cover. Also I kept seeing recommendations for it on Goodreads. Also it is a book on the Jenna Bush Hager book club from the Today show. I like to keep up with celebrity book clubs and booklists. I subscribe to the Reese Witherspoon bookclub through my email. Also I recently checked out Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List. I have both professional and personal interest in what people are reading. Learning what is on celebrity booklists helps me to keep a pulse what is new in publishing and it gives me ideas of future books to read. From glancing at Barak Obama’s reading list, I got ideas of books that might have been more highbrow than what I might have chosen for myself.
In any case, my newest read Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is a slow burn. It sneaks up on you. I didn’t like it in the beginning. I kind of wanted to quit even when I was 50 percent of the way finished. My main problem with the book was that I found the main characters Tova and Cameron to be hard to root for. Also I could see the big plot twist well before it was revealed. However, the author must be doing something right because I still found myself shedding a tear while finishing the last chapter. So she must be doing something correctly, am I right? I would classify this as a book about relationships and put it in the catagory of mostly realistic non-fiction. There is a small mystery in the book in that the main character is searching for his father, however, I would not strictly say that this book is a mystery. Also the story’s sometimes narrator is an octopus at an aquarium and I found that to be kind of a fun plot device.
On advantage of reading this book for me is that I now have another book that I can recommend to library patrons. Sometimes readers will ask me for a recommendation for a book that is an interesting story but does not have any frightening elements or sexual situations and this books fits the bill. It is a nice story that doesn’t have any potentially upsetting elements and I could see myself recommending this book to my mother or my grandmothers.
I also read the Shakespeare Made Easy version of William Shakespeare play The Tempest this week. I read this for the book club that I belong to at my local library. I probably would not have chosen this on my own. That is why I like being part of a book club. My reading assignments for the book club challenge me to read outside of my comfort zone which I like because it allows me to have more ideas to recommend to readers at my work. Also I like being challenged as a reader because it allows me to explore new ideas.
I had had some experience with reading The Tempest previously. It was a play that was assigned reading for me when I was a junior in college at Shippensburg University. I remember talking about it and writing a paper about it for my Literary Criticism class. However, when it came time for me to read this play for my book club, I had forgotten everything about it. Very little of my reading this week was familiar to me. What I found though is that about 30 minutes into the book discussion with my book club, after reading the book and hearing the other members thoughts, it started to come back to me.
Honestly, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend The Tempest itself unless a reader was interested in participating in a study of Shakespeare’s works, I did find that I would recommend the No Fear Shakespeare series and the Shakespeare Made Easy Series to people looking for a less intimidating way to enjoy Shakespeare’s plays. Also if readers are interested in comics and graphic novels, many Shakespeare plays are also available in graphic novel form.
The August selection for my book club is Project Hail Mary, 2021, by Andy Weir. He is the author behind the book that inspired the Matt Damon movie The Martian. I have never read any of Andy Weir’s books so I am excited to give it a try.
What are you reading this summer? Reply in the comments section.
