May Book List

May started out kind of slow in the reading department, but it picked up speed at the end.

Non-fiction

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
This was the first book I've read by Held Evans, but I am sure I will read more.  Questioning her evangelical upbringing, Held Evans leaves the church of her childhood to find a place to belong.  Most of her questions are the same ones I have, the same many evangelicals have, in this current landscape.

Held Evans book is beautiful because she is able to appreciate parts of  the way she was raised while still finding a way to move beyond it.  She rises above the cynicism that plagues most of us at times and finds God in her seeking.

I've followed Held Evans on Twitter forever, and I'm an even bigger fan of her now.

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li pretty much destroyed me with this one, yet I recommend it highly.  This is not a light read, not an easy book to get through, but it's valuable.

Li writes about her struggles with depression and the books that helped her as she tried to find her way through it, a journey that may never end for her in this life.  She loves author William Trevor as much as I do, so reading about her interactions with the author was a joy.  However, reading about suicide is difficult, especially if you've lost somebody to it.  Li's observations are precise and they will leave readers thinking long after the last page is turned.

If you struggle with occasional depression like I do, take this one slowly.  It can consume you.

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in 15 Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This should be required reading for everyone.  In an elongated letter she wrote to a friend who wanted to know how to raise her daughter as a feminist, Ngozi Adichie gives 15 suggestions for how to raise girls who will embrace their roles as equals.  She inspired me to write this short piece about dads raising feminist sons.

The advice is practical and easily applied, and the style of the writing makes for a fast read.

My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues by Pamela Paul
I love reading books about books, and Paul's non-fiction account of her life with Bob is one.  In fact, Bob is Paul's book of books, a journal she started keeping in college that contains the name of every book she has read since then.

Paul expertly tells about the books she read as she unfolds the story of the life she was living during the readings.  I loved that someone else put into words how I feel about books, that they are portals to other places in life.  When I see William Trevor's Reading Turgenev on my shelf, I'm taken back to college and a difficult time in life when this book felt like an anchor.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo reminds me of nursing Sam all night after he survived pneumonia his first month of life.  It was a dark book, one I'm not sure I would have read if I hadn't been in such a weird, sleep-deprived place, unable to rest out of fear.  John Steinbeck's East of Eden is one that I have read so many times it feels like a string connecting certain points of my existence up to now.

For those who love books or who want to love books, My Life with Bob is a must.  As expected, Paul convinced me to add tons of books to my reading list, and I realized that my Erin Condren planner is sort of like my own Bob since I chronicle the books I've consumed there.

Fiction


The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve
I've always sought out Shreve's books.  The Last Time They Met and The Weight of Water are my favorites, and I recommend them both over The Stars Are Fire.

To be fair, the book was well written with interesting characters.  The backdrop was Maine during a fire that ravaged the coast during the 20th century, and Shreve did her homework when it came to the history.  Her characters, a lonely wife with two children whose husband goes missing during the fire, are vivid, and it is enjoyable to watch the protagonist explore her desires for her own life after tragedy.

This is a quick read, but for those who enjoy Shreve or want to start reading her work, this isn't where I would start.  It didn't have me waiting with baited breath like others she's written.

The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
I read this one while on vacation in Austin, and I will always remember hiding in the tiny laundry room perched on the counter trying to get in a few more pages before the dryer went off.  Butler follows two boys who went to camp together and their divergent paths in life.  As they age, Nelson, the outcast as a child, comes back to run the camp he loved.  His friend's son and grandson eventually make their way to the camp.  Events unfold for these men and boys, everything from war to destroyed relationships to violence.  One of the highlights of this book is when we receive the view from a female character who ventures to this camp as an adult.

This book was rich and drew me in.  I devoured it in two days, quite a feat considering how thoroughly those kids wore me out when we were out of town.  

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
Chevalier retells Shakespeare's Othello, except the setting is a school in the 1970s where preteens make the first day for the new, only black student difficult, to say the least.

Chevalier's books have always been hit or miss for me.  Falling Angels was my favorite, and while New Boy is well written, I wasn't dying to pick it up every night.  Maybe all of those Shakespeare classes in college stripped away all the suspense for me.  

Simplicity: Vacationing With Children, or How to Feel Very Old Quickly

I can sum this up for those of you who don't want to read further:  there is no simplicity when you vacation with children. We waited over eight years to take our four kids on vacation, then we just headed four hours down the road to Austin so we could enjoy gluten-free grub and nature, and it was still a hot mess.  Yes, there were fun moments, but vacationing with kids is just a lot of work in a location that is not your home.

Things I Now Know About Vacationing With Kids

If you want a great response, dress identical twins as minions and go everywhere.

The bathroom situation is never going to feel fair.  We have three girls and one guy.  D gets to take Sam to the bathroom for a quick spray in the urinals, while I'm stuck in the bathroom with the lady crew, and two of them still have a phobia of public bathrooms.  I have to tell Asher and Eowyn that every potty is a kid potty, and then they still sit so close to the edge out of fear of falling in that they usually pee on the floor, or on me.  It's not right.

I'm old.  For real.  I don't say that lightly because birthdays and stretch marks and all that jazz have never phased me.  I've always felt mentally young, so the number has never been a big deal.  But, damn, vacation made me feel old.  Everyone around us seemed so hip.  The kids went feral and I felt like the warden of a tiny insane asylum, shouting things like, "Don't lick the asphalt!", "Why is your hand in your pants?", "D, where's the other one?!?"  I ran into a spring fully clothed wearing my purse to retrieve a child who fell in, and pulling him out of the water then standing there in my mom clothes smelling like ass just about finished me off.   When I found myself in the hotel laundromat on the fourth day washing clothes and reading a book, I realized that was the most Zen I'd felt all week.  Then I was pretty much just sad for the rest of the day.

It's all fun and games when no one is sinking.

I'm not the fun parent.  I'm not ever going to be the fun parent.  I ask questions about the consistency of bowel movements and say things like, "that doesn't look safe".  That is who I am.  I need to embrace it.

Loose plans and children are good and bad.  We had tentative plans for each day, but we kept it very loose in case we needed to make last minute changes.  This kind of worked, but because our routine was not carved in stone, the questions never stopped.  They needed a concrete itinerary, and I just needed a nap.

Eating gluten-free in a city that caters to food allergies is beautiful.  Wild Wood Bakehouse, Sweet Rituals, TacoDeli , and Picnik made this trip for us.  Going to restaurants where explicit directions for everything didn't have to be given was freeing, and the food was delicious.  It was insanely expensive, but we were prepared for that.  We ate well.

 
We probably need to move to a place like Austin.  Despite vacation making me feel very old, Austin suited us for many reasons, and I loved the city.  Gluten-free food that was truly safe was everywhere, as were trees and bike paths, waterways and people on the slightly more liberal side of things.  It felt properly progressive, and none of us really wanted to leave.  It's not in the cards right now, but it was nice to see the kids enthusiastic about a change that D and I would really like as well. Plus, after the Austin mayor did this, it would just feel right to live in his city.