So a funny thing happened on the way to 60. For reasons I don’t understand I didn’t want to get to book 60 so far ahead of my birthday. And a new bookstore opened in town and I completely abandoned the whole, don’t buy books, read what you have premise. When the bookstore owner tells you that she is worried she’s enabling unhealthy buying you know you have really abandoned the premise.
Now the truth is that I have read lots that I got out from the library and some that I bought with gift cards (two of my gross rationalizations from earlier) and I’ve read a couple from my shelves. So I’ve chosen two books that meet the criteria for books 59 and 60 and then will post the list of everything else I’ve read. And since I’m now on holidays I expect to be reading a lot more in the next few weeks. Joy!
Book 59 was Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. What a beautiful and tough book. This is what I wrote on FB about it:
– oh my – there is something about books written by poets – you are reading along and then there is a turn of phrase, a play of language, that punches you in the gut…this is a first novel about a Vietnamese refugee boy growing up in Hartford with his mom and grandma…it is about being an immigrant, about being traumatized by war, about being gay, about the opioid crisis, about toxic masculinity, about cruelty and beauty…I had to take a break between part 2 and 3 to read some Phryne Fisher because it was interfering with my sleep but is really worth reading
Beautiful book.
60 Before 60 