My Brain On Books XXXXIV

 

   

 

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

Riddle in my Readathon Nest
Also featuring my Kinde Fire on a stand, headphones, a small stack of tree books I'd like to spend time with and over on the shelf my Library of Congress talking book machine

5:33 AM  - Wrap up
I finished as planned in the last update but got only twenty minutes each with Fahrenheit 451 and The Library Book.  It took way longer than it should have to finish My Side of the Mountain.  I was fighting the drowse again and no longer had the option to go out on the porch. Even if I'd been willing to brave full dark to bring out and bring back in chair, stool, devices, drinks, it would have been rude to making such commotion under my neighbor's bedroom window after midnight.  I had to keep getting up and pacing.  Can no longer safely read while pacing.  Much of my pacing seemed to be between the kitchen and my chair.  Another reaction to the need to sleep is munchies.

But all in all it's been a good thon.  I finished 4 in 24.  That's rare for me but then it's rare for me to have collected so many in my thon tbr that were so short.  I started out 6 behind for my annual goal of 222 finishes and ended up 3 behind after finishing 4.

Now it's time to clear my paths and check windows and doors and the cat's dishes and go to bed.  I'm going to set my alarm for noon because otherwise I'd probably sleep until 6 PM and then not want to sleep at all tonight.  Not a good way to start the week.

11:00 PM - I finished Island of the Blue Dolphin about 7:15 PM
then I came inside and heated Jalapeño Poppers and started Alice Hoffman's Nightbird.  About an hour ago I started My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George.  The very first book I ever did a book review for.  Does anyone else remember their first book review? Got about a quarter in and was hungry so I'm heating up Taco Soup.  My plan is to sit down with the Kindle on a stand behind my soup bowl (as seen in the pic above with the jalapeno poppers) and read while I eat and then stay with the book until it's done and then split the remaining time with Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury and The Library Book by Orlean.  Notice the theme?  I listed those two in the opening meme on my blog as the two I was most looking forward too yet I've not opened them yet.

Outside Thon Nest

4:00 PM - Getting sleep so I'm heading outside with
Island of the Blue Dolphin by Scot O'Dell.  Am about a third or so in.  The pic above is from a previous thon but it will look about the same--except my hydrangeas are not in bloom this month.  :)



5:00 AM-Starting off with

What time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley.  Though I started it several days ago I couldn't quite finish before I had to sleep or risk loosing hours to a nap during the thon.  I never did cotton much to the thon rule that only books begun and done during the 24 hours counted.  It doesn't fit my reading style which has aways included having multiple books on the hook.  There is just no way i'm going to wait two days to find out how Flavia gets out of this muddle.

Is anyone else sad that there is only one book left in the series?  It's to be published the week of my birthday next month and I got on hold with Libby last month and it's still showing a 20 week wait.  If that doesn't change I won't get my turn until March.  I started the series last fall and once I was 20 pages in I wondered why I'd waited so long.

4:44 AM - 

Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.  I really need to update on the photo essay.  There was a significant change last spring when my brother donated three large pieces==two bookcases and a tall cabinet.

So this is my 17th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 - 2025.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: The Library Book by Susan Orleans

Fiction: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: Taco Soup.  A huge bowl in the fridge to heat up in small bowls or mugs

Sweet: Klondike Bar
Spicy:  Jalapeño Poppers made with large jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese mixed with spices and crunchy bits and wrapped in bacon strips.  (my caregivers personal recipe)

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• i set my annual goal on Kindle and Goodreads at 222 and reached 169 a few days ago but that's 6 behind schedule so I'm hoping my childhood favs theme for today will help me close that gap
• Riddle (featured in pic above) joined me December 2024 as a 2 mo. old. 
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least triple.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.  But if all the ebooks and audio books loaded on my devices were tree books there probably wouldn't be room for me let alone my yarn and clothes, beanbag chair or bed...

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 44th Dewey thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. But I've learned from trial and error that intermittent activity and regular hydration are essential.  Today I'm looking forward to getting on my mini tramp as was once my thon habit but vertigo and several falls in the past two years kept me off it and I've just this week got clearance from my Physical Therapist to get on it again while home alone.  I've been on under supervision several times in the last two weeks.  I also hope to spend an hour or two on the front porch if the weather is suitable.  Keeping a variety of reading spaces, staying active, hydrated and fed actually repays the investment with a steady, focused energy for sustained reading.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

 

Read more...

Book Review: The Silver Crown by Robert C. O'Brien

 

The Silver Crown
by
Robert C. O'Brien

This is a multiple re-read. As of September 2026 I've just finished it for probably the fourth or fifth time. I only entered the first and last dates tho as my memory is vague on the others. The first time was likely fall of 1969 but it could have been late spring of that year as it was a school library book and I spent part of the time reading it outside. So either end of fifth grade or beginning of sixth. Anyway it is one of a handful of books I read as a child that I keep getting drawn back to. I remember being so enthralled the first time that I was reading between my turns at a monopoly game and a chess or checkers game with my brother who was indignant with me. I'm in my late sixties now and I remain as enthralled as ever even though I know how it turns out I've put enough distance between reads that many twists still surprise me but even when they don't I still vibe to the story.

So the story: Ellen wakes on her tenth birthday to find a silver crown beside her. So as not to wake her still sleeping family she walks to a nearby park and sits on a log and puts it on and presides as queen over all the small critters. She hears sirens that stop nearby instead of fading away she walks toward the scene and overhears the firemen saying nobody could have survived that and then realizes it is her house and thus her parents and her brother and sister are dead. The fireman won't believe her when she says she lived there and tells her to run along. A policeman believes her and starts walking her toward the nearby police station but they witness a holdup on the way and the policeman must chase the criminal and she is alone again. She resolves to hitchhike to her aunt's home in Kentucky, a nearby state. Of course even at 11 I knew that was not going to go as planned. That was just the first morning.

Read on if spoilers do not concern you. To explain why this book still haunts me after more than fifty years I can't avoid them.

By the next morning she was lost in the woods still many miles from Aunt Sarah's. There was a mountain pass still between them and it wasn't safe to go back to the highway. She is found by a young boy, Otto, with a talking crow named Richard. Otto takes her home to the log cabin where he's being raised by an elderly woman. When Richard, alerts them in the night that there are strangers about the woman scares them off with a shotgun blast over the tree tops. The next morning she sends Otto to escort Ellen across the pass on an old logging trail that will intersect with the road to Aunt Sarah's. It should be a three or four day walk. But over a week later they are still only half way because of setbacks and detours: they discover they are being followed by a evil looking man who was dressed all in black with green stripes like the holdup guy that first morning; a section of road along a cliff that broke away; a deep crevasse that cuts across their path; Ellen's sprained ankle; running out of food so Otto needs to hunt and trap.

Otto returns one day to the cave where Ellen is nursing her ankle with news of a mysteries black tower surrounded with a high chain fence with children dressed in black marching on black paths looking neither left or right. Otto wants to climb the fence to look for food but Ellen discourages him. The next day he doesn't return at all. Soon as she is able Ellen sets out to find that tower and when she does manages to sneak in with a transport of children being delivered. Inside she discovers that it's a school teaching mean-spirited, criminal and destructive behaviors with the aid of twisted 'Aesop's Fables' and every child and adult acts like they are in some kind of trance.

Ellen discovers she is unaffected by whatever has the rest in thrall. She tries to pretend but that doesn't work for long and she is locked in a room and tests are run to find out why she is not 'in tune'. Then she is sent to meet the King who is wearing a crown identical to hers but pure black. The King introduces her to the Hieronymus machine and it's four phase plan for world domination. She sees a phrase on it that says 'He who wears the black crown I rule. He who wears the Silver crown rules me.' The King then shows her a room where 24 men are busily building 24 new machines. He is attempting to get her on board in spite of her being out of tune by appealing to greed and desire for power or control. But during that interview she gives her self away by recognizing one of the men in black she'd encountered in her home town. The King stops being 'kind' and enthusiastic about the 'mission'. He demands she hand over the Silver crown. She declines. She is roughly returned to her cell.

There is still many twists and turns as there is still over 20% of the story left but I've shared enough now to make clear why this novel gripped me so for over five decades. It was my first encounter with two ideas that have become central to my research obsessions over the years and to the themes of many of my own stories: fascism or authoritarianism (the embodiment of the bully spirit) and story used as propaganda and mind control. Also the us vs. them dynamic that actively discourages empath. When I did my deep dive into the Holocaust and WWII when I was 16 I remembered The Silver Crown and realized it was a fable warning against such hunger for power and control. I'm pretty sure it was around then (between 1974-75) that I reread it. Another time was in the early 80s when I was thinking about reading it aloud to my niece but decided it was too mature for her.

I realized as I encountered the Hieronymus machine again that this was also the first time I'd been introduced to the concept of AI. But only be weeks or a few months since I was still 11 when I saw my first Star Trek episode.  That makes three themes that are as relevant today as they were in 1968 when it was published: lust for power; abuse of power; us vs them to short circuit empathy; story use as propaganda to shape reality and control minds; the risk of unleashing an unconstrained AI. Librarians and middle school teachers take note.

As a side note I find it interesting that this story resonated with me thirty years before I broke free of my own "Hieronymus machine' the funde cult I was raised in. How did I miss then what seems obvious parallels to me now? Mind control with dogma and use of story to define 'reality'.  Hierarchy that must not be questioned or disobeyed. Enforced conformity. Encouragement to do and say unkind things to those who stray from the 'right' path. This too is all in The Silver Crown.

Read more...

My Brain On Books XXXXIII

 

   

 

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

Riddle in my Readathon Nest
Also featuring my Kinde Fire on a stand, headphones, a small stack of tree books I'd like to spend time with and over on the shelf my Library of Congress talking book machine

Outside Thon Nest

5:11 PM - Wrapup Well.  Depends on which clock you ask but I finished a fourth book by 5ish: The Other Wind.   I took it outside for the first two hours but the heat was making me drowsy and I'd run out of fluids and I was hungry so I went back in.  I kept the robot reading while I took care of business and by the time I was ready to sit again I was wide awake tho I didn't trust that to last long.  I had to stay a little bit active in order to stay awake but I made it.  Now I need to crash but I think when I wake I'm going to continue participating with those who are doing an expanded version because their personal lives did not accommodate pure focus for the first 24 hours.  I want to keep going because I got to neither of the books I listed in the intro meme as the ones I was most looking forward to: Bird by Bird for nf and Arabian Nights and Days for fiction.  It seems I'm always doing that--holding out a carrot ahead of me until it's hanging out over a cliff and I can't reach it.  I made myself read first all the books with due dates before Tuesday morning.

Well we shall see.  I expect I'll be sleeping ten to twelve hours before I can read again.

11:11 AM - I spent so long on that last update I'm now at under five hours left of the thon.  I can only hope to finish one shortish novel now.  But maybe there'll be time to start another one or read a chapter each in several nf.  But first I'm hungry and I think I'm going to move back out on the porch.  I'm starting to fade and neither the couch our the beanbag are likly to discurage that nap I'm hankering for.

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight

9:22 AM - I finished Revelation for the Rest of Us in 6 hours.  I started out listening at 1.5x and gradually increased it to 2x.  I'm going to have to read it via text because I retain that better plus I couldn't see how names of people and places were spelled and I need to follow some of his references to both scripture an scholars.  His take is that Revelation isn't prophesy in the sense of prediction but prophesy in the sense of admonition.  The whole thing is an allegory steeped in Hebrew symbology and was meant to cloak a dissident ideology from the authorities of Babylon aka Rome.  It teaches how to live the way of the Lamb or Peace, Mercy and Justice or equity while living in the lair of the Dragon aka Empire or Brutal Power without giving allegiance to it.  This fits with where I landed within a year after I broke with my faith family.  I swore that I would never be or serve or tolerate the behavior of bullies no matter what name, title or gender they claim--whether Priest, Prophet, Pope or President; whether Prom Queen, Pimp, Preacher or Professor; whether Pastor, Police, Party or Pedagogue.  The world was divided between those who used their power to control others, to profit at the expense of others and to pontificate for love of their own voice versus those who used there power only over themselves and to focus on service to others--protecting the vulnerable, providing for the needy, healing the sick and injured, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, advocating for the abused. This was the philosophy I set out to demonstrate in my Fruits of the Spirit storyworld having also identified those fruits (love, joy, peace, patience, mercy, tolerance) as the result of living as the servant in opposition or juxtaposition to the bully.  I realized that all the good that had been produced by our group over three generations had not been produced by the preachers behind the pulpit pointing fingers at scripture, at the sky, at the pews, at each other but never at themselves.  Well a few did.  Yes.  But they were also the humble ones who participated as much or more in the building of the community--feeding the crowds or the sick or elderly, building the chapels and the pews and sweeping and vacuuming the sanctuary and cleaning up the kitchen, repairing cars, roofing homes, giving away produce from their farms or dairies, providing child care, doing yardwork for the chapel grounds or a neighbor, writing the tracts and pamphlets and running the printing press and delivering them door to door or at parades and fairgrounds.  And so, so, so much more.  And yes, I noticed that most of that free labor was provided by the women and children who were for the most part invisible to the preachers who were quick to shame them back into their place if they called attention to themselves whether purposefully or inadvertently. This was the vision that came to me thirty years ago as those pulpit bullies tore it all down, forcing the rest of us to choose sides and then cut everybody on the other side out of your life aka disfellowship which tore apart families.  And of course the women and children couldn't choose they had to go where their husbands and fathers chose.  

Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder – The Former Ambassador's Bold Vision for Confronting Authoritarian Threats by Michael McFaul

1:11 AM - Success.  I finished Autocrats and Democrats just half an hour after Libby yanked it.  Kindle always gives me a grace period of several hours but I only needed half an hour extra. I had to come inside about 9:30.  It got too chilly and I was hungry.

I was planning to start the last Earthsea book next but after checking on my Libby loan list I realize I have a ten hour audio book that is due in 3 days.  I should at least get started as by the time I've caught up on my sleep after the thon, there will be less than 24 hours and 12 of them will be divided between the hours my caregiver is here and the hours I need to sleep. 

Again, I was hoping to avoid certain topics for the thon.  This book claims to have a new and different take on the book of Revelation which is the wound that my childhood trauma is rooted in.  I was raised in a Last Days cult that was a spinoff of Darby's Plymouth Brethren.  This theme is also the center of my Fruits of the Spirit storyworld in which I follow a maternal line from the founding of their cult in the 1880s through to the present as the group splits and some stay and some leave altogether but they can't always leave the worldview completely and leaving often means loosing relationships which is trauma on top of trauma.  That storyworld is my sandbox in which I've been exploring all the implications and probing my wounds in hopes of healing them.  This book, Revelation for the Rest of Us by Scot McKnight, is one of the many books in my current TBR that supports the worldbuilding for my storyworld.  I'm getting revved up to get back to work on those files.

7:11 PM - I haven't even got to read yet!  I've been too busy fussing with devices, making coffee, setting up my thon nests and posting both here and on the fb page.  I needed to set up a charging station that could handle multiple devices--3 tablets and a cellphone, Bluetooth headphones, earbuds, boombox and keyboard, a fan and a lamp I wear around my neck, my panic button in case of a fall.  Then I set up the top two shelves on my Kindle with my thon TBR for a screenshot for this post and the one on the fb group only to discover I can't share the screenshot with my gdrive so I had to take a picture of the screen with my cell only to be told I hand too little memory so I had to uninstall about five games I'd never played since game images are too tiny on a cellphone.  Frustrating!  But that's what I get for the procrastination.

Now I'm going to set up yet another nest, this one just outside my front door on the porch.  I'll take my folding rocking chair, my kindle, coffee, headphones, protein bar and a sweater for that evening breeze that kicks up after 8 most evenings.  I'm going to start with the short story, The Daughter of Odren by Ursula LeGuin.  That should be finished before my last swallow of coffee.

Then I need to try to finish Autocrats and Democrats which is due soon after midnight.  It should be enough time, if I start within the hour.   I had hoped to avoid the nf featuring our dark reality today but there is a waitlist and I don't have a hold slot. 

4:44 PM - 

Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.  I really need to update on the photo essay.  There was a significant change last spring when my brother donated three large pieces==two bookcases and a tall cabinet.

So this is my 16th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 - 2025.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Fiction: Arabian Nights and Says by Naguib Mahfouz

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: a huge salad.  enough for three or four meals

Sweet:  watermelon

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• i set my annual goal on Kindle and Goodreads at 222 and reached 111 at the end of June
• Riddle (featured in pic above) joined me December 2024 as a 2 mo. old. 
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least triple.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.  But if all the ebooks and audio books loaded on my devices were tree books there probably wouldn't be room for me let alone my yarn and clothes, beanbag chair or bed...

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 43rd Dewey thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

 

Read more...

My Brain On Books XXXXII

 

   

 

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

Riddle in my Readathon Nest
Also featuring my Kinde Fire on a stand, headphones, a small stack of tree books I'd like to spend time with and over on the shelf my Library of Congress talking book machine

=

11:22 PM = The Culting of America is too info packed to read in one go

I set it aside after reaching 23% 111 pages in.  As much as I would like another finish for the thon, I'm happy with proving that I've plenty of time to finish before it's due just after next weekend.  But I'm glad I started it this weekend and did not leave it until next weekend when I would not have had a choice but to cram it into 1 or 2 days.  I try to spread my Libby due dates out with no more than 2 on a given day and no more than 3 over 2 days.  But with my 2 cards nearly always tapped out at 20 total with 21 days each I'm constantly having to my next choice pushed by the next due date rather than my mood.  Not to mention that my KU books get neglected and I'm actually paying for the privilege to borrow them.  If I'm not going to read at least 2 per month I might as well cancel the service.  3 or 4 would be better.  I need to shift my priority to KU or give it up.

So my plan is to go spend the next 2-3 hours with Atwood's The Testaments and if I can reach 20% I'm going to allow myself to close off the thon with Flavia De Luce.  Because I either have to have a palette cleanser before thon end or after since if The Testaments are anywhere near as intense as The Handmaids Tale, it is NOT a bedtime story.  I suffer from anxiety induced insomnia and I just reread The Handmaids Tale recently so I'm not just guessing.

Right now I seem to be going strong and expect to finish strong but I do have a circadian rhythm low point between 3:30 and 4:30 which I may not survive.  Which migh also prevent me from updating again before I sleep. 

5:00 PM - Second Finish

Just finished the sequel to Chasing Eden which I finished this morning.  How To Uneat an Elephant.  I read it in nearly one sitting.  The only thing preventing it being a single sitting was the need to put my Kindle on a charger for 20 minutes while I fixed food which gave me enough charge to finish.

It was a kind of blessing that silly graphic fought me when I tried to place it inside a paragraph below, because now it sits atop the whole post and, as long as I don't open a book below the second shelf or something non-Kindle, the cover image is right there.

I wasn't intending to finish the sequel today since it doen't have a due date and so many others are due on Libby in the next wee.  Some as early as Monday.  But I could not find a place to stop for long.  Clough seems to be a master at pacing.  I was thinking around the hafway point that she had the novelists eye and ear and wondered if she would write a novel.  I got my answer on the page that pops up when you cross the finish-line.  She has already published two in a series set during the era of immigration between Europe and America.  They are both available on Kindle Unlimited like Eden and Elephant are.  Alas! My KU limit is tapped.  Well it was until I finished Elephant but I have a long line of books in my KU wish list and several I've been hankering after.  But I will keep her novels in mind. Besides, I have too many series in progress already: Earthsea, Flavia DeLuce, Seven Sisters, Louise Penny's Inspector G., The Three Body Problem, Disc World.  

7:44 AM - First Finish

Just finished Cherielynn Clough's Chasing Eden.  It only took about one of the last three hours to finish it.  The rest of the time was used up in editing this post, posting on the Dewey fb page, making coffee and organizing the top two shelves on my Kindle to reflect my priorities for today.

...

And now I've just spent another hour taking a screenshot of my top two Kindle shelves, thinking it would be easier than going after book covers every time I finish a book.  Ha!  Tech, that thing that held so much promise for efficiency and productivity now eats up our time with hoop jumping.

Simply emailing the screenshot or sending to my email was stymied by their claim to have lost access to my google accounts due to faulty password.  But an attempt to fix that included a request for permissions that I thot excessive.  Sending via Bluetooth would not work.  There were no image editing aps on my Kindle Fire except the offer of Microsoft 365 which I don't have and won't pay for.  So finally I gave up and moved to my android tablet with a Kindle app on it and organized those top two shelves to look the same (which meant locating in the random mix on the shelves each book in the right order and opening them to send them to the top) then take the screenshot,  share it to my Google Drive, move to my laptop, locate the screenshot in File Explorer, return to my Blogger post and mark where I wanted the image to be placed, find the image displaced a dozen lines down, try to move it to the spot under the first paragrap in this update only to have it jump two lines above this update.  Several attempts to move it back failed so I gave up and started writing this paragraph of whine.

It's just that I get so frustrated when a task that I once could do in 3-5 minutes takes me an hour!  I can blame some of it on my eyes but a lot of it is because the pompous programmers and owners of the platforms have been whittling away our options for years hoping to suck more of our dimes and our data out of our dominion.  They are rich enough to buy private islands, politicians, and pardons but they keep picking the pockets of those of us on fixed incomes who are soon going to have to give up our streaming services to keep the temps in our home livable, not long after that we'll have to start choosing between our Amazon Prime and our Google account.  At that point we might as well give up our ISP.

UGH!  I just lost another hour to that rant.

4:44 AM - 
Intro Meme

I'm prepping this ahead of time and setting it to publish at 4:44.  It will probably be an hour or two before I update with commentary on my first one or two reads.  Tho I may check in over on the Dewey fb page.

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.  I really need to update on the photo essay.  There was a significant change last spring when my brother donated three large pieces==two bookcases and a tall cabinet.

So this is my 15th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 - 2025.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: The Culting of America by Dannielle Mestyanek Young

Fiction: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: Sushi rice rolls

Sweet:  Chocolate cake (made by my neighbor) with fresh strawberries found on my readathon finger-food shopping trip yesterday

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• 
  
• Riddle (featured in pic above) joined me last December as a 2 mo. old. 
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least triple.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.  But if all the ebooks and audio books loaded on my devices were tree books there probably wouldn't be room for me let alone my yarn and clothes, beanbag chair or bed...

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 42nd Dewey thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Partly by accident and then by intention, my TBR for today has a theme:

#deconstruction

Both the fiction and the nf relate to being raised or otherwise commandeered into a cult or high-control social group.  There are several memoirs, several novels and several expository nf that fall into categories like explanatory, history, psychology, theology, culture.  It's a selection that's probably double what I can expect to dip into let alone finish.  But I hope to finish at least one each of memoir, novel and expository.

This is all about the path I am on myself and I'm thinking about returning to blogging on a regular basis with the theme of #deconstruction predominating, starting with book reviews of the dozens of books on the theme I've finished in the last decade interspersed with my own story while I explore the idea of writing my own memoir.  Hopefully this will morph into returning to work on my Fruits of the Spirit Storyworld which is all about the impacts on several generations of women in one family by a fictional cult founded in the 1880s. 

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

 

Read more...

My Brain On Books XXXXI

 

   

 

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

Riddle in my Readathon Nest
Also featuring my Kinde Fire on a stand, headphones, a small stack of tree books I'd like to spend time with and over on the shelf my Library of Congress talking book machine

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9:44-11:22 AM - First Finish!

I started with the Fugelsang book for the first sprint and was still listening when the second sprint started.  I was at the 58% point at 5am and finished at quarter to nine.  I tried to start The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree (a Libby ebook on my Kindle) to listen to it as I tended to minor self-care tasks but after the third time i had to return to the Kindle and back up because I'd missed a crucial word, I gave up.  I tend to need to follow with my eyes while the robots read as they get pronunciations so so wrong so so often.  But I got enough out of the nearly two chapters I heard to know that once I sit down with it, I'll be a goner for hours.

I was going to grab the book cover for The Separation of Church and Hate and share first thoughts but having started the next book and found it irresistible I find I'd rather be reading than reviewing.  And I know that because the book's theme is so closely related to the still open emotional wounds left by the cult I was raised in and came out of 30 years ago, trying to write about it now might take me down a rabbit hole that I would not find my way out of before the end of the thon.

I will say tho that I found quite healing Fugelsang's use of humor as a defense against the overwhelming outrage engendered by the colossal hypocrisy of those claiming to follow Jesus who brag about their hate muscles and compete to see who can be the meanest judge of all those they deem unworthy--which is every sinner except they're Piously Rightjus selves.  Because of people like this, I gave up my religion but I never gave up my Jesus.  I recognize Him in the Jesus Fugelsang describes as the Jesus his parents introduced him to. The Jesus for love of Whom they followed callings that led them to pledge service to the most vulnerable outcasts--a leper colony in India.  His mother was a nun and nurse and his father was a Franciscan monk.  They left their orders to marry ten years after they met. Raised by these two he claims left him in need of intense therapy which he could not afford so he turned to stand-up comedy where he works out the logical pretzels in this theology of bullies that owns our country today.

Ooops.  I'm getting worked up just as I feared.  I really need to learn how to wield this kind of humor against the demons my upbringing planted in my psyche.  Ugh.

OK.  Time to go exorcise them with a long immersion in a good story...

4:44 AM - Intro Meme

I'm prepping this the night before and setting it to publish as my alarm goes off.  It will probably be an hour or two before I update with commentary on my first one or two reads.  I'm starting with Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang as it's an audio I can listen while I sip hot coffee and eat a protein bar.  Then I'll switch to The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree by India Hayford.  Both are Libby loans due in under a week.

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my 14th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 - 2025.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: The Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang

Fiction: Letter From the Lonesome Shore by Sylvie Cathrall  (book 2 in a duology.  I read the first one in July.  It was one of the best things I've read all year and I've finished over 100 books since Jan 1.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: Red Hot Blues (a Spicy Blue Corn Tortilla Chip)

Sweet:  Atkins chocolate Peanut Butter protein bar

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• Still processing grief over the loss of Mom last October..  
• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only once  a month now instead of constantly. 
• Riddle (featured in pic above) joined me last December as a 2 mo. old. 
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least triple.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.  But if all the ebooks and audio books loaded on my devices were tree books there probably wouldn't be room for me let alone my yarn and clothes, beanbag chair or bed...

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 41st Dewey thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Because of my vision issues I have always considered that the only metric on which I could compete as I'm now such a slow reader.  But I've discovered that I can rack up an impressive number of books dipped into in 24 hours.  I like to read a chapter each in 4 to 6 NF in an hour and then spend an hour immersed in a novel.

Ah but the ONE thing that I could do different that could make a lot of difference in the quality of the experience is to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated.  But nearly equal to that in impact would be to get briefly active at least once every two hours.  But this isn't the first time I've set that intention.  Let's hope I do a better job at it this time.

Since anticipation is an insomnia trigger for me I seldom get more than 4 hours sleep the night before so for the last year at least I've been trying to change that aiming for 6-8 hours. I can't think of one time I've done better than six.  I hoped this time. But it is after midnight as I type this.  I started prepping this post two hours ago but decided to get a fresh pic of my reading corner so as to include Riddle and she would not cooperate.  But what did I expect of a diva who just turned 1 in the last 3 or 4 weeks.  (feral litter so a bit of a guess by the first vet to vet her)

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

 

Read more...

My Brain On Books XXXX

 

   

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

My folding camper rocker new last summer.  Hoping to spend some time in it this thon.  The weather is perfect 

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4:44 - Third Finish!

I didn't make it the full 24.  That last update took me longer to write than it toom to read the book I was talking about.  That work triggered self-reflection which triggered as it often does a nap attack.  There was already light in the window so it was definitely after 5 abd probably after 6 when I gave up.  I woke at 10am but it took until noon to get my mind and eyes and ears in sync with reading.  Then I spent several hours working my way through a chapter each in several more NF:

• The Great Influenza by John M. Berry
• Not in God's Name by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
• The Tree Collectors by Amy Stewart
• White Trash by Nancy Isenberg

I Am Maria by Maria Shriver

Then I started Maria Shriver's new book,  This was 90% poetry and 10% memoir/personal essay.  I usually slow down to a snail's pace to read poems and dole them no more than three in a sitting.  But I couldn't stop turning the pages and so I decided I was going to push on and make it my third finish with the understanding that I was going to have to go back to the first poem and re-read them slow to give me time to reflect, absorb and appreciate the insights and the word play.  At least I hadn't waited until the last five days of my loan to start it so I had over a week to do it over the right way and now when I go back to the beginning maybe my curiosity about the who, what, when, where, how will have been sated so I can keep it where it belongs as the backdrop and not the heart of the message.

I was surprised at how many ways Maria developed similar wounds to her psyche as I had. The dynamics between herself and each of her parents was so similar to my own in spite of the fact that my family did not live in the public eye.  Still there were similarities enough that when her poems contain conversations she is having with her younger self and her mother at various crisis points in their relationship I feel her words touching something raw that quivers in recognition.  That's why I know I need to go back and sit with those moments and those words and let them probe what is trying to speak within me and maybe wake up my own words and my own healing energy.

But I must remind myself that she didn't get to the level of healing she has reached by reading a poem.  Or a hundred poems.  She got there by sitting with the pain until it spoke its truth to her and that doesn't happen in a moment or a minute or an hour or a day.

12:22 AM - Second Finish

I spent a couple hours reading a chapter in each of several NF books:

• The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy by Robert P. Jones
• The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman
• Being Seen by Elsa Sjunneson
• The Collected Poems of Maya Angelo

Then I started another novel.  Well, I thot it was a novel and it was fiction but it's length was in that grey area between novel and short-story.  It was over 100 pages but not by much.  There were no chapter breaks so I never paused let alone quit and once again read beginning to end in one sitting.

Once upon a time about three decades ago that was an everyday experience for me but that was before my visual impairment crossed the line defined as legally blind.  Then my reading speed was cut in half and a few years later in half again.  I must admit tho that I'm managing this today by listening to the Kindle robot at 3.5x while following along with my eyes.  This gives me back close to my reading speed as a teenager with eyes only.  I can't reach that speed with eyes only or ears only.  Due to hearing loss I loose syllables if i'm not also watchng the words highlight on the screen.  With ears only I can seldom speed it up past 1.5.  With eyes only I often drop below 1x which is equal to the speed of speech ( 200-250 wpm).  

Convenience Store Woman
by Sayaka Murata

So the story (novel? novella? short story?) was Convenience Store woman by Sayaka Murata.  This was a very unnerving story for me.  I'm assuming, tho I'm not sure I should be, that the author meant it to be unnerving but because it's POV character's character was so similar to me in some significant ways, I identified with her only to find myself cringing as her choices went off the rails even tho those choices were solidly based on the very same characteristics that I identified with.

To clarify, like me Keiko was obviously neurodivergent.  This wasn't said directly but made obvious by her interactions with family, classmates and teachers as a child along with her first person narration reveals her to struggle with social interactions and expectations.  She is constantly saying and doing things that shock others and she is shunned at school and shamed by family.  Then she learns to observe and mimic those around her until she soothes their nerves as they begin to hope she is finally 'normal'.  But it never lasts long as she always miscalculates like a cat crossing a balance beam and stepping on its own tail and tumbling to the ground.

Then as a college student she gets a part time job at a convenience store and it seems she has finally found her element.  The rigid protocols, the scripted interactions with customers, the perfectly lined up product on display, keeping all the surfaces clean and gleaming--all of this is her happy place and the added benefit is that those around her now treat her as normal and she feels like she finally belongs.  Her parents are proud of her.  Her classmates and teachers congratulate her.  Her boss praises her and her co-workers include her in their circle.

She was content to continue in this way for the rest of her life but that was another miscalculation as after a number of years it is made clear to her that she is expected to move on to a full-time job or a profession or marriage and children.  Otherwise she is not contributing enough to the community.  It was at this point the story took that dark turn when Keiko made cringy choices.  I dare not say anymore as I can't clarify any further without spoilers.

8:44 PM - First Finish!

I sat on the porch from 5:22-8:33 and read a book start to finish in one sitting for the first time in a very long time.  Of course I was listening to the Kindle robot read at 3.5x while following with my eyes--but still!

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

The book was Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks and it was a memoir about the loss of her husband in 2019.  It was a meditation on grief and loss.  The very short chapters alternate between the events in the hours, days and months following his death and Geraldine's months long retreat (alone) to a remote Australian island three years later to free and confront all of the emotions surrounding the events of 2019 that she had felt she had to sublimate behind a socially acceptable mask.

What she shares goes deep and speaks to me as I continue to process the grief from the loss of my Dad in 2005, my husband in 2020 and my Mom in 2024 all.  My Dad on my husband's birthday, my husband the day after his birthday and my Mom one month after those anniversaries and three weeks before my birthday.

4:44 PM - Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my 13th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 & 2024.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

Fiction: Letter From the Lonesome Shore by Sylvie Cathrall  (book 2 in a duology.  I read the first one two weeks ago.  It was one of the best things i've read all year and i've finished over 60 books since Jan 1.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: baby carrots and broccoli blossoms dipped in Ranch

Sweet: cold grapes and blueberries

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• Still processing grief over the loss of Mom last October..  That's why I'm looking forward to the Geraldine Brooks book Memorial Days as it is a meditation/memoir about her grief after loosing her husband
• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only once  a month now instead of constantly.  
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 40th Dewey thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Because of my vision issues I have always considered that the only metric on which I could compete as I'm now such a slow reader.  But I've discovered that I can rack up an impressive number of books dipped into in 24 hours.  I like to read a chapter each in 4 to 6 NF in an hour and then spend an hour immersed in a novel.

Ah but the ONE thing that I could do different that could make a lot of difference in the quality of the experience is to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated.  But nearly equal to that in impact would be to get briefly active at least once every two hours.  But this isn't the first time I've set that intention.  Let's hope I do a better job at it this time.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

Read more...