Note: I don’t know what happened guys – I wrote this last week and set it to post…and apparently that didn’t happen. It turns out NEITHER of my posts from last week went through, so I’ll get those out as soon as I can, starting now
Oh my goodness, there’s so much I could complain about right now. First off, since I don’t have a commute and a lunch (half) hour in which to exclusively listen to my books, I have sort of fallen behind, and when you’re listening to audiobooks from the library, that sometimes means you don’t finish them in the time that you’ve been allotted for checkout. And if a book is popular…well, you’re just SOL, aren’t you? I am. The number of books which I have started and gotten quite a good ways through is actually only 1 at this point, but the number of my books on hold which have come in and I have either started, or not gotten to, or even simply forgotten to borrow within the three days they are first on hold is a larger number (at least 5). All of this is my way of explaining that I have only read one book this month.
It doesn’t help that due to my own silly rules I have to write this post today (note: Friday, April 27). The next time I post on the blog will be this coming Tuesday – May 1. And while, yes, that may actually be a better time to tell you what books I read and finished in April, chances are that I won’t actually finish anything between now and then, so I might as well get this embarrassing post out of the way and tell you about my one book.
FINISHED:
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
So, amusingly, this is actually my book club book for early June. As in, I’m a whole month early in finishing it. Yay? Let’s just hope I don’t forget about the stories and people in this book before we meet. Eep!
Anyways, we chose this book because we’d been reading a lot of literary fiction, and one of our members is more into non-fiction, and so suggested this one. I like a good deep-dive explainer book, so this was a good choice in my opinion. And what made it even more interesting is that there was so much I didn’t know about this humble fish! It turns out that the codfish was a huge part of the reason for America’s original discovery by Europeans (see: Leif Erikson), and an influential part of the economy until we started overfishing them without care. In fact, it was so interesting that I brought it up at a brunch with friends after church while eating fish and chips. Going back and looking at the menu online tells me that the fish was even meant to be cod!
I would be curious to see an updated version of this book, or even and update on what has happened since this book was written, mainly because it has been about 20 years since it first was released, and the fate of the cod may have changed with policies that were in place at the time of the books writing. Perhaps something to discuss in book club?
IN PROGRESS/IMMEDIATELY NEXT:
The Power by Naomi Alderman
This is one that I got at least 2/3 of the way through, but with my limited car/audiobook in general time, I didn’t finish it before the audiobook was due back. Wahh! And it was starting to get really interesting. I’ve gone back into the hold line, but I’m not sure when I will receive the copy again. Or if I’ll even remember where I was in the book when it was taken away from me.
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
So, I had two books pop up in my “holds available!” before I had finished reading the Cod book. This was the second one, but I am not sorry at all that I skipped the other (another to go back into the hold queue) in favor of this. One – it’s a light and fluffy book that I’ve heard is super enjoyable. Two – there’s going to be a movie of this book at the end of the summer and I’m really interested in the movie. Even if I don’t end up seeing the movie (Hey there Miss B!), it will be the kind of movie I will wait desperately for it to appear on Amazon Prime or HBO or Netflix. I mean, just watch the trailer, and you’ll understand why I’m excited to get to finish this book!
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Friends, I am so far behind in my goodreads goal. I think putting 60+ books on there – which has been a challenge in years when I didn’t have a baby – was a bit of a mistake. Unless I get to start counting baby board books at some point, I think I will not reach my goal. But at least I’m still reading, and giving myself interesting topics of brunch conversation (fish as history!), because as cute as my baby is, there is only so long I can talk about her before other people’s eyes start glazing over.
I saw on Goodreads that you had started Crazy Rich Asians and then Google put the trailer in my news feed the next day! Not sure if Google knows what my friends are reading on Goodreads (though I would absolutely not be surprised), or if it was queued for me because Ben and I also watch Fresh of the Boat and the main character in Crazy Rich Asians plays the Mom on that show. Fun fact: that woman Constance Wu, her dad taught in the Biology department here at VCU! He retired during my first year here. But he used to send updates about her accelerating career through the faculty/staff listserv. So cute!!
I would like to see that movie too (though I’m not going to spend money on it in the theaters; I’ll wait to stream it), but I probably won’t read the book version, honestly.
I’m not sure where the story of the Cod leaves off, but – spoiler alert – its condition today is very, very bad.
Like, may-never-recover bad. Like, I cannot see a future for American-caught Cod at all, given the pressures of climate change and nutrient runoff pollution, both of which degrade Cod habitat, and also given that, despite ‘management plans,’ (and those quotation marks are highly deserved), American cod stocks are consistently overfished every year! Grrr. They delicious tho.
I did know that Constance Wu was from Richmond, but didn’t know her dad was a VCU guy – very cool! The book is very fluffy so far, so I don’t think you’re missing anything groundbreaking. But the movie looks like similarly fun fluff, and she’s so pretty, and her boyfriend in the movie is pretty…I cannot resist a travel-porn movie full of pretty people and gorgeous clothes!
“Cod” was published in 1999, so the most recent information is from the mid-late 90s, and it didn’t seem very optimistic then. They were talking about juveniles maturing earlier and at a smaller size, and how the number of fish brought aren’t the same as the number caught and thrown back (dead) at sea because they aren’t allowed to bring in above a certain amount. I had a feeling things weren’t going to turn out well, but it’s sad that things are worse than could have been hoped for.
I just started reading The Power last night – too funny!
And not to dash any hopes you may have, but I think I literally had a reading gap of about a year post-partum with both my littles. Now, I wasn’t trying very hard. I certainly didn’t make it a goal or priority of any kind. (I had very little goals other than keep the baby alive. My bar is low. Ha!) I am sure you won’t be as bad as me. I just wanted to let you know that you’re right – the struggle is real. Reading takes a different kind of brainpower for me, even when it is enjoyable reading, and I couldn’t summon that when my kiddos were tiny. So, chin up! Any amount of reading you do is good reading when you have a little human to raise!
Your one read for the month sounds really interesting even if it is depressing to learn about the current state of cod fishing. I love non-fiction books of that sort. When your book club decides to read another non-fiction, try “Killers of the Flower Moon”. It’s an amazing historical book about the Osage Indians in the 1920s. It was an amazing book and very easy to read.
The way I solved the three week problem with library audio books is that I download them onto an ipod. They never have to go back to the library because the device is not connected to the Internet. I have had “Crazy Rich Asians” in my ipod for a long time but just seem to listen other things instead. Maybe I will need to move it up the priority list before I see the movie. In fact, I have something like ten or twenty books that I waited a long time to get from the library on my ipod. You will never be out of books again!! haha Could I give them to you from my itunes. Would that work?
You are reading books and taking care of a new baby! That’s more than I was able to do when I had you! You are accomplishing a lot more than most!!
I may need to borrow the last 20 minutes of Crazy Rich Asians from you – I didn’t manage to finish it in time before it went back, and there’s still a very long wait!