Category Archive Books

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My 2019 in Books

Another year, another Goodreads Challenge. Since I started reading so many graphic novels, setting my challenge goal has been a challenge in itself. On the one hand, I happily recognize graphic novels as real books. On the other hand, it takes about one hour to read a volume of manga, where the average novel takes about 12 hours. So I set a ridiculously high goal that includes both, but I try to sort my results so I can see how much “regular reading” I did apart from “graphic reading.” I’m probably the only person who cares about my reading data, but since I got to read a lot of interesting books last year, you might want to read on to discover some cool stories.

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Because I’ve Read The Shock Doctrine

So you could say I’m a little bit late on this one. I’ve always had trouble with book clubs. But the Because We’ve Read project is an interesting one that leads me to important works I wouldn’t have read on my own. So I keep trying. Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine was their choice for September, 2018, and I can finally report that I’ve read it.

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Book Report: Henrik Ibsen Four Major Plays

In preparation for my trip to Norway, I tried reading some Norwegian authors. I wrote about Hamsun first, but the first author I read was Ibsen. I started with Four Major Plays.

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2019 Global Reading Challenge


stack of 2019 Global Reading Challenge at Seattle Public Library

The Global Reading Challenge is a Battle of the Books program for 4th and 5th graders enrolled in Seattle Public Schools. The ten Challenge books selected by Seattle librarians each year are varied in genre with a diverse cast of main characters and a disproportionate number of Newbery medals gracing their covers. That’s why I’ve tried to read all ten of them each year since I discovered the challenge when my oldest daughter was in second grade.

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Book Report: Growth of the Soil

When I started researching my upcoming trip to Norway, I was surprised how many Nobel laureates in literature came from that small country. Why three of them had lived in the small town of Lillehammer!

Then I remembered why Norway might be over-represented on that list. I still like to read the literature of a county I’m about to visit, so I put books by Ibsen and Hamsun on hold at the library.


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