I am participating in the American Cancer Society Read Every Day challenge. This is an easy one for me, as I read every day anyway! So I am blogging my reading this month in the hopes that you might enjoy my literary journeys, and that you might consider supporting my fundraiser to fight cancer and support cancer patients through Relay for Life. Go to main.acsevents.org/goto/elizabethdonald to read my essay and donate.
Feb. 1
My issue of the New York Review of Books came in. This is my first issue of this subscription, and I can already tell it is mostly the kind of highbrow literary that bores me. Russian activists of the 1920s and the war memorials of Charles De Gaulle… but there’s a lengthy piece on George Washington’s struggle to justify keeping people enslaved with his dedication to the principles of the Revolution and his advocacy for “the New Husbandry,” a philosophy married to the agricultural practices he studied.
It is interesting but ultimately frustrating, as it reminds us that Washington reneged on his plan to free his slaves, eventually writing their freedom into his will for after Martha died. (Martha then subsequently freed them herself, unwilling to keep them in enslavement after they were freed-but-not-freed.) I hope there is more of this content in future issues.
Feb. 2
I usually keep several books going at any given time: nonfiction by day, fiction by night. Today it was Why We Can’t Sleep, which is an examination of the new midlife crisis experienced by Gen X women. So far it’s an interesting mix of stuff I already know far too well, and an eye-opening realization that I am not alone. I didn’t have too long to read today, but I’m definitely sticking through this one.
Feb. 3
You know when you read a book and you know you’re supposed to like it? I love Louisa May Alcott as a person and as a writer, and I’ve spent years studying Little Women. I am trying to read An Old-Fashioned Girl. And it’s not grabbing me. Polly, the main character, is such a judgy little priss I can’t stand her, and the family she’s judging are all raging jerks. I am fairly sure I’m missing something special, so I’ll give it a few more tries before I toss it.
Feb. 4
Today’s reading was more of Why We Can’t Sleep, a chapter on “The Caregiving Rack.” It focuses on how women carry the majority of caregiving for children and older relatives, and even though men are doing more, they still believe they’re doing half and the reality is more like one-third to one-quarter. So it’s basically more of what I already know, but there’s something affirming in seeing it in print. So far the book is therapeutic but light on solutions, which I hope are coming.
It goes without saying that I also read at least a dozen news articles a day, plus scanning a gajillion headlines, but nobody wants a rant on that right now. I also reread several excerpts from Carl Phillips’ My Trade is Mystery to select a good one for my composition students. I reviewed that one last year on Patreon.