It's Monday!!! What Are You Reading?

Having a hard time concentrating lately. Reading has suffered for it, and that bums me out. Plus it is colder than a witch’s tit here. 

(All titles are linked to their Goodreads description. I am linking this up with The Book Date!)

In the last week I finished a book of poems titled American Primitive by Mary Oliver. This collection won Oliver the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1983, which is coincidentally the year I graduated from college! I reviewed it as such:

“Done and dusted in one day! Maybe I should have lingered with them longer, but it was cold and dreary and I was in a sappy mood so, I guess, this was exactly what my soul needed that day. They warmed me like a soft blanket. These poems are based in nature and I loved that. I have also heard it's Oliver's "thing". Whether the poem is about a season or a tree or an animal, I felt. I, in particular, loved the ones about seasons in general or the herons (I believe my dear mother-in-law was reincarnated as one because they were her favorite birds and are a plenty on a small lake in Indiana I know well, and one regularly rests on the end of my pier when I'm there. Okay, so I talk with it, too. Don't tell anyone.). While all of them touched me, perhaps my favorite was "Music". AH, but "In Blackwater Woods". "The Plum Trees"!!!!!!! Maybe, "Postcard from Flamingo". I simply enjoyed too many. I have Dream Work, also by Oliver. Today seems like the perfect day to start that one.”

I also finished the novel Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy, and this is what I had to say:

“Dark like Cormac McCarthy, but the writing is not sparse. It felt more lush, yet stomach-turning, if you can possibly place those two adjectives in the same sentence and it make sense. I enjoyed this glimpse into a world with which I am extremely unfamiliar. However, there are underlying motivations for the characters' actions and behavior that are all too human and, at times, relatable even if I'd hate to admit it.”

I am currently on page 310 of a 720 page tome called A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. It is incredibly heavy stuff and, as I explained to a friend, I have to put it down after 20-30 pages to digest and take a break! It doesn’t move at breakneck speed, but I am determined to push through. 

I am also listening to Did You Ever Have a Family? by Bill Clegg. I can’t get enough of this book! I am 75 % finished, but I knew early on that it had the potential to become an all-time favorite. I think that is still true!

I picked up Dream Work by Mary Oliver this morning. It is her followup collection of poems to American Primitive. I am excited to read more from her.

Enough about me! What are you reading???