What I Read: August 2021
Here's what I read in the last month.
I sent my last email newsletter 4 years and 4 months ago… coincidentally, my son is 4 years and 4 months old. And we’ve added a daughter to the mix. And a pandemic. So in case you are wondering who on earth is emailing you, you are probably not alone! You have every right to a) be confused, and b) hit “unsubscribe” at the bottom of this email immediately, no hard feelings.
If you would like to stick around… Hi! And thank you. And if you’re new here, also: thank you. Here’s a quick rundown of what this is and what it will be.
This is Abbigail (Abbie) Kriebs. I am a work-at-home-mom to two. I live in the woods in south-central Wisconsin. I write and edit things, co-host and produce two podcasts, and also take photos with an actual camera on occasion.
But longer than any of that, I have been an avid reader.
As I’ve tried to find something that brings me joy in this never-ending in-between of pandemic life at home with small children, the thing I always come back to is books. I love to read. You cannot get me to stop talking about books if I start. There is nothing that fills me with more joy than to give someone a book or a recommendation and have them tell me it was perfect. (Last December on Instagram I asked people if they needed a book recommendation as they were gift-shopping and then I helped pick out books for their loved ones via DM and it lit up my whole week. I’m planning to do that again, for sure.)
Each month, I’m going to share what I’ve been reading and what I thought about it. I promise to be honest, but not brutally, following the Austin Kleon adage of “it wasn’t for me.” And I’d love to hear back from you about what you thought, too. So…
Here’s what I’ve been reading:
What You Wish For
by Katherine Center
A sweet and thoughtful novel that was often just plain fun. Sam is a school librarian trying to live as happy of a life as her own circumstances will allow, but when a former crush she once took a new job to escape from comes to run (and ruin) that very school that brings Sam such joy, she has to decide if she’s going to take off again—or stay. I received this as part of Pantsuit Politics’s Extra Credit Book Club in a quarter titled “Books that make you feel cared for” and this book did the trick (thanks, Beth!). I read the bulk of it one night while battling insomnia (apparently having children broke my ability to sleep forever) and closed the book feeling much calmer than I had in weeks. Cared for, indeed.
Add to your TBR on Goodreads. | Buy it at Bookshop.
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs
by Katherine Howe
This novel is the blend of history + light fantasy that I am always going to instantly add to my TBR. I read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane years ago on the recommendation of a friend. I loved it, but didn’t realize there was a sequel out in the world until my husband, Scott, bought it for my birthday in July. This book picks up several years after the first ends, following the same characters as they deal with the fallout of the first book and the new complications of the second. I much relate to the protagonist, Constance, as a bookish, task-oriented individual who often forgets her body exists and that she has friends and family who need her to keep at least one foot in the real world. Unfortunately, I lack her capacity for magic.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
This is non-fiction I’ve been meaning to read for awhile now, and my library hold came in at the perfect time. This is part memoir, part botanical information, part Indigenous history… and it all adds up to be a stunning reminder of the ways in which we should care for our natural home because of the good gifts it gives to us. Kimmerer presents a model of the human-nature relationship built on reciprocity—the way in which her ancestors inhabited the land—and argues that it can be that way again, advocating for a more whole and holistic way forward. I found myself tearing up frequently, not because the book is sad (although it can be), but because I am a bit sad these days and the themes pressed on that sadness in the best of ways.
This Tender Land
by William Kent Krueger
Whenever I travel, I try to read something set in that place. The last few days of August we spent with friends at a cabin in northern Minnesota, and so I pulled this book off the shelf to read in the week leading up to our trip and on the way there. I’ve been planning to read it for a couple of years now—in fact, the copy I have was a gift for Christmas in 2019—and we also received a copy of the book in a previous Pantsuit Politics Extra Credit Book Club, which I passed along to that friend we are meeting up with in Minnesota who—fun tangent!—used to work at the coffee shop where Kent Krueger used to write every morning. A truly full-circle journey.
This novel follows four orphans as they travel down the Gilead river in a canoe, running away from everything they know—a truly awful set of circumstances—and toward what they hope is something better. This is not a happy novel, although there are moments of profound joy throughout. Krueger is a phenomenal storyteller: there were many moments in the story that I did not see coming, but that didn’t feel forced or contrived. He crafts a wide range of characters who leap off the page, and it’s a story that will stick with me, I’m sure.
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
by John Green
Yes, the same John Green who writes smart-and-sappy Young Adult fiction that becomes blockbuster movies, like The Fault in Our Stars. Green started a podcast a couple years ago with the same name, where he reviews “facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale.” And if you haven’t listened, it’s a delight, not the least because of Green’s voice, which could soothe even the most terrible of Gremlins. This essay collection is adapted from that podcast, and while I’m only about half way through, I find myself underlining left and right as well as laughing out loud often. There are some repeats from the podcast and some new essays, but the collection holds together well. (Hats off to my friend Nikita who handed me an extra copy before I checked out with it in my Bookshop cart!).
What I’m Reading Next:
Cloud Cuckoo Land
by Anthony Doerr
Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley — publishes September 28th, 2021.
No Cure For Being Human
by Kate Bowler
I pre-ordered a copy — also publishes September 28th, 2021.
What I’ve been reading for months:
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
This has been sitting on my shelf for literal years, a classic I never had to read as part of a syllabus even as an English and History major in college. I’m many months in and only on page 61 of 838, not because it’s dull—I promise!—but because other things have taken priority. I feel like this might be a winter book, one to hunker down with when there’s snow blanketing the ground.
Goodreads | See the lovely updated Penguin Classics cover at Bookshop.
What I’ve been reading with the kids:
Arthur (4) is heading off to preschool tomorrow (I’m alternating between dancing for joy and sobbing alone in the car) and we checked out several books from the library about heading to school to get in the spirit:
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson — Lovely and poetic, just like everything Woodson does.
Sorry, grown-ups, you can't go to school! by Christina Geist — Simple comic relief amidst all the books that make me want to cry.
I am too absolutely small for school by Lauren Child — Hilarious and sweet book where a big brother helps prepare his little sister for school (and convinces her to go in the first place!).
Hello School! by Priscilla Burris — This one’s adorable, but the story is half-told in speech bubbles that don’t always line up with the text, makes for a slightly confusing read.
The Night Before Preschool by Natasha Wing — Follows the rhyming text of the Christmas classic, and introduces the concept of heading to school gently. Love that it has a male preschool teacher, since so few books feature one.
Tennyson (1.5) is obsessed with There’s A Monster in Your Book! and anything that features a baby in it, her new favorite word. We’ve also had Rosa Rides Her Scooter on repeat since probably May. Whoosh!
That’s a wrap for August 2021. What are you reading lately?