Besides cycling, reading is one of my favorite activities. I approach both in a structured way, and both helped me maintain focus and optimism during 2020. Although this post touches on cycling in only a few places, my blog is my best mechanism for recording how I met the 2020 Library Challenge.
Last January I made a routine visit to the Jasper County Public Library. They had wall calendars with the 2020 Library Challenge.
Of course I couldn’t pass up this challenge! It included 50 categories of books. It was a lot of fun and – true to its name – challenging. Additionally, it spurred me to read a lot of books I wouldn’t have otherwise.
I let some books count for more than one category. (It’s my game, and so I get to make my own rules.) This also allowed me to adhere to one of my personal rules. Every year I have to read at least 12 books (an average of one per month). However, if I read more than 12 books, it has to be a multiple of 6. Don’t ask me why; it’s just something I do. I've been doing this since 2000. Also, I’ve kept a list of every book I’ve read since then.
I kept up a good pace all year, but I didn’t finish my last
book (Saving the Georgia Coast) until 11:00 PM on New Year’s Eve. I intended to spend a quiet evening finishing
the last few chapters, but I cut it closer than I intended after several
glasses of wine with Robert and a short nap.
Below are brief descriptions of the books I read for the
2020 Library Challenge. The categories are listed alphabetically. At the end, I
also included a few books that didn’t necessarily fit any of the categories,
but they got me to my multiple of 6 for the year. I read a total of 42 books in 2020. Although I don’t know the meaning of life,
the universe, and everything, I certainly learned a lot from my year of
reading. Given the way the 2021 has
started, I’ll continue reading lots to keep my sanity.
1) An Author’s First Book – 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry by Andrew Bridgeford. See category 36) A Book with a Number in the Title. Some of the other books I read this year might also be an author’s first book, but this is the only one I know of for sure.
2) A Banned Book – The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. Banned Books Week is typically held during the last week of September. In 2020 Banned Books Week was September 27 – October 3. That week I made a point to read a book that frequently shows up on lists of books that have been banned. But which book? A lot of the ones I read in high school and even as an adult have been banned, but I needed to find a book I hadn’t read before. The Chocolate War was a great choice. Jerry refuses to sell chocolates for a fundraiser for his all-boys prep school. This brings to light the manipulativeness and corruption among students and faculty alike and the high price of nonconformance. It’s kind of like Dead Poets Society meets The Outsiders.
3) A Biography about Someone You’ve Never Heard of Before – Valkyrie by Philip Freiherr Von Boeselager. See category 37) A Book with a One-Word Title.
4) A Book about a Diverse Background Other Than Your Own – We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai. This book by renowned Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, youngest recipient of a Nobel Prize in any field (the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014), opened my eyes to how many people in the world today are displaced. Displaced people are forced to leave their homes for survival, and some aren’t even refugees. (They might be internally displaced within their own countries, e.g.)
I listened to this audiobook during a particularly poignant
time as I drove to and from Alabama. In February,
shortly before the pandemic hit, I took part in the 55th Anniversary
Selma to Montgomery Bicycle Ride. (See my blog post on 2/27/20.) The
ride included nearly 600 riders from 35 states.
We rode on the same route that protestors took in 1965 as they marched
for voting rights. One of the stops was
the Lowndes Interpretive Center. I
learned about something totally new to me: Tent City. Many white landowners evicted from their land
the African American tenant farmers who voted.
The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) brought tents,
cots, heaters, food, and water so that the evicted farmers could remain in
Lowndes County. These evicted families
were displaced for up to two years. The
Lowndes Interpretive Center is on the site of Tent City.
5) A Book about Non-Human Characters – Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris. Robert got me a copy of this book several years ago from the Uncle Remus Museum in nearby Eatonton. The museum pays tribute to Joel Chandler Harris and the “critters” he wrote about. Harris learned about Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, et al. from the slaves on the Putnam County plantation where he grew up in the 1800s. The critters are symbols; Brer Rabbit represents the slaves, and Brer Fox represents the plantation owner. In the seemingly innocuous tales of Brer Rabbit outwitting Brer Fox, the slaves who handed down the stories were actually sustaining hope that they would overcome.
Harris wrote the stories in the dialect of the slaves he
knew. That makes the stories a little
challenging to read, which is the main reason I didn’t finish the book the
first time I started it. [See category 41)
A Book You Never Got to Finish.]
However, this time I was determined to finish it. After a while, I got into the rhythm of the
dialect and enjoyed it. It even reminds me of people I know today.
6) A Book about Poetry – Love Poems and A Good Cry by Nikki Giovanni. These were combined into one audiobook, but later I learned that they are two separate books. Therefore, I counted them separately in my total of 42 books for the year. I knew that an audiobook would be a good approach to the poetry category because poems are best when they are read aloud. As a bonus, the poet herself reads these poems. Because Nikki Giovanni writes many of her poems from her perspective as a black woman, I also counted her books for category 29) A Book with an “African American” Spine Sticker.
Nikki Giovanni came from modest beginnings in
Appalachia. She is a poet, writer, and
civil rights activist. Since 1987 she
has been a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. She wrote and read a healing and unifying
poem at a memorial service following the mass shooting on campus in 2007.
I had never heard of Nikki Giovanni, but I liked her more
and more as I listened to her read. Some
of her poems deal with racism, personal difficulties, and other sober
topics. Other poems of hers are funny
and whimsical. If you’re looking to
explore poetry, I highly recommend her.
7) A Book about a TV Show – Live from New York by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. Covering the iconic TV show Saturday Night Live from its beginning in 1975 through 2014, this lengthy book (nearly 750 pages!) is written in an interesting format, giving back-to-back-to-back quotes – usually paragraphs – from cast members, writers, producers, guest hosts, NBC bigwigs, and others. The book vividly depicts what it takes to make the show happen week after week, year after year. And it’s all live, which we sometimes forget. I was too young to stay up to watch SNL in its earliest years, but even then its contributions to pop culture saturated my psyche. For example, I remember calling my neighbor Greg Cohn “Cohnhead,” which he hated. Also, I had forgotten that my lifelong habit of calling family members parental unit, sibling unit, spousal unit, etc. originated with the Coneheads.
The show morphed from ensemble sketches in the 70s to
character driven sketches since then. I
loved remembering characters like Eddie Murphy as Buckwheat, Mike Myers and
Dana Carvey as Wayne and Garth in “Wayne’s World,” and Julia Sweeney in “It’s
Pat.” I’ve always focused on the cast
members, but the book emphasizes how the writers (who are sometimes also cast
members) are integral to the show.
Overarching the entire book is the uniquely talented creator and
producer Lorne Michaels, who is still going strong.
8) A Book about a United States First Lady – Abigail Adams by Woody Holton. First Lady Abigail Adams was an intelligent, multifaceted person. Most of what we know about her comes from an extensive set of letters that have been preserved. She and her husband John Adams had a close, loving marriage, yet she sometimes acted independently from his advice and wishes. She was a shrewd businesswoman and politician (i.e., someone who is interested in politics) in her own right.
One part of the book was particularly memorable in light of
the current COVID-19 pandemic. The
smallpox vaccine became available shortly before Abigail and John married. John was wealthy enough to get the vaccine
and chose to do so because his work as a lawyer frequently took him to highly
populated Boston and Philadelphia.
Abigail wanted the vaccine, too, but her parents forbade her to get
it. (She did get the smallpox vaccine
some years later along with John’s and her children.) The book describes the vaccine procedure
(definitely more squirm inducing that today’s vaccines) and the 14-day quarantine
period required after John received it.
Abigail and John could not see each other while he was quarantined, but
they wrote copious letters to each other.
We today are beneficiaries of these letters because they help us
understand two important figures from early U.S. history.
9) A Book about Wilderness Survival – Destroyer Angel by Nevada Barr. I was rather hesitant about this category because most wilderness survival books seem to involve graphic death and/or trauma. Then, I decided to approach it from a different angle and got the book Be Expert with Map and Compass by Björn Kjellström. Navigation is crucial to wilderness survival, and this would tie into my fascination with maps and geography. The only problem was that it was near the end of the year, and I didn’t think I had time to read all of the hard copy books on my Library Challenge list. So, I made a last-minute decision to switch to a wilderness survival audiobook, which I could listen to while driving or doing housework.
I searched Libby, the free audiobook app through my public
library, for wilderness survival books.
Based on the description, Destroyer Angel didn’t sound too
harrowing. It’s a novel, but it
certainly deals with wilderness survival.
Three women and two teenaged girls are camping for several days in the
Minnesota wilderness. Anna is a U.S.
park ranger. Her friend Heath is a
paraplegic. Leah is a brilliant and
wealthy mechanical engineer who specializes in outdoor equipment for disabled
people; Heath is testing some of Leah’s designs on this camping trip. Heath’s daughter Elizabeth and Leah’s
daughter Katie are also on the trip.
While Anna is off on a solo paddle one evening, four armed thugs kidnap
the rest of the party. Anna must use her
skills and wits to try to rescue her friends before they are killed or flown
out of the country. It was a pretty good
book – not too gory but definitely suspenseful, which I can handle OK. I’m still looking forward to reading Be
Expert with Map and Compass, though.
It’s on my 2021 to-read list.
10) A Book at the Bottom of Your Read List – Living the Dream: Exercise-Nutrition-Health by Crystal Flaman. I have a tower of books by my bedside. This little volume literally was near the bottom of the stack. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to read it. It’s just that it’s so slim that it got overwhelmed by all the other books. I’m glad this category spurred me to look through my stack and rediscover this gift from a friend. She even had the author sign it for me! The book has 99 “simple ideas to live a long, healthy, and happy life,” as the cover describes. It was a quick, enjoyable read.
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| Typical stack o' books in and on my beside table |
11) A Book Based Entirely on Its Cover – Maphead by Ken Jennings. This category required a little ingenuity because I couldn’t go to the public library to browse shelves. Therefore, I browsed the shelves of our home library, which has enough books that I haven’t read to keep me busy for years. With its maps and outline of a head, the cover of Maphead caught my eye. I had bought this book for Robert. I don’t think he finished it, but it turned out to be my favorite book of the 2020 Library Challenge and one of the best books I’ve read in the past decade.
Author Ken Jennings is the guy who had the really long
winning streak on Jeopardy! The
book is about geography. One of its major
premises is that geography is way more than maps although maps in and of
themselves are quite cool. Maphead
touches on so many topics that I find fascinating. The reader gets an inside look at the National
Geographic Bee, a close cousin of MATHCOUNTS, the nationwide middle school math
competition program that I have volunteered with for years. Additionally, the book describes how on May
1, 2000, the US government turned off selective availability, which is the
intentional scrambling of GPS signals.
This afforded average citizens much better accuracy on commercial GPS
devices, which, in turn, led to the popularity of geocaching. The book also mentions the US Geological
Survey. This inspired me to do some
Internet research on its origins, which led me to read about the origins of
other federal scientific agencies, like the US Coast and Geodetic Survey (for
whom my great-grandfather was a surveyor) and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA
was formed in 1970 by the consolidation of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey,
the Weather Bureau, and the US Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Wow!
So much cool stuff – surveying, meteorology, biology, geography, etc. –
in one agency! I would love to work for
NOAA.
Maphead also introduced me to a new concept: integer
degree confluences. An integer degree
confluence is a location where latitude and longitude are whole degrees with no
minutes or seconds. There are 16 in
Georgia, and no place on Earth is more than 49 miles from an integer degree
confluence. There’s even an
organization, the Degree Confluence Project, that encourages people to visit
and document integer degree confluences.
On the last Saturday of 2020, I visited 33° N, 84° W during my Peach Peloton
bicycle ride (described in detail in my last blog post on 12/28/20) and submitted
a report to the Degree Confluence Project.
Maphead nirvana!
12) A Book Based on a True Story – Several books fit this category. A good example is Valkyrie by Philip Freiherr Von Boeselager [see category 37) A Book with a One-Word Title].
13) A Book by an Author You’ve Never Read Before – Several books fit this category. A good example is Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff [see category 21) A Book Set During a Holiday].
14) A Book by a Female Author – Several books fit this category. A good example is Plum Lovin’ by Janet Evanovich. I’ve read several Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich, and early in the year I was ready for a lighthearted read. Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter who always winds up in the middle of a mystery. Her animated coworkers provide comic relief. Somehow, she manages two boyfriends, Ranger and Morelli, and each knows about the other. Ranger runs a security company, and Morelli is a cop, and so both do a lot of heavy lifting in solving the mysteries. I couldn’t remember the plot to write this report until I looked up the book, but none of the plots are particularly memorable. The characters are what make the Stephanie Plum novels interesting, especially on audiobook. The same narrator, Lorelei King, has read all these books that I’ve listened to, and she is very talented. Her voice for each character is so distinctive. I get into the book and forget that it’s one person reading all the parts.
15) A Book a Friend Recommended – Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle. I teach an adult Sunday school class. We read this book at the beginning of the year before we went on hiatus because of the pandemic. My friend and cousin-by-marriage Joanne, who is in my Sunday school class, recommended Tattoos on the Heart. It’s a wonderful description of the work that Father Greg Boyle does through Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program in Los Angeles. Throughout the book, Father Greg emphasizes that we all are worthy of God’s love, and no life is less valuable than another.
16) A Book from an Author That You Love – Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury and The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors, and I’m so glad the 2020 Library Challenge gave me an opportunity to read two more of his books. See categories 18) A Book of Short Stories (Long After Midnight) and 32) A Book with Magic (The Halloween Tree).
17) A Book More Than 100 Years Old – The Amateur Emigrant by Robert Louis Stevenson. In this book Stevenson tells of his journey from Scotland to the United States across the sea, followed by his trip across the United States by rail. Having little money, he travels as inexpensively as possible but still manages keen observations of people with varying economic statuses. His descriptions of locations are mesmerizing, particularly as he crosses the Great Plains. The vitality and idealism of the United States in the late 1800s stand out in Stevenson’s story.
18) A Book of Short Stories – Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury. I love Ray Bradbury’s stories, whether they are science fiction, whimsical, verging on horror, or lyrical. This collection of short stories includes all that and more. I listened to Long After Midnight as an audiobook, and one story is particularly good in that format: “The Parrot Who Met Papa.” It describes how Ernest Hemingway confided the plot of his last, greatest, never-published novel to a parrot who memorized it. The narrator of the audiobook does a hilarious job of impersonating a parrot.
19) A Book on CD – Several books fit this category. A good example is You Don’t Own Me by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. It’s interesting that this category is A Book on CD rather than An Audiobook. Books on CD are a nearly obsolete technology, and I was one of the last to hold on, really out of habit. I’ve listened to books on CD in my car for years as I’ve commuted and driven other places. Two things forced me to change to digital audiobooks this year. First, when the pandemic hit, I could no longer go inside the library to check out books on CD. Although I can search the library’s offerings online, and a librarian will bring my selection(s) out to the parking lot (great service!), I decided it was time to modernize and start using my library card to access free digital audiobooks. Additionally, I got a new car in June when my old one started needing a lot of repairs. My old car had a CD player, but my new one doesn’t. No problem – I connected my phone, which has the digital audiobooks that I borrow, to my car’s sound system via Bluetooth. Now I just need to get more adept at searching for digital audiobooks, which isn’t the same as physically browsing the shelves at the library.
One of the last books on CD that I checked out from the
library was You Don’t Own Me by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair
Burke. I like a good mystery every so
often as long as it’s not too gory. I
remembered reading books by Mary Higgins Clark previously and liking them. Alafair Burke coauthored some of her last
books with her. In fact, Mary Higgins
Clark died on January 31, 2020, shortly after I finished this book. Anyway, the book’s protagonist is television
producer Laurie Moran. Her show Under
Suspicion features unsolved mysteries.
Kendra Bell is accused of murdering her own husband, and Laurie
considers having her on the show. In the
process, Laurie begins uncovering Bell family secrets and finds herself
personally embroiled – to the point of being targeted for murder herself.
20) A Book Published This Year – Saving the Georgia Coast by Paul Bolster. This book describes the fascinating and sometimes serendipitous path that the Georgia Coastal Marshlands Protection Act of 1970 took to become law. Georgia tends to be at the bottom of the barrel in so many measures, but we have done better than any other East Coast state at protecting our marshes. Georgia’s marshes lie inland from the barrier islands that protect the coast. According to research begun in the 1950s at the University of Georgia Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, the marshes are one of the most prolific ecosystems in the world, producing 2.5 tons of organic material that is the basis of the food chain for fish, shellfish, and other marine creatures.
In 1968 a company called Kerr-McGee wanted to strip mine the
marshes for phosphate. This would
destroy marshes that had taken thousands of years to form and devastate the
commercial fishing industries that depend on them. Furthermore, the strip-mining process had
great potential to puncture the Floridan aquifer and cause seawater to
contaminate the drinking water supply for Savannah and much of the coastal
plain. Although the strip-mining
proposal wasn’t successful, the marshes still lay vulnerable because they had
no legislative protection at the state or federal level. Reid Harris, state representative from Brunswick, led the fight that culminated in the passage of the Georgia Coastal Marshlands
Protection Act of 1970. The last part of
the book discusses current and future challenges to Georgia’s marshes, e.g.,
rising sea level from global warming.
The book illustrates the ongoing clash between economic and
environmental priorities, provides a good overview of how a bill becomes a law
in Georgia, and gives hope as it shows how science and engaged citizens can
work for the greater good. By the way, I
found this book particularly interesting as a native Georgian because I knew
the names of so many politicians in the book.
I recommend Saving the Georgia Coast to anyone who loves the
Georgia coast, is interested in the legislative process, and/or cares about
balancing human desires with nature’s limits.
21) A Book Set During a Holiday – Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff. At the beginning of the year before the pandemic, I stopped by the library to get an audiobook. One of the librarians, knowing that I’m a regular patron, offered to let me select one from a collection of audiobooks that had just been donated. They hadn’t even been cataloged yet, but she trusted me to borrow one. I selected Fireworks Over Toccoa.
Set in Toccoa, Georgia [also see category 28) A Book That
Takes Place in Your Home State], Fireworks Over Toccoa takes place
during WWII. Protagonist Lily is married
for only one week before her husband is sent into the war. When the town’s soldiers are finally coming
home, Toccoa plans a big Independence Day celebration with fireworks. Lily meets and falls in love with Jake, an
Italian immigrant, who is coordinating the fireworks show. Will Lily choose duty to her husband or
perhaps the only chance at true love she will ever have? The book has a memorable, unexpected ending.
22) A Book Set in a Different Country – We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai. See category 4) A Book about a Diverse Background Other Than Your Own.
23) A Book Set in School – The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. Set primarily at Brown University in the early 1980s, The Marriage Plot tells the tale of a love triangle between Madeleine Hanna, Leonard Bankhead, and Mitchell Grammaticus. It reexamines the marriage plot that lies at the center of some of the greatest English novels, like those of Jane Austen and George Eliot. The book has its good points, but it goes way too heavy on the navel-gazing. If you’re looking for a witty, romantic book, you’ll be much better off sticking with Jane Austen.
24) A Book That Became a Movie – The Zookeeper’s Wife by Linda Ackerman. I read this book for category 31) A Book with a “Holocaust” Spine Sticker. I happened to mention it to my friend Stan while we were riding Peach Peloton one Saturday. He told me that it had been made into a movie. Bonus category!
25) A Book That Has a Color in the Title – The Greening of Georgia by R. Harold Brown. One of my jobs is teaching erosion and sedimentation control certification classes, which are required by Georgia state law for anyone working in the construction industry. It has been very gratifying to work toward protecting our waters. Luke Owen is the owner of the company I work for, the NPDES Training Institute. Luke recommended The Greening of Georgia and even gave me a copy.
This book describes the progress that Georgia made in the
twentieth century to protect land, water, air, and wildlife. Although the author sometimes oversimplifies
or even minimizes some of the complex environmental challenges we face, he
makes an excellent overall point.
Georgia has made great strides in improving the environment. We must celebrate these successes and give
people hope. Environmental news can’t
always be gloom and doom, or people will think that trying to restore and
protect our natural resources is futile.
Letting people know of our environmental improvements will help keep us
motivated to continue with the work we still face.
26) A Book That Has a Cover in Your Favorite Color – The Greening of Georgia by R. Harold Brown. See category 25) A Book That Has a Color in the Title.
27) A Book That Scares You – Dream Man by Linda Howard. Marlie Keen is clairvoyant, which allows her to witness crimes as they are happening although she is not physically present. This ultimately makes her the target of a serial killer. Detective Dane Hollister is trying to catch the killer while protecting Marlie. Yes, a romance develops between Marlie and Dane. Romance is OK, and suspense is OK, but the serial killer is so creepy that this pushed my limits on what I can stand in a scary book.
28) A Book That Takes Place in Your Home State – Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff. See category 21) A Book Set During a Holiday.
29) A Book with an “African American” Spine Sticker – Love Poems and A Good Cry by Nikki Giovanni. See category 6) A Book about Poetry.
30) A Book with a Female Protagonist – Several books fit this category. A good example is Destroyer Angel by Nevada Barr [see category 9) A Book about Wilderness Survival].
31) A Book with a “Holocaust” Spine Sticker – The Zookeeper’s Wife by Linda Ackerman. I was browsing Libby, the free e-book and audiobook platform available through my public library, for books about the Holocaust. This one caught my eye because it has a different angle that involves animals, which I hadn’t seen before in a Holocaust book. Also, it’s a true story. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish zookeepers who were Christians. Horrified by Nazi racism, they hid more than 300 people in their Warsaw zoo during World War II. An array of animals lived on the zoo grounds and within the Zabinski home. Hidden people were given animal names, and pet animals had human names, leading to the zoo’s code name “The House under a Crazy Star.” Antonina had a special gift of unspoken rapport with animals of all types, which even seemed to help diffuse several tense situations with Nazi human animals. In addition to the terror the Nazis perpetrated against humans, this book illuminates the Nazi violation of nature as they sought to control the genome of the entire planet.
32) A Book with Magic – The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. This magical tale, set on Halloween night, describes eight boys traveling through time with the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud to try to save their friend Pip. During their journey, the boys learn the origins of Halloween, visiting ancient Egypt, cavemen discovering fire, Celtic druids in Great Britain, the persecution of witches during the Dark Ages, the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral, and a celebration of el Dia de Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) in Mexico. Ultimately, the boys learn that death is a part of life and that life is to be celebrated.
33) A Book with a Male Protagonist – Several books fit this category. A good example is The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier [see category 2) A Banned Book].
34) A Book with a Monster on the Cover – Out of the Dark by Betty Ren Wright. Besides the Library Challenge, the other structured part of 2020 that I thoroughly enjoyed was cycling. Randonneurs USA cancelled brevets for much of 2020. However, my friend George from Hudson Valley Randonneurs created a couple of unofficial cycling challenges, the Virtual Brevet Series (March – June) and Virtual Brevet Post-Season Play (July – December). I picked up Out of the Dark thanks to Virtual Brevet Post-Season Play. In early September I rode a solo century through Jasper and Jones County. (See my blog post on 9/8/20.) I stopped for lunch at Liberty Park in Jones County, where there is a Little Free Library. Woo hoo! I perused the contents and found Out of the Dark. It has a ghost, i.e., a monster, on the cover. Double woo hoo! Opportunely, my Yogi Bear picnic basket was attached to my bicycle that day, making it easy to carry the book with me. (I have a large bicycle bag, affectionately dubbed the Yogi Bear picnic basket, that I use on long brevets. It’s also been very handy during the pandemic because I can use it to carry enough supplies to avoid stopping at stores.)
Out of the Dark is adequately entertaining. Jessie is a young girl who moves to rural
Wisconsin with her parents. She
befriends Toni. The two girls explore a
nearby nature preserve and discover an old schoolhouse, complete with a
menacing ghost, who has it in for Jessie.
This is the kind of book that I read by the score when I was in about
fourth grade – good fuel to feed my love of reading.
35) A Book with More than 200 Pages – Several books fit this category. A good example is Live from New York by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales [see category 7) A Book about a TV Show].
36) A Book with a Number in the Title – 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry by Andrew Bridgeford. Robert had read about the Bayeux Tapestry and told me that there was a book about it. The tapestry is one of our main sources of information about the Norman conquest of England in 1066. History is a weak point for me, and so this book sounded like an interesting way to learn about that important year. When I looked up the book and discovered that, yes, it has the number 1066 in the title, I knew that it was the perfect book for this category. As a bonus, it’s also the first book by Andrew Bridgeford. [See category 1) An Author’s First Book].
On the surface, the Bayeux Tapestry appears simply to
commemorate the Norman victory over the English at the Battle of Hastings in
1066. However, the premise of the book
is that the tapestry has hidden English and non-Norman French viewpoints – quite
intriguing.
By the way, around the same time I decided to read this
book, I realized that there’s a cool looking dirt road I had never ridden,
Forest Service Road 1066. I finished the
book 1066 one Sunday afternoon and then went on a dirt road bicycle ride
that included F.S. Service Road 1066.
Loads of fun! (See my blog post on 5/18/20.)
37) A Book with a One-Word Title – Valkyrie by Philip Freiherr Von Boeselager. I read this early in the year, before the pandemic, when I could still browse the library shelves for audiobooks. I looked for titles of one word and found Valkyrie. Philip Freiherr Von Boeselager was a German cavalry officer. He loved his country, but when he learned what the Nazis were up to, his patriotism turned to disgust. He joined a group who conspired to kill Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Although their “Valkyrie” plot failed, this memoir gives a fascinating account of the small group of men who took a stand against the Third Reich.
38) A Book Written by an Author with Your Initials – Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques. This fantasy book puts a twist on the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a ship cursed to sail the seven seas for all eternity with no rest. A young boy named Neb and his dog Denmark start as innocent castaways on the Flying Dutchman. They are washed ashore during a fierce storm and, renamed Ben and Ned, begin traveling through time and helping people in need. Their biggest adventure is in an English village threatened by greedy developers. Ben and Ned lead the villagers on a treasure hunt that can save their town.
39) A Book Written by Someone Under 30 – We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai. See category 4) A Book about a Diverse Background Other Than Your Own.
40) A Book You Can Finish Fairly Quickly – Several books fit this category. A good example is Living the Dream: Exercise-Nutrition-Health by Crystal Flaman [see category 10) A Book at the Bottom of Your Read List].
41) A Book You Never Got to Finish – Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris. See category 5) A Book about Non-Human Characters.
42) A Book You Own but Have Never Read – The Greening of Georgia by R. Harold Brown. I had had this book for a while, but it languished in my to-read stack. I was glad for the 2020 Library Challenge to motivate me to read it. See category 25) A Book That Has a Color in the Title.
43) A Book Your Mom or Dad Loves – Lay This Body Down by Gregory A. Freeman. “Love” isn’t quite the right word for this book, but it certainly is important and gripping I asked Robert’s parents if they could recommend a book, and they lent me their copy of Lay This Body Down. It takes place right here in Jasper County, GA and neighboring Newton County. It’s a true story. I was horrified to learn that slavery didn’t end with the Civil War. It continued into the twentieth century in the form of peonage. Black people were arrested on trumped up crimes and then brought to farms to work off their prison debts. These debts might have been small, but some plantation owners devised ways to keep these workers in bondage. John S. Williams was the vilest of such plantation owners. He ordered his black overseers, primarily Clyde Manning, to kill 11 other black men on the farm to cover up the evidence of peonage. The book also describes the trials of Manning and Williams. The conviction of Williams was a turning point in history because it was the first time in Georgia that a white man was convicted on the testimony of a black man. This did not happen again in a Georgia courtroom until the 1960s.
44) A Fairytale or Folk Tale – Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems. This hilarious reimagining of the classic fairytale tells the story of a little girl named Goldilocks and three hungry dinosaurs: Papa Dinosaur, Mama Dinosaur…and a Dinosaur who happened to be visiting from Norway. The story and the clever illustrations will appeal to children and to children trapped in adult-sized bodies.
45) A Funny Book – A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut is one of many authors that I want to explore in more depth. The first work of his I read was the short story “Harrison Bergeron” back in elementary school. I remember liking it, and so I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t read anything else by him until A Man Without a Country. Written as a series of essays, this is part memoir but mostly a commentary on American society and the human condition in both its beauty and horror. Vonnegut’s humor can be dark, but laughter is one of our best weapons against the darkness of life.
46) A Graphic Novel – March: Book One, March: Book Two, and March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. John Lewis is one of my heroes. When he died last summer, I mourned the loss of this loving and inspiring human being. A friend told me about a graphic novel that he wrote called March. Even better, it’s a trilogy! (See category 50) A Trilogy.)
I had never read a graphic novel before. A graphic novel isn’t racy; it’s like a short
novel written in comic book style. This
contrasts with actual comic books, which are written in a serial format. Additionally, graphic novels can be an
excellent way to introduce young people to a subject. In fact, one reason John Lewis decided to
write this trilogy is that when he was a teenager, he drew inspiration from the
1958 comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. John Lewis’s March trilogy describes
his life experiences, beginning as a young boy, that shaped him into one of our
nation’s strongest voices for civil and human rights. I highly recommend these books to learn about
John Lewis and the Civil Rights movement as a whole.
47) A Mystery – Several books fit this category. A good example is Plum Lovin’ by Janet Evanovich [see category 14) A Book by a Female Author].
48) A Non-Fiction Book – Several books fit this category. A good example is Maphead by Ken Jennings [see category 11) A Book Based Entirely on Its Cover].
49) A Science Fiction Book – I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Usually, when I read a classic book, there's a reason it's considered a classic. That's certainly the case with I, Robot. Early science fiction like Asimov’s usually was published as a series of short stories in cheap pulp magazines because it was considered one step above comics – not “real literature.” Then, in the 1950s publishing houses started selling full-length works like I, Robot, combining the short stories into a type of novel called a fixup, in which the stories are edited for consistency and connectivity. Another great example of a fixup is The Martian Chronicles, which I read in high school, starting my lifelong love of Ray Bradbury’s works.
Although I've
never been a sci-fi junkie, I always seem to enjoy sci-fi when I do read it. It often deals with issues of ethics and
morality in thought provoking ways. The
Three Laws of Robotics in I, Robot are fascinating:
First
Law
A
robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to
come to harm.
Second
Law
A
robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders
would conflict with the First Law.
Third
Law
A
robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not
conflict with the First or Second Law.
I
particularly like the chapter in I, Robot that likens the Three Laws of
Robotics to the best of the world's religions. The Third Law is like the basic human instinct
for self-preservation. The Second Law is
similar to humans obeying just authority (e.g., a boss or government) even when
it might cause them discomfort or inconvenience because obedience serves the
greater good of all people. Finally, the
First Law is like loving one's neighbor as oneself.
50) A Trilogy – March: Book One, March: Book Two, and March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. See category 46) A Graphic Novel.
Additional 2020 Books
- Double Minds by Terri Blackstock. I enjoy mysteries, and this one was pretty good. It was also an interesting look at the Christian music industry. I’m not into contemporary Christian music, but it made a unique backdrop to the plot.
- The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power. No way I was going to miss this book from my high school classmate! I even got a signed copy when I went to hear her interviewed at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Sam and I had a lot of the same classes, and we played basketball and ran track and cross country together. I have enjoyed following her career as a Pulitzer-prize winning author (A Problem from Hell) and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama. This memoir also describes her childhood in Ireland, her move to the United States shortly before we started high school in 8th grade, and her early career as a journalist covering human rights issues. I also enjoyed her behind-the-scenes descriptions of the workings of U.S. government. Sam is intelligent, compassionate, and full of integrity. Just today as I'm finishing this blog post, I learned that President-Elect Joe Biden has nominated Samantha Power to lead the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Great choice!
- Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. What an amazing story of the black women mathematicians who did the (manual!) calculations that helped the United States achieve air dominance in World War II and keep up with and finally surpass the Soviets during the Cold War and the Space Race. The book emphasizes the important contributions of all the women in “West Computing” at Langley Laboratory in Hampton, VA but highlights Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden. These incredibly smart and dedicated women maintained their focus despite the limits of segregation and the glass ceiling. They are unsung heroines who are finally getting some much-deserved recognition.
- It’s Up to Us by John Kasich. The subtitle gives a glimpse of the contents: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change. Although I don’t agree with John Kasich on everything politically, he is a decent human being and courageous leader. A main point of the book is that government can’t do everything, and we as individuals have to do what we can to make our country better. He tells stories of everyday people who do small things that have a huge impact. The book is an inspiring reminder that each of us can plug in and engage in our own communities for the greater good.
- Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. I had heard of this book a while back and was interested in reading it. When I got my new car last summer, Robert was showing me how to connect my phone to my car speakers via Bluetooth. He told me to pull up an audiobook on my phone. I had just returned one and hadn’t checked out another one yet. Scrambling, I had to figure out something quickly to check out, and Last Child in the Woods popped into my head. It was a good choice. It focuses on children’s need for connection to the outdoors, which helps them be healthier adults, too. These outdoor activities should be largely unstructured. Based on the author’s personal experience as well as input from urban planners, educators, naturalists, and psychologists, the book covers so many situations that I’ve observed myself or intuitively make sense. For example, lack of outdoor activity and connection has negative mental and physical implications (ADHD, stress, depression, anxiety, obesity, etc.). At the same time, a lot of factors keep children from the outdoors: addiction to electronic media, parents’ overblown fear of predators (human and natural), threats of lawsuits, etc. Overall, this is a good book that addresses an important subject that needs more attention. In the meantime, we adults can set a good example – and reap the benefits ourselves – by getting out and enjoying nature. And take a kid with you if you can :)
- A Politics of Love by Marianne Williamson. Boy, do we need the message of this book more than ever. Like it or not, we are spiritual beings; we can act in fear and hatred, or we can act in love. The author uses America’s past successes, including the outlawing of slavery, women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights movement, and gay rights activism to show how we have enacted our deepest values. We can build on this legacy to confront the current spiritual cancer and dysfunction that threaten to rip us apart. It’s more than a feel-good book; the author provides statistics and facts to make her point. Starting with ourselves and the groups we work within, we can effect a shift in collective consciousness toward love.
- The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge. This is another book that was on my radar screen. I was spurred to read it when I learned that the Georgia Writers Museum in nearby Eatonton, GA would be hosting a Zoom “Meet the Author” event last summer. The Potlikker Papers explores the role that food has played in the South’s history, including the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, gentrification in the 1980s, the farm-to-table movement that began in the 1990s, and the contribution of immigrants from such places as Mexico and Vietnam in the 2000s and 2010s. Foodies will recognize a lot of familiar figures from the culinary South, from Colonel Harland Sanders to Edna Lewis. This is a great book for Southerners or anyone who has an interest in Southern food and/or history.
- Waking Up White by Debby Irving. The murders of my black brothers and sisters in 2020 hit me hard: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others who didn’t receive as much media attention. Ahmaud Arbery’s death was especially poignant to me. He was a fellow Georgian, and he was gunned down while simply running, enjoying exercise and the outdoors. Outdoor activity like cycling, kayaking, and hiking is an incredibly important part of my life, giving me solace, strength, and peace of mind. It’s unbearable to me to think that other human beings can’t enjoy the same benefits without fear for their lives simply because of their skin color. Additionally, I realized that Ahmaud Arbery was born on May 8, 1994. That’s the day that Robert and I got engaged. Ahmaud should have celebrated his 26th birthday last May.
It should go without saying that Christians should stand against such hatred and racism. I’ve been disappointed and angry that my church has not explicitly spoken out against these evils. Therefore, I decided to speak out myself. With the OK from my church’s governing body (thankfully), I organized a Zoom book study on racial justice. Interestingly, my initial book choice, Good White Racist? by Kerry Connelly, met with resistance because of the title. Although that’s an indication of exactly the problem we as white people must face, I decided that that wasn’t a battle worth fighting. Instead, I went with Waking Up White by Debby Irving, which turned out to be a very good choice for my particular group. Author Debby Irving tells of her experience dealing with racism from the perspective of a middle-aged, white, upper-class woman, which fits the profile of almost everyone who participated in the book discussion that I led.
Waking Up White urges white people to consider the ways that we experience white privilege. This is not saying that all white people are overtly racist. It’s a matter of opening our eyes to the many, many ways that we automatically have an easier time navigating through American life just because we were born white. For example, the GI Bill following WWII was an incredibly important mechanism to help returning GI’s get an education, buy houses, and build wealth. The problem was that most black GI’s were denied the benefits of the GI Bill, setting them back generations relative to white people. In more recent years, black families have had to have “the talk” with their teenagers, particularly boys, about how to interact with the police so that they don’t wind up in jail or worse. Only by identifying systemic racism (yes, it really does exist) can we begin to dismantle it.
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. I heard a lot of people say they liked this book. That made me a little wary because sometimes my taste in books runs counter to what's popular, but I did enjoy this book. Where the Crawdads Sing beautifully describes the marshlands of coastal North Carolina while telling the story of Kya, a girl left on her own at six years old. The book is both a mystery and a coming-of-age story. It wonderfully depicts part of the South without being heavy-handed or cloying. The ending left me somewhat tied up in knots, but I attribute that to it being a well-written book.
