Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for June, 2018…

The Explosive Child, by Dr. Ross Greene – Always looking to add to my arsenal of parenting knowledge.  I took a long break from parenting books, though, because at best I found most of them unhelpful (with the exception of The Happiest Baby on the Block, which is a miracle) and at worst they made me feel like a rotten mother.  This one was decidedly meh – I didn’t throw it across the room – but I also didn’t take much from it in the way of practical tips.  The book sets forth a method for dealing with “chronically inflexible, easily frustrated children” – well, I have one of those, but I didn’t learn much about how to relate to this particular kid, at least, not in a way that I think would be effective.  So all in all, not much help.

Slightly Foxed No. 4: Now We’re Shut In For The Night, ed. Gail Pirkis – No issue of Slightly Foxed ever disappoints!  I’m gradually (but enthusiastically) working my way through the back issues of the quarterly, while keeping up with the current issues as well, and it’s almost hard to find anything new to say because they’re so consistently delightful.  Even when I’m not inclined to rush out and buy a copy of the book that a particular essayist is profiling, the writing in the essays is invariably delightful and I can just sink into one happily.  It really is a perfect literary magazine.

Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot – I’ve read Middlemarch twice, but had never read anything else by Eliot, so I decided it was time to change that.  To be honest, the cover attracted me to this one (this is the edition I have) and I also can’t resist a Victorian clergy novel.  Kryptonite, I tell ya.  Anyway, this is actually a collection of three novellas featuring clergymen and their families.  I enjoyed the second – The Love-Story of Mr Gilfil – most, but all three were good reads.  (And on more than one occasion I found myself in tears over a character and a bit befuddled by that, because I didn’t realize I cared that much!  George Eliot, you sly minx.)

Anatomy of a Miracle, by Jonathan Miles – I think I noticed this one in the Shelf Awareness newsletter, or else on some other new release list.  The premise is: Cameron Harris, Iraq vet, has been paralyzed and wheelchair-bound since coming home from the war – until one day when, in the parking lot of a convenience store, he stands up and walks.  Cameron’s seemingly impossible recovery becomes big news and soon the Vatican investigator descends, followed in short order by a reality television crew.  So – I enjoyed this, but I bogged down in it a little bit, which was probably a function of reading it against a library deadline and not because it was what I was really craving at the moment.  It was good, but also reminded me a lot of The Jesus Cow, which I liked better.

Quite a light month in June.  One literary journal, one classic, one new release and one parenting book.  It was a doozy of a month – busy at work, slammed with personal worries and projects, two family emergencies and one death in the family.  There was a lot of worrying and tears, and not a lot of reading or fun.  Midway through July, my attention is still just shot, so expect another short list in a few weeks.  Here’s hoping for things to look up from here.