Undirected Reading

  I received an electronic ARC through NetGalley for review. This is an interesting novel that deals with several overlapping stories about Irish workers in England in the 1950s. The stories are interwoven, with characters occasionally encountering one another and then reappearing several chapters later in their own narratives. This is a translation from the Irish, and I can't speak to the quality of the translation as I am not familiar with the source language or text. 

  I received an electronic ARC of this book through NetGalley for review. This is a well-written, wide-ranging look at the current state of craft cider production in the United States, divided by region. It does a good job of introducing a variety of topics relevant to both the selection and growing of apples and the process of making those apples into cider, while placing each region's cider into a historical and geographical context. This is really neat, and is pretty well-done. It makes for an enjoyable, educational read. There are times that the historical context overpowers the narrative of cider production. Some parts of the book do sort of read like a high school history textbook (though a markedly readable one), and a reader with a good background in US history that touches on social and agricultural history will likely find much of it review. This isn't necessarily a bad thing--it's absolutely vital context, and important to the book's attempt to d

    I appreciate that this is a charming, ever-popular book. And it's a pleasant, enjoyable book! That said, I never read any of the series as a child, so reading this didn't carry the element of nostalgia that I know it does for many people. (That isn't to say that I wish I would have read it as a child--unfortunately, I am pretty sure I wouldn't have liked it much back then). As it is, I was more interested in the the adults in the story than in Anne herself, but I can easily understand why she is such a beloved character for so many.  

  I received an electronic ARC of this book via NetGalley for review. This is a lovely translation of a book that, while not entirely to my taste, was absolutely worth reading. The statement that the novel takes place over the course of a single day in the 1980s is both true and false--the "current" timeline of the novel is one snowy day in which the narrator does not leave her apartment, but the events of the novel span the previous 20 years (and a bit more). It's an interesting story, and while somewhat meandering and not particularly plot-driven, it's enjoyable and avoids becoming confusing. More than anything else, it's a novel about identity and language. The note at the beginning discusses the challenge of translating this particular novel, which apparently in the original is a mixture of Japanese and English that uses a somewhat unusual format to facilitate this stylistic choice. It's really fascinating, and taken together with the translated

 Books read for the Mount TBR Challenge 2021 . I signed up at the Mount Blanc level, meaning I hope to read 24 books from my TBR pile. I will list the books below as I read them, with reviews linked as they are completed. 1. Anne of Green Gables , by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Books read for the 2021 Back to the Classics Challenge . I will be listing the books I read for this challenge below, with reviews linked as they are completed. 1. A 19th century classic: any book first published from 1800 to 1899 2. A 20th century classic: any book first published from 1900 to 1971. All books must have been published at least 50 years ago; the only exceptions are books which were written  by 1971 and posthumously published. 3. A classic by a woman author. 4. A classic in translation, meaning any book first published in a language that is not your primary language. You may read it in translation or in its original language, if you prefer.  5. A classic by BIPOC author; that is, a non-white author. 6. A classic by a new-to-you author, i.e., an author whose work you have never read. 7. New-to-you classic by a favorite author -- a new book by an author whose works you have already read.  8. A classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title. The animal can be