“Do one thing every day that scares you” is a wonderful sentiment that is widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but I’m not sure she actually said that exact thing (although she did say words about doing things in spite of fearing those things.) At any rate, I’m not very good at doing the things that scare me—not on a daily basis or any other time, really—but yesterday I did do such a thing. At six o’clock in the evening I met with a few other readers at a coffee shop and we talked about books. I guess you could say it was a book club, but I couldn’t think of it that way, or else I might not have gone. But books and steamy, delicious coffee, and maybe sharing my enthusiasm about both things? This I thought I could do. And I did. And I am going back next month! “We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contests, and we must win.” This is a thing that someone else said.
I Am, I Am, I Am was a memoir, specific slices of life told through the author’s numerous brushes with death, and it was a beautiful, breathtaking piece of writing. Coincidentally, I was already reading The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks, which is what they read last month, so I had the opportunity to discuss that as well. It is probably not fair to make this comparison, because I am not sure that it is meant to be an enjoyable read– but when I compare the writing styles, the Henrietta Lacks book just feels flat, functional, a vehicle for a vast amount of research; it just didn’t have the extraordinary gut-punch of the language that I Am, I Am, I Am did–which is unfortunately, because Henrietta Lacks was a remarkable story and deserved the same kind of treatment.
All these knitted squares upon which these books are cozied up in? Well, I’m working on my baby sister’s divorce blanket again, knitting up scraps of sock yarn (and sock knitters know—there are *always* scraps) into a chaotic, multicolored monster of an afghan. I just checked my notes and it would seem that I started it over three years ago, in January of 2015. Yikes. Hopefully I will finish before her next divorce! Haha, just kidding. She’d have to remarry first for that! Not gonna happen on my watch. For those interested, the pattern is Shelley Kangs’ sock yarn blanket, and I don’t know if the instructions are still on her blog, or if her blog exists, but ravelry links to a web archive page, so you should be able to find it.
Bonus books! Our Stacked selections are up over at Haute Macabre, so be sure to take a peek and see this other things I have read this past month, as well, as my fellow staff bookworms’ picks!