Almost a No Read November

So I didn’t read a lot this month, just what I needed to read. Let’s face facts, I’m just trying to struggle through books I clearly didn’t want to read in the first place or I’d have read them long ago. But I read 4 books, at a total of 1,570 pages. So that was an average of 52 pages a day (slightly better than my commitment, but not much. So here we go....

Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (760 pages).  A Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel about the debacle that was Camp Sumter, aka Andersonville.  I knew nothing about Andersonville prior to reading this book. And in true fashion, I did a little research of my own. Andersonville was a POW camp for Yankees in Georgia. It was in active use starting in 1864. For those of you who know Civil War history, that’s the year before the war ended. During that time, over 45,000 prisoners were there. And a third of them died, mostly of disease. The officer in charge, Captain Henry Wirz, was charged and convicted of war crimes. The book covered a LOT of characters, both historical and fictional. Their stories were fascinating. But there were a few too many storylines for me.  It was well written though. And a truly remarkable novel. I finished in 15 days. 

The Widow’s Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill (302 pages). Claire Byrne is 32 when her husband of 9 years, famous sexologist author Charlie Byrne, is killed in a freak accident. And all of a sudden, Claire is left trying to figure out who she is without him. She dates.  She questions life. She falls in love. And she learns that she is enough. I finished in 5 days. 

Clothes Make the Man by Elliott White Springs (433 pages). This ended up on my shelves through inheritance. And when you are friends with the great grandson of the author, you read it!  It was a collection of short stories, essays and letters. I found some fun family history that I had a blast texting my friend about (obviously none of it was news to him).  I finished in 9 days. 

The Captain’s Verses by Pablo Neruda (151 pages, but only half were in English). This was actually a book of poetry. Which is usually not my favorite. But it was on the shelf, so I read it. All of the poems were in both Spanish and English, thus why I wonky read half the book. The poems were love poems and actually not awful. I finished in 2 days. 

This month’s favorite was...The Widow’s Guide. It was just easy and fun. I kind of wish I could’ve read it poolside!