It's been a slow month for doing much of anything other than trying to not get Covid and checking in on my parents and making sure they're OK. It's gotten really cold with a few sunny days thrown in. One snowy cold day we played games and drank hot chocolate.
We're staying in for Thanksgiving and I'm trying a lot of new things this year that I don't usually do. We usually head up to my sister's house for Thanksgiving and we only bring a few pies and maybe a side salad. So it's up to us to bake all the things but toned down since it's only three of us!
Philosophy: At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Others by Sarah Bakewell. We're getting closer to the end!
I'm going to use a mix of all three this week. My friend and I have been reading philosophy books together for a few years now. I've been learning a lot about Western philosophical origins, specific philosophers and their philosophies, and even ones on whole movements and the philosophers involved. I'll share a few that are on my list and hope you share any books you've read that fit the topic!
Anthony Gottlieb has another book The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. My friend and I will probably read it after we're done with At the Existentialist Café. Since I enjoyed Rebecca Goldstein's book on Spinoza, I'd like to read her Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away. And due to my Existentialism reading I'd really like to pick Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Albert Camus' The Plague and The Stranger. And then there's Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith that looks fascinating.
There are so many more I'd like to get to but if anyone has any philosophy-type books they've read and really enjoyed, I'd love to hear them!
My Thoughts:
Noemí Taboada and her father receive a frantic and desperate letter from her newly married cousin who explains that she feels her life and sanity may be in danger. Noemi takes up the task to visit the Mexican high-mountain countryside and find out what's truly going on. As she arrives, though, she is both allured and repulsed by her cousin's Englishman husband, horrified at their father Howard Doyle who is decrepit both of body and mind, and High Place with its damp and fungal appearance and the nightmares she soon begins to dream...Is her cousin mad? What secrets and horrors lie beneath?
Noemi is a fantastic character. She's a socialite but one who thinks for herself and has a self-determination to see things through and get to the bottom of it all. I had to take breaks from the book because it was so disturbing in parts. The mood is dark and dank and damp and oppressive. She covers eugenics and colonialism and misogyny and patriarchy. But it all comes together for quite an ending. Go into this book without knowing much about it. It is a true Gothic horror from a fabulous writer. Near perfection.
Ms. Moreno-Garcia has also shared some highlights and quotes and insights from her book on Goodreads. So go check it out if you are interested in reading this one.
My Thoughts:
Yadriel's traditional family is having a hard time accepting his gender and therefore they don't think he's a brujo. To prove them wrong he ends up doing the ritual himself alongside his best friend and cousin Maritza. But the ghost he ends up summoning is neighborhood badboy Julian Diaz and not his murdered cousin. But Julian refuses to pass on until he sets a few things right in the real world and Yadriel sets out to help him. But it soon becomes apparent that not all is as it seems. No one can find Julian's body nor the body of his cousin. It's up to Yadriel, Maritza, and Julian to find out what's really going on.
This is a beautifully written tale of Yadriel coming into his own and accepting who he is. We get to learn all about his culture and el Dia de los Muertos. His relationship with his mother who died a little before the books begins is so poignant. The fraught relationship he has with his father and grandmother who are trying but aren't doing enough to accept him for who he is. And the relationship he begins to have with Julian is also beautiful to watch.
The audiobook was well-performed and enjoyed it all. There is even an interview between the author and the audiobook narrator that is fantastic at the end.
My Thoughts:
Two Black light-skinned twins take two very divergent paths. The Vignes sisters Desiree and Stella runaway as teenagers from their town of light-skinned Blacks. Desiree ends up marrying a Black man who abuses her. Her sister Stella decides to pass as White to live the "American Dream." She ends up marrying her boss and moves away and cuts of her family. Desiree flees her abusive marriage to come back home to Mallard with extremely dark daughter Jude. What happens when we flee our origins and become something different? Does it free us or bind us? Ms. Bennett weaves a beautiful story that lets us experience the answers to these questions.
The book is all about the characters and their experiences. This is a beautifully character-driven novel. Brit Bennett knocks it out of the park again. We need more voices such as hers.
My Thoughts:
Charlie and his more adventurous sister soon realize something is very fishy when the kids in their neighborhood start visiting grandparents they've never met and for some reason they never return. So when their mother starts talking of sending them both to visit a pair of grandmothers they've never even heard of, Charlie knows something is wrong. And when they finally get there it's up to him to figure out how to save his sister and save them all.
I really enjoyed this one. We see Charlie grow and step up and figure things out. The grandmothers are super creepy and the world Towell builds is dark and delicious. Both my son and I enjoyed reading this one together in October for a spooky reading month and this one fit the bill.
My Thoughts:
Deja and Josiah are best friends while they work at the world's greatest pumpkin patch every fall in Omaha, Nebraska. It's their last night ever working at the pumpkin patch since they're both going off to college next year. Can they make their last shift a night of adventure? Taste all the yummy foods? See all the sights? And maybe even Josiah can finally talk to the girl he's always had a crush on? Who know?
I want to go to this pumpkin patch! It's fictional but it's also based on the real pumpkin patch in Omaha, Nebraska. The illustrations are scrumptious. The characters are adorable. Deja is my favorite! And where their adventure takes them by the end of the night was a place I was super excited about by the end. Perfect fall read to cozy up to and imagine the world as a sane place.
My Thoughts:
Kestrel lives in a dark and foreboding forest where no one leaves and the forest and its creatures are not so friendly. Her father hunts wolves and is almost never around. Her mother is an evil witch. And she even let her own grandmother die by a Grabber. Her only friends are a blood-thirsty weasel named Pippit and one boy from the village who lives in the trees. Her only task is hunting the Grabbers and the villagers despise her for it. What happens when her own Grabber comes for her? Can she find a way out of the forest and save herself and the village?
I loved, I mean absolutely loved this dark and twisted fairy tale. It's a true fantasy-horror. Dark things happen to Kestrel and her family. The way Kestrel makes mistakes and learns from them is truly heart-warming. It's dark but it's full of hope. There are so many questions and there aren't a lot of answers but that's what makes a fantastic world. Not everything is explained but that's OK. You can imagine something or just dive into this creepy and horrible world but it makes sense and it's well-built. And then you throw in some great characters and you have an almost perfect combination. Both my son and I adored this book. It's perfect for Halloween, fall, winter time to just curl up and read.
My Thoughts:
Alex gathers his nightbooks and heads down to the basement of his apartment building in order to destroy them but the elevator doesn't stop at the basement; it stops a few floors up. He wonders over to some sounds and lights flickering and notices that his favorite movie "Night of the Living Dead" is playing on TV. He just can't resist. He asks the lady in the apartment if he can watch with her and as soon as he steps inside...It's a trap. The witch Natacha has kidnapped him she needs his scary stories to keep her magical apartment working. Together with Yasmin, another kidnapped child, they must figure out how to escape.
My son and I loved the creepy factor. It's a retelling of the Scheherazade story from Arabian Nights and we get to hear all sorts of creepy short stories. It also weaves lots of writing how-tos and how to get rid of writer's block. So it's great for budding writers! We also get some Grimm Fairy Tales as well and it all comes together at the end. Another fantastic find for the Halloween season.
I haven't hardly written anything over the last two weeks but this morning I saw some light and figured it was time to celebrate! Biden wins! Celebrations all day on my end!!
Halloween went as well as we expected this year. Numbers continue to rise in my town, county, and state. No trick-or-treating but we had a bowl of candy and made sure we were masked and hand sanitized up! We only got a few well-known neighbors and their kids/teens. We ate chili, drank cider, and watched cheesy old horror movies!
Pirates were the agreed upon theme this year!
The pumpkin almost got us...we're only missing a limb or two
We even made cookies! So yummy!
I didn't actually see this but a friend said this was in her neighborhood! That is a big minion!
G went with a cute kitty
DH opted out of carving and went some nice stencil work. We'll be able to keep this around for November and Thanksgiving.
Philosophy: At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Others by Sarah Bakewell.
