What I'm Reading, Thin Mint Edition

The good news is I will soon be done with my winter quarter teaching -- and that means I will be READING WHAT I WANT TO READ again. Woo! In the meantime, I have been busy wrestling with too many thin mint Girl Scout cookies. Why do we call them thin mints? It would be much more honest to say that I am right this very minute eating a huge stack of chubby mint cookies.**

I did put up two reviews this week: one for Boy in the Twilight by Yu Hua, and one for Cold Killing by Luke Delaney. I am ever so close to finishing Yes Please by Amy Poehler. I am not ordinarily a celebrity memoir person, so this choice takes me off my beaten path. 

My intent this week is to read When the World Was Steady by Claire Messud. I think that this is Messud’s first book. I am behind in my 2015 TBR Pile Challenge, so I’m hoping to generate momentum toward that twelve book goal. I’ve had When the World Was Steady in my stack forever, so it’s well past time that I give it a chance.

Here’s the description from Goodreads:

Two sisters, middle-aged and alienated from each other, find that their steady worlds are disintegrating. Each sets out on a quest, one from a Sydney drawing room to Bali's most sacred mountain, and the other from north London to the Isle of Skye. The sisters' self-scrutiny, their encounters with strangeness, and finally with each other, are described in prose of unusual grace and power. A PEN/Faulkner Award nominee.

I also hope to get started on Some Luck by Jane Smiley. I have checked this out of the library three times now but have failed to start it. I love Jane Smiley, but the heft of this book has made me reluctant to tackle it. Here’s the description from Goodreads:

On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn first-born; Joe, whose love of animals makes him the natural heir to his family's land; Lillian, an angelic child who enters a fairy-tale marriage with a man only she will fully know; Henry, the bookworm who's not afraid to be different; and Claire, who earns the highest place in her father's heart. Moving from post-World War I America through the early 1950s, Some Luck gives us an intimate look at this family's triumphs and tragedies, zooming in on the realities of farm life, while casting-as the children grow up and scatter to New York, California, and everywhere in between-a panoramic eye on the monumental changes that marked the first half of the twentieth century.

In other news, I have received several “Ask the Blogger” requests, so be on the lookout for upcoming posts where I answer readers' most probing questions about the reading life. If you’d like to join in the fun, please go ahead and ask a question in the comments.

**Update: Cookies are gone

(It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Book Journey)