April Reading List

I felt like April was a slow reading month. It wasn't exactly, but I did read some shorter books, as well as a couple re-reads, so it was slower overall. I did, however, mark another goal off my reading list: poetry. I read three volumes of poetry by Ted Kooser (commented on in previous posts).

I also re-listened to Michael Pollan's enlightening and interesting book, In Defense of Food. If you haven't read or listened to this book before, I highly recommend it! You won't think about food the same way again (I guess there are pros and cons to that, aren't there?). :) I started Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma this month, but only completed about a third. As I understand it In Defense of Food is a practical response to The Omnivore's Dilemma. Have you read either?

I want to briefly highlight my reading of Howard's End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading From Home by Susan Hill. This bookish book is by a British author who, while looking for a particular book in her collection, realizes that she has many unread books in her personal library and sets out to explore them. Her reading traverses many authors I'm not familiar with or haven't read yet. I enjoyed her rambling essay-esque style that sipped from authors and genres, piquing my interest.

I love this paragraph about a children's alphabet book Hill flips through near the end of her reading year:
True, the alphabet book had coloured letters and beside them pictures of objects. Apple. Bear. Cherry. Dog. And the book had them in lines and repeated patterns, some with curves and curls, some with thick strokes, some with thin, some with flourishes, some plain. Still, it boiled down in the end to just those twenty-six letters. Out of these few marks, plus some small dots and curves of punctuation, every book in this house has grown, every meaning been inserted and extracted, every character created and poem balanced, every lesson taught and learned. All of it packed into and expanding out of twenty-six letters. 'It makes your hair catch fired,' as Charles Causley said.

I'll leave you with that thought and give you my completed April reading list.


The Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Rescue by Kathryn Lasky (children's, read for work)
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (audio)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser (poetry)
Valentines by Ted Kooser (poetry)
Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser (poetry)
Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss
The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Howard's End in on the Landing by Susan Hill