Booooook blahg because y’all don’t want me to rant incoherently about polly-ticks every day. I have read a WIDE variety of books over the last few weeks…

“The Dispossessed”. Ursula Le Guin, Hainish “series”. Which isn’t really a series according to Ursula. I read this book back in the Jurassic Age. I’m not sure I understood it at the time. All I could *remember* is something about an arid moon and some political stuff I didn’t understand. This time I got to the point where I could. Not. Put. It. Down. I had a wee bit of trouble in the beginning but that was because I was getting reacquainted with it in the DNR lodge at Tahquamenon Falls and simultaneously dealing with a number of other folks, old friends and new. Ursula’s writing is beautiful but it can be dense. I wonder if I’d had an iPhone to read books on waaaaay back then, I’d’ve made more sense of it when I first read it. On the iPhone I can look up *anything*. Words I don’t quiiiiite know. Fancy maps of the moons (Urras and Anarres) of the double-planet system made by a super-fan. Etc. Ursula writes of the different political systems on each moon but stops short of promoting either one as being better than the other.

“The Water Dancer”. Ta-Nehisi Coates. I have read articles by this author but not his acclaimed non-fictional works. I am a WASPy type person from the yooperland. My only experience with the deep south is to occasionally drive by it on the I75 Snowbird Geezerway to Fla. I grew up with a small smattering of black folk, none of whom I had a personal relationship with. And I certainly don’t have any experience with slavery. But if you want to understand history from a non-WASP perspective you gotta start somewhere, right? I read some lukewarm reviews but I loved this book, magical realism and all. I loved that a beloved Black History Month character often used for prodjects in our fam was featured in the story. Wanna guess who it is?

“Into the Drowning Deep”. Mira Grant, pseudonym for I fergit who (or why a pseudonym…). This was a fun fun fun sci-fi thriller set over (and in) the Mariana Trench. I gave this 4 out of 5 Goodreads stars but only because I felt like there were some loose ends that didn’t get tied up. References to climate change were made but ultimately didn’t have much to do with the story. Other issues might be spoilers. But I’m now kinda wondering if this might be the first book in a series. If so, I think I’ll be on board for the next one…

“Arundel”. Kenneth Roberts. This is also a re-read for me and, as with “The Dispossessed”, I don’t remember much about it except for people wandering around in the woods. I am loving it this time around. Some of the WASPy type folks that I know are concerned that they believe libraries are pulling Kenneth Roberts books from their shelves because they are not PC. I am about a sixth of the way through the book and I do NOT see anything unPC about this book so far. In fact, maybe the opposite. But we’ll see and my thoughts about that may be a future blahg entry.

Love y’all, even those of you who disagree with me,
KW

P.S. WASP is not exactly correct when referring to some of my people because a lot of my people are/were Catholic. But. WASC? No. One of my lots in life is engineers. Another is large Catholic families. I grew up next door to one and I married into another one. 🧡🧡🧡 to both.

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