Spring 2019 Reading List

Posted on March 22, 2019 by B

Here’s a funny thing that happened: shortly after I published my reading picks for fall 2018, the same neighbour who had recommended those books to me dropped off another stack at my door. I’m not sure if he reads this blog, but if he doesn’t it sure was one heck of a coincidence!

In any case, he definitely has picked up on the fact that I have eclectic reading tastes. I get the feeling that his are just as eclectic. Here’s some of the books that he recommended to me that I’ll be reading this spring:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in 15 Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Holding On to Normal by Alana Somerville
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

Psst- wanna see which books have previously graced my bookshelves? Click here. Want even more fun reading recommendations? I’ve got some for you here. Don’t forget to find me on Goodreads so we can snoop each other’s bookshelves and dish about our favourites.

Best Books of 2018

Posted on December 27, 2018 by B

I posted my picks for 2017 so late this year that I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to share with you some of my favorites books I read in the year 2018.

Fiction
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton is one of the few books of the epic-story-sweeping-across-generations type that actually caught me off-guard with all of its plot twists and turns. It kept me guessing right until the end.

It’s easy to see why We’ll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night by Joel Thomas Hynes won the Governor General’s Award (which is pretty much the prize you want to get if you’re a Canadian author). It was so beautifully written that it got passed around to all of the neighbours in my building. Warning: foul language afoot! (But it feels more colourful than gratuitous.)

I’ve been waiting for Arundhati Roy’s follow-up to The God of Small Things for years now and although The Ministry of Utmost Happiness doesn’t quite compare in my opinion (although really what follow-up does?), it’s worth the read simply to experience the magic gift Roy has with words.

One of my besties has been begging me to read My Brilliant Friend by Italian author Elena Ferrante for pretty much forever, and I was so glad I finally did. The writing is beautiful and intimate; Ferrante has an amazing talent for finding the words to express even the deepest, darkest emotions of a human being. It’s the first in the The Neapolitan Cycle and I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest.

Arcadia by Iain Pears is one of those novels that’s hard to define: it takes its readers across time and space in a way that’s comparable to Cloud Atlas, then takes the best parts of The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings and kind of mushes them all together into this suspenseful, epic tale. (A little psycho-mathematics helps too!)

Non-Fiction
Your life is possible pretty much because of this woman, so you owe it to her memory to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I’m not even kidding. This book will change the way you think about modern medicine.

Logomaniacs unite! Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary is fascinating not only because of the people behind the authoritative dictionary; it’s the sheer breadth and scope of the task and how they pulled it off that amazed me the most.

What were some of your favorite books that you read in the past year? Did anything on my list show up on yours? Share your recommendations with me by commenting below or by emailing keepingbusyb@gmail.com

Winter 2019 Reading List

Posted on December 21, 2018 by B

Every girl needs her squad and every squad needs to read the books recommended to her by the others in her squad so that she may come to understand them and appreciate their taste better. It’s getting towards the end of the year, a time when I’m itching to return things I’ve borrowed anyway, so this winter I figured I’d finally get down to reading all of the books my girlfriends have gifted or loaned me (and try not to read too much into their choices).