Mud, Rocks, Blazes by Heather "Anish" Anderson

 "I would attempt to hike the 2,189-mile-long Appalachian Trail faster than anyone else had. I would do it alone and not to prove anything to anyone this time except myself. ... There was something  I needed to learn out there on the rocky, rooty, trail."

This was the perfect book for my first nonfiction read of 2024. I've always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail--not to try and set any kind or record, but just to see if I could do it. That kind of wilderness adventure has always appealed to me. Though it's something I probably should have attempted in my 20s. (I doubt my knees could take it now.) But I still love reading books about people who do achieve their AT dream. And this well-written memoir gives you a real taste of hiking the AT, as well as some great words of wisdom. (Anderson has also hiked the Pacific Coast Trail with the fastest known time and written a book about that adventure, too.) Here are some of my favorite quotes from this excellent memoir: 

"I had to always remind myself that everything that happened along the way was out of my control, that I could only change my reactions, and dedicate myself to putting one foot in front of the other, even when I wanted to stop."

"Pain and hardship are integral to any thru-hike, as they are to life in general. It is suffering that is a mindset. ...I decided in that moment--even if it was going to take a thousand conscious choices every day--that I would choose not to suffer. There would be no drudgery on my hike. I would move forward with passion for adventure. Just as I always had." 

"I smiled at the changes in myself. I'd learned courage. And from that courage had come confidence. And from that confidence had grown acceptance of all circumstances."

Happy Reading!

A few of my other favorite Appalachian Trail reads:

A Woman's Journey on the Appalachian Trail by Cindy Ross

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Becoming Odyssa by Jennifer Pharr Davis

A Journey North by Adrienne Hall

And if you know of any other books about hiking the Appalachian Trail that you think I'd like, please let me know!  😎

 

 

The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung

 

"When I was a child, first discovering numbers, the secrets they yielded, the power they held, I imagined I would live my life unchecked, knocking down problem after problem that was set before me. And in the beginning, because I outstripped my classmates, my parents, and even my teachers it seemed possible that it would be so. That was pure hubris. ... Still, I never tried to hide or suppress my mind as some girls do, and thank God, because that would have been the beginning of the end."

Katherine is a math genius at a time when math is still very much a man's world. She's also half-Chinese with questions about her parentage that her father refuses to answer. And she thinks she might have found the mathematical key to solving the Reimann hypothesis. But will people believe the solution is really hers, or will they think some man helped her with it? Love, math and ambition are complicated problems for Katherine as she navigates and narrates her journey through life.

This novel is thoughtful, poignant, intelligent and beautifully written. And Katherine is a quietly compelling narrator. I admired her courage and her stubborn refusal to be viewed as less than just because she's a woman. From her third grade teacher to the college professor who claims to love her, Katherine has to battle just to have her own voice heard. It made me angry for her. (I found it a little heartbreaking, too.) Katherine's story drew me in from the very first page of this novel. (I even liked the math bits.) And though the ending left me feeling a little sad, I'm glad to count this as my first read of 2021. It's a good one.

Happy Reading!

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

Red was not some movie superhero any more than the man was a movie villain. She was just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that didn't look anything like the one she'd grown up in, the one that had been perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago....Red didn't like to think of herself as a killer, but she wasn't about to let herself get eaten up just because she was a woman alone in the woods....She had to get to her grandmother, and she still had a very long way to go.

I love this apocalyptic version of Little Red Riding Hood! Henry's writing is amazing, and I especially love Red (whose real name is Cordelia). And because so many people have already reviewed this book, I'm not going to try and summarize the plot; I'm just going to tell you a few of my favorite things about Red:

• She hates black licorice and wet socks (as do I!)
• When she was packing her evacuation bag, she included two books because "the apocalypse would be a lot more pleasant with Robin McKinley along." (I so agree!)
• She has her own set of Apocalypse Rules gleaned from a lifetime of watching and reading apocalyptic movies and books.
• She's cynical, practical, stubborn and tough. (And if she were a character in a horror movie, she'd be the girl who survives at the end.)
• She doesn't let the fact she has a prosthetic left leg stop her from doing anything.
• She always has a plan.
• She has an ax, and she's not afraid to use it.

Happy Reading!

From the M Shelf...

"...it's the people that matter."

Partitions by Amit Majmudar

1947 was a turbulent time for Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus in India--the summer of Partition when Pakistan split away and one country divided into two. It is into this maelstrom that Majmudar sets his characters:  Sonia and her twin boys, Shankar and Keshav, whose Brahmin-born father, though dead, still watches over them; Simran Kaur, a young Sikh girl whose own father would rather see her dead than defiled; and Ibrahim Masud, an elderly Muslim doctor whose compassion sees only wounds to heal, not ethnicities or creeds.

Living in Lahore, Sonia knows she and her young sons "have to leave.  This is Pakistan now. The land meant to be pak, pure. Pure of them." But at the crowded train station, Shankar and Keshav get separated from her and must head east into India on their own.

In the Punjab, Masud watches his neighborhood as it burns and realizes "he isn't Ibrahim Masud to anyone but himself now. His profession, too, means nothing. Muslim:  that's suddenly the defining thing about him ... The official line is that he can stay if he wants or leave for Pakistan. His choice--stay here in India or shift west. Just over there. Like crossing the aisle on a bus." 

And then there's Simran, who refuses to drink the poisoned milk her father prepares for her and the rest of her family, and who must flee her own home in order to stay alive. But once on her own, navigating the refugee-filled roads and trying to avoid the men who would use her, or sell her, she begins to rethink her decision.

My thoughts:

I loved these characters, especially Dr. Masud and his stammering gentleness who "knows that caregiving is neither Muslim, nor Sikh, nor Hindu. Or rather it is all three of these." And I loved Majmudar's unconventional narrator--the spirit of the twins' dead father--who knows what's ahead for his sons and for Simran and Masud, and who watches over all of them until their journeys finally intersect. I also loved Majmudar's lyrical prose. And how much I learned reading this book about Partition and the violence that ensued on both sides during it. And to think, I almost didn't check this book out of the library; I would have missed out on so much if I'd left it sitting on the M shelf. I'm so glad I didn't. Because this book is amazing!

Here are just two of my favorite quotes from Amit Majmudar's Partitions:

How little we knew each other, though for centuries our homes had shared walls. How little we will learn, now that all we share is a border.

If there is one thing dangerously abundant right now, it is certainty. Certainty makes possible in men the most extreme good and the most extreme evil. A land like the Punjab, five rivers and three faiths, could do with a little less certainty.

 Happy Reading!