Month in Review: February 2024

Literature

I started adding star ratings to my StoryGraph reviews, but I’m not sure about this practice. My feelings about books are often mixed; I might give 5 stars to one aspect but but 1 star to another, and all the possibilities in between. What about the books that I can tell are well-written, but just aren’t to my personal taste? Nonfiction is difficult to rate because I’d want to rate content and artistry separately. A truly outstanding nonfiction book is a work of art, but there’s nothing really wrong with the more pedestrian kind. And another disjunction is between the emotional impact a book has on me, and my objective assessment of its quality. Sometimes I love books that I can see are quite flawed, for reasons that are hard to define or quantify. Some of my childhood favorites fall into this category, but also quite a lot of books I’m reading now.

Here’s what ratings mean to me: 1 star, not recommended at all (I seldom finish these); 2 stars, worth reading but with serious drawbacks; 3 stars, fine but not exceptional; 4 stars, an excellent read that I recommend highly; 5 stars, outstanding, perfect or nearly so, a favorite I’d reread or have reread multiple times.

So I’ve tried to apply these to the books I read in January and February, but began fiddling with half and quarter stars and ended up dissatisfied with the results. I wish StoryGraph would allow readers to rate different aspects of books – that could be interesting and useful!

Have you read any of these? How would you rate them?

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang – Nonfiction Reader Challenge, Health category The Emotionally Absent Mother by Jasmin Lee Cori I Thought We’d Never Speak Again by Laura Davis Circle of Hope by Eliza Griswold – Nonfiction Reader Challenge, a book published in 2024 Emil und die Detektive by Erich Kästner Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfeild – Reread Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitacker Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum – Ozathon The Sweet Spot by Amy PoeppelLanguage

I finished Emil und die Detektive! I’m now reading Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer, which was gifted to us years ago, and am impressed that I’m able to decipher it without too much difficulty — looking up the occasional word, rather than every other as it seems I had to do not that long ago. Amazing, I must have made progress in five years.

The story is silly, the adoption of a black baby by white characters giving it an uncomfortable start, and the portrayal of China in the early chapters is horribly sterotypical — the book was originally published in 1960, and it shows. But on doing a bit of internet research I was surprised to find that Ende wrote it as an ANTI-racist fable, aimed against the Nazis. (There is one sentence in which Ende says that people are easily confused and think they need a Führer, which when translated as “train conductor” loses its pointed double meaning.)

This is one book that will be decidedly mixed and difficult to rate, but I’ll just try to enjoy the journey for now.

Jim Knopf production by Augsburger PuppenkisteLife

My great life landmark this month was the publication of my book, When Fragments Make a Whole. The link is to my post that gives ordering information; now I’ll just have to let go and see what happens. If you do read the book, thank you — I hope you’ll let me know what you think.

Here is one release-day review from Bookish Beck, who called it “a calm, honest, methodical book that will intrigue anyone interested in thinking through how the Bible is applicable to the challenges of daily life.” I hope it will land well with other readers, too.

Linked at The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Book Reviewer, the Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz, and the Monthly Wrap-up Round-up at Feed Your Fiction Addiction