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Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts At Midnight to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
May 2026 Wrap Up
I spent most of May trying my best to get ahead of deadlines so that I can get back to being more present on the blog. It feels like a constant struggle but I’m getting closer to my goals. I’m also trying to read more books on print than on audio, but it’s just easier to read more books on audio when there are chores (and other audiobook compatible activities) to do!
My May 2026 TBR Intentions
I mentioned how excited I was about Book 8 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl coming out in May and that I wanted to reread Books 1 through 7 before diving into it. Well, I couldn’t wait and dove right in the day it released without rereading the other books! I’ll probably reread the whole series again at some point because there were a lot of details I forgot while reading Book 8, but it was totally worth it!
Yesteryear was a big standout, not necessarily because I loved it but rather because it’s still sticking with me. It says a lot about our current social media culture and influencer’s public persona. The story and characters are fictional but I know there are real people like Natalie and her husband out there and that scares me deeply.
The other standout is of course, Book 8 of Dungeon Crawler Carl, A Parade of Horribles, because I loved it! I love listening to it on audio. I miss the characters, Jeff Hay’s protrayal of all of them, and it still makes me laugh and cry at all the right places. Definitely planning a reread once I have my other reading challenges squared off.
I also read a couple of nonfiction books about running; one is a guide/how-to, Start Where You Are by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, which was actually quite informative and helpful, specially targeted to women runners, and the other is a memoir, The Incomplete Book of Running by Peter Sagal, which was really interesting because he talks about being a guide for blind runners, plus he was present at the Boston Marathon bombing.
Start Where You Are: The Beginner’s 5K Running Guide for Women by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys
A beginner’s guide to running for women. It challenges misconceptions and offers a positive and motivating guide to get you started.
Start Where You Are is a guide for women who are looking to run up to 5k distance. Whether you are at the start of your running journey, or resuming running after a break, Sabrina Pace-Humphreys has all the advice you need to get going.
In 2009 a GP recommended Sabrina try running to manage her post-natal depression. It transformed her life and she hasn’t stopped since. She is now a UK Athletics qualified Leader in Running Fitness, a Coach in Running Fitness and a qualified personal trainer with a passion for helping other women, wherever they are in their running journeys.
Sabrina offers motivational support, technique guidance, practical advice and strength and conditioning exercises to help complement your training. You can also find real-life runner testimonies and valuable tips about how to run during menopause, fueling and hydration, menstrual cycles, common injuries, how to run safely at night, finding the running community for you – and so much more.
Above all, this audiobook strips back the experience to the fundamentals – instilling freedom and finding joy in movement – making it the perfect starting point for all women, irrespective of age or running experience.
I came across this book while browsing in my local library and since I’ve started running, I thought I could learn something.
My Thoughts
As an ignorant beginner runner, there were a lot of things I got out of this book. I won’t be following along with the program laid out in the book because I’ve already been running for a while, but a lot of the advice in the book was still very helpful to me and in fact, I feel like I wouldn’t have understood some of the things the author shared if I hadn’t already been running and had come across some of those issues.
In my case, the advice about running techniques, cadence, gait, and nutrition were particularly helpful. I’ve switched up my posture and arm movements in my recent runs, and I’ve also been focusing more on how my body feels rather than what my smartwatch logs. Some of the warm-up exercises in the book has also been added to my previously sparser warm-up routine.
It’s notable that this book is aimed towards an audience of women runners; there are chapters that talk about running on periods, menopause, and how to keep yourself safe as a woman running on your own. All things that women need to take into account as compared to male runners. As the book states; women are not small men, and so many sporty advice and information have been based upon male bodies, capabilities, and needs, and aren’t necessarily applicable towards female bodies. We have a long way to go but I’m glad this book is available for women runners.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Mary Roach takes the age-old question, “What happens to us after we die?” quite literally. And in Stiff, she explores the “lives” of human cadavers from the time of the ancient Egyptians all the way up to current campaigns for human composting. Along the way, she recounts with morbidly infectious glee how dead bodies are used for research ranging from car safety and plastic surgery (you’ll cancel your next collagen injection after reading this!), to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.
Impossible (and irreverent) as it may sound, Roach has written a book about corpses that’s both lively and fresh. She traveled around the globe to conduct her forensic investigations, and her findings are wryly intelligent. While the myriad uses for cadavers recounted are often graphic, Roach imbues her subject with a sense of dignity, choosing to emphasize the oddly noble purposes corpses serve, from organ donation to lifesaving medical research.
Readers will come away convinced of the enormous debt that we, the living, owe to the study of the remains of the dead. And while it may not offer the answer to the ancient mystery we were hoping for, Stiff offers a strange sort of comfort in the knowledge that, in a sense, death isn’t necessarily the end.
This book has the honor of being one of the oldest books on my TBR. I bought a copy not long after it came out about 20 years ago, and I had even started reading it a few times but it never stuck. I no longer have my original copy but I have finally read it!
The Quotes
“We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.”
“You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place.”
“Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.”
“I guess I feel the same way about being a corpse. Why lie around on your back when you can do something interesting and new, something useful?”
The Narrator(s)
Shelly Frasier. It was great, no complaints!
My Thoughts
I don’t know why it took me so long to read this book. It’s not for the lack of interest, I think, but rather taking it for granted when I had it on my shelves, and then forgetting about it when I no longer had it. I finally read it now, after so many years, because I happened to be on a nonfiction binge and it was one of the books available immediately on Libby.
As had been promised all these years, it was fascinating and I loved it! I was afraid that it might feel a little dated as I had read other more recently published books about death and dead bodies since this book was first published, but it didn’t feel that way to me. I still learned a lot of interesting information, and got quite morbidly curious about the part where she talks about cannibalism.
I don’t think I personally care what happens to my body after I die, I actually love the idea of being useful after I’m dead, but I do worry about possible cases of jumping the gun on harvesting organs from a person before they are dead. It doesn’t apply to me because I’m not a candidate for organ donation but it’s still disturbing that it has happened and can happen.
All in all, this was a great read, and would you believe it, my first Mary Roach book! She’s been a TBR author of mine for so long, I didn’t realize I haven’t actually read a single book until this one. I’m definitely looking out to read more from her.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
The virus kills nine out of ten of its victims so quickly and gruesomely that even biohazard experts are terrified. It is airborne, it is extremely contagious, and it is about to burn through the suburbs of a major American city. Is there any way to stop it?
In the winter of 1989, at an Army research facility outside Washington, D.C., this doomsday scenario seemed like a real possibility. A SWAT team of soldiers and scientists wearing biohazard space suits had been organized to stop the outbreak of an exotic “hot” virus. The grim operation went on in secret for eighteen days, under dangerous conditions for which there was no precedent.
The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story in depth for the first time, giving an absolutely hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their “crashes” into the human race. From a remote jungle cave festering with deadly organisms, to an airplane over Africa that is carrying a sick passenger who dissolves into a human virus bomb, to the confines of a Biosafety Level 4 military lab where scientists risk their lives studying lethal substances that could kill them quickly and horribly, The Hot Zone describes situations that a few years ago would have been taken for science fiction. As the tropical wildernesses of the world are destroyed, previously unknown viruses that have lived undetected in the rain forest for eons are entering human populations. The appearance of AIDS is part of the pattern, and the implications for the future of the human species are terrifying.
It’s been on my TBR forever but I kept putting it off. People keep praising it though so I couldn’t put it off anymore!
The Quotes
“In biology, nothing is clear, everything is too complicated, everything is a mess, and just when you think you understand something, you peel off a layer and find deeper complications beneath. Nature is anything but simple.”
“To mess around with Ebola is an easy way to die. Better to work with something safer, such as anthrax.”
“You can’t fight off Ebola the way you fight off a cold. Ebola does in ten days what it takes AIDS ten years to accomplish.”
“The rain forest has its own defenses. The earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite. Perhaps AIDS is the first step in a natural process of clearance.”
The Narrator(s)
Richard M. Davidson. Really good, no notes.
My Thoughts
For some reason, I thought this was going to be a dry nonfiction read (maybe because of the cover!) but it turned out to be so well-written and reads like an actual horror/thriller novel. I had no idea Ebola and Marburg were so deadly. I knew they made you sick, of course, but I thought of them the way I would’ve thought about malaria, or dengue; dangerous and sometimes fatal but not incurable! And what a horrible way to go!
The issues with how the monkeys were handled, how information was shared, and how everything was cleaned up, have got me feeling torn because on the one hand, there were so many unethical practices, on the other, I have no idea what I would do if I was in that position. I’d probably be in denial too if I thought I had been exposed to an incurable virus that would eventually lead to a horrible, gory death for me.
One of the sentiments I found most interesting from the book is how viruses like Ebola and Marburg are the “predators” of humans, to cull humans when we become so overpopulated and start encroaching into animal habitats, and you know what, that’s actually really fair. We like to think we’re at the top of the food chain but we’re really not, and these tiny microscopic viruses will prove it to us any time we start thinking otherwise. I do not like the thought, but it’s what will keep me humble and wary of too much outdoor activity! I loved this book but I have decided I’m going to be a stay-at-home bookworm forever.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected.
She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn’t exist.
As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d travelled too far. If there was still a way home.
EDUCATED is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with the severing of the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has, from her singular experience, crafted a universal coming-of-age story, one that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers – the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
This has been on my TBR forever and it recently went on sale in Audible. The audiobook is narrated by Julia Whelan, whom I love, and so solidified my reason for buying and reading the book!
The Quotes
“You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them,” she says now. “You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
“It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.”
“Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.”
“An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.”
The Narrator(s)
Julia Whelan. The GOAT! She can do no wrong in my eyes(ears)!
My Thoughts
I finished this book just before bedtime and was unable to sleep the rest of the night because I was so worked up and emotional about it. I did not expect to relate so hard with the author because we have pretty much nothing in common, but all that control and abuse disguised as familial love is unfortunately all too familiar to me. So is the difficulty in leaving and letting go, dealing with lies spread about you, and despite all of that, the yearning for change, love, and acceptance anyway.
The way the author articulated her experiences and her feelings about them was matter-of-fact and direct, yet at the same time felt raw and emotional. Perhaps I was projecting as well, but either way, it got me reflecting on my own experiences and wanting to articulate them too.
I love that education is the key to her liberation, and I love that it was her curiosity and love of learning that led her on the path to higher education. I am inspired by her courage in going to university when she barely had a high school education, and forging ahead even when she felt stupid after making a huge faux pas out of ignorance.
It took me such a long time to finally read this book but I’m glad I did. All the praise for it is well deserved. It’s a powerful story with a powerful message and I’m sure I’ll come back to it again one day.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Krakauer’s page-turning bestseller explores a famed missing person mystery while unraveling the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.
“Terrifying… Eloquent… A heart-rending drama of human yearning.” —New York Times
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.
Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless’s short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless.
When McCandless’s innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless’s uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding–and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer’s stoytelling blaze through every page.
I’d read this before but recently read Into Thin Air and thought I should reread this.
The Quotes
“I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.”
“We like companionship, see, but we can’t stand to be around people for very long. So we go get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again.”
“I read somewhere… how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong… to measure yourself at least once.”
“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.”
The Narrator(s)
Philip Franklin. It was good, no notes.
My Thoughts
I read this book many years ago and didn’t love it then. I’ve never been an outdoors-y person and have a healthy fear of the wild, so based on the account in this book it felt like McCandless was just reckless and foolhardy. Having just recently read Into Thin Air, I feel like there’s a difference between people who want to conquer the wild but condition and prepare themselves for it versus people who just go out there unprepared and hope for the best.
However, reading this the second time around, I feel like I might have misjudged McCandless’ preparedness anyway, since it’s not like I know anything about living in nature. I also tried not to judge the story based on what I thought about McCandless, but rather on the story itself. I don’t always like self-inserts by the author, but I appreciated it more this time around when Krakauer told his own story about his own recklessness and adventurous spirit when he was younger.
I felt like I could understand more, that “call of the wild”, wanting to get away and be in nature. Especially since learning that McCandless’ sister, Carine, has also released a book, The Wild Truth, that reveals some things previously kept private about Chris McCandless’ life and his relationship with his family that will probably shed more light on these events. I’m not sure yet if I will read Carine McCandless’ book anytime soon but I must admit I am a little curious.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
The incredible true story of the women who fought America’s Undark danger
The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.
Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.
But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women’s cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
It’s been on my TBR forever and it felt like it contained important information.
The Quotes
“We’ve got humane societies for dogs and cats, but they won’t do anything for human beings.”
“That was the tragedy. Radium had been known to be harmful since 1901. Every death since was unnecessary.”
“The cynical would say there was only one reason a high-profile specialist finally took up the cause. On June 7, 1925, the first male employee of the United States Radium Corporation died.”
“Thousands of women helped with the study, through their forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond; their contribution to medical science is incalculable. We all benefit from their sacrifice and courage, every day of our lives.”
The Narrator(s)
Angela Brazil. No complaints, I was completely immersed and forgot I was listening to an audiobook.
My Thoughts
I love reading about medical science but I also inevitably get a little paranoid when reading about illnesses and all the ways the human body is susceptible to so many dangerous things around us. I happened to be having a toothache while reading this book and even though I never got anywhere near any sources of radium, as far as I know, I still got paranoid about my teeth falling out when the women in the book started losing their teeth.
It was really painful to read about how the women suffered, and I think it’s especially hard when they didn’t know, in the beginning, why they were suffering. They had no idea radium was dangerous and didn’t understand why they were sick. It was horrific to read about their bodies slowly deteriorating and so humbling to see their strength and resilience in the face of that kind of pain.
The worst thing is that the companies who hired these women didn’t take any accountability for what they did. It’s one thing if they didn’t know about the dangers of radium and then took accountability once they knew, but they continued putting their employees at risk after knowing the dangers of radium, and kept telling lies to avoid facing any kind of responsibility. It is sad and infuriating to see this kind of evil in the world. Even now.
However, if there’s one thing we can take away from this, it’s that these women continued to fight to be seen and heard, against their pain, against all odds, against these evil corporations, and their fight made lasting changes in workplace safety laws. It is inspiring.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with the latest discoveries on the human microbiome, a practical guide in the tradition of Wheat Belly and Grain Brain that conclusively demonstrates the inextricable, biological link between mind and body.
We have all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut—the decision we made because it “felt right;” the butterflies in our stomach before a big meeting; the anxious stomach rumbling when we’re stressed out. While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Aryuvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut, and more recently, the microbiome—the microorganisms that live inside us—communicate with one another. In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer, Executive Director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.
The Mind-Gut Connection shows how to keep the brain-gut communication clear and balanced to:
• Heal the gut by focusing on a plant-based diet • Balance the microbiome by consuming fermented foods and probiotics, fasting, and cutting out sugar and processed foods • Promote weight loss by detoxifying and creating a healthy digestion and maximum nutrient absorption • Boost immunity and prevent the onset of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s • Generate a happier mindset and reduce fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and depression • Prevent and heal GI disorders such as leaky gut syndrome; food sensitivities and allergies; and IBS; as well as digestive discomfort such as heartburn and bloating • And much more.
I want to read more nonfiction and I got curious about the gut and gut-health.
The Quotes
“The immune cells residing in your gut make up the largest component of your body’s immune system; in other words, there are more immune cells living in the wall of your gut than circulating in the blood or residing in your bone marrow.”
“The gut is also the largest storage facility for serotonin in our body. Ninety-five percent of the body’s serotonin is stored in these warehouses.”
“Your gut microbes are in a prime position to influence your emotions, by generating and modulating signals the gut sends back to the brain.”
“Adults often think that self-confidence is something a child learns, but little kids are by their nature always invincible, it’s self-doubt that needs to be taught.”
My Thoughts
This book was incredibly informative and I learned a lot, but I did feel it was a little dry. Some of the most recent nonfiction books I’ve read have been written by very entertaining and accomplished writers, so I might be a little unfair in my judgement. This book is well-written and very interesting, jam-packed with a lot of details about the gut microbiome, its history, research, and effects on our health.
I was most fascinated with the chapter about gut feelings, and how our microbiome really does affect our intuition because it acts as our second brain and sends signals to our brain when it recognizes a feeling it has had before. I am obviously not explaining it very well, but I do recommend reading this book yourself for this chapter and to understand your body and how it works, especially since we’ve got more bacteria in our gut than we have cells in our body.
Personally, I’ll admit that while I enjoyed reading this book in the moment, I didn’t end up retaining much of the details, as is normal for me as a reader. However, it’s piqued my interest enough that I know I’d like to read more about the gut as well as do more to ensure my own gut health. I’m also intending to reread this book at some point, after I read some others that are more accessible and entertaining to the layperson. I’m hoping I’ll retain more by then and come back to this book with a better understanding.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Books for Armchair Travelers (Submitted by Laurie C @ Bay State Reader’s Advisory)
I’ve traveled a bit when I was younger, mostly around the Asia and Australasia area, but it’s been a while since I traveled and there are still so many places in the world I’d love to see. In full honesty, I prefer to travel in comfort and would probably be too afraid, and frankly not in any shape, to do some of the extreme adventure traveling depicted in these books, so except for the food/travel books, I’m happy to experience them all through the pages of the books and leave them at that!
What about you? Have you traveled a lot? Do you prefer traveling in comfort or do you enjoy extreme adventures?
Top Ten Books for Armchair Travelers
A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain – My favorite part of traveling has always been about trying new foods. I also love Anthony Bourdain and there’s nothing I would love more than to get to know the world and different foods through his perspective!
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchsia Dunlop – In the same vein, I love Sichuan food and I’ve heard that Fuchsia Dunlop is the go-to person to learn more about the Sichuan food and culture.
The Wager by David Grann – Once upon a time I wanted to be a marine biologist, but that never happened because I have a very big, healthy fear of the sea. I can’t get rid of my fascination for it though, so I’m always drawn to stories of sea adventures and braver adventurers than me.
Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi – The fact that she was 18 years old, and sailed the world alone for two years(!) makes me want to read her story and live vicariously through her. I have so much respect for people who can do this but I would never!
Ice Ghosts by Paul Watson – I read The Terror by Dan Simmons last year and loved it but it was a fictional account of the Franklin Expedition and I have so many questions! Then I saw this book on Aj @ Read All The Things! listed as one of their best books of 2025 and I knew I had to read it!
The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford – My friend saw me reading The Terror last year and recommended this book to me. It’s not related to the Franklin Expedition, but it is about brave explorers doing incredible things.
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson – After all the harrowing adventure stories, I think this one might be a little more my speed. I love the idea of walking through the woods, but honestly, the Appalachian Trial sounds challenging to me and the most I’m probably going to do is walk on my treadmill while reading this book!
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner – I love the idea; the author travels the world looking for the happiest places and asking questions about what makes people happy.
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux – Traveling through Asia by train sounds like something I could possibly do, but I’m thinking it’s a good idea for me to read about it before doing it in real life! Although things have probably changed since the book was written in 1975.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed – Another hiking story that I’ll read without taking a step out of the comfort of my own home! I haven’t read this book but I know it was hyped up and very popular at one point. I’m curious and have had it on my TBR for a while.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.
In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
This has been on my TBR for a while and I’ve heard a lot of praise for it as well. It was also voted in for my online bookclub’s January BOTM so I finally took the plunge!
The Quotes
“Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past.”
“It reminded me, that when we know about suffering, when we are proximal to it, we are capable of extraordinary generosity. We can do and be so much for each other. But only when we see one another in our full humanity. Not as statistics or problems, but as people who deserve to be alive in the world.”
“Framing illness as even involving morality seems to me a mistake, because of course cancer does not give a shit whether you are a good person. Biology has no moral compass. It does not punish the evil and reward the good. It doesn’t even know about evil and good.”
“The idea of becoming sick in order to look healthy or beautiful speaks to how profoundly consumptive beauty ideals still shape the world we share.”
The Narrator(s)
John Green. It was a wonderful narration; clear and expressive.
My Thoughts
It’s the Book of the Month for my online bookclub and we had some interesting discussions about the book. Some of which revolved around the whole idea that Green writes in his introduction; “the cure is where the disease is not, and the disease is where the cure is not”.
We lament our ignorance on the topic but we acknowledge our privilege in that we’re ignorant because we don’t need to know about it, because it doesn’t affect us as much, and when it does, we have the cure. We discuss the racism, classism, sexism, and other -isms, that lead to some of us having easy access to the cure and others dying from it. It’s a disgrace to see corporations like J&J profiting off the suffering of others and often directly causing death by witholding cures and treatments.
It is also difficult to read it and realize that this isn’t history; this is still happening right now. We are not living in better times, far from it. This book has given me so much to think about. I’m glad I read it.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
