March Books

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan and To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan were my two favorite books this month.

The Worst Hard Time, which details the lives of some of the people who stayed behind during the great dustbowl of the thirties, made my heart ache a little for the lost prairie land, plowed under by ignorance and a desire for land. I don't blame the people, but it is very sad. It's also something of a warning. How easy it is to ignore the voice of warning in the name of progress.

To Hell with All That was simply delightful. Flanagan is a talented writer who touches on some of the troubles of today's do-it-all moms. I enjoyed her perspective and found myself agreeing more often than not with her ideas and philosophies.

The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wrecker were all disappointments for me. They each had magical elements, but I wasn't enchanted with any of them in the way I hoped to be.

Cress by Marissa Meyer is the third book after Cinder and Scarlet. I liked it. It was a good continuation of the story. Cinder did more with its base fairy tale than either Scarlet or Cress have done, but that's understandable since those books also have to wrestle with the continuation of events from Cinder. It's too bad there isn't space for a deep focus on the altered fairy tales.

I'm part way through The Grapes of Wrath. I meant for it be a March book. Ah well. I'm loving it. I always forget how much I enjoy truly skillful writing until I stumble on it again. Steinbeck is unquestionably a master.

PS I've moved on to solo keyboard cds containing works of Bach and Debussy and I am much happier. I'm trying to enjoy it and not think too much about what I'll do when I run across some more contemporary classic solo keyboard music.