Reading slowly, but reading hard-ish

Back to school means back to less free time and less energy, which means my reading has hugely slowed down and progress has been incremental.

I continue to chip away at Uncommon Grounds, which continues to be interesting. Did you know that during World War II the United States not only put Japanese Americans in internment camps, they also extradited people of German descent from Central America and put them in internment camps until they later traded them to Germany in exchange for American POWs? Some of them were German expats, but many were born in the countries they were extradited from and had never even been to Germany before being sent there in exchange for the release of prisoners of war. Fucking gross, I tell you what.

I also finished The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue, which ended up being a beautiful read, and Wild Beauty, which was...weird, but very good. Very descriptive, beautiful imagery from both books.

Warrior Girl Unearthed and Worst-Case Scenario both remain unread, as does Does My Body Offend You and Algorithms of Oppression from August. I just finished Revolutionary Algorithms, though, and it's very funny to read about things like Skibbety Toilet with scholarly language and big words. I also finished Hear Ye Mortals, which was an interesting mix of historical fiction and supernatural and was very haunting and touching and sad and beautiful.

Adding to my list of books that need to be read, in September I'll be working on challenges #12, read and try a recipe from a cookbook about a culture whose food you've never eaten, and #23, read a book by an African author. 

For twelve, I've got three options because they turned out to be challenging to find at libraries and somewhat expensive to buy - Zaatari by Karen E. Fisher (requested that my library purchase a copy), Pakistan by Maryam Jillani (requested a copy through inter-library loan, we'll see if I can get it), and Third Culture Cooking by Karen E. Fisher. I've got a copy of the last one through Hoopla, and I look forward to finding a recipe to try!

For twenty-three, I have three options. The first, Daughters of Nri by Reni K. Amayo, has been on my "read next" list for FOREVER, but I'm having a hard time finding it at a library, and the other two, The Heirs by Faridah Abike-Iyimide and The Free Verse Society by Delali Adjoa, are officially on hold at the library, so I should have them soon. More new books! I'm sure I'll read them right away.