September was a Gold Rush in terms of reading. I was able to read 9 books, but by October I was in a Gold Bust and only read 3. I find that some books are just harder to me to get through. Not because the subject matter doesn't interest me, but rather because there is just so much information for me to process in certain books. This is definitely what happened in October. It took me about two and a half - three weeks to get through a book called Vision or Mirage by David Rundell. The book was filled with historical information about Saudi Arabia and had a lot of different people highlighted. I had to really focus to keep the groups of people and individuals in the book straight.
My focus these past two months was books on the Middle East, but I also read a book pertaining to the United States. The book haunted me. It was titled Sundown Towns by James Loewen. I would recommend this book to every white person living in this country. Sundown Towns is about systemic racism and its existence today. The book focuses primarily on the Midwest, but every part of the nation is mentioned and discussed. The town that my husband grew up in (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio) was discussed multiple times in this book both for its nickname (Caucasian Falls) and for its still prevalent practice of keeping Black Americans out of its city limits. Other states heavily focused on were Illinois and Indiana. Reading this book confirmed what I could feel below the surface while living in Indiana. I would often comment to my family that it felt like Indiana was in the deep south because of the blatant and subtle racism that exists in that state - there was a reason I had that feeling - because it was (and is) true.
The rest of the books I read were all fascinating to me. With rare exception, I would read all of my book selections over again. They were all that good.
Here were the books I read in September and October:
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| Voices of Rebellion by Roberta Staley |
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| I Should Have Honor by Khalida Brohi |
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| The Lovers by Rod Norland |
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| How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (I did not like this book at all. I would not recommend it to anyone and I would not read it again.) |
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| Harley Loco by Rayya Elias |
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| Funny In Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas |
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| Threading My Prayer Rug by Sabeeha Rehman |
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| Sundown Towns by James Loewen |
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| The Rose Hotel by Rahimeh Andalibian |
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| Driving the Saudis by Jayne Larson |
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| Vision or Mirage by David Rundell |
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| Then They Came For Me by Maziar Bahari |
Numbers of Books Read in 2021:
January: 5
Feb/March: 8
April/May: 6
June: 5
July: 9
August: 7
September: 9
October: 3
Total: 52
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