Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?
I’ve been enjoying reading a good old analog book by the pool this week. The book I’m reading is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
It reminds me of summers of yore, when that’s what we did—we laid around and read books.
Our phones did not distract us from our books, because our phones were home in the kitchen—attached to the wall.
My pool is in a condo community for older people, so there are always several other people sitting around reading real books. When I walk around the pool, I check out the titles of other people’s books. Sometimes people stop and ask each other about the book they’re reading. (This doesn’t happen when everyone is reading on their phone or Kindle.)
So yeah, hardcover and paperback books. They’re not actually gone, but I’ve missed them.
So far, it’s good. Please don’t tell me how it ends.😉
According to the New York Times Book Review, these are the 100 best books of the first quarter of the 21st century.
My second child is a Golden Dragon. (He was born in the Year 2000.) So I’m going to go ahead and blame him for how few of these books I’ve actually read. I was busy!
I have read some. And I’ve seen many movies and limited series (and one Broadway musical) based on others.
These are the ones I’ve read:
Bel Canto; Olive Kitteridge; The Great Believers; Demon Copperhead; Middlesex; The Goldfinch; Small Things Like These; A Visit From the Goon Squad; Between the World and Me; Sing Unburied Sing; Atonement
So, 11 out of 100. Pretty bad!
How many have you read?
One book that I can’t believe I never read because everyone was always talking about is: Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking.
One book I assume I’d like, based on other books I’ve read by the author is: The Runaway by Alice Munro.
Predictably, readers of the New York Times had a different list. Here in the main article, you can see which ones readers chose that didn’t make The Book Review’s list. I concur with readers on many of those including AGentleman in Moscow, The Nightingale, The Glass Castle and Just Mercy.
If I had to pick one book that was left off both lists, I’d say Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. Such a great memoir!
And one author that was left off both lists: Anne Lamott. I mean, I know she wrote a lot of great stuff before the year 2000, but I feel like at least one of her later books should have been included, like maybe Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.
In 2011, I started keeping a list of books I’ve read in my phone’s notepad, so I could remember them.
Here is my list for 2025 in the order I read them:
“Night Watch” by Jayne Anne Phillips (c2023)
“The Last Train to Key West” by Chanel Cleeton (c2020)
“Florida” by Lauren Groff (c2018)
“The Frozen River” by Ariel Lawhon (c2023)
“Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney (c2024)
“Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan (c2021)
“Foster” by Claire Keegan (c2010)
“James” by Percival Everett (c2024)
“How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir” by Molly Jong-Fast (c2025)
“Savannah Blues” by Mary Kay Andrews (c2002)
“The Director” by Daniel Kehlmann (c2025)
“Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett (c2023)
“The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese (c2023)
“A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan (c2010)
“The Candy House” by Jennifer Egan (c2022)
“The Summer Before the War” by Helen Simonson (c2016)
“Ordinary Human Failings” by Megan Nolan (c2024)
“Heart the Lover” (c2025) by Lily King
Many of these selections I read for my book group, which I absolutely love. We have such good discussions! Three of the four other women in my book club read way more than I do, so it’s sometimes hard to find something that none of them has read before. So this is how we choose our books:
We rotate the job of picking the book. When it’s your turn, you circulate three titles that interest you and the others rank them 1-3. Usually a clear winner emerges without much math needed.
Looking back on the list, I think Florida by Lauren Groff was my favorite. I’m not usually a short stories person, but this collection really blew me away. I read it before heading to Key West for the first time in February. If you’ve spent any amount of time in the Sunshine State, at least one of the characters will resonate with you. There’s a grain of truth in all the “Florida Man” jokes and memes (that’s why they’re funny) and this book goes deep into the truly fascinating and unique characters that seem to be made possible only in that flat, sticky, hot, beautiful, bizarre one-of-a-kind American state.
I read several books by contemporary Irish women authors this year (both before and after my big 60th birthday trip to Ireland in June). Sally Rooney, Claire Keegan, and Megan Nolan are all great. Several of their novels have been adapted for film and TV. I especially recommend “Ordinary Human Failings” by Megan Nolan. I’ve never read a more aptly titled book. Here’s the quote where she uses the exact words. It’s early on in the book.
On one of his first mornings a memo had been sent around from Edward to the desks of the entire editorial staff, which read:
A REMINDER! Reasonable excuses for lateness/missing meetings/not doing something I told you to do etc, include: Bereavement (parent only). Serious illness (life-threatening, your own). Reasonable excuses do NOT INCLUDE ordinary human failings such as hangovers, broken hearts, etc etc etc.
I think it’s the “etc etc etc” that makes this line so good. The story is all about the etceteras.
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
Now that nearly all my time is leisure time, I need to structure my days to get certain things done. Yesterday, I spent the whole day reading. I finished a 589-page book! I haven’t read a book that long in years. “Great Circle” by Maggie Shipstead is an epic, multi-generational work of historical fiction with two main characters living in different times. My book group is discussing it soon, so I needed to finish it, and I did. (Patting myself on the back)
I used to read long books more often. I think everyone did. GenXers, remember “Evergreen” by Belva Plain? That was 698 pages long and we read it for fun – in high school. It was not unusual to have a huge bestseller in that page range.
Now, with the distraction of smart phones, I think it’s harder to get through a very long book. My diminished eye sight might be a factor too. Reading glasses get annoying after awhile.
I know many people like to listen to books now, which is a good option. My problem is that I fall asleep and have to rewind. If I turn actual pages, I know I won’t miss anything.
What do you think about 500+ page books? Do you still have the attention span to get through them? Are they even a thing for the TikTok generation?
I’ve read some nice posts from other bloggers this morning referencing famous writers. Their posts reminded me how Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own once affected me. It encouraged me to move into my own studio apartment, when I was just out of college. Living without roommates was a little scary, but somehow Woolf’s words from 1928 helped give me courage to live all by myself. I need to re-read that. I liked I.V. Greco’s post, which mentions Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, a book I’ve been meaning to read since my friend Kathy recommended it while I was in Paris. I was never a Hemingway fan, but I’m going to give his Paris memoir a shot. Also, Rebuilding Rob wrote about Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond in his response to this prompt. Another book I need to read.
Now that I’m unemployed/retired, I need to read more books. Perhaps that will be my New Year’s resolution. In addition to Walden, A Moveable Feast, and A Room of One’s Own, I’ve got a lovely book of poetry waiting for me to pick it up. I can tell by the poems that she’s shared in her blog that Ever So Gently by Lauren Scott will be a treat.
Here are a few photos from my most recent trip to Walden Pond in Concord, MA. It was an unusually warm day in very late October. I wonder if Thoreau ever could’ve imagined his Walden would become such a popular, though still pristine, destination for people from around the world. Less than 20 miles from Boston, Walden is an especially popular spot for city residents who just want to get out in nature for the day. I saw several folks perched in quiet spots along the pond reading books, all by themselves.
I like to lay on the beach with a good book. It’s usually a hassle to get to the beach in New England (driving, parking, etc), but once I’m there, I find it relaxing.
We had a discussion about “summer reads” in my book group. I was reluctant to read anything too traumatic or depressing in August. Other people made no distinction between summer reading and regular reading.
Here’s the book I read at the beach in August. It certainly looked the part. Very beachy!
REVIEW: It liked it. It was a little darker than the cover would have you think. It was a good complement to the “Summer of Barbie.” The main character is a woman (a scientist) severely hampered by the boxes American society forced women into in the 1950s and 60s. There is one central tragedy, but it has a key “summer read” element: a happy ending.
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