Shana tova! The beginning of the Jewish year (and of the school year) reminded me that I had 1. not made very much progress on my 2013 reading list, and 2. not written about some of the books from the list that I had read. So, here we go:

• Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel (also Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel) — still to read. Placed hold at the library.
• Building Stories, by Chris Ware — won’t be reading; library doesn’t own.
• A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers — still to read. Placed hold at the library.
• NW, by Zadie Smith — wrote about here.
• The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo — I read this in the last week. HEARTbreaking. This is the true story of a slum in Mumbai and the things that youth do to survive. It’s a tale of poverty and the extremes in society. On a very practical level, it explained for me the many news posts that show up in my Google alert for “juvenile justice” that center on the question of a youth’s age. Kids in these slums really don’t know how old they are, which is so far out of my experience that I didn’t believe it was the case. And yet, it is.
• Far from the Tree, by Andrew Solomon — still to read. Placed hold at the library.
• The Passage of Power, by Robert Caro — wrote about here.
• The Patriarch, by David Nasaw — Interesting to read about events involving JFK from the perspective of his father’s biographer in contrast with the perspective of LBJ’s biographer. Joseph Kennedy’s relationships certainly provide insight into his sons’ experiences with women not their wives. JPK really was not a good man in many respects.
• Why Does the World Exist, by Jim Holt — still to read. Placed hold at the library.

When January comes around there will be a new reading list, with 50 (!) books on it; we’ll see if I do better with 50 than with 10.