Hiatus: OVER.

Good morning/afternoon/evening, whenever you are reading this!

An odd coincidence got me thinking that it's time to get started again on this whole book blogging project. (Don't worry, I've been reading all along and keeping track of the books I've read...)

For anyone who thinks 2020 is bad, let me tell you: my 2019 was worse. My personal life got completely turned upside down, and I have questioned just about every life choice I've ever made. Except for reading. 

Books have been a constant companion for me throughout my life. I wasn't always the most ardent reader, but I've always been in the middle of a book or two since I was able to read. Books and their authors provide me with all of the stuff my parents didn't (or couldn't) teach me.

Life has not been easy. Some days I just want to quit everything and go live in a hut in the jungle by myself. And I really shouldn't complain, because so many others have such bigger difficulties.

Anyway, here's to another 200 books and another 12 years. May we continue on this journey together, our love of books uniting this global community as we confront our daily uncertainties and challenges.

Shout out to my eastern European audience - I'm very glad to have your support.

Love, Es

Book 194: Fascism: A Warning by Madeline Albright (Audiobook read by author)

Well, this was one of the most disturbing books I've ever read.

I'm not sure what your political views are, but I have been closely following the insanity documented by the press ever since my world was completely changed in 2016. I'd heard the word "fascism" a thousand times before, but never knew the depth of that term's meaning. I have a lot of respect for Madeline Albright, so I figured if anyone was going to give me the lowdown, it would be her. 

Albright didn't disappoint me - although I did sometimes wish she would have paid a narrator instead of reading the book herself. (At a few points, it was clear that her voice was fatigued, and I sort of felt bad for her.) She presented a historical perspective on the fascists in history and did it incredibly well. Then she turned the tables on me and pointed her attention at today's political environment here in the U.S. 

Fascism is about riling up people, using their anger and nationalist tendencies to build political support. Truth has no place in fascist strategy - lies are much more effective. Fascists play on fears, ignorance, and pride (not good pride.) In her book, Albright profiles Hitler, Mussolini, and many lesser-known world leaders in this book to illustrate how fascism takes hold within otherwise civilized societies. 

Toward the end, Albright provides her readers with a list of questions that people should ask themselves about their leaders. This was enormously helpful for me. 

I hope you'll read this book. Thanks. 

Book 191: The Shape of Water by Guillermo Del Toro and Daniel Kraus (Audio book)

The movie was beautiful, poignant, and well made, but the book had more of an impact on me. I was happy to have it as company on a really long road trip. And it was really good.

This book is unique, because its author was also the director of the movie. Guillermo Del Toro - who made the most disturbing movie I've ever seen (Pan's Labrynth) - has created a book that is engaging on so many levels.

In the book, some of the characters are more well cultivated in the book than they were in the movie. Some characters are more interconnected than I originally thought, and at least two did not exist at all in the movie but appeared prominently and were in fact instrumental to the story in the book.

The story of the Gill God, Eliza, Giles, Zelda, and Strickland and his wife Elaine is an incredible one. It begins in the jungle and ends in Baltimore sometime in the 1960s. On their regular rounds as custodians for a scientific research facility, Eliza and Zelda encounter an amazing creature being held captive in a lab. When Eliza - who is mute - discovers that she can communicate with the creature, they become inseparable. The story that unfolds is one of courage, strength, and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.

I hope you'll pick up this book because it was worth reading, even after seeing the movie and having a preconceived notion of what things looked, felt, and sounded like.

Book 190: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (Audiobook)

I am so-o-o-o lucky to have a coworker who is happy to share her advanced listener's copies of audio books. That's how I got my hands on this fantastic book.

It started out a little bit slow... but in no time I was hooked on the story so cleverly assembled by the authors. Every time I had to get out of the car, I was upset that I didn't have more time to listen.

The Wife Between Us is the story of two women who fall in love with the same man. Their stories are interwoven in such a way that it's almost impossible to tell them apart. And when the surprises come, they aren't just surprises... they're thrills... the kind that give you goosebumps when you realize you've been wrong all along.

I can't tell you much more without blowing the big secrets in the book, but the themes are clear. Abuse comes in many forms. Perception is everything. And people who will lie about the little things will lie about big things.

Definitely, definitely, definitely pick this up and read it. And pay attention.

May 15 - The Halfway Point for the May Guest Blogger Project

Well, it's May 15, which should be the halfway point for the May guest blogger project, but it looks like we'll be heading into June (just a bit) to be sure to include everyone.

I've learned some important lessons thus far:

1) Everyone - and I do mean everyone - has a story to tell.

2) My guest bloggers love when other people react to their stories. (Keep the comments and the shares coming!)

3) Not every post is right for everyone, and that's okay. We all digest these blog posts differently. It's why I decided to ask such a wide variety of writers to contribute.

Keep on reading - there's more gold coming in the second half of the month!

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Follow me on Medium for more original content!

Hey readers! Thanks for your support! Follow me on Medium for more original posts! 

I'm a member of the Medium Partnership Program, which means I make a little money with my words when you read my posts. If you love an article, clap for it, because it makes my writing more visible to other readers on Medium. 

Click here: https://medium.com/@estherhofknechtcurtis 

Thank you!

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Tomorrow, the adventure begins.

I am so excited to present to you, beginning tomorrow, May 1, my guest blog project.

Each day, you’ll find a new blog post from a featured author who may be your neighbor or a bestselling author. They may live on the other side of the world or right down the road. I’m so pleased to be the window through which you’ll get your view of their work.

Some authors have never told their own stories. Some haven't put pen to paper since high school. Nevertheless, their stories are beautiful, unique, and important. In some cases, you’ll learn something completely new.

I hope you’ll come back every day in May to read these fantastic blog posts. I’m so proud to present them to you.

Much love,

Esther Curtis
The Ardent Reader
www.parrotcontent.com

Calling all would-be bloggers!

Have you ever thought about what stories or wisdom you can offer to others? Well, maybe it's time to see what you can do!

I'm dedicating the month of May to guest bloggers. So far, 17 people have decided to take the plunge. Their topics include everything from their own book recommendations to living with chronic illness, recovering from addiction, and more.

If you'd like you try your hand at blogging, please send me an email about yourself and the topic you'd like to write about! I'll assign you a date and you can take it from there. If you don't know how to start, let me know, and we can work on your post together. The more diversity and variation, the better! Email me at ejhcurtis@gmail.com if you'd like to take the plunge.

Your voice matters! Let's hear it!

P.S. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I reserve the right to reject any blog submissions that I deem inappropriate for my audience. No hate speech or profanity will be tolerated!

The Willingness to Expand - Organically.

My blog is not a fancy blog. But it's my blog, and it's a good blog. It's had almost 30,000 views as of today. I'm proud of my blog. It's pretty, and it's chock full of good stuff.

I've had this blog for eight years. I'm almost 39 years old, so I've maintained this blog for almost 21% of the time I've spent on earth. In that time I've read countless books (185 were reviewed here) and explored topics that mean so much to me.

I started The Ardent Reader after my second child was born. I had part time job in a nonprofit and I had extra time every afternoon after work to read. I was married then, I drove a minivan, and I had a dog. That seems like such a long time ago.

For me, this blog is so much more than being about reading. Reading is, of course, important, but when I realized what reading could do for me as a mother, a professional, a woman, this blog changed. It has become something else: evidence of my own deliberate cultivation of myself. I went from a young mother with an newly-earned associate's degree and half decent writing talent to an educated professional writer with two kids both on the path to excellence themselves.

I learned that in all things, I strive to be genuine. The practice of blogging has helped to reveal this particular aspect of my personality. It helped me realize I don't want to compromise my strongest held values, and it led to some of the hardest life choices I ever had to make. Here's a blog post called Living an Authentic Life, which I posted on my shorter-term blog, My Ten Bucks. 

A week or so ago, news broke that Russian hackers had used people's nationalism coupled with their own ignorance to divide us and undermine the validity of our elections. Twitter cut thousands of "bot" accounts overnight, and some folks lost thousands of followers in the process. And that night, I didn't lose a single one. In fact, I gained a few. For me, this was evidence that by cultivating this blog and my Twitter following slowly and organically, I had hit the right people. Real people.

Maybe I don't have thousands of followers on my blog but I know the ones I do have are people I want to have on my team. I want you to know how much you mean to me, dear reader, and that I appreciate your continued readership.

Thanks.

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Whew.

So you are aware, reading two books a week is not getting any easier. If anything, it's getting harder. Thank goodness for insomnia or book 161 would have been delayed another day, which would have shortened the time I would have had to read my next book. It's a bit like trying to keep up with a speeding train, only I'm both the engineer driving the train and the idiot running behind it.

As soon as I finish one book, I barely have enough time to relish its completion before beginning the next one. That makes me a little sad, but writing about each book helps me close it out, say goodbye, and move on. I look forward to finishing the book so that I can write about it.

I've quickly realized that having two or three books in progress is the only way I'm capable of accomplishing this goal. Right now I've got a partially finished hard copy book on my nightstand and another on my desk at work, a Kindle e-book on deck, an audio book on CD in my car, and an Audible book on my phone.

Before I started doing this, I thought people who jumped back and forth between books were crazy. Now I'm doing it and somehow it's working. I do feel like more of my neurons are firing, so maybe my brain is reorganizing its neural pathways to keep up with this level of absorption. It's teaching me new ways of paying attention.

Onward!

Preparing to Begin Again!

Dear Readers:

Advanced education is a must in today's professional world, so in 2013 I decided to finish my bachelor's degree with Thomas Edison State University in Trenton, NJ. Immediately after finishing my coursework for the bachelor's degree, I enrolled in Wilmington University's accelerated Master of Science in Management-Health Care Administration program. I'm now three months from finishing my master's degree.

As you might imagine, being a full time student for the past four years has made leisure reading a luxury. Time was not the problem... it had to do with ability. At the end of a workday and a half hour of homework, I just couldn't absorb any more. My brain was like a saturated sponge. I've started ten times the books I've finished, and those I've finished had to be ridiculously good to keep me motivated to finish them before they were due back to the library. I've kept notes on some of the ones I did read; and I'll blog about them as I can remember them. The half finished ones will never make it into this blog.

Still, my coursework had little impact on my ability and desire to devour audiobooks. In fact, I almost completely switched to audiobooks, because listening in the car takes a lot less effort. There are disadvantages, though. It takes longer to finish some books because I read fast, but audiobooks go at their own pace. And it is always a bit frustrating when I would like to re-read something I heard in the audio version, but can't find it again as easily as I might if I was reading a book. All in all, it was a good trade off; in a way I was still reading, though I wasn't capable to sit down with a book at the end of the day.

I have many goals for the infinite number of days ahead of me that will not require me to participate in online discussion forums, take quizzes, or write yet another paper on the Affordable Care Act or medical marijuana. These goals include learning French, losing 30 pounds, and teaching myself how to watercolor and play the banjo. (Incidentally, all of those goals will be attained through reading, to a large extent.) I figure reading a book a week again will be a piece of cake when it's the only goal that has a weekly deadline.

I hope you will continue with me on this journey to find myself through books. I'll resume blogging more frequently in the coming weeks.
❤