Before there was writing, there was reading. In my earliest memories of kindergarten, I was sitting in the corner on my own reading, while other kids were playing. I couldn’t yet speak English (although born in Montreal, I only spoke Cantonese until I started school). But I loved reading quietly to myself.

Nowadays reading has become a luxury. I have been lucky to be part of a book club with my neighborhood friends – we’ve been meeting monthly for about a decade now. I’ve come to rely on those get togethers as meetings of a sisterhood of course, but also to keep me accountable to my reading challenge. Reading is learning, reading is growth, reading challenges my assumptions and makes me think. And boy oh boy, 2020 has provided a lot of opportunity to think. Unfortunately the pandemic happened, is still happening, and we have not physically met for book club in over 6 months. With work going on overload, my reading has taken a back seat.

But when you set your mind to it, guess what – it is possible! In October I read 5, FIVE books:

(excuse my crappy images, I am writing on my iPad, still trying to figure out WORDPRESS as a platform, and I am the least techy OG blogger that I know).

Each was wonderful in its own way. But each was also very sad, with even the “happiest” offering, opening with the main character’s suicide. I loved “Midnight LIbrary” so much that I tweeted at the author, Matt Haig – and he replied – how cool is that? How cool is he?

The one that is really sticking with me, though, is “Coming up for Air”. Check out my review on Goodreads if you want to know more …