What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Mexican Wolf]

I haven't been reading too much lately, but I'm about 32,000 words into the novel I've been writing for Nanowrimo and I'm aiming for at least 55,000 by the end of the month.

[Mexican Wolf]

Finished Nanowrimo last night after writing 59,445 words in my novel, which is probably only about halfway through what I planned for it.

[Mexican Wolf]

I'm currently reading Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends, compiled and edited by Margot Edmonds and Ella Clark.

[Mexican Wolf]

I finished Voices of the Winds and am currently on Chapter 3 of Paradise of the Blind, a semi-autobiographical novel by Dương Thu Hương. Hương used to be a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party but was later arrested and then exiled and forbidden to return to Vietnam after speaking out strongly against and publishing several novels highly critical of the party and its leadership of Vietnam. The novel remains banned and the author remains exiled from Vietnam to this day. The novel so far has focused on the protagonist Hang's memories of the land reform policies that sharply divided her family along economic and political lines.

[Mexican Wolf]

It's been an unusually long stretch between reading books for me, so I'm diving back into the bookish waters with William McKeever's Emperors of the Deep, a nonfiction book all about sharks.

[Mexican Wolf]

I finished reading Emperors of the Deep last night. McKeever did a fantastic job explaining the biology, behaviors, and habitats of numerous different shark species; highlighting the tantamount importance of sharks as apex predators and oceanic custodians; and warning about how aggressively hunting and fishing sharks has threatened and will continue to threaten the health of the oceans without stronger protections in place.

I also appreciated McKeever's investigations into human trafficking on fishing vessels on the high seas and his detailed arguments about how shark conservation is mutually beneficial to sharks, coral reefs, seals, fishes, and humans. (And I'm thankful he discussed the positive impacts that reintroduced wolves have had on Yellowstone's ecosystem as an analogy for the similar benefits of shark conservation.)

Now I'm reading Tony Birch's novel The White Girl, about an Aboriginal grandmother in 1960s New South Wales trying to prevent her mixed-race granddaughter from being taken away by state authorities.

[Mexican Wolf]

I finished reading Emperors of the Deep last night. McKeever did a fantastic job explaining the biology, behaviors, and habitats of numerous different shark species; highlighting the tantamount importance of sharks as apex predators and oceanic custodians; and warning about how aggressively hunting and fishing sharks has threatened and will continue to threaten the health of the oceans without stronger protections in place.

I also appreciated McKeever's investigations into human trafficking on fishing vessels on the high seas and his detailed arguments about how shark conservation is mutually beneficial to sharks, coral reefs, seals, fishes, and humans. (And I'm thankful he discussed the positive impacts that reintroduced wolves have had on Yellowstone's ecosystem as an analogy for the similar benefits of shark conservation.)

Now I'm reading Tony Birch's novel The White Girl, about an Aboriginal grandmother in 1960s New South Wales trying to prevent her mixed-race granddaughter from being taken away by state authorities.

I'll always promote this. If you liked the shark book you should read the Karen Bakker's The Sounds of Life (if you haven't already.)
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691206288/the-sounds-of-life

Thanks for sharing! I'll check it out now that I'm finished The White Girl.