This is mostly not a memoir about this man’s body. It’s a series of vignettes, in no particular order, about the life he’s led which got him to where he is now. He’s a guy who has sort of lumped through life. Had some challenges like Crohn’s disease and weirdnesses at art school, trying to make and keep friends, meet women. He paid his way through some of this doing painting at a wooden shoe factory. It’s disjointed at times but a good read overall.

A dense book with two parallel stories: one about an older female historian nearing retirement and dealing with infirmities who finds a hidden cache of documents, the other about a Jewish scribe in 1650s London, struggling to survive as the plague approaches. The historian is joined by a young American Jewish man working on his PhD. A LOT of interesting and well-told Jewish history (from Portugal, Spain, the UK, and Israel) and a story line which keeps you engaged.

This is the second book in a series I started a while ago. It’s one of those “All the books will be at the library” types of series, a straightforward--forensic archaeologist and cops encounter weird stuff on the salt marshes and need both of their skill sets to investigate-- thing. The archaeologist is a middle-aged Vera-style frumpy no-nonsense woman who, in this book, is pregnant and so there’s that subtext as well. There’s some interesting delving into UK and Roman history. A solid read.

Kevin brought a stinky egg to school and now everyone is calling him Eggboy. One of his old friends isn’t talking to him. His other friends are just as nerdy as he is. His grandma from the old country has moved in with their family because his dad left. His seamstress mom is stressed. There’s a school field trip. It’s a tough time to be Kevin. This is a great graphic novel, so evocatively done. Kevin feels real, proud to be nerdy but still trying to figure it all out.

In a small community in Scotland where everyone knows everyone, one of the families is planning a party. We meet two extended families (the laird and the other his childhood friend - both now grown with families) and the folks in their orbits. It’s mostly well-off people and their trials and tribulations as they get ready in the months preceding a very big shindig. I really enjoyed getting to know some of the ins and outs of rural Scotland, at once both familiar and not.

A graphic novel for tweens about a girl going to a new school who wants to do math club but winds up in swim club. She doesn’t know how to swim and eventually learns to swim and learns to be part of a team. This book touches on the racist history of Black people being denied access to pools and beaches (and offers further reading on the topic in the end notes) though it’s not the central point of the story which is about teamwork and overcoming fears.

A book that is about a lot of stressful stuff--a bank robbery, some bad relationships, people with complicated lives--but you can see partway through that it’s heading somewhere sweet and gentle. A little less relentless than A Man Called Ove (if you read that one) but the same type of writing. I enjoyed trying to figure out where it might go. Don’t let the title make you think it might just be a lot of people being nervous and upset. There’s some of that but not too much.

This book was suggested by my librarian after I returned “Big Jim and the White Boy.” This is another Jim-centered reimagining of Huckleberry Finn. My enjoyment of this was only marred by thinking “What is wrong with me that I haven’t read anything by Percival Everett before?” Really well-told, a mixture of his relationship with Huck but also the US’s relationship to slavery and enslaved people just before the Civil War. Hard to read in parts, as you would expect; more humor than you might expect.

A world basically the same as our own except there’s an app where you can hire a person to play a role for you in your life. Usually this is just “Attend a wedding/funeral/party with me” but sometimes it’s “Help me raise my young child, come every Thursday and pretend you’re her dad” Told through the eyes of the stranger/Dad who has his own story that only slowly gets told. I liked it, weird and a little funny with some empathy and some “wtf?”

Kathy lived in Bangkok with a Thai mom and an American (and older) dad. Her family is quiet. They do a lot of things separately. They take summer trips to Maine. Kathy doesn’t feel at home in Thailand OR the US and this graphic novel takes place mainly as she goes to her first year of summer camp in Maine and tries to figure out her family, and herself. I liked the storytelling, and there was always a lot going on in every panel. It didn’t feel like the usual introvert’s angsty memoir.