I’m glad I decided to participate in the Seattle Arts and Lectures summer reading book bingo this year. The categories suggested for each square led me to variety of books and many great book discoveries that I most likely wouldn’t have found other wise. Below is the list of the squares starting in the top left and going across each row with comments about the books I chose to complete each square. I linked each of the titles to the book’s page on Amazon using my amazon associate ID. If you buy the book using my link I receive a few cents, and it’s greatly appreciated.
Seattle Arts & Lectures and The Seattle Public Library’s Book Bingo Adult Summer Reading 2023
Row One:
Joyful – drinking from the river of light by Mark Nepo – each of these essays on creativity and poetry brought me joy. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Seattle Reads (Past or Present) – The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka – I thought I would really like this story because I love to swim, but it lost its connection to swimmers and became about memory loss and also lot me.
Local Author – Ringing in the Dead by J. A. Jance – This is the first thriller novella I’ve read, and I enjoyed this story about a past case. I also was happily surprised that it mentioned Lake Tapps.
Hip Hop – Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 1 by Ed Piskor – though I enjoyed the story about Blondie’s “Rapture” overall I found this graphic novel pretty boring.
Includes a Recipe – Aphrodite by Isabel Allende – I’m not usually a fan of memoir, but this memoir about aphrodisiacs by one of my favorite fiction authors was a real treat. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Row Two:
Indigenous Author – Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty – This collection of connected stories was a great read. I really enjoyed it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Recommended by an Independent Bookseller – A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan – I read this one near the end of my blackout when I was looking for thriller novels. I found this one in my local independent bookstore’s email newsletter. It was a fun read about monster hunter looking for a Nessie-like lake monster.
Translated – The Sonnets by Jorge Louise Borges – I enjoy Borges fiction and have only recently started exploring his poetry. The man wrote a ton of sonnets, a large amount of them about historical figures.
Sea Creatures – The Swimmers by Marian Womack – This book was advertised as a dystopian reimagining of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, so I went ahead and read it too. And there are some noticeable echos of Wide Sargasso Sea in The Swimmers. And Wide Sargasso Sea is a story from the POV of the lady in the attic from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
Trans or Nonbinary Author – PET by Akwaeke Emezi – Though this book
Row Three:
Library Book List or Display – Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse – I found this one on the Recommended shelves near the entrance to my local library. Though I didn’t enjoy the characters being angels and demons or the world they lived in, the mystery of the story was interesting.
Tue Crime or Crime Fiction – Macbeth by Jo NesbØ – In true NesbØ fashion, this modernization of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a fun, violent crime thriller.
Free Space – Reductionism in Art and Brain Science by Eric R. Kandel – This is a non-fiction book about art and neuroscience. It looks at fMRIs and beauty, and talks about the viewer’s share as part of the creative process.
A SAL Speaker – Deaf Republic by Ilya Kominsky – This was a moving collection of connected poems that tell a story, showing the horrors of a fictional war. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Workers’ Rights – Thanks to Frances Perkins by Deborah Hopkinson (Author), Kristy Caldwell (Illustrator) – I had no idea what I was going to read for this square, but luckily I found this picture book about the first woman to be in a president’s cabinet who also invented social security. This was full of interesting information. I shared it with my mom and she really enjoyed it too. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Row Four:
Debut Essays or Short Stories – A Sliver of Darkness by C. J. Tudor – This collection of short stories was said to be horror, but it wasn’t scary. Some of the stories were fun reads.
Older Protagonist – The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman – This is the second novel in The Thursday Murder Club series. Though I didn’t like it as much as the first one, it was still a fun read.
Chosen by the Cover – The Hours by Michael Cunningham – When I picked this up at my library, I was surprised to find the little pocket-sized hardcover Picador Modern Classics version. It not only had a pretty cover, I enjoyed the reading experience. I enjoyed reading this shortly after reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
BIPOC Poetry Collection – The Country Without a Post Office by Agha Shalid Ali – As a collection, I wasn’t very excited by these poems, but the Ghazals in this collection were the first that really helped me see the power of the form.
Manga or Graphic Novel – The Night Eaters by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda – This graphic novel, though pretty disturbing, has beautiful artwork.
Row Five:
Read with a Friend – The Music Lover’s Poetry Anthology by Maureen McCarthy Draper and Helen Handley Houghton – This is by far my favorite poetry anthology that I’ve read. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
BIPOC or LBGTQIA+ Horror – The Atrocities by Jeremy Shipp – This was a quick-read gothic horror reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, but isn’t very memorable.
Audiobook or E-book – The Secrets of Human Perception by Peter M. Vishton – This series of lectures on perception is in depth and really interesting.
Same Author, Different Genre #1 – Hagseed by Margaret Atwood – This was a fun modernized re-telling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest set in a prison with prisoners putting on the play. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Same Author, Different Genre #2 – Angel Catbird by Margaret Atwood – When looking for a Margaret Atwood novel to read for this different genre square, I was happily surprised to find that she had tried her hand at comics. Enjoyed two of her Angel Catbird stories.
Thriller Novel Reading Bingo
As I finished up the Bingo Card, I started filling in as many squares as I could with thriller novels because I am revising my thriller, and want to read as much in the genre as I can. I decided to make my own reading bingo card just for thriller novels. Here’s what I came up with:
Here’s the PDF if you would like to print it out and join me: Thriller Novel Reading Bingo
You may want to play along as you read thrillers, mysteries, suspense and horror reading up to Halloween with Readers Imbibing Peril (this is the start post from last year, but it tells you what the challenge is). For once I remembered that it starts in September and not October.
Along with my thriller bingo, I’ll be switching up Reading Novels Like a Novelist (RNLN) to a thriller edition in which I compare ten thriller novels to explore some writing questions.
September’s also time for ModPo (Modern & Contemporary American Poetry) Live Symposium through Coursera.com. It’s free and a lot of fun. It starts this Saturday (Sept. 2). I hope you’ll join me and all the other poetry lovers who come back to be part of this poetry community year after year.
How has your summer reading been? What was your favorite book you read?
Experience Writing 