It's Monday! What are you reading?

It took me awhile to recover from reading Jim Butcher's Brief Cases.  Not because it left me emotionally wrought (like Tara Westover's Educated); it was such a fun grownup read, I just didn't feel like delving into kid lit or anything serious right away.

But then my son and I went to the public library to get some work done...and of course, I had to check out some books.  No kid lit--I've got a pile of that at home to tackle--but some familiar names and topics I've been meaning to explore:  Carolyn Myss' Archetypes:  Who Are You?, and Jean Shinoda Bolen's Goddesses in Older Women:  Archetypes in Women Over Fifty.  
      

Archetypes, by Carolyn Myss, presents a thought-provoking way to look at your personality, drive, and motivation--and to gauge those aspects in others.  Myss focuses on ten archetypes that tend to define most women, though explains that her book is by no means exhaustive or meant to cast confining stereotypes; we are not completely defined by one archetype or another.  Of course, the same framework of thought can be applied for all people; there's an interesting quiz on archetypes.com to help you gain insight into your own personal archetypes.  I took the quiz, as well as my husband and son, and it was interesting to see the overlap in our results.  

Bolen's book was published more than a decade before Archetypes.  Goddesses in Older Women approaches the idea of archetypes from a totally female perspective, using a different framework than Myss.  I'm looking forward to comparing the two when I get started on Bolen's work.

As for my pile of kid lit,  I'm halfway through another Bluebonnet Award Nominee:  Captain Superlative, by J.S. Puller.

Janey keeps a low profile at her middle school, mostly as a safeguard from the school bully/soccer star princess, Dagmar.  No matter; Dagmar tends to pick on one special victim, Paige.  No one will stand up to Dagmar...until Captain Superlative shows up in a homemade superhero costume, complete with mask.  She disrupts the status quo by opening doors, picking up trash, and (gasp) standing up to Dagmar, albeit with nothing but kind honesty.  Just who is Captain Superlative, and why is Janey feeling all abuzz since her arrival?

I'll be finishing Captain Superlative tonight!--then returning to my grownup books to sort out my own archetypes.  After that, I'll be dipping back into the "Mueller Report"...a good reader always has books waiting to be read!

It's Monday!  What are you reading right now, and what do you have waiting in your to-read pile?