Monday Malarkey - Snow, the usual malarkey and what I did during the Super Bowl

I was fully expecting a snow-free winter but we got about 1/2" of snow, last week!  Unfortunately, my card reader died, so I haven't loaded any new snow pics.  The poppets above posed in 2011.  We've had at least 3 snows in the last 4 years!  Wild!  This time, I filled a gallon-sized Ziploc bag with snow and stashed it in my freezer so I can snow on myself in August (or, at least, admire the snow and think of cooler days when we're in that, "Dear God please, please, please give us a break from the heat" phase). 

This week's arrivals:

• Shadows in the Sun by Gayathri Ramprasad - from Hazelden (Perseus Books?) for tour
• Fallen Beauty by Erika Robuck - from NAL for tour

Last week's posts:

• Brain: The Man Who Wrote the Book that Changed the World by Dermot Davis (review)
• Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab by Pflugfelder and Hockensmith (mini review)
• Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (short stories - mini review with Nick & Tesla)
• Fiona Friday - Fun with a bag and tissue paper (cat photos)
• A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith (review)

Books finished last week (not reviewed, yet):

• Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
• This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash
• Spy Smuggler: Paul Lelaud, France 1942-44 by Jim Eldridge 

Currently reading:

• On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
• The Rosie Project by Graham Simsion
• The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman 

Switcheroo:

I had the Viking Age book from Sterling's Everyday Life series in my sidebar, last week, but all I managed to read was the introductory material and I kept glancing longingly at The Middle Ages from the same series till I realized I needed to switch titles. It makes a lot more sense to read about the Middle Ages in non-fiction while reading The Sunne in Splendour, a book about The Wars of the Roses, than to mix historical time and place.  So, I set Viking Age aside, plunked The Middle Ages in my sidebar and proceeded to promptly have 2 days of negligible reading progress.  Still, I do plan to get going on The Middle Ages, soon, so I guess I'll leave it in the sidebar unless I fail to get started.

And, other notes on reading:

The copy of The Rosie Project that I'm reading is (gasp!) an e-book!!!  After reading so many gushy reviews, I figured I really ought to snap it up when the e-book went on sale for $1.99.  I just began reading it late last night or early this morning.  To be honest, I can't remember which, but I'm loving it.

I had set The Sunne in Splendour aside for a couple weeks and just dived back into it, this weekend, but I started to get my Edwards and Richards confused and had to do some side reading about the Woodvilles, so I didn't get very far.  As I've mentioned before, this one may take me months to get through.  I'm enjoying it, though.

Just before the Super Bowl began, I was paging through Facebook posts and saw a link via PBS to an article listing 14 books you could read in the time it takes to watch the Super Bowl and thought, "Hey! That's a great idea!  I could have a little mini reading challenge during the Super Bowl." It made sense with just two of us hanging around and neither particularly interested in the football game.

So, I brought out several short books and read Spy Smuggler by Jim Eldridge, from Scholastic's "My Story" series of historical fiction masking as true stories (I still object to the combination of the "My Story" name without an author listed on the cover, which misleads readers into thinking they're about to read history from a primary source). It was an excellent story and I would have moved on to the next book on my pile but Huzzybuns turned on Downton Abbey, for me. I'm on the verge of giving up on this season of Downton but naturally I had to stayed tuned in for Sherlock.  There went the rest of the evening.

I'm sure all the Oklahomans watching Sherlock sat up straighter when Sherlock said his parents were in Oklahoma and he'd hate to interrupt them while they're working on their line dancing. We certainly thought that was a great moment.

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend and this week is off to a great start!

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