Monday Malarkey

Last week was fun and awful, but mostly fun. The fun part was an adventure that led to the purchase of the bottom two books on this stack. The awful part was insomnia, which is continuing to dog me, and not a lot of reading. But, today I've made up for the bad part of last week by napping and staying in bed most of the day to finish a book. If you have the ability to catch up after a bad reading week, you should definitely take advantage.

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• The Global Novel by Adam Kirsch - from Columbia Global Reports for review
• The Odds of You and Me by Cecilia Galante - from William Morrow for review
• My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem,
• You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein, 
• Setting Free the Kites by Alex George, and
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders - all purchased

Husband and I drove to Off-Square Books in Oxford to see Alex George in a production of Thacker Mountain Radio and buy a finished copy of his book, on Thursday. I didn't get to chat with Alex for as long as I'd have liked because we were running late and I was afraid we weren't going to get seats (Huzzybuns had decided to stay outside to make a phone call or text or something -- who knows, I needed to find the bathroom and the place was humming). Here's a view from our seats, before the show began:

The empty chairs were being held and there were only two more rows behind us, which filled quickly. I didn't turn around but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was Standing Room Only. The show was great fun and Alex did a marvelous reading/interview segment.


Books finished since last week's Malarkey:

• The Last One by Alexandra Oliva - the book I stayed in bed to finish, today, was the only book I finished. I'd really like to just keep reading all week, as you can see from the tweet I posted immediately upon finishing the book:

Last week's posts:

• The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking (book review)
• March, Books 1-3 by Lewis, Aydin, and Powell (review of book series)
• Dragon Springs Road by Janie Chang (book review)
• The Possessions by Sara Flannery Murphy (book review)
• Geekerella by Ashley Poston (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Just relaxing (cat photo)

The reason for the large number of posts? I realized I had not even finished writing reviews of the books I read in January and February was about to end. So, I whipped out 5 of them, finishing up January and nearly completing February because it was kind of a crap month. It's nice not to be quite so far behind.


Currently reading: 

• You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein - This was recommended to me as a "feminist" read, by a friend on Twitter. I would not particularly consider it a feminist read; it's more of a memoir with moments of feminist insight. But, it will do. 
• Metaphors Be With You by Mardy Grothe - Someday I'll finish this book. A book of quotations is clearly better as a reference than a book that's read from cover to cover, but I'm enjoying it when I pick it up. It must have at least 50 flags marking favorite quotes - very colorful. 

I just finished a fiction read, so I'm in that in-between space, again, but I'll either read the new Joshilyn Jackson or A Man Called Ove (our F2F selection), next.


In Other News:

Our trip to Oxford had been on the calendar for months and originally Huzzybuns intended to take Thursday off completely, so we could make a day of it. At the last minute, he found out that there were going to be visitors in the lab and he needed to be there to greet them. So, that's why we just barely made it before Alex George's event began. After he signed my books (the finished copy and my ARC, which I'll give to a friend), we walked to the main store, Square Books, to buy a copy of Lincoln in the Bardo. The employee who rang up my purchase told me there are 166 voices in the audio version and George Saunders recruited people from the audience to play various roles, when he was in town. Oooooh. I wish I'd gotten to see that!

We ate out with Kiddo, spent the night in a hotel, then drove up to Memphis to visit our new IKEA store. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited we are to have an IKEA within 4 hours' drive of us. After IKEA, we went to a couple other stores, drove back to Oxford, ate with Kiddo and Fiancee, then we drove home and were completely worthless for the next 24 hours. It was a super fun trip.

How was your week?

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