Monday Malarkey

Back to Malarkey! I was in Hawaii, last week, although I managed to pre-post some reviews, for once. I'm generally not a pre-poster, but I wanted to get as many reviews up as possible, since our August trip already threw me behind.

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• My Little Cities: London,
• My Little Cities: New York,
• My Little Cities: Paris,
• My Little Cities: San Francisco, all by Jennifer Adams and Greg Pizzoli - board books from Chronicle Books (Hatchette) for review
• When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele - from St. Martin's Press for review 
• Iowa (poetry) by Lucas Hunt - from the author for review
• A Bold and Dangerous Family by Caroline Moorehead - from Harper for review
• Rufus Blasts Off by Kim T. Griswell and Valeri Gorbachev, 
• Dough Knights and Dragons by Dee Leone and George Ermos, and
• Goodnight Little Bot by Karen Kaufman Orloff and Kim Smith, all from Sterling Children's Books for review

I had a little trouble getting myself to stop obsessing over the news about the Las Vegas shooting and Tom Petty's death, today (and now I'm hearing Tom Petty is "clinging to life" - I'll be the first to celebrate if he lives), and it was the fact that the My Little Cities books were sitting right next to me that helped pull me away from the news. I read all four and I'll read the three Sterling Children's books, in a bit. Children's books are a definite upper. 

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• An American Family by Khizr Khan 
• Alan Cole is Not a Coward by Eric Bell

Yes, only two books in two weeks. Ugh. I'm clearly the exception to the Vacation Reading Rule. I just can't concentrate on a plane or even in an empty hotel room while my husband is off working. Or, on the beach. I have to watch the waves and the people. I did read. Just not much. Alan Cole is Not a Coward is going down as one of my favorites of the year, though. When I finally got around to opening it, I could not put that book down. I can't wait to tell you more about it. Khizr Khan's memoir is also wonderful - very inspiring and, of course, heartbreaking.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• The Way to London: A Novel of WWII by Alix Rickloff (book review)
• Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis (book review)
• Noor's Story: My Life in District Six by Noor Ebrahim (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Cover Girl Isabel (cat photo) 
• No Malarkey (cat photo)
• The River at Night by Erica Ferencik (book review)
• Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (book review)
• The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso (book review)
• Fiona Friday - My napping buddies (cat photo)

Currently reading:

• Iowa by Lucas Hunt (poetry)
• The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker
• Spies in the Family by Eva Dillon
• The Goddess of Mtwara

Misleading, again. I'm focusing on Iowa because I was in the mood for poetry and nothing else was appealing to me, a couple days ago. I will tell you more about it, later, but while there are poems I don't "get" (almost always true in any volume of poetry), the vast majority of the poetry in Iowa is about things that remind me of home (Oklahoma, not Iowa - there are some major similarities): corn, wheat, gravel and dirt roads, empty beer cans, lying in a field at night watching the stars, working under a hot sun, etc. It just feels like a slice of home and I'm sure a lot of Midwestern poetry lovers will especially get a kick out of it. I'm reading it deliberately at a slow pace, even though I'm kind of in the midst of a slump and would probably read slowly, anyway.

The Half-Drowned King is what I spent most of my time on in Hawaii. I'm enjoying it but I'm only about 1/4 of the way in. I don't know if that's because I was tired at the end of the day or it's just a slow read but it is, in my opinion, solid storytelling and worth the effort to forge onward, slump or not. I haven't touched The Goddess of Mtwara because I left it at home. And, I read a mere 27 pages of Spies in the Family (but, again, I was enjoying it) before I decided to focus on The Half-Drowned King. So, we'll see what I manage to finish besides children's books.


In other news:

I had trouble finishing this post because I was glued to the news, today, so I'll leave you with a single photo from Hawaii, a phone pic of a sunset on Maui (I took a lot of Toes in Paradise shots, on this trip).

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