Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• Milkman by Anna Burns - purchased
• Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane and
• Operation Frog Effect by Sarah Scheerger - from Penguin Random House for review
• Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini - from HarperCollins for review
• So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernieres - purchased

An eclectic selection, as always. Milkman and So Much Life Left Over were on my wish list for a while but I don't recall what possessed me to place an order, although I have an inkling that I may have found Milkman at a good price and decided to go ahead and toss in the de Bernieres while I was at it.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• The Gown by Jennifer Robson
• Time is the Longest Distance by Janet Clare
• Freefall by Jessica Barry

This was a good reading week. I enjoyed all three books I finished, although Time is the Longest Distance has a melancholy tone (not my favorite). The Gown is historical fiction (historical/contemporary blend), Time is the Longest Distance is contemporary literature set mostly in Australia, and Freefall is a suspense/thriller about a woman who survives a plane crash and then must run for her life.


Currently reading:

• Howard's End by E. M. Forster
• The Free Speech Century by Geoffrey Stone and Lee Bollinger
• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans

I'm a little over halfway into Howard's End and still loving it. There are times I don't understand the nuances of turn-of-the-20th-Century English society and their dialogue but it's not enough to detract from the most entertaining scenes, and there are plenty of those. The Free Speech Century is going to take me a long time. I've got a paralegal certification under my belt but it's not the easiest thing to read, whether you've experienced reading law or not. It's worth the effort, though. I like what Oliver Wendell Homes and Louis Brandeis had to say about free speech and why it's so important for opposing viewpoints to be heard in a functioning Republic. Old Baggage is a Lissa Evans book, so I already loved what I've read but I'm not far into it. Evans has recently become a favorite author.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• 2019 Reading Goals (just what it sounds like: a list of goals)
• Ten Kisses to Scandal by Vivienne Lorret (book review)
• Tomorrow is Waiting by Kiley Frank and Aaron Meshon and a Fiona Friday pic (book review and cat photo)

I may do 2-a-day book reviews, this week, so I don't fall too much farther behind. I found myself struggling to write about Friday Black on Thursday, so I defaulted to Tomorrow is Waiting and didn't get that written till Friday. Since then, I've found the notebook in which I wrote a few words about each of the first few stories in Friday Black, so that should help. 

In other news:

We were planning to take a quick trip to Memphis, this weekend, but then we changed our plans at the last minute and ended up doing post-holiday tidying, instead, with some reading and a movie for breaks. The movie surprised me. Husband found a movie he wanted me to watch with him on the Hallmark Channel. It was a little hokey but it took place in South Africa, so we were both in it for the scenes with local wildlife.

Like most of the Eastern half of America, we had storms and then a bitter cold front, so part of the reason we stayed home was to avoid driving in stormy weather and make sure the house was prepared for the drop below freezing. So, that was probably it for genuine winter weather, here. I enjoyed a day of wearing fluffy boots and having an excuse to curl up under the blankets and read, when I wasn't cleaning.


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