Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals:

• A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Alice Faye Duncan and Xia Gordon,
• Mirabel's Missing Valentines by Janet Lawler and Olivia Chin Mueller, and
• Thunder Pug by Kim Norman and Keika Yamaguchi, all from Sterling Children's Books for review

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Howard's End by E. M. Forster
• Kivalina: A Climate Change Story by Christine Shearer
• Thunder Pug by Kim Norman and Keika Yamaguchi
• A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Faye Duncan and Xia Gordon
• Mirabel's Missing Valentines by Janet Lawler and Olivia Chin Mueller
• Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War, Ed. by Roy Scranton and Matt Gallagher

I had a great reading week. 

Currently reading:

• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
• The Free Speech Century by Stone and Bollinger
• The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber

By the end of the week I'd only read a handful of pages of Old Baggage (maybe a dozen? 17?) so I decided to just start over from the beginning after I finished Fire and Forget. Now I'm about halfway in and loving it. There is no such thing as a bad book by Lissa Evans; she is absolutely brilliant. I wish I had a brain like hers. The Free Speech Century sat unopened, this week, but I hope to read a couple chapters, tonight. It's a read that requires concentration and will take me a long time to get through but it's worth the effort. 

The Book of Strange New Things is a book my eldest brought with him and insisted that I must read, when he and the granddaughter came for a visit. In fact, he asked me why I didn't add it to my post about the books I plan to challenge myself to read in 2019. I said it's because it doesn't fit into any of the categories of books that I listed, but he's right. It's a book I've planned to read in 2019, so it might as well have gone on the list, along with a book my other son has been begging me to read for probably 5 years, now: Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey: From the OSS to the CIA by Joseph E. Persico. I'll update the post and add a "Books my kids insist I must read" section. 

Posts since last Malarkey:

• Friday Black: Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (book review) I'm embarrassed to have just now noticed that I misspelled Adjei-Brenyah's last name in the subject line. Just updated that. 
• Soon by Andrew Santella (book review)
• Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and Vivian Maier (book review)
• 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do by Amy Morin (book review)
• Fiona Friday: Pretty girl (cat photo) 

I didn't manage to post twice a day but I'm happy that I managed to post every day and one of those days I posted two reviews. Since I had a terrific reading week, obviously it's going to take me even longer to catch up on reviewing but I've been doing a one paragraph review immediately upon finishing at Instagram and have reviewed quite a few of the books I've read at Goodreads, so I shouldn't have any trouble with reviewing, even if it takes me a while. I'll have plenty to jog my memory. Although, having said that, I haven't read anything that I consider easily forgettable. I've had a great reading year, so far.


In other news:

Kiddo was home, this weekend, and he chose Cowboys and Aliens for family movie time (which folded over into the next day because he had to go hang with his fiancé). What a bizarre movie. I'm pretty sure the cowboys fired more bullets than reasonably possible, given the time period and the lack of visible reloading, and more cowboys died than were actually in the movie -- at least, it sure looked that way -- but I still enjoyed it, maybe because of the weirdness level. I liked the idea of people facing aliens in a different time than present or future, as we're accustomed to seeing in movies. Otherwise, not a TV week at all. I didn't watch anything else beyond the news.

And, the big news of the day is that it's supposed to snow, tomorrow! Husband's workplace has already decided to shut down for the day. I can tell you that my hair and head are in agreement with the weather prediction. I woke up with super curly hair and a migraine. That means moisture and a change of air pressure are coming. I'm trying not to get excited in advance of snowfall because we're frequently disappointed but my hair is normally better at predicting the weather than the local meteorologists, so I feel pretty confident that something is coming.

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