Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (left to right):

• The Last Woman in the Forest by Diane Les Becquets and
• Layover by David Bell - both from Berkley/Penguin Random House for review 
• The Unspeakable Mind by Shaili Jain, M. D.,
• The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins,
• The Binding by Bridget Collins, and 
• On Democracy by E. B. White  - all from HarperCollins for review

Getting in the Easter spirit, here. That's my mantel bunny, who comes out annually. So . . . great mix, again. The Binding says it's literary fiction but it sounded like something my future daughter-in-law would like and maybe a little different from my normal fare (due to the magical elements) so I got it partly for the change of pace, partly to share. As expected, future DIL said she is interested and wants to borrow it when I finish. On Democracy and The Unspeakable Mind are both nonfiction, the former by the E. B. White of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little fame. It is a series of writings by the late author during a similar time of political change, with fascism on the rise. I've got a book of E. B. White's essays, so there may end up being some crossover (I haven't looked) but I'm hungry for wise words, right now, and very excited about On Democracy. The Unspeakable Mind is about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, something I've read about indirectly (in novels, where people are experiencing PTSD or being treated for it) but never really spent any time studying, so I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton is historical fiction about a slave who murdered her owners. Layover is a psychological thriller and The Last Woman in the Forest is a mystery thriller. Hmm, sounds like I'm going to need something light after this batch! Fortunately, I have some children's books winging their way to me, soon.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn
• The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner

Both were excellent reads. The Last Year of the War took me about 4 or 5 days to finish but a part of me didn't want it to end. I loved that story. One of the reasons it took me so long was that it occasionally made me tear up, so I'd have to set it aside and walk away for a while.


Currently reading:

• The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project by Lenore Applehans 

I plan to add at least one more title, tonight. We'll see how that goes. I've been excited about Lenore's latest for ages, so it's one I pre-ordered. And, since Lenore is one of us (at least she used to be a book blogger), her book gets priority.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• Devil's Daughter by Lisa Kleypas (book review)
• Learning to See by Elise Hooper (book review)
• A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn (book review)
• Fiona Friday (cat photo)

In other news:

I don't remember whether it was Saturday night or the night before that we found ourselves sitting on the sofa, worn out from the day's chores, but I was in charge of the remote and had never seen the 2005 version of Yours, Mine, and Ours. So, I clicked on it when I happened across it on some movie channel (I don't recall which one -- not sure I even knew at the time). I've seen the 1969 version with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball and maybe a random scene or two of this one, but I'd never seen the entire movie and neither had Huzzybuns. I don't think he enjoyed it quite as much as I did but he didn't disappear into another room, so he must have enjoyed it at least a little. Now, I want to see the older movie, again. It's been a very long time since I saw the original.

The 2005 version has a terrible rating at IMdB and Rotten Tomatoes, so I have to wonder if I'd have disliked it if I was unfamiliar with the original, which I remember loving (so I had positive expectations). I thought Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo had excellent on-screen chemistry.

TV viewing was limited to NCIS and Chicago Fire (because I enjoyed it so much, last week), although Kiddo, who was home for Spring Break, turned on Eureka and we enjoyed watching a little of that. I'd never even heard of the show. Not a big TV person, obviously.

The rest of the week was spent alternately doing chores and peering out the window because our deck was ripped out on Monday and Tuesday and then some men showed up to do a bit of measuring and cleaning on Thursday, and they ripped out trees, moved dirt, and dug a trench in our yard on Friday. All this is the beginning of the work to replace our deck with a two-level patio. The trench serves as the outline of the upper level, which will have slightly different dimensions than our deck did. It's pretty exciting to trudge out to that mess (we have to go around the house; you can't get off the covered patio, at this point, or you'd sink into a pile of dirt and end up stuck behind a trench) to visualize what's coming.

That's my week in a very large nutshell. How was yours?


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.