Tuesday Twaddle after a lengthy absence

Recent arrivals:

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• Night Came with Many Stars by Simon Van Booy 

It's been about 6 weeks since I did a Malarkey post (and then I took a lengthy break, after a few more days). Since then, I've only acquired two books. Where the Crawdads Sing is my F2F book group's July selection. Night Came with Many Stars is my signed, finished copy of Simon's book. 

I did accidentally buy one book and I'm not even kidding, but I've forgiven myself because I got it for crafting purposes, not for reading. <shrugs> I just totally forgot I was on a book-buying ban, the night I ordered it. That makes a grand total of 4 books purchased in 2021: 2 for F2F discussion, 1 by a friend, 1 booboo purchase. I granted myself a Book Closeouts purchase to my exceptions as a mid-year break from the buying ban but I haven't had any interest in buying more books so I'll leave that for a time when I feel like I need an upper. Or, maybe it just won't happen. 

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• The Temple House Vanishing - Rachel Donohue
• Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang
• Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
• Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
• Remo: The Adventure Begins - Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
• Summer - Edith Wharton
• The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Han
• Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
• They Came Like Swallows - William Maxwell

Of all of the books I've read in the past month-and-a-half, only one was an ARC and I have to say . . . it's rather freeing finally reading almost exclusively off my shelves. I still have a couple leftover ARCs that I need to read and I've accepted one for tour but unless I get offered some children's books, there still won't be much coming in. I'm used to it, now. It was difficult, at first. I missed that "Every week feels like Christmas" sensation of regular book drops on the doorstep but most of what I've been offered has been on NetGalley and I just don't love e-books so I delete all offers that are only for e-books without much thought. 

Also, I've finally come to the conclusion that the only way I'm going to ever get NetGalley to work is if I ask someone to totally delete my account and let me open a new one because something has been hinky for years. I think I finally figured out the deal but I just don't like e-books enough to bother trying to get the problem fixed. 

Currently reading:

• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

My plan (since January) has been to dedicate July to Gone With the Wind and I'm on it. But, it's definitely going to take a good chunk of the month (although probably not the entire month). I've got three other books with bookmarks in them but I haven't touched a single one of them since I opened Gone With the Wind. I'm just enjoying the story too much to divert my attention away from it, when I have the time to read. 

Posts since last Malarkey:

• Night Came with Many Stars by Simon Van Booy (book review)
• The Gap by Benjamin Gilmour (book review) 
• Milkman by Anna Burns (book review) 
• Fiona Friday - Awkward family photos (cat photos) 
• The Musician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo, Rose Mellie Rose by Marie Redonnet, and The Address by Fiona Davis (mini reviews)

In other news:

Why'd you go away, Bookfool? Well, I guess I had a case of burnout. I just felt like I was done with blogging, at least for a while, and stopped. As I've said before, I have to write. It's just something that's in my blood and has been since childhood. So, I decided that I would not announce an official departure in case I wanted to come back. And, here I am. Can't go long without writing but for once I absolutely needed to stop writing (at least about books) for a short time. 

I am still watching Chuck, now on Season 4, Episode 22. Otherwise, we've just watched a few random episodes of this or that when we're bored but very little else. We spent our holiday weekend cleaning, going through boxes, setting aside things to donate, and rearranging things. Family was at the beach so it was just the two of us, again. That was fine because we had big plans for getting our messy closet tidied and we got a lot done and 4 bags of donations out the door. Success! Also, we had some nice grilled food on the 4th so it was all good. 

I will start hitting the backlog of reviews, this week, but some may be super short. It just depends on how I feel about them. Hope everyone is doing well and my American friends had a great weekend!

©2021 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

Recent arrivals (all purchased, clockwise from top left):

• The Joy of Botanical Drawing by Wendy Hollender
• The House on the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune
• Tokyo Ueno Station by Yū Miri
• The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni

I've already read two and both were excellent. My thanks to Paula and Eileen for the Sam Hell recommendation!

Books finished since last Monday Malarkey:

• Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams
• Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake
• One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
• Tokyo Ueno Station by Yū Miri
• 5-Minute Pete the Cat Stories by James Dean
• The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni

I set aside Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig. It just wasn't the right book for the moment, although I love his writing and I am freaking dying to read his new release, The Midnight Library. That may be my next purchase. We shall see. 

Currently reading:

• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

I finished The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, last night, and decided to set aside Lolly Willowes, which I started at the same time as Sam Hell and which is a very, very good book but maybe a little too similar to One Fine Day, stylistically. I will return to it, I just lost track of the characters after getting immersed in Sam's story and then started thinking about the fact that it had the same sort of atmosphere as One Fine Day, in a way (mostly because it's an older title; the two books are otherwise nowhere near the same), and decided that I didn't want to restart it to familiarize myself with the characters, right now. I'm only on p. 15 of Challenger Deep and I am in a flighty reading mood, obviously, so don't be surprised if it also doesn't stick.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD (book review)
• A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Fun with ribbon (cat photo)
• The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin (book review)
• Minnie's Room by Mollie Panter-Downes (book review)
• The Readers' Room by Antoine Laurain (book review)
• Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Claimed (cat photo) 

In other news:

Last week I watched a series called The Other One, a British comedy about a wife and daughter who find out the man of the house was a bigamist, after his death, and have to deal with both their grief and their newly intermingled lives.

There are only 7 episodes, including the pilot, and I can't recall which channel I watched this show on. BritBox, maybe? I don't think it was Acorn. Bottom line, it's more stupid than funny but The Other One is what I'd call stupid with heart, particularly in the relationship of the half sisters, Cathy and Cat. When they each find out about the half-sister they never knew, both are . . . kind of thrilled. They may be grieving and Cathy goes a little nutso, at one point. But, they both appreciate having a sister and Cat, in particular, is determined that "sister" must mean "friend". Also, best final episode ever. While I didn't find the series exactly laugh-out-loud funny, we were in hysterics over the ending. It was worth it for the ending alone.

We took a few short foodie road trips over Labor Day weekend. One was to the butcher and the grocery store in our favorite little MS town. Husband had heard the grocery store carried BBQ sauce from one of our favorite restaurants, The Blue Rooster, so we went to check that out and bought a bottle. We were surprised to find that they also carry the BBQ sauce made in my hometown (which I naturally think is excellent), Head Country.

That was Friday. Huz took off an extra day to make it a 4-day weekend. On Saturday, we drove to Donna's Produce #6, our favorite outdoor produce market. I just ate some of the honeydew we bought. Oh, wow. Best honeydew I think I've ever tasted. We also went to a little shop that's new, not far away. It's basically a storefront for a meat processing establishment, I think, but they had some terrific variety for such a small store. We bought crab-stuffed green peppers and ate them for supper on Saturday. Yum. Too crowded, though, and a bit ironically everyone at the outdoor market wore masks except for the cashier but there were a lot of under-the-nose or -chin mask-wearers in the meat market. So, if we go back to the meat store during the pandemic it'll have to be a quick in-and-out.

I can't remember what we did on Sunday. Hmm. On Monday, we were going to go fetch food from my favorite sandwich shop (they also do pizza) but they were apparently closed so that was a #fail. Later, we drove younger son's car back to his apartment. We had a socially-distanced chat on the patio on Saturday afternoon, but Kiddo and Daughter-in-Law came in separate cars, went to run some errands after, and then he was too tired to drive his car home. We planned to grab some chili con queso from our favorite taco place while we were in town dropping off Kiddo's car but they appeared to be closed, too, so that was another #fail. We're finding, though, that just taking a 30-minute drive is incredibly refreshing and helps blow away that trapped sensation that you get during a pandemic.

Our mask mandate ends in a couple weeks so we may feel a little less confident about shopping, at that point, and we're trying to squeeze in as many errands as we can, till then.

If you're American, how was your Labor Day weekend?


©2020 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

As often happens when I take a break (but not always -- I would have taken a break anyway, this past couple of weeks, because I was running out of books to write about), I was away on vacation part of  the time I've been away from blogging. I'm still recovering, having slept very badly since we returned. Plus, I think the shock of going from the 80s to the 30s (seriously, it's 37° out there, folks!) has given me a very mild cold.

Recent arrivals (left to right, top to bottom):

• Cupidity by Patricia Wood - gift from the author
• Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner - purchased
• The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker - purchased
• The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih - purchased
• A Duke Changes Everything by Christy Carlyle - Unsolicited from Avon Books
• The Truth Pixie by Matt Haig - purchased

There are some marvelous covers in this batch so I chose to show them off but they'd also make an oddly short stack because most of those purchases are thin books. The Mezzanine and The Wedding of Zein are for next year's challenge to find Perfect Little Books (link leads to a post about some Perfect Little Books I've read in the past). I got recommendations from friends on Facebook and placed an order (at least one more is coming, maybe 2) to get me started in January, since 2019 will be here in no time. I'm open to more suggestions. I want to find books that are around or under 200 pages, paced well, have strongly-written characters and plots with fantastic writing.

Cupidity by Patricia Wood was handed to me by the author when I asked her if that book, her second published book, was only available electronically. I started reading Cupidity while I was away but then it began to rain and I never did find the time to open it back up. Pat is the author of one of my all-time favorite books since I started my blog, Lottery. I've been to Hawaii and missed Pat by *this much* twice. This time, we were staying near her, again, and I managed to get in touch. She kindly invited us to hang out with her and her husband, introduced me to the Peach-Pear flavor of La Croix sparkling water (I will be haunting the stores till I find some) and we talked and talked. I also was excited to meet her gorgeous kitty, whose name I'm not sure I can spell. He's a sweetheart. I've just abandoned a book so I may go ahead and sneak in a reading of Cupidity. I'd only read 3 pages of Cupidity when the rain began but I was already appreciating Pat's sense of humor.

Lolly Willowes was recommended as a perfect fall read by another favorite author, Lissa Evans. I ordered it from Book Depository because I liked what I assume is its British cover -- the American one did nothing for me, but this one has a cat on it. Well, who could pass up a great cat cover?

And, The Truth Pixie is by Matt Haig, yet another favorite. I've only loved 2 out of 4 of the children's books I've read by Haig, but he manages to insert surprising bits of wisdom into all of his books, so I felt compelled to give this new children's book a go.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Monstrous Devices by Damien Love
• Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy
• The Truth Pixie by Matt Haig

Currently reading:

• D-Day: The WWII Invasion That Changed History by Deborah Hopkinson
• The Third Level by Jack Finney (short stories)

I was reading a third book -- the one I mentioned that I would need to return to review on the 15th, before leaving: The Splendor Before the Dark by Margaret George -- but it ended up being a DNF. I'll still write about it on the tour date because I think it's worth mentioning why it didn't work for me but probably will for plenty of other people. Also, it's a tour book so I kind of have to say something, don't I?


Posts since last Malarkey:

• Monstrous Devices by Damien Love (book review)
• Two Graphic Novels: Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka and To Kill a Mockingbird by Fred Fordham (book reviews)
• The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash (book review)
• Fiona Friday and a brief break (cat photo and chatter)

In other news:

I'm not generally a fan of beachy locations (I'm a mountain girl) but, wow, that was one relaxing vacation. It was a work trip for Huzzybuns, so I was free to sit on the lanai and read, visit with my author friend, shop, walk in the sand, etc. I loved the freedom to just spend the day doing whatever I felt like. I finished Marilla of Green Gables on a day that I just felt like reading. Part of my reading time was spent by the pool and part on the lanai and I did some sink laundry when I needed to take breaks. The seafood in Hawaii is amazing, too, so I had fun eating out.

I've just watched two more Hallmark Channel movies and I'm finding it surprising how much they reuse the same actors. I found myself comparing how convincing they were in their opposing roles, today, as 3 out of 4 of the love interests were repeat actors. I liked all 3 better in their first roles, which may mean it's just hard for me to switch gears. I found myself thinking, "He's a wealthy man with warm memories he's revisiting, not a small-town innkeeper!" Having said that, I liked 2 of the actors in their new roles, once I managed to turn off thoughts of their old parts.

Christmas in Homestead is about an actress and a mayor/innkeeper who fall for each other, similar to a Notting Hill type of storyline but without the quirky ensemble cast. Jessica is filming a Christmas story in Homestead, Iowa. She's recently broken up with her actor boyfriend and is planning to go to Fiji with a friend of hers for Christmas, since her presence at home is such a disruption (paparazzi follows her around). Her former boyfriend just happens to be playing her love interest in the movie she's filming.

Matt is the mayor of Homestead, a widower with a 10-year-old daughter who is a fan of Jessica's fantasy/action films. The two stars and the director are staying at the inn Matt and his sister inherited when their parents retired. He's never seen Jessica's films and isn't star-struck at all, but as they get to know each other, an attraction grows between them. Can they make the actor/small-town-guy relationship work? Or will her former boyfriend convince her to return to him? There's almost a secondary romance but not quite. It's more of a male/female friendship but it's cute.

The actor who plays Matt was also William Darcy in Christmas at Pemberley, which I loved, but I think I'd like him in any role. Jessica played an artist in The Art of Us. She's gorgeous enough to play an actress who must convince us she's a star who is followed around by photographers, but I liked the storyline of the other movie a bit better, although pieces of it made little question marks float over my head.

A Royal Christmas came on because I didn't switch off the Hallmark Channel fast enough and who am I to fight fate? I decided to go ahead and watch it.

Emily is a seamstress who has been dating Leo for a year. Leo is planning on spending Christmas with her family, but then he's called home and is forced to confess that he's the prince of a small nation near the South of France. He invites Emily to go with him.

Jane Seymour plays Queen Isadora, a prim and proper monarch who expects her son to marry a duchess named Natasha, who both has the proper background and has known him from childhood. The queen is dismayed at the casual manners of the American girl Leopold has brought home with him. Emily knows nothing about dinner etiquette, is a lowly commoner, and she likes to hang out with the downstairs help. Can she dissuade Leo from his plans to propose and get him back together with Natasha?

A Royal Christmas is predictable in every way, which is fine. I didn't care and I had to reach for the tissues, in the end. I thought Lacey Chabert was much more convincing in her other role (one of those innkeeper/busy businesswoman pairings) in which I saw her, but the prince was a bit Prince William-like in his features and I found him very believable. Jane Seymour was fun as the bitter queen. I am so loving this new channel. It's like comfort food . . . incredibly relaxing to watch gentle romance movies.

©2018 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

I was in Illinois for my nephew's wedding, this past weekend, and too tired for Malarkey. So, Tuesday Twaddle it is.

Recent arrivals:

• The Gown by Jennifer Robson - from William Morrow for review
• The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib - from St. Martin's Press for review

Books finished since last week's Malarkey:

• The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
• The Sadness of Beautiful Things by Simon Van Booy (reread)

The Last Ballad was so good it was hard to put down. Beautiful storytelling. This was my second reading of The Sadness of Beautiful Things. Also, beautiful writing, of course, but I prefer to read short story collections slowly and let each story roll around in my head for a bit before moving on to the next. I hope to get Beautiful Things reviewed as quickly as possible. I loved it so much that I wish I had time for a third reading (always true of Simon's books). 

Currently reading:

• News of the World by Paulette Giles

I've just started rereading News of the World for F2F group discussion -- a bit last-minute, but fortunately the book is short. I also read the intro to 1968 by Richard Vinen but I think I'm going to set that aside and read a book about D-Day, instead. I'll decide tonight. 1968 offers a unique perspective on the time period -- more of a world view rather than a strictly American look at the happenings during and around the year 1968. I'm just not sure it's what I'm in the mood to read, but if I set it aside it will only be temporary.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• Mac B., Kid Spy: Mac Undercover by Mac Barnett (book review)

Yes, just one post. I was too bent on getting ready for my weekend trip to give much thought to the blog, last week. 

In other news:

I love weddings. We arrived in Bloomington, Illinois to snow -- just flurries -- and that alone was a thrill for us. I think that's the earliest snowfall I've ever experienced. Prior to this snow (on the 12th), our earliest snow experience was on Halloween, when we lived in Michigan. The greeter at the airport gate said, "Welcome to snow!" I think she was just as surprised as we were. The wedding was held outdoors, in the evening, and it was probably in the 40s outside. Amazingly, the bride wore a sleeveless dress without a jacket. Blankets were available for guests. It was a truly unique and beautiful wedding.

We went to a farm with apples, pumpkins, some farm animals, a play area, a ride and a slide for the kiddies. It would have been a great place to take the grandchild if she'd been with us.

We also went to LaSalle, where we took a boat ride on a canal. The boat is pulled by a mule. Well, that was quite an experience! We enjoyed it immensely. I loved the historical information we learned from the crew and I had no idea that a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey. How'd I survive half a century without knowing that? This is my favorite photo, from inside the boat before the mule was hooked up and took us for a gentle ride.

Yes, they really are stubborn.

©2018 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

At least one of these kitties is sad about the fact that our granddaughter just left for the airport. The other is probably happy to emerge from her hiding space, after several days (Isabel). Fiona was captivated by our little munchkin and followed her everywhere.

No books arrived, this week. Not one. So, no "recent arrivals" column.


Books finished since last week's Malarkey:

• I Know You Know by Gilly Macmillan
• Never Too Young by Aileen Wientraub and Laura Horton

Currently reading:

• Sons and Soldiers by Bruce Henderson
• When Elephants Fly by Nancy Richardson Fischer

I decided I'd waited too long between readings, so I restarted Sons and Soldiers and am around 94 pages in. Enjoying it just as much as I did the first time I started it and I'm looking forward to some quiet reading time, after a few days of chaos and very little reading.

When Elephants Fly is YA about an 18-year-old whose family has a history of schizophrenia. Lily's working on keeping her life calm, trying to avoid becoming schizophrenic, as well. But, as an intern at the local newspaper, she's become involved in events at the local zoo. A baby elephant has been born and been rejected by her mother, who tried to kill her. Lily can relate because her mentally ill mother tried to throw her off a roof (thinking she would fly). What will happen to baby elephant Swift Jones? Can Lily stay calm and sane until the 12-year time period in which diagnosis is most likely to occur ends?


Posts since last Malarkey:

• Never Satisfied: The Story of the Stonecutter by Dave Horowitz (book review)
• No Frogs in School by A. LaFaye and E. Ceulemans (book review)
• If You're Going to a March by M. Freeman and V. Kim (book review)
• Allie All Along by Sarah Lynne Reul (book review)
• Business Pig by Andrea Zuill (book review)
• Look at Me! Wild Animal Showoffs by Jim Arnosky (book review)
• Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast: Mission Defrostable by J. Funk and B. Kearney (book review)
• The Day You Begin by J. Woodson and R. López (book review)
• How to Feed Your Parents by R. Miller and H. Aly (book review)
• Fiona Friday: Approval rating (cat photo)

Last week was Children's Week, so all of the reviews were reviews of children's picture books. I had all my posting finished by the time our visitors arrived and they got to indulge in a pile of freshly reviewed books at bedtime. I didn't ask about all of the titles they read but I found out I was correct in predicting that How to Feed Your Parents would be a giggle-inducing hit.

No other news, today. I'm sort of exhausted from having an indefatigable 3-going-on-4-year-old around, so I'm too sluggish to even remember if we watched any movies. I don't think we did! One episode of Endeavor is all I can recall. We did a lot of coloring and playing with toys, plunking on the piano, clicking on the typewriter, and chatting with cats. There may have been a wee bit of bouncing on the bed, as well. Pray for my recovery. :)

Happy Tuesday!

©2018 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

Happy Tuesday! Forgive the absence of a Monday Malarkey post. I was a mess, yesterday, thanks to a change in air pressure (migraine) and the after-effects of migraine med (sucky).

Recent arrivals:

• Unicorn Food by Kat Odell - from Workman Publishing, and
• Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech - from Harper - both for review via Shelf Awareness

I was kind of stunned to see Saving Winslow, a Sharon Creech book, offered via Shelf Awareness. She's a many-times-published Newbery Award winner and I've read quite a few of her books. I think I was even more surprised to receive a copy, since you don't always get the titles available for request. I would happily read it right this moment but it's a September release, so it's probably best if I wait. We'll see if I can contain myself. 

Unicorn Food's subtitle is "Beautiful Plant-Based Recipes to Nurture Your Inner Magical Beast" and it looks like a fun cookbook. The only problem I could see in flipping through the book was a big one, though: I have a feeling many of the ingredients will be difficult for us to acquire. I'll write a list, though, and see what I can come up with. It's an August release, so I have a couple months to see what we can gather to play with in the kitchen. 

Books finished since last malarkey:

• Goodbye, Sweet Girl by Kelly Sundberg

Yes, just a single book finished and it was a difficult one, the true story of escalating domestic abuse and the author's eventual escape. I'd hoped to finish up my middle reader, Nadya Skylung and the Cloudship Rescue, this morning, but I couldn't find it after waking up from a particularly vivid nightmare (I'd already been killed once and was trying to escape to avoid being killed a second time, in the same way, on a separate timeline -- huh, sounds like it would make an interesting book). It was in a perfectly obvious place. Oh, well. Already up and at 'em when I located it, so no early-morning reading for me, but hopefully I'll finish that one tonight.


Currently reading:

• Nadya Skylung and the Cloudship Rescue by Jeff Seymour
• High Season by Judy Blundell
• Israel/Palestine by Alan Dowty

Nadya Skylung is a middle grade fantasy adventure that takes place in a world in which people travel in the clouds because it's safer than travel by land or sea. The crew of the Cloudship Orion has been invaded by pirates and the children, who hid while the adults were taken captive, must go on a rescue. 

High Season is the beachy book I said I was going to start, last week. I've read about 1/4. It's a summer story about a woman who lives on the North Fork of Long Island and is forced to rent out her home during the summer months to stay afloat, the North Fork being the laid-back, less snobby end of Long Island (as opposed to the Hamptons). 

I didn't read much of Israel/Palestine, this week -- maybe 10 pages, at best. But, I'm finding that the information sticks just fine and hopefully I'll find the time and energy to read at least a few chapters, this week. I have quite a pile I want to read in June and not a lot of time left to fit them all in. Wish me luck. 

Last week's posts:

• Hollywood Beach Beauties by David Wills (book review)
• The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (and Their Muses) by Terri-Lynne DeFino (book review)
• It's my bloggiversary! (celebratory post)
• Fiona Friday - Pay attention to me (cat photo)

In other news:

I watched Small Island, the 2-part series based on Andrea Levy's book, this weekend. I've yet to read the book, but I can see my copy from my desk. I just looked it up and found out Small Island (the series) was released in 2009, which means the book must be at least a couple years older. That just goes to show how long I hold onto some books without getting around to reading them. I would never have guessed I'd had Small Island on my shelf for a decade.

And, we've just finished the 3rd season of Foyle's War. Also, my lunchtime obsession is back on. I was watching Psych on a small device that decided to go on the fritz but I figured out how to correct the issue and I'm back to watching an episode of Psych with lunch, when I can fit it in.

©2018 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

Recent arrivals:

Nothing arrived via the mail, but we went to Oklahoma for a long weekend (hence the Tuesday Twaddle -- we were in transit, yesterday) and I did some swapping at Gardner's Books in Tulsa. I opted to stay in the classics section and look for Virago Classics, in particular, and this is what I ended getting with the credit (and about $7.50 -- they charge a minimum on top of credit, just to ensure that they continue making money, according to the clerk).

• The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck
• Seducers in Ecuador and The Heir by Vita Sackville-West
• Plagued by the Nightingale by Kay Boyle
• The Happy Foreigner by Enid Bagnold
• Cindie by Jean Devanny
• The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois

The final choice was for Black History Month but I probably won't get to it, this year. After a fabulous reading month in January, I've nearly skidded to a halt. Hopefully, I'll at least get in one book for Black History Month, though. Fingers crossed.


Books finished since last week's Malarkey:

• Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth

I also DNF'd Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down by Anne Valente and will write a DNF post about that book, in the near future.


Currently reading:

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• The Statue and the Fury by Jim Dees

Book group is this week, so I need to focus on finishing up The Statue and the Fury. I'm a little behind on my Don Quixote reading and everyone else is, as well, so we reevaluated our goals and I added a catch-up week to the reading schedule. Still enjoying it immensely. And, since I've just removed one book from my current reads, I'll start at least one more (probably two), in the next couple of days.


Last week's posts:

• Bagel in Love by Natasha Wing and Helen Dardik (book review - with apologies for the misspelling of the illustrator's name - just fixed)
• A Couch for Llama by Leah Gilbert (book review)
• Nature's Lullaby Fills the Night by Dee Leone and Bali Engel (book review)
• Fiona Friday (cat photo)

Not a big week for reading or posting, but I'm happy to say that I managed to finish reviewing everything I read in January, finally. And, since I haven't read that much in February, I'm not too far behind. Yippee!


In other news:

Since I managed to acquire a few books, this week, I didn't have to put postcards at the top of my blog instead of a book stack. But the two I recently received from Kelly and Carrie are so cool that you get to see them, anyway.

Note: I just updated this post because I completely forgot to add my links to last week's posts, the first time. Long weekend.


©2018 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

It's late Monday night and I just realized I keep forgetting to finish this post so I'm going to turn it into a Tuesday Twaddle. I think I managed to gather all of the remaining books together. I sure hope so! There were an awful lot of books that walked in my door during my summer break. My last Monday Malarkey post was July 18, so I have a good deal to cover.

Recent arrivals (continuing with the blog break arrivals - nothing at all arrived, last week):

• The Goddess of Mtwara: The Caine Prize for African Writing, 2017 - Purchased
• The Way to London by Alix Rickloff - from HarperCollins for review
• The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABC's (the Hard Way) by Patrick McDonnell - from Little Brown for review, via Shelf Awareness (SA)
• Noor's Story by Noor Ebrahim - Purchased
• Defining Moments in Black History by Dick Gregory - from HarperCollins for review
• Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore - from Random House for review via SA
• Amazing Animal Friendships by Pavla Hanackova,
• Ally-saurus and the Very Bossy Monster by Richard Torrey, and
• Cap'n Rex and His Clever Crew by Herz and Schipper - all from Sterling Children's Books for review

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Brave Deeds by David Abrams
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
• The River at Night by Erica Ferencik
• The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
• Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
• The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones
• Amazing Animal Friendships by P. Hanackova and L. Pao
• Cap'n Rex and His Clever Crew by H. Herz and B. Schipper
• Ally-saurus and the Very Bossy Monster by Richard Torrey
• Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
• Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
• Defining Moments in Black History by Dick Gregory
• The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABCs (the Hard Way) by Patrick McDonnell
• Noor's Story: My Life in District Six by Noor Ebrahim

Posts since last Malarkey:

• How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (book review)
• Fiona Friday (cat photo)
• The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein (book review)
• Brave Deeds by David Abrams (book review)
• I'm back! How's Everyone? (miscellaneous post)
• Books, Books, Books - Arrivals, Part 1 (book stacks)
• Books, Books, Books - Arrivals, Part 2 (another book stack)
• August Reads in Review, 2017 (everything I read in August)

Currently reading:

• The Way to London: A Novel of WWII by Alix Rickloff
• The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories - by various authors

I've been reading both of these books for quite some time. While I haven't felt that "I just want to sleep all day" sensation of jetlag, I've been waking up early and going to bed earlier than normal, most days, and my reading time is in the evening. So, I find myself reading a few pages and falling asleep. Hopefully that will end soon. I'd like to finish these two and move on.


In other news:

After I left the blog for my summer break, I continued to write book reviews at Goodreads until I started to pack for vacation. So, I will work on posting a mix of the reviews at Goodreads (which I usually alter a bit for the blog) and new reviews from more recent reads until I feel caught up. I love the feeling of stepping away from the computer for a few weeks, but the catch-up after can be a bit of a pain. I didn't read all that much, though, so it's manageable.

Onward! And, I'll try to remember Fiona Friday, this week. :)


©2017 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

I confess, I still don't feel much like blogging so I may take a week or two off, soon, but I got a single book in the mail, today, so at least I have something to share.

Recent arrivals:

• The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis - purchased

I've been intrigued by the sound of this story since the author was talking about it, as she wrote, so I finally decided to give in and order a copy. What happened to the concept of the book-buying ban? I need to get on that, again.


Books finished since last week's Twaddle:

• A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

Lots of one-offs, this week. One book arrival; one book read. On the plus side, it was a good one, although not quite as compelling as Orphan Train. There was good reason I only only finished a single book, last week. I started out chugging along, reading The Widow's House by Carol Goodman but I had trouble figuring out the timeline and ground to a halt. Judging from the ratings and reviews at Goodreads, I must have just missed something; it has mostly positive reviews. I left a bookmark in the book at page 132 and haven't decided whether or not to return to the book, but generally speaking, once I abandon a book, I tend to not return unless I'm close enough to the beginning to consider starting over.


Last week's posts:

• February Reads in Review, 2017 (one month's reads, in brief)
• Fiona Friday (cat photo) 
• No malarkey (flower photo)

I'm including yesterdays Iris of Apology to make the week look better than it really was.


Currently reading:

• The Mermaid's Daughter by Ann Claycomb

And, I didn't get back to the other book that I was uncertain about, last week. I've noticed something interesting about my reading habits. When I'm getting plenty of sleep and feeling good, I tend to balance about 4 books at a time and just bounce from one to another, enjoying the variety. But, when I fall into a slump - which does seem to happen when I'm having trouble sleeping - I can only read one book at a time. I prefer balancing several books at once, but I'll go with whatever works. Right now, it's clearly a one-book-at-a-time kind of month. Incidentally, I'm enjoying The Mermaid's Daughter, so far.


In other news:

Blah. Just blah. I don't know if it's still the time change that's killing me or I'm just a bad sleeper but I've been waking up several times a night and getting to bed too late, in the first place. Sometimes I can get back to sleep, sometimes I can't. Last night, I fell asleep and stayed asleep for maybe an hour, flopped around like a fish out of water, and finally gave up. I got up, ate some nachos, read a little, fell back to sleep, and woke up early with a migraine. Grrr. On the plus side, I've started doing daily yoga with Adriene on YouTube and I am definitely loving that. I'd forgotten how good yoga makes you feel. So, even if I'm sleeping badly, the yoga helps offset the lack of sleep a bit.

I'm not giving up on trying to blog, this week, but if I disappear for a couple weeks, don't worry. I'll be back. If I don't feel like blogging, I'll just skip it. After a decade, if there's one thing I've figured out about blogging, it's that there's no reason to pressure yourself. Life is too short for that nonsense.


©2017 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

Malarkey didn't happen yesterday because of the time change, which used to not bother me but now totally slays me.

Recent arrivals (top to bottom)

• Every Body Yoga by Jessamyn Stanley - from Algonquin Books for review via Shelf Awareness
• The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan - from William Morrow for review
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu - My first purchase from a list of books recommended by Barack Obama. Haven't decided whether to do a personal Obama Reading Challenge or just read them as I buy them but The Three-Body Problem is the first in a series, just FYI. Someone tell me how to pronounce that author's name. 
• A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline - from William Morrow for review. I requested this one way back in the fall and thought it had become lost in the mail. Maybe they ran out of ARCs? At any rate, it is on my mental short list of most anticipated 2017 releases, along with Alex George's Setting Free the Kites (now available in hardback!) and George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo (ditto). 

Books finished since last week's Malarkey:

• The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson
• You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - for this week's F2F group discussion

Finally, a good reading week! I finished A Man Called Ove, last night, and I think I had tears flowing for at least the last 20 pages. I'm pretty sure that's a record. I'm always telling people that I prefer a book that makes me laugh to one that makes me cry but I think I'd better amend that. There are happy tears and sad tears and I definitely love to be moved, especially if I'm moved to happy tears. A Man Called Ove merged the two kinds of tears and also made me laugh a few times, so it was just an all-around 5-star read. Now, I've got to find a way to view the movie. 

Last week's posts:

• Survivor's Club by Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat (book review)
• January Reads in Review, 2017 (one month's reads, in brief)
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Glowing (cat photo)

Currently reading:

• The Widow's House by Carol Goodman

and one other book, which I'm not far enough into to know if it will stick. Plus, that book of metaphors that I only seem to touch every two weeks or so.


In other news:

I was working on this post, this morning, and I became distracted by the internet. Thankfully, a magic spell broke me out of my internet bubble. Also, the azaleas are blooming:

©2017 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

It's just after 9:00 PM and I've suddenly remembered that I'm a blogger. Ha. I guess after 10 1/2 years you get a little lax, sometimes.

Recent arrivals:


There was only one arrival, this week, and it showed up this afternoon.

• The Mermaid's Daughter by Ann Claycomb - from William Morrow for review

Sounds a bit on the tragic side, which is interesting because I don't usually request books that are described as tragedy. I do prefer sweetness and light. And, yet, I'm definitely still intrigued. I think the word "mermaid" may be one of those things that grabs my attention, much like a cover illustration with a beautiful red dress.


Books finished since last week's Malarkey:

• Dragon Springs Road by Janie Chang
• In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen 

You might be interested to find out that after all the hair-pulling just getting through Dragon Springs Road, I thought it was an excellent read. I think it's just that I'm a little bit slumpy. In Farleigh Field took me almost as long to get through. Again, I liked it. I thought there were some plot holes but it was well written; I'm just reading slower than usual. 

Currently reading:

• The Good Daughter by Alexandra Burt

There are other books with bookmarks in them but since I haven't recently read a single page from any of them I'm not going to bother listing them, here. I just started The Good Daughter, this morning. I haven't gotten very far into it so I can't say whether or not it will stick. Fingers crossed.


Last week's posts:

• The Wars of the Roosevelts by William J. Mann (book review)
• We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (book review) 
• Fiona Friday (cat photo) 

I'm almost embarrassed about my wordy review of The Wars of the Roosevelts because chances are good that people who are the most interested in it already know a great deal of what I babbled about learning, but that kind of rambling is definitely indicative of enjoyment. My Fiona Friday post of Isabel is a phone photo and therefore not high quality but it's become a new favorite. I love the way she has that little paw curled, ready to reach out. Even when she's being feisty, I can actually hold out a hand, even touch her paw without getting clawed - something that's true of both of my kitties. I love that about them. They are pretty much terrified of everyone outside the family but such amazingly gentle animals.


In other news:

There's a lot of finger crossing going on, around here. Will I get around to reading a classic, this month? Fingers crossed. Will I locate the book I chose as my feminist read of the month? Fingers crossed. Will I manage to read it before the month ends? Oof. Probably not.  But, boy, have I learned how to pep talk myself through all these things. I remember when I would have been absolutely stressed out of my mind over the facts that I've not only read a mere 5 books with a week left to the month but also have utterly failed at my other goals. Not anymore. I may cross my fingers a lot and try to stay up longer so I can read a few more pages but I just can't be bothered to lose my mind. I'm too old for that. I guess that's one of the really great things about aging.


©2017 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

I'm going to try to keep this short because I'm in a mooood. It's nice out, though (sunny, 70s - the tulip trees are actually blooming), so I'm going to go sit out on my deck and read. That should help lift the sagging spirits.

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit (purchased)
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (purchased)
• Three Days in January by Bret Baier (from HarperCollins for review)
• March graphic novel trilogy by Lewis, Aydin, and Powell (purchased)

And, because this list is 75% purchases, I've decided I need to attempt a buying ban. I say "attempt" because I'm usually an abject failure at not buying books, but I think it's time to take a break from making book purchases till I've caught up on reading some of what I've already bought, recently.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Just the one book. After finishing The Nightingale, I got it into my head that I should focus on finishing The Wars of the Roosevelts. I'm almost done but didn't feel like reading, last night. Oh, well. Soon.

Currently reading:

• The Wars of the Roosevelts by William J. Mann

I'm focusing on finishing the one book and have set all the others aside, temporarily. They'll show up on next week's Monday Malarkey list in some fashion.


Last week's posts:

• Leopard at the Door by Jennifer McVeigh (book review)
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - Review and F2F Report 
• Fiona Friday (cat photo) 
• Faithful by Alice Hoffman (book review)

In other news: 

There's not much other news, apart from the fact that I finally found a book I've been missing for 2 or 3 months: Mister Monkey by Francine Prose. It was on a shelf that I don't normally use for books in our guest room. I have no idea what possessed me to put that and 3 other books on a shelf that's normally reserved for youngest son's possessions but I'm happy to have finally located the book and will stick it on my February stack.

©2017 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou - purchased
• The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins - Christmas gift I forgot to mention
• The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson - from HarperCollins for review

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now by Maya Angelou
• Leopard at the Door by Jennifer McVeigh
• Yesternight by Cat Winters

Currently reading:

• The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman
• The Wars of the Roosevelts by William J. Mann
• Faithful by Alice Hoffman

Last week's posts:

• Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now by Maya Angelou (book review)
• Rebirth by Kamal Ravikant (book review)
• Fiona Friday on the Wrong Day (cat photo)

In other news:

Besides the three books I'm reading (two of which will take me forever to get through, although I'm enjoying them both), I started a classic choice but I'm not sure this one is going to click for me, so I've opted not to write it on my list, just yet. If it eventually takes, you'll know about it. I planned to start my second personal challenge - the first being a continuation of my monthly classics challenge - last night, but I also planned to finish my Monday Malarkey post and you can see what became of that. I fell asleep on the couch, instead. My second challenge is to read at least one feminist title per month and I'm not too strict about what I will consider "feminist". I have, for example, a copy of Hidden Figures coming. A book about women who were successful in their fields but without public acknowledgment works for me. First on the feminist reading list is We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, partly because it's a mere 65 pages long and we're getting close to the middle of the month.

The fact that it's already the 12th 10th of January (haven't replaced my desk calendar, so I looked at December) means I'm not going to worry about how long it takes me to finish up my last reviews from 2016. Clearly, trying to shove through them has not worked, so I'll write when it works for me. I'll post my 2016 list tomorrow, though. Might as well get the end of month and end of year lists out of the way, right?

©2017 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.

Tuesday Twaddle

I was busy yesterday, so you get Tuesday Twaddle, this week. Malarkey will return, next Monday.

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders and
• Tenth of December by George Saunders, both purchased
• The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan,
• Girl in the Woods by Aspen Matis, and
• Carrying Albert Home by Homer Hickam - from HarperCollins for review
• A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines - purchased for F2F discussion
• Easy Street by Ron Perlman - purchased
• Hey, That's My Monster! by Noll and McWilliam - from Flashlight Press for review

I've been craving a reread of Tenth of December but didn't own a copy, so I decided to go ahead and buy my own and looked up George Saunders' other books, while I was at it. Confession: The cover of The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil was irresistible. I want to frame it. In fact, I wish the Tenth of December cover happened to be equally outlandish; the contents are certainly wacky enough to deserve a cover in the same vein.

I also bought a copy of A Gathering of Old Men, my F2F group's November selection. Easy Street by Ron Perlman is one of those rare memoirs by a famous person that has actually gotten stellar reviews. I would not probably know about it if not for the fact that Ron Perlman followed me on Twitter, a couple years ago. I followed him back and decided he must have followed me because I'm a book blogger, so I was actually quite surprised when nobody contacted me about reviewing his book (although I admit to never checking my spam file, so maybe someone did and the request was tossed out). I've watched the reviews and they've all been so positive that I finally decided I might as well go ahead and buy a copy.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• A Square Meal by Ziegelman and Coe
• Hey, That's My Monster! by Noll and McWilliam
• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
• Maybe a Fox by Appelt and McGhee

What a fantastic reading week! I finally decided it was time to buckle under and finish A Square Meal. It was a fun book to drag out because I enjoyed it so much and learned a great deal about how people ate, early in the 20th Century, but it was time to move on. Hey, That's My Monster! is a picture book, so I've already read it twice. It's loads of fun. Commonwealth is my first Ann Patchett and definitely won't be my last. What an amazing writer she is! I should definitely not have put off reading Patchett. Maybe a Fox is a children's book I bought at the local book festival and it was very good but so deeply sad that I'll have to think about whether or not I want to take the time to review it. Hmm, probably. We shall see. It really is a good story, even though it's a bit on the depressing side.


Currently reading:

• Wonder Women by Sam Maggs - I'll focus more on Wonder Women, now that I've finished reading A Square Meal. It's fun reading. 
• Intimations by Alexandra Kleeman - I tried to get into the second story after I couldn't figure out what hit me when I finished the first and the second one lost me so thoroughly that I set the book aside for the rest of the week. I'll give it at least one more chance. If the second story doesn't work, again, I'll move on to the third and start weighing whether or not to bother finishing the book. 
• Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote - My classic selection for September, but I'm already considering adding a second classic, since it's just a novella and three short stories. 
• Girl in the Woods by Aspen Matis - The memoir of a young woman who was raped on her second night at college and her decision to walk the Pacific Crest Trail to gain a much-needed feeling of strength. 
• The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan - Very light reading, a nice book to mix in when you're reading 4 other books at once. 

Clearly, I have been prone to start reading whatever walks in the door, lately, and that's fine. I'm happy with the mix I'm reading. and so very thrilled to be back to reading at a normal pace that I'm absolutely not going to kick myself around the room if I don't happen to read ARCs that have been waiting longer for my attention.


Last week's posts:

• If a T. Rex Crashes Your Birthday Party by Jill Esbaum and Dasha Tolstikova (book review)
• 14 Seconds to Hell by Nick Carter (book review)
• Fiona Friday - What's happening over there? (cat photo)

In other news, cats look adorable when they wash their faces:

You probably knew that, right?

©2016 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.

Tuesday Twaddle - A Visual Guide

Today's Twaddle (in lieu of malarkey, which was not possible yesterday, due to a Blogger snafu) will be mostly visual because there's so little to talk about. Actually, there's not all that much to photograph, either, but we won't go there.

Above is the photo I repeatedly attempted to load, yesterday, while I was reading it: Feather Brained by Bob Tarte. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you've already seen it. I suppose that means I should take a different photo for the review, right? We'll see if I can be bothered. I did finish the book, last night, and I loved the ending.

I only got one book in the mail, last week, and it's one I purchased on a whim. I need to work on that whim business. I keep having attacks of whimsical purchasing.

In this case, The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek popped up when I was looking for something entirely unrelated, book-wise, at Amazon. It absolutely does not look like a book that would appeal to me, a WWI satire over 700 pages long, but for some reason I clicked on the image and read about it. And, within 2 days it was on my doorstep. I've flipped through it and I do like the light-hearted writing style. The real question is, "Will Bookfool be able to stick out a 700+ page book?" The usual answer is "no" but there have been exceptions.

I only finished one other book (besides Feather Brained), last week:

I loved A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki in an, "I want to hug this book" way. The picture makes me snicker. I don't know what possessed me to pose it with Japanese items but after I did, I thought, "That looks stupid; I should make an origami crane or something" (which is probably equally ridiculous), looked up paper cranes in two old origami books I own, failed to find any instructions, and gave up. So, that's the photo I'm currently stuck with. At any rate, the book is terrific and I particularly loved it for the reminder of our visit to Japan in 2011. But, I also adored Ruth Ozeki's writing and will be seeking out her first book.

I stopped everything to focus on A Tale for the Time Being (although that's a little misleading -- you'll see when I tell you why I read so little) read one story from Simon Van Booy's Tales of Accidental Genius, and then dived into Feather Brained, this week. I also settled on my classic of the month, Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize Winesburg, Ohio is a set of interconnected short stories until I got to the second story, so I've temporarily set that aside and I'm considering either shifting to another book or just waiting to read it till after I finish Accidental Genius because I don't really want to read two books of short stories at the same time. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I picked up an entirely different book, this morning, for the change of pace:

Raising Ryland by Hillary Whittington is nonfiction, the story of a very young girl who declared that she was a boy and has transitioned to boy (without, as far as I know, surgical intervention -- I'm not far enough to know that, yet). I know next to nothing about transgender people -- the psychology, the science, the way trans people feel. What little I've read has been frankly confusing. So, I figure one way to understand where the trans community is coming from is to read their stories. Call them sinners or mental cases or chemically whacked, if that's how you feel, but that's not my bag. What matters to me is understanding and respecting my fellow humans. Raising Ryland just happened to be offered to me by HarperCollins (before the so-called "bathroom bill" in North Carolina), so it's a start.

A brief diversion for links to last week's posts:

• One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis (book review)
• Fiona Friday: Pretty in Red (cat photo)

Just two posts, thanks to a raging migraine that lasted most of the week.

I also checked out a book from the library. There were two very cool things about that experience. One, there were many, many gorgeous black-eyed susans in bloom in the library gardens:

And, the librarian's fingernail polish accurately matched the book cover of my hold, The Nest:

I wish it had occurred to me to snap a picture of her hand on the book. It was cool, though, trust me. We both got a good laugh.

©2016 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.

Tuesday Twaddle - Books and goals and cats having hissy fits

Hope everyone is having a lovely start to the new year! I am just now writing my Christmas cards. Clearly, I need to work on planning ahead in 2016.

Recent Arrivals:

• Moonlight Over Paris by Jennifer Robson - from HarperCollins for review
• Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb - Unsolicited from Algonquin (and it definitely looks intriguing)
• The Beautiful American by Jeanne Mackin - via Paperback Swap (I have exactly one point left and am still trying to decide whether to continue swapping after I run out of points)
• Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian - Unsolicited from Algonquin; I also have a hardback copy, which I recently moved to the "read soon" stacks. I'll pass that one on to a friend.
• Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge - Purchased, thanks to Susan at Blue-Hearted Bookworm. I noticed she was reading it and made the mistake of reading the description. Oops.

Currently Reading:

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall (recommended by Eldest Son)

On goals and such:

I've decided to stop calling my goals for the new year "resolutions", this year, because I find it easier to think of goal setting as a continuous mission, whereas resolutions tend to feel like things that generally end up falling by the wayside (possibly because I tend to fail miserably at following through). Having said that, I really haven't made any specific goals regarding the blog, apart from trying to do better at visiting other blogs. I did consider quite a few possibilities over the holiday, but in the end I decided that for now I'm going to continue with the status quo because I have a number of personal and reading goals that I'd rather focus on.

Among my reading goals are reading a chapter a day of an introductory Latin course (which may be altered to reading a chapter every 2-3 days and spending the time in-between on rereading and practice), reading at least one classic per month (hence Lolita), and trying to read as many books off my shelves as possible (without a specific number goal).

As to personal goals, I've returned to the regular gym exercise that lapsed over the holidays and hope to find a place to take Red Cross Disaster Training. The rest of my goals for the year are similarly self-improvement oriented and I'm hoping to go back to school in the fall but have not even begun that process.

Kitty happenings:

Both kitties got cystitis over the holidays, probably because Huz and I were sick for a few days and fell down on the litter-box cleaning job. They starting fighting about 10 days ago -- vicious, growling, hissing, claws-out fighting, not the usual wrestle-chase fun and games -- so we took both kitties to the vet and they came home with antibiotics the next day. Fiona is easier to pill than Isabel and has reverted to her normal, mellow self but Isabel is a hissing machine. So, we've been playing Musical Cats. One will be closed into the master bedroom/bathroom area while the other roams free or we'll put one in this little gazebo (meant for outdoor use) while the other has the run of the house:

So that's the current state of our breakfast nook. It works but it's just a wee bit bizarre, isn't it? Hopefully, Izzy will start feeling better soon. It took a full five days before we figured out a way to pill her. She is quite the little tiger when she's not happy.

©2016 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.