It's Monday 2/12! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

I’m off to a late start this morning, as I’m guessing is much of the U.S. I am normally in bed by 9:30 (reading, of course) and lights out by 10:30, so last night’s Superbowl game going into overtime was a challenge! We had a very fun weekend of celebrations–there is so much going on this week! Our oldest friends came over Saturday to celebrate Mardi Gras (part 1–we’ll go to their house tomorrow). The four of us all lived in New Orleans in the 80′s; it’s where we all met and became friends. So Mardi Gras is a big deal! I’m still on this carnivore diet (and my husband is now mostly keto), so most of the menu items at our favorite local New Orleans restaurant (lots of rice, bread, beans) were off-limits, but our friends got their food there, as well as some gumbo sans rice for us, and we contributed lots of steamed shrimp and Andouille sausage. It was all delicious, and we had our favorite New Orleans music playing, and videos of the latest parades. Lots of reminiscing and chatting, too!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Last night, another set of friends came over for Superbowl. We hadn’t seen them since last Superbowl, so we really enjoyed catching up, eating good food, enjoying the commercials … oh, yeah, and the game, too!

Mardi Gras & Superbowl celebrations!

Friends Over for Superbowl!

In between, I helped my friend more with her move (packing china Saturday and loading another friend’s car for a Goodwill run). Yesterday was one of those days where I sat down in the morning to get a couple of easy things done … and nothing went right! Downloading airline apps for our trip to Texas this week turned into an hour on the phone with customer service. And then trying to put the new password into my Excel password file turned into another customer service odyssey with Microsoft that I only just resolved this morning.  

Helping a Friend – Dumpster’s Almost Full!

Beautiful View Saturday Near Home

On the Blog

Movie Monday: Stillwater – my husband and I both enjoyed this movie, starring Matt Damon, that combines family drama, mystery/thriller, romance, and travel. Very moving story.

Teen/YA Review: I Am Not Alone by Francisco X. Stork – another excellent YA novel from Stork, about living with mental illness.

Fiction Review: Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe – an outstanding pick for Black History Month, a coming-of-age story about four young girls growing up in a Chicago Housing project in 1999. This one deserves more attention!

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On Video

January Reading Wrap-Up – my summary of the 6 books I read last month–novels, nonfiction, memoir, audios, graphic novel, YA.

Friday Reads 2-9-24 – my quick weekly update of what I am currently reading

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I kicked off Black History Month right, reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, the highly acclaimed novel that everyone else has read except me! I’m almost finished now, and wow, this is such a remarkable, powerful novel! It begins in Ghana in the 1700′s, with two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, who have never met and live in different villages, part of two separate (warring) empires, Fante and Asante. Effia marries a white British officer and moves to Cape Coast Castle (a real place), while Esi is captured and sold into slavery. From there, this incredible story follows Effia’s and Esi’s bloodlines through eight generations, from Africa to a Mississippi plantation through the Civil War and Harlem’s Jazz Age to modern times. It’s completely engrossing, and I am learning a lot about history that I’d never heard before. It’s beautifully written, a stunning, epic story.

I started a new audio book last week, The Invisible Girls by Sarah Lebarge, a memoir and another very powerful story. Sarah was brought up in a very restrictive, religious environment. She got a Physician’s Assistant degree and was engaged to a wealthy man when her life was decimated by a very aggressive breast cancer at age 26. After multiple surgeries, a double mastectomy, chemo, radiation, and a devastating break-up, she was left scarred both physically and emotionally. She moved to Portland, OR, to start over. Riding the train one day, she met an exhausted Ghanian mother with two small children. The little girls took to her, and she spoke with the mom and ended up visiting their apartment. That kicked off a very unique relationship between Sarah and this refugee single mother of five girls. Her abusive husband had left, the system was failing them, and the family was close to starvation. What followed was life-changing for the family and for Sarah. I worried this might be a sort of “white savior” story, but it’s not like that at all. It’s a beautiful, moving, compelling story of found family, hope, and connection. My only problem is that I didn’t have the full audio download (it was a free download from SYNC, years ago)! It just quit last night, in the middle of a sentence, and I want to read the rest of it. My library doesn’t have it, the Kindle edition is $10, and I probably only have a chapter or two left to go. Any ideas?

My husband, Ken, finished The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child, book 28 of the Jack Reacher series, my husband’s all-time favorite! Now, he is reading Dark Ride by Lou Berney, author of November Road, which I gave my husband last year and he loved (it’s now on my side of the TBR bookcase!). This new one is a thriller, and it sounds great. I know it’s got a good sense of humor because my husband has been laughing out loud while reading it!

Our son, 29, finished reading book 2, Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, book 2 in her Realm Breaker series,, that we gave him for Christmas. Now, he’s reading The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buelhman, another gift from us! I heard about this one from Todd’s Booktube, a channel that I follow by  young man who has very similar tastes in fantasy as my son. He’s loving it so far and says it has a unique style and voice and is very well-written–another winner!

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