It's Monday 3/18! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Life continues to be busy and full, thanks to my greatly improved health! It really is incredible, and I am grateful every day for this amazing turn-around, after ending last year with several months couchbound. My stunning improvement is due to normalizing thyroid function (which took a full year) and finally getting yeast overgrowth (a chronic issue due to my immune disorder) under control with diet changes. So, last week, I went shopping again, both clothes shopping and my first time in Trader Joe’s in about six months. I worked out in the yard on three different days, which is a stunning accomplishment for me–the gardens are looking great for spring for the first time in many years! 

All the dead stuff cut down – ready for spring!

Buds on my lilac tree!

We went out to a fancy dinner with our oldest friends to celebrate their anniversary. I met two other friends for lunch. The three of us worked together in the early 90′s, and I hadn’t seen one of them in over 20 years! We had a blast catching up. And yesterday, those same old friends (from the anniversary dinner) came over for our traditional St. Patrick’s Day feast, along with our younger son.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

And, of course, as two engineers, we celebrated Pi Day! It was a challenge this year, given our dietary restrictions, but I made a Paleo/keto quiche that was absolutely delicious.

Happy Pi Day!

I’m loving seeing all the signs of spring around me, including my first top-down day of the year!

Daffodils in bloom!

First top-down day!

Pink tree and daffodils

My favorite sign of spring – forsythia!

On the Blog

I need to step up my review writing this week. Though my new blog policy is only to write reviews of really great books … it’s been an outstanding reading month so far!

Nonfiction Review: The Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge – I was so moved by this wonderful memoir about a 27-year-old woman, devastated by breast cancer and other losses, who meets a single-mother Somali refugee with 5 little girls, and how their relationship helped to heal them both. Check out my review and also the 3-minute video at the bottom of Sarah’s website for a preview into this heartbreaking, uplifting true story.

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On Video

I don’t normally include my chronic illness videos here, but if you yourself have a chronic illness or you are just interested in my current life and what helped me to improve so much, then check out my latest:

Chronic Illness Vlog 3-10-24: Out and About, Still Doing Well!

Friday Reads 3-15-24 – my quick weekly update on what I am currently reading.

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I finished reading my first book for Booktopia, the fabulous weekend book event I participate in every spring in Vermont (tickets available; my recap/vlog from Booktopia 2023). I started with Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out by Shannon Reed, a nonfiction book that was absolutely delightful! Reed is not only a reader but also a longtime English teacher and now college literature and writing professor. This is a fun combination of memoir and essays, with a hefty dose of humor, and it’s very entertaining. Any avid reader will recognize him/herself in Shannon’s many memories and observations, plus it is loaded with book name-dropping!

Now, I am reading a middle-grade graphic novel, Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang for Middle-Grade March (fits the prompt “about immigration”). It’s about a family from Taiwan that visits California on a vacation, but the parents’ plan is for their kids to remain in the U.S. to escape the perilous situation at home and to get a better education. Dad returns home to work, and Mom is supposed to stay with the kids, but the U.S. won’t extend her visa. The three kids (two teens and 10-year-old Feng Li) are left on their own. The oldest daughter knows English fairly well, but the 10-year-old knows none and is suddenly in school with American kids. I had never even heard of this term before this book came out, but apparently it is a growing trend for Chinese parents to send their kids to the U.S. for a better education. I wanted to know more and read this fascinating NY Times article last night. The book is excellent so far. 

On audio, I finished listening to Iceberg by Jennifer Nielsen for Middle-Grade March (and for the Fierce Reads event). I’m a longtime fan of Nielsen’s middle-grade historical fiction (like Lines of Courage and A Night Divided), and as you might guess from the title, this one is about the Titanic. Twelve-year-old Hazel is on a mission to save her family. Her mother has sent her to the docks to board the Titanic for New York, where Hazel’s aunt has promised her a job in a garment factory, so she can send money home to keep her siblings from starving. But when Hazel tries to buy a ticket, she finds that all of her family’s savings isn’t enough for the fare for even a third-class ticket. She finds a way on board as a stowaway. With a dream of becoming a journalist one day, Hazel begins to hear rumors about the ship that make the reporter in her interested–and wary. We all know how the Titanic‘s story ends, but this was an excellent novel with a wonderful main character (and yes, she survives).

Sticking with the Middle-Grade March and Fierce Women Reads themes, I am now listening to Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy, my first novel from this very popular YA author (this is her first middle-grade novel). Twelve-year-old Sweet Pea feels torn apart by her parents’ divorce, despite their efforts to keep everything “normal.” She splits her time between her mom’s house and her dad’s, which are identical homes two doors down from each other! She’s also still grieving the loss of her first-ever best friend, Kiera, who’s found prettier, thinner, more popular girls to hang out with. Luckily, Sweet Pea has Oscar, her new best (only) friend and her cat, Cheese. The novel is very good so far, and I’m interested to see what happens next.

My husband, Ken, finished A Ghost of Caribou by Alice Henderson, book 3 in her outdoor thriller series about wildlife biologist Alex Carter. He is now reading a nonfiction book I loved last November, The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman, about a Polish couple who saved over a hundred Jews in WWII Warsaw. I hope he finds it as engrossing and fascinating as I did (my review at the link).

Our son, 29, has been very busy with job interviews lately, but he’s enjoying a book I gave him for his birthday last year, Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, one of his all-time favorite fantasy authors (and he has many favorites). This is book 1 in World of the First Law, a spin-off of his hugely popular First Law trilogy.

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