It's Monday 6/3! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Wow, it’s a good thing I didn’t have much scheduled last week because the response to Big Book Summer this year has been phenomenal! In fact, it took me all weekend to catch up on all the new sign-ups (and I still have some more videos to watch). After hosting the challenge for the last 12 years, I guess the word is out! We now have 80 participants signed up in the Goodreads group, dozens of Booktubers joining the fun, and a bunch of bloggers, too. Check out the Big Book Summer Challenge page for a bunch of links to other blogs and video channels (scroll to the bottom)–you might just discover a new-to-you book blog or channel that you love! And if you’re participating, with or without a blog, be sure to join the Goodreads group so you can talk to others about books all summer long!

When I said that I was reading Lonesome Dove this summer for the challenge, dozens of other people also said they were reading it, too, so I made it the official readalong book of Big Book Summer! I added a couple of extra discussion threads to the Goodreads group, so whether you’re reading it now or read it in the past, join the conversation!

And I finally started recording the audio for my own book, Finding a New Normal: Living Your Best Life with Chronic Illness. I actually bought the course on how to do it in February 2023, watched the first section on equipment, bought the equipment … and then did nothing until last week! I’ll blame my poor health last year, though procrastination may have been involved, too! I’ve set up my “recording studio” in my son’s closet and have finally watched more of the course and recorded the first two chapters. I’ll be working on that more this week.

My fancy recording studio!

This weekend, we scrubbed our screened porch and all the furniture, now that the nasty yellow pollen finally stopped. We had great weather, and it’s all nice and clean now and ready to be used! 

Everything scrubbed up and drying out!

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On the Blog

Fiction Review: Honey by Victor Lodato – this past Booktopia author has done it again, with a beautifully-written novel that features an unforgettable main character who, in her 80′s, learns it’s never too late to change – moving, funny, insightful & the ending left me with tears in my eyes. My full review and an audio sample at the link.

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Big Book Recommendations for #BigBookSummer or Anytime! – for this video, I walked around to some of our bookcases and quickly ran through dozens and dozens of Big books (400 or more pages) that my husband and I have enjoyed over the years – great book recommendations, whether you’re participating in the challenge or not.

Friday Reads 5/31/24 – my weekly wrap-up of what I am reading & listening to, here including four outstanding novels: the two I just finished and the two I started for Big Book Summer.

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I absolutely loved The East Indian by Brinda Charry, a Booktopia book/author from 2023. It was my mom’s favorite last year at Booktopia. Historical fiction about the first native of India to come to colonial America in the 1600′s, it’s based on a real historical figure. Twelve-year-old Tony (obviously not his original name!) sails from his home on the eastern Indian coast to London on a British East India Company ship, after his mother dies and he’s left alone. He’s settling in at London, with a job and a home with a fellow Indian immigrant, when he is kidnapped along with a bunch of other kids and taken across the Atlantic to Virginia. Tony encounters a lot of challenges and sorrow, but eventually, he is on his way to living his dream of becoming a physician. My mom was right–this is a wonderful novel, filled with fascinating historical details about the colony and 1600′s medicine, plus a poignant portrait of Tony and his fellow young servants who never asked for this life.

Now (and probably for quite a few weeks to come!), I am reading my first Big Book of the summer, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. For years, I’ve been hearing readers rave about how wonderful this Western novel is, so I’m glad to finally be reading it for myself. It’s set in 1870 with two older men, Augustus McCrae and Captain Woodrow Call, who are ex-Texas Rangers. They now own a small livery business in the tiny town of Lonesome Dove on the Mexico border, a desolate place. They have a small group of men who live there and help them. Early in the novel, another ex-Ranger named Jake comes to visit, fresh from Montana, and Call gets the idea to put together a herd of cattle and drive them all the way to Montana, even though they haven’t done a cattle drive in years. I’m about 110 pages in (about one-eighth!), and I’m enjoying it so far. The characters and setting are engaging, and it’s got a great sense of humor (always a plus for me).

My first audio for Big Book Summer is The Women by Kristin Hannah. I’ve been saving this one for summer! Twenty-year-old Frankie, recently graduated from nursing school, has taken her family’s dedication to service to heart and enlisted in the Army, to join her beloved brother, Finlay, in Vietnam. But her parents are horrified, especially after they are notified that Finlay was killed. After basic training, Frankie is shipped to Vietnam and immediately taken to a remote field hospital. It was all men on her flight, but in the field, she meets her roommates, Barb and Ethel, two other nurses. Her first day there, multiple helicopters carry in soldiers, wounded in horrible ways, and Frankie is immediately out of her depth. The novel follows Frankie and her friends not just during their horrific experiences in the war but through the aftermath of it and what the soldiers experienced upon returning to the U.S. Wow, this is an absolutely stunning novel–completely engrossing and so powerful. It’s also an important book, bringing to light the experiences of women in Vietnam, which were mostly overlooked.

My husband’s first Big Book for the summer (yes, he joins the challenge, too!) is The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, one of my favorites from last summer (my review at the link). I hope he enjoys this suspenseful, funny, heartbreaking classic as much as I did. He says the Joad family has just started out on their long trip to California.

Our son, 29, is still reading book 2 of the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington, An Echo of Things to Come since he was pretty busy this past week driving all over the US! When he was a kid, he’d bring an entire duffle bag stuffed full of books on our 3-week summer road trip, but he’s trying to keep his girlfriend company when it’s her turn to drive. They’ve had an amazing road trip so far and are about at the halfway point. This week, they drove from Colorado through Utah and onto Idaho, where she has family. They took a little break there and spent time with her cousins, then drove onto Yellowstone this weekend.

In Utah (Capital Reef National Park, I think)

In Idaho at Lake Coeur d’Alene with a cousin.

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