It's Monday 6/10! What Are You Reading?

I'm running late today - actually, just running around like crazy! My 15-year old son had knee surgery on Friday and can't move around much by himself yet, so my days are filled with fetching food, lifting his leg, helping him to the bathroom and back, bringing extra pillows, etc. Poor kid is in a lot of pain, but the good news is that he will have a shorter recovery time than first anticipated because the surgeon was able to use a simpler procedure than he'd originally planned. So, that's all good, but these first couple of weeks are the toughest.

Thank goodness for books and their ability to carry us away to distance places and times!

• I finished Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepinstall for my library's discussion group this week. It was interesting and engaging - about a woman during the Civil War who is committed to a mental institute on Sanibel Island. Her crimes were basically disobeying her husband and being compassionate toward the slaves on their plantation. I'm looking forward to the discussion - that's my treat to myself this week!
• I also finished listening to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne on audio. I loved it - it is an amazing, heart-breaking story of friendship during the Holocaust. I haven't started a new audio yet because I have no time to myself for the foreseeable future! I will have to download one onto my iPod.
• With the sleep deprivation and stress this weekend, I was looking for a quick, gripping read, and Book One of The Infinity Ring, A Mutiny in Time by James Dashner, fit the bill perfectly. A middle-grade book with under 200 pages, it quickly grabbed my attention. Besides, it's a time travel plot which is my favorite theme! I should be starting my next book group pick now, but I think I will squeeze in Book Two of The Infinity Ring first.
• My husband, Ken, got about a quarter of the way through The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (which I recommended), and we had to return it to the library. Looks like word finally caught on about how amazing this recent Pulitzer Prize winner is! I've requested it for him again so he can finish it.
• In the meantime, Ken finished The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, another novel I recommended to him. I'm not sure he loved it as much as I did, but he did find the premise intriguing (the earth's rotation slows down, causing longer and longer days and nights).
• Being in the same exhausted, stressed state of mind as me, Ken chose a fast-paced suspense novel next, Gone for Good by Harlan Coben.
• Jamie, 18, spent the weekend with friends at the beach, so he didn't read much last week. He is still reading The Innocent Mage by Karen Miller.
• Craig, 15, is done with school and on heavy painkillers right now, so he is spending his time watching TV and playing video games!

Not a lot of time for blogging last week, but I managed a few posts:

My Top Ten Travel-Related Books

Top Ten Travel-Related Books for Kids/Teens/YA

Review of American Pastoral by Philip Roth

Review of Tommysaurus Rex, a graphic novel by Doug TenNapel
(my reviews were written while waiting in the hospital, so I don't know how coherent they are!)

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What are you reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kid/teen version hosted by Teach Mentor Texts.)