It's Monday 8/17! What Are You Reading?

Whew....what an exhausting, hectic week, weekend, and Monday morning! Now the house is finally empty, and I can start to recuperate and catch-up. Our oldest son turned 21 yesterday (how on earth is that possible??), and I was scrambling all week to finish a DVD of his entire childhood - thousands of photos organized into slideshows (one for each year) with accompanying songs to match what he liked at each age. I actually started this project for his 18th birthday and just finished it yesterday! Yeah, I vastly underestimated how long all that scanning would take. So, I finally finished adding the last photos and songs yesterday afternoon, ready to burn it onto a DVD before he came over for his birthday dinner...and it wouldn't fit on the DVD! I ended up having to delete the past 3 years from the DVD (after all that hard work!!), so it's just his childhood, his first 18 years. I guess I'll be working on another DVD of The College Years when he graduates from college!

Everything took a backseat to the DVD project and the birthday celebration (11 people for dinner last night), including writing and blogging. Escaping into a bit of fiction was a welcome relief last week and saved my sanity more than once! Here's what we are reading:

• I am almost finished with my sixth and final Big Book of the Summer, Anne of Green Gables by H. M. Montgomery. If, like me, you have never read this childhood classic, you should! It is clever, charming, warm, and funny. I just adore Anne and want to read more of her adventures.
• I finished listening to Crows and Cards by Joseph Helgerson, a free download from SYNC this summer. It is a middle-grade audio book set in 1849 about a twelve-year old boy who gets involved with riverboat gamblers. It was a lot of fun, with a great audio production.
• Now, I am listening to Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, a teen/YA audio book about a young man agonizing over the disappearance of a young woman who was living with him and his brother. It has been absolutely riveting from the very start, with interesting characters and an intriguing plot.
• My husband, Ken, set aside Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch after only a few pages, feeling more in the mood for some light nonfiction about his favorite thing, golf. He has been reading and enjoying Straight Down the Middle: Shivas Irons, Bagger Vance, and How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Golf Swing by Josh Karp, a golf memoir. This was a book I picked up years ago in a bargain bin at a bookstore, and he's really enjoying it so far.
• I think that Jamie, 21, is still reading The Barrow by Mark Smylie, an epic fantasy novel that he's been enjoying.

By Wednesday, I had to ditch blogging completely in order to finish my son's DVD, so just 2 posts last week:

Top Ten Authors I've Read the Most - this was a fun list to make!

Review of UnDivided by Neal Schusterman, final book of the fabulous YA Unwind series

What are you and your family reading this week?    

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey (who is currently on hiatus), with a kid/teen version hosted by Unleashing Readers.     

Remember if you signed up for the Big Book Summer Challenge, you can add your reviews of Big Books to the review list at the link (the second links list). Just 3 weeks left, so finish those Big Books!

How did 21 years go by so fast?