Monday, February 18, 2019

It's Monday 2/18! What Are You Reading?

Another late Monday for posting my weekly reading summary. Whew, last week turned out to be a doozy! Monday through Wednesday were supposed to be quiet days, set aside for writing. Nope. The week was one crisis after another - lots of doctor's appointments, family stuff, other appointments, plus yet another trip to the Apple Genius Bar for my laptop! The good news is that I can once again get audiobooks onto my iPod - the bad news is that I have to manually rebuild much of my iTunes library playlists, etc. As long as I can listen to my books!!
I spent the weekend preparing all our tax stuff, especially the medical expenses. It's a complicated calculation because I can't count anything paid for with before-tax dollars (like insurance premiums and anything we paid with our HSA). Anyway, we just got back from meeting with our tax guy and turned everything over - done with that mess for another year!

Thank goodness for our books in hectic, busy times like this! Here is what we've all been reading this past week:
  • I finished reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2017 and was on every Top Ten list that year - all well-deserved praise! It's historical fiction but with some fantastical twists added. For instance, the Underground Railroad is a literal railroad underground! Also, each state that Cora, a runaway slave, travels through on her way north has its own unique identity and approach to slavery and race relations. Much of it is chilling and some of it is brutal, but it is also a completely compelling and captivating novel, with a wonderful main character. 
  • Now, I am reading another hardcover from my TBR shelf, Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, for my neighborhood book group. I am already loving it! It's a split narrative that takes place in one house in Vineland, NJ, which was created as a utopian community in the 1860's. One side of the story takes places back then, when a female botanist who corresponded with Charles Darwin lived in the house, with a high school science teacher who's not allowed to teach about Darwin's theories next door. The other half of the story takes place in the same house in the present, with a family dealing with a lot of crises - the husband's father is very ill and living with them, and their two adult children have both had to move back home (along with a newborn baby). I love Kingsolver's novels to begin with, and her way of connecting the two stories is so clever & engaging. 
  • I am still listening to The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea on my iPod - I had hoped to read it for Nonfiction November and ran out of time. This works out well now because I just pitched a book column to Shelf Awareness for Cinco de Mayo that includes this book (and was accepted by my editor). It's the true story of an attempt in 2001 by 26 Mexican men to cross the border into Arizona through a desolate stretch of desert known as the Devil's Highway. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction and is certainly relevant to the immigration controversies and challenges rocking our nation (and the world) right now. However, the author really doesn't address political or moral issues related to immigration - his focus is on telling this harrowing story from the facts collected through interviews and police reports and on the human toll. It's fascinating, compelling, and eye-opening.
  • My husband, Ken, is reading a paperback I gave him for Christmas: Edge by Jeffrey Deaver. Though we both love Deaver's Lincoln Rhymes series, this is a stand-alone novel, so we were intrigued by it. He says it's very good so far.
  • Our son, Jamie, 24, finished the FINAL book 14 of The Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson - woohoo! This one weighs in at a hefty 1168 pages. He loves this series and has been looking forward to the conclusion. He says this last book was action-packed right from the first chapters and wrapped up everything very well.
  • Now, Jamie would like to read book 4, Kingdom Blades, of the series A Pattern of Shadow and Light by Melissa McPhail, another favorite series of his. But, being him, he decided he wanted to first re-read the first 3 books in the series. So, he's just re-started book 1, Cephrael's Hand, a mere 780 pages.
Blog posts from last week - I had big plans to catch up, but the week got too busy! -
Fiction Review: True Enough by Stephen McCauley - insights & humor combined

Middle-Grade Review: The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo: The Monster Mall by Drew Weing - book 2 of this fun, creative graphic novel series is just a good as the first!

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?  

I managed to squeeze in a walk last week when the weather turned warm!
 

21 comments:

  1. I hope this week is less hectic for you. My tax appointment isn't until mid-March but I think I'm ready. Come see my week here. Happy reading!

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    1. We needed our refund yesterday (lol) so we were motivated to do it early! Enjoy your books this week!

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  2. I'm glad to hear of some progress on the apple issues. What a bummer to have to manually rebuild. Ugh! Aaand now I'm off to read a bit about A Pattern of Shadow and Light series. Yes, very long books compared to the 300-400ish page books I normally read. I've figured out that between work and "big family" obligations (all my kiddos are homeschooled), I typically only read about 800 - 1,000 pages a week during the school year. And I'm terrible about reading more than one book at a time (unless one is on audio). So one reason I REALLY appreciate your big book summer challenge is that I give myself permission to focus on only one book a week and hopefully knock out a few reads that I put off for so long. Can't wait to pick my next summer selections. YAY! :)

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    1. Wow, Shaye, I think reading 800-1000 pages a week is STUNNING! I can generally finish a standard 300-400 page book in about a week. And I can't read more than one at a time, either, though I always have an audio going :)

      Funny because I was also just picking out my Big Book Summer choices this weekend! ha ha We are ready!

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  3. I picked Unsheltered for an upcoming book club selection when it was fairly new and the reviews seemed great. Recently, the reviews I've seen have been only lukewarm so I'm glad to see you're enjoying it! I've only read one other book by Barbara Kingsolver (Flight Behavior), but I did like it.

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    1. Oh, Laurie - you are in for a treat! Unsheltered is excellent so far, and Flight Behavior was pretty good (a bit preachy), but her BEST novels are her earlier ones. Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees and Pigs in heaven (sequel to Bean Trees) are all on my to 10 books of all time list! Give them a try :)

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    2. I can't believe I still haven't read Poisonwood Bible. It is on my TBR list. I hadn't had the other two on there, but will add them on your say-so!

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    3. Oh, good! They are wonderful novels - warm, funny, moving. Hope you enjoy them!

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  4. Fingers crossed that you done with the Apple store for now! I loved Underground Railroad (I'm sure I've staid that before). I haven't read Unsheltered, but I bet it's great.

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    1. I hope so! I love the Genius Bar but I've seen enough of it. This is the most I've been to the mall in decades!

      Glad you liked Underground Railroad, too - SO good!

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  5. I have, and need to read, Underground Railroad, also have read most of Kingsolver's books & the Unsheltered plot premise sounds fascinating. I do love The Bean Trees & Pigs in Heaven, & The Poisonwood Bible, brilliant. I will read Unsheltered--someday! Glad you're making some progress for the computer mess! Have a great week! (My tax round-up has begun!)

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    1. Glad you are a fellow Kingsolver fan (especially her early stuff) - I think you will like Unsheltered, too.

      Good luck with the tax prep - of course, after handing everything over to our accountant yesterday, today we received another tax document in the mail!!

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  6. I have Underground Railroad on my TBR. My weekly updates

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  7. In amongst all the craziness it sounds like you've had a good week of reading. I'm glad you enjoyed the Underground Railroad; it's good for me to hear that it isn't too intimidating.

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    1. Oh, not at all, Helen - Underground Railroad is a completely engrossing story - I think you'll like it!

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  8. Your books sound really good. I haven't read Kingsolver at all but at some point I'd like to try her. Ouch to all that tax stuff, sounds like a big headache.

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    1. Wow, no Kingsolver, ever, Kathryn? I think you would love The Bean Trees - a sweet, warm, funny story about a woman who adopts a Native American child.

      And, yes, taxes are a big headache!

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  9. I too am a Barbara Kingsolver fan. Thanks for reminding me about this one. I just put a hold on it as an audiobook. There are 70 holds on 6 copies of the downloadable books!
    I have also added The Devil's Highway to my list, although I don't know if I will get to it til next year. It sounds both fascinating and horrific!

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    1. Unsheltered is a good one, Cheriee - I think you'll like it! I bet it's great on audio, with the split narrative. I just finished The Devil's Highway today - wow - so powerful and good.

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  10. I just got the audiobook of Unsheltered but have to finish THERE, THERE, THERE first. I can't wait for my next Kingsolver installment. Glad to know you are enjoying it.

    You asked how to figure out about the reviews/ratings of book on Goodreads. Go to Goodreads.com. Look up the title of book you have recently read. Click on the title so the full record comes up. Right under the title is the author's name. Right under that is the rating/review number. For example I looked up Unsheltered. It has 3.67 stars and · 14,508 ratings · 2,574 reviews.

    Since I have a Goodreads account and keep track of the books I read there, I looked at my list of read books and scrolled down to view books I liked but ones I thought probably didn't have a lot of reviews. Some I was right, some I was wrong. It took quite a bit of clicking around on Goodreads to find ten books with under 2000 reviews. Some shocked me, others I expected them to have few reviews. It was eye-opening.

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