It's Monday 1/27! What Are You Reading?

Wow, it's hard to believe it's already the end of January - there was so much I planned to do this month that I haven't gotten to yet!

Last week was a very stressful, difficult week but with a nice ending. I won't go into all the details - just more worrying and stress over our son's health and our financial situation (medical expenses just keep growing!). But we took some steps in a positive direction last week, so we are all trying to be optimistic. It was just an exhausting week with a lot of running around.

Making matters worse, I've had this weird, mysterious hip pain coming and going for the past month or two. I couldn't really figure out what was causing it or why it kept getting worse, in spite of heat, stretching, anti-inflammatories, etc. Then one of my son's nurses said something to me last week that made the lightbulb go off! I am now fairly certain the hip pain is due to my Lyme disease recurring. It tends to go dormant for a few years at a time and then flare back up unexpectedly. The last time was fall 2018, so I thought I was good for a while. It usually makes my knees hurt, so it never even occurred to me that it would cause hip pain in me ... but joint pain is joint pain! I started treating it again last week after my eureka moment, and I do think it's getting better, though I am still experiencing some excruciating pain at times (like last night). Going to keep pushing forward with treatment and crossing my fingers that this does the trick - really, no other explanation makes sense, so I am hopeful! And I have gained so much respect for those living with chronic pain all the time--it's been completely wiping me out.

As I said, we ended the week on a high note, with family visiting from out of state. Our two young cousins drove down for a visit (they are my first cousins but are my sons' ages). They were mostly here to hang out with my sons (which was, in itself, great, especially for our son who's been so isolated lately due to illness), but we got all of us together for dinner here at our house Saturday night. We had a big Mexican taco dinner, with seven of us (my father-in-law, too) around the kitchen table, catching up, laughing, and joking. We even played a new game after dinner that my son gave me for Christmas. I love to play games but rarely have anyone to play with now, so that was a lot of fun--and more laughs--too.

And, of course, we always have our books for happiness and comfort. Here's what we've all been reading this past week:

I finished reading Recursion by Blake Crouch, a sci fi novel I have been dying to read! I really loved the author's novel, Dark Matter, and got this newer novel for my husband's birthday last fall ... so I had to wait for him to read it first! I can't say too much about the plot without spoiling it, but the narrative starts out moving back and forth between two characters: Barry, an NYPD detective, in 2018, and Helena, a neuroscientist hoping to discover a way to help her mother and others with Alzheimer's preserve some of their memories, in 2007. The premise deals with memory, time, and perception in that super-twisty, mind-blowing way that Crouch demonstrated in Dark Matter, too. I love this kind of thought-provoking stuff! As expected, I was completely immersed in the original and compelling story and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Both Dark Matter and Recursion are listed as movies in development, which makes me very, very happy!

Next, I picked up a library book I borrowed for the Book Cougars podcast readalong: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones). Sounds like a really cheery title, right? Actually, it is quite funny! This novel was originally published in Poland and has garnered a lot of recognition. It was short-listed for the International Booker Prize, long-listed for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature! It's about an older woman named Janina living in a remote rural area in Poland, near the Czech border. Her quiet life of caretaking for the summer residents and working on her astrology projects is disrupted when her neighbor dies suddenly, soon followed by another death, ruled a murder, nearby. Janina, a staunch vegetarian and animal lover, personally thinks the local animals are taking revenge on hunters, but the police don't put much credence in her theories. I'm enjoying this unusual, amusing, and thoughtful novel so far.

On audio, I finished listening to A Man Called Ove, my first-ever Fredrik Backman! I've heard such great things about this novel, its author, and all the other novels Backman has written since. The novel begins by describing the daily routines of Ove, a grumpy, solitary man living in Sweden who's recently been forced into an early retirement that he never wanted. Ove is very practical and wants to be useful, but he is also set in his ways and quite judgemental about those who approach life differently than he does. As the story progresses, the reader/listener discovers Ove is dealing with some serious challenges. Quite against his will, he begins to get to know some of his neighbors, and his cold heart begins to crack open. I started laughing from the very first minutes of listening and also appreciated the emotional depth and warmth. It's a wonderful, moving novel--just like everyone's been telling me for years!

My husband, Ken, picked out a lightweight paperback that I put in his Christmas stocking for his travel-filled week: The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. He and I have both enjoyed other Ware novels, including The Woman in Cabin 10I and In a Dark, Dark Wood. This one is about four women who attended boarding school together, playing what they called The Lying Game, telling lies to their fellow students and even the staff at every turn. Now they are adults, and one of them texts the other three that she needs them. The four women converge on the seaside town where they went to school, as the secrets from their past threaten to emerge. He's enjoying it so far, and I'm looking forward to reading it as well (this is why my TBR shelves never get any less full, in spite of reading 45 TBR books last year!).

Our son, 25, just last night finished The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, part of The Witcher series. It's a prequel explaining how the main character got his Witcher start. You have probably heard all the hype recently about the new Netflix TV show (and apparently, a best-selling video game, too) based on this book series, and even though he hadn't read the books yet (usually a requirement in our house), my son jumped into the Netflix show the first day it was released and is enjoying season 1. So, when he received The Last Wish as a Christmas gift, he quickly set his other book aside to read it. He loved this novel and says that having watched the TV show didn't ruin the book for him, since the action in this book takes place before the TV series. He was hoping to move onto book 1, though the local bookstore was sold out! He got some other books by favorite authors with his gift card, so now he's trying to choose his next book ... don't you love doing that??

Last week's blog posts - I finally wrapped up 2019! -

Favorite Movies Watched in 2019 - my top picks & full list from 2019

Fiction Review: Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday - a clever, engrossing, unique pair of interconnected stories

Memoir Review: Running on Red Dog Road: And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood by Drema Hall Berkheimer - an enjoyable, warm, and funny childhood memoir

2020 Reading Challenges - I finally signed up! Some great ones lined up for this year.

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?