It's Monday 5/25! What Are You Reading?

Happy Memorial Day, if you are in the U.S.! This weekend is considered our official start to summer, but I'm wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and am under a blanket! ha ha We have had a very cool May here. We did get out for a nice, peaceful kayak on a local pond this morning--our first time getting the kayaks out this year! It was wonderful, especially since we are missing camping and our outdoor adventures and travel so much. Everything else around us is still so weird, though. It was strange driving home from kayaking, past empty parking lots at stores and restaurants.

Lovely kayaking this morning

Memorial Day weekend also means ... the start to the 2020 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge!! Woohoo! I kicked it off on Friday, and you can read all the details here. The response so far this year has been amazing--lots of people were asking me when it starts ahead of time, and dozens have already signed up just over the weekend! I think we all need something fun and special to look forward to this summer. I hope you'll join the fun, too! It's super easy-going--you only need to read one book with 400 or more pages between now and September to participate (but you can read more, if you want). Check out my big stack of Big Books that I have to choose from this summer--this challenge is also great for those TBR shelves!

Here's what we have all been reading this week:

I finished a classic I have been meaning to get to for a while, The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I remember reading this wilderness adventure back in junior high/middle school and enjoying it, but it's been a loooong time! My husband and I went to see the movie in the theater, just before everything shut down in early March (you can read my review at the link).  If you're not familiar with the story, it's about a dog named Buck who is living a happy and easy domestic life in California in the 1890's as the top dog in Judge Miller's house. Then he is captured and sold (multiple times), beginning a long journey up north, where the Gold Rush in the Yukon has made strong sled dogs a hot commodity. Buck suffers a great deal of abuse from both humans and dogs but soon learns the ways of a sled dog ... and meets some good people, too. Eventually, he meets a kind man named John, just when he needs him the most, and Buck begins to heal with John by his side, all the while hearing the wilderness around him calling to him.  I thoroughly enjoyed the short novel; London is a wonderful writer, capturing Buck's experiences from a dog's perspective.

I squeezed in one last quick book before the start of Big Book Summer, The Way to Stay In Destiny by Augusta Scattergood.  I love Scattergood's warm and fun middle-grade novels, peopled with real-feeling historical characters, like Glory Be and Making Friends with Billy Wong. In 1974, Theo feels like he has lost everything. His parents died when he was very young, and his beloved grandparents--who brought him up--are no longer able to care for him. He's now in the custody of an uncle he'd never met before, a Vietnam vet with a gruff manner who doesn't seem to even like him, and moving to the town of Destiny, FL, a long way from the farm in Kentucky where he spent his first 12 years. But their boarding house has a piano, and on his first day, he meets a new friend named Anabel who loves baseball as much as he does. Maybe Theo can really make a home in Destiny, after all. This book had been sitting on my TBR shelves for much too long, but I am glad I finally got to it. I loved every moment of it and cheered for Theo and Anabel.

On Friday, I started my first book for Big Book Summer! I am starting with Faithful Place by Tana French, book 3 in her Dublin Murder Squad series. I just read--and LOVED--book 2, The Likeness, back in the fall, and my husband and I took advantage of a recent free week of Starz to watch the new TV adaptation, Dublin Murders, which is based on the first two books and is excellent. So, I was geared up for this one and eager to read more! It is amazing so far, completely engrossing. This time, the story focuses on Undercover Detective Frank Mackey, with a cold case dating back to his childhood in a run-down neighborhood called Faithful Place. As always, French has created immersive and realistic characters, setting, and plot that have pulled me right in. This one is keeping me up much too late every night, but I am loving every minute of it.

On audio, I finished listening to Lakewood by Megan Giddings, one of the selections for Booktopia 2020 (which was cancelled but they are scheduling virtual author events now - click on Events to join the fun!). This dark and disturbing novel has a unique premise. A young woman named Lena has just lost her beloved grandmother who raised her. Though she is still in college, responsibility for Lena's mother, Desiree, with her many health problems, now falls to Lena. When she stumbles across a potential job as a highly paid medical research subject, she jumps at the chance to earn so much money and ease her family's problems. Within a few days, though, Lena starts to realize this is a very strange arrangement. She's given a fake job and is required to lie to her family and friends about it, and some of the experiments are not just strange but frightening. It was an intriguing, scary story that was interesting and thought-provoking but perhaps a little too dark for my current mood.

My husband, Ken,  is still reading a thriller (and a Big Book!), Neon Prey by John Sandford. I gave him this paperback in his Easter basket ... I had to choose from the 10 books for sale in our local drugstore! I remember giving my dad some of Sandford's Prey series, but I don't think Ken has read one before. The series is about Lucas Davenport, who seems to be (from the blurbs) a member of the police force who is brilliant and tends to work on his own. In this particular novel (number 29 in the series), Lucas is chasing after a serial killer in Louisiana who has been killing--and getting away with it--for years. We always love reading books set in Louisiana, where we used to live (and an intriguing setting for any novel). This one sounds like a gripping thriller!

Our son, 25, returned to a favorite author, with a spin-off series from one of his old favorites. He finished reading Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima, book 1 of the Shattered Realms series, which he described to me as a companion to The Seven Realms series, which he read years ago and loved. This newer fantasy series is set in the same world but a generation later, so in that way, it continues the stories begun in The Seven Realms and gives readers a look at what comes next (and what avid reader doesn't want that from a favorite series?). Amazon describes it as "a breathtaking story of dark magic, chilling threats, and two unforgettable characters walking a knife-sharp line between life and death." Sounds good!

Now, our son is reading a relatively new novel, Priest of Bones by Peter McLean, book 1 in the series War for the Rose Throne, which be bought with the Amazon gift card that was in his Easter basket. It's a British fantasy that combines religion, politics, crime, and war. He says it's great so far. Ironically, just as I switch to Big Books, this one is only about 350 pages--my son very often reads fantasy chunksters over 1000 pages long, so this is a quickie for him!






Last week's blog posts:

TV Tuesday: Dublin Murders - based on the first 2 books of Tana French's series (one of our favorites!)

Fiction Review: Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett -  moving and immersive novel about mental illness and its impact on a family

2020 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge - has started, so join the fun!

My 2020 Big Book Summer - see the stack of Big Books I will be picking from this summer

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?