Since the pandemic started and theaters closed (I am not fully vaccinated yet), we have mostly avoided new release movies. Why pay for a movie at home when so many are available for free? But we made an exception this weekend when I saw that Chaos Walking had finally been released, after many delays. It is based on a book trilogy by the same name by Patrick Ness that my husband, son, and I had all enjoyed very much. It's a bit misleading because Chaos Walking is the name of the whole trilogy, and this movie (I'm guessing the first of three) is really just adapted from the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go. My husband and I both enjoyed the movie adaptation and thought they did a good job of capturing the first book.
Todd, played by Tom Holland of Spiderman fame, is the only boy in his town of Prentisstown, where all citizens are men, and there are no women. It is clear that this is not Earth, though the terrain looks similar. The men are all afflicted by The Noise here. All of their thoughts can be heard by others; there are no secrets here. Can you imagine? Todd's mother, along with the other women, died long ago, and he has been brought up by two kind men, Ben and Cillian, who care for him on their farm. Mayor Prentiss, played by Mads Mikkelsen, can be somewhat menacing at times, though he's kind to Todd. Everything in Prentisstown changes in an instant when a spacecraft crash lands nearby, with a single occupant, a young girl named Viola, played by Daisy Ridley of Star Wars. Todd finds Viola in the woods and is shocked since he has never seen a girl before (remember that Viola can hear all his thoughts!). When the townsmen start coming after Viola, Ben urges Todd to run and to keep her safe. As the two young people, and Todd's dog, Manchee, run off through the forests, lakes, and rivers, they are chased by the men of Prentisstown but must also avoid the dangerous natives of the planet, creatures called Spackle. They are trying to find another town that Ben told them about, where Viola might be able to make contact with the next ship of colonizers that is on its way.
So, as you can tell by the description, this is a sci fi adventure/thriller, with lots of action and suspense. Being able to hear Todd's thoughts adds some elements of humor to the movie, to lighten the sometimes-tense mood. Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley are the stars here, with the majority of the screen time, and they are both outstanding actors, though the supporting cast is good, too (I was surprised to see Nick Jonas). For lovers of the books, like us, it seemed like the movie held pretty close to the events of the book (it's been a while since we read it, which is usually the best way to see a book adaptation on screen). My one disappointment was you couldn't hear Manchee's (the dog) thoughts in the movie. Hearing Manchee's doggie thoughts was the funniest part of the book! Overall, we enjoyed the movie and are looking forward to the next one--hopefully, we won't have to wait as long for that one.
Chaos Walking is a new release, so it is available in some theaters, but it is also available for a small fee at the usual pay-per-view options, including Redbox, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon, where we watched it. Like I said, we don't normally pay for at-home movies, but I figured $5.99 is quite a bargain compared to about $30 for two tickets and popcorn in the theater!
Happy Memorial Day to those in the U.S.! It's been a low-key holiday weekend at our house and a strange way to kick-off the unofficial start of summer. It was in the 40's and raining most of the weekend. I was wearing a flannel shirt and cooked soup yesterday! Not the typical Memorial Day weekend festivities.
We were also low-key because we had a very hectic week. Our older son and his girlfriend spent the week here and just headed back to NY on Saturday. They were pretty busy, meeting up with old friends (my son got to see both of his best friends since Kindergarten!), but it was nice to have them here. At the same time, our younger son moved all of his stuff back into the house, as he was transferred to a neighboring state recently for his job and is in-between apartments for now. So, things were pretty hectic here!
The big news this weekend, though, was the official kick-off to the 2021 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge! This is the 9th year I've hosted this annual challenge, and everyone (including me) has been so excited to get started. The idea is to use the lazy days of summer (or the busy days, depending on your life) to read a bigger book (or two or three or ...) you've been meaning to get to. A "big book" is defined as any book with 400 or more pages, and you only have to read one between now and early September to participate. All the details and how to sign-up (via blog, YouTube, Goodreads, or just by leaving a comment) are on the challenge page. It's super easy-going, like summer!
I love going through my overflowing to-be-read bookcase and choosing a stack of Big Books that I can work on during the summer (I won't get to all of them, but I like to have options). You can see my own plans for Big Book Summer 2021 in My Big Book Summer post or in this brief YouTube video, where I provide more details on the books I hope to read.
If you want to participate, but you need some Big Book inspiration, check out my new Big Books! list on Bookshop, which includes over 50 Big Books--in all genres, types, and for all ages--that I've enjoyed in previous summers.
Hope you'll join the fun this summer!
And, onto what we've all been reading this past week:
I finished my neighborhood book group selection for this week: The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides. This psychological thriller is about a woman
named Alicia who murders her husband and then stops speaking. Alicia is a
famous painter, and her husband was a well-known fashion photographer.
They seemed to have a wonderful, loving marriage, so what happened?
Alicia's silence continues for years, as she remains at the Grove, a
secure forensic psychiatric facility in London. Theo Faber is a criminal
psychotherapist who, by his own admission, has his own issues stemming
from an abusive childhood. Theo becomes obsessed with Alicia and manages
to get himself hired at the Grove and assigned to her case. Everyone
else has given up, since she won't communicate at all, but Theo thinks
he can connect with her and solve the mystery. There was plenty of suspense and lots of twists and surprises!
Now, I am reading my first Big Book Summer book! I still have one more book group selection to read for next week before my book groups go on a summer hiatus, so I chose the shortest Big Book in my stack (exactly 400 pages), End of Watch by Stephen King. Also, it's King, so I know I will read it very quickly--his novels are just so compelling! This is the 3rd and final book in the Mr. Mercedes trilogy. I enjoyed Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers. And my husband has been waiting for me to read this last book, so he and I can watch season 2 of the Mr. Mercedes TV show! I won't give away any spoilers, but this third book continues the story of Bill Hodges, a retired police detective in Ohio, and his now-business-partner, Holly Gibney (who also makes an appearance in King's The Outsider). Together, they solved the case of the Mercedes Massacre, but now a suspiciously odd string of suicides brings them back into an active police investigation. It is already gripping, suspenseful, and I hate to set it down each night!
I just a few minutes ago finished listening to Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my all-time favorite authors, and her novels, The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees (along with its sequel, Pigs in Heaven),
are among my all-time favorite books. Like those, this is an earlier
novel (published in 1990), and she reads the audio herself. She has the
most wonderful, soothing voice and completely inhabits the characters
she is narrating. In this case, that's mainly Codi, a woman who has
returned to her tiny hometown in Arizona for the first time since she
left after high school. She's not in close touch with her father, the
town doctor, but she's heard he's suffering from dementia. Her beloved
sister is in Nicaragua (it's set in the 80's), helping the farmers there, so Codi is on her
own. As with most of Kingsolver's novels, there is an environmental
crisis here (though not the main story), along with Native American cultures and legends. Codi is
struggling to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her
life ... and maybe falling in life with her high school boyfriend. I
thoroughly enjoyed listening to Kingsolver narrate this beautifully written,
gentle, lyrical story. She is a master storyteller.
Next up for me on audio is another Big Book! (Yes, audios count, too, based on the page count in the print book.) I am getting ready to start The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames, a novel published in 2019. I've heard lots of rave reviews of this book, so I've been looking forward to listening to it (saving it for Big Book Summer). According to the blurb, it's the story of a woman named Stella, who encounters many life-threatening incidents during her childhood in rural Italy. She protects her younger sister, Tina, but life changes dramatically when the family immigrates to the United States just before WWII. The story is apparently told from the perspective of a family member in Connecticut in the present day, to explain why the two now-elderly sisters don't get along. It sounds like an engaging family epic - I'm ready!
So for two weeks now, I've been telling you that my husband, Ken, was reading Camino Island
by John Grisham and describing the plot as: "It takes place on a quiet island off the coast of
Florida, where Bruce Cable owns a small bookstore and also deals in rare
books (which are occasionally not completely legal). A young novelist
with writer's block, Mercer Mann, is paid a lot of money to go
undercover and infiltrate Cable's circle of literary friends, to
discover his secrets." Yes, that's all true ... except the book my husband was reading was Camino Winds by John Grisham, not Camino Island! I gave it to my husband for Easter, and it is book TWO in this short series, not book one. I finally noticed my mistake this week. He still enjoyed it and now understands why he sometimes thought he had missed something. lol
My husband has also joined the Big Book Summer Challenge again and started his first big book of 2021: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Like me, he likes to read classics once in a while, and this one has been on our shelves for a while. It's about the Spanish Civil War and is based on Hemingway's own travels to Spain as a journalist in 1937 to cover the war for the North American Newspaper Alliance. I think this is the third Hemingway novel my husband has read, but I have never read anything by Hemingway! I know, isn't that crazy? I never even read any Hemingway in school. So, I'd like to read this one, too, though I don't know if I will get to it this summer, since my Big Book Summer plans already include the classic, Anna Karenina, which I know will take me a long time to read!
Our 26-year-old son is still immersed in one of his favorite series, Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. He's reading book 4, Rhythm of War,
which is a mere 1232 pages ... and hardcover! He loves epic fantasy, the longer the
better--it's alwaysBig Book Summer for him! He brought the book home with him, but I don't think he had much time for reading this past week, with all their social engagements.
Blog posts from last week:
TV Tuesday: For All Mankind - An outstanding show about an alternate history of the U.S. space program - we love this show!
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.
Ten years ago, I came up with the idea to use the relaxed freedom of
summer to tackle some of the biggest books on my to-be-read shelves
that I'd
been wanting to read but never seemed to have the time for. My book
groups take time off during the summer, so with fewer interfering
commitments, I declared it The Summer of the Big Book and really enjoyed delving into some hefty tomes, like The Passage and Pillars of the Earth.
It
was so much fun that nine years ago, I created this challenge so
that YOU can join me. And here it is Memorial Day weekend again and the
unofficial start of summer 2021. I hope you'll join in the fun!
And please note that if it is the start of winter where you live, you are still welcome to participate!
The Details:
Hey, it's summer, so we'll keep this low-key and easy!
Anything 400 pages or more qualifies as a big book.
The challenge will run from Memorial Day weekend (starting May 28
this year) through Labor Day weekend (Labor Day is September 6 this
year).
Choose one or two or however many big books you want as your goal. Wait, did you get that? You only need to read 1 book with 400+ pages this summer to participate! (though you are welcome to read more, if you want).
Sign
up on the first links list below if you have a blog or YouTube channel,
to leave your link so others can visit. No blog? No problem! Just sign
up in the comments below or in the Goodreads group if you don't have a blog or YouTube channel.
If you have a blog or YouTube channel, write a post or record a video to kick things off: you can list the exact big books
you plan to read or just announce your intent to participate, but be
sure to include the Big Book Summer Challenge pic above, with a link
back to this blog. It's fine to kick-off your Big Book Summer as part of another post or video.
Write a post or record a video to wrap up at the end, listing the big books you read during the summer.
You can write progress posts or record progress videos if you want to and/or reviews of the
big books you've read ... but you don't have to! There is a separate
links list below for big book reviews, progress updates, and wrap-up posts/videos.
That's it! Go check out your shelves and your TBR list and sign up below!
What
kind of books "count"? All kinds! Middle-grade, YA, graphic novels,
classics, all genres, all types--as long as they are at least 400 pages.
See my list of Big Books on BookShop for some great ideas, based on what I have read in previous Big Book Summers.
Don't have a blog? No problem! You can still participate in the
challenge. Just leave a comment in the Comment section below, stating your
goals for the Big Book Summer Challenge, or sign up in the Goodreads group by leaving a comment in the Sign-Up discussion.
At the end of the summer, there will be a Big Book Giveaway!
After Labor Day, I'll select one name from among the participants
(bloggers and booktubers who leave a link below as well as those without a blog/video who sign-up through
the Goodreads group) and will send the winner an Amazon gift
certificate.
And help spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media with #BigBookSummer (you can follow me at @suebookbybook on Twitter and/or the Facebook page for this blog and/or check out my YouTube channel). Challenge updates will be posted in all of those places.
Link-up your 2021 Big Book Summer Sign-Up Posts and Videos here--be
sure to include a link to your kick-off blog post (not your homepage) or
video directly. (See below for the Links List for updates, reviews, and
wrap-ups.)
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from
these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help
offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.
I have just announced the 9th year of my annual reading challenge, Big Book Summer Challenge, so I guess I should be the first to sign up!
I always enjoy tackling some big books in the summer, and I'm looking
forward to doing it again and finally reading some of these bricks that
have been collecting dust on my shelf (NOTE: for this challenge, a Big Book is defined as a book with 400 pages or more).
I definitely won't get through all of these, but I like to have some options to choose
from. These are all currently on my shelves, waiting patiently to be
read (along with many others!):
From the bottom of the stack:
The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray (490 pages)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (588 BIG pages)
The Air You Breathe by Frances De Pontes Peebles (449 pages)
The Overstory by Richard Powers (502 pages)
Blackout by Connie Willis (491 pages)
Broken Harbor by Tana French (450 pages)
End of Watch by Stephen King (402 pages)
All of these also qualify for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2021.
One of them will also count for my Back to the Classics 2021
Challenge. I also have gone through my backlog of
audiobooks to pick out the ones over 400 pages, so I will be listening
to Big Audio Books, too! I won't get through all of these this summer,
but they are all books I want to read.
How about you? Are you up for tackling a Big Book (or two or three) this summer? Join me and sign up for the 2021 Big Book Summer Challenge! The rules, details, and link-ups are on that page.
When I got an iPhone last summer, a free year of Apple TV came with
it, so we've been trying to seek out and enjoy any shows on Apple TV
while we've got it. I previously reviewed Home Before Dark, a fabulous mystery/thriller show featuring a child detective. More recently, we've discovered For All Mankind,
an alternate history of the U.S. space program that is outstanding.
We're loving this show so far; it just keeps getting better and better.
The premise of For All Mankind
is an alternate history of the U.S. space program, where the Soviets
are the first to put a man on the moon (and soon after, a woman) in
1969, which completely changes the space race for America. Now, the U.S.
is playing catch-up and is worried that the Soviets will build a
military base on the moon and begin weaponizing their early position.
From that first episode, the show is set in an alternate reality from
what we actually experienced, though many (not all) of the real
historical events that occurred are a backdrop here. The real focus,
though, is on the engineers and astronauts of NASA, as they move
forward, fueled by political forces that are constantly pushing them to
do more and faster. Women astronauts become a part of the program,
starting in the early 70's, and in this world, water is discovered on
the moon, raising the stakes even higher. The real political, fashion,
and cultural trends of the 70's are featured here, including the very
real prejudices against being gay. This show features a huge ensemble
cast with many talented actors, some playing real-life people and some
made-up characters. Joel Kinnaman, featured in many top shows recently
like Hanna, Altered Carbon, and House of Cards,
plays Edward Baldwin, a fictional top NASA astronaut and commander of
Apollo 10. Michael Dorman plays Gordo Stevens, who was a real NASA
astronaut but here has a much lengthier public career. And Sonya Walger,
one of our favorites from Lost, here plays Molly Cobb, one of the first female astronauts (and one of the most skilled of any gender).
This show works
on every level and is one of our current favorites. It is a thriller,
with some truly suspenseful scenes when the astronauts of various
missions are in peril. It is a political drama, featuring the inner
workings of NASA and the pressures put on the space program from the
President (there are some surprises there). And it is a family drama,
zooming in on the personal lives of the astronauts and others in NASA
and the unique pressures put on their families. It is, at different
times, heart-stopping, heart-warming, and heart-breaking. And it's all
played out against the backdrop of the 1970's, with its colorful
fashions and decor and unique mix of opportunities both opening up and
remaining closed. For instance, it's fascinating to see how quickly the
U.S.changes its tune and accepts women astronauts after a Soviet woman
lands on the moon, yet how unrelenting and horribly intolerant and
bigoted those same leaders are about gay people being a part of NASA.
The plot is twisty and constantly surprising. We love everything about
this show and can't wait to see what happens next!
There are currently two seasons of For All Mankind
available on Apple TV, with a third season planned (luckily, my husband
just bought a new iPhone, too). We have just finished season one, and
each episode continues to move us in new ways. The episodes vary in
length, as is becoming more common on streaming services, but most are
at least an hour long.
The big news here last week is that I finally got my first vaccine! Because I have a very complex immune disorder, I've spent the past five months deciding whether it would be OK to get it, getting loads of immune function tests done, talking to my doctors, trying to improve my immune function and get my underlying infections under control with new treatments, and finally, preparing for the vaccine. Poll data for those with my disease is showing that about 10% (or slightly more, depending on which vaccine) suffer a severe and long-lasting relapse after the vaccine ... hence, all the worry and preparation! I just came out of a 14-month-long relapse and had no desire to go back there (or worse). I've been feeling really good the past three weeks, which has been such a relief.
So, I rushed around at the beginning of the week, trying to get everything done in case I relapsed badly: shopping, yard work, blogging, etc. Then, I got my first shot of Moderna Wednesday, and ... nothing! Other than mild soreness in my arm, I had no reaction at all, which was a relief but also stunning, since I was prepared for the worst. Some people with my disease do have a delayed reaction, and I've been run-down yesterday and today, so I'm not completely out of the woods yet, but I am hopeful!
The other big news is, of course, that Big Book Summer 2021 kicks off on Friday!! This is my annual reading challenge that runs from the end of May to the start of September with a focus on using those lazy days of summer to tackle some of the bigger books you've been meaning to read. You only need to read one Big Book (400 or more pages) to participate in the challenge, but you are welcome to read as many as you want! Participation has grown every year (this will be the 9th), and I know I'm not the only one looking forward to it. All over social media, people have been asking me when it starts. I'm thrilled to see so much excitement! The official sign-up page will be posted here on Friday (you don't need a blog to join), but in the meantime, you can read the simple rules at the 2020 Big Book Summer page (only the dates will change). And I gave a brief preview of my own Big Book Summer last week in my weekly Friday Reads video, so check that out--I have my stack ready!
So, that's most of what I will be working on this week. Oh, and I almost forgot! I finally redesigned my blog banner (see above) and made a logo to go with it. Long overdue after 14 years of blogging.
Here's what we've all been reading this past week:
I finished Force of Nature by best-selling author Jane Harper,
another of her Australian thrillers centered around Federal Police Agent
Aaron Falk. Five women go into the woods (the Australian bush) for a
weekend-long corporate backpacking retreat, a mandatory team-building
activity. The men's group returns on time Sunday, but when the women's
group finally staggers out of the forest, many hours late, there are
only four women. One of them, Alice, is missing. Falk and his partner
get called in because Alice just happens to be their main informant in
building a case against her company. As the search for Alice continues,
the higher-ups urge Falk to finish obtaining the necessary evidence
against the company. Did Alice merely get lost? Did her prickly
personality go too far and get her in trouble with her fellow hikers? Or
is something more sinister going on? This was super-twisty and unpredictable, and kept me turning the pages until the very end.
I don't normally read two thrillers in a row (unless it's the R.I.P. Challenge in the fall), but my neighborhood book group selection for June is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. This psychological thriller was on all the best-seller lists and lauded with rave reviews from loads of top thriller authors, so I was glad my group chose it. It's about a woman named Alicia who murders her husband and then stops speaking. Alicia is a famous painter, and her husband was a well-known fashion photographer. They seemed to have a wonderful, loving marriage, so what happened? Alicia's silence continues for years, as she remains at the Grove, a secure forensic psychiatric facility in London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who, by his own admission, has his own issues stemming from an abusive childhood. Theo becomes obsessed with Alicia and manages to get himself hired at the Grove and assigned to her case. Everyone else has given up, since she won't communicate at all, but Theo thinks he can connect with her and solve the mystery. It's great so far, already intriguing and gripping.
On audio, I finally finished re-listening to Becoming by Michelle Obama (my review at the link).
One of my book groups chose it, and since it was still on my iPod, I thought I'd just
re-listen to some parts of it to remind me of the details. I ended up re-listening to the whole book! This is not a political book; it's the very personal
story of Michelle's own life, from her childhood through to 2017, as
they leave the White House. It covers her experiences growing up on the
South Side of Chicago, going to Princeton and Harvard as one of few
Black students in the 1980's, her zigzagging career path as she tries to
figure out what to do with her life, her experiences as a mother, and
yes, her support of Barack's political career, as he strives to find
bigger and better ways to make a difference in the world. Despite the
fact that she was a First Lady, her tone (the audio is read by her) is
warm and friendly, and her story is surprisingly relatable. I am only
one year younger than her, so I could especially relate to many of her
experiences. I loved this audio all over again! It's like listening
to a good friend tell you about her life.
Now, I am immersed in listening to Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my all-time favorite authors, and her novels, The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees (along with its sequel, Pigs in Heaven), are among my all-time favorite books. Like those, this is an earlier novel (published in 1990), and she reads the audio herself. She has the most wonderful, soothing voice and completely inhabits the characters she is narrating. In this case, that's mainly Codi, a woman who has returned to her tiny hometown in Arizona for the first time since she left after high school. She's not in close touch with her father, the town doctor, but she's heard he's suffering from dementia. Her beloved sister is in Nicaragua, helping the farmers there, so Codi is on her own. As with most of Kingsolver's novels, there is an environmental crisis here, along with Native American cultures and legends. Codi is struggling to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life ... and maybe falling in life with her high school boyfriend. I am thoroughly enjoying listening to Kingsolver narrate this beautiful, gentle story.
My husband, Ken, is reading a book I put into his Easter basket (oops, I mean from the Easter bunny!), Camino Island
by John Grisham. It takes place on a quiet island off the coast of
Florida, where Bruce Cable owns a small bookstore and also deals in rare
books (which are occasionally not completely legal). A young novelist
with writer's block, Mercer Mann, is paid a lot of money to go
undercover and infiltrate Cable's circle of literary friends, to
discover his secrets. It sounds like a fun book-centric thriller! He's
enjoying it so far.
I believe our 26-year-old son is still immersed in one of his favorite series, Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. He's now onto book 4, Rhythm of War,
which is a mere 1232 pages ... and hardcover! He loves epic fantasy, the longer the
better--it's alwaysBig Book Summer for him! He and his girlfriend are arriving tonight for a visit, so I'll get an update on his reading. We're looking forward to spending some time with them!
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.
One
week early this month, a friend dropped off a surprise for me: her copy of The
Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett! She knew I was dying to read it, so I
really appreciated her bringing it over for me. This highly-acclaimed novel is
a finalist for the 2021 Women's Fiction Prize, and for good reason. It was just
as good as I've been hearing: moving, powerful, and poignant.
The
novel begins in the fictional town of Mallard, Louisiana, which is described as
more of an idea than a place. Its founder started the town in 1848 as a safe
haven for lighter-skinned Blacks, where they could escape from being labeled
and harassed by whites. In 1954, a pair of beautiful twin girls runs
away from Mallard at age sixteen. They flee to New Orleans, where they live and
work together for a while, until Stella discovers she can pass for white. The
novel opens in 1968 when one of the twins, Desiree, returns to Mallard with her
very dark-skinned daughter, which creates a stir in town. They move back in
with her mother, though life in Mallard is difficult for Desiree’s daughter.
The fate of the other twin is a mystery (until about halfway into the novel),
though the reader knows
that Stella has been passing for white and is living an entirely different kind
of life. Years later, the twins' daughters' lives intersect, causing ripples
through both sides of the family.
The stories here, of the twins’ lives, together and
separate, and their children, are engrossing, but the novel is also fascinating
for its exploration of the subtleties of racism during different time periods. Sometimes, you see the
obvious racism of black versus white, but this novel also delves into the more
intricate details of light-skinned versus dark-skinned and the complexities of
“passing,” including
the sacrifices Stella must make to live as white. The author explores how each
twin’s choices affect not only her own life but that of her family and the next
generation. It’s an engaging, thoughtful historical novel with lots of
emotional depth. I enjoyed it very much and really want to read Bennett’s first
novel, The Mothers.
343 pages, Riverhead Books
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from
these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help
offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.
You
can buy the book through
Bookshop.org,
where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all
indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local:
NOTE: If you have not yet read Ready Player One, click the link to see that review, to avoid spoilers. This is a review of the sequel.
I
gave Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline to my husband for Christmas, he
recently read it, and then it was my turn! (Best kind of gifts, right?) My
husband, son, and I all loved the first book, Ready Player One, (and the movie) and have been looking forward to
the sequel.
The
novel begins just nine days after the end of Ready Player One. Wade, Samantha, Shoto, and Aech are now the
co-owners of GSS and its immersive virtual world, OASIS. On his first official
day at work, Wade discovers a new technology that Halliday left for him. He and
the others agree (with Samantha against) to release the new technology, which
quickly begins to change the world, not necessarily always in good ways. A year
later, Wade is struggling. He has not handled fame and fortune well and
is living the kind of isolated, mostly virtual existence that Halliday once
lived. But Halliday also left behind a new quest that was revealed shortly
after the new technology was adopted. No one has made much progress in the
quest in the past year, but now events in the real world make the quest suddenly urgent, with real-life
consequences. Wade and his friends set to work to complete the very complex
quest, but this time, the fate of the world is at stake and they have very
limited time.
The
sequel follows much the same formula as the first book, with Wade and his
friends working in OASIS to solve this quest; however, the stakes are much
higher now. As in the first novel, the story is loaded with fun pop culture references, especially from classic science fiction and the 80's. In working through the quest, they visit virtual worlds associated
with Prince, John Hughes’ movies from the 80’s (I particularly enjoyed those
chapters), and early Tolkien, among others. The author also weaves in some
ethical issues about technology advances and A.I., which makes this novel a bit
more thought-provoking. I found the early chapters a bit slow (and a bit
depressing), but hang in there: the action really picks up by about page 100,
and the rest of the novel carries the fast-paced exploits fans loved in the
first book. I enjoyed this fun new adventure with life-or-death consequences in
and out of OASIS.
366 pages, Ballantine Books
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from
these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help
offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.
You
can buy the book through
Bookshop.org,
where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all
indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!
This week was Work in the Garden Week here. Inspired by the excellent book Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy (my review at the link) and a great discussion with my neighborhood book group, I may have possibly over-bought at our local nature center's annual Native Plant Sale! I spent all week weeding our beds (which are seriously neglected after my year+ of not being able to do anything), and we picked up our plants and two trees Saturday morning.
Our native plants (and trees in the back seat!)
We spent the rest of the weekend weeding, digging, and planting! Our son came by to help for a bit, but he's a busy young man with an active social life (I am hugely grateful to him for all the digging, which I couldn't have done). About half of the plants are in now, and I'm headed out in a few minutes to get some more of them into the ground. The beds are still pretty weedy, but I want to at least get all the new stuff planted. We have a very hot week coming up (going from highs in the 70's to the 90's!), so we'll be watering a lot this week.
6 new plantings among the older daffodils
Our Mighty Oak! (a Scarlett Oak)
Our older purple irises are in full bloom now!
My itty bitty azalea bush finally growing & blooming after 10 years!
We also had a lovely picnic celebration for my father-in-law's 96th birthday! He tends to go downhill in evening, so we opted for a lunchtime picnic at a local park. He really enjoys spending time outdoors, and it seems to life his spirits and improve his cognition, so we also had him over this weekend to watch us work in the yard. We celebrated his birthday with Popeye's, watermelon (his fave), amazing cupcakes from a local bakery, and gifts.
A fun picnic celebration for 96 years!!
With all that, I didn't quite finish editing and uploading my April Wrap-Up video, but that will go up this week. In the meantime, you can check out my brief Friday Reads video, where I gush about Clock Dance and Becoming!
And, just a reminder that it's almost time for Big Book Summer 2021!! My annual reading challenge officially starts every year on Memorial Day weekend, so the kick-off this year will be Friday, May 28. You only need to read one "big" book of 400 or more pages by the start of September (Labor Day in the U.S.) ... or you can read as many as you want! I am already pulling together my stack of Big Books (more than I can possibly read in one summer, as usual) to choose from, so look through your TBR shelves and list and get ready for some summer reading fun! If you haven't participated in the past, you can read the rules from the 2020 Big Book Challenge here--it'll be the same (easy-going like summer), except for the exact dates.
And, here's what we've all been reading this week:
I finished one of my Mother's Day gifts from my son, Clock Dance by Anne
Tyler. My husband and I both enjoyed some of Tyler's earliest novels but
then sort of lost track of her, so I've been wanting to read her more
recent novels. The novel opens to the story of a young girl named Willa growing up in a small
town in Pennsylvania, with a little sister, a kind father, and an
unreliable mother. The novel revisits Willa's life at four
different points--1967, 1977, 1997, and 2017--and Willa has a chance to
change her life at each of these major turning points. I'd forgotten just how amazing Tyler's writing is! This novel is warm, immersive, funny, and uplifting, all about community and found families. I loved every minute of it, and even though the ending was perfect, I was so sad to leave Willa and her friends behind. I'm still thinking about it and missing it several days later, so that should tell you something!
Now, I am reading Force of Nature by best-selling author Jane Harper, another of her Australian thrillers centered around Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk. Five women go into the woods (the Australian bush) for a weekend-long corporate backpacking retreat, a mandatory team-building activity. The men's group returns on time Sunday, but when the women's group finally staggers out of the forest, many hours late, there are only four women. One of them, Alice, is missing. Falk and his partner get called in because Alice just happens to be their main informant in building a case against her company. As the search for Alice continues, the higher-ups urge Falk to finish obtaining the necessary evidence against the company. Did Alice merely get lost? Did her prickly personality go too far and get her in trouble with her fellow hikers? Or is something more sinister going on? It's great so far!
On audio, I've been re-listening to Becoming by Michelle Obama.
One of my book groups discussed it on Zoom last week, and since it was still on my iPod, I thought I'd just
re-listen to some parts of it to remind me of the details. Well, I am
still listening! This is not a political book; it's the very personal
story of Michelle's own life, from her childhood through to 2017, as
they leave the White House. It covers her experiences growing up on the
South Side of Chicago, going to Princeton and Harvard as one of few
Black students in the 1980's, her zigzagging career path as she tries to
figure out what to do with her life, her experiences as a mother, and
yes, her support of Barack's political career, as he strives to find
bigger and better ways to make a difference in the world. Despite the
fact that she was a First Lady, her tone (the audio is read by her) is
warm and friendly, and her story is surprisingly relatable. I am only
one year younger than her, so I could especially relate to many of her
experiences. I'm loving this audio all over again! It's like listening
to a good friend tell you about her life.
My husband, Ken, finished A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony
Marra, a novel which garnered multiple awards and accolades when it was
released in 2013. I read this book back in 2015 with one of my book
groups and loved it (my review). It was quite a departure from Ken's usual thrillers. It
takes place during the Chechnyan wars. A newly orphaned eight-year-old
girl is taken by a kind neighbor to the local hospital, which is mostly
bombed out. A doctor named Sonja remains there, working by herself day
and night to care for anyone who manages to find their way there. The
girl and the neighbor are still in danger from those who killed her
parents, and they hide out at the hospital (he is a doctor so pledges to
help Sonja in return). It's all about connections between people and
how love and hope can survive in the worst circumstances. It's a
powerful, moving novel, and Ken enjoyed it very much.
Now, Ken is reading a book I put into his Easter basket (oops, I mean from the Easter bunny!), Camino Island by John Grisham. It takes place on a quiet island off the coast of Florida, where Bruce Cable owns a small bookstore and also deals in rare books (which are occasionally not completely legal). A young novelist with writer's block, Mercer Mann, is paid a lot of money to go undercover and infiltrate Cable's circle of literary friends, to discover his secrets. It sounds like a fun book-centric thriller! He's enjoying it so far.
Our 26-year-old son is immersed in one of his favorite series, Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. He's now onto book 4, Rhythm of War,
which is a mere 1232 pages ... and hardcover! He loves epic fantasy, the longer the
better, and he thinks my annual Big Book Summer Challenge
(coming up in two weeks!) where I read 400+ page books each summer is
pretty funny. When he was twelve, we were halfway across the country on a
day-long
journey through airports when we realized he'd stuffed the hardcover
edition of the complete works of Arthur Conan Doyle into his backpack
for the trip! That's our boy.
Blog posts from last week:
Fiction Review: Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss - parallel narratives set in Israel that explore the characters' inner lives
Fiction Review: Astray by Emma Donoghue - outstanding collection of short stories, each based on a nuggets of real-life historical news
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.
