It's Monday 8/9! What Are You Reading?

Another busy week here! In between appointments for my father-in-law, I needed a day of rest to recuperate mid-week. We had a nice surprise this weekend, though: our older son came down for a quick 20-hour visit! He wanted to pick up the car he usually uses (which needed repairs & re-registration). It is always wonderful to see him, and he, my husband, and I enjoyed a quiet Saturday evening together, eating dinner in the family room while we caught up on some of our favorite TV shows we usually watch together. We all needed the downtime! And we had an early celebration of his birthday, which is next week, with gluten-free brownie sundaes with sugar-free ice cream and sugar-free hot fudge sauce I made. This is a favorite treat for me and him, with all of our food restrictions. Meanwhile, his younger brother took off on a 22-hour trip to Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island (that's about 5 hours of driving, plus a ferry ride, each way!). Yup, crazy for sure, but as I told him, this is the time to be crazy, when you're young! The brothers did overlap here at home for a couple of hours.

We are enjoying the bounties of summer produce here! We get our veggies from a local CSA (community supported agriculture), and this summer, we also signed up for a fruit share. This was our haul from last week! The local peaches have been outstanding this summer, and I made my husband a Lemon-Blackberry Pudding Cake last week, too.

Piles of local organic summer produce!

Plus local tomatoes & delicious fruit

I posted a new video on my YouTube channel last week, Birthday Book Haul. This is a quick review of the lovely stack of books my family gave me for my birthday last month, so check it out if you are interested in what's coming up for me!

In the meantime, here's what we've all been reading this week:

I finished The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin. Yes, that Justin Cronin of The Passage fame, but this novel is a far, far cry from that sci-fi/horror/thriller trilogy! It's a quiet story set in the northern woods of Maine about several lives that intersect. It begins in 1947, as a disfigured WWII vet moves his young wife and baby son up to a remote area of Maine to start their lives over. Then, the narrative shifts to present-day, where that baby has grown up to own and work in that same camp/lodge with his own wife and adult daughter. An elderly millionaire who comes to the camp every summer has returned for one last fishing trip before he dies of cancer.  It's an intricate novel about relationships, secrets, and of course, that gorgeous, remote setting and is every bit as compelling as Cronin's more famous sci fi thrillers! I actually bought this book in Maine (and our last visit there was in 2014 so that's how long it's been on my shelf!), and I am glad I finally read it - it was wonderful. I'll be discussing it with my book group this week.

Now, it's back to the Big Books. I have started (drumroll, please ...) the biggest book of my summer, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. My copy is "only" about 600 pages, but they are very big, densely-printed pages. Most versions show almost 900 pages. Believe it or not, this is my first-ever classic Russian novel! Really! We didn't read any in school. I'm about 90 pages in, but really still at the beginning. It's set in 19th-century Russia (I had to look that up - there's really no mention of the timing of the novel), about Anna, a charismatic woman of the aristocratic class who is married and has a son. While visiting her brother in Moscow, she meets Count Vronsky, and the two are instantly attracted to each other. So far, I'm finding it easy to read (no archaic language), with short chapters and a lot going on. I'm working hard to keep the Russian names straight (everyone seems to have three names). I'm enjoying it and hope to finish by the end of the #BigBookSummer Challenge.

I finished listening to After the Flood by Kassandra Montag, a Big Book on audio. This post-apocalyptic novel takes place more than a hundred years from now, when rising sea levels have not only covered the coasts but also the interior heartland of North America. All that's left are individual colonies on the tops of mountains, surrounded by vast oceans. Myra and her seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, live on the water on a boat. Myra's grandfather taught her to fish (and built the boat), so they trade their catches for other necessities but are barely scraping by. Seven years ago, Myra's husband kidnapped their older daughter, Row, and Myra has been unable to find them. But now, she finally gets a lead as to Row's whereabouts, in an area near the Arctic Circle, and is determined to go find her long-lost daughter. They meet a group of people in a larger boat, but can they trust them? This is a dangerous world they live in (apocalypses never seem to bring out the good in people, do they?). The novel was gripping and compelling from the very first chapter, and I enjoyed it. It is dark at times, but hope is woven throughout and is a major theme.

I am now listening to another Big Book (from my large audio backlog), The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man by Jonas Jonasson. I've been thinking about how to describe this very unusual novel! First, it's a sequel, and I have not read the first book, but that seems to be OK so far. Alan is 100 years old and is relaxing in Bali with his friend, Julius (a petty thief). They are both Swedish, and seem to have come into some money at the end of the first book. The two of them do have a lot of adventures, and the book is light and funny: from Indonesia, they ended up in North Korea! But the novel is also filled with facts about world history and global events, since Alan has lived through much of history and seems to know a lot about the world. He is also a first-class BSer, who seems able to talk himself out of anything! (We'll see how things go in North Korea.) I'm really enjoying the audio book so far.

My husband, Ken, is reading another Big Book (his 3rd or 4th?), Genesis, a medical thriller by Robin Cook, the king of that genre. Neither of us has read a Cook novel in many years (decades?), but my neighbor dropped a couple of them off for us - thanks, Mari! This one has a fascinating plot. It's about a medical examiner in NYC who's performed an autopsy on a woman who seems to have died of an overdose, but her family and friends swear she's never touched drugs. The victim was also pregnant, and no one knows who the father was. The Assistant ME turns to a controversial new technique on her own: collaborating with an ancestry DNA website to try to find the identity of the mystery father. This one sounds ripped from the headlines and very current. He's enjoying it so far.

Our 26-year-old son has been reading like crazy! His summer internship includes some down periods each day when it's OK for him to pull out a book, so he's taking full advantage of that.  He just finished reading Falling Kingdoms, book one of the fantasy series of the same name, by Morgan Rhodes. He explained to me that he's read book one before and enjoyed it, and he wanted to re-read it before reading book two - that's my book lover! He grabbed book 2, Rebel Spring, from his bookshelf here at home this weekend, and he just texted me that he started it today! For those who asked about his thoughts on The Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, he said he enjoyed it and wants to read book 2; he felt like book 1 was mostly setting up the world, so he wants to see what happens next.

Last week's blog posts:

Movie Monday: Find Me - warm, poignant movie set against the gorgeous backdrop of national parks - we loved it!

Fiction Review: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton - an Australian boy works hard to save his family in this warm-hearted, suspenseful novel.

Middle-Grade Graphic Novel: Allergic by Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter - a fun story on a serious topic, with plenty of emotional depth.

My Summary of Books Read in July - A Big Book month, low on quantity but high on quality!

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?