It's Monday 2/20! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

We enjoyed a week of celebrations, with Valentine's Day on Tuesday, and Mardi Gras celebrations on-going! Valentine's Day was celebrated with just a quiet evening with my husband and I. We cooked a simple but delicious dinner at home, with filets and roasted Brussels sprouts, and exchanged cards and goodies (we are fully stocked up on chocolate now!).

For the past 30 years, we have hosted a Mardi Gras party on the last weekend of carnival season. At one point, we had 50-60 people here for it! After I got sick 21 years ago, we scaled back to about a dozen close friends. With the pandemic the past few years, we've done a Zoom gathering, which works well since several of our old New Orleans friends have left this area in recent years. But we just weren't feeling it this year. So, we invited our closest friends over (who also lived in New Orleans when we did), ordered takeout from a fabulous, very authentic, local Louisiana-inspired restaurant, and added King Cake, Zapp's (great chips from Louisiana), and homemade bread pudding that they made. We enjoyed a nice celebration with just the four of us, great food, lots of laughs, and reminisces of our time in New Orleans together. We'll be going to their house tomorrow for our traditional Popeye's splurge for Mardi Gras Day (watch for a special Mardi Gras post here tomorrow).

King cake & a small part of our bead collection!

Catfish po'boy, gumbo & Abita beer

We didn't put up all our decorations but the purple fringe is a must!

My week was still not horribly productive. My laptop problems continued with another 2-hour phone call to Apple. Plus, I spent 90 minutes on the phone with Aetna to fix problems with seven claims--we didn't even resolve the first one. At least the computer problems seem to be fixed!

__________

On the Blog

TV Tuesday: Poker Face - Our new favorite show! 

Throwback Thursday: 17 Years of Blogging

__________

On Video

It took days to edit again, but I finally posted:

Friday Reads 2-17-23 - a brief recap of the books I just finished and was just starting

__________

What We're Reading

 

 I am still reading my next book group selection, Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. Last year, Krueger's This Tender Land was our All-County Reads book, and all of us loved it (it was my #2 book of the year!), so we were excited to read this one. It won the 2014 Edgar Award and is a standalone historical mystery, set in a small town in Minnesota in 1961. It's also a coming-of-age story, with thirteen-year-old Frank at its center, along with his younger brother, Jake. At the start, the narrator (Frank as an adult) explains that four deaths occurred in town that summer, and #3 just happened. It's great so far--and I need to finish it by Wednesday!

 

 

On audio, I finished listening to Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris, historical fiction that is also a mystery/thriller, and a good fit for Black History Month. It's set in 1964, and begins in Jackson, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer. Two sisters each decide to flee town for different reasons: one killed a white man who raped her, and the other is single and pregnant. One ends up in a small town in Georgia, and the other heads north, but they don't realize that a man is tracking both of them. It was excellent, with family drama, suspense, and great historical detail.

 

 

 

I have just started a new audio book, The Upper World by Femi Fadugba, a YA science fiction novel. It's about parallel universes and time travel, some of my favorite kinds of plots, and it was described as "perfect for fans of Neal Schusterman." I'm in! Esso, a teen Black boy in a poor section of London gets in an accident and is suddenly pushed into another world, "the upper world." Fifteen years later, teen girl Rhia has a new Physics tutor named Dr. Esso. I just started it on Friday (some of my computer problems involved downloading books to my iPod), and I am already engrossed.

 

 

Of course, I included a book in my husband's Valentine treat bag. I picked out Absolute Fear by Lisa Jackson from the selection at the drugstore because it takes place in New Orleans! Perfect for this week. It's a re-release of one of her best-sellers, about two NOPD detectives investigating a serial killer, and it's part of a series. I didn't realize she wrote a thriller series set in New Orleans; this might be a new favorite series for my husband! Isn't it fun to read novels set in a place you know well?

 

 

Last I heard, our son, 28, was reading The White Tower by Michael Wisehart, book 1 in The Aldoran Chronicles, in preparation for book 2, Plague of Shadows, which he bought with a Christmas gift card. I'm guessing he's already started book 2, but he's working today, so I can't do my usual Monday check-in with him!

 __________

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