It's Monday 1/22! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Wow, last week was busy! After doing nothing but lie on the couch for months, my schedule is full of overdue appointments but also fun stuff like seeing friends. And I'm helping a friend with her move; this is the last week of a months-long process, so it's crunch time! I am so very grateful to be well enough now to help her.

The big news here in Delaware last week was snow--twice! We got our first measurable snowfall in over two years on Tuesday, then a layer of ice, and on Friday, we got six inches of additional snow! Plus it was in the teens and 20's all weekend, so it's still around. It was beautiful, though, and we enjoyed a lovely walk in the winter wonderland. And our bird feeder was very popular!

On Thursday, my neighborhood book group celebrated our 200th book with a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant. Our book was Remarkably Bright Creatures (see below), which got one of our highest ratings, so it worked out perfectly. It's a great group of women who started the book club in 1998, and I joined them sometime in the mid-2000's, I think (need to check my old book journals!)

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On the Blog

 Last of my 2023 wrap-ups!

Favorite Movies Watched in 2023 - plus a list of all the movies I reviewed last year (all worth watching)

Favorite TV Shows Watched in 2023 - So many great shows! Plus a list of all the TV shows I reviewed last year (all worth watching)

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On Video

 And my last 2023 wrap-up video, too:

Best Books Read in 2023: YA, Middle-Grade, and Audio Books

Friday Reads 1-19-24 - quick update on what I was reading this weekend

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 What We're Reading

 

 

I finished reading A Blizzard of Polar Bears by Alice Henderson, book 2 in her outdoor thriller series about wildlife biologist Alex Carter. Book 1, A Solitude of Wolverines, made my Top 10 Novels of 2023 list! In book 2, Alex is in Manitoba on the Hudson Bay, studying polar bears. But not everyone wants to help her protect the bears. Like the first book, this is action-packed from beginning to end, with a lot of suspense and surprising twists. It was hard to set it down at night to go to sleep! January is the perfect time to read this very cold, snowy story. I talk more about the book (and series) in this short video.

 

 

 

Now, I'm reading As They Were: Autobiographical Essays by M.F.K. Fisher, a classic memoir I didn't get to for Nonfiction November. I'm really enjoying this collection of essays. She's renowned for her food writing, and some of these essays do focus on food. But others are about travel and different places she's lived and visited. I loved the first essay, about her childhood in California. This book fits perfectly for the Mardi Gras Readathon on Booktube, hosted by Kat's Novel Adventures; it covers two of the bingo spaces: France and food.

 

 

 On audio, I finished listening to my neighborhood book group's January selection (our 200th book), Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I loved it and so did everyone else! It features multiple narrators, including Tova, a widow who has also lost her son, husband, and brother and works nights cleaning at the local aquarium; Cam, a young man at loose ends whose mother left him as a child; and Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus who is very smart and lives in the aquarium. He and Tova are both very isolated and lonely and begin to form an unexpected, unusual friendship. I love novels where different threads come together, revealing unexpected connections. And it was wonderful on audio, especially Marcellus' sections.

 

 

Now, I am listening to I Am Not Alone by Francisco X. Stork, a YA novel. I'm a longtime fan of the author, who wrote (my reviews at the links) Irises, Marcello in the Real World, The Memory of Light, Disappeared, and its sequel, Illegal. Like The Memory of Light, this new novel deals with mental illness in teens. Here, Alberto is an undocumented Mexican teen living in New York with his sister, Luca, her baby, and her abusive boyfriend, Lance. Alberto is smart but has always had trouble with school, so he learns by reading books and has done well taking English lessons at the community college. He earns money working for Lance, who's a landlord for expensive apartment buildings. While working in one apartment, Alberto meets Grace, a girl who seems to have it all--wealth, education, a boyfriend. Grace is on track to go to college, but nothing feels right to her since her parents' divorce. As Alberto deals with the increasingly urgent voice in his head, he and Grace become friends. I'm not very far in, but it's already an immersive, engaging story.

 

My husband, Ken, is still reading IQ by Joe Ide, one of his Christmas gifts from me. It's the first book in a 6-book (so far) mystery/thriller series, about a man in East Long Beach, an LA neighborhood, who's known as IQ. With so much crime in the area, he takes on the cases the LAPD doesn't have time for. 

 

Our son, 29, is rereading Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, book 1 in her Realm Breaker series, in preparation for reading book 2 that we gave him for Christmas.

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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?