It's Monday 9/30! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Happy 35th anniversary to us!

Did you miss me? I haven't posted a Monday post since September 9 because we took a much-needed vacation. We traveled with our little camper to New York state (my home state) and stayed in two state parks we'd never been to before, plus explored a bit of the local towns ... including two bookstores! The trip was very relaxing, with lots of downtime. I'll be posting a trip vlog with lots of videos and photos (of both nature and bookstores) tomorrow on my YouTube channel.

We started our vacation at Taconic State Park, which is east of the Hudson River, along the Massachusetts border. We'd been to the park's Bash Bish Falls before, but from the Massachusetts side. While there, we visited the Copake Iron Works National Historic Area (the park is on land that used to be part of the iron works), which was fascinating from both historic and engineering perspectives, and we enjoyed a short walk along Bash Bish Brook behind it. The next day, we took our kayaks out on Rudd Pond, in the southern portion of the park, and on our last day, we took the easy trail to Sunset Rock, with beautiful views overlooking the Hudson Valley and the Catskills to the west.

Ahh! Relaxing at our campsite

Copake Iron Works' enormous furnace

Walking along Bash Bish Brook

Kayaking on Rudd Pond

Great blue heron looking for lunch

Nothing better than reading while camping!

Gorgeous views from Sunset Rock

Just a few early touches of fall color in the mountains

On moving day, we stopped in East Chatham, NY, to visit the Librarium used bookstore, a really cool place in an old house, crammed floor to ceiling with books of all kinds, including some antiques. We have an entire bookcase of waiting-to-be-read books at home, so we didn't plan on buying anything ... but of course, we did! And we stopped for lunch down the road at The Gnome Bistro, where my mom and I stopped on our way to Booktopia this spring.

The sign looks beat up but there are treasures inside!

My husband browsing

Delicious food at The Gnome Bistro, plus a bit of kitsch!

My picks!

Our next campsite was in Gilbert Lake State Park, just west of the Catskills, midway between Albany and Binghamton. Our nephew just started his freshman year at SUNY Binghamton, so we really enjoyed meeting him for dinner one night and seeing his campus. While in the park, we walked around the (very small) lake, kayaked, enjoyed the first glimpses of fall color, and went into the town of Oneonta. It's a great town, with lots of restaurants and cool shops, including a wonderful indie bookstore, Green Toad Bookstore. All in all, it was a very relaxing trip, though re-entry has been tough!

Some early fall color around Gilbert Lake

Beautiful, easy hike around the lake

Perfect place to read this!

Kayaking on Gilbert Lake

Fall color near the water

Reflections in the lake

Great indie bookstore in Oneonta!

I'm missing this view in the morning!

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On Video

Travel & Camping Vlog - Promised Land State Park, PA - that's from our last camping trip, a shorter one but another beautiful park

Friday Reads 9-13-24 - my brief weekly update on what I am reading (before our trip)

The Nightclub Book Tag - this was a fun one, with some great bookish questions for me to answer!

Friday Reads 9-27-24 - a two-week catch-up after our vacation, including print books and audios

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On the Blog

Fiction Reviews: The House in the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere Beyond the Sea - I loved listening to these two novels by TJ Klune that were both full of humor, hope, and joy.

Big Book Summer 2024 Wrap-Up - living up to my life motto of "Better late than never," I finally posted my wrap-up of the annual summer challenge. This was the biggest year yet for the 12-year-old challenge!

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 What We're Reading

 

 

It was all R.I.P. (Readers Imbibing Peril) fall reading while camping! I finished reading Holly by Stephen King, which I've been looking forward to. Readers have been fascinated by the character of Holly Gibney since her first appearance in Mr. Mercedes, her continued role in the rest of that trilogy, and her reappearance in The Outsider. The cool thing is that King says he was, too! Holly was meant to be a bit character in that first book, but the author says he couldn't stop thinking about her either. Here, she's the star of the novel, as a private detective with Finders Keepers, the agency she started with Bill Hodges. A distraught mother asks Holly to look into the disappearance of her twenty-something daughter. That leads Holly down a dark path of uncovering other disappearances in town. This one has a gruesome premise, but like all King novels, it was gripping and had in-depth character development. It's not horror or supernatural--more a straight-up mystery/detective procedural. P.S. The cover glows in the dark!

Next, I read the perfect book for outdoor reading: The Last Ranger by Peter Heller. Like his other outdoor thrillers (The River, The Guide, Celine), this one features action and suspense but also gorgeous nature writing. Ren works as a park ranger in Yellowstone National Park, so he's used to dealing with tourists with a lot of questions (and those who do stupid things). But now there's a poacher at work in the park, threatening not only the animals, but the park employees, too. As Ren investigates the mystery, a good friend who works in the park as a wolf researcher is in danger. The mystery and suspense were good, but I really enjoyed the details of the life of a park ranger (including plenty of humor) and the beautiful writing. To read about Ren lying in his bed at night listening to the wolves howl, while I was lying in my bed in the camper with all the windows open, listening to coyotes howl and owls hoot was absolutely sublime.

 

 

 

Now, I am reading one of the oldest books from my TBR bookcase, The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin. My son--the one who does not enjoy reading--was assigned this book in middle school and loved it. He told me I should read it, too, and here I am, only 13 years later, finally reading it! This modern classic middle-grade mystery features a mysterious will, a group of 16 seemingly random potential heirs, and a puzzling contest to see who will inherit. I'm almost finished with it now and have enjoyed it. Besides R.I.P., this book also qualifies for Shortie September.

 

 

 

On audio, my husband and I began listening to Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman on our road trip. We always enjoy a suspenseful Lippman novel on audio. This one is set in the 1960's and begins with a dead woman (the title character) narrating. Besides this unnamed (at first) character, the other focus is on Maddie, a well-off wife and mother who leaves her husband and wants to become a reporter. When no one else seems interested in investigating the death of the lady in the lake (because she was Black and dated a lot of men), Maddie becomes obsessed with finding answers. Besides those two, the book features lots of short chapters from minor characters, and I'm really enjoying the different perspectives gradually weaving the story together, especially on audio. 

 

 

My husband, Ken, read a Father's Day gift from me, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. He enjoyed this classic noir mystery.

 

 

 

Next, he began reading one of the books he picked up in the used bookstore in NY, Split Images by Elmore Leonard, another classic mystery/thriller author. This one is from 1981, and he's enjoying it so far, though his reading time has greatly decreased since we got home now that it's football season!

 

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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?