Monday, September 22, 2025

It's Monday 9/22! What Are You Reading?

 

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Last week was a little quieter, though with some evening activities that took a lot out of me. I know it doesn't make sense to healthy people, but sitting up for too long, especially in the evening when my medications are wearing off, can really wipe me out and leave me "crashed." We had a long meeting with our financial advisor Monday, a wonderful dinner and campfire with friends Saturday, and last night, I did a podcast interview followed by my usual Sunday night refilling of medication/supplement boxes for two weeks (we're going to be traveling again). That last thing takes over an hour, so after the podcast interview, it was definitely too much time upright for me. I'm taking it easy today, hoping I just did too much and wasn't exposed to any infections (I wear a mask in public).  I also worked quite a bit last week on weeding our gardens, one of which is a jungle after our long trip this summer. I got this little garden all cleaned up, and our asters are in full bloom and attracting lots of bees.

 

Relaxing on the screened porch this weekend

At least one garden bed is weeded!

Bees love the asters

Asters are in full bloom! Nice at this time of year.

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 On Video

 Tell Me the Truth Tag - this fun tag asks questions about my YouTube viewing habits.

Weekly Reading Update - I'm loving all the fun fall reading events! I've been flying through books for Shorty September (and R.I.P.), which is really fun after spending a month on a single book for Big Book Summer!

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 What We're Watching 

 

Untamed - We finished this gripping Netflix series, a mystery/thriller set in Yosemite National Park--right up our alley! Starring Eric Bane as Kyle Turner, a National Park Service Investigator, the show follows the aftermath of a young woman falling to her death from the top of Half Dome. Though it is first ruled a suicide, Kyle and the NPS ranger assigned to help him, Naya (played by Lily Santiago), soon find evidence of foul play. However, both of them are dealing with their own issues, and investigating this case puts them both in danger. It was excellent, a suspenseful and twisty mystery that kept us guessing, set amid beautiful natural surroundings. 

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 What We're Reading

 

I read an outstanding thriller for both Shorty September and R.I.P.: Dark Ride by Lou Berney. Last year, I enjoyed his novel, November Road (see my review in this Monday update). In Dark Ride, twenty-one-year-old Hardy Reed, whom everyone calls Hardly, is an easy-going guy who is usually stoned. He works as a scarer at an amusement park's Haunted Frontier and is perfectly content with his effortless life. Then one day, waiting in line to delay a parking ticket payment, he notices two little kids on a bench, not moving at all, just staring straight ahead. Worried about kids that little being left alone, he crouches down to talk to them, but they continue to stare right through him. Then he notices that they each have a neat row of three cigarette burns in a perfect line, the girl's on her ankle and the boy's on his collarbone. Their mom comes out and hustles them away to a waiting car driven by a man, but Hardly is unable to resume his chill life. He can't forgot those little kids. Little by little, Hardly takes action (for the first time in his life) and first tries to report the abuse, then begins his own investigation into the family. This is not only an A-plus mystery/thriller, full of tension and action but also a deep dive into these characters, especially Hardly and the quirky new friends he makes along the way. It's warmhearted, laugh-out-loud funny, and a suspenseful rollercoaster ride. It's a thoughtful novel about identity and purpose, and I loved every minute of it. I'm suffering some serious book hangover now!

 

Last night, I read another of the short stories from The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Michael Newton. This is a year-long read-along with the Book Cougars podcast, whose theme for this year is ghost stories. They've been reading and discussing one story each month, but I fell way behind this summer, so I'm catching up. Last night's story was No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens, and it was very good.

 

Tonight, I plan to start a classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have never read any Sherlock Holmes stories or anything at all by Doyle, so I'm looking forward to this classic mystery, a perfect fit for Shorty September and R.I.P.

 

On audio, I am listening to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, a fabulous multi-generational novel set in India. I have less than an hour of the audio left now, and there have been some big surprises in this last part of the book! I have loved listening to this highly-acclaimed novel. Verghese is an amazing writer, fully realizing this lush, exotic, treacherous world in lyrical language. I've paused the audio to write down quotes, where he captures a truism of life in just a few short words, like "Even misery, when familiar, has its own comfort." The characters are rich and fully drawn, with deep emotional resonance as they deal with both tragedy and joy, from 1900 to 1970. It's been an incredible, moving, engrossing story.

 

My husband, Ken is reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, a Booktopia author this year. I enjoyed this suspenseful literary thriller this spring. It’s about an author who steals the plot idea of one of his former students who died. The novel is a huge success, and he thinks he got away with it (though is going crazy worrying he’ll be found out) when he gets a message saying someone knows he’s a thief. Even when you think you have this book figured out, it keeps surprising you! It's super twisty! But it's football season, so Ken hasn't had much reading time lately!

 

Our son, 31, was excited that we gave him The Light of All That Falls by James Islington, book 3 in the Licanius trilogy for his birthday, but he said he will probably reread book 2, An Echo of Things to Come, first. That's my best guess--he had a very busy week!

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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:

 What are you and your family reading this week? 

Monday, September 15, 2025

It's Monday 9/15! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

 Life

Whew, last week was a hectic, packed-full week ... and it did me in! I had appointments and meetings (book group 😀) every single day, which is more than I can usually handle. Plus, two of my appointments involved considerable pain (podiatrist and orthodontist), and I think that pushed me over the edge. By Thursday evening, I was "crashed" (chronic illness flare-up) for the first time in many months. I took it easy Friday on the couch and was feeling better by Saturday, thankfully.

 

Final set of retainers - very painful at first!

Our older son came to visit over the weekend, and we really enjoyed catching up with him and spending some relaxing time together. We celebrated his birthday (a month late), took a walk at our local nature center which sparked lots of fun childhood memories, and Saturday evening, our younger son and his girlfriend joined us for dinner and a campfire. So happy to have them both home! Lots of laughs this weekend together.

Our son loved his boxed set of JRR Tolkien!

Great walk at our nature center on a beautiful day!

Up in his favorite childhood tree (he said it's easier to climb now!)

Love having our family together!

Yesterday morning, he drove back to New York, my husband met our younger son for golf, and I enjoyed a quiet, productive Sunday at home.

Ahhh! Relaxing Sunday morning on the porch.

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 On Video

Childhood Books Tag - I had so much fun recording this tag video and reminiscing about my favorite childhood books Definitely check this out if you're a child of the 70's! 

Friday Reads 9-12-25: RIP Reading, Shorty September & Year of Reading Ghost Stories - My weekly reading update of what my family and I have been reading and listening to - a lot more books now that I've moved from Big Book Summer to Shorty September!

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 What We're Watching 

  

Ballard - We just finished the first season of this novel adaptation last night, and it was excellent! My husband and I are both big fans of Michael Connelly's thriller novels, and the TV adaptations are always outstanding. We enjoy watching The Lincoln Lawyer and loved Bosch, which wrapped up a few years ago. Bosch: Legacy is a sequel to Bosch, as his daughter joins the LAPD and Bosch himself retires (but is still doing private PI work).  Ballard is an adaptation of Connelly's newest series featuring female LAPD detective Rene Ballard, as she teams up with Bosch to solve cold cases. The first season was great, with an excellent cast and lots of suspense. ALL of these shows are worth watching! (links go to my reviews of the TV shows/books).  

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 What We're Reading

 

I finished reading Desert Places by Blake Crouch. My husband and I are big fans of Crouch's novels and TV shows (he's a screenwriter, too). We both love his sci fi thrillers, including RecursionUpgrade, and my favorite, Dark Matter, which was adapted into an excellent TV series on Apple. He also helped adapt and co-create the TV series Wayward Pines and Good Behavior, based on his novels and novellas, which we also enjoyed. This is one of his earlier novels, a short thriller about a man named Andrew who writes thrillers about murderers and serial killers. He's just sent the last revisions of his latest book to his editor when he receives a strange and frightening letter. It tells him that there's a dead woman buried on his property who was killed with his own kitchen knife and has his blood on her. The letter writer says he will tell the police where to find the body and who the "killer" is, unless Andrew does exactly as he says. He also threatens Andrew's mother, with details that make Andrew know he's serious. What follows is a terrifying period of time in which Andrew ends up in a remote desert cabin with a serial killer. It's a great set-up and is loaded with tension and suspense and plenty of twists! It was violent and a bit graphic for my taste but a gripping thriller that I read quickly (and it's the start of a trilogy).

 

I also read a Nancy Drew book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene. It was so much fun to return to this childhood favorite! I hadn't read one since I was a kid. This was #4 in the series, and my mom gave me an antique copy years ago that was published in 1930. I hadn't realized that the publishers updated them over the years so that by the 1970's when I was reading them, Nancy was driving a blue convertible (here, it's a roadster). I looked up a photo of a 1930 roadster, and it kind of blew my mind! This made me realize that these novels for young girls were really ahead of their time, featuring such a smart, independent teen. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and in the end, Nancy came out of it safely and solved the mystery!

 

Next, I will probably read one of the short stories from The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Michael Newton. This is a year-long read-along with the Book Cougars podcast, whose theme for this year is ghost stories. They've been reading and discussing one story each month, but I fell way behind this summer, so I'm catching up.

 

On audio, I listened to another readalong for the Book Cougars podcast, the short story The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. This was a fun one, with Wilde's usual sense of humor. An American family moves to England when the husband/father is assigned as U.S. Minister there. They buy a house that has been haunted by a ghost for hundreds of years. The ghost tries his best to scare them, but they are too modern and practical for that, and they thwart his efforts at every turn. It was very funny and amusing. I'm looking forward to their discussion of it.

 

Next, I listened to Unauthorized Bread by Cory Doctorow (who is apparently no relation to E.L. Doctorow). This is a novella, perfect for Shorty September, that depicts a near-future dystopia that is easy to imagine. In this AI-controlled Boston, technology rules everyone's lives. Salima, a young Syrian who has lived most of her life in refugee camps, gets approved for an apartment in a swanky high-tech building. But the appliances are all owned and run by big corporations, so residents can only use authorized supplies in them (hence, the title). When the companies fail altogether and the appliances on the "poor floors" all stop working, Salima goes on the dark web, learns how to jailbreak the appliances, and becomes a hero to her neighbors. She even trains a group of kids on the poor floors to help her free the other residents from the tyranny of the tech. When the companies are pulled out of bankruptcy and restarted, Salima and the kids are at great risk for what they've done. It's a great story with lots of  warmth, a sense of humor, and social justice you'll cheer for!

 

And Libby returned the audio of The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese to my iPod! Yay! I'm happy to be back in the world of this fabulous multi-generational novel set in India (and Libby even remembered where I was).

 

My husband, Ken is reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, a Booktopia author this year. I enjoyed this suspenseful literary thriller this spring. It’s about an author who steals the plot idea of one of his former students who died. The novel is a huge success, and he thinks he got away with it (though is going crazy worrying he’ll be found out) when he gets a message saying someone knows he’s a thief. Even when you think you have this book figured out, it keeps surprising you! It's super twisty! Ken commented to me last night that it was a long build-up, but I know he'll love it when those surprises start coming.

 

Our son, 31, was here this weekend and got some new books for his birthday! He finished reading the surprise 4th book, Night Angel Nemesis, in Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy and is looking forward to another from that author. He was excited that we gave him The Light of All That Falls by James Islington, book 3 in the Licanius trilogy, but he said he will probably reread book 2, An Echo of Things to Come, first.

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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:
 

  What are you and your family reading this week?