 |
| Hosted by The Book Date |
Life
I enjoyed a full week at home for a change! I caught up on work and got back to editing the audio version of my book (a tedious, time-consuming job), and spent some time enjoying the perfect spring weather. I took a short hike at our local nature center Monday. I hadn't been there in months, and it was great to see everything so lush and green and in bloom. The dogwoods and redbuds are in full bloom here now, and the azaleas and lilacs are just starting.
 |
| First convertible day of the year! |
 |
| Reflections in Red Clay Creek |
 |
| Our local covered bridge |
 |
| Virginia bluebells |
 |
| Redbuds in bloom! |
Tuesday, I met up with a close friend I hadn't seen since January. We took a hike on a gorgeous day and then went to lunch. We had a lot to catch up on! We saw lots of wildlife, especially birds (some, like the green heron and small blue heron, were spotted through binoculars and were too far off for pictures).
 |
| Garter snake |
 |
| Turtle sunning on the bank |
 |
| I won't tell you how many photos I took of the swans before ... |
 |
| ... we realized they were plastic! ha ha |
And this weekend, our oldest son drove down from Long Island to visit! It was the first time we'd seen him since Christmas, and we were all missing each other so much. It was a very relaxing weekend. We took a walk, he and I played backgammon, and we ate lots of delicious meals. His brother joined us on Saturday, so we spent a day with all four of us together, like old times. 💕
 |
| A happy sight! |
 |
| My sons are my game buddies! |
 |
| So happy to have him home! |
This week is a quick, busy one because I leave on Thursday morning for Booktopia! I'll pick up my mom in Connecticut, then (after a nap) drive us both to Manchester, Vermont, for a fun, bookish weekend, hanging out with authors and other readers. We first attended this unique event in 2015, and this will be our 8th year attending (video of Booktopia 2024). Many of the same people attend every year, and everyone is so excited!
Newbies are always welcome, and tickets are still available, so if you're in the region, come join us! (and let me know if you do).
__________
6 Bookstores Visited on Our Road Trip: New Orleans, The Woodlands (Houston), and Nashville ... Plus, a Meet-up with Booktube Friends - This brief video includes footage of each of the great 6 indie bookstores we visited on our recent road trip ... including Parnassus!
Friday Reads 4-25-25: Reading for Booktopia & Listening to Audios - my weekly update of what we've been reading
Enjoying a Road Trip with Chronic Illness - I share a few tips on traveling by car/RV with chronic illness, from our recent road trip.
Preparing for Booktopia - a 1-minute short, showing the books I am reading for Booktopia. I can't wait to meet these authors!
__________
NCIS: Origins - Our family are long-time fans of the many iterations of NCIS. My son and I got into the original NCIS during our long sick days together when he was in high school and college. We watched up to the middle of season 19. Since he moved out in 2020, none of us feels right not watching it together (ha ha), but we will continue the series at some point. We also watched NCIS New Orleans together (all seasons) and loved it just as much (maybe more, set in our favorite city). My reviews of both shows, plus trailers, are here. My husband and I loved NCIS: Hawaii and were very sorry when it ended a couple of years ago. We watched season 1 of NCIS: Sydney and are going to start season 2 soon. NCIS: Origins is something entirely new: the origin story for the original NCIS and the character of Leroy Jethro Gibbs (played in NCIS by Mark Harmon). It's set at Camp Pendelton in California, as Gibbs joins the Navy's Investigative Service back in 1991, as a young man who just lost his wife and daughter in a horrific crime. We're really enjoying it (and Mark Harmon provides some narration).
__________
I finished reading Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder, a Booktopia selection. The title refers to an extra year of work experience that can be tacked onto a student visa in the U.S., which is what Pavitra is doing as the novel opens. She is just starting her first job, teaching physics at a private high school in Cambridge, Mass. But America high school students expect very different things from their teachers than what Pavitra experienced herself as a student in India. And Pavitra's real goal is to finish writing her novel, something her white-collar parents don't approve of as a career. The novel is written as a series of conversations, with family, friends, her fellow teachers, students, students' parents, and more. It was an interesting approach, a unique way to get to know a character, and I enjoyed it. Can't wait to meet the author later this week!
Now, I am reading another Booktopia book, Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn. It's early 2020, and Rachel is going through a divorce ... and a global pandemic. Living on her own for the first time in her life, isolated by the pandemic, and finally out from under her ex-husband's overbearing nature, Rachel is trying to rediscover who she is. She adores her three children, who alternate their time between her new apartment and their old one, but when she's alone, she's exploring her newfound freedom. There is plenty of emotional depth to this novel, but Rachel's awakening is also sexual, as she tries the dating apps, has a wide range of sex with a wide range of people, and uses her coding skills to create a "perfect person" app. This novel is not everyone's cup of tea--some find it too graphic--but I'm enjoying it and am rooting for Rachel to heal, find herself, and explore her newfound independence. It's also a very thoughtful exploration of life during the pandemic.
I finished listening to The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny (#19 in her Inspector Gamache series). I read book 1 in the series, Still Life, then skipped ahead to book 15, A Better Man, and have read every book since. As it typical of these later books, this is a complex mystery, here kicked off by an odd series of unusual events in Gamache's personal and professional lives. Gamache and his team soon find themselves looking into a possible terrorist plot that could have disastrous effects for all of Quebec. His core team of himself, son-in-law Jean-Guy, and fellow inspector Isabelle feels that they can only trust each other, which makes their investigation even more difficult ... though no less urgent. The three of them split up and travel near and far, from remote parts of Quebec to Washington, DC to the Vatican in their search for answers and a way to stop this horrific thing from happening. Loaded with suspense, the audio kept me riveted. The story will be continued in The Black Wolf, due out in October.
Now, I am listening to The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez, another Booktopia selection and a very unusual novel. Alma is a successful novelist living in Vermont, but she has many, many stories that she tried to write but just couldn't finish ... yet those stories and characters haunt her. When she moves back to the Dominican Republic and inherits a small plot of land there, Alma--with the help of a local artist--turns it into a cemetery for her unfinished stories. But the stories and characters refuse to die. They begin to talk back to her and to Filomena, a local woman hired as a groundskeeper. I sometimes struggle with magical realism, but I'm enjoying the novel so far and am interested to see where it goes.
My husband, Ken, finished (just last night) Just Watch Me by Jeff Lindsay, the author of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which was the basis for the Dexter TV
series that we both love. But I think this is the first book either of
us has read by Lindsay. This is book 1 in his Riley Wolfe series, about a
master thief who targets the wealthiest 0.1% and doesn't hesitate to
kill if someone gets in his way. Ken said it was interesting and suspenseful, with intriguing details to some of the capers pulled off, but
the main character was extremely arrogant and unlikable. He's not sure if he'll read more of the series or not, but we'd both like to try the Dexter book series by this author.
I finally caught up with our son, 30, during his visit this weekend. I didn't actually miss anything in his reading life! He's been working 6 days a week and enjoying a new Nintendo Switch game his brother gave him, so hasn't had much reading time lately. He is still rereading the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks, an old favorite of his, in preparation for the latest book (Beyond the Shadows). So, he's rereading book 1, The Way of Shadows, and book 2, The Shadow's Way.
__________
You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.
