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Life
This will be a shorter post than usual because my husband wants to go look at cars this morning. He's decided we'd do better with a bigger tow vehicle for our almost-6-week trip to Montana and Canada with our camper next month. Our camper is small, and our current SUV is rated to tow it, but he encountered some issues just traveling in the nearby Poconos, and the mountains out west are much bigger!
Last week was another busy one, and we now have only three weeks left until our trip, so we're getting nervous about getting everything done and ready in time! It was dark, gray, and overcast here much of the week with plenty of rain, and our temperatures went over 90, so I had to turn on the a/c. This Saturday, I actually had to stay in the house because our air quality was rated "dangerous" due to wildfires in a state forest in nearby NJ. The air is clearer now, and our summer flowers are beginning to bloom, including yellow tickseed and brown-eyed Susans, my namesake.
It was mostly a catch-up week for me at home, though I did go out mid-week to get groceries for a local friend with ME/CFS (the same disease I have) who's been going through a rough period. It was good to see her and catch-up a bit, and I was so glad to be in a position to help her when she needed it.
For Father's Day, I gave my husband two tickets to the US Open in Pittsburgh, so he and our younger son were there all weekend. They had a great time, and I had lots of quiet time to get more work done. I am finally in a position where I have some videos scheduled ahead of time instead of always recording, editing, and posting a video on the same day! It makes things less hectic for me and allows for the ups and downs of my illness.
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Friday Reads 6-13-25: Big Book Summer and June on the Range - my brief weekly wrap-up of what my husband and I are reading and listening to on audio.
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Remember that Big Book Summer runs until September 1, so there is still plenty of time to join the fun! Details at the link.
I am reading Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry for both Big Book Summer and June on the Range (a Booktube event for reading Westerns), and I am so glad to be back in this world with this amazing writer! This is the sequel (actually, the fourth book in a quartet) to Lonesome Dove, which I read last June and ended up being my favorite book of the year. To avoid spoilers of that book, I can't tell you which characters reappear here, but there are a few characters from Lonesome Dove, plus some intriguing new characters. Here, there are two really horrible, violent men, with only a ragtag team of old cowboys to stop them. McMurtry is an outstanding writer, with complex characters you come to care about, twisty plot lines, emotional depth, and a sense of humor. It's also a gripping story that I hate to set down at night (and have been staying up too late each night for!). One thing that surprised me in Lonesome Dove and is even more true here is that there are complex, interesting female characters, too, who are just as strong and brave (if not more so!) than the men. I can't wait to see what happens next.
On audio, I am listening to The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which was first published in 1880. It's about a despicable father and his three sons (by two different wives): Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei. The book was a bit confusing at first (and would be in print, too) because each of the brothers is also known by multiple other names (I guess like nicknames). So Dmitri is also Mitka, and Alexei is also Alyosha, etc. The three sons were each brought up by servants in peasant homes, after their mothers died and their father deserted them. Now, they are 28, 24, and 20, and they've each taken very different paths in life. There are some very introspective, thought-provoking passages (and whole chapters) about religion, the meaning of God, how humanity uses its "gift" of free will, separation of church and state, and more. This is not an audio where I can tune out for a while! Other chapters are fast-paced and even funny, with farcical scenes involving a love triangle (actually more of a pentagon!) or fights among the family members. In contrast to Larry McMurtry's novels, the women characters here were obviously written by a man and all tend to be quite melodramatic! It's all very interesting so far, and I'm curious to see where it is all leading.
My husband, Ken, has been reading his first Big Book of the summer (yes, he participates, too!), Hunter by Tana French. She's one of our favorite authors, and he loves this new series of hers (book 1 was The Searcher and is now on my side of the to-be-read bookcase).
Our son, 30, 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 will then reread book 2, The Shadow's Way. He hasn't had much reading time lately, but he trained someone new at work, which should give him more weekends off and more time to read!
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What are you and your family reading this week?
