Movie Monday: Like Father

Last weekend, a bit bored with the same old TV shows we've been following all fall/winter/spring and with a long weekend ahead of us, my husband and I enjoyed some movies, including Like Father, a Netflix movie starring Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer that I've been wanting to see since its release last year. It was a fun, warm, delightful film that we both enjoyed.

Kristen Bell plays Rachel, a high-powered ad executive who is such a workaholic that she is late to her own wedding because she was outside talking to a client on the phone. When her phone falls out of her bouquet at the altar, her husband-to-be gives up and calls it quits. As Rachel runs out, she notices her estranged father trying to quietly leave the wedding. Her father, Harry, played by Kelsey Grammer, left when Rachel was just five years old, and she has no idea why he suddenly showed up on her wedding day. The two end up getting drunk - really drunk - together that night, and they wake up the next morning out at sea on the cruise ship that was supposed to be Rachel's honeymoon with her new husband. Instead, she is stuck on the boat with her father, who she barely knows.

As you can imagine, there is lots of humor from the situation, with the father-daughter pair trapped in the honeymoon suite among other happy couples celebrating. But this movie is also poignant and heart-warming, as the two begin to get to know each other and reconnect. There's even a bit of a mystery as to why Harry stayed away for so long and why he showed up now. The supporting cast are all good, including Seth Rogen as a chill teacher from Canada who Rachel picks up, but Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer are at the center of the story, and both are excellent in their roles. They are both favorites of ours, so watching them made the movie even better. The whole thing is warm, funny, and uplifting (and the climactic karaoke scene lots of fun!). It's a very entertaining movie that also leaves you feeling good.

This is a Netflix original movie, so it is available exclusively on Netflix.

It's Monday 6/3! What Are You Reading?

It's June! How did that happen? Not officially summer yet, but it certainly feels like it here. It's been hot and humid already, though it is cool and lovely out this morning - what a nice change! And, of course, the Big Book Summer Challenge started last week, so it must be summer now!

We are all enjoying our Big Books - here's what we've all been reading this week:

No surprise that I am still reading my first Big Book of the Summer! I kicked things off with a doozy - a 959-page chunkster - Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This is a readalong for the Book Cougars podcast for June, plus a classic (I am behind on my Classics Challenge), and from my own shelves, so it counts for several challenges. I've never read the novel and saw the movie many decades ago, and I am enjoying it so far...even though I can barely hold it up! I'm surprised (though I shouldn't be) by how good it is. I'm completely engrossed in the story, in both the personal dramas as well as the detailed perspectives of the Southerners during the Civil War and what that time period and culture was like. I'm a bit more than 200 pages in, so I have a ways to go.

On audio, I finished listening to a YA novel, The Knowing by Sharon Cameron, the sequel to The Forgetting, which I listened to on audio two years ago (review at the link). It's an original and engrossing science fiction dystopian novel about memory, but to say any more about the second book would give away spoilers about the first book. Suffice it to say, it was a suspenseful and compelling story that I enjoyed just as much as the first one.

And now, I am listening to a Big Book on audio, Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen, a novel I've wanted to read ever since it was released last year. It's two intersecting stories, about Harry, a man who works for the Forest Service whose wife dies suddenly and Amanda, a woman who lives in a nearby rural area whose husband just died unexpectedly. Harry goes to the woods and ends up meeting Amanda and her daughter. That's about as far as I've gotten so far, but I am loving it and it seems like it is about healing. It's intriguing, compelling, and maybe even a bit magical - and set in the forest, so what's not to like?


My husband, Ken, finished his first Big Book Summer book, Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly, a novel where the author combines two of his popular characters, Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard, who was introduced in The Late Show, which Ken also enjoyed. In this new cross-over novel, the two team up on the unsolved murder of a runaway. Which reminds me, the new season of the TV adaptation of Connelly's novels, Bosch, just started April 19 - can't wait to see it! We both love the show (and the books, of course).

Now, Ken has moved onto another Big Book, The President Is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton, a recent political thriller that's gotten a lot of press. The fast-paced novel is set over the course of three days and deals with cyber-terrorism and espionage of such a magnitude that the whole nation is at risk. Even the President himself is a suspect, as the investigators try to root out a traitor in the cabinet. Word is that Clinton's inside knowledge of the workings of the White House and government make this political thriller extra-chilling and suspenseful.

Our son, Jamie, 24, is reading a novel that we put in his Easter basket, The Wolf, by Leo Carew, book 1 in the Under the Northern Sky series. I picked it out for him at an awesome indie bookstore at the beach in Delaware, Browseabout Books, because the epic fantasy sounded right up his alley. He's loving it. Jamie thinks my Big Book Summer Challenge is hilarious because everything he reads (including this one) counts as a Big Book!




Blog posts from last week:

Movie Monday: Fracture - psychological thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins

Fiction Review: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - warm, moving, engrossing and very funny novel

Fiction Review: The Guest Book by Sarah Blake - multi-generational family saga that also highlights political and social changes

Celebrate National Trails Day...with a Book! - 5 books about hiking and the outdoors

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?

Remember to sign up for the Big Book Summer Challenge! It's easy-going, like summer - you only have to read one book of 400 or more pages between now and September (though you can, of course, read more!) It's lots of fun and a great way to add extra enjoyment to your summer! All the details are at the link - you can sign up there if you have a blog or, if not, just leave a comment on that page or sign up at the Goodreads group linked from that page. Join the fun!

Celebrate National Trails Day...with a Book!

Today (June 2 every year) is National Trails Day! To be clear, you should first celebrate by taking advantage of some of our thousands of amazing trails and getting outside! Check out a paved walking trail (wheelchair accessible) in a local park, a hike with an amazing view in a state or national park, or even a portion of one of our long trails that criss-cross the nation. Grab a friend, leave the earbuds at home, and get outdoors to experience nature up-close.

But, then...when you get back home (or, even better, back to your campsite), you can curl up on the couch (or on the deck or porch!) with a book about hiking and get engrossed in some immersive stories, where the outdoors play a big role.

To get you started, check out my latest book column at Shelf Awareness, Take a Hike!, which offers four different books in which hiking and the outdoors are a major part of the story. Two are memoirs and two are novels, and I enjoyed all four of them immensely. Click the link to read all about them, but the 4 books included there are:

• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (skip the movie and read the book!)
• The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed
• Celine by Peter Heller

One other to consider is The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler, which is no longer in print but still available used or at your library. It's an emotionally complex and absorbing novel that takes place at Camp Chippewa, a Boy Scout camp among the forests and lakes of Wisconsin. This immersive story follows three generations of boys and men from 1962 to the present as they navigate life’s ups and downs, experiencing bullying, aging and friendship over the years.



So, get outside for a bit today, then relax with a good book about the outdoors! Happy Trails Day!

Fiction Review: The Guest Book

The last book I finished for Booktopia this year was The Guest Book by Sarah Blake, which I listened to on audio (it definitely counts as a Big Book, if anyone wants to add it to their summer list!). I thoroughly enjoyed Blake's earlier novel, The Postmistress (review at the link), so I was looking forward to this new one, and it didn't disappoint. Blake has created a multi-generational family epic that traces the changes in both a prominent family and the country over the decades.

In 1936, Ogden and Kitty Milton are living a life that others dream of, though there is tragedy in their past. Ogden's financial business is so successful that he and Kitty buy a small island, Crockett's Island, off the coast of Maine and vacation there with their children and friends. Some say that war is coming and the Nazis are dangerous, but they don't take that talk seriously. A friend of Ogden's visits from overseas and asks a huge favor, but Kitty says no, a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

In 1959, Kitty and Ogden's children, Moss, Joan, and Evelyn, are in their early 20's and enjoying life in the Big Apple. Evelyn is about to get married, Joan is working for a small, revolutionary publisher, and Moss works for his father, though his heart is in his music. The siblings meet two new people, outside of their parents' usual circles, and insist they come along for the annual summer lobster picnic on Crockett's Island. That turns out to be somewhat awkward, with the younger generation insisting that the world is changing, while Kitty and Ogden and their old friends laugh at the notion. When disaster strikes, everything does change, in an instant.

In the present day, Joan's daughter, Evie, teaches history. After recently losing her mother, she comes across some old photos that cause her to begin looking into her own family's history. She and her cousins are meeting with lawyers to determine the fate of Crockett's Island because this generation of Miltons just can't afford to own an island anymore. Wrapped in memories of endless childhood summers on the island with her family, Evie returns with her husband and son and cousins while trying to get to the bottom of what could be a great family secret.

The novel intricately weaves together the stories of the three generations, as multiple family secrets are hidden and later come to light. It is the study of a family changing over time but also that of a country, especially in the 1959 parts. The novel delves into memory, lies, and secrets, as well as what we inherit from our family and how the generations are tied together. It's a family saga but also a chronicle of the social and political changes of the 20th century. I found it thought-provoking and entirely engrossing, with a fast pace and intriguing, three-dimensional characters. I very much enjoyed meeting Sarah Blake at Booktopia and hearing her speak, and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

496 pages, Flatiron Books

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audio (it starts in the first 1959 section) -  Orlagh Cassidy does a great job narrating!

You can purchase The Guest Book from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order The Guest Book from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Every once in a while, you meet a literary character who steals your heart. Eleanor Oliphant is one of those characters. The novel that features her, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is warm, moving, engrossing, and very funny, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Twenty-nine-year-old Eleanor is satisfied with her life. She works as an accountant in an office, barely speaks to her colleagues, goes out to the same place every day to pick up a sandwich for lunch which she eats in the staff room while she reads the newspaper and does the crossword. On Fridays, she picks up a frozen pizza, a bottle of wine, and two bottles of vodka, goes home to her small, shabbily-furnished apartment, and spends the weekend alone with the vodka "spread...throughout both days so I am neither drunk nor sober." Eleanor feels her life is fine - and she will tell you that if anyone ever happened to ask - but she does recognize her isolation:

"It often feels as if I'm not here, that I'm a figment of my own imagination. There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I'd lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock."

Then, everything changes. When she attends a charity concert in a pub - not a typical activity for Eleanor, but her office provided the tickets - she spots the love of her life onstage. Eleanor immediately falls head over heels for the lead singer, knows that they will end up married and living happily ever after, and sets out to improve herself so that she is ready to meet him properly. This involves some hilarious experiences, particularly with the waxing salon, but Eleanor suddenly has a purpose. Two other things happen at about the same time. She meets the office IT guy, Raymond (a pretty stereotypical IT guy, dressed in hoodie and scruffy beard), and they very slowly, gradually become friends, and she unwittingly ends up helping an older man who has a heart attack in the street.

Gradually, with growing hints throughout the novel, Eleanor's past slowly comes to light, including the significant traumas that caused her to be so self-contained and isolated. These events are heart-breaking, but the dark tone is offset beautifully by Eleanor's unintentionally hilarious descriptions of the world around her, as she awakens to it. She is proper, tight-laced, and completely out of touch with pop culture (her shocked description of Spongebob Squarepants is one of my favorite passages!). With Raymond's help, she slowly joins the real world. I SO want to share with you some of the funniest passages (and there are many!), but I think they are better discovered by the reader as the story moves along. Suffice to say that there are many, many laugh-out-loud moments in this unique novel. My book group universally loved Eleanor and the novel (a rarity for us) and gave it an average rating of 8, with several 9's and 10's in the group. It is a poignant, delightful, compelling book that I never wanted to end, and despite the trauma in Eleanor's past, it is ultimately an uplifting story of healing and renewal. Just describing it and paging through it makes me want to read it all over again.

325 pages, Penguin Books

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audio, which sounds wonderful! Cathleen McCarron does a beautiful job of narrating Eleanor's story. It will give you a taste of Eleanor's unique voice.

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local:

 
    
  

Or you can order Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Movie Monday: Fracture

We are getting a little bit bored with all the TV shows we are keeping up with at this point in the season (especially since we've been watching some of them for 3-4 seasons and are on the 15th or 20th episode of the season now!), so we decided to watch some movies this weekend. Last night, we found a thriller from 2007 on Netflix that sounded good, Fracture, and it lived up to our expectations with plenty of suspense and creeping tension!

Anthony Hopkins stars as Ted Crawford, a wealthy and brilliant man who investigates plane crashes and spends his spare time creating beautiful and intricate marble runs and perpetual motion machines. In the early scenes of the movie, he witnesses his wife and her lover together at a hotel, goes home to wait for her, and coldly shoots her in the head. He is calm and meticulous as he waits for the police, gun in hand. Lieutenant Ron Nunally, played by Billy Burke, shows up with a SWAT team and falls to the floor in shock when he sees the bleeding woman, who is - you guessed it - his lover. Over in the Los Angeles D.A.'s office, Willy Beachum, played by Ryan Gosling, is a quiet and unassuming young man from Oklahoma who has a 97% conviction rate. Although he is being hired by a ritzy corporate firm, he is assigned this one last case, Crawford's, because the police say it is a slam-dunk with the weapon and a signed confession. Willy is schmoozed and distracted by his new firm and especially his new beautiful boss, Nicki, played by Rosamund Pike. He is completely stunned to go to court, expecting a quick guilty plea from the old white-haired man, to find a sly, clever defendant who insists on representing himself, pleads not guilty, and requests that the case go directly to trial without the preliminaries. Soon enough, every single piece of police evidence falls apart, bit by bit, and Willy finds himself struggling to figure out how to convict this man who he knows is guilty.

Anthony Hopkins is at his most Hopkins-esque in this tense thriller, playing with his opponent as only Hopkins can, like a suited, gentlemanly Hannibal Lector. As Crawford, he is intelligent, arrogant, and certain that no one can touch him, further frustrating Willy. The tone is dark, as befits a thriller, but with a subtle sly humor, thanks to Crawford's refusal to take the proceedings seriously. We joked before the movie started that Gosling usually plays a brooding, mostly silent character in his films, and there is some of that here, but at the beginning, you also see Willy as a smiling, happy, upwardly mobile guy with everything looking perfect for his future. Of course, Crawford pulls that easy confidence from him, little by little. As the audience, you watch Crawford shoot his wife in the opening scenes, so you know he did it, but the real mystery here is how can he get away with it? It's a captivating question that kept us rapt and guessing right up until the very last scene.

Fracture is currently playing on Netflix and it is available for rent streaming on Amazon, starting at $3.99.

We love thrillers and mystery/suspense movies, but it seems to us like there aren't as many of them (and certainly not as many good ones) today as there were 10 or 20 years ago.

What movies do you recommend in the thriller/suspense/mystery genres? We also enjoyed A Simple Favor (dark, suspenseful, and funny) and Taking Lives (though it is from 2004 - see what I mean?) recently.

Check out this trailer - you'll be hooked!

It's Monday 5/27! What Are You Reading?

Happy Memorial Day to those in the U.S! I hope you are enjoying your long weekend (and, of course, remembering the reason for the holiday). We've had a pretty good weekend, with a mix of getting things done around the house (long overdue), spending time with family, and a little time for fun. After all of our recent travels, it's been nice just to be home and take a breath and get caught up a bit. I am writing this from our screened porch, which we scrubbed clean on Saturday to get it ready for the season - it's beautiful out here! As for my week, it was busier than expected, though I did squeeze in some writing time.

The big news here is that Friday I kicked off my annual Big Book Summer reading challenge! woohoo! I look forward to this every year, as do many other readers who come back to participate every summer. The challenge is easy-going for summer (and it works if it's the start of winter where you are, too!) - you only have to read one book with 400 or more pages between now and Labor Day (September 2). Easy, right? Many of us, though, take this opportunity to tackle some of the bigger and oft-ignored books on our shelves or TBR lists. I had fun on Friday going through my shelves and picking out a bunch of 400+ page books! I won't get to all of them this summer, but I like to have a nice selection to choose from. You can read all about the 2019 Big Book Summer Challenge, sign-up (those who don't have a blog can leave a comment or use the Goodreads group to sign up), and see what I hope to read this summer! Hope you'll join the fun!

And, speaking of fun, here's what my family and I have been reading this week:

I finished Inheritance by Dani Shapiro, a memoir that has gotten a lot of buzz this year and with good reason. It's the fascinating story of a woman who sent her saliva off to Ancestry.com (just because someone gave her and her husband kits as a gift) and was shocked to discover that her father was not actually her biological father and she was only half-Jewish, not 100% Orthodox Jewish, as she'd thought. Her parents are both dead, so she can't ask them and sets off to dig into her own history, find her biological father, and figure out how this happened. It's just as good as everyone said and is a very moving story - not just about genetics but also about family, culture, and identity.

Next, I finally had a chance to read True Grit by Charles Portis, a classic Book Cougars podcast that my husband recently read, too. I enjoyed the 2010 movie remake so knew the general story, but the novel was so good! It's set in 1870's Arkansas, where a 14-year-old girl wants to avenge her father's murder by chasing after the outlaw who shot him. She teams up with a Federal Marshal, who is widely known as the meanest Marshal in the region, and a Texas Ranger, both of whom have their own reasons for wanting to capture this particular man. It's filled with action and suspense, as I expected, but the novel is also very, very funny! Mattie (the girl) is a fantastic character, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Now, I can join in the readalong discussions and listen to the podcast episode!
western and a readalong for the

Last night, I started my first Big Book of the Summer! Yay! I kicked things off with a doozy - a 959-page chunkster - Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Coincidentally, this is another readalong for the Book Cougars podcast, for June, plus another classic (I am behind on my Classics Challenge), and from my own shelves, so it counts for several challenges. I've never read the novel and saw the movie many decades ago, and I am enjoying it so far...even though I can barely hold it up!


On audio, I am still listening to a YA novel, The Knowing by Sharon Cameron, the sequel to The Forgetting, which I listened to on audio two years ago (review at the link). It's an original and engrossing science fiction dystopian novel about memory, but to say any more about the second book would give away spoilers about the first book. Suffice it to say, it is a suspenseful and compelling story that I am enjoying just as much as the first one.

My husband, Ken, finished Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones, a Booktopia book that I read recently and passed onto him. You can read my review at the link - it's a fast and funny thriller about an ex-cop in Detroit who stumbles onto a crime involving young undocumented immigrant women. He enjoyed it, especially its sense of humor (as did I), and we are both looking forward to reading the first in the series, August Snow, which I bought at Booktopia after meeting the author.



Ken has now started his Big Book Summer Challenge, too! He's reading Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly, a novel where the author combines two of his popular characters, Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard, who was introduced in The Late Show, which Ken also enjoyed. In this new cross-over novel, the two team up on the unsolved murder of a runaway. Which reminds me, the new season of the TV adaptation of Connelly's novels, Bosch, just started April 19 - can't wait! We both love the show (and the books, of course).


Our son, Jamie, 24, is reading a novel that we put in his Easter basket, The Wolf, by Leo Carew, book 1 in the Under the Northern Sky series. I picked it out for him at an awesome indie bookstore at the beach in Delaware, Browseabout Books, because the epic fantasy sounded right up his alley. He's loving it. Jamie thinks my Big Book Summer Challenge is hilarious because everything he reads (including this one) counts as a Big Book!






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?

I won't get to all of them, but here are my own 2019 Big Book Summer Challenge books!

 

My Big Book Summer 2019

I have just announced the 8th year of my annual reading challenge, Big Book Summer Challenge, so I guess I should be the first to sign up!

I always enjoy tackling some big books in the summer, and I'm looking forward to doing it again and finally reading some of these bricks that have been collecting dust on my shelf (NOTE: for this challenge, a Big Book is defined as a book with 400 pages or more).

I probably won't get through all of these, but I like to have some options to choose from. These are all currently on my shelves, waiting patiently to be read (along with many others!):

 

• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (959 pages!)
• The City of Mirrors (#3 in The Passage trilogy) by Justin Cronin (602 pages)
• The Air You Breathe by Frances De Pontes Peebles (449 pages)
• The Likeness by Tana French (466 pages)
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (453 pages)
• Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge (483 pages)
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (536 pages)

All of these also qualify for my Mount TBR reading Challenge 2019 (which is good because I'm not doing very well on it so far this year). Two of them will also count for my Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge, which I am also behind in. Gone with the Wind is also the current selection for the readalong for the Book Cougars podcast, so feel free to join in the fun! The Time Traveler's Wife is a re-read that one of my book groups just chose for July, and since it is one of my all-time favorites, I do plan to re-read it, and Fly By Night is a middle-grade novel, so that one should be pretty quick. The City of Mirrors is a carry-over from last year's Big Book Summer, so I really want to get to it and finish the series this time. I doubt I will get through all of these, but I will try!

This weekend, I will be starting Gone with Wind, the biggest of my Big Books, so my Big Book Summer is officially kicked off!

How about you? Are you up for tackling a Big Book (or two or three) this summer?  Join me and sign up for the 2019 Big Book Summer Challenge! The rules, details, and link-ups are on that page.

(Note: You don't need a blog to participate - you can either leave a comment on the Challenge page or sign up in the 2019 Big Book Summer Goodreads group. 

Join me in some bookish summer fun!

2019 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge

About 8 years ago, I came up with the idea to use the relaxed freedom of summer to tackle some of the biggest books on my TBR shelf that I'd been wanting to read but never seemed to have the time for.  One of my book groups takes time off during the summer, so with fewer interfering commitments, I declared it The Summer of the Big Book and really enjoyed delving into some hefty tomes, like The Passage and Pillars of the Earth.

It was so much fun that seven years ago, I created this challenge so that YOU can join me. And here it is Memorial Day weekend again and the unofficial start of summer 2019. So join in the fun!
And please note that if it is the start of winter where you live, you are still welcome to participate!

The Details:
Hey, it's summer, so we'll keep this low-key and easy!

• Anything 400 pages or more qualifies as a big book.
• The challenge will run from Memorial Day weekend (starting May 24 this year) through Labor Day weekend (Labor Day is September 2 this year).
  
• Choose one or two or however many big books you want as your goal. Wait, did you get that?  You only need to read 1 book with 400+ pages this summer to participate! (though you are welcome to read more, if you want).
• Sign up on the first links list below if you have a blog (or in the comments below or on Goodreads if you don't have a blog).
• Write a post to kick things off - you can list the exact big books you plan to read or just publish your intent to participate, but be sure to include the Big Book Summer Challenge pic above, with a link back to this blog (no blog? No problem - see below).
  
• Write a post to wrap up at the end, listing the big books you read during the summer.
• You can write progress posts if you want to and/or reviews of the big books you've read...but you don't have to! There is a separate links list below for big book reviews or progress update posts.

That's it!  Go check out your shelves and your TBR list and sign up below!

Don't have a blog? No problem! You can still participate in the challenge - just leave a comment in the Comment section below, stating your goals for the Big Book Summer Challenge, or sign up in the Goodreads group.

Whether you have a blog or not, join the group on Goodreads for the 2019 Big Book Summer Challenge, where we can talk about Big Books and our progress on the challenge. If you don't have a blog, you can also use the Goodreads group to sign up for the challenge, post updates, and show which Big Books you are reading.

Check out my own list of books to read for the challenge this summer.

At the end of the summer, there will be a Big Book Giveaway! After Labor Day, I'll select one name from among the participants (bloggers who leave a link below as well as those without a blog who leave a comment to announce their participation or participate through the Goodreads group) and will send the winner an Amazon gift certificate.

And help spread the word on Twitter with #BigBookSummer (you can follow me at @suebookbybook).
   

Link-up your 2019 Big Book Summer Sign-Up Posts here - be sure to include a link to your kick off blog post (not your homepage):

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Come back to this page during the summer to add a link whenever you review a Big Book or post a progress report.

Add links here to your reviews of Big Books and any progress updates or wrap-up post: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Books Read in April

Let's see...in April, I traveled to Virginia, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania in cars and on planes, camping, staying in hotels, and staying in my mom's guest room. It was a hectic, chaotic month, but all that travel also provided plenty of reading time!

Here's what I finished reading in April:

• Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (MS) - adult fiction
• On the Come Up by Angie Thomas - teen/YA fiction on audio
• Leading Men by Christopher Castellani (NY, Italy) - adult fiction

• Sunburn by Laura Lippman (DE) - adult fiction on audio
• Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais (South Africa) - adult fiction
• Soon the Light Will Be Perfect by Dave Patterson (VT) - adult fiction on audio

• Last Day by Domenica Ruta (MA) - adult fiction, reviewed for Shelf Awareness
• Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones (MI) - adult fiction 

That's eight books in all in April, a very good reading month for me! Much of the month was spent packing in as many books for Booktopia (held the first weekend in May) as I could manage - summary coming up next week! I read all fiction last month and mostly adult fiction, with just one  YA novel. I listened to three of the books on audio. I enjoyed all of these, and Mudbound was particularly powerful and well-written, but my favorite of the month (and perhaps even the year!) was Hum If You Don't Know the Words, a moving, heart-breaking, and heart-warming story of love and healing - if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.

Progress in 2019 Reading Challenges:
This is my favorite part of my monthly summary - updating my Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Reading Challenge - 3 of my 8 books were from my own shelves (and they were all fairly new, so I am still losing ground!).

Monthly Motif Reading Challenge - April was Crack the Case month, so Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones fit.

Back to the Classics Challenge - no classics read - again! Slow start. I really tried to fit one in, but book group reads, review books, and Booktopia had to come first.

Monthly Keyword Challenge - I didn't read a single book with any of the monthly keywords in the title...again. Clearly this challenge wasn't a good choice for me!

Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2019 - no nonfiction books again last month.

Diversity Reading Challenge - back on track last month, as 5 of my 8 books were diverse books.

Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge - I added two new countries: Italy and South Africa.

2018 Literary Escapes Challenge - I added 2 new states: Michigan and Mississippi. Plus, I read my second book of the year set in our tiny state of Delaware - amazing!

Finally, Bookish Bingo hosted by Chapter Break - not really a challenge per se, but a fun game that I play each month. I filled in 21 squares in April - 

Spaces Filled In:

Mudbound - military, siblings, vengeance
On the Come Up - Easter egg, musician, feisty
Leading Men - travel, shelf love
Sunburn - audio book, tricks or pranks
Hum If You Don't Know the Words - a book someone recommended, transformations
Soon the Light Will Be Perfect - free book, male author
Lives Laid Away - read a physical book, library book, in a series
Last Day - not in a series, tattoo, new adult
Free Space

What was your favorite book read in April?