It's Monday 6/5! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

After a nonstop, chaotic May filled with travel, family, and friends, last week we did ... nothing! I had literally nothing on my calendar, and I think I only left my house twice: for a short hike with my husband and a quick trip to our local natural food store. I was pretty worn out all week. Not badly "crashed" as we say in the chronic illness world, but just really run-down. I'm still sleeping late and low in energy, so it's been rest and recover time. Here are the highlights from last week:

Extra reading time on our screened porch

Mmmm ... enjoying the brief season for local strawberries!

Dinner with our son on Friday evening

Our favorite Sunday morning treat

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On the Blog

Big Book Summer Challenge 2023 is in full swing! This annual reading challenge is super simple and easy-going for summer (or winter, if you're in the southern hemisphere). You set your own goals, whether that's reading one big book or two or however many you want. You have from now until September 4 (Labor Day in the U.S.), and a big book is any book with 400 or more pages. Everything counts: e-books, audios, YA, middle-grade, graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction. If you don't have a blog or YouTube channel, no problem--just sign up in the Goodreads group or even by leaving a comment on the challenge page. We have some great book discussions in the Goodreads group all summer long!

All of the details are on the Big Book Summer Challenge page, including a links list for bloggers and YouTubers. 

Hope you'll join the fun, too!

 I'm still behind on visiting all of the blogs that have signed up (and other blogs, too), as I try to balance limited energy with a huge backlog of things to do, but I'm working on it!

Here on my blog last week:

TV Tuesday: The Company You Keep - this heist show combines suspenseful crime with forbidden romance and is a lot of fun!

Fiction Review: The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate - I absolutely loved this fascinating historical fiction that takes place in 1875 and 1987 Louisiana

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On Video

Just one book-related video last week:

Friday Reads 6-2-23 - my weekly update on what I'm reading - Big Books this time!

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 What We're Reading 

I like to kick off Big Book Summer with a fast-paced read, and Billy Summer by Stephen King has been the perfect book to start my summer. I think I'm already about halfway through this unique novel about a hitman who's agreed to one last job (with a huge payday) and is then planning to retire. King's amazing talent for creating in-depth characters that feel real and compelling plots you can't look away from is on full display here! Like many of his best books, this is not horror. I've been calling it a thriller, but it's not even very action-packed (yet anyway). It's well-titled because Billy, the hitman, is at the heart of this novel; it's the story of his life, and by the first couple of chapters, you are already rooting for Billy and hoping things turn out well for him. I am loving it and staying up much too late every night reading it!

 

My first Big Book on audio this summer is The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara. This unique novel chronicles the lives of a group of gay and transgender teens in NYC in the late 70's and 80's. The novel begins with different chapters each focusing on a different child/teen who knows that he/she is different and is trying to find their place in the world. I'm just getting to where some of these initial characters are beginning to meet each other, so I think the novel is ultimately about finding community--and family--for these isolated young people who feel like they don't fit in. The audio production is wonderful, and the narrative is engrossing so far.

My husband, Ken, just finished reading one of my all-time favorite books, Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais, a past two-time Booktopia author. Robin, a nine-year-old white girl in Johannesburg, South Africa, is orphaned and goes to live with her single aunt, who works as a flight attendant. Since she's often not at home, the aunt hires Beauty, a 50-ish Black Xhosa woman who has come to the city to search for her missing teen daughter. The two isolated, damaged people slowly bond, as Robin begins to heal with Beauty's help. This beautifully written novel has it all: suspense, drama, and a wonderful sense of humor. I loved hearing my husband laughing out loud as he read it and reading the funny parts aloud to me. This book has heart. And it's a Big Book! (My husband participates in the challenge, too.)  

 

 Our son, 28, has gone back to the Spellmonger series by Terry Mancour, which he loves! He's currently reading book eight, Court Wizard.

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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?

Fiction Review: The Book of Lost Friends

My book group's selection for May was The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate. We all enjoyed her previous novel, Before We Were Yours, and I think this one was an even bigger hit (we rated it 8.2 out of 10)! Like that earlier novel, this was also historical fiction, featuring two separate narratives in different time periods, anchored by a fascinating little-known bit of history.

In 1863, six-year-old Hannie is frightened as her master's son, whose father asked him to see them all moved safely to Texas, instead sells off Hannie's family along the way. In stop after stop, she sees each of her siblings, her aunt, her little cousin, and finally her mother sold off and taken away. After the war is over, Hannie is the only one from her family who is returned to the Gossett plantation in Augustine, Louisiana, and transformed from slave into sharecropper, along with a handful of others still left there. In 1875, they are approaching their 10th sharecropping year, when they will finally own their own land. Hannie overhears a conversation between Lavinia, the Little Missy of the plantation, and her Creole half-sister, Juneau Jane. It seems that Mr. Gossett had a mistress in New Orleans and another daughter Lavinia's age. Now, when the two girls set off on a mutual journey to find their father's lawyer and protect their inheritance, Hannie secretly accompanies them, hoping to find the sharecropping contract to prove their right to the land. The three teen girls are on a dangerous mission that takes them into Texas, among outlaws and vigilantes. It also reignites Hannie's longing to find her family, when she discovers the Lost Friends column in a church newspaper distributed throughout the south.

In alternating chapters, first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, aka Benny, moves to Augustine in 1987. She's been assigned to teach English at the local high school, and her only previous experience was student teaching at a well-off suburban high school in the East. When she discovers there are no books for the English classes and a student almost faints from hunger on her first day, Benny realizes this is going to be far more difficult than she first thought. Benny begins to get to know the people in town, including the well-respected Granny T, who runs the Cluck and Oink BBQ joint, and Nathan Gossett, the reluctant heir to all that is left of the Gossett plantation, including its beautiful library filled with books. Benny gets the idea to engage her students in reading and writing by researching their own families' histories, though the town doesn't like new ideas ... or stirring up old wounds.

Often in a book with two separate narratives like this, you find yourself preferring one over the other, but I was equally engrossed in both the 1875 and 1987 stories and rooting for both Hannie and Benny to succeed in their quests. Each set of chapters begins with a copy of a Lost Friends column, and some of them are echoed in the narrative, with familiar names popping up. Hannie's story is filled with action, adventure, and loss, while Benny's story is one of isolation, a desire to help, and becoming part of a community. The two narratives come together beautifully at the end, just as I'd hoped they would. I both read the book in print and listened to it on audio, which worked out wonderfully; I got to see the Lost Friends' columns reprinted and also listen to the multiple excellent audio narrators. It's a compelling, engaging novel, filled with fascinating historical detail and memorable characters that I never wanted to leave.

375 pages, Ballantine Books

Random House Audio

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Monthly Motif - In It to Win It (character takes on a personal challenge)

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes - Louisiana

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from Hannie's first part of the narrative, and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores.

 

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!

  

TV Tuesday: The Company You Keep

One of the new shows that my husband and I enjoyed this winter/spring was The Company You Keep. With its combination of unique crime show and forbidden love story, it is welcomingly original.

Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us) stars as Charlie Nicoletti, the son and heir apparent of a unique family business. His mother, father, sister, and he all work together as criminals and con-men, with their working-class Baltimore bar as cover. His father, played by William Fichtner, and his mother, played by Polly Draper (of thirtysomething fame), own the bar, and Charlie and his sister Birdie, played by Sarah Wayne Callies, work there, while the whole family plans their next job in their off-hours in the basement. Birdie also has a deaf daughter named Ollie, played by Shaylee Mansfield, who is not in on the family secrets. They're a close-knit family, and they are very, very good at what they do. After a huge, $10 million score, they consider retiring from the life of crime, but the big-time drug-dealing, arms-buying crime family they scammed isn't ready to let them; they want to use the Nicolettis' unique talents to earn back the money they stole from them. One night, a beautiful woman named Emma Hill, played by Catherine Haena Kim, comes into the bar, and she and Charlie hit it off. There is instant chemistry between them and plenty of witty banter, though it is clear to both of them that the other has secrets. It turns out that Emma is a CIA agent, so Charlie must keep his criminal life even more secret than usual, as the two get closer and their physical attraction turns into a deeper love. Emma is not only in law enforcement but comes from a well-known D.C. power family, and her brother is running for the Senate (to take his father's role). What kind of future is there for a federal agent and a career criminal who come from such different worlds?

The beginning of this show is a playful secrets-and-lies love affair between Charlie and Emma, but their respective secrets are revealed to each other fairly soon in the first season. Things get even more complicated when Emma is investigating the very crime family that is blackmailing Charlie's family. The acting in this show is top-notch, with great writing featuring lots of witty banter between Charlie and Emma. Its fast-paced, fun heist plots rival any crime show but with the added fun of Charlie and Emma's opposite positions. We really enjoyed this show with its perfect mix of suspense, action, family drama, and romance.

Unfortunately, I just read that ABC decided not to renew The Company You Keep for a second season, though the final episode of season one certainly sets up plenty of threads for a continuation. I decided to still review it because this first season is a lot of fun and worth watching on its own ... and we can always hope that one of the streaming channels picks it up to continue it (as Netflix did with Manifest which comes back for a final season starting June 2).

The Company You Keep is an ABC show, so it can be viewed on cable On Demand, on Hulu, or a variety of other streaming services. It is also available free on ABC's website.

It's Monday 5/29! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Whew, what a whirlwind fun-filled week! I spent Wednesday and Thursday getting ready to launch the Big Book Summer Challenge (see below). Thursday evening, my cousin and her husband arrived for a visit. We had a wonderful time with them. She and I have known each other all our lives, but we've never had the chance to spend time together like this, just us, and it was great! We took them on a hike along White Clay Creek, to show them some of Delaware's natural beauty.

Great Blue Heron in the creek

My husband and I with my cousin & her husband

Beautiful day along White Clay Creek

In the evening, we celebrated her birthday with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, seated on the second-floor deck overlooking the river. They left Saturday morning, and our son and his girlfriend arrived at dinnertime! We enjoyed some relaxed quiet time with them, catching up and hearing all about our son's new job.

With our son and his girlfriend

Last night, we watched the daughter of our closest friends get married on Zoom! She and her girlfriend were visiting New Orleans, where they met, and decided on an impromptu wedding in that wonderful place. We were glad to be a part of their special day and share in their happiness.

Our son and his girlfriend just left (hopefully the traffic back to Long Island won't be too terrible). I managed this very active long weekend well but have been pretty wiped out for the past few days! It was worth it to enjoy such fabulous family time.

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On the Blog

Big Book Summer Challenge 2023 has begun!

With all of our visitors, I kicked the challenge off a bit early this year, on Thursday evening, and there are already about 25 people signed up! If you signed up this weekend, I was offline most of the time, so I will be visiting blogs and YouTube channels and replying to sign-ups in the Goodreads group today as I catch up.

This annual reading challenge is super simple and easy-going for summer (or winter, if you're in the southern hemisphere!). You set your own goals, whether that's reading one big book or two or however many you want. You have from now until September 4 (Labor Day in the U.S.), and a big book is any book with 400 or more pages. Everything counts: e-books, audios, YA, middle-grade, graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction. As long as the print edition is at least 400 pages, it's a big book! If you don't have a blog or YouTube channel, no problem--just sign up in the Goodreads group or even by leaving a comment on the challenge page. We have some great book discussions in the Goodreads group all summer long!

All of the details are on the Big Book Summer Challenge page, including a links list for bloggers and YouTubers. 

Hope you'll join the fun, too!

Here on the blog last week:

Fiction Review: Brother and Sister Enter the Forest by Richard Mirabella - a Booktopia selection about family, adult siblings, and trauma. 

Big Book Summer Challenge is Here! - all the details 

My Big Book Summer Plans 2023 - check out my pile of possibilities for the summer. What should I read first??

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On Video

Just one video last week - you guessed it:

Big Book Summer Challenge - details about the challenge, what I plan to read this summer, and plenty of Big Book recommendations, too

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 What We're Reading

 

I have not yet started a Big Book because I haven't had much reading time with all the visitors. Today, I will be finishing The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams, the second quarter readalong pick for the Book Cougars podcast (and episode 182 includes an interview with me about Big Book Summer). It's about a list of eight books that 17-year-old Aleisha finds stuck in a library book while working at her new job in the library. She's not much of a reader, but she begins reading the books on the list (classics and modern classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Kite Runner). Things are tough at home for Aleisha, as she helps her brother care for their mother. When an elderly widower named Mukesh comes to the library looking for a book, in an effort to connect with his late wife and his young granddaughter (both avid readers), Aleisha passes him To Kill a Mockingbird, which leads to them reading and discussing each book on the list and becoming friends. This is a story about the power of books to soothe and comfort and to connect people. I've loved it!

 

I will also be finishing my audio book today (and picking a Big Book audio), Into White by Randi Pink, a YA novel I downloaded during a previous SYNC summer (this year's program, with two free audiobooks each week, at the link). LaToya Williams is a Black girl in her mostly white Alabama high school, where she endures discrimination and bullying from both white and Black students. She wonders how her life would be different and prays one night to wake up "anything but Black." Her prayers are answered when she wakes up as a beautiful blue-eyed blonde. I wasn't sure about this one at first, with its magical transformation and seemingly silly premise, but it ended up having plenty of emotional depth and being a thoughtful and thought-provoking novel.

 

My husband had to set aside A Flaw in the Design by Nathan Oates (a Booktopia selection this year) for now, after our great-nephew's death last week--it's a great book but just too dark for his state of mind. Instead, he's been reading one of my all-time favorite books, Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais, a past two-time Booktopia author. Robin, a nine-year-old white girl in Johannesburg, South Africa, is orphaned and goes to live with her single aunt, who works as a flight attendant. Since she's often not at home, the aunt hires Beauty, a 50-ish Black Xhosa woman who has come to the city to search for her missing teen daughter.The two isolated, damaged people slowly bond, as Robin begins to heal with Beauty's help. This beautifully written novel has it all: suspense, drama, and a wonderful sense of humor. I love to hear my husband laughing out loud as he reads it. This book has heart. And it's a Big Book! (My husband participates in the challenge, too.)

 Our son, 28, has gone back to the Spellmonger series by Terry Mancour, which he loves! He's currently reading book eight, Court Wizard.

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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?

Big Book Summer Challenge 2023 Is Here!

Welcome to Big Book Summer 2023!

The idea is simple: Use the ease of summer to tackle a Big Book (400+ pages) or two or ... however many you want! You set your own goals. You can hear more about how it started and some great Big Book suggestions in my video, Big Book Summer Challenge 2023.

And if it is the start of winter where you live, then it's your Big Book Winter Challenge! Everyone is 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 runs from Memorial Day weekend (starting May 25 this year) through Labor Day (September 4 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 YouTube channel, to leave your link so others can find you. 
• No blog? No problem! Just sign up in the comments below or in the Goodreads group in the Sign-Up discussion thread if you don't have a blog or YouTube channel.
  
• If you have a blog or YouTube channel, write a post or record a video to kick things off: you can list the exact big books you plan to read or just announce your intent to participate, but be sure to include the Big Book Summer Challenge pic above, with a link back to this blog page. It's fine to kick-off your Big Book Summer as part of another post or video.
  
• Write a post or record a video to wrap up at the end, listing the big books you read during the summer.
• You can write progress posts or record progress videos 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 (the second one) below for big book reviews, progress updates, and wrap-up posts/videos.

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

What kind of books "count"? All kinds! Middle-grade, YA, graphic novels, classics, all genres, all types--as long as they are at least 400 pages. Yes, e-books and audio books count, too! Just check online for the number of pages in the print edition. See my list of Big Books on BookShop for some great ideas, based on what I have read in previous Big Book Summers and throughout the year. And this year's kick-off video also includes some suggestions.

And if you DO have a blog or YouTube channel, you are still welcome to join the group on Goodreads for the 2023 Big Book Summer Challenge, where we can talk about Big Books and our progress on the challenge. It's a fun book conversation all summer long!

Check out my own list of books to read for the challenge this summer and my Big Book Summer Kick-Off Video for more on what I plan to read this summer. 

And you can pick up some fun Big Book Summer products! Check out my Zazzle shop for Big Book Summer mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, notebooks, car magnets, stickers, and more!

At the end of the summer, there will be a Big Book Giveaway! After Labor Day, I'll select a name from among the participants--bloggers and booktubers who leave a link below as well as those without a blog/video who sign-up through the Goodreads group or in the Comments below--and will send the winner a BookShop gift certificate.

And help spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media with #BigBookSummer. You can follow me at:

Twitter: @suebookbybook 

Facebook: the Facebook page for this blog 

YouTube: SueJacksonDE

Challenge updates will be posted in all of those places.

Hope you'll join the Big Book Summer fun!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

My Big Book Summer Plans 2023

I have just announced the 11th 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 finally reading some of these bricks that have been collecting dust on my shelf (for this challenge, a Big Book is any book with 400 pages or more).

NOTE: Don't let my stack below intimidate you! You only need to read ONE Big Book over the next three months to join in the fun and participate in the challenge. I like to make a "pile of possibilities," but you do you 😀

I definitely 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!):

 

From the bottom of the stack:

• Billy Summers by Stephen King (528 pages)
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (592 pages)
• Never by Ken Follett (816 pages)
  
• Voyager by Diana Gabaldon (870 pages) - book 3 of the Outlander series, left from Big Book Summer 2022!
  
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (608 pages)
• Afterland by Lauren Beukes (432 pages)
• Scythe by Neal Schusterman (464 pages)
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (470 pages)
• Burn by Nevada Barr (450 pages)
  

I know that looks like a huge stack--and it is!--but as you can see, many of my choices are in the 400-600 page range and several are fast-paced reads. Voyager will be my biggest chunkster of the summer (and those are big pages packed with dense text!), but I know I will enjoy it.

All of these also qualify for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2023. My shelves are overflowing, so this is good! One  of them will also count for my Back to the Classics 2023 Challenge.

I also devote my summer to listening to Big Audio Books (audios and e-books count). I will choose those as I go, throughout the summer.

Check out my 2023 Big Book Summer Challenge Video for more on what I plan to read this summer, plus some great suggestions that I enjoyed in past summers. You can also find more great Big Book recommendations on my Big Books! list on Bookshop. I have read and enjoyed every single book on that list, and it includes a wide variety of book types and genres--something for everyone!

 How about you? Are you up for tackling a Big Book (or two or three) this summer? 
Join me and sign up for the 2023 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 2023 Big Book Summer Goodreads group. Either way, first read the details on the Challenge page.

Join me in some bookish summer fun!