It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Last week, I ... did nothing! ha ha It was my recovery/catch-up week after our lovely vacation. I actually worked a lot and got a lot done, both for work (writing) and for home, but I only left the house once, for massage therapy on Monday, and the only photos I took all week were of the sky for my #sky365 project. It was cloudy and rainy almost every day! Kind of boring, but I enjoy looking at the clouds--every day is different.

We did do something fun (and long overdue) on Friday evening, though I still didn't leave the house! Since my chronic illness was worse than usual the past few years, our good friends have hosted us for dinner--oh, probably 12 or 15 times in a row--without any reciprocation (they're those kind of amazing friends). Since I've been feeling a bit better recently, we were finally able to host them at our house! It was wonderful, and we had a fun evening together, with good food, my husband's signature cocktail, and lots of conversation, catching up, and laughs.

I might actually leave the house this week.

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On the Blog

Fiction Review: The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams - I loved this poignant, emotionally complex novel about how books can help people connect and build community.

Fiction Review: Billy Summers by Stephen King - my first #BigBookSummer read was outstanding, an intricate, gripping character study of a hit man with a moral code, on his last job. 

And, remember, there is still plenty of time to sign up for the Big Book Summer Reading Challenge! It runs until early September, and you only need to read one 400+ page book between now and then to participate. There's a whole community in our Goodreads group with fun Big Book chat all summer long.

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On Video

Catskills Travel Vlog: Camping, Kayaking, Local Towns, Food and Drink, Books and a Bookstore! - come along with us on our recent vacation to enjoy the natural beauty and fun of this wonderful region, with lots of video clips and photos.

Friday Reads 6-23-23 - brief update on what I have been reading

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 What We're Reading

 

I am still reading my biggest book of the summer, Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, book 3 of the Outlander series. At over 800 (large) pages, this is an intimidating Big Book, and it's been on my shelf for two years and was in my Big Book Summer stack last year! But as soon as I started reading it, I thought, "why did I wait so long?" She writes such fascinating, detailed historical fiction, with a touch of time travel and an epic love story at the center of it. The series is about a British woman in 1945 who goes back in time to 1700's Scotland. This book is no exception and was completely engrossing from the very first pages. I'm past the halfway point now, but I'll be reading this one for a while yet!

 

I've started my second audio book for #BigBookSummer Challenge, The Strangers, book one in the Greystone Secrets series by Margaret Peterson Haddix, one of my favorite middle-grade authors. Her books are always engrossing, with twisty plots and in-depth characters. This one focuses on three siblings: sixth-grader Chess (short for Rochester), fourth-grader Emma, and second-grader Finn. They are shocked to come home from school one day and see their mom watching the news, which is reporting that three kids--with their same names, ages, and birthdays!--have been kidnapped from another state. Then their mom takes off urgently on a business trip, and nothing seems right. It's excellent so far and already gripping.

 

My husband, Ken, is also enjoying Big Book Summer. He finished one of his biggest books, Matterhorn, a novel about the Vietnam War by decorated Marine Karl Marlantes. He said it was, of course, pretty grim, but an excellent, well-written book. 

 

Now, Ken has started one of his Father's Day gifts from me (and another Big Book, though just barely), The Quiet Boy by Ben H. Winters. He and I are both fans of Winters' The Last Policeman trilogy, but he says this novel is entirely different, a legal thriller with two trials woven together, one in the past and one in the present, involving malpractice and murder.

 

 Our son, 28, just finished the 1200-page book eight, Court Wizard, of the Spellmonger series by Terry Mancour.  He loves this series so much that he's diving right into book nine, Shadowmage, tonight. This one is only about 800 pages long!

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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: Billy Summers

My first book for the 2023 Big Book Summer Challenge was Billy Summers by Stephen King. I always like to kick off my summer reading with a compelling quick-read Big Book, and wow, did this one fit the bill! While the last third is certainly thriller-like, much of this unique novel about a hit man on his last job is an in-depth, riveting character study.

Billy Summers was a Marine sniper in Afghanistan, and he's been working for many years now as a hired killer. He's not only an excellent shot but is very good at disappearing afterward. And he has a moral code: he will only agree to kill really bad guys. Now, a Vegas crime boss named Nick whom he's worked with before wants to hire Billy for a big job. The pay-off for this one is so huge that Billy decides it will be his last job, and he will retire afterward. The more Billy learns about this job, though, the more nervous it makes him (and he is not a nervous man). The job requires him to move into a small southern city and become a part of the community, blending in so that his presence there seems normal. He'll be waiting until his target, who is currently imprisoned in California for a lesser charge, is extradited back to be tried for murder. The cover story concocted for Billy is that he's a first-time novelist who wasn't meeting his deadlines, so his agent (the cover for another man he's worked with before) moves him to this city and sets him up in an office in a half-empty building (his office window conveniently looks out over the courthouse across the street). Billy moves into a decent neighborhood, goes to the office every day, and begins to get to know his neighbors at home and at work. As long as he's pretending to be a writer, he decides to really attempt to write, something he's always wanted to do. Billy is very smart and an avid reader, but as a hit man, he adopts what he thinks of as the "dumb self" in front of those who hire him. As time moves forward and Billy waits for his target, he gets more and more concerned about this whole situation.

As you might expect, things go wrong! This is a very twisty, suspenseful novel, especially in the second half, but the beginning is focused on Billy himself. In the present day, he settles into this new place, but he's writing about his past, starting with a horrific childhood. Billy's writings are a book-within-the-book, providing background and understanding of Billy for the reader, as Billy himself slowly lets himself remember everything he's been through. The novel is aptly titled, as it is an in-depth look at the complexities of Billy Summers: who he is, what he's experienced, and how that all affects him. And, of course, it's written by Stephen King, who is supremely talented at creating intricate, real-feeling characters. In fact, I liked Billy right from the start and was rooting for him (yes, for the hit man) and have missed him since I finished the book. As things go wrong after the hit, the action and suspense ramp up with lots of surprises in store, but the entire book, right from the first pages, is thoughtful, compelling, and engrossing. Billy Summers has taken its place among my favorite Stephen King novels (including 11/22/63 and Hearts in Atlantis).

514 pages, Scribner

Simon & Schuster Audio

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 Mount TBR Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Arkansas (my best guess) 

Big Book Summer Challenge

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, as Billy meets with Nick to discuss the hit, 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!

    
  

Fiction Review: The Reading List

I love listening to the Book Cougars podcast, and their second quarter read-along choice was The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams (this year's theme for their read-alongs is books about books). This warm, moving novel about the power of books to connect people came to me at just the right time.

Seventeen-year-old Aleisha is reluctantly working at her local library in Wembley, London, for the summer. She's not much of a reader, but she took the job at the urging of her older brother, Aidan; the library is a special place to him that he has loved since he was a young child. The siblings now work together to care for their mother, who is confined to the house due to mental illness. It's a difficult life for both of them.

One day, a widower named Mukesh comes to the library for the first time and timidly approaches the desk to ask Aleisha to recommend a book. His wife died a year ago, and his three adult daughters worry about him but have busy lives of their own. His wife was an avid reader and always had a stack of books from the library on her nightstand. Their granddaughter, Priya, is just like her grandma, and Mukesh thinks that perhaps reading will help him to become closer to Priya and to his late wife, whom he misses so much. He found a library copy of The Time Traveler's Wife under their bed and read it. The novel opened a whole new world for him, helped him better understand his own loss, and gave him a glimpse of what his wife and Priya love so much about books. But he has no idea what to read next. When he asks Aleisha, she doesn't know what to say, but she found a list of books inside a book she was shelving earlier, so she suggests the first one from the list, To Kill a Mockingbird, and checks it out for him. Knowing the lonely man will return and want to talk to her about the book, Aleisha begins reading it also. That begins their own private book club, and the two isolated, struggling people both begin to reach out and connect, with each other and with their community.

The list Aleisha finds:

Just in case you need it:

To Kill a Mockingbird

Rebecca

The Kite Runner

Life of Pi

Pride and Prejudice

Little Women

Beloved

A Suitable Boy

(links to my own reviews, where available)

While Aleisha and Mukesh are at the heart of this story, that list makes the rounds of the community, and short, interstitial chapters provide a quick glimpse into the lives of other people who find the list of books in various places. In all, the novel weaves together the story of a community and of people coming together via the books they read. Mukesh and Aleisha are both suffering, and their healing journeys are highlighted here. It's a beautiful, heartwarming story, but it doesn't shy away from difficult topics like death, mental illness, and suicide. I read this novel during a difficult time in my own life, grieving the loss of our 13-year-old grand-nephew, and like the characters, the gentle but honest tones of the novel helped me to cope. It's all about people and connections, but it is also a love letter to books (I've read all but two of the books on the list). I greatly enjoyed experiencing these books (many of them my own favorites) through the eyes of these characters just discovering the power of reading for the first time.

400 pages, William Morrow

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - R

Diversity Challenge (and East Asian mini challenge)

Travel the World in Books - UK

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.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. It sounds like a wonderful audio production, with multiple narrators.

 

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!

  
  

It's Monday 6/19! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Did you miss me? We are back home after a lovely 5 days camping in the Catskills. The weather wasn't great, but we saw the sun a few times and enjoyed a nice mix of relaxing in the outdoors (Mongaup Pond) and visiting the very cool nearby towns (Livingston Manor and Roscoe). I'll give you a brief photo tour here, but tomorrow, I will be posting a travel vlog on my YouTube channel, with lots of videos and photos from the trip.   

Sunset from our campsite

My husband and I at our campsite

Do Good Spirits Distillery in Roscoe, NY

So many ducks, including adorable lines of ducklings, on the pond!

Perfect camp morning - fire, tea, Big Book, & great view!

Fabulous kayaking - love the reflections

Hiking the Frick Pond Trail

Delicious BBQ Dinner from The Smoke Joint

Our trip ended in an emergency that could have been a disaster. A wheel came off our trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike! Luckily, my husband noticed something was wrong and carefully drove us into the nearest rest area. By the time we parked there, there was nothing holding the wheel on but the weight of the trailer. If it came off while we were driving 65 mph, it could have been really bad. So, we had our trailer towed to a nearby garage, and they are working to repair it.

The rest of our weekend was wonderful, though. Our older son came for a relaxed visit at home, and we had both of our sons with us all day yesterday, to celebrate Father's Day. We ate lots of good food, took a nice hike along a stream, made homemade ice cream, and laughed a lot! It's rare for just the four of us to be together, and we all enjoyed it.

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On the Blog

I managed a couple of posts before we left on our trip:

Movie Monday: Missing - we watched this modern twisty thriller with our son and his girlfriend, and we all enjoyed it.

 YA Non-Fiction Review: The 57 Bus - this real-life story is eye-opening, about two teens whose paths crossed for a moment on a city bus that forever changed both their lives. 

And, remember, there is still plenty of time to sign up for the Big Book Summer Reading Challenge! It runs until early September, and you only need to read one 400+ page book between now and then to participate. There's a whole community in our Goodreads group with fun Big Book chat all summer long.

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On Video

 May Reading Wrap-Up - a summary of all the books I finished last month

Friday Reads 6-9-23 - my thoughts on my first two Big Books, which are both excellent!

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 What We're Reading 

 

My first Big Book of the Summer was outstanding: Billy Summers by Stephen King. This unique novel is about a hitman who's agreed to one last job (with a huge payday) and is then planning to retire. As you might suspect, things go wrong! 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. It's a thriller (particularly the last third), but it's mostly a fascinating character study. 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 absolutely loved it and was completely absorbed from beginning to end.

 

On vacation, I started my biggest book of the summer, Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, book 3 of the Outlander series. At over 800 (large) pages, this is an intimidating Big Book, and it's been on my shelf for two years and was in my Big Book Summer stack last year! But as soon as I started reading it, I thought, "why did I wait so long?" She writes such fascinating, detailed historical fiction, with a touch of time travel and an epic love story at the center of it. The series about a British woman in 1945 who goes back in time to 1700's Scotland. This book is no exception and was completely engrossing from the very first pages. I had extra reading time on vacation, but I'll be reading this one for a while!

 

 

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 young people in NYC in the 70's, 80's, and 90'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. These initial characters gradually meet each other and form a household. 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 immersive. It's filled with joy and sorrow, love and life and has made me laugh out loud and tear up.

 

 

My husband is tackling his next Big Book, Matterhorn, a novel by decorated Marine Karl Marlantes. It's about a company of Marines during the Vietnam War. He says it's excellent so far, though intense.

 

 

 Our son, 28, is still reading book eight, Court Wizard, of the Spellmonger series by Terry Mancour. He loves this series, and this is a hefty one at 1200 pages!

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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?

YA Nonfiction Review: The 57 Bus

A good friend of mine from high school who now teaches high school English recommended I read The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater when it was first released in 2017. Now I realize why she was so enthusiastic about this unique, eye-opening book. It details the true story of how the lives of two teens intersected for a few minutes on a city bus that changed both of their lives.

Sasha is an agender white teen living in Oakland, CA. They attend a small, private school that is very supportive of teens like them who don't fit it into the neat boxes society tends to place people in. Sasha's parents are also very supportive of their choices, having watched their development from a child to an older teen and seen how thoughtfully those choices were made, based on deep feelings. Sasha has plenty of friends who are self-described nerds, and their school fosters creativity, like the silly card game they've invented together. Sasha has a unique sense of style, often wearing a vest and bow tie with a ballerina skirt to school. She rides the 57 bus home.

Richard also rides the 57 bus home from his large public school in Oakland. Richard is Black with a single mother. He and his mom are close, and Richard is generally a good kid, with the kind of humor and goofiness present in many teen boys. Given where he lives and goes to school, though, he's been exposed to a lot more violence and drug use and other societal issues than Sasha, though he generally stays out of trouble. One day on the bus, spurred on by other acquaintances nearby, Richard flicks a lighter someone handed him to Sasha's skirt. To his surprise, it quickly goes up in flames, and Sasha is severely injured. Sasha spends months in the hospital recovering, while Richard heads to juvie and begins his journey through the judicial system. Because the police who interview him for hours without an adult present pressure him to say he's homophobic, he's charged with two hate crimes and faces life in prison.

In an instant, these two teens' lives were changed, and it is easy to simply identify one as the victim and the other as the bad guy. But author Slater helps the reader understand the intricate nuances of this tragic story, taking us deep inside both teens' lives and relationships with friends and family. This book also takes a close look at the failings of our judicial system. One thoughtless moment of goofing around became a life-changing moment for both teens, and this award-winning book that delves into issues of race, class, and gender makes us think deeply about the incident and its aftermath. It's a book that should be required reading for adults as well as teens, and it was excellent on audio.

320 pages, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Recorded Books

I got this book from Sync several years ago, which offers two free audio books each week during the summer.

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Nonfiction Reader Challenge - Crime and Punishment

Diversity Challenge

 

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.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here 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!

 

Movie Monday: Missing

My son and his girlfriend were visiting Memorial Day weekend, and we were looking for a movie that all four of us would enjoy. We settled on Missing, an exciting thriller where a teen girl is searching for her missing mother.

Teen June, played by Storm Reid, lives alone with her mother ever since her father, James, died. Her mom, Grace, played by Nia Long, can be a bit over-protective, but it's clear the mother and daughter have a close relationship. Now, Grace is headed off to Columbia on vacation with her boyfriend, Kevin (played by Ken Leung), leaving June home alone. Grace's best friend, Heather, played by Amy Landecker, has promised to check in on June while Grace is away. Predictably, as soon as Grace and Kevin leave, June kicks off a wild week of parties with her friends, including her best friend Veena, played by Megan Suri. When the week is over, June heads to LAX to pick up her mom and Kevin ... but they don't show up. June begins to investigate from her phone and laptop in LA and gets more and more upset. It seems that no one has seen the couple since they walked out of their hotel room the day before, leaving all their stuff behind. June contacts the FBI, but they explain they don't have jurisdiction in Columbia. She's becoming more panicked and scared the more she discovers. Looking at social media posts, hacking Kevin's e-mail, and tapping into public video feeds from Columbia, a terrifying story begins to emerge, and the FBI and LA police do finally get involved. But no one cares as much as June, and she hires a local Columbian named Javier, played by Joaquim de Almedia, through Taskrabbit to follow-up on the ground for her. June races against time to find her mother.

The tension in this excellent movie builds quickly and never lets up. Much of the movie takes place online, as seen on June's laptop and phone, which might sound awkward but is very well done, creating a compelling story that feels like it is happening now, as you watch it unfold. The suspense is sustained throughout the film, with lots and lot of unexpected twists. I think we suspected every character except June at one point or another. The ending truly surprised us, which is quite a feat because my husband and son are both great at guessing endings and spoiling movies! The actors and writing here are also top-notch. While searching for a movie to watch that night, we thought that Searching sounded like a similar plot and approach as Missing, and it turns out that was intentional. In Searching, a father uses the digital world to search for a missing daughter, and the shared co-writers and producers of both films bill Missing as a "spiritual sequel" to Searching. I guess we'll have to watch that one next because all four of us enjoyed Missing very much.

Missing is currently showing on Netflix and is available to rent on other streaming services.