Tag: reading

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: June 2019

Stephanie8 Comments

Once again, a month is ending, and I’m sitting here going, “Holy crap, where did it go???”

No big surprise. I was sick for so long that quite a few months blew right past me. Thankfully, I’m feeling MUCH better lately, and because of that, my reading time has definitely gone down, as I’ve been busy playing catch-up with all the many things I wasn’t able to do when I was sick or taking care of my sick kiddo. And there’s a LOT of it, but that’s okay. Everything in good time. 🙂

We had a nasty start to the summer, weather-wise. Rain, rain, more rain, and weirdly chilly temperatures- up until about 9 days ago, I still wore a cardigan when I went out to do the grocery shopping. And just like that, the weather turned this week and we now need the air conditioner on, because the temps have gotten into the low 90’s. Make up your mind, Midwestern weather!!!

But let’s get down to the more important business at hand: BOOKS.

Books I Read in June 2019

  1. American Prison: An Undercover Reporter’s Journey Into the Business of Punishment- Shane Bauer

2. Big Rock- Lauren Blakely

3. Second Chances- Lauren Dane

4. The Idea of You- Robinne Lee

5. The Solace of Water- Elizabeth Byler Younts

6. Living More With Less- Doris Janzen Longacre

7. Mandy- Julie Andrews Edwards

8. Muslim Girl: A Coming-of-Age Story- Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

9. Tikka Chance on Me- Suleikha Snyder

10. Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith With the Poor Clares- Kristin Ohlson

11. Raising the Griffin- Melissa Wyatt

12. On the Outside Looking Indian: How My Second Childhood Changed My Life- Rupinder Gill

13. Ramona Forever- Beverly Cleary (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

14. How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids- Jancee Dunn (no review)

15. The Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Just Trying to Fit In- Ayser Salman

16. Flames of Glory- Patricia Matthews (review to come)

17. Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life- Amber Scorah (review to come)

I figured my reading would slow down once summer picked up, and sure enough, this is my slowest month of the year so far. Still not bad, but that’s what happens when you’re finally able to crawl off the couch and start hosing down the house and working on projects you’ve been putting off for months due to being sick. Not necessarily a bad thing, though. 🙂 Eight fiction, nine non-fiction; that’s more non-fiction than I expected, especially given that I end up reading more fluffy stuff when I’m feeling crummy.

Reading Challenge Update

I’m not currently participating in any reading challenges. It’s a reading free-for-all!

State of the Goodreads TBR

I’m adding this as a new category here this month in order to be better accountable for my reading!

Goodreads is where I keep my TBR list; it’s so convenient to be able to hit that want-to-read button. Currently, my Goodreads TBR list stands at 81 books. It seems impossible to get it below 80; the second it gets close, all the other book bloggers conspire against me and start posting amazing reviews and I’m all, “Oooooooh…”

Books I Acquired in June 2019

Slow month for buying books, but I’m okay with that, as I also need to focus on reading things from my own shelves. I did, however, win a copy of If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann, from a blog tour (and dang it, I seem to have deleted the email that reminded me which blog it was! If it was yours, let me know in the comments and I’ll give you credit and link back to you. Thank you!), so that was awesome! I love the cover.

Bookish Things I Did In June 2019

Would you believe not much? I had a scheduling conflict with the library book club, so that was out. There was a used book sale, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured I didn’t really need to go. I already have a zillion books on my own shelves that I desperately need to read, so I saved money, saved gas, saved wear and tear on the car and the environment, and I stayed home. I did grab my son and his best friend and make them walk to the library with me one night, though. It’s about a 3 mile walk, round trip, so that was good exercise for all of us, plus both the boys checked out books (my son’s friend recently got a library card for the first time- he apparently really got into reading The Martian by Andy Weir, to the point where he was excitedly texting my son with updates on what he’d read, which is awesome, and he decided he wanted a library card! It always makes me happy to hear about someone finding a book that makes them enjoy reading. Rock on, Seth!).

I did participate in TheWriteReads’ Ben Galley blog tour, a first for me! If you missed my first chapter review of Bloodrush, check that out. 🙂

I’ll miss the library book group discussion in July as well, since we’ll be out of town. I’m halfway through my fourth sheet of ten books for the summer reading program (you can only fill out five!), so hopefully I’ll finish this next month. Must find more time to read!!!

Current Podcast Love

I’m still digging Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. This past month, I’ve enjoyed interviews with Thien-Kim Lam from Bawdy Bookworms, Alisha Rai, Bea & Leah Koch of The Ripped Bodice, Beverly Jenkins, Jennifer Lohmann of NoveList (check your library website for access!), and two absolutely hysterical live shows recorded at the Romantic Times convention. There’s always something fascinating in this podcast; three of the authors I read this month came from suggestions mentioned in one or several episodes. (It’s a TBR killer, for sure!)

Real Life Stuff

Busy, busy month. In the beginning of the month, I was still in recovery from the sinus infection that wouldn’t die (I ended up needing two rounds of antibiotics to finally send it packing; I’ve still got the accompanying cough), and then I had an easily-fixable-but-still-painful issue with my left ear the next week! I’m just going to pack up and move into my doctor’s office; it would make life a lot simpler… Fortunately, we’re all on the mend right now. I’ve gotten a little bit of energy back and have done a few projects around the house that I’ve been putting off due to feeling like garbage, so that’s a start. I’ve got two blog posts to write up yet that I missed out on when I was sick, so to the people to whom I owe posts, they’re coming!!!

My daughter had her pre-kindergarten eye exam and we found out that she’ll need glasses to correct the astigmatism in her left eye. We had to visit a different optometrist to get her fitted with properly-fitting frames, since her head, face, and nose are so narrow, but they’re in and we’ll be picking them up this morning!

My son was away from home for over a week, attending both his Madrigal retreat and then getting dropped off at a week-long summer music program at a university downstate. He celebrated his birthday (17!!!) while at the Madrigal retreat, and the concert his group put on when my mother and I picked him up from the music program was beyond phenomenal. One of the kids who had a solo in one song is apparently going to be on America’s Got Talent, from what my son said. My son seems to have learned a lot from the session, and I’m so thrilled that he had the opportunity to go (I’m also happy he’s home, I missed him!).

July’s going to be another busy month. We usually attend the 4th of July parade in my sister’s town, and at the end of the second week, the kids and I are traveling with my mom to Branson, Missouri for a week. We usually go somewhere with her every summer, and Branson is a new destination for us. My mom loves to get out and explore new places, so this will be a fun trip. That will also mark the cut-off point for my daughter: no more naps! She still naps in the afternoon most days, mainly because she’s often up before 6 am and we all need a nap after that! But with full-day kindergarten coming up, she’s got to learn how to function without a nap, so we’ll have a month to adjust before she’s off to school.

And that’s it for June! How did you do this past month???

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday June 12, 2019

StephanieLeave a comment

Here we are again, another Wednesday! Halfway through the week. I’m feeling mostly alive and still struggling to catch up with everything, but that’s what happens when you’re down for the count for so stinkin’ long. But everyone loves WWW Wednesday, right???

WWW Wednesday is a superfun bookish meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. Hi, Sam! Thanks for hosting! It’s all about answering three very important questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Are you ready? Let’s do this!

What are you currently reading?

Based on a suggestion from a Book Riot article, I added Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age Story by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh to my TBR and grabbed it from the library yesterday. It’s a slim tome, but it’s giving me a different perspective on the aftermath of September 11th, one that I’d thought about but had never read any firsthand accounts of, so I appreciate that. I’ll most likely finish this tonight.

What did you recently finish reading?

Living More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre has been sitting on my shelf for a few years. I finally got around to finishing it this weekend, and I’m SO glad I did. It’s thrift, frugality, and sustainability with the express purpose of better caring for our neighbors, and it was exactly what I needed to read to reset my brain. My review will be up tomorrow. And also…

I don’t always review the books I read out loud to my daughter, but I’ll probably do a write-up of Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards (yes, THAT Julie Andrews, she of The Sound of Music and The Princess Diaries fame). This was a childhood favorite of mine and I was beyond thrilled to be able to read it out loud to my daughter, who loved it as much as I did. 🙂

What do you think you’ll read next?

No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court by Edward Humes has been on my TBR list for…let’s not discuss how long. I picked up a copy from a local library branch and will start reading this next. My one reservation is that it was published in 1997, which means it’s pretty dated- the kids who were teenagers at the writing of this book are now in or nearing their forties, so… I may skip it and move onto the next thing if it’s not working for me. I have a few books on their way via interlibrary loan, and if they’re not here yet, I may dive into the book that got me into reading romance, which I’m sure will be all sorts of hideous and hilarious. I’m looking forward to seeing just how terrible it is!

And that’s it for this week! What are you reading???

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday June 5, 2019

StephanieLeave a comment

Good morning/afternoon/evening, readers! I hope you’re having a fabulous day. Would you look at that- it’s Wednesday again, so that means it’s time for another WWW Wednesday! (Again? Wasn’t it just Wednesday???)

WWW Wednesday is a superfun bookish meme hosted by the lovely Sam of Taking on a World of Words (hi Sam! Thanks for hosting!). It’s all about answering three VERY important book-related questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Are you ready? Let’s play!

What are you currently reading?

So, I’m still sick. I woke up yesterday feeling like I’d been run over by a bus, with pain still raging in the left side of my face, head, and jaw (and coughing! I’m still coughing!). Off to the doctor we went, and I came home with a prescription for stronger antibiotics. So far, they *seem* to be working out better (*crosses fingers*); I’m not as bad off this morning as I was yesterday. All that is to say that last night, I was half-dead and wanted to throw myself in bed and read something that I didn’t have to work for, that I could just lie there, try not to die, and get lost in the story. Second Chances by Lauren Dane, the story of a woman who returns to her hometown after years away, fit that bill. I read through 30-some percent of it and then crashed, but I’m enjoying it so far.

What did you recently finish reading?

I couldn’t resist Big Rock by Lauren Blakely; any book that can make such innuendos with both the cover and the title (and the font!) gets my inner twelve-year-old snort-laughing.

I also finished American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer. This was utterly amazing, infuriating, and eye-opening. It’s the kind of book that makes you need to take a breather every once in a while, because some of the information in there is just so brutal and intense. I cannot recommend this highly enough, especially if you live in the US.

What do you think you’ll read next?

So, usually I have a whole stack of books lined up, just waiting for me. This illness has seriously kicked my butt, and I’m plum worn out. I have no stack other than the books on my own shelves (and we all know those don’t count, right?). I’m really hoping to be back to my normal self in the next few days and get back to my regular reading. After making a stop at the grocery store today, my daughter and I are going to hit up the library in a nearby town; they’ve got a few books from my TBR list (whether they’re in stock remains to be seen), including The Solace of Water by Elizabeth Younts, Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and The Idea of You by Robinne Lee. So hopefully one of those will be next on the list, and hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon!

And that’s it for this week’s WWW Wednesday! What are you reading this week???

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: May 2019

Stephanie2 Comments

Another glorious month of reading is in the books! (Heh. Pun intended.) These monthly roundup posts are probably my favorite kinds of posts to pull together. Seeing everything I read throughout the past month, reflecting on the things I’ve learned…it feels kind of cool, you know?

This hasn’t been the easiest month. My daughter was sick, AGAIN. Two doctor appointments later, she was finally diagnosed with a sinus infection…and then I got sick (which is what happens when you spend an entire week mopping up your kid’s snot and catching her coughed-so-hard-she-puked vomit in your bare hands). It was a pretty awful three-day weekend over Memorial Day (yes, we have urgent care, but it’s still $100 bucks just to walk in the door, but suffering and misery for three days until you can see the regular doctor means only a $25 copay! Yay, American healthcare…). I was able to get into the doctor Tuesday morning; she peered into my ears and up my nose and threw a crapload of antibiotics at me, because my ears and sinuses are a hot mess. I’m still experiencing some discomfort, but it’s not as fierce as it was in the beginning, thank goodness.

Fortunately, this was a pretty great month for reading, so let’s get down to the business of what I read this month, shall we?

Books I Read in May 2019

1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie- Alan Bradley

2. Ramona the Brave- Beverly Cleary (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

3. Sold on a Monday- Kristina McMorris

4. The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster- Sarah Krasnostein

5. Ramona and Her Father- Beverly Cleary (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

6. Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Love, Identity & So Much More- Janet Mock

7. Welcome to Temptation- Jennifer Crusie

8. Love and Other Words- Christina Lauren

9. Ramona and Her Mother- Beverly Cleary (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

10. Everything On It- Shel Silverstein (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

11. Yes Please- Amy Poehler

12. Going Doolally: An honest tale of anxiety and motherhood- Katie Pickworth

13. Just the Way You Are- Ann Roth

14. In Other Words- Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Ann Goldstein

15. Landline- Rainbow Rowell

16. All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir- Nicole Chung

17. Ramona Quimby, Age 8- Beverly Cleary (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

18. Voices from Chernobyl: An Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster- Svetlana Alexievich

19. History of Wolves- Emily Fridlund

20. Behind the Scenes (Daylight Falls #1)- Dahlia Adler

21. Breaking Free: How I Escaped My Father– Warren Jeffs– Polygamy, and the FLDS Cult- Rachel Jeffs

22. Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels- Sarah Wendell

23. This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America- Morgan Jerkins (no review due to illness)

24. What the Witch Left- Ruth Chew (no review, read out loud to my daughter)

25. The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam- G. Willow Wilson (no review due to illness)

26. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic- Alison Bechdel (no review due to illness)

27. The Best We Could Do- Thi Bui (no review due to illness)

Doing nothing but hanging out at home and being sick gives you a lot of time to read…

Book Challenges Update

This is the month I finished both the reading challenges I took up at the beginning of the year! Having never finished a challenge in the past, this feels like a big deal for me. 🙂

First off, I finished up the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2019 Reading Challenge. Here’s my completed task list!

For a book in the backlist of a favorite author, I read Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie; for my third book of the year by the same author, I read Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren; and for a book I chose for the cover, I read Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris. Voilà! First completed challenge. 🙂

And then, because I have to get everything done as fast as possible in order to prevent my anxiety from flaring because there are THINGS LEFT UNDONE, I also completed Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge! Here’s what that list looks like:

Yay me!!! I’m pretty proud of myself for being able to stick with these tasks until completion. I’ve discovered a ton of new authors, learned some fascinating and disturbing things, opened my mind to new ways of thinking, visited far away places in distance and time, read new-to-me formats… I started the Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge because I wanted to see if I could even complete a challenge at all, and I picked up the Read Harder Challenge because I felt like it would help me grow as a reader. It definitely did, and I’m planning on taking up this challenge in the future as well.

And now I’m completely challengeless! What’s a girl to do? Well, I’ve got 97 books on my Goodreads TBR (it WAS down to 50, thank you SO much, fellow book bloggers, for constantly posting about interesting books that I just HAVE to read… :D), so I’m going to focus on plowing through that for a bit. I’ve got so many books on there I’m looking forward to!

Books I Acquired in May 2019

There was this book haul:

from that used book sale, which was unbelievably magic because it was the place where I found the book I’d been looking for since I was TWELVE YEARS OLD. I still can’t get over that, and I’m soooooooooo looking forward to reading that book (which I’m entirely sure is going to be all kinds of early 1980’s romance problematic) as soon as I finish with my current stack. This is going to be FUN.

And then I was lucky enough to win The View from Alameda Island by Robyn Carr from Always With a Book! Kristin always posts such interesting content and hosts fantastic giveaways; Robyn Carr has gotten a lot of mentions on the podcast I’m listening to lately, so I’m really looking forward to reading this. Thanks, Kristin!

Bookish Things I Did in May 2019

The aforementioned book sale was the absolute highlight of my month! I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being happy I found that book and can stop wondering what the heck it is! Once I read down what my library has of my TBR stash, I’ll start reading the books I got from that sale while I wait for interlibrary loans to come in. 🙂

I wasn’t able to make this month’s library book discussion group (my son had a choir concert that night), but I did go in on the first day and sign up for the adult summer reading program! There’s not a ton I want in regards to prizes (I’m putting all my tickets in for the Kindle Fire, but I assume most everyone else will be as well, so I’m not holding my breath), but I’m thrilled just to participate and help bump the library’s numbers up. Each sheet has ten spaces to fill in; after that, you can pick up a new sheet, up to five sheets. I figure I’ll get pretty close, if not finish it; I’ve already turned in two sheets…

My blog got a fantastic shout-out on Twitter and Facebook from Eileen Truax, author of How Does It Feel to Be Unwanted?: Stories of Resistance and Resilience from Mexicans Living in the United States. This was such a powerful book, and I always appreciate having my blog and reviews noticed. Thanks, Ms. Truax! 🙂

Current Podcast Love

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is fabulous!!! I’ve added a buttload of books to my TBR and learned a whole lot from the amazing variety of guests they have on- authors, bloggers (the episode with Kristy, aka Caffeinated Fae, talking about the #copypastecris scandal is so interesting!), podcasters, publishing industry people, there’s really something here for everyone. If you’re a writer (especially of but not limited to romance), there’s also a ton of great advice to be found in this podcast (which I’m mentally squirreling away for when my daughter goes to kindergarten and I have quiet time once again!). I’m SO enjoying every second of listening to this podcast.

Real Life Stuff

Again, not the greatest of months. We *just* had the pukes mid-April, and then my daughter started coughing the day of her birthday party, April 28. The cough lingered for a few weeks…and then came the snot. Rivers and rivers of it, and then a nasty fever that wouldn’t die. We had a few more episodes of puking (snot and coughing, they’re not great together), and finally, on her second doctor trip, they diagnosed a sinus infection. I was already coughing with a sore throat then, but eight days later, I was back in the office, feeling as though someone had kicked me in the face. Antibiotics for everyone! Great googly-moogly, we need a healthier month around here.

My daughter finished preschool!!! I don’t often post photos of her online, but this is too cute not to. First day of preschool:

And the last day (she still had a mega-runny nose here, but had been on meds long enough that I felt okay with her attending the hour-long goodbye party):

She’s changed SO MUCH these past two years! She won the Sweetheart Award, for being sweet and kind and polite to everyone at school (which thrills me and makes me mildly irritated that they’re getting such a different version of my child than the one I get! :D). Onward to kindergarten in August! 🙂

My son finished up his junior year; he’ll be attending some choir-related camps in June, which will include being gone for his birthday, which is a bummer for me, but I understand. He made Madrigals for his choir next year, which is a HUGE deal, and I’m so proud of him (and can’t wait to see him dressed up in Madrigal clothing).

Coming up in June, my son will turn 17 (NOT ACTUALLY POSSIBLE), and he’ll do one and possibly two choir camps. I’ll have another book sale put on by the same people who did the last magical book sale, so who knows what I’ll find there???

My daughter and I are going to be working on her reading this summer. She can read Level 1 books at a slow pace (although she does a lot of guessing. She knows how to sound things out, but she’d rather take what she thinks is the faster route), so my goal is to just keep swimming with her and increase her fluency and fluidity. She’s not a huge fan of the process, but she’s super excited having DONE the reading, and she does enjoy a good story, so hopefully we’ll start her off on the right foot in kindergarten. 🙂

And that’s it! How was your May? Hopefully much healthier than mine!!!

Happy reading in June! 🙂

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday May 29, 2019

Stephanie2 Comments

Today was my weekly grocery shopping day, so that means it’s time for another WWW Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Sam at Taking on a World of Words. Thanks for hosting, Sam!

(Also, I just remembered it’s WWW Wednesday. Just as my daughter started to recover from what was eventually diagnosed as a sinus infection, I started my downhill slide and ended up coming home from the doctor with two prescriptions yesterday. The three day weekend was no fun, and it’s been a looooooooooooooooong few weeks around here. I’m SO far behind on blog-related stuff, so if I owe you a post, I WILL get to it; I haven’t forgotten anything, I’m just sick and in pain. Anyhoo.)

WWW Wednesday is a superfun bookish meme all about answering three bookish questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Let’s get this party started!

What are you currently reading?

I’m a little over halfway through The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam by G. Willow Wilson. The author had found herself drawn to Islam in college and ended up converting on a plane on her way to working as a teacher in Cairo. After a little bit of difficulty getting into this, I found my bearing and am really enjoying seeing Cairo and Islam through her eyes.

What did you recently finish reading?

This weekend, I finished Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell, she of the fabulous Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. After that, I plowed through This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins. I enjoyed both of them, though for very different reasons, and I still need to get my reviews written up. Being sick has slooooooooowed meeeeeeeeeee dooooowwwwwwwwn. 😦

What do you think you’ll read next?

Up next, I have two graphic novels, which I always enjoy. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. Both are straight from my TBR and I’m very much looking forward to reading both of them.

And that’s it! Hopefully by the next WWW Wednesday, I’ll be feeling more human, instead of feeling like I’ve been kicked in the face, because that’s apparently the thing with a sinus/double ear infection. (And if not, I may take a chainsaw to my own head…)

Happy reading, friends! What have you been reading this week???

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday May 22, 2019

Stephanie4 Comments

It’s Wednesday, so you know what that means! *drumroll* It’s WWW Wednesday, hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. Hello, Sam!

WWW Wednesday is a super fun meme, all about answering three bookish questions.

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

(I always read these in the same tone of voice as “What is airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” Just me?)

Let’s get started!

What are you currently reading?

I knew within mere seconds of hearing Dahlia Adler’s interview on an episode of Smart Bitches, Trashy Podcast, that I wanted to read her books. She’s fun and funny and smart and bubbly and outgoing, and I actually sat up from lying down under the covers to put her books on my TBR list (which is no small deal, because sleep is something I take very, very seriously!). Behind the Scenes is one of those books, and I checked out an ebook from my library last night. I didn’t get much time to read it, but what I have read, I love so far!

What did you recently finish reading?

History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (review to come; I’m behind on reviews and all things blogging due to being sick). This was…I’m not quite sure. I didn’t care for the structure or the narrator’s voice much, and the whole thing left me feeling like I’m not quite smart enough to understand this book. It didn’t quite work for me, but it was on the list for the Man Booker Prize a few years back, so it obviously worked for others!

What do you think you’ll read next?

My daughter and I stopped at the library after groceries (because that’s obviously what’s most important when you’re sick!!!) and I grabbed the stack above, straight off my TBR. I’m super, super excited about reading all of them, but I’m going to start off with Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell. I fall asleep every night with Ms. Wendell’s voice in my ear as I’m listening to Smart Bitches, Trashy Podcast, and I adored her Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels when I read it years ago, so now is definitely the time to pick this book up.

And that’s it for this week! Hopefully I’ll get a crapload of time to read and enjoy all of these books, because I’ve got some good ones coming up!

What are you reading this week???

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday May 15, 2019

Stephanie4 Comments

It’s Wednesday again, folks! (Although it doesn’t feel like a Wednesday, because Wednesday is usually my grocery shopping day, and I can’t grocery shop today because my daughter is sick. AGAIN. Third time since the last weekend in March. It’s just a virus, but she sounds terrible when she coughs, and we were up most of last night. *yawn*) Let’s get down to business! WWW Wednesday is a superfun bookish meme, hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words (hi Sam!), that’s all about answering these three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Here we go!

What are you currently reading?

Being an insufferable language nerd, when I heard about In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri, I knew I had to read it. She spent twenty years studying Italian and then moved to Italy with her family in order to further her study of the language. She wrote this book entirely in Italian; it was translated into English by a professional. How cool is that??? I just started it yesterday and haven’t had too much time to read (again, daughter is sick!), but I’m liking it so far.

What did you recently finish reading?

Just the Way You Are by Ann Roth. I definitely have some thoughts on this book, so I’ll have my review up tomorrow.

What do you think you’ll read next?

One of these! I don’t often go to the library without a list, and these were what were on my list on my last trip (along with the Jhumpa Lahiri book). I don’t tend to read my library books in any certain order; I know I want to get to all of them, so when I’m done with one, I just tend to pick up the next one in a stack. Of course, sometimes there’ll be one I’m absolutely dying to read and that goes straight to the top. 😉

And that’s it! What are you reading this week???

magic · used book sale

The absolute magic of used book sales.

Stephanie14 Comments

I never say no to a used book sale.

Who would? Stacks upon stacks of previously loved literature for a low, low price. There’s nothing better than perusing dusty stacks of books, looking for a treasure or twenty, and know that you’ll be able to haul a ton of them home without breaking the bank. Used book sale? I’m in. I’ll be there. Putting it in my calendar now.

This past weekend was one such sale. A women’s education nonprofit holds used book sales every few months around here. “Do you want to sign up for our emails, to know when our next sale will be?” the charming lady who took my money asked me at the previous sale. YOU BET I DID. I signed up immediately, and when the email hit my inbox, letting me know that there would be a sale on May 4th, I slapped that baby in my calendar and then showed up as soon as the sale opened on the second day. The second day, you see, is bag sale day. Everything you can cram into a bag for ten dollars…but if you’re on their email list and show them the email, you get a discount: everything you can cram into a bag for seven dollars.

Even better.

So what followed me home this weekend? First, a picture; then, a story.

Dear Martin by Nic Stone and Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen, I’ll share with my son; Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is his outright (I’ve already read it, and if you haven’t read it yet, you NEED to. It’s incredible). The rest are mine, and I also grabbed a few things for my daughter. Not bad for seven bucks and about an hour of my time. 🙂

But.

BUT.

There’s a bigger story here, one that’s so wacky, I can barely believe it.

You might not be able to tell from what I’ve read so far this year, but I love a good romance novel (I recently finished reading Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation; she’s been one of my favorite authors for ages). I love watching a couple get together, I love one person pursuing another, I love romance tropes, I love happily-ever-afters. All of this started with the stack of books my mother kept stashed in the coat closet, and which I began raiding when I was about twelve years old. Recently, Book Riot had an article titled ‘The Books That Turned Us On to Romance,’ and that, along with my love of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and their amazing podcast, brought to mind yet again the nameless book from that closet stash that introduced me to my love of the genre.

I’d thought of this book many times over the years, but I could never remember the title. I’ve known about Smart Bitches, Trashy Books’s Help a Bitch Out feature, which helps romance readers remember those forgotten titles via crowdsourcing, but I feared I didn’t have enough information for them (I mean, I was twelve when I read this, so my memory is pretty fuzzy), and I didn’t want to be disappointed if no one knew what I was talking about. Here’s what I had: there was a character named Dulcy who was a pretty heinous bitch, but she wasn’t the main character; it took place during the Spanish-American war; one of the male characters, at least at one point, had some sort of involvement with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders; a vague detail about a sex scene that could have happened in basically any historical romance.

And that was it. Not much to go on there, huh?

So this unnamed book had been rolling around my brain lately, moreso than it usually had over the years. It wasn’t anything I was actively considering when I was at the book sale: I started at the YA and kids sections, stopped by the cookbooks, browsed the romance novels, hit up the classic fiction section, perused the mysteries and general fiction, then made the loop again.

And there, sitting on top of the paperback romance novels, that I had somehow missed in my first go-around, was a book that looked…familiar.

I paused.

Was that it?

Was THAT my book?

I flipped through it briefly, very briefly, because I was running out of time (I had two more errands to run and only an hour left). I thought it *might* be it, but I wasn’t entirely certain, but for seven bucks a bag, I could afford to take a chance. Into the bag it went, and I’d figure it out when I got home.

And later on that afternoon, once I got a chance, I opened the book and flipped through it. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

YOU GUYS. I found it! I found the book that got me into romance, all on my own! THE BOOK GODS AND GODDESSES HAVE SMILED UPON ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I am FULLY prepared for this book to be absolutely terrible and problematic as hell. Obviously, my tastes have changed and matured after twenty-six years of heavy reading; this book was published in 1982 and romance (and what romance readers are willing to tolerate in their books) has changed substantially. And just read that blurb from Goodreads:

SHE WAS TORN FROM THE ARMS OF LOVE AND IMPRISONED IN THE HOT EMBRACE OF PASSION…

Sultry Tampa, crossroad for gallant soldiers of the Spanish-American War, was the beloved home of young Jessica Manning. Her elegance and delicate beauty entranced the most valiant men, but fate gave her the most ruthless–hot-blooded Brill Kroger. Ignited by selfish passion, Brill abducted Jessica, then swept his anguished prize on a blazing seaward quest for Aztec gold. Through it all, Jessica dung to one aching wish–a return to her glowing moments of surrender in the strong arms of dashing Rough Rider Lieutenant Neil Dancer. Neil’s heart burned wildly for his lost Jessica, and his fury now drove him to pledge his very life to rekindle the flames of their glorious love.

OH MY GOD, is that not awful???????? (Including the typo of ‘dung’ for ‘clung,’ which comes straight from the Goodreads blurb. My back cover reads ‘clung,’ fortunately.) I’m in love. I’ve got, of course, a stack of books to read before I get to this, but I’m absolutely going to read it and review the crap out of it for all of you. I feel more giddy than one of those puppies that wags its tail so hard, it pees a little. This is BEYOND exciting!

Have you ever spent years wondering about a book you lost track of, only to have it just pop up seemingly out of nowhere? I don’t know that I’ll ever get over how seamlessly this reappeared back in my life. Serendipity at its finest. 🙂

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday: April 24, 2019

Stephanie7 Comments

It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for another WWW Wednesday (which I haven’t done in ages, because life and stuff). WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.

To participate, simply respond to these three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Let’s play!

What are you currently reading?

Well…I finished a book last night, and so, when I finish with groceries and laundry and hauling people that I married and gave birth to from one location to another, it’ll be this:

Jesse’s Girl by Tara September. Here’s the blurb from Amazon:

“I wish that I had Jesse’s Girl”* 

Successful Texas lawyer, Reade Walker, curses that damn song every time it plays, all too aware of the irony of its lyrics. After all, he has been secretly and painfully enamored with Jesse’s girl, Gwen, for nearly a decade. It was love at first sight for him, but sadly she’s not his girl. She belongs to the one man who betrayed him and knows Reade’s hidden family secret. Yet Reade can’t seem to love anyone except the one woman he can’t have. Or can he make her mine? 

When Gwen Clark’s senator husband runs off with his intern and all their money, the ensuing scandal turns her life upside down. Deserted, penniless and desperate to provide for her six-year-old daughter, Gwen has no one to turn to but Reade Walker. The one man her heart desperately wants, but her pride dreads having to ask for help. Despite welcoming them into his home, it seems like Reade can barely stand being in the same room with her anymore, let alone under the same roof–in the same bedroom. But Gwen is determined to get her life back on track. It is past time to rediscover her own dreams…if only she can keep her aching heart from breaking all over again. 

With all the dark, depressing stuff I’ve been reading lately, I’m looking forward to diving into a romance!

What did you recently finish reading?

They Come At Night by Nick Clausen (review to come). CREEPY, CREEPY horror novella. I kept waking up last night thinking about it, and I may never go in the ocean again…

What do you think you’ll read next?

Another pick for a Book Riot Read Harder 2019 Challenge, with Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time by Doris Pilkington (Ms. Pilkington was born Nuri Garimara and is an indigenous Australian author). I’ve heard of this book many times over the years, so it’s about time that I finally read it. It’s a short book, clocking in at 135 pages, so after I finish this, I’m FINALLY going to read two books off of my own shelves! One is another Book Riot Challenge book, and another will count for part of the 2019 Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge (that poor neglected challenge needs some attention ’round these parts!).

What are you reading this Wednesday???

Uncategorized

WWW Wednesday April 3, 2019

Stephanie7 Comments

ARGH! It’s WWW Wednesday and I forgot earlier.

That sometimes happens when your day starts at 3:42 am. *yawn* My back was hurting too much to sleep. That happens…far too often, unfortunately, but such is life.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam from Taking on a World of Words.

The three W’s are as follows:

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Let’s get this show on the road!


What are you currently reading?

I haven’t read Neil Gaiman since reading Coraline with my son back in like 2007 or 2008, and I haven’t read any mythology since…freshman year of high school? (So. much. reading. from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton.) I’ve always wanted to learn more about Norse mythology, and Gaiman’s retellings are making it far more accessible than anything I’ve tried before.


What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey is up next and I’m SO excited about reading this!!!! Check out the premise of this book:

In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true.

Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

This was a terrible plan.

Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

Is that not completely nuts?!?!?? I heard about this on a back episode of All the Books a few weeks ago and was floored (plus it counts as an alternative history for Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge, so YAY!). I can’t WAIT to read this!!!

What are you reading this week???