It's Monday 8/19! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Hosted by The Book Date

 Life

Last week was a week of highs and lows (the chronic illness rollercoaster, as we say), as I continue my slow recovery from COVID last month. I had a few good days early in the week, when I got some work done, got a haircut, and enjoyed a short walk on a nice walking trail I hadn’t been on in months. 

Then, I crashed (that’s what we call it in ME/CFS when you suddenly get much worse). I was completely couchbound Thursday. I always know I’m in bad shape when I cry easily, and Thursday morning, I cried over a podcast (hey, it was a good one!), an e-mail from my doctor, a text from a friend, and my lab results. At that point, I gave in and spent the day on the couch (and cried over an old Grey’s Anatomy episode–nothing like a good, cleansing cry over fiction! ha ha). I found out that in spite of getting so sick with COVID, once again I hardly made any antibodies, so I don’t even get some partial protection for a while. That’s why I can’t get the vaccines, too–they make me worse for six months, and I hardly make any antibodies anyway. 

The good news is that the day of “aggressive rest” worked, and I was able to make our planned trip to Long Island with my husband Friday. It was our older son’s 30th birthday (!!), and he couldn’t come home because he’s been working long hours (he has the same illness I do). His girlfriend and her family invited us to come visit, and we had a wonderful time meeting her family and celebrating our son’s birthday. They took us out to dinner Friday, and then they hosted a family BBQ/pool party on Saturday, so we got to meet some extended family, too. I only took one picture the entire weekend (off my game!), but here are our two families together. I’m the short one, and my son, husband, and older son are to the right of me. We really enjoyed the weekend and getting to know her family.

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July 2024 Reading Wrap-Up – a short summary of the 5 Big Books I read and listened to last month, including some outstanding novels!

Friday Reads 8-16-24 – a quick overview of the two excellent Big Books I am currently reading and listening to.

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Movie Monday: Killers of the Flower Moon – I read (and loved) the book; my husband did not read it. But we both loved this immersive, suspenseful, engrossing movie about a “truth is stranger than fiction” historical horrifying series of crimes, and the newly-formed FBI that solved it.

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I’m still reading The Ferryman by Justin Cronin, another pick for #BigBookSummer. My husband and I are both big fans of Cronin and loved his The Passage trilogy. I also enjoyed his very different novel, The Summer Guest (realistic fiction, not sci fi), and my husband enjoyed The Ferryman last summer. Wow, this book just keeps blowing my mind! It’s a unique sci fi story about a “perfect world” created on an isolated island that has been cut-off from the rest of the world, presumably due to some massive global crisis that occurred. There, on Prospera, no one dies. Mental, physical, and emotional health is constantly monitored, and when someone’s rating starts to rapidly decline (and definitely before they hit 10%), they “retire,” boarding a ferry to a neighboring island called The Nursery, where they will be reiterated, with a new 16-year-old iteration eventually taking a ferry back to Prospera (with no memory of his/her past life) to start fresh. The main character, Proctor, works as a ferryman, guiding people to the ferry on their last day, and begins to suspect that maybe their perfect world has some flaws. This novel is unique, gripping, has wonderful characters, and is constantly surprising! I’m down to about 100 pages and hate to set it down.

After finishing The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune on audio, I immediately began listening to the new sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea. It picks up right where the first book ended, carrying on with the stories of Arthur, the unique children of Marsyas island, and Linus. There is a bit of a prologue about how Arthur first returned to the island and started the home there, and then it jumps back to the present day, as Arthur prepares to give testimony before the Council of Utmost Importance about his abuse as a child supposedly under the protection of the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY). And there is a new child coming to join the home on Marsyas. It’s excellent so far, just as delightful, funny, warm, and thoughtful as the original.

My husband, Ken, picked a chunkster for his last Big Book of the summer! After studying his stack of Big Books he set aside in May, he instead picked a book off the bookcase full of Stephen King and Dean Koontz books we inherited from my dad: Dreamcatcher by King. It’s about four childhood friends who saved a mentally disabled kid from a bully as young boys. They now gather together as adults for an annual hunting trip in the snowy Maine woods. During one such get-together, they encounter a stranger … and something otherworldly. Ken says it’s classic Stephen King horror (and we both love the way King writes about kids–he captures childhood so perfectly).

Our older son, 30, is still reading book 2 of the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington, An Echo of Things to Come. He started a new job last month and hasn’t had any reading time! He’s loving his new job so far, but it’s keeping him busy. Despite how busy he’s been, I did (of course) get him books for his birthday! I chose two by favorite authors: The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie and Play of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell, book 1 of his new series, Court of Shadows. He loved them both, and his girlfriend also gave him The Heroes, so he’ll have some bookstore credits to spend, too.

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