It's Monday 9/22! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Last week was a little quieter, though with some evening activities that took a lot out of me. I know it doesn’t make sense to healthy people, but sitting up for too long, especially in the evening when my medications are wearing off, can really wipe me out and leave me “crashed.” We had a long meeting with our financial advisor Monday, a wonderful dinner and campfire with friends Saturday, and last night, I did a podcast interview followed by my usual Sunday night refilling of medication/supplement boxes for two weeks (we’re going to be traveling again). That last thing takes over an hour, so after the podcast interview, it was definitely too much time upright for me. I’m taking it easy today, hoping I just did too much and wasn’t exposed to any infections (I wear a mask in public).  I also worked quite a bit last week on weeding our gardens, one of which is a jungle after our long trip this summer. I got this little garden all cleaned up, and our asters are in full bloom and attracting lots of bees.

Relaxing on the screened porch this weekend

At least one garden bed is weeded!

Bees love the asters

Asters are in full bloom! Nice at this time of year.

 Tell Me the Truth Tag - this fun tag asks questions about my YouTube viewing habits.

Weekly Reading Update - I’m loving all the fun fall reading events! I’ve been flying through books for Shorty September (and R.I.P.), which is really fun after spending a month on a single book for Big Book Summer!

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Untamed - We finished this gripping Netflix series, a mystery/thriller set in Yosemite National Park–right up our alley! Starring Eric Bane as Kyle Turner, a National Park Service Investigator, the show follows the aftermath of a young woman falling to her death from the top of Half Dome. Though it is first ruled a suicide, Kyle and the NPS ranger assigned to help him, Naya (played by Lily Santiago), soon find evidence of foul play. However, both of them are dealing with their own issues, and investigating this case puts them both in danger. It was excellent, a suspenseful and twisty mystery that kept us guessing, set amid beautiful natural surroundings. 

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I read an outstanding thriller for both Shorty September and R.I.P.: Dark Ride by Lou Berney. Last year, I enjoyed his novel, November Road (see my review in this Monday update). In Dark Ride, twenty-one-year-old Hardy Reed, whom everyone calls Hardly, is an easy-going guy who is usually stoned. He works as a scarer at an amusement park’s Haunted Frontier and is perfectly content with his effortless life. Then one day, waiting in line to delay a parking ticket payment, he notices two little kids on a bench, not moving at all, just staring straight ahead. Worried about kids that little being left alone, he crouches down to talk to them, but they continue to stare right through him. Then he notices that they each have a neat row of three cigarette burns in a perfect line, the girl’s on her ankle and the boy’s on his collarbone. Their mom comes out and hustles them away to a waiting car driven by a man, but Hardly is unable to resume his chill life. He can’t forgot those little kids. Little by little, Hardly takes action (for the first time in his life) and first tries to report the abuse, then begins his own investigation into the family. This is not only an A-plus mystery/thriller, full of tension and action but also a deep dive into these characters, especially Hardly and the quirky new friends he makes along the way. It’s warmhearted, laugh-out-loud funny, and a suspenseful rollercoaster ride. It’s a thoughtful novel about identity and purpose, and I loved every minute of it. I’m suffering some serious book hangover now!

Last night, I read another of the short stories from The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Michael Newton. This is a year-long read-along with the Book Cougars podcast, whose theme for this year is ghost stories. They’ve been reading and discussing one story each month, but I fell way behind this summer, so I’m catching up. Last night’s story was No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens, and it was very good.

Tonight, I plan to start a classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have never read any Sherlock Holmes stories or anything at all by Doyle, so I’m looking forward to this classic mystery, a perfect fit for Shorty September and R.I.P.

On audio, I am listening to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, a fabulous multi-generational novel set in India. I have less than an hour of the audio left now, and there have been some big surprises in this last part of the book! I have loved listening to this highly-acclaimed novel. Verghese is an amazing writer, fully realizing this lush, exotic, treacherous world in lyrical language. I’ve paused the audio to write down quotes, where he captures a truism of life in just a few short words, like “Even misery, when familiar, has its own comfort.” The characters are rich and fully drawn, with deep emotional resonance as they deal with both tragedy and joy, from 1900 to 1970. It’s been an incredible, moving, engrossing story.

My husband, Ken is reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, a Booktopia author this year. I enjoyed this suspenseful literary thriller this spring. It’s about an author who steals the plot idea of one of his former students who died. The novel is a huge success, and he thinks he got away with it (though is going crazy worrying he’ll be found out) when he gets a message saying someone knows he’s a thief. Even when you think you have this book figured out, it keeps surprising you! It’s super twisty! But it’s football season, so Ken hasn’t had much reading time lately!

Our son, 31, was excited that we gave him The Light of All That Falls by James Islington, book 3 in the Licanius trilogy for his birthday, but he said he will probably reread book 2, An Echo of Things to Come, first. That’s my best guess–he had a very busy week!

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 What are you and your family reading this week?