It's Monday 2/16! What Are You Reading? And My 20th Blog Anniversary!

Book By Book

 Life

The big news around here last week was that our temperatures finally went above freezing! My husband and I celebrated Valentine’s Day with a short walk at a local park. It was sunny but still pretty cold with the breeze blowing over all that snow! 

Streams are still partially frozen!

Even the waterfall is frozen!

White sycamores against blue sky

Only the path was clear of snow!

My chronic illness relapse continues, though with lots of rest, I was able to attend an engagement party for my daughter-in-law-to-be! Her mom hosted a small gathering (ladies only) of her friends and family, and I was thrilled to be a part of it.

Saturday, in spite of a migraine that is still persisting today, we hosted friends for our annual get-together for Mardi Gras, with take-out from a fabulous local place with husband & wife chefs who both worked in New Orleans. We used to throw a huge party every year with 50 or so people (and I cooked most of the food!). These days, it’s just the four of us (we all met in New Orleans in the 80′s), but we still look forward to it to ouyr little celebration. All four of us agreed we’d rather celebrate Mardi Gras than Valentine’s Day – ha ha Tomorrow (Mardi Gras Day), we’ll be together again for Popeye’s, along with our son and his fiance. Check out my Celebrate Mardi Gras at Home post for books, movies, TV, food, and more!

Big weekend – Valentine’s & Mardi Gras!

Celebrating with friends

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 20 years ago today, I started this blog! (and also my chronic illness blog). 

My first post on February 16, 2006, was Welcome to My Reading World (what a blast from the past!), and some of my first reviews were of Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon (a local author), Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (middle-grade), The Underland Chronicles: Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (we were big fans long before The Hunger Games!), and Replay by Ken Grimwood, still one of my favorites.

It’s also fun to look back at old comments. I see Helen’s Book Blog commented on my first post, but I think that was much later, when I looked back at some point (like I am doing today). 

Over the years, I had some features on my blog that I really enjoyed, like Quote It Saturday (started in 2009) and  Ten for Tuesday, which I started myself in 2009 with Ten Favorite Novels, then The Broke and the Bookish started Top Ten Tuesday, and I began participating in that in 2010, with Top Ten Authors. I also participated in Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads, for many years, starting in October 2010 with this post about the recipes my family made that week and some of the recipes I’ve published.

I listed my favorite books read each year right from the beginning, starting in 2006. A few months ago, I made a video, My #1 Books for the Past 16 Years: Fiction and Nonfiction, which was a really fun look back. Some have remained favorites that I think of often, while others are books I had completely forgotten!

To give some perspective on then and now, here are photos of our family, in 2006 and recently:

I used to be taller than my sons!

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Bookaholics Anonymous Tag - I answer some fun questions about my book buying habits and mention some of my favorite indie bookstores.

 Weekly Reading Update - Here, I talk about some books I recently finished and others I am still reading. Most of them are excellent choices for Black History Month.

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 I am still enjoying The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. I’m buddy reading it with Anna, another Booktuber. Last February, I read McBride’s Deacon King Kong (click and scroll down for my review) and absolutely loved it – my #2 book of the year! – so I’ve been looking forward to this one. It’s about a poor neighborhood called Chicken Hill (a real place) in Pottstown, PA (very close to where we live), starting in the 1920′s. A Jewish family runs the title store, in a community of mostly Black families. Like Deacon King Kong, it’s an intricate story of a neighborhood of diverse people who have been brought together by circumstance and who rely on each other and become a community. Another similarity is the cast of quirky characters. In McBride’s novels, even minor characters are fully fleshed out. It’s warm and poignant, funny at times, covering both the joys and sorrows of life with vibrant, colorful language. I’ve been intrigued to discover that much of the history, geography, and musicians in the novel are real, and the historical detail is excellent. I’m enjoying it very much. 

My next audio book was The Little French Bistro by Nina George. This was the readalong pick for the Mardi Gras Readathon hosted Kat’s Novel Adventures and Laurie of Books, Ink & Paper, an event I look forward to every year. This novel focuses on Marianne, a 60-year-old German woman who has been unhappily married to a cold, emotionally abusive man for 40 years. On a trip to Paris with him, she tries to drown herself in the Seine, ends up escaping from the hospital (as usual, he shows no concern for her), and finds herself in a small seaside town in Brittany. I loved the setting and description of the town and the focus on nature. There’s a love story in the book (actually, about a dozen different love stories!), but at its heart, it is a coming-of-age novel (yes, at 60), as Marianne finally begins to discover who she is and what she wants out of life. I enjoyed it, and we had a great discussion yesterday via livestream with Kat and Laurie and other readers.

 

My husband, Ken, is reading Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run by Paul McCartney, edited by Ted Widmer, a Christmas gift from me. Like me, he usually reads just one book at a time, but he decided to try reading nonfiction during the day and fiction at bedtime.

At night, he’s reading a novel, The Deep Sky by Yumi Kitasei, another gift from me. It’s a sci fi thriller about a crew on a spaceship called The Phoenix whose mission is to save humanity from Earth’s environmental collapse. “After a lethal explosion kills several crew members, the survivors, led by the half-Japanese, half-American protagonist Asuka, must uncover the saboteur among them while dealing with themes of identity, belonging, and the emotional toll of leaving Earth behind.”  I read about this novel first in BookPage and have heard good things about it.

Last I heard, our son, 31, has been reading Sorcerer’s Edge by David Hair, book 3 in the Tethered Citadel trilogy. He loved the first two books in the series, and we got him this one for Christmas. They were supposed to come visit this past weekend, but he got sick, so I hope he at least got some extra reading time. 

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    What are you and your family reading this week?