It's Monday 3/21! What Are You Reading?

Happy spring!

We had a wonderful week here and managed to get out to clean up the garden / garden we needed on Saturday. My husband’s back was a problem and I am very limited so we were glad our son could help. He is currently the sales manager for a company that sells tool brands like Hart and Ryobi, so he was thrilled to use a large collection of battery-powered grass and garden tools! I know it doesn’t look great, but we’ve cleaned up all the dead stuff and seen small green shoots appear. The new native plants I planted last spring are returning. You need to follow some colors!

Our forsythia bush (my favorite sign of spring) hasn’t fully blossomed yet, so I’ve brought a few branches inside to enjoy the first day of spring!

We enjoyed our traditional dinner at St Patrick’s Beef with our son and this morning we just finished the last batch of leftovers with a delicious beef for breakfast!

As for my father-in-law, to put Twain wrongly, “the rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated”! We can’t explain it, but when we set up the accommodation, it suddenly and suddenly came to life. I went to watch lunch on Monday and he sat up straight, perfectly awake and hungry! We talked for an hour, he ate and drank, we looked at a family photo book I made last Christmas, he also saw his niece at Texas FaceTimed in recent years. Tuesday was the same and my husband said he had a good dinner (he ate almost nothing for a month). On Thursday, he ate lunch with the other neighbors in the wheelchair in the hallway - out of bed! We can’t explain it, but I think he’s almost ready to go at 97! Unfortunately, his dementia was severe over the weekend; he told us all sorts of crazy stories about the new Saint. Louis boarded a train. Louis is trying to buy a truck, etc. He was mentally better yesterday but now he has very painful fractures. This immediately stopped his PT from standing on its own and being able to transport wheelchairs. So no more ups and downs! Last week was a roller coaster ride.

In my reading life, I introduced the usual weekly update, Friday talks 3-18-22 , for a book and an audiobook, both of which were great!

And here’s what we all read last week:

I finally got Emily St’s The Glass Hotel . John Mandel read it and it was amazing! I liked Eleven Stations , and it was as good as this novel (maybe better?). A young woman named Vincent grew up on the shores of Vancouver Island in a small town of Caiette, with few other homes. One day, when Vincent was fourteen, his mother went canoeing and disappeared. Vincent wanders through life, unable to take root, lives in Vancouver, works as a bartender in a luxury Caiette hotel, then marries a wealthy man who will have big problems, and works as a cook in a shipyard. Animea. It’s hard to describe what made this novel so special, but I found it very fascinating, thoughtful, and fascinating.

I then continued my civic march by re-reading one of my favorite childhood novels, Mary Calhoun’s Katie John , first published in 1960 (thus falling into the “published before birth” category!). Since I was a child, I loved this novel about a passionate ten-year-old girl who takes her family from California to a small town in Missouri to live in an old house she inherited from her cousin. He finds a new girlfriend (Sue!) And they go through a lot of adventures. But here’s the thing: I finished it last night, and it’s not the book I remember! Over the years, I remember one more book that I thought was this ... and it’s not. I don’t know the name of the other book! It was about a girl from the Midwest who goes to explore forests and fields and finds an old abandoned farmhouse. He looks for information about the pioneer owners and imagines what their lives were like. Does anyone know what the book was? Anyway, I really enjoyed re-reading an old favorite and I can see why I loved it so much all these years!

In the audio, I heard Ann Claire LeZotter’s Set Me Free . It’s about Mary, a fourteen-year-old deaf girl in the early 1800s who lives on Tuesday Vineyard with a loving family and a supportive community. A friend who works in Boston asks Mary to come and help a deaf girl who is being treated like an animal. Mary is excited to teach her eight-year-old child, but is it possible to teach a language to someone who has never known it? It was a wonderful novel, with an interesting and exciting plot, but also a fascinating historical context. Did you know that there were many deaf people in the Mars Vineyard in the 16th century? century XIX. until the middle of the century? The author’s remarks about the Deaf community and Native Americans at the end of the author filled me with more stories (some of them incredible).

Now I’m listening to my last audition for Middle Class March , Lisa Thompson ’s The Graveyard Riddle . The Goldfish Boy is a helpful novel that I enjoyed in audio a few years ago (see my review link). The main character in this book, Matthew, still makes an appearance, but the focus here is on Melody’s friend and neighbor. One day while Frankie was walking in the cemetery with her dog, Melody finds an old abandoned house in a corner of the cemetery and begins to unravel some of the mysteries and secrets associated with it. I’m just getting started with this, but so far I’m enjoying it.

My husband still reads Ken Follett’s Never . We’ve both been fans of brochure books since the 1980s, when he wrote the most thrillers, and here he returns to his roots in a modern, global, and unique race against time. In the author’s opening note he says he thought about how a seemingly small series of events created the First World War, which is why he creates a series of similar scenarios in today’s world (with an American president). It sounds intriguing, and knowing the writing of Follet, I’m sure it’s fascinating.

Our 27- year-old son was reading a favorite series, The Magic of Recluce , by LE Modesitt, Jr. He completed the 4th book we gave him for Christmas, War of the Order . Okay, now try to stay with me. Before moving on to Part 5, he went on to reread Volume 1, The Magic of Recluce , as Volume 5 is actually a direct sequel to Volume 1. This series is hard to follow! (for me, not for him). In chronological order of the series , volume 4 was number 18, volume 1 was number 21 and volume 5 was number 22. When I consulted with him this morning, he told me that he had already done Book 5, The Death of Chaos ! Now she has to choose her next book - we both agree that it’s a lot of fun!

Last week's blog posts:

TV Tuesday: Maid Tale - What a wonderful show !! We’ve finished Season 4 this weekend and it’s getting better: they have a novel to reflect on, and to encourage (and hate) some incredibly complex characters that delve deeper. Look at that.

Fiction Review: Editor - A fun and entertaining novel about writing and mother-son relationships with amazing emotional depth.

What she read on Monday is presented by Kathryn on Book Date, so check it out and check out her blog and take part in Monday’s fun! You can also access a child / teen / teen version offered by Unleashing Readers.

Follow me on Twitter @SueBookByBook or Facebook on my blog page.

What are you and your family reading this week?