Space Station Mir

I finished two books this week...but in two different months! I finished The Bookshop of Yesterdays before Oct. 1, and spent the rest of the week reading My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, which definitely has me on the Fredrik Backman train, even though I just found out he's only a few years older than me, which is intimidating considering the number of books he's had published. Then again, I should have suspected with all the Harry Potter and X-Men references in these books.  Finished Reading  The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman Watching I finally finished watching all of "The West Wing," for the first time. So astonishingly naive in 2020 hindsight, but I hope we move toward that (still flawed) picture of who we wished we were! I'm currently watching "The  Good Place," season 4.  I'm so glad "Sister, Sister" is on Netflix now. Such a comforting...

Since I don't commute anymore, my life has been largely sans audiobooks for the past seven months. Really, before that, since I switched jobs to be much closer to home. I got into audiobooks when I had a long, at least 45-minute commute, each way (sometimes one, or on a couple memorable occasions, two hours, if I was unlucky). I'd never been much into them before, but I loved them for driving. Sometimes, I'd even stay in the car for a few minutes after I got home. But I don't read audiobooks much at home. I've tried a few over the past several months, usually because that's all I could get from the library digitally when there were long waits for ebooks, before my library started offering contactless pickup. Even now, I prefer borrowing ebooks when I can. But with all the audiobooks I tried, because I needed to get the read in before a book club meeting, I would keep following asleep. And missing things. And having a hell of a time finding out where I was suppos...

This week, I finally finished a couple of books I'd been reading for a while, and finally watched something other than The West Wing!  Finished Reading A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler (short story)-glad she finally made the bestseller list but seriously can't believe she hadn't already/while she was still alive.  Real Simple magazine-I'm loving this new subscription. it's the oerfect antidote to the world right now, focusing on what we can control. Hadassah magazine--reflections on getting ready for Rosh Hashanah and lots of book recs! Watched Love, Guaranteed Netflix movie--This one was cute though unrealistic (suing a dating site). <3 Damon Wayans Jr.  Seasons 5 and half season 6 of The West Wing Other Things Socially distanced walks with friends are fun, and I'm taking advantage while the weather is nice. I had a great walk with a friend yester...

Reading This Week I finished So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, which I bought from the Black-owned Mahogany Books in D.C. during the #BestsellerBlackout. Highly recommend as a helpful guidebook to racial issues in the United States. Chapters cover definitions of racism, intersectionality, privilege, police brutality, cultural appropriation, and more. I was familiar with the concepts, but Oluo explains them fully, illustrating with her lived experience as well as research. This is definitely the kind of book that makes me feel like I need to learn more though, kind of like bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody. This week, I also got the third magazine that I subscribed to in a deal with magazines.com, Martha Stewart Living . I've never been a Martha Stewart fan (or hater), but it seemed like the kind of comforting content I would appreciate these days, and I was absolutely right. Plus, it has a surprising number of book recommendations! Watching This Week ...

I've had the good fortune to attend a lot of dream book festivals, namely the National Book Festival in DC, since I live so close, which always has an incredible lineup of headliners, even though it's gotten way more crowded in recent years! Sadly, I'm sure it will not take place this year. I'm also lucky enough to live close to the Baltimore Book Festival, which is always a fun local event with authors I love and lots of new local authors to meet and books to buy. If that weren't enough, I've also been spoiled enough to be close to the Gaithersburg Book Festival, which often draws some big names due to its proximity to the capital as well as lots of local organizations and booksellers. I lived in Boston when the first annual Boston Book Festival occurred, and I also got to attend the Chicago Humanities Festival when I lived there. I'd highly recommend all of those events and definitely want to attend them again, but I still do have some dream bookish events...

I've done a fair amount of reading this week, but, most exciting, I finished the first draft of my book yesterday! Reading This Week Finished Your Perfect Year by Charlotte Lucas. I got the ebook for free from Amazon on World Book Day. I got started on #WIT (Women in Translation) month a little early this year. This book is translated from German and takes place in Hamburg, and I really enjoyed it. The story centers around a pre-filled planner for a perfect year, discovered by a man named Jonathan, who finds himself drawn to following the events written out in the planner. Meanwhile, we also see the story of Hannah, whose place in the story gradually becomes clear. I love this idea of a pre-planned year and it's definitely a fun and thoughtful read.  This week, I also finally got a couple of new-to-me magazines that I subscribed to recently, Real Simple and Better Homes & Gardens. Although I probably wouldn't have had time for them in the pre-pandemic era, I real...

The fireworks seem to have calmed down in my neighborhood this week--I'm almost afraid to write this lest I jinx it. Since they started on Memorial Day, I was not hopeful they would end with the Fourth of July, but they do seem to have slowed down for now at least. Hopefully, they emptied their stashes on the Fourth. My poor puppy hid under the couch in the basement for most of that night; we could just barely see his snout. My other dog will bark back, but she doesn't really care that much. In terms of reading, it's been a somewhat productive week. In terms of writing, less so. Reading This Week I've been reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell for one of my book clubs. I've never read a Malcolm Gladwell book before, although I've heard of him. I also did not realize he was half Black, as he alludes in the book. I thought he was White. The book is a set of premises with an extended parade of supporting anecdotes, some of which were more interesting than othe...

I've decided to try making my weekly wrap-up into a Sunday Salon so I can link up with others doing Sunday Salon posts.  We'll see how this goes! Reading This Week I finished Middlemarch!  I've  been reading this one almost since we started staying home in mid-March. I loved it. I'd never read Eliot before, but wow! She's such a talented, insightful writer, she just gets human nature and relationships and she's so well-read--the metaphors, the similes, the allusions...the book is a masterclass. And I love, love, love the ending. She wraps it up for the characters to give a sense of closure but it's also satisfyingly realistic. No perfect HEAs here. I'm sure I'll be talking about this more! I just started reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell for one of my book clubs. If you haven't heard of it, it's about the science behind how we make snap judgments and how we can use that to our advantage. Not a book I would have picked, but interestin...