Exceedingly Mundane

Comfort Food

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

(Any bets on how quickly somebody says the Bible or some other religious text? A good choice, to be sure, but to be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of fiction…. Unless I laid it on a little strong in the string of catastrophes? Maybe I should have just stuck to catching a cold on a rainy day….)

Great question again this week, over at Booking Through Thursday. Wow, I certainly hope that none of these (much less all of these!) happen to me. Although, I can remember when our beloved Sally dog passed away nearly 4 years ago. I was beyond despondent, but I really didn’t want to “curl up with a good book” for a while. Now, if it’s cold and raining, I do love to snuggle up under a blanket with a book and a mug of hot cocoa, so I’m going that route 😀

For me, a comfort type book is something light and easy. Something engrossing. A favorite author, part of a favorite series. I don’t tend to reread books, so my choice would probably be something new that I had not read before. Maybe a book by Nicholas Sparks or John Grisham, maybe a women’s fiction book by Debbie Macomber or someone like her, or perhaps one of my new favorites – a cozy mystery. I’m really enjoying this type of book lately, as well as just other murder type mystery suspense or thriller books. I just don’t like them to be very gory or overly descriptive of violence.

On a side note, we’re hoping to get some rain later today and maybe tomorrow. Tropical Storm Humberto is headed this way from the Texas coast, and we’re really hoping to get some good rain. My grass, flowers and trees and shrubs are beyond dry. We could really use the rain.

I’m still reading a lot, but I haven’t been posting very many reviews. Never fear, this is not a book review post. Just a few random thoughts of some of the books I’ve read recently and on books in general 😀

Which brings up my other book-related thought I wanted to blog about. Years ago, I used to just read most of the same authors over and over. My horizons weren’t very broad, and I was ok with that. I had a handful of authors I liked and I read those. But, since I’ve been blogging and I’ve discovered so many other fellow book-lover blogs, I’ve been really finding not only a lot of new authors that I like and enjoy, but a lot of new genres. I’ve really stretched out and am reading more Christian fiction, as well as branching out into “cozy” mysteries and other mysteries like this book by Tess Gerritsen that I just started, or books by James Patterson, for example. These are not authors I probably would have read before. I really love how many authors I’ve already tried, and how many more I have on my to-try list. It makes a bookworm like me positively giddy

For the record, I’ve read 81 books so far, with a total of 23,847 pages. I’m currently reading “Body Double” by Tess Gerritsen. I have plenty more books on my TBR shelf to read after that, but I might have to just go back to the library. I haven’t been in a couple of weeks, and I’m feeling the pull of a library visit. It’s pretty strong, so I will probably go this week. Maybe even later today 😀

How about you? Do you have any books or authors to recommend? What are you reading?

Happy Reading!!!

Goldilocks

Okay, so the other day, a friend was commenting on my monthly reading list and asked when I found the time to read. In the ensuing discussion, she described herself as a “goldilocks� when it comes to reading–she needs to have everything juuuuuust right to be able to focus. This caught my attention because, first, I thought that was a charming way of describing the condition, but, two, while we’ve talked about our reading habits, this is an interesting wrinkle. I’d never really thought about it that way.

So, this is my question to you–are you a Goldilocks kind of reader?

Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?

Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

Another good question today over at Booking Through Thursday! I’m afraid that I am a bit of a Goldilocks 🙂 Not totally, but I do need certain things and certain conditions. I can’t just pick up a book while waiting on the teakettle to go off. I can’t read in a really loud place, like the living room while my husband is watching a shoot-em-up movie on the big screen with surround sound blaring. I can’t sit down and read if I have things that need to be done, errands to run, cooking or cleaning to do, etc. I guess I’m more of a Goldilocks than I thought 🙄 I like to read when it’s quiet and I’m comfortable. I have to have enough light and I have to be able to read for more than a few seconds. Ideally, I read in the evenings before bed, when it’s quiet and I can read until my eyes are tired and I’m ready to go to sleep 😀

Just some random book-related things…

Happy Reading!!!

Very few things can make me want to jump out of bed early on a Saturday morning. A sale at my local library is one of them though! 😀

The library system in my county has 4 or 5 branches, but two of them are close to my house (a couple miles in either direction). They each have 2 book sales a year, so I end up being able to go 4 times a year. I went in February and again in May, and now this morning. I love going to the book sales, it’s always a blast to me to search through the books and see what I can find. You can’t beat the prices in my book, plus it benefits the library that I patronize on a regular basis. Today, the place was packed – more so than I have ever seen it before. I got the last parking spot in the parking lot, and everyone else was parking off in the grass or on the edge of the street. When I tried to go in the room, it was so packed I could not maneuver around. Unfortunately, the sections I wanted to get to were in the back, so by the time I could push my way over there, a lot of books I would have gotten were gone. How do I know this, you ask? Because I saw TONS of books I would have liked to have gotten in other people’s hands, and bags and boxes. Argh. Oh well, I had a good time and got 10 books for $7.00. You can’t beat that!

Here’s my haul for the day:

Stole this one from Karen, at Over the Back Yard Fence, who stole it from Kelly at MyUtopia, who borrowed it…. you get the idea!

What are you reading right now? The last book in the English Garden series by Christian author Lori Wick

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? Absolutely, the rest of the books that I have checked out of the library (which are listed on my sidebar). After that, I need to read two books I have borrowed from my sister, so I can return them to her 🙂

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? I don’t have any magazines in the bathroom. In our living room, however, I have overflowing magazine baskets. Southern Living, Taste of Home, Woman’s Day, Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping, etc

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? Well, I have never been “forced” read anything. But I have read a couple of books in the last two years that I totally did NOT enjoy. One was “The Falls” by Joyce Carol Oates and the other was “Talk to the Hand” by Lynne Truss

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? Ooh, tough one. I guess I recommend books I love, like the Mitford books by Jan Karon, books by Debbie Macomber, books by Karen Kingsbury, etc. And now that I’ve finished “Marley & Me” finally, I would recommend that to anyone who loves dogs.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? No, I don’t think they know my name at all, but I think they are starting to recognize my face 🙂

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? Hmmm, nothing is coming to mind…

Do you read books while you do other things? Nope. I am easily distracted. I really prefer that it is quiet when I read. I don’t like music on, or TV and I have a hard time reading when there are other people around (hospital waiting rooms, airport lounges and on the plane, etc). I don’t even like to read in the living room if Tim is watching TV or a movie. I’ll go to our bedroom and close the door and get it as quiet as I can. The only other thing I might do if I read is drink something. I don’t multi-task when I read 🙂

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits? Not that I remember, but I grew up rather solitary and alone. There weren’t a lot of other kids my age around.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down? Oh my, I don’t stay up late for much of anything! I’m a girl who needs my sleep and gets irritable when she’s tired and sleepy 😀 I do stay up sometimes reading books that are hard to put down, but I’d never stay up much more than an hour or so after my “normal” bedtime. I am not the kind of person to sit up till 2 or 3 in the morning, reading. Nuh uh, no way!

I’ve finished several books lately and wanted to do a quick “book review” about them. Except that I don’t really “do reviews”. I like almost every book I read, in one way or another, for one reason or another. I merely wanted to say what I liked about each one of these, in a very simple way. 🙂 The books are:

The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg
This Pen for Hire (a Jaine Austen mystery) by Laura Levine
Marley & Me by John Grogan
The Body in the Moonlight (a Faith Fairchild mystery) by Katherine Hall Page

I read my fourth book by author Elizabeth Berg, “The Art of Mending”. I have discovered that I really like the way she writes and the pictures she paints with her writing. This was not my favorite by her, but I did enjoy it. I think the first book I read by Berg will always be my favorite (“The Year of Pleasures”), followed closely by “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue” (I liked the WWII era to that one).

The second book, “This Pen for Hire” by Laura Levine, was also one I really enjoyed. I’ve discovered recently that I like what I call “cozy mysteries”. I’ve read several by different authors, and enjoyed pretty much all of them. They’re light, fluffy, easy to read, with really no bad language or gory violence. They’re fairly predictable, but I’m good with that. I just enjoy the easy pace and the overall escapism of these kind of books. 🙂 This is the start of the series, about Jaine Austen, a writer who runs a service writing letters, resumes, brochures and such out of her home, her business aptly titled “This Pen for Hire.” A love letter she reluctantly helps a nerdy guy pen to a beautiful aerobics instructor results in murder, and Jaine feels compelled to investigate. Fun read, and I wish my library had all of the ones in this series. I’ll definitely read the ones they do have, eventually. 🙂

I also read another cozy, by author Katherine Hall Page, called “The Body in the Moonlight”. This is a Faith Fairchild mystery, and this particular one I picked up at the library is in the middle of the series. This doesn’t really matter a lot with these books, I don’t think. Faith is a caterer, and a minister’s wife in rural Aleford, Massachusetts. I like the foodie aspect of these, and there are a few recipes included in the back. I’m going to copy two of them and put them on the extended page. This is probably one of my least favorite “cozy” mysteries that I’ve read. I had a hard time getting into it. I don’t know if it was the plot of this particular one, or just the writing. I will give this author another try though, as there are probably another 5 or 6 of these mysteries at my library. I did enjoy it, but I didn’t just love it, you know?!

Marley & Me is probably my favorite of these four. Being a dog lover and dog owner, this was a wonderful book for me. It’s subtitled “Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog” and is the true story of John and Jenny Grogan’s life with their new puppy Marley. It follows them through jobs, moves, children and Marley growing up and finally passing away at the ripe old age of 13. Marley was a precocious dog, one who shredded mattresses and couch cushions, who had an unnatural fear of thunderstorms, who poked his head in past the shower curtain and drank from the shower. I cried at the end, so be warned, if you’re a dog lover, grab some Kleenex toward the end.

Marley & Me had a couple of wonderful passages right at the end, that I loved. I thought I’d include them here:

What I really wanted to say was how this animal had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons of our lives. “A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours,” I wrote. “Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things – a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness, and above all else, unwavering loyalty.”

A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. It was really quite simple, and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not. Sometimes it took a dog with bad breath, worse manners and pure intentions to help us see.

Sigh, it makes me want to go hug and love on my Beau baby. I’ve included two recipes from the back of “The Body in the Moonlight” on the extended page. I haven’t made them, but they look pretty good!

For the record, I’ve finished 68 books so far this year, for a total of 20, 204 pages read. Up next is the English Garden series by Lori Wick. My library had all 4 books in and available, and so I went ahead and checked them all out. This is not something that I normally like to do, read series books back to back to back. But, I do get frustrated with trying to check them out, in order (and not being able to get them when I’m ready for them), so I went ahead and got all of these. I’ve got two more on reserve that have come into the library this week, so I have to run later today or tomorrow and pick those up. Books, glorious books!

Click for the recipes… Read the rest of this entry »

One book at a time? Or more than one? If more, are they different types/genres? Or similar?

(We’re talking recreational reading, here—books for work or school don’t really count since they’re not optional.)

Ok, today’s question over at Booking Through Thursday is an easy peasy one for me. I am very OCD about my books. I start one, I finish one. I absolutely, positively, cannot start a new book until I’ve finished the one I’m reading. I don’t have the kind of personality or attention span to be reading two books simultaneously, even of different genres. I’ve tried to read a fiction book, and also have a non-fiction type book going at the same time, and even that doesn’t work for me. I have to start what I finish. Even if I don’t like the book, I will almost always keep reading, struggling through, despising every minute (I have a problem with abandoning goals too, obviously), until I finish. Then, and only then, do I allow myself to start a new one.

I wish I could read more than one at a time. It’s an admirable quality, if you ask me. I wish I wasn’t so regimented, but alas, it’s just who I am 😀

You know what? I’ve decided that reading the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich are one of my guilty pleasures (we can’t forget about chocolate though; I think that will always top any list of mine!) I know these books have bad language, mild violence and quite a bit of s*xual references, but they are laugh-out loud funny and I do enjoy them. They’re light and fluffy and always easy to read.

I’ve read three of them lately, trying to catch up and get current with this series. I am always asking myself – would I pick Morelli or Ranger? How about you? If you read these books, which one would you pick? Who do you think Stephanie will end up with? Or do you even think Janet Evanovich will end this and let us know which one Stephanie rides off into the sunset with?

P.S. I just finished “Twelve Sharp” and it sort of looks like Evanovich is trying to decide. I’m thinking when I finally get Lean Mean Thirteen from the library, that Steph will be right back where she was before – in a love-love situation with both Morelli and Ranger. If you’ve read it, and she decides somehow, please don’t let me know!!!

P.S.S. If you’re keeping up with my book count and my quest to read more books this year than last, you can check out my sidebar. I’m up to 65 books so far this year, with a total of 19,478 pages read 🙂

I finished a really great library book the other day, “These Boots Weren’t Made for Walking” by Melody Carlson. This book is Christian chick-lit and I had seen it mentioned at someones blog a while back. While surfing my library’s listing online of new books, I saw that they were processing this one, so I immediately got on the reserve list for it. I could be wrong, but I think I was the first person to read this book after they got it in their system. Which, I thought was sorta cool 🙂

I really loved this book! This was my first book by Melody Carlson, but it won’t be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed it and really hated to see it end. It reminded me a lot of one I read recently by Kristin Billerbeck, “What A Girl Wants”, also Christian chick-lit, but I think I really liked this one better. I think it’s because this character was a little more relatable to me. She moved from the big city back to her small home town, and I think just that feel and flow of the small-town plot was more in line with what I like to read, whereas Ashley Stockingdale (in the Billerbeck book), lives and works in the Silicon Valley, big city life 🙂

Since I’m positively no good at devising my own synopsis of a book, I’m going to completely cheat and copy the back of the book for you here, to give you an idea of what it’s about:

Certain she’s paid her corporate dues, thirty one-year-old Cassidy Cantrell struts through the office in her chic Valentino boots to turn in her latest project. She’s confident she’ll make a spectacular impression and seal the deal on her long-anticipated promotion at the Seattle marketing firm. But when reality tromps over her expectations, Cassie quickly realizes those same stylish boots are all wrong for pounding the pavement in search of a new job – or for kicking her cheating ex-boyfriend out of her life.

Her self-esteem in tatters, Cassie limps back to her ski resort hometown – to find her rebounding-from-divorce mother transformed into a gorgeous fifty-something babe whose thriving social life only accentuates the dismal shape of Cassie’s own romantic prospects. What will it take for Cassie to jump back into life and regain her stride?

Maybe this book was just what I was in the mood for, but it really hit the spot for me. Good book, good characters, one I really hated to see end. If you like Christian fiction, I think you’d enjoy this one.

For the record, I’ve read 62 books so far this year, with a total of 18,595 pages. Up next is the second in the Firstborn series by Karen Kingsbury (“Forgiven“), and after that, I have a stack of books I got at the library yesterday. I loaded them in my sidebar, but the titles are: Twelve Sharp, The Art of Mending, This Pen for Hire, Marley and Me and The Body in the Moonlight. Yeah for new books to read 😀

Today’s Topic: Just Wild About Harry

Okay, love him or loathe him, you’d have to live under a rock not to know that J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, comes out on Saturday… Are you going to read it?
If so, right away? Or just, you know, eventually, when you get around to it? Are you attending any of the midnight parties?
If you’re not going to read it, why not?
And, for the record… what do you think? Will Harry survive the series? What are you most looking forward to?

OK, I love doing this meme because I consider myself a pretty above-average reader. But, {gasp} I have never read a Harry Potter book. And {even worse}, I’m not sure I want to. I’m sure they are wonderful books; they wouldn’t be the phenomenon they are if they weren’t. It’s not like me to not jump on a bandwagon like this, but I’ve just never been interested in them. I’ve never seen any of the movies, either. Now, I don’t rule out reading them in the future, but they are not high on my list. I know, I know, don’t throw things at me 🙂

P.S. For those of you who do read these and are looking forward to this last book – enjoy it! If you’re going to a party, have fun! Come out of your hole this weekend at some point and eat some food, though, ok?! 😀

I’ve finished a couple of books recently that I wanted to write a quick blurb about. As per usual for me, I don’t write particularly good book reviews. It’s always the same, I read this book and surprise! I liked it!

First up, I finished another book in a series I’m reading, “Blue Shoes and Happiness”, book number 6 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith. I believe I only have one more book in this series to be current. Alas, McCall Smith has two other series I want to eventually start reading – the 44 Scotland Street series and the Sunday Philosophy Club series. This, of course, is in addition to the 20+ sets of other series books that I have on my list to read one day (and yes, you KNOW I have a list of these!)

Next up, I finished “The Tea House on Mulberry Street” by Sharon Owens. This was a book I had seen mentioned last year sometime on someones blog (although for the life of me, I can’t remember whose!). Sharon Owens is a new author to me, in fact, she’s one I had never heard of. But, the book jacket looked good, and I thought that since my library had it, I would give it a try. I liked it, and it reminded me quite a lot of most of the books I have read by Maeve Binchy, another Irish writer. Their styles were similar, as well as the fact that the books are character driven. I enjoyed “meeting” the owners and patrons of the Muldoon’s Tea House on Mulberry Road, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I liked seeing where their stories were going, and how it all ended. If you like Maeve Binchy, you would probably like this book.

I also read a Christian fiction book by Liz Curtis Higgs (whose book “Thorn in my Heart” I read recently and enjoyed), called “Mixed Signals”. This was a contemporary book, set in Abingdon Virginia, at an oldies radio station. There are several wonderful characters, and we get to follow along as they start new jobs, fall in love, form lasting relationships, learn to want and ask for forgiveness from long lost family members and friends, etc. This was a really good book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The only negative to this book (as well as to the other Higgs book I read) is that I think this author is a little long-winded for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, I really like her, her books, her characters and the stories. And believe me, I relate to the verbose way of saying things, being guilty of that myself. But, it just seems to take so long to tell the story, her books are a bit on the long side for me. Which is not bad, just a personal preference of mine; I would prefer a bit more brevity.

For the record, that makes a total of 51 books read so far this year, with a total of 15, 880 pages read. Up next is another library book, “Firstborn” by Robin Lee Hatcher. Hatcher is another Christian author I’ve been wanting to try, so picking up a library book is always a good option for me. Most of the books by her in my public library are part of a series, and as much as I love and adore reading series books, I really want to finish some of the series I have in progress before I start anymore. So, I found this book, which appears to be a standalone. Or at least I hope so!

Happy Reading!

If you’ve visited here much, you probably know by now that I love books, I love to read, and I LOVE my library! I ran to the library late Tuesday afternoon, right before they closed early for the July 4th holiday. They had a book I had put on reserve in, and of course, I had to do some browsing. I left with 3 other books and 2 movies. We had a gap in the week with Netflix, so I picked up a couple of free DVD’s to tide us over. And of course, I could have easily left with 8 or 10 books, but I try to limit myself to 3 or 4, something manageable.

I listed the books I got on my sidebar, but I’ll put them here too. I also picked up two DVD’s – “The Departed” for Tim to watch (which he did, and he liked), and “Last Holiday” for me to watch again. I saw that one at the theater and really liked it. Anyway, the books I got are:

1. Fame – by Karen Kingsbury (first in a series of 5 called the Firstborn series)
2. Blue Shoes and Happiness – by Alexander McCall Smith (book 7 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Series; I’m trying to get current with this series and I’m close!)
3. The Tea House on Mulberry Street – by Sharon Owens (new author for me; saw this mentioned on someone’s blog, but I can’t for the life of me remember who!)
4. Mixed Signals – by Liz Curtis Higgs (I recently read Thorn in My Heart by her and really liked her; this is more modern day fiction from her)

OK, time for a Question of the Day: Do you have a library card? Do you use it? How often do you go, or when was the last time you visited your local library? About how many books a year do you get from the library? Does your spouse or kids go, do they have cards? Do your kids do the summer reading program? Or do you just prefer to buy your books and not mess with the library?

Leave me a comment and let me know!

I finished another book recently, “Blessings” by Anna Quindlen. This is a book I actually purchased, for full price, in the bookstore. GASP! This was my first ever book by Anna Quindlen and I do like her writing style. It reminds me a little bit of Elizabeth Berg, but I don’t think I enjoyed it quite as much as the Berg books I have read. “Blessings” was good, not super-fantastic, but good.

Blessings is the name of the estate that has been in Lydia Blessing’s family for years. Lydia is in her 80’s and lives alone at Blessings with her housekeeper, Nadine, and her new caretaker/gardener Skip Cuddy. Skip discovers a box one morning on the stairs leading up to his garage apartment. A newborn baby girl is sleeping inside the box. Skip, recently in jail on a questionable participation in a robbery, wants to keep the baby and raise her. He hides her from everything and everyone, including Mrs. Blessing. This, of course, does not last and the story spins on from here.

I liked the plot and I did like the characters. We got a lot of backstory of Lydia’s childhood, her short marriage to Benny and glimpses into her daughter Meredith’s past. We meet some of the people that Skip used to associate with, and is trying to remove himself from as he builds a life for himself. This book also had a minor, ah, “undercurrent” of a subject I don’t prefer to read about, but it was not bad and it didn’t detract too much from the story. Quindlen could have pursued it more and she did not, and for that I was thankful. The book ended much as I expected. A quick read, weighing in at only 226 pages. I’d give it an average, slightly above average, rating. It was not one of my favorite books I’ve read thus far this year, but it was good.

For the record, that makes 46 books so far this year, for a total of 14,259 pages read. I think I’m going to switch gears and read a non women’s or Christian fiction book next. I think I’ll tackle one of the many Grisham books we have on our bookshelves that I have not read yet. I am going to give “The Brethren” a shot, but I reserve the right to drop it and pick up something else if it doesn’t grab my attention 😀

Happy Reading!

I finished a really cute, Christian chick-lit book last night, called “What a Girl Wants” by Kristin Billerbeck. This is the first in a series of books by this author (she has at least two different series that I know of), called the “Ashley Stockingdale novels”. I definitely want to read more of these and find out what happens next to Ashley. She also has a series called the “Spa Girls novels” and I may want to eventually read those too. Unfortunately, my library doesn’t have any books by this author, so I’m going to check sometime soon on their inter-library loan program and see if they can get them from a neighboring library system. If not, I might just have to break down and order them online 🙂

Anyway, this was a really cute book! Very light but very modern (think Jimmy Choo, Blackberrys and Lilly Pulitzer), about a patent attorney named Ashley Stockingdale, who lives in Silicon Valley and is an active member of her Christian singles group. She’s just turned 31 and she’s having trouble with where she is with her life, her job, her friends, her lack of chances to meet nice Christian men and a whole host of other things, including planning a wedding for her brother and his Chinese fiance, Mei Ling. This book was a really quick, very enjoyable read, and I can’t wait to get the next ones.

For the record, that makes 45 books read so far this year, for a total of 14,033 pages. Up next is a book by Anna Quindlen (I’ve never read her books) called “Blessings”. I hope it’s good!

Happy Reading!