It's Monday and it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Hey friends! How is 2018 treating you so far?

As I'm sure you know, today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day here in the US so my ten-year-old is home today with the four-year-old and me. I remember my historian father would make us read about the event or person in question when we had a day like this off from school. Picture a good amount of lugging around the World Encyclopedia books to look up some presidents.

My kids both know who MLK was and we have several books in our house about his life and work. I think today we are going to focus on doing some things for others and finally put everything together the books and blankets for the charity we picked this Christmas (Books and a Blanket) and maybe see if we can write some letters/make pictures for someone who might need a little cheer. What do you do with your kids to commemorate MLK Day?

It's been a while since I've done a post for "It's Monday." I've read five books so far this year. I started with finally reading Little Fires Everywhere, dreamed about someday owning a few chickens with Gardening with Chickens, finally read The Blazing World after it has been languishing on my shelves for a few years, and sped through Dreamland Burning and The Music Shop. 

        

I'm currently working my way through Practical Organic Gardening (can you tell I'm dreaming of spring?) and I'm excited to start The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, which I just picked up from the library.

What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and I have a 10-year-old!

Hi everybody! How are your holiday preparations going? Are you checking things off your list? Are your evenings spent in a sea of wrapping paper?

This week, we put Christmas prep on hold for a bit because my favorite 4th grader had a birthday! As I mentioned last week, we started with a day at the aquarium. Then I took D and two of his friends to see the movie Wonder and get some ice cream. This weekend, we had the family here for a birthday party complete with a taco bar and Pokemon decorations.

Now I have to get back into that Christmas to-do-list. I'm making progress but I still have presents to buy and wrap, music to rehearse for church, and cookies to bake!

So I never really got into World's Fair, so I put it aside. Actually, I put it in the pile to donate to my local library; I'm trying to send books out instead of putting them back on my shelf in hopes of them working better another time. Instead I read Sing, Unburied, Sing and now I'm reading Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert's Roadmap to Getting Out There. 

               

What are you reading this week?

I'm back to It's Monday!

I haven't done one of these posts in almost two months. But today, here I am!

Somehow, husband and I have kept a certain boy alive and well for the past decade. My kiddo turned ten today, so we played hooky. We started the day with chocolate chip pancakes, went to the aquarium, had lunch with his godmother who was here from the West Coast, and finished the day off with his favorite dinner and a movie.

He used to be so little...

I'm trying to get through my crazy long to-do list when it comes to the holidays. It gets extra long when you child has a birthday just a few weeks before Christmas, so wish me well!

On the book front, I recently finished Forest Dark and Home Fire. Now I'm reading World's Fair and planning to pick up Sing, Unburied, Sing later in the week.

                          

What are you reading? How are your holiday preparations going?

It's Monday and I need to get organized!

Hello, bookish people! How are you?

It's been a busy week, but I did have the chance to spend most of Saturday with two of my sisters and my mom. Now it's time to focus on getting organized this for the week, including some events at our church and the 24 Hour Readathon!

This week, I read Shalom Sistas: Living Wholeheartedly in a Brokenhearted World and White is for Witching. I also finally finished listening to Lab Girl. I borrowed the audiobook from my library way back in May, but didn't get to finish it before it had to go back. I got it back in my library queue a few weeks ago and I'm so glad I did. What a beautiful and unexpected story!

          

Now I'm reading A Murder in Time and assembling my stack of books for the readathon this weekend. What are you reading?

It's Monday and we're jumping into another week!

Hello there, ladies and gents! How is it going?

I'm going to keep it short and sweet this morning. I need to get to the grocery store and back with little girl before her big brother gets home from a half day of school.

This week, I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Now I'm almost through Parable of the Sower. Somehow it's taken me 30 years to read a book by Octavia Butler, but I'm finally here!

                  

Next up for me is Shalom Sistas by Osheta Moore. What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and I'm reading all the new releases!

Oh September, you were a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month. But I'm trying to be hopeful about October. I have a giant stack of books that came in from the library and it is definitely the time of year to bake all the delicious things.

This week, I read Escaping Peril. My son and I are exchanging books each month, so he picked that one for me to read in September. Then I jumped into the giant stack of library holds that came in all at once and read Chemistry and The Alice Network. 

               

Next up for me is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and I'm reading about dragons

Hello, fellow readers. How are things going?

Things are still slightly crazy here in the literary house, but we are working through it one day at a time. We are still reading, though. This week, I read (and loved) Robin Sloan's Sourdough and then I read The Other Alcott, which focuses on Louisa May Alcott's sister May, the inspiration for Amy in Little Women. That review will be up later today.

            

Now I'm reading Escaping Peril. My nine-year-old son and I are starting a mother/son book club. This month, he gave me a book to read and in October, I get to pick one for him. I was unsure about the book he picked--the eighth installment in a MG series about dragons--but so far, it's pretty good! What books would you suggest for us to read in the next few months?

What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and I'm still here...

It's been a long few weeks, friends. I had a wonderful time with my whole family, as my cousins and sister and brother-in-law came to visit, but the world is going crazy everywhere we look. The kids hit the "we love each other, but we've been together for weeks and weeks and now everything is irritating" part of summer. I was both excited and sad to send my little one off to pre-k. We've hit a few rough patches personally and in our church. I just haven't been excited about blogging. Some days I haven't even picked up a book.

But I have read some books since I last wrote one of these posts. I read What The Family Needed, which imagines a family that is granted powers that they use to help their loved ones. I also read The Bees, a collection of poetry by Carol Ann Duffy that my sister gave me for my birthday. Last Thursday was the first day of school for my kids, so I enjoyed the quiet house by reading a book cover-to-cover. Fear not, The Girl in the Tower is just as good as The Bear and the Nightingale. It's out in December but I wanted the kind of book you can just immerse yourself in, and that fit the bill beautifully!

            

My first pick for Readers In Peril this year was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (I know, I'm the last one in the world to read this). This weekend I read Something Beautiful Happened, in which the author tries to make sense of discovering her grandmother hid a Jewish family during WWII in the wake of a relative being murdered by a neo-Nazi. I seem to be back to my two-book-a-week reading rhythm, so hopefully I can get back into blogging this week too. Fingers crossed!

            

Now I'm loving Robin Sloan's new book Sourdough. What are you reading?

It's Monday and summer is wrapping up!

Hello again! How are you doing?

I hope we're striking a good balance here in the literary house of getting lots of work done in preparation for school starting soon and also enjoying the last bits of summer. I highly recommend spending some time in a hammock if you have one, preferably with a book and a small nap. I'm excited for this coming week, as our family will all be arriving at my parent's house to enjoy the long weekend together.

This week, I finished reading Show Them No Mercy and also read Ahsoka and A Beautiful Poison. I'm almost done with When the English Fall, a debut novel that imagines how a worldwide catastrophe would look to the self-sustaining Amish.

           

What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and life is moving right along!

Hi there, bookish ladies and gents!

I'm posting a little late because I spent Sunday night with my youngest sister and then changed my work schedule so I worked today. But I'm here now and ready to hear all about the best books you've been reading.

  

I read Lev Grossman's Warp and Zinzi Clemmons' What We Lose this week. I'm still working through Show Them No Mercy, which features several takes on how we can reconcile the God who calls his people to war in the Old Testament and preaches love and mercy in the New Testament. I'm also reading E.K. Johnston's Ahsoka because I love Star Wars and E.K. Johnston.

What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and I'm back from Disney!

Hello ladies and gentlemen!

I am back from sunny (and humid) Florida, where my husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary at Disney World. The kids very happily spent a week with two sets of grandparents, where they ate a lot of junk food, had too much screen time, and took trips to the museum and Chuck E. Cheese. Meanwhile, the husband and I enjoyed all of the rides, complete conversations, and eating an entire meal without taking someone to the bathroom!

The good news about going from Philly to Florida on a train is that you get lots of reading time. Over the past two weeks, I read The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor, The Lauras by Sara Taylor, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way by Shauna Niequist, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, The History of Bees by Maja Lunde, My Glory Was I Had Such Friends by Amy Silverstein, and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.

           

What are you reading this week?

It's Monday. What are you reading this summer?

Hi everyone! How was your week?

It's been happy and busy around here, as my son's preschool reports used to say. We've really been enjoying summer with lots of time outside and a movie night (with ice cream, of course). My son and I even managed to sneak in some time at Barnes and Noble on Sunday afternoon.

This week, I read A Talent for Murder and The Sworn Virgin. Both are historical fiction; one imagines what happened during the week that Agatha Christie went missing and the second tells the story of an Albanian woman who swears to remain chaste in return for being considered a man by her community.

              

In a very unusual move for me, I don't have plans to pick up a book until Wednesday when I shall be whisked away on a train to Disney World. The husband and I are celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary with a trip sans kids, so I am excited to get a lot of reading done! My choices for the trip include The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, The Lauras, Rules of Civility, and Young Jane Young. Any suggestions on which book I should start with?

What are you reading this week?

It's Monday and we signed up for Pre-K!

Hi again! How is everyone doing?

This week was a busy one and we wrapped it up with an open house at BG's preschool on Saturday. The school organized a painting activity and a picnic lunch. Our little independent lady decided to ignore the lovely teacher showing them all how to paint a sailboat and did her own thing instead. Now we just have to convince her that her canvas cannot accompany her everywhere she goes. BG is signed up for Pre-K in September, so expect to see lots of pictures of her and possible renditions of "Sunrise, Sunset" right after Labor Day.

This week, I read The Woman Next Door and Word by Word. The first was a novel about two curmudgeonly old ladies who might have more in common than they think. The second was an absolutely delightful peek into working at a dictionary and a general celebration of how cool and bizarre the English language can be. I also fit in the graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time. I've been meaning to read it for a while and seeing the movie trailer finally gave me the push to get it from my library.

             

Next up for me is A Talent for Murder, which imagines what happened when Agatha Christie disappeared for an entire week.

What are you reading?

                                         

It's Monday and I need to get working!

Hi bookish people! How are you doing?

I had a good week of actually getting things posted here on the blog, but I feel like I'm still terribly behind on all of my life things after my trip to Portland. The house needs some serious TLC, I have a lot of work to catch up on, and there are these two kids who seem to like hanging out with me during the summer. So I'm chipping away a little at a time and of course remembering to take some time to read too.

This week, I read The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord. I was having one of those days where I couldn't focus on anything, so I curled up with a giant cup of coffee and cried my way through the last 100 pages. I also read The Women in the Castle, which made this historical fiction reader very happy.

              

Now I'm continuing my phase of books with woman or women right in the title and reading The Woman Next Door. It's out in the US, but I actually picked up my copy in a Scottish bookstore when I went to visit my sister a few months ago.

What are you reading this week?

P.S. If you looking for a new book to read, I'm giving away a copy of News of the World! 

It's Monday and I'm back!

Well, I didn't mean for that to happen. I seem to be doing a good job lately of going radio silent for entire weeks. On the last Wednesday in June, I left for Portland for a work conference, a visit with my cousins, and a few days with my best friend. I originally had intentions to write blog posts before I left. That didn't happen. Then I was sure that I would have plenty of downtime to write during my trip. That didn't happen either.

So the trip was good. I'm back home now and ready to catch up on those reviews (as well as the million other things that pile up when you go away!).

Since I last checked in, I read News of the World on the plane. I read Daring to Drive on and off during my days on the West Coast and then managed to squeeze in The Jane Austen Project on my way home. Since adjusting back to East Coast time, I've been enjoying my last foray into Gilead with Marilynne Robinson's Lila. 

     

 

What have you been up to? What are you reading this week?