Laurel’s Comments (group member since Dec 30, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the All About Books group.

October already! I'm falling farther behind on my annual goal. Only read 3 books in September. Not going to rehash all the ones I've started and need to finish. I have foolishly gotten attracted to 3 different group reads all going on NOW:
Middlemarch
Cryptonomicon
The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors
The first two are chunkies and certainly won't be read in a month.

Currently listening to:
READ Love Over Scotland
This is supposed to be a reread for me, but I so far am not recognizing any of the plot. I think I would remember Cyril getting stolen, Bertie being cast as Baron Von Trapp in a school production of The Sound of Music, and Dominica sojourning among pirates in Malaysia, among other things.

Next is:
READ Never Let Me Go
and
READ The Handmaid's Tale
for bookclub.

And what should be a quick read:
READ The Wild Robot
a children's book I checked out because I loved the cover.

#31 The Dog who Came in from the Cold

4 stars. Some of the characters in this series are starting to grow on me...

Okay, I just checked. Seasons 3-5 are available on Amazon Prime. So if can finish Season Two (which in NOT on Amazon Prime) in the next 7 days, I'll be okay. It is still laugh out loud funny, and not as dated as I had thought it might be...

Update: Season Two IS on Amazon Prime, so I guess I don't need to rush...

I'm watching the Dick Van Dyke Show before it leaves Netflix at the end of Sept. Only on Season Two, so I'm probably not going to get to them all.... Maybe it's on Amazon Prime... I haven't checked there.

Laurel

#29 Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

3 stars: Lots of info, but couldn't help feeling it was very biased.

#30 The Wild Iris

3 stars: Liked the structure of the book, but not the individual poems.

I am currently listening to Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser. I have several things I have started in print that I will TRY and finish this month. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte, a follow up to reading Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, and it is short. A very small book of poetry The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck. Just started Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson, the first of her Crispin Guest mysteries. We are friends on Facebook, so I thought it was about time I actually read something of hers! I plan to read that this weekend, since the weather is looking quite rainy for the next two days. There are other books I'm setting aside for this one because it is a library ebook and will expire. So we'll see if I can work in more actual reading this month! I recently watched the movie of A Wrinkle in Time. It was okay but not a lot like I remember the book by Madeleine L'Engle. So I want to reread that now, and I think I might try and read most of her fiction, with so many crossover characters between series. A couple of her very early novels were recent deals on Amazon kindle, so I've downloaded them... I've always been a big Madeleine L'Engle fan, but of her children's books I've only read the Time series.

Laurel

I've always loved Madeleine L'Engle, and recently watching A Wrinkle in Time I am itching to reread it, and of course the whole Time series. But that gets me into the O'Keefes and the Austins and even some of her other novels because of crossover characters.

So I thought maybe I should just add another author read this year, to be continued into next year. So I'm adding it with the McCall Smith challenge - post # 6 above...

It's almost September. I did manage three books of my August plans which is quite good actually. I'm still 4 behind my annual total though.

I've gotten distracted from the books I keep trying to finish, namely
Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur
READ What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia
The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History

I've caught up with bookclub books for the moment. So I am listening to
READ Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
which I've had on hold for quite a while and it came in this week.
Not sure what I will do for bookclub. The group met today, but due to Labor Day weekend I totally spaced it off, and I know 2 or 3 of the women were going miss it because of a funeral. Our book for September was supposed to be When We Were Orphans, but the bookclub in a bag kit has been withdrawn from the library and there are not enough other copies. I've substituted
READ Never Let Me Go, but the audio has a long waiting list. I'd still like to discuss
READ The Tiger's Wife so maybe I will let every one just read whatever book by Ishiguro they would like. In that case, I would read The Buried Giant.

I have Veil of Lies currently downloaded from the library. It was an impulse thing, but now I feel I have to read it before it expires!

And I've gotten distracted today, hashing over Madeleine L'Engle's books after watching the DVD of A Wrinkle in Time, but I'll do a separate post about that....

#28 The Essex Serpent

4 stars. Literate and atmospheric, I enjoyed this very much.

#27 The Tiger's Wife

4 stars. With its multiple themes, interwoven stories, and magical realism there is much to ponder here.

#26 The Tea Dragon Society

How could I not love this, when it combines dragons and tea and keeping old traditions alive and wonderful artwork? 5 stars

#25 My Brilliant Friend
2 stars. I really struggled to finish this. Just not for me.

This poem was also featured in one of my favorite blogs - dovegreyreader scribbles - on Feb. 21, 2018. It struck me then, and I have had several occasions to look for it again. 12 days ago, I learned a dear friend has been diagnosed with glioblastoma. I have been procrastinating, but tonight I finally wrote a short letter to send her, and I am including this poem for her.

I did that for my dad's large collection of slides. Ended up getting the Epson V600 which was about $200. It does color correction, will scan photos, slides and negatives. I am very happy with it.

To finish: My Brilliant Friend - for July bookclub. Not liking this at all, but since it is a bookclub book and on audio I will stick with it.

Next: The Tiger's Wife - for Aug. bookclub. I have the audio downloaded from the library.

Reading on Kindle: Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur - this has been on my list every month since January. I am starting it again for the 3rd or 4th time, and I WILL NOT get distracted.

Hence, I will not even list any further books until this one is done!

Plans for August:
Currently listening to:
READ My Brilliant Friend - not liking this very much, and tempted to DNF since bookclub was today, but I'm over halfway, so will try and stick it out.
Just started:
Pride and Predator - #2 in the Ben Reese series.

Still need to finish and haven't touched all year:
Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur
READ The Essex Serpent - will look for this on audio
The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History

Next on audio (for bookclub):
READ The Tiger's Wife

Next on my radar:
Library of Souls
Awayland - saw this and fell in love with the cover, so I HAD to check it out. I might buy it, just for the cover!
Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet

#22 The Outcasts of Time
4 stars - I liked it. A little slow to start, but I liked the social commentary, and the philosophical musings.

#23 Caroline: Little House, Revisited
4 stars - Not quite what I expected. Follows Laura Ingalls Wilder's book too closely, but lovely writing.

#24 Publish & Perish
3 stars - liked it better than I thought I would, and have started the 2nd in the series. Trying to knock off some shorter books to get caught up on my goal of 48 for the year! Only 4 behind now...

Look at you go! Great job!

July update and plans:

4 behind on overall goal. 3 behind on Random Reads goal. Remedied that by knocking off
#21 Virgins
A fun little romp for Outlander fans, but in the overall scheme of things I didn't feel it added any thing of value to the series.

I sorted the remaining Random Reads by length to prioritize some of the shorter ones. I'm itching to draw new slips, but I must read at least the minimim in each sub-category first... So for "New Series" I have requested
READ Publish & Perish from a nearby library system. It will take a week or so to get.
Meanwhile, The Golden Horn is next up for shortest on the list, but I have it on Kindle where I have stopped reading
Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur which was leftover from a challenge last year. So that needs to be finished first.

The July Daytimer's book is
READ My Brilliant Friend
I'm currently listening to
READ Caroline: Little House, Revisited in the car, so will start My Brilliant Friend next.
Then, I want to get back to the McCall Smith rereads, and I have
READ Love Over Scotland on CD from the library waiting...

I've started
READ The Outcasts of Time for some online group or other, and it is due back next week at the library with a hold waiting, so it's now or maybe never...

And then I have devised some monthly reading themes for the library and for a quarterly book group that I started there, and there are always titles that I would LIKE to read for that, but I'm not restricting myself to reading them within the designated month, especially since I have several themes each month to give folks some choices. I'm posting those above in my placeholder posts (message 8 and 9). Would like to maybe meet 12 of those, but I know that means some of my other goals may suffer. Oh well, it's all just ways to choose my next book isn't it! Still, I want the Random Reads to have priority, so I can get those books off my TBR mountain!

Catching up on posting!

#14 44 Scotland Street - McCall Smith reread
#15 A Constellation of Vital Phenomena - old Daytimer's read finally read
#16 Espresso Tales - McCall Smith reread
#17 Plague Land - reread on audio
#18 The Paris Wife - Daytimer's
#19 The Nick Adams Stories - Daytimer's
#20 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis - Daytimer's