Reading for Me

It has been a rainy week. That’s never a good sign for my mood. There’s also been some worry on my part as a previously scheduled stress test drew near. Those tests were never good news for my Dad and I feared that I was going to face similar results. Thankfully, good reports came back from the cardiologist this afternoon — so hopefully that will mean I will find my reading bug again that has been on the fritz for the past few days.

What I Finished This Week

The Summer We Ran by Audrey Ingram. I absolutely loved this novel! I mowed through this book in just 4 days because I simply could not put it down. The story centers on Tess and Grant. The two met as teenagers in a palatial Virginia town. Despite living in opposite worlds, the two quickly develop a strong bond and ultimately fall in love. Their worlds are shattered as monumental events drive them apart and they are forced to bury family secrets from a watchful society. The story fast forwards 25 years when Tess and Grant are reunited. Both happily married, they are now opposing candidates for the Virginia Governor’s mansion. When an anonymous email arrives, their long-hidden secrets threaten to be exposed — and these revelations have the potential to destroy their political careers, their reputations, and their families. Ingram gives the reader an exciting exploration of damaging effects of secrets, the importance of communication, and strains placed on all of our relationships when we fail to be transparent with those most important to us. 5 stars.

What I’m Currently Reading

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (p. 150 of 333). Talk about a classic novel that has gotten a bad rap! D.H. Lawrence is not an author that was discussed in many of my literature classes; when we was mentioned, we talked about the scandalous topics of his books and the challenges he faced in getting his books published. I decided this would be an interesting book to read as a pairing with The Summer We Ran and I have not been disappointed thus far. Lawrence created enthralling characters that beautiful explore his ideas about sexuality and women’s place in society. Just at the halfway point of the novel, Connie’s relationship with the keeper has begun. To this point, I wouldn’t classify the book as scandalous; I found the premise intriguing and worthy of consideration. I’ll need to finish the book this week before knowing exactly what I think about Connie and Clifford’s marriage and their journey.

June in Review

June was a better reading month than May overall despite continued travel and learning to read while the Geriatrics are home. Perhaps even better news for me personally is that this month has also seen Mom once again pick up a book and resume her reading journey. I think that it is so important as she continues to age that she nurture her mind and keeps her reading skills sharp.

Here’s a look at how the numbers broke down for the month of June, 2025.

• Books read in June: 4 books (up 1 from May)
  • 2 physical books
  • 1 ebook
  • 1 audio book
  • 3 fiction
  • 1 non-fiction
• Pages read in June: 1,317 pages (up 68 pages from May)
• Highest rated book: The Summer We Ran by Audrey Ingram (5 stars)
• Lowest rated book: The Modern Guide to Time Mastery: Focus, Flow & Freedom by Morgan Ellis Stone (1 star)

I planned to get so much reading done while visiting my parents last week. I was going to have a reading picnic in the park. I was going to get some much needed practicing done too.

What I did, however, was catch a horrible cold and flopped from the bed to the couch and back again. The last thing I was able to do was hold a book and comprehend anything.

So, needless to say, I didn’t make the progress I had hoped for. But here’s what I managed to do before everything fell apart.

What I Finished Reading

• The 23rd Midnight (James Patterson). When I can’t read anything else, I return to tried and true series. This installment of the Women’s Murder Club was much darker as it involved a copycat serial killer who targeted our heroines. It was a page turner, but I definitely didn’t read it right before bed!

What I’m Currently Reading

• The Women (Kristin Hannah) p. 268 of 464. This exceptional new novel tells the story of female nurses serving in Vietnam at the height of the war. It’s a story of loss, grief, love, and purpose. The leading character, Frankie, has returned back to the States after her tour of duty only to find a world more torn apart than she imagined that discounts her experiences and service. I’m finding this read both enthralling and thought provoking.
• Silas Marner (George Eliot) p. 40 of 183. As part of this year’s reading project, I selected this familiar work for a busy month. Although I’ve not gotten very far into the story yet, I find Eliot’s writing very easy to read as long as I am engaged. (Lesson learned when I had to reread 10 pages because I had no clue what I had just covered). With a weekend at home coming up and a hope that my stopped up ear will improve, I plan to make some headway into this work soon.

Next on my TBR?

• Just Show Up (Cal Ripken). With the start of baseball season just a few more days away, I decided to read a memoir from this baseball great. I also need a departure from the heavy plots of the novels I’ve been pouring over recently. I don’t know how much I’ll enjoy this, but it seemed like a good option and I’m ready for something a little different.

There you have it! Now back to the reading….

Kennith

With all of my recent travel and performances, I failed to write a review of this charming middle grade novel that I read earlier this month. While looking for something to read that featured a carnival to share with some children I mentor locally, I stumbled upon this novel and was very intrigued by the plot summary. I was very pleased with the reading experience during a really busy season.

Here’s the basic story of Lundquist’s novel. A small community has been traumatized after the local factory was destroyed by fire. Many jobs were lost. Lives were lost and friendships were destroyed. As part of the fallout of the fire, a group of young girls find themselves estranged and searching for understanding in a time of unimaginable confusion and personal pain.

When each of the girls receive an unsigned invitation to meet at the Ferris wheel at midnight at the annual carnival with a magical carousel, things are certain to be mysterious and exciting for all involved. The story was suspenseful, heart-warming, and fun.

As an adult reader, I especially appreciated the statements about the number of young people who find themselves forced to hide behind masks in order to gain social approval. The role of social media is prevalent and a great reminder of the hazards that come with it. I was really thrilled to see that there was much more here than just a cute story. Definitely plenty of things that can serve as discussion starters for these middle grade students.

Hello, fellow Reader! I have missed sharing my reading adventures with you, but I needed to take a real break this summer. So I put a pause on EVERYTHING and enjoyed some time in meditation, personal reflection, and watching baseball. (Go Braves!) I didn’t completely stop reading this summer, but I did stop providing weekly updates on that portion of my life. Now that I have recovered from COVID — yeah, that wasn’t how I wanted to begin the fall semester — I’m finally ready to begin blogging again about my reading life. So here is a list of the books that I read this summer and a brief description of my thoughts on some of the works.

#12: Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart) – Not one of my favorite reads and not something I would recommend to anyone else.

#13: They Both Die in the End (Adam Silvers) – This was a recommendation from one of my students and turned out to be a very enjoyable YA read. The title says it all, but there is SO MUCH that happens before they both die. Check this quick read out for yourself.

#14: Pick Me (May Archer) – I enjoyed the other audio book by Archer that I listened to earlier this summer. Her attention to romance details are astounding. Not for the faint of heart though; read this as part of the LGBTQ+ challenge for my 2022 reading project. Things get steamy…..you’ve been warned.

#15: The Messy Lives of Book People (Phaedra Patrick) – Several months later I don’t remember a lot of the details about this book, but I remember that I liked it.

#16: Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty) – Fun mass market read. Trigger warnings for domestic abuse, but wonderfully written.

#17: Miller’s Valley (Anna Quindlen) – This was probably my favorite read of the summer. Amazing story about a small forgotten town and the people who populate it. Worth taking a look at by any lover of literary fiction.

#18: The Lifestyle (Taylor Hahn) – This was NOT what I expected when I read the book jacket, but I laughed out loud throughout this cute romance. A marriage on the rocks decides to explore the lifestyle of swingers in order to fix their problems. Once again, not for the faint of heart, but not as graphic as Pick Me.

#19: The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle (Jennifer Ryan) – This novel from the Book of the Month Club looked like something I thought my mother would enjoy. Of course, I had to read it first. It was a beautiful story of friendship and survival set against the Nazi bombings of London and the English countryside in the days of World War II. Possibly a little longer than it needed to be, but an enjoyable novel nonetheless.

#20: A Single Man (Christopher Isherwood) – This short novella explores a single day in the life of a man after the death of his longtime partner. Considered one of the important early works of gay fiction, I was asked to read this alongside a young man I mentor who is struggling with his self-identity. There were some beautiful expressions of friendship, community, and the desire to be accepted expressed in this short work.

#21: The Viscount Who Loved Me (Julia Quinn) – I just finished the second of the Bridgerton novels early this morning and enjoyed every minute of it. This installment focused on Anthony and his developing relationship (and ultimate marriage) to Kate. I enjoyed the shift to seeing the struggles of romance from a male perspective. I think Quinn was in better form here than in her first novel of the series, The Duke and I. I’m looking forward to making a return visit to Bridgerton before the year is out.

There you have it…..that’s everything I have read since returning to the Geriatric Ward in early May. What’s on my reading table now? I felt a bit of nostalgia as I was selecting my latest read, so I’m heading back to high school momentarily and looking at A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I’ll let you know how it goes in a few days.

February’s first reading challenge asked for a book of speculative fiction. I must admit that the term was not familiar to me, so I turned to a trusted source: Google. That’s where I ran across this definition from Wikipedia. “Speculative fiction is a broad category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, nature, or the present universe.” Okay…..so something somewhat far flung was in order. Since I was moving into a genre that is well off the beaten path for me, I decided to pick up a copy of The Martian and give it a go. I managed to finish the work and enjoy the adventure along the way.

In case you are not familiar with the basic premise, The Martian tells the story of Mark, an astronaut who finds himself left behind after a Mars mission is aborted and he is presumed dead. Through skill, good luck, and sheer determination, Mark manages to be reunited with his crew despite attempts by the Red Planet to kill him.

Normally, I am not a fan of this type of writing. I thought this was going to be the case for the first few days of reading as well. I struggled through terminology and getting a sense of the challenges being alone on Mars would present to an astronaut. Once contact was re-established with NASA in its crudest form, I found myself drawn into the story and rooting for Mark’s survival. I suppose that exploring the impact of a failed mission on everyone involved — Mark, his crew mates, administrators at NASA, as well as the rest of mankind who watched events unfolding helplessly — made the story much more enjoyable. The fast pace of the novel also helped keep me moving and rapidly propelled me to a satisfying conclusion. If this is what speculative fiction is really all about, I’m on board. I don’t think I’ll turn to it very often, but now that I have had a good experience, I won’t be as fearful to make a return visit to the form.

What’s next in my reading challenge? This one was fun…..I’m to read a book with a bird on the cover! I selected First Comes Love by Emily Giffin on my last visit to the bookstore. I just started reading the novel this afternoon, so I don’t have too much to share yet, but I can tell you that I am already invested in the story and interested to see where these events are going to take me. Now we just have to see how attending a state music conference impacts my reading life this week. I’ll be in touch again next Saturday!

I began listening to Katie Couric’s latest memoir while driving back to West Texas after spending the holidays with my parents in Arkansas. At 15 hours, 27 minutes, Going There was more than enough material to get me back to Texas and provide listening for several more hours during the month.

I have long been a fan of Couric’s work, especially on The Today Show. It was enjoyable to hear stories of her early career peppered with meeting her beloved Jay, the births of their girls, and the grief that came from Jay’s battle with colon cancer. I’ll admit that I was also intrigued to hear about the embattled times at CBS News – specifically The CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes — as well as her perspective on the ultimate downfall of Matt Lauer. I was not disappointed.

I did feel that the memoir was just a bit too long. I appreciated all of the stories and enjoyed hearing Katie’s voice again. However, I wonder if she would have been better served by publishing two separate works. As the reader approaches chapter 75, I found myself wondering if this was just an attempt to be back in the spotlight again. Really? Is it appropriate to talk about oneself for this long? (For the record, the memoir continued for over 20 more chapters!)

Was the memoir entertaining? Yes, most certainly. However, I also found myself just ready to reach the end of a personal saga much sooner than Couric decided to bring to the work to a fitting and appropriate conclusion. I think the audio book was quite good, but I do recommend that the reader give themself permission from the beginning to turn the story off when they have reached the point of satiation. There can always be too much of a good thing.

Let’s start with a warning. I have been very slothful about blogging my reviews of books recently. I suppose I have enjoyed reading a bit more than writing about my thoughts. On this chilly Saturday afternoon, it seems like the perfect time to play a little catch up. I apologize to those of you who have subscribed to this blog for the three posts you will (hopefully) receive in rather rapid succession.

On January 29, I finished my final reading challenge book for the month of January. Where the Crawdads Sing represented a book that is the basis for a 2022 movie release. The film by Sony Pictures is currently scheduled to be released on July 22, 2022.

I had high hopes for this novel. Everyone had been raving about what an amazing story it was. By the time I finished it, I simply said “ehhh.” It wasn’t horrible; I just found some of the plot points confusing. Kya was a black girl? I didn’t grab that fact until well into the novel. Does it matter to the plot? Not really. I think the bigger issue was the abject poverty she faced, not the color of her skin. I was rather offended with her race became such an issue of contention in the novel. Why had this not been a theme throughout if it was going to be so important? I also found the time shifts abrupt and unseemly. I understand that Owens was using a familiar literary device. I just don’t think it was effective. Rather than building suspense and unraveling the mystery gradually, the constant shifts of scenes and settings only made me seasick.

I’m not going to rule out reading other works by Owens. I’m hearing from others who were also let down by Crawdads that they really enjoyed reading some of her other works. I’m just happy to know that I am not alone when I give this work a disappointed thumbs down.

At the beginning of the week, I finished my second novel of the year. I had heard great things about Malibu Rising. It should have been a great match for me. I was familiar with the geography of the city by the sea. I am always a big fan of family dramas. I absolutely HATED this book!

Malibu Rising tells the story of the dysfunctional Rivas family. In many ways, it is actually a blending of two intertwined stories. In the 1950s and 1960s, you have the tragic love story of Mick and June. They seemed to be a match made in the Heaven. Then, Mick finds success and realizes he was not “meant to be” in a monogamous relationship. In the 1980s, we follow the lives of Mick’s four children — now grown — as they figure out how to deal with their feelings about their parents and how to navigate the uncertain waters they now find themselves in. On paper, this should have been the perfect book for me. I found myself constantly frustrated with Reid’s writing and her attempts to be literary by constantly shifting between the major plots.

The novel was not a complete bust. I found myself rooting for the four Rivas children. Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit were beautifully rendered characters. If only the story had simply centered on their troubled relationships. However, the inclusion of so many minor characters as well as the previous generations of the Riva family made this book much weaker than it had to be.

I cannot tell you the number of times that I nearly put this book down, never to be finished. Somehow,I managed to plug away and make it to the end. When Mick meets his adult children and they are all forced to face their past failures, Reid’s skill as a writer finally came through. There might be hope for this author after all. I found a few paragraphs in the final few pages of the novel worthwhile and beautifully written.

June had given her children this box packed to the brim with her own experiences, her own treasures and heartbreaks. Her own guilts and pleasures, triumphs and losses, values and biases, duties and sorrows.

And Nina had been carrying around this box her whole life, feeling the full weight of it.

But it was not, Nina saw just then, her job to carry the full box. Her job was to sort through the box. To decide what to keep, and to put the rest down. She had to choose what, of the things she inherited from the people who came before her, she wanted to bring forward. And what, of the past, she wanted to leave behind.

Malibu Rising, 357.

For what it’s worth, I give this novel a hard pass. I don’t think it is worth the effort. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad as an audio book if you needed a simple diversion and there were no other options available. But there ARE outstanding family dramas to dive into and enjoy immensely. Skip this flippant journey through the hills of Malibu and go for another family saga instead. You’ll be much happier that you did!

Greetings from the Geriatric Ward! This week, I was able to begin reading my “large” project for Christmas Break. Sadly, I am not as far into Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth as I had hoped. What happened? I’m not a reader who is able to get much reading done when there is lots of additional activity happening around me. As my Dad struggled with illness much of the week, I found much of the prized quiet times that I planned to read suddenly disrupted. I tried moving to another space in the house, but alas, it was not to be.

Based on what I have read thus far, I think I am going to enjoy this epic novel. The writing is very good (obviously!) and I am drawn into the characters’ lives. Truthfully, I was a little worried about reading a novel set in the Middle Ages that is largely about a cathedral.

I’m just over 150 pages into the novel, but I am especially enjoying Follett’s examination of church bureaucracy. With past experience serving in the modern church, I am always interested in stories that explored the impact of poor leadership, financial decisions, and politics on the church. I’m looking forward to seeing where the conversation goes next now that Brother Peter has been chosen as prior.