It's Monday 5/27! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Happy Memorial Day to those in the U.S! I hope you are enjoying your long weekend (and, of course, remembering the reason for the holiday). We’ve had a pretty good weekend, with a mix of getting things done around the house (long overdue), spending time with family, and a little time for fun. After all of our recent travels, it’s been nice just to be home and take a breath and get caught up a bit. I am writing this from our screened porch, which we scrubbed clean on Saturday to get it ready for the season – it’s beautiful out here! As for my week, it was busier than expected, though I did squeeze in some writing time.

The big news here is that Friday I kicked off my annual Big Book Summer reading challenge! woohoo! I look forward to this every year, as do many other readers who come back to participate every summer. The challenge is easy-going for summer (and it works if it’s the start of winter where you are, too!) – you only have to read one book with 400 or more pages between now and Labor Day (September 2). Easy, right? Many of us, though, take this opportunity to tackle some of the bigger and oft-ignored books on our shelves or TBR lists. I had fun on Friday going through my shelves and picking out a bunch of 400+ page books! I won’t get to all of them this summer, but I like to have a nice selection to choose from. You can read all about the 2019 Big Book Summer Challenge, sign-up (those who don’t have a blog can leave a comment or use the Goodreads group to sign up), and see what I hope to read this summer! Hope you’ll join the fun!

And, speaking of fun, here’s what my family and I have been reading this week:

I finished Inheritance by Dani Shapiro, a memoir that has gotten a lot of buzz this year and with good reason. It’s the fascinating story of a woman who sent her saliva off to Ancestry.com (just because someone gave her and her husband kits as a gift) and was shocked to discover that her father was not actually her biological father and she was only half-Jewish, not 100% Orthodox Jewish, as she’d thought. Her parents are both dead, so she can’t ask them and sets off to dig into her own history, find her biological father, and figure out how this happened. It’s just as good as everyone said and is a very moving story – not just about genetics but also about family, culture, and identity.

Next, I finally had a chance to read True Grit by Charles Portis, a classic Book Cougars podcast that my husband recently read, too. I enjoyed the 2010 movie remake so knew the general story, but the novel was so good! It’s set in 1870′s Arkansas, where a 14-year-old girl wants to avenge her father’s murder by chasing after the outlaw who shot him. She teams up with a Federal Marshal, who is widely known as the meanest Marshal in the region, and a Texas Ranger, both of whom have their own reasons for wanting to capture this particular man. It’s filled with action and suspense, as I expected, but the novel is also very, very funny! Mattie (the girl) is a fantastic character, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Now, I can join in the readalong discussions and listen to the podcast episode!
western and a readalong for the

Last night, I started my first Big Book of the Summer! Yay! I kicked things off with a doozy – a 959-page chunkster – Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Coincidentally, this is another readalong for the Book Cougars podcast, for June, plus another classic (I am behind on my Classics Challenge), and from my own shelves, so it counts for several challenges. I’ve never read the novel and saw the movie many decades ago, and I am enjoying it so far…even though I can barely hold it up!

On audio, I am still listening to a YA novel, The Knowing by Sharon Cameron, the sequel to The Forgetting, which I listened to on audio two years ago (review at the link). It’s an original and engrossing science fiction dystopian novel about memory, but to say any more about the second book would give away spoilers about the first book. Suffice it to say, it is a suspenseful and compelling story that I am enjoying just as much as the first one.

My husband, Ken, finished Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones, a Booktopia book that I read recently and passed onto him. You can read my review at the link – it’s a fast and funny thriller about an ex-cop in Detroit who stumbles onto a crime involving young undocumented immigrant women. He enjoyed it, especially its sense of humor (as did I), and we are both looking forward to reading the first in the series, August Snow, which I bought at Booktopia after meeting the author.

Ken has now started his Big Book Summer Challenge, too! He’s reading Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly, a novel where the author combines two of his popular characters, Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard, who was introduced in The Late Show, which Ken also enjoyed. In this new cross-over novel, the two team up on the unsolved murder of a runaway. Which reminds me, the new season of the TV adaptation of Connelly’s novels, Bosch, just started April 19 – can’t wait! We both love the show (and the books, of course).

Our son, Jamie, 24, is reading a novel that we put in his Easter basket, The Wolf, by Leo Carew, book 1 in the Under the Northern Sky series. I picked it out for him at an awesome indie bookstore at the beach in Delaware, Browseabout Books, because the epic fantasy sounded right up his alley. He’s loving it. Jamie thinks my Big Book Summer Challenge is hilarious because everything he reads (including this one) counts as a Big Book!

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog’s page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?