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Happy (a little later than usual) Thursday, my fellow readers! What a week this has been in my household. My company is relocating our department to another floor so I had to pack up my office (sniff) and get ready for cubicle-life (boo!) My son had his meet-the-teacher program for kindergarten today so that was eventful and tomorrow is my last day at the office before a 10-day vacation. Woo hoo!

Last week, I read for my "book you haven't read since high school." It was published in 1984 and eventually became a film starring a miscast Michael J. Fox in the lead role. It was a sure shock back to the 1980s culture though and the references to the World Trade Center were bittersweet.

This brings me to 36/41 -- only five to go! I need to move to my book club's pick next which won't satisfy a prompt. I just checked and I don't have books picked out for my remaining prompts. This should be fun. Cue the anxiety.

Monthly challenge
The challenge for September is "a book with a protagonist that has your occupation" so not an opportunity for group read again.

Question of the week: Do you have a favorite coffee table book or photography book?

I was a big fan of the A Day in the Life photography books back in the day (80s? 90s?) In a lot of ways, the Humans of New York books remind me of that series. I used for my "New York Times bestseller" in this year's challenge.

We have so many ways to share photographs now (Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc.) and digital cameras have put photography in everyone's reach. But there's something about a printed photo that is still magical.

Happy almost-the-weekend-and-maybe-I-will-finally-get-some-reading-time!

I have not finished any books in the last week. I picked up some massive books from the library the other week but have made little progress on them.

My September book will likely be The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. It's not an exact fit to what I do, but at least it involves chemistry. And I've heard from a lot of people that this is a good series.

Question of the week: I love looking through coffee table books that are filled with scenic or nature photos. I used to have a "wonders of the world" book which had such beautiful pictures in it!

We also picked up an "America's National Parks" book at the Outer Banks (North Carolina for those not in the know) this summer which is beautiful as well!

After missing numerous weekly check-ins, I am HERE and READY! (Because I'm working halfdays this week so I can stay home with my younger daughter, who has no day camp this week. It's AMAZING what you can get done around the house when you are only working part-time! I wish I worked part-time ALL the time!)

Let's see, this past week I finished Miss Wonderful, a lovely Regency romance which wouldn't fulfill any of the Popsugar categories, except "set in Europe," What Alice Forgot which was an Australian novel that I LOVED (but, again, fulfills NO challenge categories, unless you get it from the library, which I did), and The Graveyard Book audiobook, which turned out to be delightful (but I almost always love Gaiman), and it did have a blue cover in the original edition.

QOTW: I don't have many photography books. I do have A LOT of gardening books, some of which are full of lush and gorgeous photos (examples: Ken Druse's The Natural Habitat Garden and Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden). But really the only photography book that I have, that I have ONLY for its photographs, is Robert Mapplethorpe (I think that's the one I have, it's packed away somewhere so I can't check), which I bought back when I was a penniless grad student, back when he was alive.

I finished The Alchemist this week for my "book translated into English" prompt. I liked it okay. It was a quick read. I'm still plugging away at The Sound and the Fury. Now that I'm finished with the first part (which is stream of conscious) I think I'll have an easier time with the rest of it. I'm at 27/41.

QOTW: I don't personally own any photography books and the only one I can remember sitting down to actually look through for pleasure was Photographic History of the Civil War. My mom owns the four book set. Other than that, I like to buy the DK travel books because they have such beautiful pictures and I love planning future trips I won't be taking any time soon.

I also had a not-so-great reading week. I only finished one book. I have two others in progress though. I hope to finish these this weekend: Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps and The Eighth Guardian.

I read and LOVED Love & Gelato. But it doesn't fit any prompts for me. So I'm holding strong at 32/41.

QOTW I don't have any coffee table books but if I did own one it would be Dogs on Instagram. I'll admit that I follow more puppies on instagram than people I know...whoops.

*Sigh* No progress this week. I finally got my copy of The Nightingale from the library and I plan to finish that and 11/22/63 this coming week. I am in the process of moving so unfortunately not a lot of time for reading. Which really sucks since I am in the middle of four, FOUR books right now.

Question of the week: Do you have a favorite coffee table book or photography book?
I'm not big into photography books but I'm fond of Humans of New York: Stories and The Body Book. Both have pretty covers and clean simple spines so I keep them out.

I also really like fashion photography books. I don't own any but I always flip through them at Half Price. Like Vogue Covers and The Little Dictionary of Fashion. I would love to buy a few of these with gorgeous covers to decorate with.

This week I finished five books: Lord of the Flies for a book that takes place on an island, Girl With a Pearl Earring for a book with a protagonist who has your occupation, The Art of Loving for a self-improvement book and Paris Talks for a book recommended by a family member and After the Welfare State for Book Riot challenge. Some of them touched me in some way, only a bit, and some were time killers. Now I'm at 31 out of 40. Tomorrow I'm going for the new batch of books from library. :D It's nice ignoring house work and stress and only sleeping and reading. Reminds me of my teenage days. :P

QOTW: I would've said no because I have forgotten them through the years and all of them are massive and encyclopedia size but full of photography and one is about the history of architecture, and the other is about nature.

I finished 5 books this week: The Complete Persepolis for a political memoir, Faithful and Virtuous Night for the National Book Award winner (poetry), From the Land of the Moon for a culture I'm not familiar with (Sardinia), The Little Prince for a book with a blue cover and The Haunted Season for the Around the Year Challenge. I liked all of them.

Monthly challenge: I'll probably read The Archivist. I do some archival work at a small local historical society.

QOTW: I have a few books which include photos that I like: Hungry Planet and the kids' version, What the World Eats. Also Herb and spice book which I've had for years and years.

Just in time for the weekly checkin, I finished one book:

✅✅23. A book that is published in 2016 (2): Don DeLillo, Zero K , Simon & Shuster, 2016.



This is a book which got me oscillating between two poles: "this is a very good read" and "ok, just another novel". I eventually rated it three stars, but I was in two minds about that...

It looks like many major (or senior?) American novelists are sort of stuck in their business, which is producing novels. A few characters, a location (or two, not much more than that), a premise and a plot - both can be quite far-fetched, probably sounds good on TV shows; add to that some signature style (run-on sentences if you're Philip Roth, highly-charged, chiseled phrases if you're Don DeLillo), but nothing too innovative, either in form or in structure. The rules of the game that's played between author and reader are uncompromised...

Times when writers where pushing the envelope of what a novel is, say, modernists like Stein or Dos Passos, or the French Nouveau Roman, seem to be long gone. Now it seems there's an unspoken rule: be as daring as you want in your subject matter or your plot, but don't touch the rules of the genre, don't blur the product line. A bit disappointing...

I'm now 55/82, I think. Got a few other books started, some more of them lined up; most will fit in the challenge.

QOTW: most of my "coffee-table" books are art books, exhibit catalogue and such - mostly paintings and sculpture. I do have some books of photography though; I'm especially fond of the work of Sebastiao Salgado, a Bresilian-born photographer. His books on displaced persons and on workers around the globe are particularly fascinating.



In a completely different style, I'm also very fond of a book by performance and conceptual artist Eleanore Antin, based on photographic reconstructions of large, antiquity-inspired academic paintings of the 19th Century. Some are actual paintings; some other are just "in the manner of". It's altogether parodic, funny, beautiful and thought provoking.

I persevered last night and finished one more book for the week:

for my poetry book. This was just as painful as I expected. It has confirmed that poetry is just not my thing. Next year, if poetry makes another appearance on the list I may just give myself permission to substitute another category!

Finished I Don't Care if We Never Get Back: 30 Games in 30 Days on the Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever for my Monthly Challenge Road Trip book. Since I already read my Road Trip book months ago (An Abundance of Katherines), this one will count as my Book from the Library. Loved it, and very glad that I read it.

Currently working through Siddhartha for Book Translated Into English.

On deck will be Yes Please for New York Times Bestseller.

33/41

For September's Monthly Challenge, I'll tackle Zodiac by Neal Stephenson, because I've loved anything he's written that I've read and any excuse to read more is welcome. Plus, I like the idea of the chemist protagonist as a badass Indiana Jones/Sam Spade-type character as opposed to just toiling in a lab like I do.

QOTD: Nope, I do not.

Happy Friday!

I finished two books this week: 1. The Handmaid's Tale as my book I haven't read since high school and 2. Night as my Oprah's Book Club pick. I had forgotten how much of a thinker The Handmaid's Tale was. It's actually pretty frightening. As was Night, which I had never read before. Just heartbreaking.

I'm currently working on my self-help book (this is not the genre for me!) and then have my two remaining books left to go and already picked out! We have a busy Saturday planned but I should get some solid reading time in on Sunday.

38/41

Although we don't really have any photography coffee table books, one of my favorite ones is Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street. I loved the show as a kid and am fascinated with how they made it, so it's a cool one to have around.

Hello, Popsugar friends!

I'm still at 35/41 for now. I'm halfway through the audiobook of The Assistants, which I'm reading for "a book with a protagonist who has your occupation." I tried to hold out until September so it could be my read of the month, but I couldn't do it! It's very fun so far.

I used to have a coffee table book of National Geographic photos called Views of Paradise, or something like that. It had a really wide range of photos that people linked to the concept of "paradise," which was nice - not all sandy beaches, though of course there were a few of those!

28/41 with finishing Night this week for my book I haven't read since High School.

I've never been super into coffee table books, but ones with photos you can flip through draw me in sometimes.

Two books this week! Yes Chef and If You Ask Me. I listened to both read by their authors. That's my new favorite was to do autobiographies I think. Both were good enough. Yes Chef read like a resume a little.

QOTW: I have a 2 year old so my coffee tackle is more of a place to make art, not display it. I do tend to love anything historical, impressionist art, travel or food photography so I think we'll definitely end up with some in the future.

Last week, I completed Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2), which was hella good, and I can't wait until Sanderson finishes the third book in the series.

QOTW: I'm not a big coffee table book reader but I do enjoy things like Bitter Barista and Post Secret.

Just finished #29 last night. I read Artifacts, the first book in the Faye Longchamps series for my mystery. I have 4 books at home that I plan to read for various prompts- Allegiant, Huck Finn, Pride and Prejudice, and Cress, not sure which one I'm in the mood to read at the moment.
I have several coffee table books- mostly nature/travel photography, but don't actually have them on my coffee table- got out of the habit when the kids were little enough to just shove them on the floor if they were using the coffee table!

I finished one book: Lab Girl. I enjoyed it, but it doesn't really fit any of my open challenge prompts (both "published this year" and "from the library" are taken). I also gave up on The Girl with All the Gifts, so I need to find another "made into a movie" book. Leaves me at 31/41.

I started Night at the Fiestas for my "set in your home state" (New Mexico!), and I'm listening to Richard Armitage read David Copperfield. It's excellent, but even at 1.25 speed, it's taking a long time (36 hours!). When I'm done, it will be my "100 years older than you" book.

Monthly Challenge: I'm a journalist, and I finished Black and White and Dead All Over ages ago.

QOTW: I like giant travel books, or interesting cookbooks -- Although I keep a small book on my coffee table: Paris vs New York, which was a gift from friends, and I enjoy flipping through it.

Anna wrote: " I'm listening to Richard Armitage read David Copperfield. It's excellent, but even at 1.25 speed, it's taking a long time (36 hours!). When I'm done, it will be my "100 years older than you" book. "

That is what I used for that prompt too! It was very enjoyable! I loved his performance.

Last week I finished The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) but it didn't fill a prompt.

For September I'm going to finish The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. I work in retail, but it's hard to find many stores in books that aren't bookshops, so I'm just going with it.

QOTW: The best coffee table book I own is The Romanov Legacy: The Palaces of St. Petersburg