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Hello,

This post is a few days late as I was away part of the weekend and then had guests that left today. I hope everyone's week went well.

I finished both of the books I was reading last week. First I finished my neighborhood book club's August selection, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir. I enjoyed this book and read it fairly quickly. It was very interesting to read about the collapse of magazines several years ago and view it from the inside. There are so many magazines I used to enjoy that just don't exist anymore. I read those late at night and don't want to view a screen.

I also finished, just today, my audiobook of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It was a short audiobook, only 9 hours. I have its sequel lined up next in audiobooks. I enjoyed the overall story well enough. The one thing I didn't like is that it clearly left a cliffhanger for book 2. It mostly wrapped up until the last few sentences. Even in a series I prefer standalone stories.

I also started a book that I got from a family member at our recent family reunion vacation. I would not have picked this book myself, but I finished my other book and needed something to read. It is The Last Original Wife. I'm not yet sure how I feel about this book. Although the main character is demographically similar to me in age, adult children, etc, the premise is very far from my experience. The main character is the "last original wife" in their club friend group. The other original wives (either died or divorced) were replaced by "Barbie wives". The main characters are not that likable. Yet I'm oddly curious at the moment.

QOTW:
I'll borrow from Bonafide Bookworm again. What is the first book you remember reading? (Either yourself or with a parent).

For me I remember sitting and reading with my mother in a green chair in the corner of the living room in the house I grew up in. I know that the various Curious George ones were my favorite books. I also remember going to the library for books to be read to me. I also have memories of the Flicka, Ricka and Dicka books and Snipp, Snapp and Snurr books.

In terms of reading myself, I am of the age where I actually learned on the actual Dick and Jane primers. I probably read Dr. Seuss early in my reading life. Real book memories start with Beverly Clearly with Henry Huggins and Beezus and Ramona.

I am so with you on cliffhangers! Authors can leave an opening for further stories, but I will read the next one if I liked this one, not because oh no sudden twist what will happen?!? If I'm iffy on continuing, that will actually put me off rather than pull me in.

Legends & Lattes - I hopped on the bandwagon with this one. It was cute! It was not my jam quite as much as it seems to've been other people's. I am unlikely to read any sequels unless maybe the little rat guy is the protagonist.

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks - I loved this one! It's sort of a collection of fun facts about the history of writing, printing, typography, grammatical practice, et cetera, organized around the evolution of different characters. It's not comprehensive or really all that cohesive, but it was very entertaining.

QOTW: The first books I remember are probably Pat the Bunny and The Telephone Book. Seuss was in the mix pretty early as well. I couldn't tell you the first book I read myself, as that would've been more of a gradual transition, but I remember taking most of a day to finish Charlotte's Web and being fairly proud of myself. I think I was in first grade, and it might have been my first "chapter book".

Last week's books were a pretty eclectic mix!

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett - The previous two books I'd read were fairly heavy and cerebral, so I needed to chase them with something fun. Discworld is always good for that! I went straight to the Pratchett section in the library to see if they had any of the books I hadn't read yet and settled on this one. As delightful as Discworld always is!

Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell - I found this kind of meh. The premise sounded like fun - the author is the owner of a secondhand bookshop in Scotland - and I was expecting funny/weird customer stories. Instead, it was a Linnaeus-style taxonomy of the different types of customer, and some of the descriptions were more mean-spirited than witty.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu (re-read) - I've actually been spacing these stories out between my last few novels. If you like short stories, I highly recommend these. The title story won a ton of awards and it's just gorgeous.

Feed by Mira Grant (pseudonym that Seanan McGuire uses for her SF/horror fiction) - This has been languishing on my kindle for years, and I procrastinated on picking it up despite hearing rave reviews because zombies aren't really my jam and I just couldn't see getting sucked into a zombie book. I should have had more faith in the author than that, because I LOVED it and couldn't put it down. It's not really about zombies, despite the post-zombie-apocalypse setting. It can stand alone, but there are three more books in the series that I definitely want to get to.

I also finished reading James and the Giant Peach to my 7 year old, and started reading 9 From the Nine Worlds with my 11 year old.

QOTW: Preschool me was a big fan of Go, Dog. Go!. I think that was my earliest favorite. I also remember George and Martha, and when I was a little older, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

@rebecca based on your comment I just put in a hold for Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks at my library. It sounds like a great read for me right now. There are available copies so I should have that very soon.

I am also on the hold list (since last November) for Legends & Lattes. I have moved up the list and appear to be #2. With a 3 week circulation and 1 or 2 renewals it still could be a month or more before I get a copy.

Hi all!

Since last check-in, I've had a few finishes:

Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories - I really enjoyed these essays. Not just about writing, Anders talks about her own experiences both as an author and as a trans woman during the pandemic and the previous presidency.

The Bear and the Nightingale - A reread, and I loved it just as much the second time through.

Comics & manga:
The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition, Book One - I read parts of this before, finally getting around to reading the whole series. The parts where Gaiman tries to tie in more with DC superheroes are rather clunky; the parts where Gaiman is allowed to do his own thing are much better.
The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Vol. 2
The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Vol. 3
The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil A Rún, Volume 4

Currently reading:

I am about to start The Girl in the Tower, since I didn't get around to reading the rest of the series before. So diving into the new-to-me part.

QOTW:
The most vivid early childhood memory I have of a book is of The Poky Little Puppy.

As far as chapter books, I know I read a ton of Beverly Cleary when I got a little older. I was also a huge fan of Sweet Valley Twins/High and The Babysitters' Club. Once I got old enough, I pretty much inhaled every book I could get my hands on.