Welcome to Litsy!

Thanks to @TheSpineView & @Eggs for the #Two4Tuesday tags! 🤗

1️⃣ Nothing unusual or that talented although I do have a head for random trivia & can remember the smallest details of facts of things I‘m interested in while forgetting where I parked my car 30 minutes ago! 😆

2️⃣ The Ribkin family has unusual & sometimes not that useful talents like making precise maps of places, belching fire & seeing colors no one else can see.🤷🏻‍♀️

Loved this book about a man looking back in his life (because he‘s being chased by enforcers for a man to whom he owes $$) of people who served as a Justice League of sorts for Civil Rights in the 1960s.

This was a lovely book about family, legacy, and the various paths we take through life for better or for worse. I wasn‘t quite sure what to expect, but the unusual nature of the story was a nice surprise, and the characters warmed my heart.

This #roadtrip through Florida was great! 72 year old Johnny Ribkins owes someone a lot of money and he is trying to find all the places he had buried treasures in his past. He has a special superpower-he‘s a mapmaker. He also has a sidekick for his adventure-his niece who also has a quirky superpower. This is a fun romp with very interesting characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It‘s about a family with unconventional superpowers, and how they started out trying to do good and ending up using them to commit crimes. But it‘s more about family and what it means to be part of one even when it isn‘t perfect. Delightful, and my book about someone with a superpower for #popsugarreadingchallenge

#WanderingJune 🚘
When I hear #RoadToNowhere I think of quirky road trips which makes me think of this book I read & was on a book tour for in 2017. About a road trip where 72-year-old Johnny Ribkins drives all over Florida with his niece Eloise digging up money he buried to pay off his mobster boss & teaching her about the Ribkins family & their unique gifts. Good fun & since it's been a year since I used it for a prompt, I can't resist it. 😆

While I was cooking my weekly home made meal for #BookFitnessChallenge, I didn‘t listen to an audiobook, but I DID listen to the GET BOOKED podcast, which put the tagged book on my TBR. Has anyone read it? 😄

This recipe is Cold Pork Noodles with Cucumber and Peanuts from the NYT. I tried to copy the link, but it kept opening in my NYT Cooking app, lol. 🤷🏻‍♀️

#BFC

For 72yo Johnny Ribkins it may seem like a #Long&windyroad driving all over Florida with a niece he never knew he had, trying to find money he buried all over the state, while visiting relatives along the way which make it feel like he‘s on the #HighwaytoHell, all so he can pay off a mob boss. Also, the Ribkins each have a superpower. Shout out to The Road which I have overused but would also fit these prompts. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

72yo Johnny Ribkins owes some money to a boss and has a week to retrieve it. He goes to dig up money he has buried all over Florida. He finds out he has a 13yo niece he never knew about. He suddenly finds himself with an unexpected passenger. Also, every Ribkins has a special power. This novel had a depth I wasn‘t expecting. It was about family and how they‘re all we got sometimes no matter how crazy they are. About race and politics. Soo good!!!

I wasn‘t expecting what I got, but it was what I needed. Charming book about family, forgiveness, understanding, inequality, justice, obligations, road trips, magical realism, and love ❤️

Wow. This book is magical, and while it seemed to be about one thing at first, the author managed to pull together threads from all over the place and make a story I didn‘t see coming. It‘s about a family with magical talents, about racial inequality and the quest for justice, but it‘s mostly about family and the love, loyalty, and identity that a family gives you. Highly recommend.

This was a fun and quick read about a family who all have special talents. It's about the importance of family and standing up for each other and finding a sense of belonging.

Excellent road trip story that is part fantastical ( everyone in the Ribkins family has a ‘gift‘ much like a super power but believable: scale walls, catch things even with eyes closed, make maps from predictions) and part family drama. Johnny discovers he as a niece who who takes with him as he tries to come up with money to pay off a debt. We learn all about the past and solve a mystery too

Next ( I love long weekends )

I wanted to like it. The concept was sort of fun, but the story didn‘t make sense.

I got a lovely pile of books for my birthday 🎂 my husband gets me

#NuYear #cars 🚗This book didn't make my #17in2017 list, but it was close. A quirky story centering around a road trip where 72-year old Johnny Ribkins drives all over Florida digging up loot he hid over the years to pay off a loan shark & introducing his teenage niece Eloise to the quirky Ribkins family & their history-the family has some unique & slightly sad superpowers. A book about family, race, class & using your gifts--whatever they are.🚗

The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard is a slow, but very intriguing story about a man on a mission, his niece (whom he just found out existed), and a long family history of "peculiarities".

I enjoyed this read quite it bit! It was a wonderfully slow book to throw in-between my fast-paced thrillers that I have been reading recently!

Check out my full review here: http://www.ericarobynreads.com/2017/09/book-review-talented-ribkins.html?m=1

3.5/5⭐️. I liked the idea and the story line, but I felt there should have been more. I wanted to know about the families back story. I would read another book related to the Ribkins.

This multigenerational road trip adventure gently tackles themes such as race, class, politics, and family. It's literary fiction with a dash of superhero novel added in. As you mull over the themes, you find it actually goes much deeper. There are so many layers! This is the kind of book you can read more than once and have more insight each time, depending on your approach. This book made me happy *and* made me think. Highly recommend!

Day 31 #AndItsAugust #BestofAugust Catching up from yesterday with August stats & Best of August. Overall a good reading month. In addition to the finished books I started several others & have 2 in process for #hpchapteraday & #LOTRchapteraday I read plenty of great books this month, but these 4 are the ones I enjoyed the most or found most interesting. Still behind on reviews-Litsy & Goodreads-so I may try to work on that this holiday weekend.📚

Between work & 2 book tour reviews this week, I'm running behind.😬 Stats & Best of August posts are coming but this one is definitely on it. Unique & engaging--it was more than the comics-come-to-life I was expecting. A bit road trip, multi-generational family drama, magical realism & black history. Here with book-inspired Baby Tomatoes with Herbs & Mozzarella for my book tour blog post & I'm giving away a copy (US/Canada) there too-link👇🏻 📚❤️

Granted I will probably have to jump back into work mode tonight to finish something up, but I needed (& relished taking) a long, late lunch break this afternoon to go through some unread cooking magazines, spend time with The Talented Ribkins (for a book tour review tomorrow), & nosh on leftover Moroccan Corn Chowder from Sunday. 🌽🍲(BTW-The adorable bookmark is the work of @LibrarianRyan & from her last photo challenge) ❤️❤️❤️

#TBRtemptation post 2! Recently released. Inspired by a W.E.B. Dubois essay, this is the story of 72-year-old Johnny, stolen money, the civil rights movement, and his family which has superpowers: seeing invisible colors, scaling flat walls, belching fire, making precise maps. They called themselves The Justice Committee. This is a big-hearted novel about race, politics, family, and doing right. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

This week's new books.

Sat down to dip into this one for an upcoming tour. Fifty pages later, I remembered that I had things to do.

I'm looking forward to this one.