I started this book tonight. #Bangladesh #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

I‘m starting this book tonight, my fourth for #authoramonth this month

@Soubhiville

The birth of #Bangladesh was excruciating, as it tore itself away from East Pakistan. The book is told from the perspective of a mother, Rehana, whose son and daughter are old enough to take active parts in the war for independence. Even Rehana engages in acts of rebellion. This is an excellent book for learning about the war without graphic details of the violence that took place. Sadly the narration of the audiobook provided practically no ⬇️

Astounding! White men are showing up dead alongside long-deceased black men in Money, Mississippi and then around the country. Out west, the newly dead white men are accompanied by long-dead Asian men. A team of Black detectives start putting the pieces together in this deeply racist town where Emmett Till was murdered. And it seems extremely elderly Mama Z, who has recorded every lynching in the United States, may be connecting the dots, too. ⬇️

A terrible photo but isn‘t it nice to know the good ole USA isn‘t the only country banning books. Genocidal #Rwanda also banned books. 😡 #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

My daughter created the artwork I previously posted for Vesak Day. And then my coloring app had this! So I‘ll post it again! Happy Vesak Day! #Bangladesh #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Im reading (listening to) this book next for #authoramonth

@Soubhiville

Buddha Purnima, also known as Vaishakhi Purnima or Vesak Day, is the biggest religious festival for Buddhists and was celebrated across #Bangladesh, where it is observed as a public holiday, with dignity and solemnity. Happy Vesak Day!

#foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Im reposting for @TheBookHippie Please join us!

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A very very mini story today:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJhWLV0AQzw/?img_index=1&igsh=MWNiNndldTFwbmZjMQ==

To my beautiful wonderful mom @Doll8455 and all the moms out there!!

I‘ve started this next book for #authoramonth @Soubhiville

The topic of this book is so serious and sad but sometimes it‘s just so darned funny! Case in point…

#authoramonth @Soubhiville

#weekendreads #Bangladesh and #Rwanda for #foodandlit and Percival Everett book for #authoramonth @Catsandbooks @Soubhiville

@rachelsbrittain

“Rehana taught Silvi how to plunge the paratha in the hot oil, wait until it was almost crisp, then tip the egg into its centre. Mrs Imam was bringing the egg paratha in batches from the kitchen….

The egg-paratha finished, Rehana passed around a plate of wrapped betel.”

Looks so yummy!!

#Bangladesh #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

I‘m still reading The Trees (so good) by this author but getting close to the end so I‘ve checked out two more of his books from Libby. I may like Trees better than James, which I read last year. What an author!! #authoramonth @Soubhiville

Imagine receiving this warning from your mother before heading off to school each day. #Rwanda #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Excellent chapter in the book

#authoramonth @Soubhiville

Aunt Pishi married an elderly man when she was 7, and she was widowed at 12. Our main character Somlata comes from a poor family and marries into the once-wealthy Mitra family. Somlata comes into possession of Pishi‘s box of gold jewelry when Pishi dies, gold that would help the family maintain its life of luxury but Pishi‘s ghost threatens Somlata with death if the gold is given away. So, Somlata must find another way to help this family ⬇️

This is a hard book to process as I think on reviewing it. I suspect a large part has to do with cultural differences that the translator described in a note at the end of the book. I appreciated learning this. In addition, the people of #Bangladesh have such very different priorities than I‘m accustomed to. But that‘s the benefit of reading books from around the world-learning the vast differences in our people live their lives. #foodandlit

Wartime spies were not always men. Women spies, while being highly effective during WWI, faced unique dangers. This dual timeline book tells English spy Eve‘s story from the Great War and American Charlie‘s story looking for her French cousin Rose who went missing during WWII. Scottish Finn, ex-soldier with his own grim past, is their driver through the French countryside piecing together the horrors Eve and Rose faced. The other female spies ⬇️

Im going to have to look up these dishes from #Bangladesh made by the main character

#foodandlit @Catsandbooks

This is such a good book

#authoramonth @Soubhiville

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJZqT1ZPcsk/?igsh=YjJ0MmE1eDdlcHAy

Too cute not to share

#tlt #threelistThursday

Faves: tagged
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein

I‘ve read and really liked David Copperfield. I expect to read Dickens‘ other books this year for #whattheDickens and I‘ll probably read Mansfield Park someday

I recently bought The Three Musketeers so I‘m looking forward to that one

Not a huge fan of the books I read in high school and college: The Scarlet Letter and Candide

I‘ve picked my next #foodandlit book for #Bangladesh

@Catsandbooks

All about food in this exchange between a ghost and the main character. #Bangladesh #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Audio coloring tonight

#Bangladesh #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Thanks to a review by @Bookworm54 I‘m reading this book for my next audiobook. #Bangladesh #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Way to win it Mr Everett! #authoramonth @Soubhiville

I‘m starting this book tonight for #authoramonth @Soubhiville

Three women worked at Bletchley Park breaking Nazi enigma codes during WWII, where they became friends and even started a book club! But the friendship is torn asunder because being were sworn to secrecy, they couldn‘t reveal what they learned in their jobs to prevent unspeakable tragedy. Worse yet, a traitor may have been in their midst jeopardizing one of their lives. The remaining disenchanted friends had to decide whether they should ⬇️

I loved this reference to Manderley!! Anyone else pick up on that? #authoramonth @Soubhiville

Treating myself and daughter to pedicures while we read our books. Busy weeks ahead of us as she finishes her undergraduate classes before graduation and work is going crazy for me. Son is still sound asleep from the long trek home from his university in northern Arizona for the summer.

#authoramonth @Soubhiville

Today‘s mini story

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJPSJ6vg2BL/?igsh=MW1uaW83NGkxYWx4dw==

#5joysFriday

1-2) We spent 3 days getting son (on left) & his friend home from first year at university for the summer & getting to eat amazing BBQ on top of a NM mountain at Mad Jacks
3) Safe drive home from northern Arizona, thru New Mexico, back to San Antonio
4) Sister gave me a cat coloring book
5) I made a welcome card for my new paralegal who loves pink, and graduation cards for my daughter (college) and grand-niece (high school)

Who‘s excited for our #foodandlit country #Bangladesh for May? I‘ve got so many books to read for it! And don‘t you just love this artwork by @Catsandbooks ? Here‘s to another great reading Month!!

Happy May the Fourth!

Not book related…we were driving son home from his university in northern Arizona when this happened:

A freak snowstorm at high altitude tonight driving toward home through New Mexico. A woman had swerved into a ditch. We had to stop until good samaritans pulled her out. They were so nice. And it was a bit scary driving in snow at night in May. One more full day on the road.

April wrap-up: I finished two books for March #foodandlit #Ireland, then read four books for April #Rwanda (still working on my fifth). I read one book for #authoramonth Kate Quinn (still reading two more), and one book I finished from last month‘s author Leigh Bardugo. And I read Keeping House as an impulse read.

I tagged my favorite book of the month, but it was a close call.

Deborah is a mystic who helps a young girl heal her weak body. Grown up, the girl, now a professor in the USA, goes back to #Rwanda to learn Deborah‘s fate. I struggled to follow this story. There is so much more to it, but I couldn‘t follow who was who, when things were happening, etc. I blame it almost entirely on the fact that I listened to it. I sometimes wish narrators would tell us when a new section is started, even just a longer pause. ⬇️

This is #Rwanda President Paul Kagame‘s story through 2008 (he‘s still president today). A young Tutsi refugee from the violence by the Hutus even back in the 1950s, he fought in Uganda, secretly training to become a rebel soldier to try to return to Rwanda. As he built a secret army, the genocide in 1994 occurred. He was able to dismantle the Hutu government and would eventually be elected president. He assembled a Hutu/Tutsi government, and ⬇️

#two4Tuesday

1) When hubs and I married we had about 500 books each. He had to ship his books to America via boat when he married me. He couldn‘t leave them behind in Norway! Between us, now about 37 years later, I‘d say we have between 5,000-6,000 physical books. We‘ve got eternity covered!

2) Tagged! So artfully written by 7 authors to be read as a novel or 7 short stories. It was for #authoramonth

@TheSpineView @Soubhiville

#wondrouswednesday

1) It happened to me today!! My secretary made a homemade chocolate cake. It was yummy but different from any cake I‘ve eaten in years. When I went into our break room later the smell hit me! It was my grandmother‘s chocolate cake! The memories just flooded in!
2) One summer carrying my rag doll cat, Mama Yeller, over my shoulder while pulling my little red wagon with milk jugs of water to water my tomato plants, which thrived!

I‘m always learning new things from books too sweet kitty.

So appropriate this last day of April reading about how precious milk is in #Rwanda for #foodandlit. For example, from the BBC: “Unique to Rwanda, milk bars reflect a little-known truth about how intrinsic cows and milk are to Rwandan culture.” I‘ve truly discovered that in this month‘s books. @Catsandbooks

I‘m squeezing in one more book for April for #foodandlit #Rwanda @Catsandbooks

This book strives to reset our mindsets. Society teaches us that to be a “good” person/parent/spouse we should have a neat, clean house. The author suggests that a neat, clean house is not an issue of goodness or badness; it‘s a functional issue. We aren‘t meant to be the servant to house. It is supposed to serve us. With that change in mindset, the goal is no longer perfection but function. On days when parenting, chronic pain, work, etc keeps ⬇️

In a small town near Belfast, during the Troubles, Cushla juggles her teaching job, bar keeping at the family bar at night, a perpetually drunk mother, the man she‘s having an affair with, and giving her heart to a young student whose poor Protestant family is barely making ends meet when the father is beaten so badly he can no longer function. There‘s a lot going on yet this short book moves at a snail‘s pace. We are given intimate details ⬇️