#weeklyforecast
Delighted to have finished some books I have been reading for weeks now. Fresh start this week!!
I am picking up Shrill: Lindy West #NFNov
Hope to be able to get to Salvage the Bones: Jesmyn Ward to finish off the Reading Women challenge for 2019. I will continue to listen to Galore: Michael Crummy. Not sure I will hit my Goodreads goal this year, but I sure am trying!!

It has taken me two months to finish this novel. I had trouble connecting with the characters in the first half. The structure of the the book alternating from present day to chapters about the past felt like it kept the characters at arms length. I found the last 100 pages gripping and flew through them. Certainly a slow character driven narrative with a beautiful ending. 3.5 🌟

Dear friend gifted me this book today!! Excited for our first Buddy read. #booksintranslation.

#BookReport
I finished two nonfiction books for #NFNov.
I Am I Am I am : Maggie O'Farrell
The Fire Next Time: James Baldwin
DNF No Friend But The Mountain: Behrouz Boochani I think it was a case of wrong book at the wrong time. I hope to go back to it some day.
I have to finish Happiness: Aminatta Forna by Monday as it is due at the library. Just started Galore: Michael Crummy.

Written the year I was born...and how little we have learned. Happy to have finally read this classic text. #NFNov #nonfictionnovember.

Ferociously written memoir looking at a life by sharing near death experiences. Wonderful writting. Makes me want to read her fiction work. 4.5 🌟#NFNov #nonfictionnovember

After reading Heavy, I was inspired to listen to The Fire Next Time. #NFNov #nonfictionnobember this is my best Nonfiction November I have ever had!

Just started this yesterday and already loving it!! Great narrator on the audiobook. #NFNov #nonfictionnovember #audiobook

What I think of this book does not matter. This book was not written for me. I found it brutal, beautiful, disturbing and poetic. In its form it reminds me of On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous. It is a letter from a son written to a single mother.

Starting this memoir today. I have read some great reviews! #NFNov #nonfictionnovember

This is the week that I finish this amazing book. Told by a Kurdish poet that is being held on an island off the coast of Australia. How the world deals with war refugees is the question of this moment in history. #NFNov #nonfictionnovember

Compulsively readable. I devoured this in two days. Short chapters and lots of cliff hangers. Worth a try.

Painful, beautiful, fantastical, amazing. 4.5 🌟

♥️ Knoxville TN
🧡57
💛 Recruiter by day, Reader by night
💚 Married
💙 Ms.
💜 Email preface

The tagged book is one of my favorite reads of 2019.

#nonfictionnovember just started this one in the predawn hours.

Slow reading month for me. Top read was by far The Beekeeper of Aleppo 📖🎧 5 🌟.
Other reads:
They Called Us Enemy: George Takei 📖 2 🌟
Fox 8: George Saunders 📖 3 🌟
To Be Taught if Fortunate: Becky Chambers 📖 3 🌟
Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow: Jessica Townsend 📖🎧 4 🌟

Current reads are: The Water Dancer, No Friend but the Mountains, The Name of the Wind and Happiness by Aminatta Forna.

What a delight. So looking forward to the next book in the series.

This is what happens when your holds come in at the library!! I am mid way in these 5 books. So different from each other, but loving everyone of them. If only life would let me read full time!

#readingproblem when almost all your holds come into the library at one time. I know what I will be doing this weekend!! This is why I need to retire...so many great books to read!

She is so good at writing relationships and communities. This was less enjoyable than her trilogy but I am still glad that I read it!

5 🌟!! Beautiful refuge story of a marriage and the great loss of family and home. In the end it is how we all help each other survive. So much love in this book. Highly recommend. One of the best books I have read this year.

What a sweet novella! This is my first George Saunders.

Loved the art work and the information. I found the writing to be clumsy.

Great reading month. 8 books 3 were 4+ 🌟reads!
Suite Francaise: Irene Nemirovsky 3.5 🌟 🎧
Miranda in Milan: Katherine Duckett 2 🌟 📖
Little Bee: Chris Cleave 2.5 star Book 🎧📖
The Best We Could Do: Thi Bui 4 🌟📖
David Copperfield: Charles Dickens 4.5 🌟 🎧
The Testaments: Margaret Atwood 3.5 🌟 📖
Red at the Bone: Jacqueline Woodson 4. 🌟🎧
The Last Train to London: Meg Waite Clayton 3 🌟
@HarperCollins @RiverheadBooks @SimonSchuster

My best friends Mom sent me such a thoughtful gift!! Presents for no reason are the best!!

Tight writing and some beautiful story telling. I just wish it had been longer.

A friend posted this on Instagram today. This feeling is so real for me on this Monday. It is getting harder and harder to motivate myself to excel at my job.

I enjoyed being back in Gilead (if enjoy is the right word). I felt that the first half of the book was stronger than the second half. I am glad that I read it but I don't think it is award worthy. Loved that she has kept the same frame work from the Handmaids Tale with the end of the Testaments. 3.5 🌟

What a wonderful epic story! I love the core of this novel. As with all Dickens, it could have been shorter. However I love the characters and laughed out loud in airports while listening to this novel over the course of several difficult trips this summer and fall.

Powerful graphic memoir. Thi Bui traces her parents past through the Vietnam war and their journey to the US. She explores the transition from being a child into parenthood and the shift of how we view our own parents. Thi comes to see her parents as individuals and not just as a characters in her life story. That shift of perspective feels universal and very powerful. Wonderful book. Highly recommend!

I returned 2 books to the library unread because I am feeling overwhelmed by how many books I am reading currently. So what did I do?? Picked up 3 books!! At least 2 of these should be a fast read. I need to retire do I can get caught up on my TBR.

Yup...jumped on the hype train!

I read and listened to this on audio. I enjoyed the physical reading more than the audio. Narrators can make or break a book for me. I found the characters muddled and frustrating. I don't need a main character to be likable but this book put me to the test with so many of the characters both unlikable and unbelievable. I also found the metaphor of the book obvious. I was not a fan. 2.5 🌟

Set in Milan after the end of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Reads like YA fan fiction. This book tries to right the sexism and racism in the play. Easy fast read. Written by an LGBTQ+ author from East Tennessee. I won this book from Tor.com. I wish that I had found it a better read because on paper it should be perfect for me...E. Tennessee queer writer writing about Shakespeare characters. 2 🌟

August 2019 reading wrap up:
Human Acts: Han Kang 4 🌟 📖🎧
The Wall: John Lanchester 3.5 🌟🎧
Middlegame: Seanan McGuire 2 🌟 📖
Lost Children Archive: Valeria Luiselli 4..5 🌟📖🎧
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: Ocean Vuong 4 🌟🎧
Queenie: Candice Carty-Williams 3 🌟🎧
Clock Dance: Anne Tyler 2 🌟📖🎧
The Memory Police: Yoko Ogawa 4 🌟🎧
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms : N. K. Jemisin 3.5 🌟📖
Suite Francaise: Irene Nemirovsky 3 🌟📖🎧

I just love her writing. Complicated, engaging and page turning read...just what I was looking for. 3.5 🌟

Just got to hear the author speak at the local independent bookstore ( Avenue Books) here in Knoxville. I had no idea that Rachel DeLoache Williams was from Knoxville. The book sounds amazing. I don't usually read true crime but I loved what she read.

Next up for #WIT month. This classic woman in translation novel. I have recently been reading the physical book and then listening to the audio book when I have to get work done. Loving that combination!!

Wow...I am going to have to sit with this one for a while. Not what expected. It is set in a dystopian future but the story felt much more pointed toward how women's voices are silenced. How women are maneuvered to give up their voice and agency. this was written in the early 90's and is just now being translated. Well worth a read! I flew through it. 4 🌟

Weekend plans!!

I love Anne Tyler. Reading her work is a bit like coming home. Although I found this read enjoyable it did not challenge or add anything for me. Not her best book, but I will continue to read all she writes.

I almost DNF'd this but I am glad that I stuck with it. It started like an x-rated Bridget Jones and it was hard for me to read about how Queenie was being abused. But then the story turned for me and I realized this was a story about how to get better. 3 🌟

Hope to start the Inheritance trilogy today or tomorrow. ❤️ N. K. Jemisin!

Quick lunch time run to my local independent bookstore (avenue books) to pick up this beauty. Hope to read it this month for Women in Translation Month! So sad that work cuts so much into my reading time!!

A beautiful brutal graphic cry of pain. Written like poetry and reads like a memoir. It does not feel like fiction at all. Another book that I would like to study to understand all the references and the intricate structure.

These are the books that I picked up in one of my favorite bookstores in Louisville KY.

Great weekend with my daughter in Louisville KY! Bourbon and books. This is the haul from Half Price Books.

Amazing...I see why it has gotten so much attention. So layered yet I really connected with all the characters. I listened to this on Scrbid and read the physical book. Great to hear the sound recording that are described in the book and get to see the pictures referenced. This is a text I would love to study. 4.5 🌟

@bromeliad I just picked this up from the library for Women in Translation Month. Have you read this author? Her novel Please Look After Mom is one of my all time favorites. The Court Dancer is also good but more straight forward. Hope to get the tagged book started this weekend.

I found this disappointing. I love the Wayward children series. This book felt repetitive and much longer than it needed to be. It had the signature fairy tale elements but dragged for me. 2 🌟