It's Monday! What are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Share what you (are, have been, are about to, hope to be) reading or reviewing this week. Sign Mr Linky at Book Journey and visit other Monday reading roundups.

I am still reading the ebook for Bookjourney's Read-a-Long for Daphne du Mauier's Rebecca.  And I have continued reading the ebook I was reading aloud to my Mom while staying there: At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon.

I arrived home two weeks ago yesterday and of all the catching up I needed to do at that time--housework, sleeping, writing, unpacking, loved ones, etc--reading was highest on my list over everything but writing and loved ones but sleeping took the upper hand for most of the frist week.

Reading has reclaimed its territory and then some.

Besides those two novels which I will continue to read over the next week or three I also returned to the several non-fiction books I've had going for some time: 


The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton
Get Your Loved One Sober by Robert Meyers
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher

All four of those are research for the writing side of my life.  The third one for a character tho I won't deny I there are potential real life application for the info.

I am taking all four slow as that is my preferred way to read non-fic.  It sticks with me longer.

Tho it was posted a week ago Saturday I want to point you towards my review for Joshua Henkin's The World Without You.  I was really looking forward to this one as I loved his Matrimony. It met my expectations and then some.

A week ago yesterday I started reading The End of Everything by Megan Abbott and it took over my life.  Let me suggest that starting a book that features a missing child is not a recommended bedtime activity.

To call this a story about a missing child tho is quite misleading.  It is much more.  With its 13 year old narrator it has all the earmarks of a coming of age story but I'm not quite sure it is that or at least not only that.  It is like reading a dream.

And this wasn't even one of the ten or so review copy books I still owe reviews for.  It was in my ebook library and I didn't recognize the title so I opened it.  At 5am.  Already two hours past my ideal bedtime.  Next thing I knew it was nearly noon.

I'd hoped to get a review posted by now but didn't get it done.  That is in my reading goals for this week.   *smacking forehead with heal of hand*  I did post my review on the 26th!!  Must have been sleepwriting.

I also hope to get a review up for Grace McCleen's The Land of Decoration which I loved as much or more than The End of Everything.  But I may have to nearly reread it as I read it the week I was preparing for the trip back to Mom's near the end of March.  Besides the first time through I had difficulty separating out the emotional triggers rooted in my personal history from the 'legitimate' author-intended emotional impact.  Tho maybe I'm mistaken in thinking that is necessary.  If even possible.

The narrator protagonist is a pre-teen being raised in a fundamentalist Christian sect that is so similar to the one I was raised in, it might even be the same one or the parent sect to the parent sect of ours.  The author doesn't name the sect though.  She is being bullied at school because of the strangeness her faith imparts on her in the eyes of the other kids--just as I was.  And she escapes the pain of this isolation through elaborate daydreams and building of a model of the Promised Land aka Land of Decoration out of scraps, trash, weeds and clay.  Just as I did if you substitute story writing and the world building of those stories in my daydreams.

I am also reading a novel for a blog tour slated for next month.  For this tour I'm to post twice: a review on August 7th and an author interview with giveaway on August 8th.  This is for The Reluctant Matchmaker by Shobhan Bantwal.  I'm already half way through the PDF ARC I received.


I've always read multiple non-fic concurrently but I nearly never used to read two novels at once let alone...how many now?  They are not all listed here.  Only the ones I spent time with this past week and/or intend to spend time with in the coming week.  Besides Grace McCleen's novel I have 8 or 10 more review copies lined up and that is only the physical ones.


I have been anxious to get back the library books I was reading before my first trip to Mom's in January but I'm still looking for my library card which I can't remember seeing since our move the day after Christmas.  I may just have to report it missing and get a new one.  Again.  The last time was just last fall.  I was sure it would turn up in the sorting and unpacking from the move but I've been through everything I think.