Well, the holidays are in full swing! My husband has a Clark Griswold side to him and began decorating our house the day after Thanksgiving. I’m sure our neighbors love the projectile lights we have flashing on our house! But, the best part for me is he genuinely enjoys doing it and takes all that work off my hands. Win-win.
End of the year posts are going to start popping up on the blog this week! Stay tuned for my 2018 Books That Deserved the Hype…and Those That Didn’t list tomorrow and Best Debuts of 2018 list on Thursday. AND…I’ve been working on something big for the past few months (big for this blog, anyway!) and I’m going to be able to tell you about it soon…hopefully in the next few weeks! If you subscribe to my email list, you already know what I’m talking about!
New on the blog
- Annual Holiday Gift Guide – I’ve got book recommendations in 7 categories, my favorite bookish subscription services, and bookish gifts that aren’t books!
- 2019 Rock Your Reading Tracker – I used my “Rock Your Reading Tracker” this year to track all my reading stats in real time and figure out who my best recommendation sources are…and, my reading QUALITY improved 42% from last year! The new and improved 2019 tracker is now available for $14.99…get more details here!
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I finished reading…
The Ensemble
5 star character-driven novel I got completely engrossed in! I really didn’t think I’d like this one and have had the ARC sitting around since May! I cannot believe I almost missed it. Mini review coming.
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I’m currently reading…
This Must Be the Place
I’m almost done with this family / marital drama and I’m loving it! It feels like an epic, but reads easily. And, I’m discovering that I love Maggie O’Farrell’s writing in general. I have a few quibbles with minor plot points, but I’m so glad I went back to her fiction!
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Upcoming reading plans…
Continuing my annual end of year backlist reading…
Olive Kitteridge
Can y’all believe I haven’t read this Pulitzer Prize winner…especially since I loved Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton (my review) and Anything is Possible (my quick thoughts)?! Well, now I have something motivating me to fit it in…Strout has a new book coming out in September 2019 called Olive, Again, so I have to be prepared!
I was reading…
One Year Ago: I read a novel that’s a must read if you like demented characters.
Two Years Ago: I took the week off.
How was your reading week?
I haven’t read Olive Kitteridge either – I think the Pulitzer Prize part intimidates me. I want to read The Ensemble.
Ha! I’m doing the hyped books on Wednesday and best debuts next Tuesday. It will be fun to see which ones we have in common. I’ll also be curious to find out what you think of Olive Kitteridge. I didn’t love it the way so many other did. For me it sort of had the Pulitzer curse.
I’ve been wanting to read Olive Kitteridge, since I loved the miniseries a while back.
I have loved everything I’ve read by Maggie O’Farrell. Enjoy your week!
Here are MY WEEKLY UPDATES
This Must Be the Place sounds good. Family drama is fun when it’s not your family!
My roundup!
We may or may not get our Christmas tree up before Christmas Eve. Neither my brother nor I am into decorating. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
Wow some great books going on at your place. I’ve barely started decorating. Oops.
I’ll be interested in your thoughts on Olive Kitteridge. It’s been quite a while since I read it, but I remember being kind of underwhelmed by most of it…while a couple of the stories were a punch in the gut. Very uneven, for me.
Enjoy your month of backlist reading!
You’re already doing best of lists? I know, everyone is. I’m holding out until the week after Christmas, mostly because I’m lazy.
I haven’t read Olive Kitteridge either so will be curious to see what you think. I’ve never read anything by O’Farrell- where do you recommend I start?
I didn’t mean to be a contrarian, but now that November is over I’m reading a ton of nonfiction! And so far all of it has been really good: The Killers of the Flower Moon, Daring to Drive, Almost Everything, and now, The Library Book. I’ll get my act together next year and join #nonficnov!
Olive Kitteridge has been on my shelf for a long time, I really need to get to it. I’m reading The Ensemble right now. It’s off to a great start!
Kitteridge has been on my radar, haven’t gotten to it yet. Looks like a good one though. I am reading currently Ted Neill’s Two Years of Wonder, our book club is reading it and I am exclusive with it as it deserves my undivided attention. So good! tenebraypress.com for his book page. It’s a compelling story of his time in Africa, his relationship with two childresn stricken with HIV and his mental illness issues after seeing these kids with this illness. It’s really good.
THE ENSEMBLE! I had such high hopes for this one, but it ended up being a DNF for me. I was first drawn in by that gorgeous cover (obvi), and, since I used to be a musician, I loved that idea of a story set in the professional music world. I really wanted to love it, but the story and characters fell completely flat for me. 🙁