Sunday Salon -- Back to Standard Time

Mom and her cat settling into their new home.

Weather: Lovely fall day. The last few days have been rainy and windy but not today. Today we have blue skies and lovely fall colors to enjoy.

Mom's Crew

Standard Time: Today we set our clocks back an hour. Back to official standard time. This past week we were with my mother helping her move into a retirement apartment in a very lovely facility and 

beginning to prepare her house for sale. My three siblings, one brother-in-law, and my husband all worked very hard to help mom pack, move, get set up, and then start the process of cleaning out a lifetime of stuff. It was tiring, but rewarding to work on a project together, all the while knowing mom is happy and safe in a new place. But each evening we would collapse in front of the TV or over a bowl of soup, tired from the physical and mental demands. As we drove back up the freeway after a week in Eugene I commented that it felt like we were returning to our life. The next day my sister called and essentially said the same thing, that she felt like she took the week off and now had to turn her attention back to all the other demands. We're back in our standard time life.

Garage Sale 2.0 spoils

"Garage sales": Mom wanted to give her things to neighbors and friends after the family claimed the items we wanted. She decided to invite them to her old house for what she kept calling a "garage sale" though I hoped no one would feel like they needed to pay if they wanted a scarf or yard frog. Many of her friends dropped by and I think mom was pleased. Don and I packed up a box of treasures to bring home to share with our daughters. Yesterday we had "garage sale" 2.0 at our house and our daughters/grandchildren took home china pitchers, table runners, games, and a braided rug. I'm sure my mother will be pleased to know these treasures are now going to live a new life in her grandchildren's homes.

Back to Eugene: We will be back in Eugene again twice this month and I'm sure many more times in the next few months until we get the house cleaned, cleared, and sold. Our daughter and s.i.l will join us one weekend so they can visit Mom in her new digs and go to a football game with us. Every visit with Mom will feel like sacred time, though she's warned us she may live for eight more years, like her uncle who lived to 104. Ha!

November reading challenges: 'Nonfiction November' and 'Novellas in November.' With any luck I can combine the two as the novella challenge also allows for short nonfiction. Here are my plans for each:

• Nonfiction November post
• Novellas read in 2025 so far (#NovNov25)
• Novellas in November planning post

Other blog posts from the past two weeks:

• Sunday Salon, Oct. 18th
• TTT: Atmospheric novels
• Audiobooks-with-Don Review: Winter Counts
• TTT: Novels with Halloween-ish Creatures
• Novella Reviews: What Does It Feel Like? + Convenience Store Woman
• Audiobooks-with-Don Review: Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Read and reading:

• White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky -- My current Classics Club Spin Book and a novella. 10% complete, print.
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino -- another classic novella. 10% complete, audio.
• Henry and June: the Unexpurgated Diary by Anais Nin. This will finish up my StoryGraph Genre Challenge for 2025. 55% complete, e-book.
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. An Indigenous Vampire who preys on buffalo hunters who wiped out the herd which caused a chain reaction of starvation and death among his people. Don and I both enjoyed it very much even though we don't usually read horror novels. Audiobooks. 5 stars.
• Timecode of a Face by Ruth Ozeki. A short memoir about a favorite author where I came to understand much about her Buddhist beliefs. Audiobook. Short nonfiction. 4 stars.
• Persuasion by Jane Austen. The last of Austen's six novels. This one closes out the Austen250 challenge. I was supposed to read this one slowly, 12-pages a day, but I zoomed through it. A reread. Print. Rating this time: 4 stars. (Last time - 5 stars.)
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. A novella set in Japan. The main character is on the autism spectrum and keeps hoping she'll be cured so she can just be normal. Charming. Don and I listened together and both awarded 4 stars.
• The Afterlife of Data by Carl Ohman. Another book for the Stroygraph Genre Challenge. I didn't get out of this book what I hoped: What should we do with a beloved's Facebook account when they die? E-book. 3 stars.
• Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats. A poetry, essay, letter, illustrated cat collection from the famed Sci-Fi author. An indulgence. Print. 4 stars.
• My Friends by Fredrik Backman. A book club selection which I've been working on for months. I finally decided to bear down before it was automatically returned to the library (again for the third time). Audiobook. 4 stars.
• Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser. A Goodread Challenge book and a novella. I think I need to upgrade my rating since I've been thinking of it alot. Audiobook. 3.5 stars. 

Up next (I already have them checked out):

• Audition by Katie Kitamura -- National Book Award Finalist and novella
• Heart the Lover by Lily King -- novella
• The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri -- National Book Award finalist, novella
• All My Knotted-Up Life by Beth Moore -- memoir

-Anne

My Year in Novellas (#NovNov25)

Novellas in November is just around the corner. Last year was the first time I participated in this particular challenge and LOVED it. I found I really enjoyed reading short novels and short nonfiction. Because of this I have found myself choosing novellas all year, not just piling them up to read in November. And why, let me ask, read a long nonfiction books when I can read a short one? I read several short nonfiction books also. I recommend all five and four star books without hesitation. The three and two star books you should approach with caution or do some homework before you select them.

Novellas:

Here are the fifteen novellas read so far in 2025 with my ratings and hyperlinks to my reviews. 

5 stars:

-How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Cruz, 195 pages

-A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, 161 pages

-Three Days in June by Anne Tyler, 165 pages

-What Does It Feel Like by Sophie Kinsella, 133 pages

4 stars:

-Candide by Voltaire, 144 pages

-Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, 163 pages

-The Most by Jessica Anthony, 144 pages

-Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico, 157 pages

-The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty, 180 pages

-So Long, and Thanks for the Fish by Douglas Adams, 167 pages

-We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, 152 pages

-A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 123 pages

3 stars:

-The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan, 162 pages

-Passing by Nella Larsen, 141 pages

-The Vegetarian by Han Kang, 188 pages

2 stars:

-The Final Solution by Michael Chabon, 131 pages

Short nonfiction: 8 titles

5 stars:

-Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green, 198 pages.

-The Serviceberry: Abundance and Repriosity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, 112 pages

4 stars:

-Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley, 208 pages

-Timecode of a Face by Ruth Ozeki, 135 pages

-What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation for the World's Most Familiar Bird by Sy Montgomery, 91 pages

3 stars:

-The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die And Why You Should Care by Carl Ohman, 207 pages.

-The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson, 117 pages.

-Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away by Candy Copper, 192 pages.

I still hope to review several more of the books on this list and will add those reviews to the linky for Novellas in November as I complete them.

-Anne

Audiobooks with Don Review: BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Book Beginnings quote:

Friday56 quote, from page 36:

Summary: 

"In this story-within-story-within-story structure, Buffalo Hunter Hunter opens with a discovery — in 2012, a book hidden in the wall of an old parsonage is found by an unnamed construction worker. It turns out to be a journal, written in 1912 and belonging to Arthur Beaucarne, the pastor of the local Lutheran congregation. Inside it contains the story of his strange encounters with Good Stab, who, after years of carnage, has seemingly come to him to confess. Good Stab is an Indigenous man from the Blackfeet tribe living in Montana around the time of the 1870 Marias Massacre, when U.S. Army troops killed nearly 200 unarmed women, children and elderly members of the Blackfeet Nation, a tragedy that figures in a multitude of ways throughout this gruesome joyride of a novel" (NYT). 

Review: Randy Boyagoda, in his review for the New York Times, wrote the best, most appropriate title I've ever seen --

"He's Undead, He's Indigenous, and He Wants Revenge on America: In the Buffalo Hunter Hunter a Blackfeet man becomes a vampire and seeks vengeance for the country's sins."

One doesn't have to read the whole summary to figure out this is a vampire story with a huge twist. No usual vampire fare in this story -- no foreboding castles, caskets, or bats, and the setting is not Eastern Europe. Instead, the beautiful setting is Montana near the spine of the continent in the area we now call Glacier National Park, where the Blackfeet (Piikani in their own tongue) have lived and thrived for millenia. Enter the white men, including the buffalo hunters who kill off whole herds of the beasts for only the hides or just for sport leaving the meat to rot. The Blackfeet people can no longer sustain themselves and thousands starved to death even before the 1870 Marian Massacre where the cavalry slaughtered hundreds, many of them women and children. When Good Stab gets turned into a vampire, he begins hunting those buffalo hunters, those men who started the whole chain of catastrophes for his people. 

Typically I don't read horror novels and neither does Don. But when I offered this audiobook as an option to listen to together, Don chose Buffalo Hunter Hunter over the others. We got about 30 minutes in when it suddenly dawned on him it was a vampire story. I guess his brain skipped over that detail when I read the summary. By then we were both into the story and forged ahead. We just visited Glacier National Park this past summer so we could clearly picture the setting. The writing was spectacular and we were both interested in learning more about this shameful chapter of American history. Historical horror can be a good subgenre if done right and this book was done right! In fact, I think this is my favorite horror novel of those I've read. Gabino Iglesias, writing for NPR, has read all of Stephen Graham Jones' books, and says Buffalo Hunter Hunter is his masterpiece because "the prose is gorgeous, the plot is complex, engaging, and multilayered" (NPR). I agree. Don't be put off by this book because it's a vampire story, read it because this is an important historical tale, worth your time and attention.

General Sheridan is credited with saying, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Now there is Good Stab who quips right back, “What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.” Ha, how do you like that, General?

The audiobook is expertly narrated by three voice actors: Owen Teale, Shane Ghostkeeper, and Marin Ireland. All three did a masterful job at bringing the story forward with their voices and intonation. I highly recommend this format.

Both Don and I rated Buffalo Hunter Hunter with 5 stars.

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Novella Reviews: WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? + CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN

Two short reviews of novellas ---

What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella

Dial Press, Oct.8, 2024. 133 pages.

Eve is a successful writer but one day she wakes up in a hospital not remembering how she got there or why. Her husband, sitting by her side, tells her she just had surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor. He patiently tells her this even though he has told her many times before. Eve's memory is now so fickle and fleeting.

Over the next few months Eve must learn to do almost all normal tasks again -- walking, talking, writing. She also figures out what kind of cancer she has and how low the survival rate, forcing her to stare her own mortality in the face. Brief anecdotes tell Eve's story as she walks through this new reality.

What we learn at the end is that Eve's story is actually Sophie's story, with details changed, of course. She said, “Why did I write such a personal book? I have always processed my life through writing. Hiding behind my fictional characters, I have always turned my own life into a narrative. It is my version of therapy, maybe. Writing is my happy place, and writing this book, although tough going at times, was immensely satisfying and therapeutic for me.”

I placed this book on my TBR last November after other participants in 'Novellas in November' recommended it. I am so glad I read it when I did. Two friends have recently been diagnosed with brain tumors. Though I cried my way through it, I also felt the relief of hope. If Sophie Kinsella survived such a deadly form of cancer maybe my friends will too.

Rating: 5 stars

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Grove Press, June 12, 2018. Originally published in Japan, July 27, 2016. 163 pages.

Keiko Furakura has known she was different than her peers from a very young age. She just doesn't see the world as others do. If only she could figure out the right things to say and the right way to dress then maybe she could finally be accepted. During college she finds a job at new convenience store near to where she is going to school. The 'Smile Mart' trains its employees by a manual, even scripting dialogue to use with customers. For the first time in her life Keiko understands social interactions and she excels in her job. She also observes the way other employees dress and their manners of speech and finds she can copy them to fit in better. She finally feels like she is a functional part of society. Eighteen years later she is still working at 'Smile Mart' but her family is worried she is not living up to her potential in such a dead-end job. Her few friends also hound her about why she isn't married. Then one day a man with similar communication problems as Keiko gets hired at the store and everything changes.

Don and I listened to the audiobook of Convenience Store Woman on a recent trip. both of us found the book both interesting and fascinating. We have many friends, colleagues, and family members who are neurodivergent on the autism spectrum. We understand that everyone doesn't process information the same, but that doesn't mean we don't notice when behavior isn't inside the normal societal expectation. We just try not to get too judgy. Keiko was clearly very high functioning she just couldn't read social cues such as recognizing facial or body language and she wasn't interested in dating. She was happy with her life but also wanted to please others by behaving "normally." Her "fix" with the new male employee was so obviously a bad choice it shows how far people will go to try to fit in. Sadly.

Alongside Keiko's story, Convenience Store Woman gives American readers a fun peek at Japanese culture. Convenience stores like the 'Smile Mart' are common in Japan -- small stores where people can pick up a variety of products quickly, including ready-to-go food. These stores sound like a better version of our 7-11s. The foods they offer, like rice balls and chocolate-melon drinks, showcase cultural differences, also. Don and I found ourselves laughing at some of the varieties and combinations offered as daily specials. And we tried pronouncing the typical Japanese greeting, as Keiko did everytime someone entered the store, -- "Irasshaimasé!".  Overall we both enjoyed the book very much. 

Both Don and I rated the book 4 stars.

-Anne

Nonfiction November Week One

Throughout the month of November, bloggers 

Heather (Based on a True Story), 

Frances (Volatile Reader), 

Rebekah (She Seeks Nonfiction), and 

Deb (Reader Buzz) invite us to celebrate Nonfiction November with them.

Week 1 Prompt: (October 27 to November 2) – Your Year in Nonfiction: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have you had a favorite topic? Is there a topic you want to read about more?  What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?  

Here goes:

• What nonfiction books have you read in 2025, so far?
• I've read 27 nonfiction books this years, not counting poetry, which StoryGraph categorizes as nonfiction. 27 is too many books to list but let's see if I can loosely categorize them:
• 18 memoirs/biographies. 2025 will definitely be remembered as the year of the memoir for me. So far I've read 16. Gulp!
• 8 history titles, there may be some overlap with the memoirs.
• 4 nature titles, again with overlap
• 5 essay collections
• 3 true crime
• 3 science
• 1-2 each in 20 other categories. StoryGraph has 58 genres they use to organize their titles. I'm looking at that list.

• What were your favorites? Here are the five star titles:
• There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights edited by Ashley Hope Perez
• The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden O'Keefe
• Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green 
• Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
• Memorial Days: a Memoir by Geraldine Brooks
• Have you had a favorite topic?
• Clearly this year memoirs were my most popular nonfiction choices. My favorite books tend to be those where I learn something while I feel something. All seven of my top choices did that for me.
• Is there a topic you want to read about more?
• Politics as it relates to religion. Not sure I will actually seek out books on this topic, though. I am so sick at heart about what is happening in our country right now it is hard for me to stay engaged for long since I am guarding my own mental health. Maybe: 
• Worth Fighting For: Finding Courage and Compassion When Cueltry is Trending by John Pavlovitz
• What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November? 
• Community. I clearly have no trouble reading nonfiction, I just like to be a part of a reading community who interact with each other and who encourage one another by commenting on posts and suggesting new titles.
• I also want to explore some of the nonfiction books on the NYT Best Books of the 21st Century list and attempt to read at least one of them this month.
• Here are few from that list I'd like to read someday:
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
• The Emperor of All Maladies: The Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Stay True by Hua Hsu
• The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
• The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land Between by Hisham Matar
• Since I am also participating in Novellas in November I will continue to seek out short nonfiction titles since that challenge should really be titled "Short Books and Novellas" since short nonfiction titles are accepted for the challenge.
• Here are a few short nonfiction books which have caught my eye:
• No. More. Plastic.: What You Can Do to Make a Difference by Dorey 103 pages.
• The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett. 46 pages.
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. 190 pages. (This is one of the group-read books for the Novellas in November Challenge.)

-Anne

TTT: Books with Halloweenish Creatures

Top Ten Tuesday Halloween Freebie
Books I've actually read involving Halloweenish creatures

(You'll find that most of these books are very tame. Scary books are not for me.)

Vampires

• Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Werewolves

• Shiver (series) by Maggie Stiefvater
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Zombies

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Graphic Novel by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, Tony Lee, and Cliff Richards

Mummies

• Mummies Exposed: Creepy and True by Kerrie Logan Hollihan

Monsters

• Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Ghosts

• Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
• The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
• The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Witches

• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
• Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Goblins

• "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti (poem)

My Halloween Music Spotify list. Enjoy!

-Anne

Audiobooks with Don Review: WINTER COUNTS (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Book Beginnings quote:

I leaned back in my old Ford Pinto, listening to the sounds coming from the Depot, the reservation's only tavern.

Friday56 quote:

There is no word for goodbye in Lakota. That's what my mother used to tell me. Sure, there are words like toksa, which meant "later," that were used by people as a modern substitute. She'd told me later that the Lakota people didn't use a term for farewell because of the idea that we are forever connected. To say goodbye would mean the circle was broken.

Summary: 

Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the US legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver punishment, the kind that can't be forgotten. But when heroin makes its way onto the reservation and finds Virgil's nephew, his vigilantism suddenly gets personal. He enlists the help of an ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where they are coming from and how to make them stop. As Virgil starts to put all the pieces together, he must face his own demons and reclaim his native identity. He realizes that being Native American in the 21st Century comes at a tremendous cost. (Publisher)

Review: Over a year ago I accepted a Goodreads challenge to read/record a book set in all fifty states and territories of the US. Winters Counts, set in South Dakota, allows me to check off the last state and dust my hands of this challenge. Fortunately for me Don was willing to listen to the audiobook with me masterfully narrated by Darrell Dennis. We both look for opportunities to learn more about Native American cultures and Winter Counts did a great job allowing us a peek inside the Rosebud Reservation in the southern part of the state.

Though the book was a mystery it was also very insightful full of thoughtful quotes like these:

“I wondered what it was like to live without that weight on your shoulders, the weight of the murdered ancestors, the stolen land, the abused children, the burden every Native person carries.”

“What I’d discovered was that sadness is like an abandoned car left out in a field for good—it changes a little over the years, but doesn’t ever disappear. You may forget about it for a while, but it’s still there, rusting away, until you notice it again.”

“Time seemed to stop, and the Lakota phrase mitakuye oyasin—we are all related—came to me, and in that moment I understood what those words meant. I inhabited them, as images, thoughts, and memories arose amidst the old vehicles. I saw my mother, gone but still with me, my father, who’d died too soon, and my sister, who I’d loved like my own life. ... I stood there, alone with my ancestors, and listened to them. Finally I turned away. As I walked back to my life, the words my mother used to say finally came to me. Wakan Tanka nici un. May the Creator guide you.”

It always shocks me when this happens, but Don liked the audiobook better than I did. He thought the mystery was compelling and the insights about reservation living both truthful and instructive. I was a more impatient than Don with the pacing of the story -- slow, slow, fastfastfast. I think it is more obvious in audiobooks than in print because I will find my mind wandering and I'll realize I lost the thread and have to catch up at some place. But all together, I did like the story.

My rating: 3.75 stars, Don's rating 4 stars.

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

TTT: Atmospheric novels with a cozy-ish feel

Top Ten Tuesday: Atmospheric novels with a cozy-ish feel

On October 23, 2023 I created a list of atmospheric novels with a creepy, dark vibe. The books I included on that list were: The Shadow of the Wind; Wuthering Heights; Jane Eyre; Sabriel; Rebecca; The Hound of the Baskervilles; The Thirteenth Tale; Burial Rites; Northanger Abbey; and Sea of Tranquility.

Today I shall attempt to populate my list with books which enveloped me in the story, where I was wrapped up not only with the characters put with the setting. There may be a tinge of darkness, but I lived inside the story during the time of its reading and maybe for a long time afterwards.

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Yes, there was darkness but the whole story wrapped itself around me like a warm hug.

2. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Piranesi lives in a world of statues and tide tables, yet he is kind and comfortable in his role as the caretaker. 

3. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. The house and the island were definitely part of the story. What a fun, odd place.

4. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Set mostly in an old house on the coast of France during WWII, the attic is both a place of solace and of menace.

5. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. All I can say is this book had me wrapped up so tight in its hold the whole time.

6. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I lived inside this story for weeks. Is that even possible?

7. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The setting, outer space and inside a spaceship, was so unique and fantastical. Everything about the books setting and plot was atmospheric. 

8. Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is the master of the intricate settings and intricate plots. I loved this story about a star who falls to Earth and becomes human. Oh boy. There is a lot to love in this book.

9. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. Set in Shakespeare's home in Stratford-Upon-Avon. His children are sick. One dies. His wife walks through her life as in a dream. The whole atmosphere is very dream-like.

10. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Not a cozy story, but a rather cozy setting, in a house on an island. Mysterious but not scary.

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- No Big Deal

Autumn Purple Ash. This tree dumps its leaves quickly. It may be bare by the time we get home in a week.

Weather: The weather has really turned this week into deep autumn temperatures. The meteorologist on the TV news keeps warning us of freezing temperatures at night and possible snow in the mountains. Here we go folks! 

No big deal: Ever feel like that? Like every day is filled with stuff but when you look back on what you did that day you think everything was no big deal. That seems to be my life lately. Even some things which I thought might be hard or emotional, like taking my friend to his radiation treatment for cancer, was really no big deal. It helped that J. was so positive and the appointment so short. Actually it was an honor to help him.

I'm taking that attitude with me this weekend when we help Mom move to her retirement apartment: Mom is healthy, all my siblings will be together, a moving company is moving the big stuff. It will likely be an emotional time for Mom but there is no need to stress out. There is no time-crunch and plenty of hands to help. We've got this. I refuse to make this into a big deal.

Rescheduling events/appointments: Oddly, a whole month of appointments all were concentrated next week, including both of my book club meetings. The appointments were easy to reschedule  and other gals were willing to take over a few of my tasks in my one book club where I'm the secretary, including returning the book kit to the library. I will miss talking about the books but really it is no big deal.

The end of the summer tomatoes. We pulled up the plant to avoid a goopy mess if we waited until the freeze. Sad but really no big deal. There is always next summer's sunshine for more tomatoes.

No Kings Rallies! Demonstrate to remind the administration We Have NO Kings in America, Oct. 18th. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend because I will be driving to Eugene. So I am encouraging all my readers to do what they can to lend your support for this movement. (Find a rally in your area here.)

Actually this is a really big deal.

Reading:

• Audiobooks:
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Don and I are listening to this horror novel together. It is an Indigenous story. Very well done. Quite disturbing. 62% complete.
• My Friends by Fredrik Backman. A book club selection. I was able to listen to enough today to get me, finally, into the story. 27% complete.
• Timecode of a Face by Ruth Ozeki. A nonfiction book by a favorite author. On deck.
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. A novella. On deck.
• Currently reading print/e-books:
• The Afterlife of Data by Carl Ohman. I've only read the introduction so far but already I've been mulling over this fact ---Pretty soon there will be more dead people on Facebook than living people. 10% complete.
• Persuasion by Jane Austen. Reading for the 250 years anniversary of Jane Austen Challenge. Her last complete book. A reread. 20% complete.
• Recently completed:
• Gender Queer: a Memoir by Maia Kobabe. The #2 most banned book last year. A graphic memoir.
• Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep. A nonfiction book for an upcoming book club.
• The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware. One of the book club selections I'll miss the meeting for next week. A retelling of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.
• What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella. A fictionalized story based on the brain cancer diagnosis and treatment the author had. I cried my way through it.
• A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle. The first Sherlock Holmes story.
• Flamer by Mike Curato. Another banned book and graphic novel. This one was the 10th most banned book in 2024.

Blogging:

• TTT: Book Series I've Never Finished
• Banned Book Review: Gender Queer
• Review: Broken Country
• Review Banned Book: Flamer
• Classics Club SPIN #42 Intro Post
• TTT: Books I'd Like to Read Again, for the First Time, Pt. 2
• Audiobooks with Don review: There's Always This Year
• Getting Ready: Novellas in November
• Review: The Turn of the Key

Reading choices: I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what I will/should read next. I set myself reading challenges and then try to obtain then. This probably causes me more stress than I need but in actuality as long as there is something to read and something to listen to, I'm good. No big deal if I meet these challenges or not. 

• Remaining 2025 reading challenges and optional books which will fulfill them:
• Booker Prize winner or long/short list nominees (Read one)
• Audition by Katie Kitamura and/or 
• Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
• National Book Award winners or shortlist nominees (Read two books choosing from the five categories)
• I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken (Poetry longlist) -- COMPLETE
• The Teacher of Nomad Land by Daniel Nayeri (Young People's Literature longlist)
• Novellas in November (Limitless, but I want to read at least four)
• Seascraper by Wood (also on Booker list), 176 pages
• The Teacher of Nomad Land by Daniel Nayeri (also on the NBA list); 192 pages
• Audition by Katie Kitamura (On the Booker list); 197 pages
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Already checked out); 163 pages
• Nonfiction November (Limitless but I want to read at least one)
• The Afterlife of Data by Carl Ohman (currently reading)
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (on the NYT Best books of the 21sst Century list)
• Classics Club SPIN (Read a classic from the spin list, announced Sunday) My list is here.
• Goodreads Seasonal Challenges (Read one per category)
• Dark Academia -- Options: Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser (also novella) or Katabasis by Kuang.
• Mystery category announced Nov. 1st
• Jane Austen's 250th Birthday
• Persuasion - her final published book (Currently reading)
• Book Club selections
• My Friends by Backman for RHS Ladies Club December meeting (currently reading)
• TBA for SOTH Gals December meeting
• Totals: If all lines up properly (or with luck), that is a minimum of 12 books, since I can double up on books in more than one category. I know it sounds like a lot but with this blueprint I think I can finish all the challenges with time to spare. If not, no one cares!

I'll close with this funny video about the anti-ICE demonstrations in Portland: A Message from the Frog Resistance.

-Anne