April 26, 2021 at 9:43 pm (Links, postaday, Surprises)
Tags: COVID watching, elections, happiness, Joe Biden, memories, Mondays, politics, US history
From Nancy Merrill, host of the Photo a Week Challenge:
Last year, when Covid-19 first struck the United States, my friend’s daughter got married. It wasn’t the wedding she had started planning when she got engaged in November, but it was a beautiful celebration of love and joy. I was one of twenty-five people who were able to attend the sweet backyard ceremony. It was fun to not only take photos but to help with the decorations and food and just overall doing what we could to make the bride and groom happy.
IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO (OR THREE…) OF HOW YOU HAVE CELEBRATED DURING THE PANDEMIC.
Along with the rest of America, self watched the inauguration of #46, Joseph R. Biden, on live TV.
The marchers (except for one) are wearing masks! Funny, she never stopped to think about that until she started looking at pictures for this week’s Photo a Week Challenge.
Also a first: that she watched the events unfold on Fox News!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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April 26, 2021 at 8:44 pm (Books, Explorers)
Tags: COVID Reading, discoveries, fantasy, Mondays, novel, reading lists, spring
“. . . his sleep had been troubled by thoughts of his father and thoughts of another life, not a better one, not an easier one, but a sober one, one without shame. One in which he did not feel the pull of the Sea Hag’s slimy hands trying to drag him down to his end. One of long days at the wing of a flukeboat, singing of the sea and pulling on the ropes as his father glowed with pride at how well his little fisher boy worked the winds. Of long days before his father’s strong and powerful body was broken as easily as a thin varisk vine, ground to meat between the side of his boat and the pitiless hull of a boneship.”
— pp. 4 – 5, The Bone Ships, by R. J. Barker
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April 26, 2021 at 2:57 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, museums, Sacramento, spring, weekends
April is almost over! Every day, when self thinks she’s used up all the Bright Squares subjects she can think of, she goes to The Life of B, host of the Squares Challenge, and finds new inspiration.
These are from her recent trip to Sacramento (FABULOUS city)
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April 26, 2021 at 2:25 am (Books, Explorers, Lists, Memoirs, Recommended, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, Grimdark, mysteries, novel, Obama, Paris, reading lists, science fiction, urban fantasy
From wsj’s Best Books of 2020/Science Fiction:
- The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal – So far, one of the best novels she’s read in 2021
- Ballistic Kiss, by Richard Kadrey – wildly inventive, self wasn’t so taken with the he/she/they gender politics of a major character
In a category by itself:
- Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash — A first book by a 22-year-old, E.S.A.D.
Kick-Ass Discovery of the Year:
- Eddie’s Boy, by Thomas Perry, the sequel to a 1982 novel, The Butcher’s Boy – That’s chutzpah, coming up with a sequel 40 years later. Kudos! Self added The Butcher’s Boy to her reading list.
from wsj’s Best Books of 2020/Mysteries:
- All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny — Self adored Jean-Guy Beauvoir and of course Paris.
- One Fatal Flaw, by Anne Perry — All hail the May-December almost-romance between 25-year-old Daniel Pitt and 40-year-old Miriam Crofft, daughter of his employer.
from The Economist’s Books of the Year 2020/Memoir
- A Promised Land, by Barack Obama — Beautifully written, can’t believe 45 was succeeded by Drumpf.
from The Economist’s Books of the Year 2020/Fiction
- SHUGGIE BAIN, by Douglas Stuart — an absolutely immersive experience, though her favorite character was not the title character but his unheralded older brother, Leek
from The Economist’s Books of the Year 2020/Business and Economics
- No Rules Rules — This one was a disappointment.
from wsj’s Books of the Year 2020/Travels in the New North
- Ice Walker, by James Raffan — another absolutely immersive experience, the ending almost broke self.
from Jonathan Strahan’s Notes from a Year Spent Indoors (Locus Magazine)
- the first two books in Joe Abercrombie’s (smashing) Age of Madness trilogy and her first Grimdark: A Little Hatred and The Trouble with Peace
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