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How to Make Books

2019, Art, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I finished a book. During Readathon! Granted I’ve been reading it so long that it’s auto-renewed three times and has to go back to the library next week but still… I finished a book. A good book. A book that I thought would be silly since I know a good bit about making books. Turns out, How to Make Books is a great book and would be a great resource for people who want to make books of all kinds. I’d like to own it, really. I wonder if Pippin and Squish and Evergreen want to learn to make books… then I could justify buying it. In hardback because the binding is awesome. (As a book about making books should be.)

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Tess of the Road

2019, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Every now and then, for years, TW has asked me if there are any more Seraphina books.. I dutifully look, even though there just never are any… and suddenly, there was! It’s not really a Seraphina book, but it’s a book about one of Seraphina’s sister. Turns out, Tess of the Road is the 2018 Cybils YA Speculative Fiction winner.

We listened to it on audio, as we did the Seraphina books, and liked it a lot, maybe more than I liked the Seraphina books. I hope there’s a sequel.

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Competence

2019, Books in Bed, Favorites, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

We got lucky and TW found the third book in The Custard Protocal, Competence on the shelf at the library. I read most of it during #Readathon but couldn’t quite manage the last hour it would have taken me to finish it last night. I think this series has grown into itself, after what felt like a bit of a rough start. (Or maybe I just missed the original Soulless characters so much that it took me some time to grow into the series?) The South American “vampires” were awesome as was Percy’s solution for their problem.

Great #Readathon book, great addition to the series.

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#Readathon: One Book Down

2019, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

We’re what, five hours into the #readathon and I just finished my first book. A List of Cages – heartbreaking and frustrating and horrible and wonderful all at the same time.

I had powdered sugar donuts for breakfast, a brownie for a pre-lunch snack, and then a couple of Publix tenders for lunch. I’m starting my next book and opened a bottle of Green Machine and have some Bordeaux cookies calling my name. (TW finished a book and then started a nap, lol.)

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Everlasting Nora

2019, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction /

I thought Everlasting Nora was a Cybil but it doesn’t seem to be. No idea how I stumbled across it but I’m glad I did. I enjoyed the story quite a bit and the Manila setting and Tagalog sprinkled throughout the story was fantastic. (There’s a glossary in the back but I was pleased I didn’t need it. I think there was only one word I didn’t know – a type of plant I’d never heard of.) Did you know people live (sometimes for generations) in Manila cemeteries?

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Six Children’s Books…

2019, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Non-Fiction /

JMP came for a sleepover/Grandma Camp, so we read a bunch of children’s books:

– Pete the Cat: Three Bite Rule because JMP is a picky eater and also sometimes needs to be coaxed to try things that are new to him. This was a fun book and he was willing to try a few “new” foods when we sang, “three bite rule!”

– Because I knew TW was going to talk to him about planning/planting their garden, I grabbed The Rosy, Fat, Magenta Radish and Big Red Barn from our shelves and The Carrot Seed from the library. (TW and Pippin actually planted carrots and radishes yesterday!)

– We read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World and attempted (badly) to make some paper airplanes from The Kids’ Guide to Paper Airplanes.

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Paperback Crush

2019, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

Almost halfway through the month and the first book I’ve finished is Paperback Crush? It’s going to be another one of those years, isn’t it? Whatevs.

I thoroughly enjoyed Paperback Crush (but found the ending a little abrupt. (Couldn’t we have had an epilogue or something?) It wasn’t so much about the books people my age read when we were tweens/teens, it’s closer to the age of my kids, but because I read pretty much everything my kids read and I love nothing better than a good (or trashy) middle grade or YA book, it was fun to look back. It also made me want to read books I (and my kids) never read. They were never hardcore into Sweet Valley or BSC, though they read a few. The Christopher Pike Midnight Club (I wonder if that’s still on our shelves or did it get Kondoed?)… I want to read that. I don’t want to read (or re-read) any Lulene McDaniel books ever again, though.

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The House of Unexpected Sisters

2018, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

It’s been a long time since we listened to a #1 Ladies Detective Agency book. Our darn library has significantly reduced the number of audiobooks available (even on digital versions) so I was pretty pleased to see that one of their new e-Book services had The House of Unexpected Sisters. It was fun to listen to, mostly on our drive to WDW, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I have some of the other books recently published in the series.

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