Saturday, June 28, 2025

The Sunday Salon: Runnin' and Gunnin'





Welcome! I am happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. 

What is the Sunday Salon? 

The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week. It's also a great opportunity to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 





Busy week.

Sewing Retreat. Spent the night with my son and his family after the retreat. Our grown granddaughter came to visit after I got home. Swam. Writing class in Galveston. Swam again. Met my sister and her husband in Houston for dinner. Took a field trip with friends to the new bookstore in Galveston. Went to Brenham to the Blue Bell Creamery with a group from the senior center. Attended a lecture in Galveston on The World's Most Difficult Poem. Celebrated our great-nephew's first birthday. 

Whew. 




What I Read Last Week:

The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown (1001 Children's Book; Classics Club Spin)




What I'm Reading Now:

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:


Good Thing #1:

The quilt I made 
at the Sewing Retreat.


Good Thing #2:

A new-to-me butterfly
I saw in East Texas:
Red-spotted Admiral



Good Thing #3:

At the Then and Now Bookstore
in Galveston



Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.


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Friday, June 27, 2025

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop




Today's Featured Book: 

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

by Elizabeth Taylor

Genre: Fiction

Published: 1971

Page Count: 205 pages

Summary: 

On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are magnificently eccentric and endlessly curious, living off crumbs of affection and snippets of gossip. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper.

Then one day Mrs Palfrey strikes up an unlikely friendship with an impoverished young writer, Ludo, who sees her as inspiration for his novel.



 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

Mrs Palfrey first came to the Claremont Hotel on a Sunday afternoon in January. Rain had closed in over London, and her taxi sloshed along the almost deserted Cromwell Road, past one cavernous porch after another, the driver going slowly and poking his head out into the wet, for the hotel was not known to him. This discovery, that he did not know, had a little disconcerted Mrs Palfrey, for she did not know it either, and began to wonder what she was coming to. She tried to banish terror from her heart. She was alarmed at the threat of her own depression.


Taylor, Elizabeth. Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont: A Virago Modern Classic, p. 1. Kindle Edition. 






THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

‘You need a hot bath,’ Mrs de Salis said. ‘And order a hot whisky and lemon to be sent up.’ 

‘Oh, no!’ Mrs Palfrey said. ‘I’ll have the bath, though, if the water’s still all right.’ 

She never ordered anything to be sent to her room. There was an extra charge for it.


Taylor, Elizabeth. Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont: A Virago Modern Classic, 56%. Kindle Edition. 





The movie with Joan Plowright is delightful.




The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

June 27th - July 3rd - Have you ever purchased the wrong book by accident? If so, what did you do next? Did you return the book, keep it, pass it on to another reader, or donate it? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

I bought what turned out to be one of my favorite books ever that way---I bought Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig for a class I was taking as an undergraduate at University of Houston, Educational Philosophy. The class did not make, but I had already started reading the book and I was hooked.

Great question.

  

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Wednesday, June 25, 2025

The 2025 Houston Bookstore Crawl: LIT Bookbar in Richmond, Texas

 

I was delighted to participate in the Second Annual Houston Bookstore Crawl #HTXBookCrawl25 in April. Here is a map I made of the twenty-five indie bookstores in the Houston area.


How it worked: I picked up a crawl card at Then & Now Bookstore in Galveston, one of the 25 participating stores. I got my card stamped or signed by each of the stores I visited through the end of April. Once I visited 10, I submitted my card to any of the participating bookstores to be entered into a raffle for gifts. Every store I hit after the first 10 counts as an additional entry. The cards had to be turned in by the end of business on April 30.


April 26 was Indie Bookstore Day, and indie bookstores all over the US hosted events. Take a look at the map here to see what events were held in April.

Say hello to the Participating Bookstores:

Basket Books & Art · Blue Willow Bookshop · Books Abound · The Book Attic · Books by the Bay · The Book Readers Venue · Brazos Bookstore · Buy the Book · Candescent Books · CLASS Bookstore · Copperfield's Books · Dreamers Books + Culture · Good Books in the Woods · Good on Paper Books and Stationery · Gulf Coast Cosmos Comics · Houston Book Warehouse · Kaboom Books · Katy Budget Books · Kindred Stories · LIT bookbar · LIT Java Coffee & Books · Mossrose Bookshop · Murder by The Book · Then & Now Bookshop · Village Books

I visited twelve bookstores in April. 

Here is my eighth bookstore:  

LIT Bookbar prides itself on being the only independent bookstore in Ft. Bend County.


I am not sure how far away this bookstore actually is from me. We took a circuitous route to get there. Next time I will travel directly there. I think it might be less than an hour from home.


This bookstore calls itself a bookbar. I imagine many people would enjoy such a place.


I met another Bookstore Crawl-er there. This bookstore was the last stop for her.


Another kind staff member. I never run across mean people working at bookstores.


What I bought.


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Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025

Here are some I'm thinking about reading. Have you read any of these? Thoughts? 


Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins


Bibliotherapy in the Bronx by Emely Rumble

The Satisfaction Cafe by Kathy Wang

Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

I'll Be Right Here by Amy Bloom

Days of Shattered Faith by Adam Tchaikovsky

A New New Me by Helen Oyeyemi


Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.    

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Saturday, June 21, 2025

The Sunday Salon: A Sewing Retreat

  




Welcome! I am happy you joined us at the Sunday Salon. 

What is the Sunday Salon? 

The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week, and it's also a great opportunity to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 





My Aunt Karen


I'm in East Texas, doing a Sewing Retreat with my aunt and my sister-in-law. My aunt is going to teach us how to quilt-as-you-go. 

I am having a fantastic time.





What I Read Last Week:

Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome

The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger




What I'm Reading Now:


Every day during the pandemic I began to list 3 Good Things. 

Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. 

Here are 3 Good Things from last week:


Good Thing #1:

My husband always gets to enjoy his birthday and
Father's Day in the same week,
this time with a new recipe for Banana Nut Bread.



Good Thing #2:

My favorite sign from No Kings Day.



Good Thing #3:

Just about the only review books I accept nowadays
are nonfiction picture books. I just received a copy of 
Jason Chin's new book, Hurricane, and the same day
I learn the library in Galveston is having a traveling 
exhibition of Jason Chin's original artwork.



Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.


Posted by at 33 comments:
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