My Book-ish, Pre-Birthday Week

It all started on Wednesday. Suddenly, I started receiving birthday greetings on Facebook. You are probably saying, Uh-huh...everybody gets birthday greetings on Facebook. But here's the thing: My real birthday isn't until next week. November 1st. The day after Halloween. It's downright spooky. Then on Thursday night, a lovely retired librarian and I went to hear Stephen Harrigan, author of Remembering Ben Clayton, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Our book club read (and loved) Harrigan's latest novel, Remembering Ben Clayton, as part of our regional Gulf Coast Reads program. Harrigan said it took about three years to research and then write this novel. He's written three other novels, including New York Times bestseller and notable book, The Gates of the Alamo. What makes him write about Texas? "I need to get under the hood of of the place where I live," Harrigan says. I left Friday for the Texas Book Festival for more book-ish, pre-birthday events. I'm afraid I will have to save that for another post.

What I Read This Week Last weekend was Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon and I read my heart out. For eighteen hours. At midnight, I fell asleep and turned back into a pumpkin. Woke up at four and read for the last couple of hours. Grand total: twenty hours of reading, which makes me quite happy. I finished a lot of books, too. A Lot. Robot Burp Head Smartypants! Woodward and McTwee Mr. Pants: It's Go Time! Tugboat Ten Eggs in a Nest Eerie Elementary: The School is Alive! Monkey Me and the Golden Monkey Enchanted Sisters: Autumn's Secret Gift Moldylocks and the Three Beards Pigsticks and Harold and the Incredible Journey Fly Away Marty McGuire Has Too Many Pets! The Chicken Squad: The First Misadventure Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door Princess Posey and the First Grade Boys Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake Number One Sam Pete the Cat: A Pet for Pete Annika Riz, Math Whiz The School at the Chalet Love Letters to the Dead After the readathon, I read A Paris Apartment and I'm almost finished with 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go. I came home from the Texas Book Festival with a huge stack of books but that, too, will have to wait for another day.

To sum up: lots of early birthday greetings, an evening author event in Houston, the 24-hour-readathon, 22 books read, and the Texas Book Festival. Now that's a book-ish pre-birthday week! And just six more days until my book-ish birthday!

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. Click here to join the Salon.

The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news and recap the past week.

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that we found in our mailboxes last week. 

 It is now being hosted here.

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews in which you can share the books you've acquired.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from! I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme Book Journey loves to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme.