There There, Tell Me How It Ends, and a Silent Retreat

Read...

I read Tommy Orange's There There (fiction) and Valeria Luiselli's Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions (nonfiction) last week. 

And why Tommy Orange and Valeria Luiselli? Well, it just so happens that Orange and Luiselli appeared in Houston this week at Inprint. I'll write more about their readings and discussion later this week.




Reading...

After reading these two contemporary books, both intense, I feel like I need something light. But reading something light after these two heavy reads feels...wrong, somehow. I guess, for now, until something else surfaces, I will stick to reading Don Quixote and Edith Hamilton's Mythology.

Thinking about...

The Sunday Salon. I've agreed to take over the administration of the Sunday Salon, and I'd like to make it a place to think about and talk about our reading. I plan to continue to collect responses from the short poll I created about it for one more week. I will share the results of the poll with you next week. If you haven't responded to the poll or if you have comments about the Sunday Salon you'd like to share, I hope you will go to the poll this week.

Baking, photography, drawing, and other projects...

I went to a silent retreat this week in Houston at the Ruah Spirituality Center. We met each day twice to gather for silent Christian meditation, but the rest of the day was open to being with God as you wish. I discovered Kairos, a room for creative expression, there. I spent part of my time there with watercolors. 

I'll be posting about this experience soon.


In real life...

My daughter-in-law made it to 36 weeks, and her contractions have stopped. Her doctor sent her home on bed rest. But her husband and three-year-old daughter both got sick this week, so she has had to care for them. Please keep all of them in your prayers and thoughts.

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! It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted at The Book Date.