Big Wonderful Thing; Kindness December; and Justice

I finished the big wonderful Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas by Stephen Harrigan, weighing in at 925 pages. It was a huge book that touched down briefly to alight on everything-Texas, from the Alamo to Barbara Jordan.  I'm zig-zagged through an audiobook version of Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light, as author David Downie stops by some of the less well-known spots in Paris. I also followed author Alex Kotlowitz into a violent summer in Chicago in An American Summer: Life and Death in Chicago. 

    

I started reading Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel during the Thankfully Reading Weekend. It's a wonderful and thoughtful book that carefully considers the ethics of actions, and I was reading along in it quite briskly until Bonnie of Bonnie's Books shared with me the videos of Sandel's lectures at Harvard on Justice, and now I'm reading a little and watching a little and thinking a lot. Thank you, Bonnie.

Just for fun, here's Michael J. Sandel speaking with Stephen Colbert:

I've joined the Thankfully Reading Weekend hosted by Jenn of Jenn's Bookshelves. There are no rules to the weekend; we’re simply hoping to devote a good amount of time to reading, and perhaps meeting some of our reading challenges and goals for the year. We thought it’d be fun if we cheered each other on a bit. If you think you can join in, grab the button and sign up here.

And, just for fun, I created a Thankfully Reading BINGO game. To add a little excitement, I'm offering a $25 gift card to Book Depository to one person who plays and links up on my blog. Again, there are no real rules with the BINGO game; do as little or as much as you want. Join in until Sunday, December 1 at the end of the day CST.

Here are the Nonfiction November posts I wrote for the month:

Nonfiction November: The Kinds of Nonfiction I Like Best (Plus My Absolute Favorite Top Ten Nonfiction Books)

Nonfiction November: My Year in Nonfiction (So Far)

Nonfiction November: Fiction / Nonfiction Book Pairing: Moby Dick, In the Heart of the Sea and Other Assorted Fiction and Nonfiction About Moby Dick

Nonfiction November: Be the Expert: Books About Nature 

Nonfiction November: 100+ Nonfiction Books I Want to Read.

I've read 197 out of 222 Cybils picture books and board books. Books are arriving daily. It still feels like I have a lot to read, with 25 more books to go.

Here is the December Action for Happiness calendar, the Kindness Calendar. Download your own Kindness Calendar here. 

We've turned the corner into the busy lane of the year, haven't we? I read and reviewed Easy Cake Cookbook last week, and it has perfect easy recipes for cakes that you can make about as quickly as you can pop into the grocery, find a cake, and buy it. I imagine I'll be using it a lot in the next few weeks.

I'm very happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. I am delighted when you link up here and let us know what you have been doing. I hope you will visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about here:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below.