Back from Arkansas and Off to North Texas

 

We are back from a week in beautiful Arkansas. Now we are off to North Texas to see our granddaughter, Bailey, at Senior Night at her high school and our granddaughter, Annie, on her 6th birthday.

 What I Read Last Week:

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Hummingbirds' Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings by Sy Montgomery ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Renewal: How Nature Awakens Our Creativity, Compassion and Joy by Andres R. Edwards ⭐⭐⭐

What I Am Reading:

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Novel)

Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson (Books)

The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K. Fisher (Food Nonfiction)

The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher (Food Nonfiction)

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (Classic)

Have you read Lincoln Highway yet?

The Stanley Tucci memoir?

I've recently found my way, for the first time, to Gilmore Girls. How delightful it has been to discover that one of the GGs, Rory, is an avid reader. This week, I ran across this fun post: The 70 Most Relatable Gilmore Girls Moments for Bibliophiles.

I heard Jonathan Franzen speak about his new book, Crossroads, this week via Zoom at Houston Inprint. Now I need to read the book, I think.

Last week I posted here on my blog:

My Little Free Library: Trick-or-Book!

Nonfiction November is Coming!

Wondrous Words: Shinrin-yoku or Forest Bathing

(with lots of Arkansas hiking photos)

Good Thing #1

We are off to North Texas this weekend

to see our granddaughter, Bailey,

at Senior Night at her high school!

Good Thing #2

We will also see our granddaughter, Annie,

on her 6th birthday this weekend!

Good Thing #3

My birthday is Monday!

I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• 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 over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

Shinrin-yoku or Forest Bathing

I read Renewal: How Nature Awakens Our Creativity, Compassion, and Joy by Andrés R. Edwards during a recent trip to the forests of Arkansas. We spent six days taking seven hikes for a total of 20.55 miles. 

Here are a few quotes from Renewal and a few photos from Arkansas.

"Some of the most interesting research on the connection between health and nature is coming from Japan. Walking and spending time in forests, known as shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, is a popular form of preventive health care in Japan."

"Studies are now proving the health benefits of spending time in forests. Yoshifumi Miyazaki from Chiba University, Japan, discovered that going for a 40-minute walk in a cedar forest lowers the level of cortisol, a stress hormone, as well as blood pressure and supports the immune system more than a similar 40-minute walk indoors in a lab." 

"Qing Li from Nippon Medical School in Tokyo has shown that trees and plants emit compounds known as phytoncides that when inhaled give us therapeutic benefits akin to aromatherapy. Phytoncides also change the blood composition, which impacts our protection against cancer, boosts our immune system and lowers our blood pressure."

"The psychological benefits of green exercise include reduced stress and anxiety and improvements in self-esteem and mood as well as reduction in blood pressure and an increase in vitamin D from sunlight. Taking a walk outdoors in nature has also been shown to be effective in cases of depression."

"Having access to parks and nature has also been linked with longer life spans and a lower risk of mental illness in Japan, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands."

 

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered, or spotlight words you love.  Feel free to get creative! It was first created by Kathy over at Bermuda Onion and is now hosted at Elza Reads.

 For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

My Little Free Library: Trick-or-Book!

        

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.  

Nonfiction November is Coming!

Nonfiction November starts in just a couple of weeks! This year there are five hosts and five weeks of blog prompts:

Week 1: (November 1-5) – Your Year in Nonfiction with Rennie at What’s Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Week 2: (November 8-12) – Book Pairing  with Katie at Doing Dewey: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story. 

Week 3: (November 15-19) – Be/Ask/Become the Expert with Veronica at The Thousand Book Project: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert). 

Week 4: (November 22-26) – Stranger Than Fiction with Christopher at Plucked from the Stacks: This week we’re focusing on all the great nonfiction books that *almost* don’t seem real. A sports biography involving overcoming massive obstacles, a profile on a bizarre scam, a look into the natural wonders in our world—basically, if it makes your jaw drop, you can highlight it for this week’s topic.

Week 5: (November 29-December 3) — New to My TBR with Jaymi at The OC Book Girl: It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book! 

Do you like nonfiction? Will you be joining in for Nonfiction November this year?

Back from Arkansas...and Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon!

 

I definitely started at least some of these, but what did I finish? Maybe nothing, as it has been a busy week of hiking and hanging out and playing card games and relaxing. These are what I took along:

Renewal: How Nature Reawakens Our Creativity, Compassion, and Joy 

by Andrés R. Edwards

The Hummingbird's Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings by Sy Montgomery

How to Draw Anything Anytime: A Beginner's Guide to Cute and Easy Doodles

Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith by Henri Nouwen

Art Before Breakfast by Danny Gregory

The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay

Hummingbird Salamander: A Novel by Jeff Vandermeer

Extraordinary Insects: Weird. Wonderful. Indispensible. The Ones Who Run Our World.

by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor

Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wislawa Szymborska

I am eagerly looking forward to reading all of the Narnia books for the first time beginning the last weekend in November with Calmgrove. I bought all the Narnia books as ebooks last week; Amazon offered a sweet deal with $5 off the whole series. Do you have any interest in joining in? Find out more about #Narniathon21 here.

This weekend is Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon. I plan to try to get in as much reading as I can with the books I took along to Arkansas but did not finish. I also have a library copy of The Lincoln Highway and Stanley Tucci's memoir, Taste, that are due back in a few days. For snacks, I plan to keep the coffee coming. 

More about the readathon is here.

Arkansas!

Good Thing #1

Arkansas!

Good Thing #2

Arkansas!

Good Thing #3

Arkansas!

Photos to come soon...

I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• 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 over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below.