The Sunday Salon: The Library Hotel, The Lion King, the New York Public Library, and The Strand Bookstore

  

Welcome! I am delighted that 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. 

Last week was a dream of delights in NYC. We stayed at the Library Hotel, went to the New York Public Library, saw The Lion King on Broadway, and visited the Strand Bookstore. I feel like I should do a post on each of these, especially the Library Hotel, which I heartily recommend. 

What did I love most? All those wonderful conversations we had with our fellow guests at the hotel, taxi drivers, people at the theater, customers at the bookstores, people on the plane.

What I Read Last Week:

Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz (Nonfiction)

What I'm Reading Now:

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Reread)

When Cathy of 746 books announced last year that she would not host 20 Books of Summer this year after ten successful years, Emma of Words and Peace and Annabel of AnnaBookBel both volunteered to take it on. Summer reading IS the 20, 15 or 10 Books challenge to all of us! They couldn’t let Cathy’s wonderful challenge fall by the wayside.

So this is the first call to start planning…

• The #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge runs from Sunday June 1st to Sunday August 31st
• The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15, or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR.
• Pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick at whim from your TBR.
• If you do pick a list, you can change it at any time – swap books in/out.
• Don’t get panicked at not reaching your target.
• Just enjoy a summer of great reading and make a bit of space on your shelves!

They’ll have monthly summary posts where you can add progress reports and recommendations. The final one at the at the beginning of September will stay open for a while to catch all the last reviews.

Emma designed some new logos, and for the first time they’ve done one specially for our Antipodean friends for whom it is winter rather than summer. Resize them to fit your needs. Emma has also made a book bingo card to match your reads for more fun, too.

If you’re planning to join in please do add your blog / planning post link to the Mr Linky here, which’ll help us keep track, and you can use the hashtag #20BooksofSummer2025 on your socials.

Here are my (planned, but subject to change) 20 Books of Summer:

James by Percival Everett.     The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. 

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser.    Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang.    Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty.

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt.    Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat.

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor.    Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngosi Adichie.

Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton.    Aflame: Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.     The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger.

A Bakery in Paris by Aimee K. Runyan.     How to Live by Judith Valente.

Bake Happy by Judith Fertig.   Sanditon by Jane Austen.

Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.     Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome.

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: New York!

The Houston Bookstore Crawl 2025: Mossrose Bookshop

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

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 Reading Room of

the Library Hotel.

Good Thing #2:

The New York Public Library.

Good Thing #3:

The Lion King.

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.