The Sunday Salon: Off to Spring Break with Grandkids, Books, and Birds

 

We are very glad that you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. Welcome!

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. 

We would all love to have you link up and then visit others' blogs. Be sure to leave a comment when you visit others. 

Spring is Migration Celebration and Spring Fling and Open House at the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. I will be volunteering at all of these for my Texas Master Naturalist group. 

My grandkids are off for Spring Break and I will be visiting them all over the next two weeks. We will be reading and doing nature walks and playing board games and spending time together.

What I Read Last Week:

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (Liked)

A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration---Epic Journeys, Urgent Threats, and the Fight for Bird Conservation by Kenn Kaufman (Liked)

What I'm Reading Now:

The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Classic)

Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations by Frederick Buechner (Spirituality)

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn (Speculative Fiction)

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: Drop Everything and Read on Monday

My Favorite Speculative Fiction Books

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn: 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 garden is in the ground.

Good Thing #2:

Azaleas are blooming.

Good Thing #3:

Spring is here.

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.

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

       

      

Today's Featured Book: 

The Astral Library

by Kate Quinn

Genre: Speculative Fiction

Published: February 17, 2026

Page Count: 304 pages

Summary: 

Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books.

The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

I was doing poverty math the day my life fell apart. 

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

...I was almost relieved to look up and see the Librarian standing there with her tablet and her glasses and her cardigan, not looking at all like the semi-ageless guardian of an astral-plane book sanctuary.

I'm halfway through the book, and it's all I hoped for. I like this speculative-fiction Kate Quinn better than historical-fiction Kate Quinn; the characters are jaunty and seriously flawed and fun in Astral Library, and I keep thinking of people I know to recommend it to.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

If you had to, would you pass your book collection on to someone special? If not, what would you prefer your family or friends do with your books after you’re gone? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer)

When Grandpap Frankeny died, we grandkids were all allowed to choose three books from his collection. That's a nice tradition. 

My Favorite Speculative Fiction Books

When I was eighteen, I discovered science fiction, and I read almost nothing else. 

This went on for about ten years. Scifi, scifi, scifi. Lots and lots of science fiction.

And then I stopped. 

I discovered literary fiction and nonfiction that reads like fiction, and I never went back.

But now, forty years later, I want to read the books I've missed. Science fiction. Fantasy. Speculative fiction.

Could you suggest some titles?

Here are some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy books. Maybe this will give you a good idea about what I have loved in the past.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Color of Magic (Discworld #1) by Terry Pratchett

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Animal Farm by George Orwell

1984 by George Orwell

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Babel by R. F. Kuang

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

What speculative fiction have you loved?

What would you recommend to me?

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.      

The Sunday Salon: Drop Everything and Read on Monday

 

Welcome! We are happy 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. 

Three books of genre fiction? And three different genres! 

What I Read Last Week:

Caraval by Stephanie Garber (Fantasy)

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn (Book Club; Historical Fiction)

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton (Western; Book Club)

The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Classic)

Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations by Frederick Buechner (Spirituality)

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (Classic)

Twist by Colum McCann (Novel)

A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration by Kenn Kaufman (Nature)

Join the Virtual SBC Read-In

The Silent Reading Club is kicking off Read Across America Day with a special virtual edition. Come for the book recommendations, stay for the quiet camaraderie... and a chance to win a free copy of LAWS OF LOVE AND LOGIC, by Debra Curtis.

When: Monday, March 2nd
Time: 8:00-8:30 am PT / 11:00-11:30 am ET
Where: RSVP to receive a link via email to join

RSVP

RSVP to receive a link via email to join the Virtual SBC Read-In. Don’t forget to Bring Your Own Book… we can’t wait to see what you’re reading!

#DEARacrossAmerica

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Early Voting, The Great Backyard Bird Count, and More

A Few Quotes from Books about Books and Libraries and Reading that I Like

Caraval by Stephanie Garber: 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:

Duolingo!

Good Thing #2:

We naturalists are learning about water today.

Good Thing #3:

Our group of friends enjoyed hearing

author George Saunders speak in Houston

this week. 

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.