Books I Meant to Read in 2023 but Didn’t Get To

• The Underworld: Journey to the Depths of the Ocean by Susan Casey
• Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard
• All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• Lost Horizon by James Hilton
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
• Germinal by Emile Zola
• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and 
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• Half Magic by Edward Eager
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

What books did you want to read in 2023, but never got around to reading last year?

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: Four Nights of Freezing Weather

   

Welcome! I'm happy 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 plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

We survived (though many of our plants did not) two nights of freezing weather last week, and it is supposed to freeze again this weekend. I'm already tired of winter. 

I did finish three books last week, two novels---Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry and Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano---and one nonfiction book, America the Beautiful? 

I wonder if anyone else has read and enjoyed Wendell Berry. If you have, what else of his would you recommend?

What I Read Last Week:

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (Fiction)

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

America the Beautiful? One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled 

by Blythe Robertson (Travel)

What I'm Reading Now:

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (Creativity)

Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (Fantasy)

Magic by the Lake: Magic Tales #2 by Edward Eager (Fantasy)

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See (Fiction)

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

Searching for Italy: Cinque Terra

Bookish Goals for 2024

The Sunday Salon: Cold!

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!

What is the spin? It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 21st January, 2024 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

Here is my list:

1. Village School by Miss Read

2. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

3. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

4. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

5. Bleak House by Charles Dickens

6. Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

7. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

8. Hunger by Knut Hamsun

9. Lost Horizon by James Hilton

10. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

11. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

12. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

13. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

14. So Big by Edna Ferber

15. Sanditon by Jane Austen

16. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

17. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

18. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

19. I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki

20. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Have you read any of these?

Do you recommend any of these?

UPDATE!

The spin number is...

Oliver Twist!

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. 

Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

Birds were delighted that this birdbath

began to thaw on Wednesday morning.

I saw Bluejays, Mockingbirds, Carolina Chickadees,

Tufted Titmice, and a squirrel at the birdbath.

Good Thing #2:

Goldfinches were happy that I've kept the feeders full of seeds 

during this cold weather.

Good Thing #3:

Here I am last week with my friend Cindy,

walking barefooted on the Galveston beach.

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.

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

 

Today's Featured Book 

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Genre: Fiction

Published: September 5, 2000

Page Count: 384 pages

Summary: 

“This is a book about Heaven,” says Jayber Crow, “but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell.” It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber.

Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow’s acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its goodness and frailty.

He began his search as a "pre-ministerial student" at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with "Old Grit," his profound professor of New Testament Greek:

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out―perhaps a little at a time."
"And how long is that going to take?"
"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."
"That could be a long time."
"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. "It may take longer."

 

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 never put up a barber pole or a sign or even gave my shop a name. I didn’t have to. The building was already called “the barbershop.” That was its name because that had been its name for nobody knew how long. Port William had little written history Its history was its living memory of itself, which passed over the years like a moving beam of light. It had a beginning that it had forgotten, and would have an end that it did not yet know. It seemed to have been there forever. After I had been there a while, the shop began to be called Jayber Crow’s, or just Jayber’s. “Well, I’m going down to Jayber’s,” people would say, as if it had been clearly marked on some map, though it was so only in their minds. I never had a telephone, so I was not even in the book.

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice, but Freda is currently taking a break and Anne of Head Full of Books is filling in. 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. 

One thing you would sooner or later realize about The Good Shepherd was that it had no neighbors. Like (I think) most institutions, it was turned inward, trying to be a world in itself. It stood at the edge of the little town of Canefield, which it looked upon as a threat to its morals. In his many chapel talks and sermons, Brother Whitespade suffered over the possibility that some of the Canefield merchants might sell cigarettes to The Good Shepherd children for some of the tiny allowance of spending money we received, and over the possibly regrettable results of mixing between our older girls and boys and the older boys and girls of Canefield, who had not had the advantage of orphanhood and the moral instruction of Brother Whitespade.

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.    

January 19th-25th - Have you ever loved a book that everyone else hated or hated a book that everyone else loved? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

My oldest friend begged me to read John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. "It's my favorite book!" she gushed.

So I read it.

I hate, loathe, despise A Prayer for Owen Meany. 

And yet so many people, including my friend Karen, love that book.

Searching for Italy: Cinque Terra

Our trip to Italy  is inspired by the Stanley Tucci series, Searching for Italy, in which Stanley (I think he would want me to call him that) visits the twenty regions of Italy in search of the best foods. 

We stay in two regions during our three-week trip to Italy, Piedmont and Puglia. Piedmont is in the northern part of Italy, and Puglia is along the coast in the southern part of Italy.

My sister arranges for a short trip to Cinque Terra while we are in northern Italy. We catch a train in Solero. We are the only passengers.

It is a three-hour train ride. We eat on the train; a meal of freshly-made paninis is included in the price of the ticket. 

We arrive in Monterosso al Mare..and it's just as beautiful as I've imagined. 

We attempt a hike in Monterosso. Whew. It is really, really steep. It is really, really rocky. It is really, really dangerous. 

We decide to walk around the town instead of doing the complete hike. Parts of the walk around town are pretty steep and dangerous, too.

We visit the beach. 

Even though it is September, Cinque Terre is wall-to-wall tourists.

We ride the train and visit all five towns---Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Manorola, Corniglia, and Riomaggiore. 

We eat at Ristorante Marina Piccola in Monterosso al Mare. We eat with a view of the water. 

I have Insalada Mare and my husband tries Tagliatelle Al Pesto. Like every meal we eat in Italy on this trip, the food is amazing.

For more photos, link up at Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Create With Joy, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered, or spotlight words you love or post about anything word-ish. It was first created by Kathy over at Bermuda Onion.

Weekend Cooking was created by Beth Fish Reads and is now hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). It is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post. 

Bookish Goals for 2024

Hey! I like to read!

I do! I like it, Sam-I-Am!

And I would read in a boat.

And I would read with a goat...

And I will read, in the rain.

And in the dark. And on a train.

And in a car. And in a tree.

Reading is so good, so good, you see!

So I will read in a box.

And I will read with a fox.

And I will read in a house.

And I will read with a mouse.

And I will read here and there.

Say! I will read anywhere!

I do so like my reading jam!

Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-Am.

Goals for 2024? Read whenever I want, wherever I want, whatever I want.

And I shall be Sam-I-Am for all those who think they are Reading Naysayers, one Naysayer at a time.

That is all.

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: Cold!

   

Welcome! I'm happy 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 plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

It's supposed to get cold this weekend here. It will dip almost to freezing Sunday night, and Monday it will be...24 degrees F? Whew! That's cold!

What I Read Last Week:

If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Fiction)

Half Magic by Edward Eager (Children's Fantasy)

The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Ozathon)

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (Creativity)

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard (Nature)

What I'm Reading Now:

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (Fiction)

America the Beautiful? by Blythe Robertson (Travel)

Sketch Now Think Later by Mike Daikubara (Drawing)

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: Bonne Année! Joyeuse Année!

New Releases I Can't Wait to Read

Searching for Italy: Palazzo Borromeo at Isola Bella

Take a look at your own Year in Books here.

I've set up my challenges for 2024. 

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

A Mister Rogers Movie Marathon

to start the year off right.

Good Thing #2:

My friend Rae held a Silent Book Club meeting 

at her bookstore, Rae's Reads,

this week.

Good Thing #3:

I've written every day in my new journal

made by my sister-in-law, Nancy Ashley.

(Send her a DM at Sew Loved by Nancy Ashley

for your own custom-designed journal.)

How was your 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.