A Record Reading Year; Please Nominate a Book for the Cybils; and Yet Another Hurricane

 

Once again we prepare for a hurricane in the Gulf. We are west of the storm, on the "clean side," and predictions are for us to get a little rain and wind gusts up to 45 mph. Our neighbors to the east are in our thoughts and prayers.

UPDATE: The storm has passed through here quickly. We got only high wind and a little rain. Louisiana looks like it got hit pretty hard.

It's already a record reading year for me.

Quantity can lead to quality. Last week I finished four very good reads: The Snow Child, The Midnight Library, The Switch, and The Writer's Library. Click the link to see my review of each. Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts?

What better book to read this weekend than A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes?!

Have you nominated your favorite children's books of 2020 for the Cybils Awards? Anyone can nominate, and I'd urge you to nominate if you have not done so. Nominations will be taken from the public until October 15, and after that, a window opens for authors and publishers to nominate their own books. Don't know what to nominate? Take a look at these book recommendations for some great ideas, especially recommendations for great fiction picture books. Go here to nominate your favorite children's and young adult books for the Cybils Awards.

I heard author Marilynne Robinson read from her new book, Jack, and discuss her book and the crazy world last week through Houston Inprint. Her perspective along with her ability to thoughtfully reflect on important ideas impressed me. She is a voice to listen to during this time.

Nonfiction November will begin on November 2 and will run through the end of the month. There will be four weeks of prompts: Your Year in Nonfiction; Book Pairing (nonfiction with a fiction); Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert; and New to My TBR. For more information, take a look at Julz Reads.

I wrote posts last week about Books Set in the Afterlife, Birdwatching on the Beach, and (on The Classics Club blog) Nonfiction Classics.

1. I started a poetry writing class on Zoom last week. 

2. We spent time with my son and his family for my son's birthday.

3. We socially distanced with my sister and her husband for the first time in months.

I'm happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place for us 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.

Birdwatching on the Beach

Books Set in the Afterlife

Do you know the myth of Persephone? She was living happily on Earth with her mother, Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, when Hades, king of the underworld, kidnapped her and took her to live in his kingdom. Demeter wanted Persephone to return to her, but Hades tricked Persephone by feeding her pomegranate seeds, and the seeds made Persephone long to stay in the Underworld. 

The end result is that Persephone lives half the year on Earth with her mother during spring and summer, and she spends half the year, during fall and winter, with her husband, Hades.

And that is how I took the idea of books with fall vibes and somehow ended up with a list of books set in the underworld.

Here are a few you might like. Not all are set in the underworld, but all have themes of the afterlife and death. I have not yet read those with asterisks.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

Mort by Terry Pratchett

White Apples by Jonathan Carroll

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Inferno by Dante Alighieri*

What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson*

Being Dead: A Novel by Jim Crace*

Everlost by Neal Schusterman*

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson*

Passage by Connie Willis*

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson*

Lord of Life by Zelazny*

The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand*

It's a Wonderful Death* by Sarah J. Schmidt*

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks*

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier*

More Than This by Patrick Ness*

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.

National Hispanic Heritage Month and Banned Book Week

 

(Left) The roof after Hurricane Beta. (Right) The roof now. My husband decided to do the repair himself. I couldn't watch, but he did a fabulous job, I think.

I read for a couple of challenges this week.

For National Hispanic Heritage Month, I read With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo.

For The 1956 Club, I read The Silver Sword, one of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read, first published in 1956. 

And for Banned Book Week, I read two children's picture books:

Little Red Riding Hood, written and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, and

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, written and illustrated by William Steig.

Don't tell me what books I can and cannot read. 

Why was Little Red Riding Hood by Trina Schart Hyman banned? School officials in Culver City, California banned it because Little Red Riding Hood is carrying a bottle of wine in her basket to take to her sick grandmother. Yes. For goodness sake.

And Sylvester and the Magic Pebble? Police associations in twelve states asked librarians to ban the book because the book uses pigs as police. Gracious alive, people. 

Here's a list of the 100 most challenged books of the decade in the US.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy...80% read

Devotions by Mary Oliver...70% read

How to Draw Your Beautiful Ordinary Life...52% read

I found the Internet Archive this week. I was astonished to find many of the books on my 1001 Children's Books You Must Read list at the Internet Archive. I will be returning here soon.

1. Potentially a big pecan year.

2. Doors I see when I walk each morning.

3. Optimistic October Calendar.

I'm happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place for us 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.