The Sunday Salon: 2,408 Pages

  

Let me assure you that I am not a Big Book Reader normally, so I cannot explain why I suddenly took it into my head to read three big books in the last two weeks. I've actually been reading The Count of Monte Cristo since January 1st, but I was only about 150 pages into the story when I decided to get serious about these books. And I did get serious about these books, finishing two of them week-before-last and finishing the remaining book this week. And I enjoyed them all.

If you are curious...

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese...724 pages

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas...1,138 pages

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver...546 pages

_______________________________________________________

GRAND TOTAL...2,408 pages

So then it was time to switch gears and start reading for Paris in July. 

Here is my Paris-in-July stack.

I read:

A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor (travel)

I'm reading:

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (memoir)

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain (novel)

Vango: Between Sky and Earth by Timothée de Fombelle (children's book)

Last week I posted here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: Reading Big Books

Red White and Blue: Riffing on Nine Books that Represent My Very-American Idea of France

Paris in July: What I Might Do This Month

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop 

Happily, Emma of Words and Peace has decided to host Paris in July this year.  Thank you, Emma.

Emma is planning to collect links to posts each week and organize them by themes. She is also planning some giveaways.

I am enjoying spending Paris in July. 

My favorite Paris in July activities this week:

Watching Rowan Atkinson as Maigret in Maigret's Dead Man (Kanopy)

Baking gougères from the classic French pâte à choux (more on this soon)

To find out more about Paris in July 2023, take a look at Emma's post here.

Good Thing #1

My gorgeous great-granddaughter, Lucy, 

all decked out for the Fourth of July!

Good Thing #2

My dad was honored (left blue shirt)

with three other World War II veterans,

at the Astros game this week.

At 96, he was next-to-youngest of the four veterans.

Good Thing #3

The butterflies posed nicely for me this week

during our Butterfly Count

at Camp Mohawk County Park.

We are delighted to have you join us at the Sunday Salon this week. 

What is Sunday Salon? Sunday Salon is a place to share what we have been doing during the week. We invite you to link up, visit other blogs, and join in the conversations going on all around the blogosphere. 

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

• What was your week like?
• Have you 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. 

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

Today's Featured Book 

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain

Genre: Fiction

Published: June 22, 2023

Page Count: 235 pages

Summary: 

"In 1760, Guillaume le Gentil, real-life astronomer to King Louis XV, sets out for the oceans of India to document the transit of Venus. The weather is turbulent, the seas are rough and his quest may be more complicated than initially thought.

250 years later, estate agent Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume’s telescope in a property he's sold. As he looks out across the rooftops of Paris, he discovers an intriguing woman with a zebra in her apartment. 

Then the woman walks through the doors of his office, and his life changes forever...."

 

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.

"On the twenty-sixth of March 1760, Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de La Galaisiere, astronomer to the Academie Royale des Sciences, boarded the fifty-gun ship Le Berryer in the French port of Lorient, bound for India."

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice. 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 Freda's Voice and visit others in the linky. 

"Xavier looked again as soon as he woke up the next morning. The dark-haired woman's window was ajar, and there was no zebra in the apartment."

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.    

July 7th - 13th - Which character do you identify with and why? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

I've always felt like some odd combination of Maria from The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins from the book of the same name, and Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time.

How about you? What character(s) do you identify with?

  Il est Juillet et il est temps pour le merveilleux Paris in July, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace.

Paris in July: What I Might Do This Month

 

Paris in July has begun, and, happily, Emma of Words and Peace will be hosting this year.

The aim of the month is to celebrate our French experiences through reading, watching, listening, observing, cooking and eating all things French.

There are no rules or targets in terms of how much you need to do or complete in order to be a part of this experience – just blog about anything French and you can join in. Some ideas might include:

• reading a French-themed book – fiction or nonfiction;
  
• watching a French movie;
  
• listening to French music;
  
• cooking French food;
  
• experiencing French, art, architecture, and travel;
• tasting French wine, or testing French cocktails;
• celebrating le quatorze juillet or Bastille Day.

Whatever it is that you love about France---share it with us all. And pass the word...

Emma's posts are here.

So what are my plans for Paris in July? Here are some of the things I might do...

I look forward to Paris in July all year along,

and I work to accumulate a nice stack of books for the event.

READ BOOKS

Germinal by Émile Zola (novel)

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain (novel)

The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier (novel)

The Paris Letter by Jon Robin Baitz (play)

Vango: Between Sky and Earth by Timothée de Fombelle (children's book)

A Walk Across France by Miles Morland (travel)

A Paris All Your Own edited by Eleanor Brown (travel)

A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor (travel)

Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay by Serge Lemoin (art)

When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman (memoir)

15-Minute French: Learn in Just 12 Weeks (language learning)

Say It Right in French (language learning)

Learn French: 50 French Phrases (language learning for children)

Ladurée Sucré: The Recipes (cookbook)

WATCH FILMS

Arsene Lupine (Fawesome)

The Count of Monte Cristo (DVD)

Three Colors: Blue (Max)

Three Colors: Red (Max)

Three Colors: White (Max)

Alphaville (Kanopy)

Belle du Jour (Max)

Maigret's Dead Man (Kanopy)

A Cat in Paris (Kanopy)

Paris Holiday with Bob Hope (Fawesome)

Hugo (Paramount +)

French Chef (Tubi)

LEARN THE LANGUAGE

Practice every day on Rosetta Stone and Duolingo

Read in Short Stories in French

Read Le Petit Prince

FRENCH COOKING

Try something from

Ladurée Sucré: The Recipes

The Cook's Atellier

Are joining us in Paris this month?

What are your plans?

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.

Il est Juillet et il est temps pour le merveilleux Paris in July, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace.

Red White and Blue: Riffing on Nine Books that Represent My Very-American Idea of France

 

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo...Class struggles, justice

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway...The appropriation of France by foreigners who make it their own

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas...Justice

Paris in Winter by David Coggins...Seeing Paris through an outsider's eyes

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child...French cooking 

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry...Simplicity, meaning in life

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre...Existentialism, meaning in life

750 Years in Paris by Vincent Mahé...History

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux...Beauty, romance, music

I'm linking this to the #parisinjuly2023 event, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace.

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. 

Il est Juillet et il est temps pour le merveilleux Paris in July, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace.

The Sunday Salon: Reading Big Books

 

It's a long Fourth of July holiday weekend here in the US. As my dad (a man who, at 96, has been retired more years than he worked) warned me before I retired, once you are retired, you do not get days off.  Still, who doesn't love seeing fireworks and getting a chance to think a little about some of the wonderful parts of this country, maybe contemplating ways we might make America better for all the people here? Happy Fourth!

I focused on my three Big Books of Summer last week. I finished two of the three---Demon Copperhead and The Count of Monte Cristo. I thought both of these were amazing reads. A lot of people tend to think that literary novels are tedious and slow. Neither Demon Copperhead and The Count of Monte Cristo is tedious and slow; I hesitate to use this word, but the truth is that both of these are page-turners. And The Covenant of Water (I'm about a hundred pages into this one) is looking like it will be a page-turner, too. 

I'm not an English major---I'm just a regular person who loves to read---and I've come to award-winning novels and classics reluctantly and late in life. But if you are like me and you hesitate to read books that feel a little intimidating, I urge you to try a classic, to try an award-winning novel. Maybe your experience will surprise you the way my experiences have surprised me.

The Count of Monte Cristo (my review)

Demon Copperhead (my review)

Last week I posted here at Readerbuzz:

Six New Releases I Might Read in the Last Half of 2023

20 Years of BookCrossing

The Sunday Salon: Hot, Hot, Hot

Happily, Emma of Words and Peace has decided to host Paris in July this year.  Thank you, Emma.

Emma is planning to collect links to posts each week and organize them by themes. 

I am looking forward to spending Paris in July. 

To find out more, take a look at Emma's post here.

The focus of Action for Happiness in July is to build resilience. Get your own Jump Back Up July calendar here. 

Good Thing #1

Breakfast with my Breakfast Mama friends.

Good Thing #2

Grand-pup Jordan swims for the first time.

Good Thing #3

A new best-chocolate-chip-cookie recipe?

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.