Chicago!

I don't think I heard anything about Covid this week in the news or from friends. 

It's the first time in a long time that I am really starting to stop worrying constantly about it.

I liked both my books this week a lot, but they weren't perfect reads. Fellowship Point was a beautiful story of two elderly friends, but it is a long book and I thought it tended to drag. Crying in the Bathroom was a poignant memoir of the author's struggles with sexism, racism, and depression, but I think people shouldn't write memoirs when they are young.

What I Read Last Week:

Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir by Erika L. Sánchez 🐝🐝🐝🐝

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark 🐝🐝🐝🐝

What I'm Reading Now:

Villette by Charlotte Bronte (Chapter-a-Day)

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (Nonfiction)

Other Birds: A Novel by Sarah Addison Allen (Fiction)

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks 

by Patrick Radden Keefe (Nonfiction)

How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning, and Community by Judith Valence (Happiness)

Last week I posted here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and Crying in the Bathroom

Books with Geographical Terms in the Title that I Have Read and Loved

Author Mohsin Hamid and The Last White Man: Inprint Houston

I'm doing the Cybils Awards for the fifteenth year. Judges for the 2022 Cybils have now been chosen. I thank all of you who applied this year. And I hope all of you who love children's books and YA books will be thinking about nominating your favorite reads of the last year soon.

Good Thing #1, 2, and 3

We are visiting with our son and daughter-in-law in Chicago!

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. 

Author Mohsin Hamid and The Last White Man: Inprint Houston

First line: "One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown."

Author Mohsin Hamid read from his new book, The Last White Man, in Houston on Monday, August 1. The Last White Man is the story of a young man who woke up only to discover that he had become dark. The book is described as reimagining "Kakfa’s iconic The Metamorphosis for our racially charged era.”

After the reading, Hamid spoke with fellow author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Hamid said the impetus for writing the book began after September 11, 2001. For him, "a brown man with a funny name," he was saddened to find that people began to treat him differently, that he'd lost "a kind of whiteness" in which he had been "treated as a regular person." He found he wanted to write about it.

Hamid said he writes small novels. He works for seven years, he told us, and his resulting novel is only 100 pages long.

Things are changing all the time, Hamid said, and we are unmoored by change. "Change," he went on, "means we lose things." But there are only a few ways to deal with the loss that comes with change: "We can deny loss is happening or we can become pessimistic." None of these, Hamid feels, are useful responses. Instead, he encouraged us to be optimistic, have hope that categories will blur, and realize that what we see as reality isn't really real.

It was an evening, as are all Inprint author events, in which I felt a bit of hope for the world.

My reviews of Mohsin Hamid books:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist (I read this in July, 2009)

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (I read this in January, 2014)

Exit West (I read this in December, 2017)

The Last White Man (I finished it this week)

Have you read any of Mohsin Hamid's books?

Have you been to any author events lately?

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Books with Geographical Terms in the Title that I Have Read and Loved

To make it more challenging, I disallowed children's books and nonfiction. Also, no repeats of geographical terms. I only chose books that I have read and loved.

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

A Place Where the Sea Remembers by Sandra Benitez

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

The Hills is Lonely by Lillian Beckwith

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Small Island by Andrea Levy

The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek

People of the Valley by Frank Waters

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Have you read any of these?

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.   

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and Crying in the Bathroom

 

What I Read Last Week:

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

What I'm Reading Now:

Villette by Charlotte Bronte (Chapter-a-Day)

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks (Book Club)

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (Nonfiction)

Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir by Erika L. Sánchez (Author Reading)

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark (Fiction)

Last week I posted here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: Challenge Update
Books I Loved So Much I Had to Get a Copy for My Personal Library
Castles in the Loire

Erika L. Sánchez will speak about her books, 

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and Crying in the Bathroom, 

at Inprint Houston on Monday night.

It's the last weekend to apply for the Cybils...the deadline to apply is this Monday! If you enjoy reading and reviewing children's or young adult books, you might take a look at this post about one judge's experiences here, read about who we are looking for here, and perhaps you will apply to be a judge this year here.

Good Thing #1

Gasoline prices are finally coming down here.

Who would have ever thought I'd be happy to see gas for $2.89 a gallon?!

Good Thing #2

I have been thinking about it all summer,

and I finally bought an Apple Watch this week.

Good Thing #3

We are off to Chicago 

next Friday

to visit our son and his wife!

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.  

Castles in the Loire

The Loire region in France is the land of castles.

I couldn't resist stopping and taking photos of castles when we saw them as we drove through the countryside.

Château de Montsoreau.

Château d'Azay-le-Rideau

Château Golf des Sept Tours. Our husbands played golf here and we all ate lunch on the grounds.

Château d'Ussé

Château de Saumur.

Château de Villandry. We visited the gardens here.

Château de Chenonceau. We toured inside this castle.

Château de Vaujours. Sadly, time hasn't been good to this castle.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Books I Loved So Much I Had to Get a Copy for My Personal Library

I don't keep many books anymore. 

This is a photo of my favorites shelves. 

Here's a list of some of my favorites that I loved so much I had to keep a copy...

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

The Little Prince (in English, Spanish, and French) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers

Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

Zen and Zen Classics by R. H. Blyth

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

Book Lust by Nancy Pearl

1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up

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.