Enjoying an Early Thanksgiving with Family

     

Welcome! 

I'm glad 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. 

My dad last year 

at the pre-Thanksgiving get together

We are up in East Texas this weekend for an early Thanksgiving get together with family. After much discussion, I was finally able to convince my 97-year-old dad that it was not a good idea to drive up through Houston and for two hundred miles pulling a trailer! He wants to do "a little bit of work" around the place while we are up there. Good thoughts and prayers appreciated!

What I Read Last Week (link takes you to my attempts at a review)

Zen and Zen Classics by R. H. Blyth

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Ringworld by Larry Niven

What I'm Reading Now:

Orbital: A Novel by Samantha Harvey (Booker Prize Winner)

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Nonfiction November)

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (SciFi Month)

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: "...small everyday deeds of ordinary folk..."

Nonfiction November 2024: Mind-Openers: Bowling Alone

The Earliest Published Books On My TBR

I'm on Bluesky now.

I'm at debnance.bsky.social.

I've been a bit down lately, and maybe you have, too. To cheer myself up, I decided to read a holiday-themed picture book for the first twenty-four days in December. I picked some of my favorite picture books and I added in some new-to-me books. I will do this as my 12 Books of Christmas challenge.

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:

Another amazing quilt from the

International Quilt Show in Houston.

Good Thing #2:

A friend and I spoke with children 

about becoming a librarian

for Career Day at a local elementary last week.

So much fun!

Good Thing #3:

My Duolingo French score

is 25.

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 Earliest Published Books On My TBR

This will take your breath away. I like to read old books. Really old books. Here are the books on my TBR that were published the earliest.

Have you read any of these?

I dare you to beat me!

Meditations	Aurelius, Marcus	165
Pillow Book, The	Shonagon, Sei	967
Tale of Genji, The	Murasaki, Shibibu	1000
Travels of Marco Polo, The	Polo, Marco	1300
Essays in Idleness	Kenko	1332
Travels in Asia and Africa	Ibn Battuta	1340
Gargantua and Pantagruel	Rabelais, François	1532
Book of Common Prayer, The	Anonymous	1549
Comedy of Errors, The	Shakespeare, William	1594
Merchant of Venice, The	Shakespeare, William	1600
Midsummer Night's Dream, A	Shakespeare, William	1600
Much Ado About Nothing	Shakespeare, William	1600
Othello	Shakespeare, William	1603
King Lear	Shakespeare, William	1608
Tempest, The	Shakespeare, William	1611
Winter’s Tale, The	Shakespeare, William	1611
Princess of Clèves, The	Lafayette, Madame de	1678
History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, The	Fielding, Henry	1749
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, The	Sterne, Laurence	1759
Travels Through France and Italy	Smollett, Tobias	1766
John Woolman's Journal	Woolman, John	1774
Dangerous Liaisons	Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de	1782
Journey Around My Room	de Maistre, Xavier	1790
Journals of Lewis and Clark	Lewis, Meriwether	1814
Sanditon	Austen, Jane	1817

Thank you, Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits, for this week's prompt.

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.   

Nonfiction Mind Openers: Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

Week 4 (11/18-11/22) Mind Openers: One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is the way it can open your eyes to the world around you–no plane ticket required. What nonfiction book or books have impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Is there one book that made you rethink everything? Is there a book that, if everyone read it, you think the world would be a better place? (Hosted by Rebekah at She Seeks Nonfiction).

What nonfiction book has impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way?

The nonfiction book that rocked my world when I first read it in 2002 was Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam. I had no idea that Americans were so lonely and so isolated. I want to do everything I can to encourage people to connect with others in my small town and in the world.

P.S.

Linda asked a good question in the comments: What suggestions does Putnam have for remedying things? I decided to do a little research about this question, and I discovered that a documentary was made in 2023 centering on Putnam's work. Here's the trailer for it.

"...small everyday deeds of ordinary folk..."

    

Welcome! I'm delighted you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. 

What is the Sunday Salon? you ask. 

The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and 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. 

What I Read Last Week:

Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain by Andrew McCarthy (Nonfiction November)

Star Wars: The Mandalorian (SciFi Month)

The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened by Bill McKibben (Nonfiction November)

What I'm Reading Now:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Nonfiction November)

Ringworld by Larry Niven (SciFi Month)

It’s baack!

Jenn at Jenn's Bookshelves is pleased to announce that she will once again be hosting Thankfully Reading Weekend, November 27-December 1st (Wednesday through Sunday)!

New to Thankfully Reading Weekend? Here are the details:

There are no rules to the weekend. We’re simply hoping to devote a good amount of time to reading, and perhaps meeting some of our reading challenges and goals for the year. We thought it’d be fun if we cheered each other on a bit. 

If you think you can join in, grab the logo  and add your sign up post to the link-up here.  Include the link to where you’ll be posting your updates (Instagram, Threads, etc).  Jenn personally will be updating most on Instagram.

The official hashtag we’ll be using is #thankfullyreading. Join in for the weekend or for only a single day. No rules, no pressure!

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: I Choose Love

Nonfiction November 2024: Book Pairings

Destination Titles

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I am joining the 12 Books of Christmas Challenge this year, hosted by Katie at Just Another Girl and Her Books.

The Rules

This is supposed to be a fun, stress-reducing challenge, so the rules will be minimal.

1. Tell everybody about the 12 Books of Christmas challenge (#12BooksOfXmas). 
2. Build a blog post or create a Goodreads shelf of the books you intend to read for the challenge (you can see the host's list here). You can absolutely read outside your list, if the desire strikes; this is just a starting point. Then come back and add your name to the linkup. (Be sure to visit the other participants to see what they plan on reading.) Bloggers, please link back so that others can find the challenge as well should they wish to participate. 
3. Reviews must be posted between November 24th and December 24th. The review linkup will open on November 24th. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can come back and add your reviews!
4. Any winter holiday themed books count (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.) You can check out the books we read in 2017 by clicking here, 2018 by clicking here, 2020 by clicking here and 2022 didn't have any reviews linked because even the host failed on that score.
5. There are four achievement levels for this challenge, so read as few or as many books as you want.
6. Have fun!

I plan to read twelve of my favorite Christmas-themed picture books this year.

Vote on your favorites on this Goodreads list.

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:

How about another quilt from

the International Quilt Show in Houston?

Good Thing #2:

My husband and I went to the Houston Gem & Mineral Society Show

last week and talked to several lapidaries with their machines.

Good Thing #3:

🩷

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.