Summer Readathon, 20 Books of Summer, Painting Our House, and Holding Alligators

Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World by Jeff Gordinier 

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

There are lots of bookish things going on or coming up soon....

Last week I listed Widely-Held but Misguided Notions About Reading.

Sarah at Puss Reboots revealed that she has been keeping records of her reading for thirty-two years.

Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon will host a Summer Reverse Readathon on August 2nd and 3rd, especially designed for those readers who live outside the US time zones. I've already signed up.

Cathy at 746books is hosting The 20 Books of Summer Challenge. Why not join in with your own 20 (or 10, or 15!), read along with some of the books or just cheer her on as she tries to get that dreaded 746 down by another 20 in just 3 months? Join the 20 Books of Summer Challenge here.

Tamara of Thyme for Tea will be again hosting Paris in July. Paris in July is a month long blogging event, with very few rules - except to focus on something Parisienne, French, or from France.... movies, books, authors, food, places, music, experiences, people, culture, history, future.... whatever you like to blog about - just do a post on something you love about Paris or France, and link it in. The linkup to sign up for Paris in July will be live on June 15.

Brona’s Books is hosting the Moby Dick Readalong beginning in August of 2019 and finishing at the end of February of 2020. To let others know of your interest in joining in, leave a comment here and share on social media.

Yes, my husband and I are holding alligators to share with children through our Texas Master Naturalist group.

Does it look like I didn't get much reading done this week? In the past seven days, we have hosted my family for an early Father's Day...driven to the Hill Country to spend the day with my husband's family...had all the windows on our house replaced...volunteered a couple of times with our Texas Master Naturalist group...and, all the while, in our spare time, we have been painting the outside of our house. Whew. 

While I was reading Hungry, the story of the quest of the highly-esteemed chef Rene Redzepi for new flavors in the world, author and food critic Jeff Gordinier compared what Redzepi was searching for with Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, a vocal choir from Bulgaria known for singing in microtones, the notes in between the notes you know, "notes that have been melted and bent until they're several shades of blue." So here is this beautiful music, for your enjoyment, discovered the way I discover most things, through the pages of a book.

How was your week? 

Did you finish any good books? 

Have you run across anything book-ish that you would like to share with us? 

I invite you to link up here and/or at the Sunday Salon page on Facebook each weekend (Saturday-Sunday-Monday) and let us know what you have been doing. Visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there.

Other places where you may like to link up are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

Journaling

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by A Web of Stories. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at A Web of Stories.

Widely-Held but Misguided Notions about Reading

I feel like I was put in this world to fight Widely-Held but Misguided Notions about Reading.

Here are some I hear all the time:

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.

#Bookaday, The Italian Baker, and Yoga for Everyone

Hobberdy Dick by Katherine M. Briggs (1955)

The Little Grey Men by B. B. (1942) 

My Great-Grandfather and I by James Kruss (1960)

Spiderman Anancy by James Barry (1988)

The Birth of Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki (1960)

The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati (1945)

Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg (1983)

Happily, I read seven more 1001 Children's Books this week. I brought home sixteen 1001 books from the Houston Public Library collection a couple of weeks ago, and I've been diligently reading them. One book, The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily, was in the rare book collection and I could not check it out; instead, I had to scan the whole book and bring the scanned version home to read. 

I now stand at 667/1001 Children's Books read.

This was due at the library last week. I can't renew it because there is a long waiting list for it. It's so good that I'm willing to pay the fine while I read it.

Donalyn Miller announced her 11th Annual #Bookaday Challenge at the Nerdy Book Club last week.  If you are not familiar with #bookaday, here is a little information about it.

The #bookaday guidelines are simple:

• You set your own start date and end date.
• Read one book per day for each day of your summer vacation. This is an average, so if it takes you a week to read a long book, you can balance it out with some picture books or early reader books.
• Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, audio books, graphic novels, poetry anthologies, or fiction—children’s, youth, or adult titles.
• Keep a list of the books you read and share them often via a social networking site like goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Use the #bookaday hashtag to find other participants and share your recommendations. You do not have to post reviews, but you can if you wish. Titles will do.

Miller goes on to say, "The summer #bookaday event endures as an annual opportunity to hit the reset button on our reading lives, connect with other readers, celebrate books, and remind ourselves how much reading matters to our lives...."

I will be reading #bookaday this summer.

I made a pizza this week, using the recipe for the crust and tomato sauce from The Italian Baker (reviewed this week at Goodreads) by Carol Field. The crust rose up nicely and the tomatoes and onions simmered on the stove for two hours. 

My little granddaughter, Annie, likes doing yoga with me. I've been reading Yoga for Everyone: 50 Poses for Every Type of Body (reviewed this week at Goodreads) in which the author shares fifty of her favorite poses along with variations of each pose. Here is Annie with her version of Tree Pose, one of my favorites.

How was your week? 

Did you finish any good books? 

Have you run across anything book-ish that you would like to share with us? 

I invite you to link up here and/or at the Sunday Salon page on Facebook each weekend (Saturday-Sunday-Monday) and let us know what you have been doing. Visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there.

Other places where you may like to link up are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

Tau Ceti

When I attended the library conference in April, I passed Austin's tallest artwork.

I saw lots of people stopping to take photos.

Finally I had to give it a try.

It's 105 feet tall. It's a gradient color spectrum that extends up ten stories on the corner of a public parking garage. It's Tau Ceti by artist Josef Kristofoletti. The title comes from the name of a star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to our own star.

Here's a time lapse of Tau Ceti.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by A Web of Stories. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at A Web of Stories.

24 Wonderful True Nature Stories

I love reading stories about nature. Here's a list of some of my favorites from this genre. The links take you to my review of each.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Observation in the West by Nate Blakeslee

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries From a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

A Weird and Wild Beauty: The Story of Yellowstone, the World's First National Park by Erin Peabody

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers by Amy Sutherland

The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife by Lucy Cooke

Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves by Farley Mowat

High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver

Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R. A. Scotti

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Wilderness Essays by John Muir

North on the Wing: Travels with the Songbird Migration of Spring by Bruce M. Beehler

Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves by Laurel Braitmann

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean

The Wave: In Pursuit of Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

What wonderful true nature stories have I missed? 

Have you read any of these?

Which have you loved?

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.