The Sunday Salon: California Dreaming

Feb 052012

Even though we’ve had a remarkably warm and nearly snow-less winter, it is still always nice to get out of Chicago for a short time in February, so this weekend we’re in California visiting my parents. So far it has been just lovely, my mother, sister, and I had massages yesterday while the boys played around at the country club. We plan on making Daniel run around the back yard quite a bit this weekend. Also, this evening one of my college roommates and her husband, who is a long-time friend of mine, are coming to dinner, which will be wonderful indeed.

And now to the books, here’s what I finished this week:

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And here’s what I reviewed:

I also hosted a BOOK CLUB discussion of Running the Rift and posted my January 2012 Reading Wrap-up.

The Sunday Salon 1.29.12

Jan 292012

Hey guys! I have very little to say this week. I spent the vast majority of my time at home watching Parks & Rec on Netflix. I’ve now finished it, I’m hoping that Season 4 thus far is available on Hulu or NBC so I can get the rest of the way caught up.

Watching two seasons of Parks & Rec does mean that I didn’t do a whole lot of reading this week, but what I did read, I really enjoyed:

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And here’s what I reviewed this wee:

TSS: Moving Day!

Jan 082012

We’ve been shopping around for a new house lately and, because of a complicated set of circumstances, we’re moving out of our condo what will end up being a few months before we get into a house. Luckily we have a temporary furnished place, so this weekend we’re working on moving what we need for the next few months (you know, clothes, toys, toiletries, BOOKS) and getting out of here so it will be easier to pack everything else up. If I’m not around much this weekend, that would pretty much be why.

I actually got a fair amount of reading done in the last week, though (actually, when I looked I was surprised at just how much I had read). It was mostly all light, end of vacation stuff, but still! Here’s what I finished:

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I’m also pretty excited about what I reviewed this week, there was a lot of good stuff!

Sunday Salon: Portland

Oct 232011

Hello friends! Today’s post is going to be intentionally vague, because instead of writing it on Sunday like usual (okay, Saturday, I’m a compulsive post scheduler) I’m writing it on Wednesday. Why, might you ask, am I doing this? Why, because I’m currently in Portland, OR and as much as I love you all I get to “talk” to you all the time and if I’ve ever been to Portland I was in about 5th grade, and I’m visiting a college roommate I haven’t seen in over two years and her adorable new baby. So…yeah. Writing this on Wednesday and wishing you the best, and probably playing with a cute baby or visiting Powells or something as you read this. Plus, all of you who are bloggers have a reading hangover from yesterday’s Readathon, so you are likely not reading this in the first place.

Here’s what I read this week (or, what I anticipated on Wednesday I would have finished by this point… is this getting confusing yet?):

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What’s with all of the yellows up there? Anyway, if I did happen to finish anything else, I guess I’ll just throw it on next Sunday’s post. At least I know for sure what I reviewed this week, because as I’m writing this I’ve already scheduled everything (lots of red and black/grey this week, funny!):

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Sunday!

TSS: GLiBA

Sunday Salon 8 Responses »

Oct 162011

Hello from beautiful Dearborn, Michigan! At least I’m going to assume it is beautiful – the drive from Chicago sure is, with all of the leaves changing colors – but while I’ve been here I’ve mostly seen the inside of the hotel. I’m currently schmoozing with booksellers from independent bookstores at the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association (GLiBA) trade show. Actually, now I’m getting ready to go home, but most of the weekend I’ve been schmoozing with booksellers; they’re good people, booksellers are, so excited about books. I’m learning about lots of new books too, I’ll be sharing more about them with you in the coming weeks.

For now, though, here are the books I finished this week:

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I reviewed a lot of books I’m excited about this past week, too. However, before we get to those, I’m almost even MORE excited about the Hot Fall Books guides I wrote for SheKnows.com:

Fiction | Nonfiction | Audiobooks

So check those out FIRST, and then check out the latest What’s Old is New show about Lord Byron, and THEN check out my reviews from last week (there is a giveaway to go with The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, don’t miss it!):

The Sunday Salon – Family Time

Oct 092011

This is going to be a quick one, because my parents are in town visiting this weekend. Daniel loves his Nana and Papa and, once the summer is over, he doesn’t get to see them very often, so we’re off doing fun things with them this weekend, despite the fact Daniel got sick Friday night (he is much better now, other than not having a huge appetite). We went to a local carnival-like pumpkin patch yesterday and had a blast.

I have a feeling that October may be a slow reading month, because I will be doing a lot of traveling (and packing, and unpacking, and laundry…), but it actually got off to a pretty good start. I’m really impressed with how much I read, considering Lionheart is 600 pages of Sharon Kay Penman’s trademark deliciously dense historical fiction.

Print:

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Audio:
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And here’s what I reviewed last week:

I also talked about The School of Night and Louis Bayard’s other books and posted about the fall books I want to Drop Everything And Read.

TSS: Red Books

Sunday Salon 12 Responses »

Sep 252011

Hubby traveling all last week = me reading a lot. I had a lot of other work to do this week, but I have a tendency to stay up too late when he’s gone, so I still got a ton read. And, as an aside, at least he came back before we had the fun of Daniel learning how to climb out of his crib (and fall down and freak himself out).

Anyway, here’s what I read this week:

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So many red books! It always amuses/confuses me when that sort of thing happens with covers. Anyway, here’s what I reviewed this week:

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Sep 182011

We had some seriously Fall-like weather this week – after summer reappeared on Monday with highs of close to 90. Daniel and I went and celebrated the dry, cool day yesterday by taking a little trip out to an apple orchard to pick a nice big bag of apples.

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I think that homemade apple chips and applesauce are in our future next week.

Okay, guys, I don’t know what is going on, but I’ve really been rocking the audiobooks lately. Somehow I seem to be finding all sorts of extra time to listen to them. I finished TWO this week (25 hours of audio), which is crazy, because it used to basically always take me two weeks to finish one. Oh, also, they were both fantabulous.

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I also finished three print books:

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This week I posted four reviews, in addition to recommending to you some of my favorite blogs and talking about how my reading has changed in the 3+ years I’ve been blogging:

Weather Guilt and Review Madness

Aug 282011

Right now a hurricane is battering the East Coast, but all is calm and lovely here in Chicago. We had a fun barbeque with friends last night and will potentially go to a picnic this afternoon. I must admit that I feel a little guilty that we have some of our nicest weather of the summer while East Coast friends get battered.

This has been a great reading week thanks to a train trip to/from downtown by myself on Sunday, plus my new reading/writing/cleaning plan. Basically I’m alternating reading, writing, and cleaning nights on the nights I’m at home, hoping that it makes me more productive in each of these things. My first reading night sure seemed productive, since it let me finish all three books I had going at the time.

I’m now actively picking things I do NOT think I will finish before the end of the month, though, because I have decided to try to be completely caught up on reviews by the end of the month, thanks to some inspiration from Jennifer at Literate Housewife. I’ve still got at least two posts/day to write to be caught up, so not finishing things keeps me from adding anymore to the too-long list. Here’s what I finished this week:

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And here’s what I reviewed:

TSS: Busy, Busy

Aug 212011

This has been a BUSY WEEK. Last night was the first time since Monday that I was actually home to read Daniel his bedtime story. Luckily we had three brand new books to choose from, two that were sent by Macmillan Children’s and one that I bought at an event earlier this week:

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We read the first two last night, and I cannot WAIT to read the third with him today.

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I just found out after I wrote this post that I was nominated for Best Audiobook Blog for BBAW, which is very exciting. I guess I’ll be spending this evening deciding which posts to submit. I really appreciate all of you who nominated me.

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The busy week had a lot of late nights with mostly non-bookish things, although it did include an awesome event (where I bought Teach Your Buffalo to Play Drums) at The Bookstore in Glen Ellyn seeing Melanie Benjamin talk about her new book, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb. I now have my pretty signed hardcover and can’t wait to get a few minutes to settle down with it.

I got a bunch of reading done on Sunday before the week really started, finishing everything that had been languishing last week, and then not too much since then. Still, I’m pretty happy with what I did get read, especially yesterday, when I had the house to myself for awhile, and I’m looking forward to some more reading time today. Here’s what I did finish last week:

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