TSS: The Last Day

Jul 082012

So…tonight I’m heading into the hospital to have these babies. They’ll be induced tomorrow morning, so you are all quite close to seeing baby and nursery pictures! I still have quite a few things to do today, so I’ll keep this fairly short. On the plus side, my house is clean and organized thanks to my sister, parents, and inlaws, who were all here yesterday getting last minute things set up, hanging pictures, helping me FINALLY get books put away (yay!), and giving everything a good cleaning before the girls come home.

You would think that since I haven’t worked for the past three weeks I would have had plenty of time to get everything remaining dealt with and then have plenty of reading time, but somehow that seems not to have been the case. Here’s what I finished this week:

On the blog this week I talked about what the girls will mean for my posting here and shared my new list of to-be-listened from Audiobook Week. In addition to those posts, I also posted two reviews:

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TSS: 4.15.12

Apr 152012

This has, by and large, been a really fun week. My parents have been in town, which makes Daniel Super. Excited. Of course, I’m not entirely sure whether he’s more excited about them or their dog being here. Plus, yesterday we went down to my grandparents’ house in Indianapolis for a family baby shower, which means we got to see some people we don’t see very often.

On the other hand, this was a week of terrible, terrible sleep. There were a lot of reasons for this, not all pregnancy-related, lots of things that conspired to wake me up multiple nights this week, but the problem is that with this pregnancy once I really wake up, I can’t go back to sleep, even when it is 2 am and I’ve been asleep for less than 3 hours. So, yeah, that made Tuesday and Wednesday significantly less fun than they might have been otherwise.

Both of these things - the good of family and the bad of sheer exhaustion - meant that I didn’t get much read this week. In fact, I finished one print book last Sunday and not another until Saturday, and I’m not terribly far through either my current print or ebook. I did get through a lot of audio, though, mostly when I was laying awake in the middle of the night. Here’s what I did finish:

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At least it was a really good variety, we have an apocalyptic fiction, a classic retelling, historical nonfiction, and women’s fiction. My reviews this week were not quite as varied, but they were close: two contemporary women’s fiction, historical fiction, and awesome zombies:

TSS: Shadowy

Mar 252012

I have to say, I’m almost a little surprised that I’m taking time to write a Sunday Salon post this morning, because I’m currently reading an egalley of Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. Let me tell you, it is good, possibly better than A Discovery of Witches. If you loved Discovery of Witches, you’re in for a real treat, if you’ve been waiting to see if the rest of the trilogy is, I can say that based on the second book you should probably start it.

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Really, though, I need to let myself hunker down and read it, because I have an awful lot of writing to do today. In addition to a couple of freelance pieces, only one of my posts for next week is actually written (and it isn’t the one for tomorrow). Since it seems that I’m unable to do a whole lot else while reading Shadow of Night, this definitely means that I need to hurry and get reading.

Speaking of reading, this was a pretty good reading week, despite a sick toddler at the beginning and an embarrassing new addiction to Slingo on Facebook. Here’s what I finished:

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And here’s what I reviewed:

Sunday Salon: Weekend Away

Mar 182012

Hello, dear ones! I’m writing this post a bit early, because my husband and I are taking advantage of some time for a weekend (well, one night) away while we still only have one sweet child to pawn off on someone else, instead of three. We’re using gift certificates to Ruth’s Chris and a fancy schmancy movie theater that we got for Christmas, plus the hotel points my husband has accrued from traveling this last year to have the cheapest posh date night ever. Even better, we don’t have to get up with Daniel at 6 am! With any luck, I’m actually still sleeping AS YOU READ THIS. Of course, it is probably more likely that I still woke up at 6 anyway and am just laying in bed reading until my husband wakes up, but if that’s the case I’m not going to complain.

Here’s what I read this week (or, you know, by Friday afternoon when I wrote this):

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As far as reviews, it was a bit of an odd week. Basically I loved every OTHER book:

TSS - Springing Forward

Mar 112012

Good morning, friends!

Well, Spring Forward seems to have officially brought spring to Chicago. Our entire upcoming week is supposed to be in the mid- to upper-60s, which will be just lovely. I am still disappointed by our (lack of) winter, but at this point I’m ready to move onto a season that will hopefully behave properly. Plus, I’m looking forward to sitting out on the back lawn with a book while Daniel runs in circles.

marchismaisiemonth picture In addition to actual spring weather, March is also bringing with it some Twitter chats for great books. Penguin’s second #readPenguin selection is A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (which I loved) and HarperCollins has invited some special guests to discuss the Maisie Dobbs series and the publication of the 9th book in the series. You can find details on participating in both chats on my Tumblr.

This turned out to be a pretty good week for reading, and I’m anticipating that this next week will be even better. Here’s what I finished this week:

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And what I reviewed, in case you missed any of it:

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Sunday Salon - 3.4.12

Mar 042012

We’re just going to pretend I didn’t spend a long time being excited about the fact that you can multiple the date (4) and the number of the month (3) together to get the two-digit representation of the year (12).

Ahem.

Moving on.

So, I’ve been on Pinterest for a couple of months now, mostly for recipes and house design ideas (plus baby stuff - we found out we’re having girls!) - and I have invitations if anyone needs one. Until Thursday, I really didn’t have any bookish pins at all, but I finally decided to go ahead and create a board that showcases the books I’m loving in 2012 (note: just like my ‘best of’ lists, books are eligible if they are reviewed in 2012, some may have been read in late 2011). On Friday I also added a board of amazing audiobooks, which so far contains my 2011 and 2012 favorites, but which will be expanded over the next few weeks to include beloved audiobooks from years past. I know for a fact I don’t want to pin all of my reviews, because Pinterest seems to me to be very much about curation, but I’m not sure what else I might do with it. I’m contemplating ‘best of’ boards as a different way to showcase my 2010 and 2011 ‘best of’ lists, but those would obviously not be ongoing projects. Anything in particular you’d like to see?

As I mentioned briefly above, the exciting news this week is that we found out that our twins are girls! Daniel is not really thrilled - apparently he wanted brothers, not sisters - but we’re happy, and also just happy to know. Now my mother and sister can start spending way too much money buying cute things =)

Actually, this was just a huge week of excitingness. The other major accomplishment this week was getting totally caught up on book reviews before February ended. Of course, I now have a few to write again, because much of my reading for this week was done Thursday or later, once I’d completed all the writing and I finished a couple more books. Still, 3 reviews to write is better than 18 from a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s what I finished this week:

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Yes, I did read 2 different books called Sister Queens/The Sister Queens, but I didn’t have any trouble keeping them differentiated. Apart from the format difference (print vs. audio), they were about different sets of sisters living about 300 years apart and one was fiction and the other nonfiction. Both reviews should be coming this month.

As far as reviews, it was a so-so week. A couple of books I really enjoyed, sandwiched between a couple I liked less than everyone else seemed to. I also posted my February reading wrap-up, so if you’re wondering what my pick of the month is, go check it out! What I reviewed:

Sunday Salon - 2.26.12

Feb 262012

Hello, darlings!

This was the week of ALL THE READING. It actually didn’t feel like much during the week, because I finished a bunch of stuff on Sunday and then not again until Friday afternoon, which made it feel like a little less, but still this week blew every other week of this year out of the water. Actually, I finished almost as much this week as I did the entire rest of the month. PLUS, I’m nearly done with ANOTHER audiobook, because I spent the entirety of yesterday cleaning carpets. We’re now officially 100% out of our condo and our renters are moving in today, so there was much last minute stuff to do yesterday - most of which was beyond me at 18 weeks pregnant. This may be another Sunday where I finish a million books, because I’m super exhausted from yesterday and hoping to basically not leave my bed all day. More big things coming up this week, too. Tomorrow we should find out whether we’re having boys or girls AND we will have the home inspection for the house we’re hopefully buying. Ah! So maybe I won’t get much reading done after all.

Well, even if I don’t, here’s my ‘read’ pile from last week:

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And here’s what I reviewed last week:

I am ALSO offering a giveaway of Parents Need to Eat Too and pointed out the awesomeness of the upcoming Bess Crawford read along hosted by Book Club Girl.

The Sunday Salon 2.12.12

Feb 122012

Ooh, palindrome date! (Yes, I’m more of a nerd than even just having a book blog might indicate)

We spent the beginning of this week out visiting my parents in California, so the rest of the week has been a lot of catch up at home and work, plus a good deal of resting. I’m feeling much better overall, but am still very easily tired out with exertion. We went to the doctor on Friday, though, and got to watch the babies playing/fighting on the ultrasound. They were kicking and swatting at one another. Well, at least maybe that means they’ll kick me less and concentrate on each other.

Although my books finished count is still relatively low this week, I’m happy with it. Partly because there is another book which I am nearly finished with and will probably finish today and because Elizabeth I is a monster of a book, like everything Margaret George writes. A wonderful monster, though.

Here’s what I finished this week:

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In addition to four reviews (for clarification, I reviewed the print version of A Good American and then listened to the audiobook), I also shared my list of the ‘heavy’ books I want to Drop Everything And Read. Here’s what I reviewed:

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:

And here’s what I reviewed this wee:

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