Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share our favorite audiobook narrators this week. I'm almost always listening to an audiobook while I'm cleaning, driving, or even exercising and I'm trying (with some success) to win my husband over. It was hard to limit my list to only ten. I tried to write a bit about why I like [...]
Welcome to my weekly update for April 23, 2023! We went to The Flower Fields in Carlsbad, CA this week. I visited while my husband attended a work conference in 2018. It was so spectacular, I made him go back to experience it with me this year. It was even better than I remembered! These gardens include 55 acres of ranunculus flowers in every conceivable color. The fields are planted on a hillside, so when you climb to the top then turn and look behind you, you can see the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean beyond the flowers. It's truly a sight to behold. Slideshow: Ranunculus field There are lots of other fun displays when you enter the garden. My husband and I liked this grouping of flower pots shaped like heads with different flowers growing out of the top. A broader view of the flower fields with the Pacific on the horizon. Posted: Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti 🌟🌟🌟½ 10 of My Favorite National Parks Once upon an Eskimo Time by Edna Wilder 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Read: Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #3) by Jessica Townsend 🌟🌟🌟🌟 The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo #4) by Rick Riordan, read by Robbie Daymond 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Guests by Kealan Patrick Burke 🌟🌟🌟 Currently Reading: Soulstar by C. L. Polk Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi Up Next: I took a break from audiobooks this week to catch up on some of my favorite podcasts. I'll probably download a fairly short one soon. My sister arrives on Friday for a weeklong visit (Yay!) so I'll be getting our little space spruced up for her. I'm planning to skip my…
Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share a non-book freebie this week. "Choose your own topic that’s not related to books!...Take this time to let your readers get to know you a little!" So I decided to list ten of my favorite national parks. Unless otherwise noted, all images © Jennifer G. at Introverted Reader 2023 Clara Belle, our faithful little home away from home For those of you who don't know, my husband and I wander around the country with his job as a traveling healthcare professional. We live in our RV while he's on assignment, which is usually three months in one location at a time. One of the factors we consider when he's applying to hospitals is proximity to national parks. We enjoy the outdoors and hiking and can never decide if we prefer the mountains or the beach. We love all 36 of the national parks we've visited. I could choose any of them as my favorites depending on my mood, but these are the ones that speak to me today. We’ve visited the national parks I’ve marked with yellow trees. Thanks to Trekkn for the original image. Great Smoky Mountains Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains Our home is near Asheville, NC, which is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the Smokies aren't far away. I think of this as my home park. If I were listing my favorite national park units, I would choose the Blue Ridge Parkway because it runs right through Asheville and I have spent a lot of time hiking the adjacent trails. Shenandoah National Park is actually in the Blue Ridge Mountains, like Asheville, but it's in Virginia and farther away. So the Great Smoky Mountains get my top spot. Mount Rainier Mount Rainier rises above a wildflower…
Welcome to my weekly update for April 16, 2023! We went up to Catalina Island and spent one night last weekend. It has a couple of tiny little towns but we only visited the bigger one, Avalon, named after King Arthur's Avalon in Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, Idylls of the King. It's a beautiful island, especially after all the rain California has had this year. Everything was green and blooming. There was a lot of fog and mist while we were there so I kept thinking of Marion Zimmer Bradley's book, The Mists of Avalon. On our first day, we joined a driving tour of the town area. Then we walked and explored on our own. You might notice the large, white circular building on the far side of the bay in the first picture below. It's the Catalina Casino but it's not a gambling hall. Casino used to mean "gathering place" and that's how the term is used here. It's a beautiful building and we wish we'd made time to tour the inside. The next morning we downloaded an audio tour and walked around a bit more before catching a shuttle up to the Airport in the Sky. It was a glorious, sunny day up there above the low clouds and it was legitimately hot! We were shocked! We connect elevation with cooler weather but I guess getting above the clouds and away from the cool air on the ocean makes things work differently on Catalina. We had lunch at the little airport restaurant then rode our rented bikes the ten miles back into town. Catalina has a small herd of bison, if you can believe it. They were brought over in the 1920s to film a movie--either The Vanishing American or The Thundering Herd (both based on books…
Welcome to my weekly update for April 9, 2023! Happy Easter, Happy Passover, or Ramadan Mubarak to those who celebrate! I've been an affiliate of Malaprop's Bookstore in my hometown of Asheville, NC for years now. I link to their website for books I haven't reviewed yet. I'm keeping that relationship because I love my bookstore but I don't think anyone has ever bought anything through one of my links. I'm not trying to make money here--I just want people to know about Malaprop's and support independent bookstores. So I hope that readers are shopping locally! But now I'm also adding in affiliate links for Bookshop.org. They support independent bookstores in a couple of different ways but they're a bigger company. I decided that if I can realistically influence even one person to buy books from Bookshop instead of Amazon, that would be a win for the little guys. So I'm starting to incorporate those links now. Last week we drove over to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It's California's largest state park. I saw on social media that the wildflowers were in bloom there. It was beautiful and smelled heavenly. I've also been dying to visit that area for a couple of years because they have some metal sculptures that I thought looked really cool. We did that too and they were amazing! Slideshow: Sea dragon sculpture. This thing was huge! It actually crossed the road. Purple sand verbena and yellow desert sunflower. There were lots of other smaller flowers blooming too but these were the most conspicuous. Beavertail cactus blooming beside sand verbena I believe this is an Anna's hummingbird. He sat there for quite a while and let my husband get relatively close before he flew away. Posted: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss:…
Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share our top ten indie/self-published books this week, a topic suggested by Nicole at BookWyrm Knits. I don't pay any attention to publishers, etc. so I wasn't sure where to even start. I know The Martian by Andy Weir (which I like but never reviewed) was originally self-published. And that's about all I know about that. So I dug back into the TTT archives and decided to share ten series I haven't finished yet. Nicole has inadvertently brought my attention to all the series that I haven't finished as she posts series updates herself, so it seemed like a fitting digression. I have a very incomplete "series-to-continue" shelf on GoodReads if you want to take a look at a longer list. Each series name links to the series page on GoodReads. I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site. Series NameAuthorCurrent #of books# of booksI've readAmelia PeabodyElizabeth Peters207Mistress of the Art of DeathAriana Franklin53Mary CrowSallie Bissell84Dread NationJustina Ireland2 & stories1The Clockwork CenturyCherie Priest7 & a story3The Checquy FilesDaniel O'Malley32Kingdom on FireJessica Cluess32Small SpacesKatherine Arden43The Kingston CycleC.L. Polk23Theodosia ThrockmortonR.L. LaFevers42 That's my list! Have you read any of these? Which series do you need to finish? Link up every Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl!
Welcome to my weekly update for April 2, 2023! We spent last weekend with my husband's cousin and his wife in San Diego, celebrating the cousin's birthday. We ate way too much and had a great time with them, as we always do. On Monday, we caught a break in the rain and drove back to down to San Diego to see the Japanese Friendship Garden at Balboa Park. We were at the end of cherry blossom season but there were still a few late blooms hanging on, in addition to some azaleas, wisteria, and a few other things I can't identify. It smelled heavenly! Later: Oh goodness! As I was saving this post on Friday evening, we had a minor 4.2 earthquake but it's by far the biggest I've ever felt! We have only felt a few very minor little blips in the past. My husband, who was at work, said his co-workers didn't even remark on it. Nothing shifted in our RV but I thought there were people outside shaking it for some reason. I actually went to the window to look out. That was exciting! And more than enough earthquake activity for me, thankyouverymuch. Slideshow: Cherry blossoms (I believe) Wisteria blooming on a pergola. The wisteria smelled amazing! Azaleas blooming around a koi pond Individual trees frequently grab my attention when we're out and about. I loved the root system on this Moreton Bay Ficus tree (I think that's what it is) Posted: All Systems Red by Martha Wells, read by Kevin R. Free: Book Review 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Ten Books I Recommend if You Like L. M. Montgomery "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer: Short Story Review 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Read: I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at…
Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share "Books for People Who Liked Author X" this week. That threw me for a loop for a minute. I read pretty widely at this point and I'm not terribly faithful to any one genre. Could I do this? Maybe I needed to go rogue. Then I realized the angle I needed to take. Here's a list of [...]
Welcome to my weekly update for March 26, 2023! Another quiet week here with more rain. But this weekend is supposed to be nice so we do have some plans to get out a bit. Posted: In the Shadow of the Moon: America, Russia, and the Hidden History of the Space Race by Amy Cherrix: Book Review 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Ten Book Covers that Make Me Think of Spring The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport: Book Review 🌟🌟🌟½ Read: I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site. As I write this on Friday evening, I haven't finished reading anything. Currently Reading: Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss, read by Kate Reading Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi Up Next: Lore Olympus: Volume Three by Rachel Smythe came in for me at the library so it's next on my list. I don't have too much left in Complete Fairy Tales so I'll probably finish both of them soon. What did your week look like? Hosts: Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It's Monday! What Are You Reading?
Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share a "Top Ten Tuesday Rewind" this week. We're supposed to choose a previous TTT topic that we missed or update a TTT post that we wrote in the past. I didn't really feel like looking through old topics, though there are plenty of interesting ones that I've missed, so I just chose ten book covers that make me think of spring. First of all, the obvious choices: trees in blossom and shades of pink and purple always make me think of spring. Wild Orchid: A Retelling of "The Ballad of Mulan" by Cameran Dokey The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen Scones and Sensibility by Lindsay Eland A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey, read by Frankie Corzo And now for the not-so-obvious: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #1) by Jessica Townsend--This could really be anytime in the world of the book because the characters travel via "brolly [umbrella] rail." But all those colorful umbrellas in an overcast sky make me think of spring showers bringing May flowers. Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan, read by Trini Alvarado--If you look closely, the fields below Esperanza look like they're in the process of being planted. And Esperanza's name translates to "hope." What could be more spring-like than hope? Witchmark (The Kingston Cycle #1) by C. L. Polk--The world of this book is very wintery, if I recall correctly, so the bare trees, the lack of snow, and the cobblestones that look like a shower has just passed through make me think of spring. Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland…