Weekly Update

Welcome to my weekly update for November 8, 2020! My husband started his new work assignment last Monday so I feel safe to say that we left Portland, Oregon and we're now in Oceanside, California, just north of San Diego! We enjoyed our time in Portland but we're chasing good weather in our RV. We spent last winter in Newport Beach, California, so we're on slightly familiar territory. We were hoping to go to Arizona but the hospital my husband applied to isn't in a hurry to hire so he accepted this job instead. It feels good to be a 10-minute drive from the Pacific though! And temperatures right now are perfect for me! Copyright © Jennifer G. at Introverted Reader Posted: Book Review: Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them--5 Stars Book Review: The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham--4 Stars My Year in Nonfiction for Nonfiction November Top Ten Non-Bookish Hobbies 6 Degrees of Separation: From Dissolution to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Read: Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge Currently Reading: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik The Last Astronaut by David Wellington, read by Megan Tusing The October Country by Ray Bradbury Watching: The Mandalorian Season 2--We love this show so much! We were planning to wait on watching season two until after all the episodes were released but we just couldn't. We tend to be slow watchers anyway, so why not get started? I'm not sure how my husband manages to actually watch it over my squeals of "Baby Yoda is so cute!!!!!!" Or "I love his baby Moses basket so much!!!!!!" We're talking serious tween squealing here. But he is so cute!!! Up Next: I realized today that it's been a little while since…

Welcome to my weekly update for November 1, 2020! I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween! How did you or you kids dress up? If you didn't, did you see any costumes that stood out to you? Did my readers in the US remember to set your clocks back an hour? I wish we would just pick a time and stick with it. If we must change the time, I prefer to "fall back." I don't like the early sunsets but it takes me weeks to recover from "springing forward." Which do you prefer? Also, Americans, your last chance to vote is this Tuesday, November 3! Make your voice heard! Visit vote.org, a non-partisan nonprofit resource, for locations, sample ballots, and more vital information. Posted: Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix--3.5 Stars The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix--4 Stars Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez--4 Stars Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe, read by Amy McFadden--4 Stars My Top Ten Horror Books My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix--4 Stars Read: Small Spaces by Katherine Arden Currently Reading: The October Country by Ray Bradbury The Last Astronaut by David Wellington, read by Megan Tusing Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge Watching: I really am a horror movie wimp but I did get brave and watch The Shining after reading the book sometime in my early twenties. My husband and I decided to re-watch it last week since we visited Timberline Lodge, where the exterior shots were filmed, while we were in Oregon. It was a lot of fun to see a place we had hiked around in a movie. Since I knew what was going on, I have to admit I managed to nod off…

Welcome to my weekly update for October 25, 2020! First of all, my apologies for not visiting your blogs much last week. Thank you to everyone who stopped by here though! My husband's work contract in Portland ended yesterday so we've been nailing down his next job and finding our next campground (we live in our RV while he's working). Not to mention that our tenants in our house back home moved out and our property managers seemed to have a million questions as they were getting the house ready for the next tenant. It's been a stressful whirlwind! Yet somehow I managed to read quite a bit. Portland's first cold snap of the season is this weekend so we're happy to be moving on soon. It's definitely possible to live in cold weather in your RV but it's not something we're interested in doing ourselves. I'm a wimp about cold weather! We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here though. Oregon is gorgeous and it should be on your bucket list for post-COVID travel! Posted: Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore--3 Stars Top Ten Books Recommended to Me Read: Chapelwood by Cherie Priest Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft, edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe, read by Amy McFadden Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix Feed by Mira Grant, read by Paula Christensen and Jesse Bernstein--I actually DNF'd this audiobook because I personally didn't care for Ms. Christensen's narration. I'll try again in print in the future. Currently Reading: Small Spaces by Katherine Arden The Last Astronaut by David Wellington, read by Megan Tusing Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge Watching: Muppets Now on Disney Plus--We've only watched one episode of this and that was a month or so ago but it…

Welcome to my weekly update for October 18, 2020! My husband and I did go to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument last week for our anniversary. Most of the trails were really short (maybe half a mile roundtrip) but they took us through some beautiful areas! Photographs © Jennifer G. at Introverted Reader Left to right: The Story in Time trail in the Sheep Rock unit, a fossilized leaf in the Clarno unit, and the Painted Hills unit. Posted: Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics, read by Jorjeana Marie--4 Stars Maplecroft by Cherie Priest--4 Stars Top Ten Long Book Titles Read: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey Monstress Volume One: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda Currently Reading: Chapelwood by Cherie Priest Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft, edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe, read by Amy McFadden Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge Watching: Enola Holmes on Netflix--We mostly enjoyed this movie about Sherlock and Mycroft's younger sister. I've seen one complaint about the way Enola directly addresses the audience, so if that bothers you, steer clear. I'm so used to seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock, Henry Cavill kept throwing me for a bit of a loop! (If you haven't seen the show starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, you should fix that right now) Up Next: This batch of books will probably keep me occupied for a while. AJ at Read All the Things is re-reading The Shining, which reminded me that I was thinking about re-reading it this year too. I visited the lodge where the exterior shots of the movie were filmed so I thought it…

Welcome to my weekly update for October 11, 2020! I'm prepping this post on Wednesday because my husband and I are hoping to drive out to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument for some hiking for our anniversary weekend. It looks like a beautiful area, so we're excited! Any of you who read children’s and young adult books should know that nominations for the 2020 Cybils (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) are open through 11:59 PM PDT on October 15! If you’ve read any outstanding books for these age groups that have been published in the past year, you should nominate them! (I’m not a judge or affiliated with the Cybils in any way; I just think good books should receive recognition). Posted: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks, read by Judy Greer, Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Nathan Fillion, Mira Furlan, Terry Gross, Kimberly Guerrero, Kate Mulgrew, Kai Ryssdal, Steven Weber--4.5 Stars The Deep by Alma Katsu, read by Jane Collingwood--3 Stars My Top Ten Fall Book Covers Read: Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics, read by Jorjeana Marie Currently Reading: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft, edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe, read by Amy McFadden--This caught my eye at BookWyrm Knits last week so I checked it out when I finished Daughters Unto Devils. Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge Watching: The Crown on Netflix. We've been very, very slowly working our way through this series for months now. I think we're only halfway through the second season. It is excellent but it's just a bit more somber…

Welcome to my weekly update for October 4, 2020! Friday is our sixteenth wedding anniversary. I'm not quite sure where the time has gone! We normally take our big vacation for the year in October but that's obviously out of the question this year. Oh well. When you're traveling with work because you actually enjoy traveling, every day off feels like a vacation! I posted last week about how Banned Books Week sneaked up on me. I usually post reviews or commentary every day of the week but I only had one review scheduled last week. I hit the easy button and read and reviewed a lot of kid's books to fill up the week. Any of you who read children's and young adult books should know that nominations for the 2020 Cybils (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards) are open through 11:59 PM PDT on October 15! If you've read any outstanding books for these age groups that have been published in the past year, you should nominate them! (I'm not a judge or affiliated with the Cybils in any way; I just think good books should receive recognition). Posted: Everything below, except my selections for Six Degrees of Separation, is a banned or challenged book. How many have you read? Six Degrees of Separation Meme: From The Turn of the Screw by Henry James to Bird Box by Josh Malerman My thoughts on Banned Books Week A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo and Jill Twiss-🌟🌟🌟🌟 My Top Ten Favorite Banned Books Melissa (Formerly published as George) by Alex Gino--🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman--🌟🌟🌟🌟 One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey--🌟🌟🌟 Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray--🌟🌟🌟🌟 Read: In addition to all of…

Welcome to my weekly update for September 27, 2020! The rain has continued this week here in Portland, Oregon so that means the smoke has stayed away. Yay! According to the fire map I check, the Riverside fire, which is the one closest to where we are, is at 138,000 acres burned and 34% contained. Considering that it was 0% contained about 10 days ago, I think that's great progress. I'm so thankful to the firefighters and their families! We haven't been hiking just because we aren't sure about closures and which areas might be smoky. We did venture out to the North American Bigfoot Center on Wednesday and that was fun. I wrote a bit about it at the end of a review I scheduled for next week. Banned Books Week: One part of my brain did know that this is Banned Books Week and I even read one banned book and scheduled a review for Wednesday. That part of my brain did not otherwise communicate well with the part of my brain that chooses my next books so that's as far as I got. In past years, I've scheduled banned book reviews for the entire week! Oh well. My mental state is not conducive to reading banned books and their often-difficult topics this year anyway. I'll try to do better next year. Posted: Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary--5 Stars--I personally felt that this book has held up well over the years. The children's freedom to wander unattended felt unrealistic for these times, but otherwise Beezus's relationship with Ramona is one that will resonate with a lot of siblings. It was especially fun to re-read this after I went on my Beverly Cleary Walking Tour of Portland a month or so ago. Fable by Adrienne Young--4 Stars--I ripped…

Welcome to my weekly update for September 20, 2020! We finally got rain in Portland on Friday! Woohoo! Air quality has improved a lot. We've still got an air quality warning in place as I write this but our numbers on the Weather Channel app have dropped from 535 on Tuesday (I think that was the day I took the screenshot) to 32 [...]

Welcome to my weekly update for September 13, 2020! I don't have any hiking pictures to share this week. We stayed in and away from potential crowds the whole Labor Day weekend. A freak windstorm blew through Oregon on Tuesday, keeping us in again. My husband worked the rest of the week. Huge wildfires ignited all over the state during the windstorm anyway. Air quality is bad, outdoor recreation sites are closed, and we're closer to the evacuation areas than we would like. It's a little stressful. We're just staying inside and keeping an eye on the news. Please keep the people of Oregon, California, and Washington in your thoughts and/or prayers while these fires are raging. Posted: The Night Witches by Garth Ennis et al.--5 Stars--This graphic novel tells the story of a fictional woman serving in the very real "Night Witches." These almost-forgotten Soviet women would glide over German camps at night and drop bombs. While this is violent enough to be a trigger for some, I found the story of these women inspiring and important to remember. Origin by Dan Brown--2 Stars--I do enjoy Dan Brown's Robert Langdon books as quick, suspenseful reads even though I think his actual writing could be better. Despite the usual fascinating conspiracy theories, an overly-long exposition and a predictable ending meant this was a 2-star read for me. Top Ten Books for My Younger Self--I chose fun middle-grade reads that I would have enjoyed even more as a younger reader as well as some books that I think might have gotten me to start traveling earlier and maybe even guided me toward a different career path. Read: Death Cloud (Young Sherlock Holmes #1) by Andrew Lane, read by Daniel Weyman Hiking Oregon’s History: The Stories behind Historic Places You Can Walk to…

Welcome to my weekly update for September 6, 2020! It's a holiday weekend here in the States and my husband is actually off work. We're choosing to stay home and away from the crowds though. We enjoy getting out when he's off mid-week and trails and other attractions are less likely to be crowded. On Wednesday, we hiked Mt. [...]