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Welcome to my weekly update for September 1, 2024!
I didn’t have anything to report on the personal front as I wrote last week’s post but that weekend we visited New York City. For all intents and purposes, this was my first visit. I’ve never been drawn to large cities because I’m not a fan of large crowds. But since we’re currently so close, I eventually told my husband that I would start planning a trip.
I have to admit that I had a good time.
We took the train in from Poughkeepsie and then used public transportation around the city so that we didn’t have to worry about driving. We went to Central Park; the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, Suffs (a musical that debuted on Broadway this year that I loved), Rockefeller Center, and the top of the Empire State Building. I’m sure there was more. We were exhausted when we got back to little Schenectady!
My husband usually takes our nicest travel pictures but we haven’t even thought about culling and combining all the pictures we took yet. Here are a few of my own photos.
Slideshow:
All images © Jennifer G. at Introverted Reader 2024
- Statue of Liberty
- An art installation by Spencer Finch in the 9/11 Museum. It’s called “Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning.” The letters that make up the quote were each made from steel recovered from the World Trade Center. Each blue tile represents one of the people who died in the terrorist attacks across the country on 9/11 and from the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
- View from the top of the Empire State Building. Friends recommended other observation decks to us so that we would have a view of the Empire State Building but I love the movie Sleepless in Seattle. I just had to go to the top of the Empire State Building itself.
Posted:
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper–Book Review–3 Stars
Read:
The River by Peter Heller, read by Mark Deakins–4 Stars
Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie, read by Robin Eller and others–Did Not Finish–I’ll review this quickly here. The narrator’s normal voice was fine but when she felt the main character should be crying (which was often)–well, let’s just say the sound didn’t appeal to me. Nori, the main character, had feelings for her brother that came across as inappropriate, though I don’t think that was the author’s intention. Nori’s mother was Japanese and her father was an African American soldier whom Nori never met so she was raised by her Japanese family in Japan. I couldn’t figure out why she was reading the Bible and praying to God and had an altar with Jesus on the cross in her room. Maybe Christianity was more widespread in 1950ish Japan than I think it was (I honestly don’t know anything about the period), but it felt jarringly out of place to me and it was never explained in the half of the book I listened to. I got to 14-year-old Nori’s physical relationship with a grown man and decided that I was done. The book’s average rating is 3.88 on GoodReads and it was a Good Morning America Book Club pick in September 2020, so I’m obviously in the minority, but the 50% I listened to didn’t work for me at all.
Currently Reading:
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir
Glory Days: Stories by Simon Rich, read by John Mulaney
Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien
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?
15 Comments
I’ve been to NYC three times and love visiting the city. One trip was a quick one with a friend to go to an Impressionist exhibit at the Met. We were there for 2 nights and spent an entire day in the museum. We were exhausted. The second trip was with my daughter when she was 12. We spent a full week exploring the city and it was such a great time. We saw and did SO much! I would love to go back someday, but there are so many places yet to see that I don’t know if I’ll ever get back.
I’ve quit over a dozen books this year. I’ll probably post about those in (and any additions) in December.
I’ve been to NYC a few times, and like you I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to! I loved Central Park, and want to go back and spend more time there.
New York City has so much to offer but it is exhausting. I am glad you had such a good time. I have taken that train between Poughkeepsie (where my daughter went to college) and NYC many, many times. If you took the Metro North you go through Sing Sing prison!
We did take the Metro North and we went by something that made me wonder if we were going by Sing Sing! I must have gotten distracted by something else because I didn’t check Maps to see if I was correct. Now I know! I did notice West Point and Bannerman Castle so I wasn’t quite as oblivious as that makes me sound 🙂
I grew up in NJ, so trips to NYC were a regular occurrence. Like you, I am not a fan of huge crowds and big cities, but love visiting historic sites etc. Glad you had a good time.
Now that I’ve got the first one under my belt, I feel like I could handle more trips… but not too often.
It’s probably rare that an audiobook narrator gets the tone of a book completely wrong, but I guess it must happen! Overdramatized narration is usually a problem for me, too. Lately I’ve been trying romcoms and cozies, for something light, and setting them aside if they’re not funny or clever.
I’m glad you enjoyed your trip to NYC. Since two of our daughters moved there, we’ve visited frequently and (surprisingly) have come to love it! One of them will be moving next year, but the other will stay a while longer. I’m glad!
Fly Girls sounds very interesting. I need to check it out.
Before the pandemic, we visited NYC once a year. We haven’t been back. So much history there, so it’s a fun place to be. I’ve been wanting to read Fly Girls. Thanks for sharing. Hope you have a nice week.
https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2024/09/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-sept-2.html
The pace of your New York trip makes me feel out-of-breath! You really packed in all the famous stuff — impressive.
best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I hadn’t visited NYC until 2011. Now I’ve visited 3 times and wouldn’t mind going back. There is lots to see and do. I read The River by Peter Heller and just read his latest Burn which has a similar style.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Beautiful photos of NYC. We were there before Wyatt was born and they were just building the 9/11 Memorial. I would like to go back and see it now that it is all finished.
Lovely photos of NYC. It’s a place I wouldn’t mind visiting, but like you I’m not a fan of large cities.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
I’ve started books and dropped them quickly all summer. I’ve especially tended to do this with books like Fifty Words for Rain, books that are deeply emotional. I don’t think I’ll be looking for that one. In general, I have liked books with emotional resonance, but not lately. I don’t know why.
I love your photos of New York City. I visited in 2017 and 2018 for BookExpo and I loved it. The photo from the art installation at the 9/11 Museum is especially moving.