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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. Chinidere for spectacular views of our closest big peaks. These small picture don’t do it justice.
We visited Swan Island Dahlias on Thursday. They have over 400 acres of flowers blooming right now! It was so beautiful, especially the picture on the left below, with Mt. Hood in the background.
Posted:
Five on a Treasure Island (The Famous Five #1) by Enid Blyton–4 Stars. I’ve never read any of Enid Blyton’s books before but this one was a fun adventure for younger readers as well as older readers looking for a bit of nostalgia.
Top Ten Books That Make Me Hungry–This was a fun topic!
Giant Days Volume One by John Allison et al.–4 Stars–I loved the young women in this graphic novel! Their exploits in their first year at university were totally relatable.
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides–2 Stars. I seem to be one of the few people who didn’t love this book. I found the characters’ motivations to be too…unrealistic.
6 Degrees of Separation from Rodham to Dissolution–My first time posting for this meme!
Read:
Out of the Silence: After the Crash by Eduardo Strauch with Mireya Soriano, translated by Jennie Erikson
Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan, read by Mark Bramhall, et al.
Currently Reading:
Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles
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 See by William L. Sullivan
On Hold for Now:
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen–I ran out of time on this library check-out so I’m on the waiting list again.
Watching:
Lucifer on Netflix–Lucifer Morningstar is tired of being the Lord of Hell so he moves to LA and opens a nightclub. He’s also drawn to Chloe, a homicide detective who is strangely indifferent to his powers of persuasion.
Lucifer’s character is a bit over the top at times, but what else would you expect? My husband and I enjoy this twist on a crime show.
Up Next:
I think all of my library holds became available last week. I seriously received at least five notifications in 24 hours! Luckily I was able to skip my turn for the ones I’m not quite ready for. Lies My Teacher Told Me finally freed up again so I’m trying to wrap up Hiking Oregon’s History and move on to Lies.
What did your week look like?
Kathryn at Book Date hosts It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post, and Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon.
30 Comments
What a difference a week makes! I suspect all those areas are now filled with smoke and ash. Today is the first day in over a week that we can see blue sky and a little bit of sunshine. I hope these fires get under control soon!
I’m off to check out the Young Sherlock series. Glad you’re enjoying it!
Right? We saw the sun for the first time in a week yesterday but it was a scary, dull red sun that you could look at without immediately hurting your eyes. I’m glad you’re getting some blue skies! Hopefully it will be our turn soon. Rain is in the forecast tonight and tomorrow!
Great photos! I liked the Young Sherlock Holmes series. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
I’m enjoying Young Sherlock so far!
I had several holds come in all at once but my library is checking everything out for a month at a time so that it pretty nice. I love the flowers. I have the whole week off. I realized I haven’t taken any of my annual leave yet this year and if I don’t take it by the end of the year I will lose it. Check out what I read
It’s a good thing you took your time off! I know people who just let it go but I feel that vacation days are precious! Having a month to read a library book would relieve some of the pressure.
Great titles! I enjoyed The Silent Patient.
I love the photos. Oregon has some beautiful places to enjoy. Have a great week, with books and hiking.
Here are my WEEKLY UPDATES
I’m glad you enjoyed The Silent Patient! I don’t know why it didn’t work as well for me. Oh well. Life would be boring if we all liked the same things, wouldn’t it?
The joy of the library holds! A blessing yet a bit of pressure too. Yes walking out in mid week sounds like a good idea. Gorgeous scenery and those flowers – ah how delightful.
The flowers were amazing! And you’re right about the pressure from all the library holds. I feel like I have to read them all at once!
Happy Labor Day weekend! And what beautiful pics. Love seeing the mountains like all off in the distance. Hope you guys are having a good three day weekend.
Love that Famous Five cover!!
I did some hiking this summer too. I love the pics you took of your hike. Feels so good to be in nature just to feel alive and forget about all that’s been happening around the world. Enjoy your reading week!
We’ve been hiking almost every week, and you’re right–it puts the world in perspective. It’s been so good for our mental health!
We were just in Portland yesterday, driving down for the day from the Puget Sound area of Washington. You caught some great weather on your hike. Lovely photos. My Sunday Salon posting
We were very lucky to catch such a clear day for that hike. I hope you enjoyed your day in Portland!
What lovely scenery you are able to enjoy, thanks for sharing it with us.
Wishing you a great reading week
We are fortunate to be in such a beautiful area right now! We’re trying to safely take advantage of all the outdoors activities that we can!
I am so pleased you enjoyed those books! I’ll keep an eye out to see if you read any more of those series!
Your pictures are gorgeous, it looks so idyllic.
Have a great week ahead.
Thanks, and thanks for the book recommendations! I’m typically a very slow series reader but I’m trying to work on that. I tend to forget a lot of details between one book and the next and that’s no good.
Your pictures are stunning – how lovely! Yes… we’re huge fans of Lucifer – I love the story progression and I love the characters being larger than life. I hope the coming week is a good one:))
I’m a very slow series watcher but I’m truly curious to see where Lucifer is going. He seems to be getting a little nicer and other characters are getting a little more underhanded.
The thing I particularly like with this series, is that they avoid falling into those cliched situations you can see coming a mile. I never know what is going to happen next:)). I love that Lucifer isn’t bad, just the one who gets to punish the wicked…
I think that is a sensible decision to stay home during these holidays. Lucifer’s first few seasons were really good. I liked them.
Yes, we even stay home when my husband is off on the weekends. It felt like a very good idea to stay home on a holiday weekend. We’ll explore more on the weekdays when others are back at work. We’ll enjoy it more with fewer people anyway.
I was more of a fan of Enid Blyton’s Wishing Chair and Magic Faraway Tree books. Definitely childhood favourites. And I am now off to check out your 6 Degrees post.
Those sound like fun titles! I’ll have to look for them as well.
Oh, I wish I had mountains like that nearby. My husband and I love to go rock collecting, and Oregon is one of the best places to go for that sort of thing. We also love to hike, though we flatlanders don’t always do well trying to hike in the high altitudes. Beautiful. Swan Island Dahlias is lovely, too. Great photos.
I had never heard of the Famous Five until I started the 1001 Children’s Book challenge some years ago. Odd to me how famous the Famous Five is over in England and not-famous here. I wonder why that is. Giant Days looks promising, too.
Library holds are unpredictable, aren’t they? I think I have about forty books, reserved over the last few months, on hold right now. Let’s hope those don’t all come in at the same time.
I hope you have a great time with your husband this week, Jen.
We really want to visit eastern Oregon, around the John Day Fossil Beds, but that drive is long enough to justify a long weekend; I’m just not sure how I feel about that right now. I imagine there’s great rock collecting in that area. I hope all of your holds don’t come in at once! Luckily mine were digital requests so I was able to just postpone them for a few weeks.
Everybody is watching Lucifer lately! Maybe we should jump on the bandwagon and see what all the fuss is about. I was one of the people who really enjoyed The Silent Patient. Sorry that it didn’t work for you.
You do have some great books that I hope will satisfy your reading hunger!
Have a wonderful week and here’s my The Sunday Post #10
Lucifer is at least worth a try! We can’t all love all the same books; that would be boring! I’m glad you enjoyed The Silent Patient even though I didn’t.