The Sunday Post is hosted by the wonderful Kimberly, the Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week, take a look ahead, and showcase our new treasures—I mean books!
This week I’m also participating in The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz, and Stacking the Shelves hosted by Marlene at Reading Reality.
The Past Week
In real life: If you haven’t voted yet, please do! And please pay attention to your state and local elections; they matter. And I very much hope that you will keep in mind the rights and needs of all people, particularly women, when you cast your ballot.
With the election on Tuesday and an upcoming medical procedure on Friday, I’m trying to keep my anxiety under control. This involves strictly limiting time spent on news sites and social media, listening to soothing music, spinning and knitting, and much rereading. At the moment I seem to be on a historical romance kick, but I suspect I’ll gravitate back to fantasy or contemporary fantasy before too long.
Recent Posts
- Sunday Post – 10/27/2024
- Monthly Wrap-Up – October 2024
- Sunday Post – 11/03/2024 – this post
Looking Ahead
- Treasures from the Hoard: The Sleeping Beauty, by Mercedes Lackey
- Montana Sky, by Nora Roberts – review
- – Top 10 Tuesday
- The Lily of Ludgate Hill, by Mimi Matthews – review, tentative
- The Bright Spot, by Jill Shalvis – review, tentative
- The Curse of Penryth Hall, by Jess Armstrong – review, tentative
- Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, by Heather Fawcett – review, tentative
- other reviews TBD
- Sunday Post – 11/10/2024
What I’ve Been Reading/Watching (since 7/14/2024)
Reading: I DNF’d A Wraith at Midnight (ARC), a collection of spooky or ghostly historical romance short stories. I continued reading a few more stories from Buried Deep and Other Stories, Naomi Novik’s new short story collection (ARC.) I reread Only A Promise by Mary Balogh (book #5 of the Survivor’s Club series), skipped book #6, and reread book #7, Only Beloved. Then I started rereading Balogh’s Someone to Love, the first book in her Westcott series.
Listening to: I’m almost done with Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them, by Nancy Marie Brown, read by Tony Ward.
Watching: We watched a few episodes of Late Night with Stephen Colbert. I finished up Have His Carcase, a 4-part BBC adaptation of one of Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
Playing: The usual games: Pokemon Go and several NYT word games (Wordle, Connections, Strands, and the Spelling Bee.) I also played Wingspan on Steam.
Added to the Hoard
For Review or Consideration
Many thanks to Roaring Books Press (MacMillan) for Vanya and the Wild Hunt! It’s a middle-grade fantasy by the author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and I’m really looking forward to it!
Library Haul
Library: The Lost Spells; The Jane Austen Handbook; The Backyard Bird Chronicles; The Regency Years; Betty Crocker Lost Recipes; and ADHD Is Awesome (the last one is an ebook.)
Purchased or Free (Kindle, print, or audio)
All of the Mercedes Lackey books below were birthday gifts from my husband, who knows how much I love her books. Yes, you’re seeing correctly: adding these to the copies I already owned, I now have the complete Founding of Valdemar trilogy in three editions: hardcover, Kindle, and Audible. As Mr. Bookwyrm pointed out, that way I will still be able to read them even if my eyes or ears stop working as well someday. (The eyes are already starting to be a problem.)
(Click title for Goodreads page or my review.)
Print: Valdemar (gift); A Spindle Splintered (first edition!), The Black Cat’s Clue (both from library book sale); Regency Slang Revealed: Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue & Later Versions – Organised & Indexed and Fabric a la Romantic Regency: A Glossary of Fabrics from Original Sources from 1795 – 1836 (both for writing research.)
Kindle: Beyond; Valdemar; Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands; Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief; The Borrowers Avenged; Slightly Scandalous; The Scent of Water; The Bride Wore White; Baking Bad
Audiobooks: Beyond; Into the West; Valdemar
Melissa
I’m with you on the anxiety – I am literally streaming music only or watching Netflix and avoiding consuming news. Good luck with your procedure!
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Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you, Melissa! Hang in there.
Anne - Books of My Heart
oh I have the anxiety. I’m just working at poll greeting and other activities. But I also scroll, read about how polls are done, and read about different projections, and also election litigation which Marc Elias is doing. I am absorbing information about both candidates campaigning and who is endorsing them.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
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Lark_Bookwyrm
Up until the last day or two, I was doing a lot of that too: reading articles from reputable news sources, scrolling Threads, finding out what I can about what the candidates are saying and doing, and so on. And I’ll keep doing that on a smaller scale—I have no intention of ignoring what’s going on!—but I can tell that I need to take a step back and give myself plenty of time to decompress each day.
Lark@LarkWrites
There is a lot of stress and anxiety going around right now. I’m feeling it, too. It’s why I’ve been reading a lot of lighter romances I think. And trying to remember to breathe. ;D Good luck this week!
Lark@LarkWrites recently posted…Randomness….
Lark_Bookwyrm
Good choice of reading! I’m grabbing for anything light and hopeful, with a guaranteed satisfactory ending; romances are top of the list right now.
Nicky @ The Bibliophibian
I liked reading Ivory Vikings — how is the audiobook?
And aaah The Borrowers! I loved those books so much as a kid. I can’t help but think of them whenever something goes missing.
Lark_Bookwyrm
It’s read pretty well, and the book itself is very good; I will be reviewing it as soon as I finish it. I’m more of a visual learner than an auditory one, so I’m not retaining quite as much I would if I were reading a printed copy. And because of that, I’m finding it a little hard to keep track of who is who, especially since so many of the names are similar. But I am enthralled with the content, and I’m learning an enormous amount about the Viking world that I didn’t know. I mean, I knew they were more sophisticated than they are often portrayed in fiction and even history books. And I knew they had trade routes all the way into Russia, as well as throughout Northern Europe. But like a lot of people, I had been given the impression that the Viking era more or less ended in 1066. So it has been really fascinating to find out about its continuation in Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, and the Scottish isles, a century and more after the Norman Conquest.
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz
I keep meaning to read Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands. I enjoyed the first book a lot.
I’m trying to focus on anything except what is going to occur on Tuesday here. I’ve already voted, and I’ve talked and talked. Trying to remain calm…
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz recently posted…The Sunday Salon: Sewing, the International Quilt Show, the Start of Nonfiction November and SciFi Month, and It’s My Birthday
Lark_Bookwyrm
I find myself wishing I had done more to volunteer, and hoping everyone I know is voting (and voting my preference, although that’s by no means a given.)
Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews
Oh I know about that anxiety…between juggling the election and my medical issues. It’s all driving me crazy. I’m trying to limit my time on news sites, but I can’t help but look. Good luck with your medical procedure. I hope all goes well.
Have a great week!
Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews recently posted…The Weekend Review – November 2nd-4th
Lark_Bookwyrm
I hope your medical issues work out, too, Yvonne. (And the election, of course!)
Anne@HeadFullofBooks
I read The Spindle Splintered and found it fairly entertaining. It involves some time travel to add to the Sleeping Beauty Story. It could happen, right?
My Sunday Salon
Anne@HeadFullofBooks recently posted…Sunday Salon — Two days until the election!
Lark_Bookwyrm
I really liked The Spindle Splintered when I borrowed it from the library, so I was delighted to find a copy for my shelves.
Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Election anxiety is real!! I keep pivoting between hope and despair, reading the news and avoiding it. I’ve voted and encouraged others I know to do so too, but this waiting is so painful!!
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Lark_Bookwyrm
And I’m fairly sure we won’t know for certain until days or even weeks after the election… though I hope I’m wrong, and it turns out to be a blue wave.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits
Welp. The anxiety on the one hand is over, and now it’s time for disbelief / grief, and then will be time for action and anger. May the books provide a buffer from the rest of it when you need it, and a call to action when you need that instead. It looks like you got a great haul, at any rate.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits recently posted…WIP Wrap-up for October 2024