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.
Happy New Year!
The past week: We spent lots of time with my parents (mom and stepdad) and my sister’s family, including celebrating New Year’s together. When we weren’t visiting one house or the other, I worked on end-of-year and beginning-of-year blog tasks, including setting up my spreadsheets for 2025 and writing posts for the challenges I’ll be participating in. (Regarding The Backlist Reader Challenge, which I have hosted for the last five or six years, see below.) I still have more start-of-year tasks to finish, and I need to pick a winner and close out The Backlist Reader Challenge 2024.
On the 2nd, we left for the three-day drive home. It’s a long, hard push to cover 1900 miles in 3 days, but we got here with a day to spare before the coming snowstorm. I’d like to take a snow day tomorrow, but I need to continue working on an index.
5 Good Things: Some good things from this week.
- Robin made a chocolate Yule log for New Year’s Eve and it turned out amazing!
- No one got sick during the holidays (except for my brother-in-law, who had a bad cold for about a week. But so far, the rest of us seem to have avoided it.)
- We made it home safe and sound, arriving late last night. It’s a three-day drive on highways with heavy truck traffic, so I don’t take our safe travel for granted.
- We got home before the storm, which is likely to drop 3″-8″ of snow on us tomorrow (possibly with ice on top of that.)
- The grocery store actually had almost everything on our list. . . which is a near-miracle with a major snowstorm predicted for tonight. We even got milk, eggs, and bread!
Recent Posts
- Last Sunday Post of 2024 – 12/29/2024
- My Top Thirteen Books of 2024 – Top 10 Tuesday
- 2025 Reading Challenges: COYER Out to Lunch
- 2025 Reading Challenges: Library Love Challenge
- First Sunday Post of 2025 – 1/05/2025 – this post
Looking Ahead
- 2025 Reading Challenges: Edge & Innkeeper Read-along
- My Most Anticipated Books Releasing in January–June 2025 – Top 10 Tuesday
- 2025 Reading Challenges: Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge
- 2025 Reading Challenges: 2025 Audiobook Challenge
- Sunday Post – 1/12/2025
READING CHALLENGES: You may have noticed that I haven’t posted a sign-up for The Backlist Reader Challenge for 2025. After a lot of thought, I decided to take a year off from hosting the challenge. I’m feeling overwhelmed and I just need to step back a little. I’m not sure whether this is the end of the challenge, or whether it will return in 2026. As an alternative, may I suggest the Mount TBR Challenge 2025 hosted by My Reader’s Block? It isn’t specifically for backlist books, but you can certainly use it that way. (It is, however, for books you actually own before Jan. 1, 2025.)
I will be participating in a few other challenges, but I plan to keep it pretty simple. I’ll be doing COYER Out to Lunch, Library Love 2025, and the NetGalley & Edelweiss Challenge 2025. I may do the 2025 Audiobook Challenge as well; I haven’t decided yet. And of course there’s Robin’s Recs, my personal challenge to read books Robin has recommended or given to me.
What I’ve Been Reading/Watching (since 7/14/2024)
Reading: I read It’s All A Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan (Tristan Donovan), which was interesting. I reread Mind Games by Nora Roberts (and hopefully this time, I’ll actually write the review!) And I started The Wishing Game by Meg Schaffer (a library book.)
Listening to: I finished up Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher, read by Jilly Bond. The book is a favorite winter/holiday read; I reviewed it in 2015.
Watching: My Cousin Vinny and Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings; the latter was a Christmas gift.
Playing: Pokemon Go; also Wordle, Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee, and Sudoku. Over at my sister’s house, we played a lot of Wingspan.
Added to the Hoard
(Click title for Goodreads page or my review.)
Purchased (Kindle, print, or audio)
Kindle: Til Death Do Us Bard; Deja Brew
Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out
I’m glad to learn you had a happy and safe new year with your family.
Wishing you a wonderful reading week
Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out recently posted…It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #SundayPost #SundaySalon
Anne - Books of My Heart
I’m relieved you made it home before the storm and even got the groceries you needed. What a nice time you always have with your family. I like your challenges. I did the same with Thrifty Thursday Challenge, taking a year off although I will still do the meme for myself and anyone who wants to read freebies. I was glad to see you are going to do the Read-along too! Ilona Andrews is a real favorite.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Anne – Books of My Heart recently posted…🎧 Hell of a Witch by Rachel Aaron @Rachel_Aaron #NicholasCain #LoveAudiobooks #KindleUnlimited @RobinBridgefour