Monday, December 11, 2017

Monday Musings

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Our Norfolk pine Christmas tree!

My week: It was a pretty good week here, other than the cold I've come down with. I had been busy at work the past couple weeks getting stuff together for a bookish ornament-making program at the library and we had it on Wednesday. It went well and I think the kids really enjoyed the ornaments I came up with! Plus we gave second life to some books that were victims of the big book-weeding we're doing in advance of getting new carpet.

Saturday we cut down our Christmas tree. We got a Norfolk pine again this year -- the only kind you can get in Hawaii if you want to chop down a fresh one -- and we took Alohi with us to pick out her first Christmas tree.

Reading: I finished "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" by David Grann, and it's a book I would highly recommend. It was definitely not a happy book, but it taught me about some disturbing and sad events in our country's history that I'd never even heard of before, and in Grann's typical style it was fast-paced and readable.

I also read "Escape From Mr. Lemoncellos' Library" by Chris Grabenstein for the kids' book club at work. It's about a super-cool library and a game to find a secret route out by using literary and library clues. My co-worker and I actually came up with a similar (much abbreviated) game for our book club kids to play at our meeting this week.

Then I blew through "Young Jane Young" by Gabrielle Zevin. I read it in just over a day -- it was a very fast and easy read -- but it was pretty disappointing. It was absolutely nothing like Zevin's previous book (which I LOVED), "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry." Pretty much every single thing I enjoyed about that book was missing here.

I finally finished "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I had intended to read a chapter a day during Non-Fiction November, but it got pushed to the wayside. Overall it was a good book and I learned a lot, though I'll readily admit some of it was over my head!

Now I'm reading "Magpie Murders" by Anthony Horowitz, which is a mystery story within a mystery story. The second story reminds me a bit of one of my favorite PBS shows, "Grantchester," which is involves solving crimes in an English town in the '50s. So far I'm really enjoying it!

I'm up to 92 books read, and I think I'll be able to meet my new goal of 100 books in 2017!





Watching: We watched "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and I really liked it! A lot of people like the Toby McGuire Spiderman best, but I've actually enjoyed each iteration more than the last, and this is my favorite so far. I liked that Spiderman acts like an actual teenager, and he's just learning -- not always flawlessly -- how to use his special abilities.

Knitting: I finished the hat for my Broke and Bookish Secret Santa!

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From the Field of Wildflowers pattern by Joji Locatelli.

Receiving: The package from my TBTB Secret Santa! Once again, I was totally spoiled. My wonderful Santa sent two books ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" ultimate edition, and "Vicious" by Victoria Schwab), socks to go with my "Hitchhiker" book, personalized notepaper with a knitting theme, the adorable "This is How We Roll" library-print pouch from Out of Print, some bookish postcards, and a canister of Starbucks peppermint cocoa. I love everything!

Blogging:
Monday Musings
10 Book Settings I'd Love to Visit
Turning the Page on November 2017

Looking forward to: Kicking this cold! And then baking Christmas cookies!

I'm linking up with Kathryn of Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

8 comments:

  1. Sounds like you got a wonderful package. I've been wanting to read The Magpie Murders. Your tree is lovely and I'm anxious to hear how Alohi reacts. I remember when our boys were younger and the tree basically had no ornaments at the bottom because we were afraid after a couple of nutcracker ornaments lost their lives. Have a wonderful week!

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    1. She actually hasn't bothered the tree too much. She likes to toss her toys up onto the tree skirt between the boughs and make a game of getting them back out. I do have visions of the whole tree toppling over when she snags a paw in a light strand, but sometimes there's no stopping her!

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  2. I am drawn to Killers of the Flower Moon...and I loved Young Jane Young. I am also eyeing The Magpie Murders.

    Have a great week, and here are MY WEEKLY UPDATES

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  3. What a great variety of books you read last week. Killers of the Flower Moon and Mr. Lemoncello's... appeal to me. Come see my week here. Happy reading!

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  4. Love your interesting mix of books and I love the knitted hat!

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  5. I've had Young Jane Young for a while, but it seems like most bloggers didn't really like it.

    I really liked Magpie Murders. I liked how it blended a few different kinds of stories.

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  6. We still need to get a tree. We're planning on doing that next weekend. Come see what I'm reading.

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  7. Oh gosh, I loved Young Jane Young! And also Killers of the Flower Moon.

    We just got a small table top tree because of the dog, but we didn't have one at all last year so I'm kind of excited about this. We haven't decorated it yet because we are failures at being adults, but it will happen sometime soon.

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