The It’s Monday! What Are You Reading meme is hosted at BookDate
I’m also linking to The Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer
And the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz
Life…
Thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes during the week. The celebration was necessarily subdued, but my daughter made me a delicious cake, and we enjoyed Chinese for dinner – any night off from cooking is a gift!
Otherwise it’s been more of the same here, though we did take a family outing to the chemist this weekend to get flu shots.
I hope you, and your loved ones, are staying safe and well
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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…
Thrill Me by Lynette Washington (Ed)
Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
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New Posts…
Review: The Beautiful Mother by Katherine Scholes
Review: Thrill Me by Lynette Washington (Ed)
Review: Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen
Review: The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
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What I’m Reading This Week…
Eileen is sick of being 79. Leena’s tired of life in her twenties. Maybe it’s time they swapped places…
When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen.
Once Leena learns of Eileen’s romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another’s shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.
Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn’t as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect – and distractingly handsome – school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?
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Could the courts really order the death of your innocent baby? Was there an illegal immigrant who couldn’t be deported because he had a pet cat? Are unelected judges truly enemies of the people?
Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we even think of it at all. But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society.
Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies and the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from other loud-mouthed amateurs and those with vested interests. This ‘fake law’ allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge – worse, we risk letting them make us complicit.
Thankfully, the Secret Barrister is back to reveal the stupidity, malice and incompetence behind many of the biggest legal stories of recent years. In Fake Law, the Secret Barrister debunks the lies and builds an hilarious, alarming and eye-opening defence against the abuse of our law, our rights and our democracy
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Olivia Wolfe is a journalist who travels the world exposing heinous crimes. She has more enemies that most.
When her anonymous source is murdered, Wolfe must unravel the terrible secret that connects a series of gruesome murders. But powerful people want her stopped.
Betrayed and isolated, Wolfe is hunted by a faceless killer. Can she stay alive long enough to expose the shocking truth?
Four murders. Four countries. One terrible secret.
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Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and What the Dog Saw, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers—and why they often go wrong. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn’t true?
Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.
In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times
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The Switch looks delightful. I am loving books that focus on interesting characters and their issues.
Enjoy your reading, and I’m glad your birthday was a good one.
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Happy belated birthday! Your cake looks delicious and makes my mouth water. Guess I need some sweet stuff after hopping through some blogs *smile* Stay safe and well and happy reading.
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Gosh the books you have to read this week look good. I teach American Government and always do a little lesson on crazy laws that are in the books like no eating oranges in California hotel rooms. 🙂 Your birthday cake is gorgeous–Happy Birthday!
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Happy belated birthday! That cake looks delicious! And I also pre ordered the Switch (hope it will land sometime this week).
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I’m glad you had a good birthday, despite it being low-key. The cake looks amazing! Enjoy your books this week 🙂
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I enjoyed The Flatshare so much that I really want to look for The Switch. I wonder if it out here yet. No, it looks like August. Adding to my wish list.
I’m glad you had a pretty good birthday. That’s a lovely cake.
I hope you and your family will continue to stay well.
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Wow flu shots with winter coming up there as we are just in spring awaiting summer.
Stay safe and have a great week! Happy reading!
Anne – Books of My Heart Here is my Sunday Post
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Happy belated birthday! The cake looks yummy. Hope you had a good day.
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That’s a neat cake, wow! Nice. Happy belated bday. I agree taking the night off cooking is always a big plus. I’m sort of curious to know what Gladwell has to say about Sylvia Plath’s death …. and other things. hmm. Enjoy your reads this week.
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That cake looks awesome!! Happy belated birthday.
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Happy belated birthday! I missed stopping by last week. The cake looks awesome! My son’s birthday is in a month and I need to brush up my cake baking skills. (I don’t do a lot of that.)
Love your reading list this week! So many of those are on my list too so I’ll be looking for your reviews.
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Your birthday cake if beautiful! Happy Birthday! The Switch looks like fun.
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What a lovely cake! I am glad you had a nice birthday. My husband and daughter made banana bread this afternoon, and I am looking forward to trying a piece tomorrow for breakfast. I’ll be curious to know your thoughts on The Authenticity Project. I hope you enjoy your reading. Have a good week and stay safe and well.
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It’s nice you were able to celebrate your birthday. What a lovely cake.
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I love the look of your birthday cake, it looks scrummy:). So glad you were able to celebrate your birthday with all your family around you… these days, we need to take our high points where we can. And the notion of a family outing being a trip to the Dr for flu shoots redefines our new normal, doesn’t it? I love the look of The Switch – I hope it is as charmingly enjoyable as it looks:). Have a peaceful, healthy week, Shelleyrae
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I’m glad you had a nice birthday – that cake looks wonderful! Have a great week!
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I think The Switch sounds so sweet! Beautiful cake 🙂
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Beautiful cake! I can’t wait to read The Switch — I loved her previous book. Enjoy!
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Belated birthday wishes! The Switch sounds interesting, a do the other books. Have a wonderful week of reading ahead.
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That cake looks so lovely! I like how the decoration is simple but effective! Happy belated birthday!
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The Switch looks good and I look forward to your review, all of your books look good! Enjoy them and your week.
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Nice looking assortment of books! Come see my week here. Happy reading!
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That cake looks amazing. Happy Belated birthday ❤
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Happy belated birthday! That cake looks amazing!
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Happy Belated Birthday! The cake looks delicious! Hope you have a great week!
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Cake looks delicious! We will be allowed takeaways from next Tuesday although I don’t ever hardly get them so won’t make much difference to me. I have Beth O’Leary’s first book here to read and need to give it a try out.
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Looks like a good birthday cake! Happy belated birthday! And sounds like a good reading week, I hope you have another one next week! Thanks for stopping by! Happy reading!
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That cake looks so lovely! The Switch sounds like a fun read. The Malcolm Gladwell book also sounds so thought-provoking! Enjoy your week 🙂
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Happy birthday! That cake looks excellent. I hope you’re having a good week!
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Happy Birthday! That cake looks fantastic. I hope you had a great day and I hope you have an even better week. Enjoy your books!
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Happy birthday! What a great cake.
The Switch looks like fun. Hope you enjoy your books.
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I loved The Flatshare so I am keen to read The Switch.
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Happy birthday!! That cake looks amazing!!
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Glad to hear you enjoyed your birthday even if the celebration was subdued. I love Chinese food! I hope our favorite Chinese place opens up again, because last I checked they were closed. Happy reading and have a great week! 🙂
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Sounds like you still had a fun birthday even though it was a bit subdued. That cake looks good and that’s nice you didn’t have to cook for one night.
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That cake is amazing! Happy birthday!
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Glad you had a nice birthday celebration. The cake look lovely. Hopefully soon we will be saying we went to get our covid-19 shots! Have a great week.
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I really want to read the Secret Barrister’s books! Law isn’t normally that interesting to me, but my sister’s studying to become a lawyer now so it’s kind of piquing my interest more.
Belated happy birthday! 🙂
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I’m glad to hear you had a nice birthday. I hope you enjoy The Switch. I’m really looking forward to that one. It sounds wonderful!
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Sorry I missed your birthday week. Hope you enjoyed the quiet celebration.
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That cake looks delicious! I’m glad to hear there was goodness in your birthday week. And thank you for sharing on the reads, Prey sounds really interesting. I’ll be checking that out.
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Ooo, yummy looking cake! Happy belated birthday 🙂
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