It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #SundayPost #SundaySalon

 

Linking to: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at BookDate; Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer; and the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz

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Life…

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About a week and a half go I logged into my blog to post a review, only to discover the editing tools were all being displayed as a bunch of wing dings. It took a week to figure out why, which was that my template was no longer compatible with WordPress after a core update. So I’ve had to switch to a new theme, the layout of this one being the closest I could find to what I was using previously, though with far less options to customise it, so it’s pretty plain. Then another issue arose with the editing tool, and as yet there is no fix for it so I’m having to use a work around which is irritating. I’m also having ongoing issues with my tags not showing up on posts, even though they are set to. I think I have managed to sort out the issues I had with the menus at least, but please if you notice any other issues, let me know!

It’s very quiet here. The middles are now on campus and my youngest is hardly ever home between school, work, sport and his girlfriend.

We got some positive results regarding my dad, his cancer is localised and treatment has already begun. The outlook is very good. Thank you for your well wishes.

It’s the first Monday of the month, so here’s my challenge update

Nonfiction Reader Challenge: 1/12

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: 7/25

Cloak and Dagger Challenge: 14/36

Books in Translation Challenge 1/6

Monthly Motif Challenge: 2/12

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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

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An Ungrateful Instrument by Michael Meehan

Prize Women by Caroline Lea

Judgement Day by Mali Waugh

Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne

Crows Nest by Nikki Mottram

No Life for a Lady by Hannah Dolby

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New Posts…

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Review: The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams

Review: Red Dirt Road by S.R. White

Review: A Man and His Pride by Luke Rutledge

2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge Monthly Spotlight #2

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What I’m Reading This Week…

 

Prepare to be bewitched by Iceland and the book that has enchanted readers for decades – and imprisoned one of them. 
Elva loves Iceland for many reasons – the epic landscape of gods and volcanos, the weather that’s the polar opposite of her home in Australia, and the fact that it’s where her mother might have gone back to when she disappeared. Iceland is where Elva’s beloved grandfather – the famous children’s book author – lives in a remote village and where the beings that haunt her imagination reside. 
Elva is interested in the odd things people make – Victorian collectibles, old spells, taxidermy, fairytales. The weird, the wonderful and the sometimes macabre. She’s got a few quirks of her own that she’s (mainly) keeping under control. Except one. 
Working in a shop of curiosities, studying at Icelandic language school, Elva begins to explore her obsessions, and when her grandfather suffers a stroke, they threaten to overtake her. Then she meets Remy, a painter who’s got some secrets of his own
In her captivating debut, Rijn Collins has created a beautifully evocative portrait of an enchanted mind in an enchanting place – a story of everyday magic, both dark and light; of families and the shadows they can cast; of the delights and dangers of the imagination. Fed to Red Birds will transport you to remote corners of both the world and the human heart.

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A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past: the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the 1995 murder of a classmate, Thalia Keith. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletics coach, Omar Evans, are the subject of intense fascination online, Bodie prefers-needs-to let sleeping dogs lie.
But when The Granby School invites her back to teach a two-week course, Bodie finds herself inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t as much of an outsider at Granby as she’d thought-if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case. 
One of the most acclaimed contemporary American writers, Rebecca Makkai reinvents herself with each of her brilliant novels. Both a transfixing mystery and a deeply felt examination of one woman’s reckoning with her past, I Have Some Questions for You is her finest achievement yet.

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It’s winter in Sydney and the lives of two strangers have fallen apart. Newly separated and in need of a distraction, Clare agrees to help her neighbour Louisa with a funeral catering business that has bitten off more than it can chew. Chris, an emergency doctor, has witnessed too many deaths but still feels compelled to attend the occasional wake. 
When Clare and Chris meet, the good in their lives is slowly illuminated. After all, the thing about death is that it makes life matter. 
Funny, moving, wise and hopeful, The Wakes is an irresistible debut novel about old friends, lost love, good food and new beginnings.

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Things you might be surprised to find when cleaning out your deceased mother’s house: 
a secret diary a family mystery a new lease on life. 
Grief-stricken middle-aged sisters George, Kat and Annie give themselves a week to pack up their childhood home and divide their mother’s belongings. Beloved items are contested: an Eames chair, a collection of war medals, a learn-to-read book. The sisters – bossy Kat, mediator George and petulant Annie – are hampered by sibling rivalry, the prickly demands of their own offspring, the needs of their disabled younger brother and, in George’s case, the after-effects of a spot of adultery. 
The discovery of a decades’ old diary divides the women further: not only do they learn what their mother really thought of them, they learn that she had a life entirely of her own. They are not the family they thought they were – and their mother was so much more than she seemed. This revelation might be the key to George’s freedom …

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Thanks for stopping by!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR @thebookdate #SundayPost @Kimbacaffeinate #SundaySalon @debnance #TheWakes #FamilyBaggage #IHaveSomeQuestionsForYou #FedtoRedBirds