Thankfully Reading 2011

-
When Thankfully Reading Weekend was launched two years ago, I wasn't able to participate much because I had to work most of the weekend (oh, graduate school...) This year, I'm blessed (truly) with a five-day Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm spending much of it reading. I'm also catching up on neglected review posts.

My plan
Seriously, waking up today and realizing it's only now the true weekend left me feeling relaxed, thankful and blessed. Mr. Nomadreader and I have planned a Mexican lunch out (festive, right?) followed by a matinee of The Descendents (review coming this week). I'm excited it's movie award season and all the films I'm most excited about are finally coming out. We plan to be back home and lounging on the couch before five o'clock. I'm hoping to finish Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah tonight. Then I'm excited to start A Bitter Truth, the third Bess Crawford mystery by Charles Todd. It came out at the end of August, and I've had my copy since then, but because it's set near Christmas, I've been saving it. I can't wait to glance up at our tree as I read.

Follow along
One of the best things about Thankfully Reading Weekend is the lack of structure. You can join in as little or as much as you want. I'm not sure how much I'll be tweeting as I read tonight, but you can follow all of the action at Jenn's Bookshelves and on Twitter with #thankfulreading. Happy Thankfully Reading Weekend!


As an affiliate, I receive a very, very small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you for helping to support my book habits that bring more content to this blog!

Comments

  1. ZibileeNovember 27, 2011 at 10:12 AM

    I haven't really been able to participate in this event, but may try to get some reading done later today after church. I love long weekends filled with reading, and I wish you the best with it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AndiNovember 28, 2011 at 11:51 AM

    Glad you got some relaxation time in. I took today off to enjoy it just a wee bit longer!

    ReplyDelete
  3. TiNovember 28, 2011 at 5:20 PM

    I didn't participate in the event but I must say, you got my attention at "Mexican Lunch." I love Mexican food!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

book review: A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

-
Image
The backstory: A Dangerous Place  is the eleventh historical mystery featuring Maisie Dobbs. My reviews of the other eleven (plus Winspear's stand alone historical novel) are in my Book Review Database . The basics: Set four years after the last Maisie Dobbs novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved , in A Dangerous Place , we meet up with Maisie in Gibraltar in 1927 during the Spanish Civil War. She gets off her England-bound ship in Gibraltar because she's not quite ready to return. Note: this review contains spoilers about what happened in those four years of Maisie's life between books, all of which are revealed in this novel's first thirty pages.  My thoughts: Sunday I wrote about the Maisie Mail I received. These postcards appear in the book itself, along with many others. After setting the stage in Gibraltar in the opening pages (Maisie stumbles upon a dead body), Winspear recounts the last four years of Maisie's life in the form of postcards, letters, an...
Read more

book review: Run by Ann Patchett

-
Image
The backstory: After loving State of Wonder  ( my review ), I set out to read all of Ann Patchett's books. The basics: Run  is the story of the Doyle family: Bernard, an Irish Catholic ex-mayor of Boston, his deceased wife Bernadette, their adult son Sullivan, and their two adopted college ages sons, Tip and Teddy, who are biological brothers. My thoughts: I'm beginning to think Ann Patchett is my soul sister. Her writing reaches me deeply, and I've adored everything she's written. It was a special treat to read Run , the novel of hers I knew the least about going in. Although I had the framework of two of her novels and one memoir, I didn't know what to expect. Run  isn't as universally loved as some of her other works, so I was particularly curious to see how it measured up. Admittedly, Run  started off slowly for me. It took two chapters to really get into the heart of the story, but once it happened, I was hooked. One of the things I love most about ...
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the ...
Read more