Sunday Salon: from Orlando to below zero

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The Sunday Salon.comHappy Sunday! Lately, another Sunday means another city. Today I'm writing from the Orlando airport (cheers to free wifi, Orlando!) I'm heading back home this morning, where the temperatures promise to be below zero when I arrive. As much as I love winter, negative temperatures are too cold even for me. At least my sunburn will help keep me warm!

I've been in Orlando since Tuesday. I spent two days at the Information Fluency Conference, where I presented on using documentary films as vehicles to teach information literacy, media literacy and visual literacy. It was a great conference, and when it ended I went to the other side of Orlando to meet up with my three best friends from high school (one of whom lives here), including two six-month old babies. We had a delightfully relaxing few days. I'm having a hard time grasping that our trip next February or March, I'll be the one with the six-month old.

As much as I love traveling, I am greatly relieved and excited to be staying home for the next week and a half. I miss Mr. Nomadreader terribly, and I'm ready to spend my weekend relaxing at home.

Reading
I haven't done much reading this week, but I did read The Black Ice, the second Bosch mystery by Michael Connelly on the plane. It kept my attention so well on my long day of travel that I started The Concrete Blonde, the third in the series, this morning. I hope it will be just as good. Although I am in serious danger of racing through this entire series before the end of the year, when the newest one comes out. Devouring a long-running series so quickly feels utterly gluttonous, but I love it.

I read eight books in February, which is right on track for my goal of two each week. For as little time as I've spent at home, I'm pleased with this number. Of course, I still need to write reviews for three of them. Both The Black Echo and The Black Ice (review coming this week) were five-star reads for me, and they were my favorite books of February. I'm eager to see if Connelly can keep up this level of excellence throughout the series.

Baileys Prize
Friday brings the announcement of the 2014 Baileys Prize for Women's Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) longlist. I doubt I'll commit to reading all twenty titles this year, but it's still my favorite literary prize, and I'm excited to see which books make the list. I'll weight in with my thoughts after the longlist is announced.

Blogging
I hope the end of my whirlwind traveling means the blog will get back to consistent posts this week (but don't hold your breath for tomorrow!)

Oscars
I still haven't seen most of the Oscar-nominated films because I'm waiting for dvd, but I'm looking forward to seeing who wins tonight. I've been following the Best Documentary race most closely, as I've seen all five of those films. I'm rooting for either Dirty Wars or 20 Feet from Stardom, both of which I rated five stars.

Now tell me: what's the best book you read in February?

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Comments

  1. JoAnnMarch 2, 2014 at 10:55 AM

    Although I'm having a hard time getting used to the name, I can't wait for the Bailey's Prize nominations. Wish I could commit to twenty books...

    ReplyDelete
  2. TiMarch 3, 2014 at 1:26 PM

    I have yet to write the review but I thought Mr. Lynch's Holiday was pretty sweet.

    The Oscars were fun, even though I haven't seen ONE film as of yet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LindseyMarch 5, 2014 at 11:32 AM

    Reading through a series is really lovely, isn't it? I powered through the last few Flavia de Luce books a while back and it was a lot of fun.

    Thanks for the heads up about the Bailey Prize. I didn't know they were announcing that this week!

    ReplyDelete
  4. JennyMarch 7, 2014 at 10:20 PM

    Aw you were here in Orlando!!!

    My husband and I always okay along with our own ballots for the oscars and this year we tied with 17 out of I think 24 categories :)

    ReplyDelete

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