What I'm reading Wednesday...

Thirty-first challenge finish of the year.

Once in awhile I get a wild hair to read a book that I probably should have read in high school.  As I was consulting Goodreads 52-Books-2026-Challenge page for this prompt, nothing was calling out to me, but then I saw that this was a suggestion for 'featuring a conspiracy.'  I've never read it, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Conspiracy and dystopian novels are not usually genres that I pick up to read for fun.  This one didn't do much to change that.  I checked this one out from the library as an audiobook, so I could kill two birds with one stone (and keep working at organizing my new cardmaking area that we moved into the guest room...I call it the 'annex,' as all my quilting supplies stayed in the original craft room).

Now, I have listened to more audiobooks this year than I have during the previous 68 years of my life, and I know I have mentioned that I don't usually love the narration.  This may be why I didn't like this book better.  It just seemed to never end.  I'm writing about this on Thursday afternoon, and the book was set to be returned to the library at 5:00 p.m., so I had to power through.

I think I will just say this about it using a reference from the book.  If I were sent to "Room 101," it would probably be after being told I would be there for an eternity, and I would walk in to find that the room was filled with books, and every single one of them was this one.  I'm giving it 3 stars, because it is a classic after all...it was very imaginative and well written...but OMG it was a real downer.

Thirty-second challenge finish of the year.

I usually get bored with long series unless I really like the characters.  And I really do like the characters in this series...particularly the dog.  :)  The main characters are a deputy sheriff and her K-9 partner.  I like all the regular secondary characters as well.  One of the secondary characters is a veterinarian, as is the author's real-life husband, so the animal healthcare in the books seem pretty realistic.

She has a new book coming out in September of this year.  I look forward to it.

This is Mexican Cornbread Casserole...

This photo is from a post last year.  I've been making Mexican Cornbread Casserole for probably forty years, as it's one our family really likes, and it is pretty easy.  A layer of cornbread on the bottom, beef and cheese baked in the middle, then a top layer of cornbread.

I made it again tonight.  I got a bit of a late start, so was kind of rushing through it.  I forgot one ingredient.  Cornmeal!  Hence tonight we had Mexican Mistake Quiche.  It was edible, but just.  Didn't warrant a photo.  LOL

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Thirtieth challenge finish of the year.

I just finished this afternoon, and really enjoyed it.  I hadn't read anything by this nineteenth-century author before.  This was originally serialized in a Victorian periodical in England.  And I believe I remember that when published in book form (in 1855?) there were some rewrites or additional chapters included.  It came in at 498 pages, and I'm going to say it again, the font on those 498 pages must have been really small, because it took an age for me to finish.  I read it on my Kindle, so I can't swear to that.

Strong characters, and even secondary characters were well developed and likeable for the most part.  Glad I gave it a go for this prompt.  

What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

28th challenge finish of the year.

It was about British female convicts being transported to Van Diemen's Island (present-day Tasmania) by ship; dangers, challenges, relationships among strangers torn from everything familiar.

I liked it.  I read through the night to finish it.  The characters were likable, and the story was interesting.  And yet it somehow left me not quite satisfied.  It felt a bit rushed in places.

Twenty-ninth challenge finish of the year.

I really do love Elizabeth Berg's work.  This is her brand new one, just released, and I was excited to see that my library already had it in their "new acquisitions," so I got on the reserve list and received it almost immediately.  Her prose are spot on, characters to care about, and I don't think I've ever found anything to complain about in the books of hers that I've read.

This one is about a ninety-two year old woman who is wrapping up her life.  She never had children, so she is leaving her house to the child who grew up next door and with whom she had an almost familial relationship.  She is writing a letter, explaining and telling stories about the house and its contents, and sharing memories and advice with this child/woman.

Having grown up on a wonderful homey street myself, surrounded by neighbors where, when I knocked on their doors, they would always take me in for a visit or a snack or a baby chick (but that's my story, not this book's), it brought back some wonderful memories, and makes me wonder what I should share in letters to ones I love.

I have another two audiobooks also from the library.  I am listening to the first one while I go through boxes of stuff that needs to be dealt with in an unsentimental way (45% discards / 45% donates / 10% [or less] keep) is my goal.

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Twenty-seventh challenge finish of the year.

Ugh.  I begrudged the reading time it took to slog my way through this one.  The setting was a large, decrepit manor house in the English countryside.  The owners, though going broke, were hosting a big house party for their estranged daughter's birthday.  Lots and LOTS of characters to keep up with, more than a few of which kept switching identities with other party attendees.  It was torture to try to keep up.

Oh, and did I mention that each day magically started over on the day before, during which the characters switched to yet other party-attendees' identities?  And they did not retain the memories of the day 'before,' so they wrote themselves notes and hoped to come across them.  By the fourth replay of the eve of the party, I was SO exhausted with this book.  However, by this time, I was so tired of the 'secret identity' trope, that I did not want to read another entire book using it; so I persevered.  I skimmed some before switching to the audiobook version which I checked out from the library.  I think I listened to it at double time while I did other things around the house.

I finished, FINALLY, but I hated almost every minute, every page, every freakin' identity switch and day replay.  Obviously I do not recommend this book.

**Post edited to remove the Ada Blalckjack book, as it was included in this week's post by mistake.  I had forgotten that it was in last week's post.

What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

Twenty-fifth challenge finish of the year.

This is my second reading of this book.  In 2017, I rated it 10/10, and wrote this:  A septuagenarian woman approaches a neighbor, the widower of a former acquaintance, with a proposal.  She wonders if he might sleep with her...just to hear someone breathing in the bed next to her at night, to talk to in the dark.  It was such a sweet story, and the Netflix Original movie version with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda was wonderful as well.

I loved it just as much this time.

Twenty-sixth challenge finish of the year.

Found this one on the Goodreads 52 Book Club 2026 Challenge Community.  The complete title/subtitle is 'Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic.'  Ada was an indigenous woman hired by the expedition because she could speak and write English and was a skilled seamstress.  Having a sick child to support, and an absent husband, she went along.  Other indigenous people who had signed on, backed out before the outset, so Ada was the lone woman with the group made up of men.

And with this one behind me, I am half-way through the challenge.

What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

Twenty-third challenge finish of the year.

This crime fiction > courtroom drama is a genre and sub genre I used to read a LOT of, but for some reason kind of got away from.  This is the first I've read in a long time, and it was well done.  I came across this 'author' while sorting donated books at the library, so I knew that Perri O'Shaughnessy is the pseudonym for two sisters, one a trial lawyer for sixteen years, and one a writer.  This title is the first in a series.

Twenty-fourth challenge finish of the year.

What can I say about this?  Not my genre.  Not my trope.  I thought about reading Jane Eyre for this prompt, and I wish I had!  But I thought I would try to stay close to the prompt's seemed intent.  I found this one free to borrow from Kindle Unlimited.

The subtitle for this book was too long to put in the graphic: A Hilarious Small Town Rom-Com of a Grumpy Mountain Man and the Surrogate For His Child.

Not sure how to describe this without sounding prudish.  Maybe I'll just say that I give this two stars for writing, plot, etc.  But I give it FIVE red hot peppers for sexual content.  If that's your deal, go for it; if it's not your deal, then turn away.  This is the first of a trilogy, but I think I've read enough.