Today is a Monday holiday – Columbus Day, also known as Indigenous Peoples Day. I’ll be spending most of the day in the car, so I’m trying to get this post done early. Will have to do my blog visiting and commenting later because I can’t read or write for long in the car.
We’re driving back to Massachusetts after visiting with our granddaughter, who’s already one and a half and a toddler. She’s old enough now to enjoy going to the library!
Please let me know what you’re reading in the comments and/or share your blog link! If you can’t see where to comment, try clicking/tapping on the title of this post to open it in full.
Currently Reading
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
In this “raucous, moving, and necessary” story by a Pulitzer Prize finalist (San Francisco Chronicle), the De La Cruzes, a family on the Mexican-American border, celebrate two of their most beloved relatives during a joyous and bittersweet weekend.
The House of Broken Angels has been on my To-Read list for a while, so I thought I’d try to at least start it during Hispanic Heritage Month, even though I won’t finish it by tomorrow, October 15th.
The Vanishing by Wendy Webb
“Webb once again mines the secrets of an old mansion for an effective contemporary supernatural thriller.” – Publishers Weekly
Looking up horror books about writers for October reading, I found The Vanishing by Wendy Webb, and it was described as creepy, but not out and out scary, which was the level of tension I was looking for. (At my age, I have to think of my blood pressure!) So far, the story is going along expected lines, but in a good way.
A youngish woman alone, deserted by husband and ostracized by friends, receives an unexpected too-good-to-be-true opportunity that isolates her in a haunted mansion with no access to a phone, no medication for her unspecified mental health issue, and no way to leave. And yet, her “job” is pleasant (be a companion for the author she has admired all her life); she is waited on and served delicious meals by an extremely competent housekeeper; and there is a very handsome, surprisingly wealthy, and urbane man managing the horses and grounds. Underneath her feelings of unease, the story’s narrator also has a strange sense of familiarity with the house. She’s not allowed to go into the closed-off east side rooms, but is drawn to them.
Recently Read
Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang
Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang
A playful and deeply affective short story collection about the histories, technologies, and generational divides that shape our relationships — from the award-winning writer of Days of Distraction
Highly recommended!
Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang is a collection of short stories that, taken all together, might be described as melancholy or elegiac, but there is humor and love, too. Delving into family and other relationships, present-day life and historical traumas – in China, the US, or elsewhere –the stories have deeply memorable characters and themes.
A powerful meditation on grief, a deeply personal mosaic of a daughter’s remembrances of beautiful, challenging, and heartbreaking moments of life with her family
Dancing Between the Raindrops is by an author local to me, Lisa Braxton. It’s a very affecting collection of writing, mostly personal essays, that conveys her love for her parents and her grief over their declining health and eventual deaths. She shares stories that also illustrate her parents’ courage and strength raising a Black family and running a business in the face of racism.
Currently Listening To
Dessert with Buddha by Roland Merullo
Dessert with Buddha takes the eccentric, sort-of-Buddhist monk, Volya Rinpoche, and his skeptical, middle-of-the-road brother-in-law, Otto Ringling, on another enlightening road trip filled with meals, humor, social commentary, and good times
The finale to one of my favorite comfort reads!
Recently Listened To
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible. A.J. Jacobs chronicles his hilarious and thoughtful year spent obeying―as literally as possible―the tenets of the Bible.
The Year of Living Biblically was a road-trip choice that I didn’t think was as funny as the author’s other stunt memoirs that I’ve listened to — The Know-It-All and Drop Dead Healthy. But I didn’t realize until the end that it was an abridged audio download, which is apparently all that was available from back in the day (2007), so it’s unfair to compare, I guess.
This post is linked up to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading, hosted by The Book Date. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is a place to meet up and share what you have been and are currently reading each week. Visit the link-up for more books to your groaning TBR pile.
Intriguing assortment of books. Enjoy your day in the car. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
Your granddaughter is beautiful. I hope you enjoy your books. Have a great week!
Your granddaughter is adorable! I may need to check out The Vanishing. Like you, not a fan of out and out horror or thrillers the way I used to be. I think I need to check out Dessert with Buddha too.
[…] wrote about this haunted house story in last week’s “It’s Monday” post. It has a twisty plot and a little bit of unreliable-narrator thing going for it, so if […]
Definitely start with Breakfast with Buddha, where the characters are introduced!