In the midst of The Move and other big life changes, I’ve found that reading fiction is somehow easier for me. I’m not sure why, but I’m certainly grateful since it made now a great time to read The Kitchen Daughter for BookClubSandwich. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about the premise — after her parent’s death, a woman discovers she can communicate with the dead when cooking their recipes — but ended up satisfied with the book as a whole. (If you want a more detailed summary, the one on IndieBound sums things up nicely).
Communities
Today’s the big day when BookClubSandwich will be chatting about Jael McHenry’s book The Kitchen Daughter. I managed to finally finish the book over the weekend while on a road trip from Madison to Morris and back to find a house for Boyfriend, Hannah, and I. Fourteen hours in the car leaves plenty of time for reading (and napping).
So, I have some big news: I took a new job. In about three weeks Boyfriend and I will be moving nine hours away so I can take it. It feels enormously big and terrifying and exciting and awesome all at the same time.
The job is to be the editor of the newspaper in the town where I went to college, Morris, MN. I was actually living in Morris when I started this blog about three years ago, but shortly after moved to Madison to start grad school. I went to grad school in order to get a job exactly like this one, so this new job is a great opportunity for me. I know this is a job that I can do really well, and I can’t wait to get started. On the other hand, I love Madison and am going to be really sad to leave here. Emotionally, I’ve been up and down about everything all week, but mostly up :)
Oh, Sunday, here you are again. While I’m happy to be here at my computer, drinking tea and eating cherries (well worth the $9 I spent on them at the grocery store yesterday), I’d rather be where I was last Sunday about this time — sitting on a beach chair with a book and a view of the lake.
I spent last weekend at my family’s cabin for the fourth of July, and it was awesome. I finished three books over the four-day trip, went swimming, ate delicious food, and got to spend an entire afternoon cruising around the lake on a boat, alcoholic beverage in hand.
I’m leaving this Friday to spend a long weekend at my family’s cabin in northern Wisconsin, and I’ve been thinking all month about the books I plan to take with me. I’m not alone — June seems to be the month where everyone starts putting together their big summer books sections, and I’ve had a lot of fun reading them.
It seems like this year there’s been an emphasis on blogs and on major book websites about the idea of “smart beach reads” or “books you don’t have to be embarrassed by” while you’re out sitting by the lake. Take, for example, this article on mind-bending science fiction that NPR posted a couple weeks ago.
The wait is almost over! BookClubSandwich, the online book club I host with Andi (Estella’s Revenge) will be discussing The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry exactly one month from today.
I haven’t started the book yet, but that’s because it’s on my Nook and Crusoe (the name of my Nook) is currently en route to Qatar with my friend Erin, who is traveling to an international science journalism convention. When Erin and I hung out on Thursday, she told me she didn’t have any books packed for her extremely long flights, so I offered for her to take Crusoe, which is loaded with books (including this one!). By the time Crusoe gets back, he will be more of an international traveler than me! But maybe that’s appropriate, given his namesake.
Wallace (Unpoutdownables) had a post earlier this week where she talked about having a well balanced reading diet, and I really liked that idea, especially since for the last several months, my reading diet has been anything but balanced.
In the last two months I’ve read 12 books, and of those only two were fiction (and one was an audio book, so I’ve only “read” one fiction book in two months)! While that’s not entirely surprising given that I love nonfiction, reading Nina Sankovitch’s Tolstoy and the Purple Chair last week put me in the mood to switch up my reading diet a little bit and get some variety of the fictional sort.
Oh, Sunday… you always come too soon. This morning is pretty chill, but this afternoon Boyfriend and I will be heading to our wine-tasting group, WASTED. The theme this month is wine and music, which I think will be a lot of fun.
I’m not much of a music expert — I mostly listen to Pandora rather than purchasing new music for myself — so Boyfriend was in charge of picking out selection this month. I honestly can’t remember what he chose at the moment, but we bought an assertive South African red blend to go with it. Should be interesting!
Today has not been a great day for reading. I feel like that’s becoming a refrain around here!
This morning my friend Erin and I went biking for Ride the Drive, a twice-yearly event in Madison where many of the major streets get shut down to cars and opened for bikers. It was one of the things on my Day Zero project list, so blogged about it with photos more over there.
I’m the kind of person that writes everything down. I have a ratty little notebook and a pen that comes with me everywhere. I carried it around BEA, and took a bunch of notes about things I just didn’t know before I got there. These notes helped me form some ideas about what I might do next year to make BEA even more fun for me.
I also finally managed to get the few photos I took online, so I want to share some of those with you since pictures — especially of something as huge as BEA — are worth just as much as any words I can come up with.
