Here it is again – Monday. They just keep coming around, don’t they? Vacation feels very far in the rearview mirror and I am totally slammed again, but on the plus side, I think my post-travel reading mojo is back. As you can see, I had a productive reading week (well, weekend, really). Over the workweek I squeezed in pages of Great Expectations wherever I could, and finally wrapped it up on Friday. Although I always profess to be “not a Dickens person,” I might have to revise that – because I really enjoyed Great Expectations, and I also really enjoyed the last Dickens novel I read (The Pickwick Papers). You’d think after all my years as a reader, I’d have learned not to assume I don’t like an author based on what I did (or didn’t) get out of that author’s books I read as a teenager.

Anyway, once I wrapped up Great Expectations, I wanted to give myself a break before diving into the next doorstopper, so I picked up a couple of Slightly Foxed recent issues. I’ve fallen behind on the issues and had three – last fall and winter’s, plus the recent spring issue – on my stack. So those made for a couple of very pleasant hours on Saturday (and got me back to “on track” in my Goodreads 2023 reading challenge). For my next chunkster, I was planning to pick up The Three Musketeers, but it turned out that Saturday was “Tolkein Reading Day” (who knew?), and I also had The Silmarillion to get to off my Classics Club list – so I started it late on Saturday evening; that still counts, I hope. To be perfectly honest, I’m not loving it. I’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but only once each, and Tolkein’s world just isn’t part of my regular lexicon – like it would be for someone who read and loved the books as a child (my brother, for instance). I can tell there is a lot of important stuff I’m missing because I haven’t internalized Tolkein’s stories. The Silmarillion feels like the Bible of Tolkein’s world and… well, I haven’t even read the Bible of my own world. (I probably should.) At least it’s going by surprisingly quickly – I’m almost halfway through after just a couple of hours of reading on Sunday (two of which took place OUTSIDE, on my back patio, reminding me that I really need cushions for my outdoor dining chairs).

Finally, I’m still working my way through Horizon on audio. I’m down to six-and-a-half hours left in the audiobook after this morning’s commute (which sounds like a lot, but the entire audiobook is almost 24 hours long, so you can see that’s actually good progress). If I keep up the listening pace I think I’ll finish this week – and then it will be time for an audiobook break, because podcast episodes have been stacking up as I have slowly listened through this time.

So it was a relaxing weekend with plenty of reading time – as you can see from the above. Saturday was a dreary day – perfect weather for reading on the couch – but Sunday was glorious and I did also get outside for a bit. We met up with some friends for a short hike at Burke Lake Park and spotted one paddleboarder out on the water already. Summer is coming!

What are you reading this week?