Good morning! Happy new reading week, friends – hope it’s a good one ahead.

Last week was definitely a good reading week around here. I finished up Beloved on Monday evening – after years on my TBR, I’m so glad to have read it at last. Full review coming for The Classics Club – at least, a full plot recap and a few thoughts. There’s so much in Beloved that entire courses can be taught on it, so I can’t even hope to do it full justice in a few paragraphs – but I tried my best. Needing something a bit less intense after that read, I turned to The Swan: A Biography, the last of Stephen Moss’s bird biographies that I hadn’t yet read. (The last for now, I hope – I’ve enjoyed all four books in the series and I do hope he continues it.) Steve said: “You can’t write a biography of a species.” I disagreed, and so have the many other people who have bought and read and loved these books, I’m sure.

The end of the reading week, and the weekend, was devoted to The Color Purple – another one from my Classics Club list and another one that I’ve been meaning to read for way too long. It was an incredible read – I was completely blown away by it. Every character was fully drawn and real, and even those who seemed completely vile for most of the book had their redemption. I’m going to have to write a review for the Classics Club and I have no idea how to put into words how very, very wonderful this book was.

It was another intense one, though, so another palate cleanser is on deck. Since it’s April, I think a re-read of The Enchanted April is in order, so I’ll be picking that one up tonight and reading it with a view of the flowering trees in my yard. Not quite wisteria in a crumbling Italian castle, but we make do with what we’ve got.

Speaking of spring, we’ve got eagle chicks again! A couple of months ago, we hiked at our local park and saw the eagles furiously renovating their nest, so we hoped we would see chicks again this spring. (They didn’t nest last year, but had two healthy chicks a couple of years ago.) We took a hike on Sunday and – there they were!

Welcome spring! What are you reading this week?