Month: June 2023

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Reading Round-Up: May 2023

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for May, 2023.

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1), by Sonali Dev – I’m always on the lookout for a good Jane Austen adaptation and this was a fun one – gender-swapped. Trisha Raje is a brilliant surgeon but all her brains can’t help her relate to her wealthy family; DJ Caine is an up-and-coming chef hired to cater Trisha’s brother’s political fundraiser. When DJ and Trisha get off on the wrong foot, misunderstandings abound… and so does the romantic tension. Not great literature, but a fun read.

A Countryman’s Spring Notebook, by Adrian Bell – Ever since Slightly Foxed published its collection of Bell’s winter nature columns and hinted at plans for a series, I’ve been hoping for this book! It was every bit as good as its predecessor and a total joy from the first page to the last.

Quidditch Through the Ages, by J.K. Rowling a.k.a. Kennilworthy Whisp – My little guy brought this home from the elementary school library and I took advantage of his early bedtime to read it for myself (bookish mom moment!). A quick read, but such fun.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume – This was a re-read – my work book club selected it for our inaugural meeting. It was fun to re-visit Margaret; I hadn’t read the book since 2015, when I was in a newborn Nugget haze, and I had forgotten almost all of the details. And then I ended up unable to make the meeting.

Curtain (Hercule Poirot #44), by Agatha Christie – I had an episode of Shedunnit on detective swan songs, which contained major plot spoilers, and which I’d been saving until I finally got around to reading this – check, both the book and the podcast. It was a brilliant mystery and a fitting send-off for Hercule Poirot.

Sinister Spring, by Agatha Christie – Guess I was still in the mood for murder and mayhem, because next I picked up this collection of spring-themed mysteries. A fun romp! Lots of jewel heists in this one; classic.

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas – Full review (for the Classics Club) to come, but I really enjoyed this swashbuckling, silly whopper of a book.

Letter from New York, by Helene Hanff – I don’t know how this one escaped my notice for so long – I loved 84, Charing Cross Road – but when Manderley Press announced that they were publishing this classic collection of Helene Hanff’s BBC Women’s Hour broadcasts in a gorgeous new edition, I grabbed it. It’s a love letter to Manhattan and a complete delight to read. I loved every word.

Coronation, by Paul Gallico – I bought this cute little hardback on a whim because of the Coronation and really enjoyed it. It follows a working class family who decide to sacrifice their summer holiday in order to travel to London for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II – and of course, things don’t go to plan. A quick read and very sweet.

A Nature Poem for Every Spring Evening, ed. Jane McMorland Hunter – I have loved reading Jane McMorland Hunter’s daily selections of nature poetry for the past two seasons! This one covers March through May and includes a lovely poem – including some old favorites and introducing some new favorites – for each evening. So far there hasn’t been any announcement of a continuation of this series into summer, but I continue to hope.

Quite a month! May is always a big reading month for me – probably because it’s a long month. It was a good one, too; I enjoyed everything I read this month. There were definite highlights, though… Helene Hanff’s Letter from New York was one of the most delightful books I’ve read in a very long time – maybe ever. (And inspired me to order two of her lesser-known books, Apple of My Eye and Q’s Legacy, from AbeBooks – they’ve just arrived so I’m looking forward to more of her lovely writing in the coming days. A Countryman’s Spring Notebook was another highlight, and I really hope Slightly Foxed is able to continue the series and publish Bell’s nature columns for every season. And any month that includes Agatha Christie is a good month, too – Curtain was a fitting farewell to Poirot and Sinister Spring such a fun collection (with a pretty cover!). Goodness, I was busy in May.

What were your bookish highlights for May?

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The Week in Pages: June 5, 2023

Happy new week, and happy new month – how is it June already? It was a short week – last week I published my weekly reading recap on Tuesday because of Memorial Day, yet somehow I managed to finish up five books, and start a sixth, in six days. I guess my reading mojo is back, huh? Amazing what not having a real estate closing looming over you can do for the bookish attention span.

Although I have to say, in full disclosure, several of the books I finished this past week were already well underway by the start of the week. I was about a month behind in A Nature Poem for Every Spring Evening, but that means I was two-thirds of the way through the book when I picked it back up; it’s an anthology of one poem to read each night from March through May, and I was into early May when I fell off the wagon – so I only had to read about thirty poems to finish it up. My Garden World, I’d begun on Memorial Day and finished up by midweek (Monty Don is such a wonderful writer). And The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, I’d been listening to on Audible for about a month, here and there on commutes and grocery runs, so I only had about two hours of listening left. (When we head back to the office three days per week I expect my audiobook total to creep up.)

Bringing me to the books I started and finished this week – there were two of them. My work book club has chosen Crying in H Mart for our June pick, and I had to read it quickly before my library deadline loomed, since there’s a wait list. Michelle Zauner’s memoir of growing up biracial and losing her mother to cancer at only 56 is heart-wrenching (and to be honest, probably too sad for me if it wasn’t a book club choice). I had to follow it with something much more cheerful, so I grabbed one of my Mother’s Day gifts – Poems for Happiness, an anthology of poetry that explores the themes of happiness, contentment and joy – just what the doctor ordered. I read most of it stretched out on a deck chair while Nugget ran around a water park with his friends yesterday, and finished the last bit after bedtime. And since I can’t go to sleep if I’m between books, I picked up The Small House at Allington, the penultimate book on my Classics Club list (and another doorstopper – it took me about seven short reads to work up the hype). I expect to spend the entire week over this, but I am planning to take a break over this coming weekend; Peanut and I are headed to Cornell Reunion for a girls’ weekend (the boys are staying home – it’s Little League playoffs) and I’m bringing along a murder mystery set in a library that was inspired by one of the libraries at Cornell. And then after that murdery interlude, it’ll be back to Trollope.

It’s the little feet sticking up for me! Nugget had a SEVEN HOUR birthday party to attend at a water park near our house on Sunday (although we were an hour late – but a six hour birthday party is still, as my friend Amanda put it, “some fine nonsense”). He had the best time, though. And I got some reading done and even made a few laps on the lazy river. High fives all around.

What are you reading this week?

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Antarctica and Patagonia 2023: The Lemaire Channel

After two days on the Drake Passage, waiting with ever-increasing anticipation for the first glimpses of Antarctica (and distracting ourselves with spotting wandering albatrosses and looking out for whales in the distance – seeing none), we finally caught sight of the continent early in the morning on the third day. And our expedition staff went big for the first Antarctic adventure, with an early morning cruise through the Lemaire Channel.

The Lemaire Channel is an approximately seven mile long passage between mainland Antarctica and several close-in islands, in an area of the Peninsula that was largely explored by the French. It’s often called the “Kodak Channel” or the “Kodak Gap” because it’s just so darn photogenic.

I mean – look at that. Can you even?

Although it was only 7:00 a.m., the entire ship was out on the bow taking in these first views. The morning was a little foggy, but there was sunlight dancing over the craggy peaks on either side of the channel.

Steve spotted a penguin colony in the distance and tried to point it out to me, but I couldn’t see anything – it was okay, though. I was busy breathlessly taking in the mountains and glaciers, which were like nothing I’d ever seen before.

First sight of glaciers! I’d actually never seen a glacier, and now that I’ve been to Antarctica I’m spoiled for all other glaciers. There’s no way any other glacier could ever be as spectacular.

I’d read that one of the most surprising things about Antarctica is the many shades of blue in the ice – it’s not just white and grey. Even knowing that the ice would be blue, I was still bowled over by the stark beauty of it.

As I was looking out at the scenery, one of the expedition staff members – a veteran of many trips to the Arctic and Antarctic – appeared at my elbow and asked me if I saw the crabeater seals. “There are three of them hauled out on that sea ice over there,” he added, pointing to a small floating ice island just off the ship’s starboard side.

My first Antarctic wildlife sighting!

One of the seals was definitely a pup, and one of the adults I assume was the mother; there was another adult napping a few feet away.

As we slowly cruised by, I watched in awe and delight as the seals flopped around, lifted their heads, and checked out the ship.

The colors were amazing – not just the incredible tropical blue of the ice beneath the little berg, but also the gleaming silver of the crabeater seals’ sleek coats.

I could have watched these three all day, but they were stationary and we were not; eventually we passed their floating haven and continued through the channel.

I’d picked the right place to stand, because I had a perfect view of a slight disturbance in the water, and then… “Whale!” called out one of the other passengers.

Now this… this was what I’d traveled all that way to see. Our first Antarctic whale sighting!

The whale was casually surfacing and diving, enjoying a bonanza of krill in the chilly waters – this is buffet time for whales, and the reason we decided to go to Antarctica in February.

Eventually it did a deeper dive, flicking its fluke at us as a signal that it was gone for awhile. The dramatically slanted dorsal fin fooled me into thinking that this might be an Antarctic minke, but when I showed the pictures to the trip’s marine biologist he confirmed without a doubt that it was a humpback. My favorite whale? I’ll take it.

Eventually we cruised out of the channel and into wider waters, flanked by icebergs the size of city blocks – this was definitely terra incognita australis, the unknown southern land. And what a way to start our adventure!

Next week, PENGUINS!