Reading Update 4/22/2025

Hello, and happy 3 year anniversary of my hubby's strokes. I sent him a happy anniversary message and he freaked out a little. He had forgotten. That's excellent! We are very happy he's still here.

But let's talk about reading.

I might be in a funk. I completely abandoned Belgravia half way through. I realized none of those characters were at all worth reading about. It was very soap opera-y. I mean it was written by the guy that wrote Downton Abbey. So, I removed my bookmark and moved on.

I finished The Kennedy Girl this weekend, so I was in between books for both home and work reading.

I decided I was in no mood for reading from my historical fiction shelf (April's reading shelf), so I looked at my 400+ books on my TBR shelves and decided to go ahead and start reading from the shelf for May: Books about Books.

Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb - This is one of my 10 oldest books, so I grabbed it to start now. I read about 35 pages last night and it's great. It was published in 2016. Gottlieb died in 2023. He was born just before my own parents, so reading about his life that took place at the same time as my theirs (in wildly different places and with wildly different backgrounds) was really fascinating. Dad would have hated him. Ha!

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - I was sitting at breakfast this morning, complaining to my youngest that I was not sure what to take for work reading. They asked what the parameters were. I said that I prefer a paperback because I have to transport it. I told them the April shelf was Historical Fiction, but I didn't care if it was from there or not. They took themselves over to the bookcases and returned in just a couple of moments with this. "Here. Read this one about Anne Boleyn." Oh! Good choice. I started it at lunch today and read some 34 pages in the half hour I had available. They really have excellent taste.

So there we have it. I don't know if there will be any changes for my Friday reads, but we shall see.