What a face! I love it. 

Hi everyone!  I have really missed this forum and at some point I'm going to have to go through and catch up on what everyone has been doing.  Life has been crazy the past 6 months.  I quit doing cat rescue for the time being and started grad school for my MLIS.  I also work 30+ hours a week floating between 10 libraries so between that and unfathomably boring textbooks it doesn't leave much time for reading.  I actually switched to reading mostly YA for the time being because I can actually get through one of those pretty quickly.  I did go on quite the binge in November and December before school started where I discovered the wonder that is Susanna Kearsley.  Read The Winter Sea and The Firebird back to back and promptly went out and bought the rest of her books.  Anyone have any suggestions for which of her books I should read next? I'm actually supposed to be doing homework now and am once again procrastinating so guess I better get back to it.  

Hi Holly! Congrats and best of luck on your grad school endeavor-that's exciting! I loved The Winter Sea. I have accumulated all of Kearsley's books on my Kindle and would love to know what might be a good order for reading them.

Good to see you here Holly! You've been missed too! I know you've been awfully busy but take a break now and then and pop in here.

As to Phryne (Fry Nee) Fisher --- I read the first in that series and enjoyed it.  There is a television series (BBC I think), but we do not get it over here. At least none of the more current episodes.  I found the very first season and was able to watch and it was very good.  Have not been able to find the two subsequent seasons.  I read the first book for a Challenge where I needed "blue" in the title of a book.  It was very difficult to run down at the time.  Perhaps subsequent to the television series they have become more readily available.  If so, I might be interested in reading more of them.

Holly --- good to see you around again.  Best wishes for grinding thru those "boring" text books on the path to your advanced degree.

My book of the month has to be "Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan. It's a fun little mystery full of unlikely heroes who band together to solve a mystery and help a friend. It is full of quirky characters, has a secret society, and best of all, it's a book about books. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Now, I'm reading "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr. It has tons of good reviews and I can already tell it's going to be a good read. 

I loved All The Light.... Valli. Thought it was one of the best books I've read in a long time!

Cindy, I loved Mozart's Last Aria. 

Valli, I wasnt a big fan of Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store. I had a hard time getting into the story. But I would love to have been a "member". 

Holly, I can relate to a busy life and not having much time for things. Jeanne "reminded" me that I havent been here in a while and asked me to stop in to see Valli again. I am glad she did. I need to take time and go through a lot of these posts. 

I am reading The Martian by Andy Weir. Not historical fiction, but good so far. I am finding all the botany information describing what he had to go through to grow food on Mars interesting. I only read the first few chapters yesterda, but I think it will be a quick read. 

Kat - I read The Martian too and enjoyed it but I admit that I had to skim some parts - too anxious to get to the meat of things LOL! AND BTW, welcome back to you too!!!!

Hello!  Still reading The Princes of Ireland and probably will be for quite awhile. You know Rutherfurd. 

Valli - Even though I knew you were back, my heart gave a little leap of joy when I saw that ol 'avatar and saw your name!  Yea!!  I listed to All The Light We Cannot See and I thought it was absolutely beautiful.  One of my favorite books ever.  Do you know that when my knitting obsession took over my life and I basically quit reading, Jeanne kept telling me, "Listen to audio books, dummy, and you can knit AND read."?  (Okay, she didn't actually call me "dummy," but I'm sure she ws thinking it.) Anyway, I finally gave it a try and discovered I did like listening to books and yes, it did allow me to knit and still get some books read.  I was plowing through books!  Then, I discovered all the knitting podcasts.  [Hangs head in shame.]  I am trying to get back to listening to real books instead of women babbling about their knitting projects and the yarn they are buying.  I started listening to the old children's classic The Secret Garden (because yes, someone on a knitting podcast mentioned it) but quit a month or two ago. I started listening again yesterday.  And speaking of listening to books . . .

Kat - I also started listening to The Martian, but although I like the narrator and the humor, it can be so tedious with the technical stuff and botany.  I will try it again someday as everyone says it's really good, but I just found I never wanted to listen to it. 

Holly - Hi!  How fun to "see" you again!  Good luck with the whole school thing!

Waves to everyone else!!

Shelley - I got caught  up in the issues of knitters and crocheters who were raving about different yarns, tools etc. too. I finally decided that I'd have to go to work again to afford all this stuff. Pick a project, pick a yarn and go with it. It will turn out just fine! You can multi-task by listening to a great book too. I have to admit that my listening and yarn work have suffered for a couple of  years now and I really want to get back to it. I've got some super books to listen to!

Welcome back Holly!!!

I got through about a hundred more pages of the Martian. The writing is simplistic for a science fiction novel, but the story is good. If nothing else it is making me laugh. I have about 50 pages left, so should be done by tomorrow. 

I've been reading a mystery titled The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo. It's a pretty good read but I'm just not donating enough time each day to reading so it is taking me longer than I would like to finish it. I will say that I am learning even more about the workings of our national parks and the wildlife. A killing takes place in Glacier Nat'l Park and it appears that the victim was killed by a grizzly (?) but he was taped to a tree! The chief investigator on the case has a background that could affect his perceptions of what happened since his father was killed by a grizzly while they were both on a camping trip together - when the son was 13 or 14 yrs old!  This current killing has been determined to be a murder. Lots of suspects, lots of motives and pretty good character development. Since I lived in Montana for a bit and have been to Glacier, this book intrigued me and it's definitely holding my interest even though I'm reading slower than I ever used to!! ugh....

BTW, this brings me to something I've been thinking about lately. Since some of us have ventured into different genres (other than HF), why limit ourselves? Let's discuss whatever we are reading whether it be mysteries, SF, craft books, cookbooks, etc. It's fun to see what we all enjoy in addition to HF. I'm willing to bet that we all read other things so come on and share!

Jeanne --- I do well to read historicals and mysteries!!!!  However, I think it is a great idea to share our other reads.