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Welcome to my weekly update for July 26, 2026!
It’s been a busy couple of weeks! My birthday was July 18 and my husband’s was July 25. We took a trip to Mackinac Island, Michigan for my weekend. Conditions were not ideal for Mackinac Island with all the wildfire smoke, but luckily it had improved from its absolute worst by the time we got there on Friday and Sunday was actually pretty clear and sunny. My husband was on call for emergencies at the hospital for his birthday, unfortunately.
I signed up for Christmas in July over at That Artsy Reader Girl and I received my package of goodies on Thursday. Kathleen P. did a great job of wading through my meandering questionnaire answers and sending me books and treats I love! Many thanks to her!
My family was generous with beautiful books for my birthday too. I grabbed A Founding Mother for myself at The Island Bookstore while we were on Mackinac Island.
All images © Jennifer G. at Introverted Reader 2026
Left: Lots of goodies there but the two books are The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese and Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Right, clockwise from the top left:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, curated by Barbara Heller
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson, illustrated by Aliya Chen
A Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys
A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Posted:
Nothing.
Read:
Links go to my full reviews on GoodReads
The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry #1) by Guy Gavriel Kay–4.5 Stars–A re-read that lived up to my fond teenage memories of it. I particularly appreciate the strong female characters, surprising in a high fantasy genre that tends to focus almost exclusively on Men Doing Things.
The Stardust Thief (The Sandsea Trilogy #1) by Chelsea Abdullah–4 Stars–A perfectly paced retelling of some of the One Thousand and One Nights tales with delightfully complex characters
Fables, Vol. 9: Sons of Empire by Bill Willingham–3.5 Stars–I don’t care for the ongoing plot featuring the Adversary plotting against the Fables but I did like the parts about Bigby the Wolf
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, read by Hillary Huber–2 Stars–Very dark and too long and meandering for me
Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #2) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot–4 Stars–A satisfying follow-up that builds on the first book a bit
Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential by Tiago Forte–4 Stars–Solid tips for getting your thoughts and knowledge in order but I do not recommend reading on a Kindle Paperwhite because of all the graphics. It’s also too long and a bit repetitive
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative by Austin Kleon–3 Stars–Short and inspiring but feels more like an illustrated bullet list to get you to stop stalling and start creating
Currently Reading:
A Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys
An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor, read by Simon Vance
The Border: A Journey Around Russia by Erika Fatland, translated by Kari Dickson
What did your week look like?
Hosts:
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
31 Comments
My birthday is July 20 so we’re all in the same week! You did very well with your gifts. My daughter surprised me with a pair of pants from Vuori (their fabrics are so nice), but no one got me any books! I think they all know I just buy what I want 🙂
Happy belated birthday! Some friends have highly recommended Vuori pants to us but we haven’t gotten around to trying them yet. I think they particularly mentioned how comfortable they are on flights
Happy belated birthday!
Thank you!
Happy birthday! Enjoy all your great new things, especially the books. It’s great that you got to go to Mackinac Island. We are (hopefully) planning a trip to Traverse City in September.
I hope you get to visit Michigan! I think you’ll love the rocky shoreline. Or, at least, it’s rocky here on the UP. I haven’t been to the Traverse City area yet.
Happy birthday to you both! Sorry the smoke caused problems on your outing to Mackinac Island. It’s supposed to be a problem here again this week. We need more rain to try to put out some of the fires. You did read a variety of books. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
Oh no! I haven’t seen anything about smoke in our forecast here in Marquette. I hope it blows toward unpopulated areas instead. Better yet, I hope the fires burn themselves out soon, but that’s usually unlikely.
Happy birthday to both of you!
Gosh, I haven’t read a Fables book in years! I got up to volume 12 back in the day!
Thank you! I like to read graphic novels in print so I can only read them when the library wherever we are has them. That’s surprisingly not very often so I go years between volumes too.
Happy birthday, Jen! Sounds like you had a nice day. My MIL’s birthday was also July 25. We miss her. Looks like you will have lots of fun stuff to read. Enjoy!
https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2026/07/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-mailbox_01367582537.html
Thank you! Birthdays and other anniversaries of people we’ve lost are so difficult.
Happy belated birthday to you both! Your trip to Mackinac Island sounds like a lot of fun, even with the wildfire smoke, and it looks like you were spoiled with some wonderful books and thoughtful gifts. I hope you enjoy every one of them. Happy Reading!
Thank you!
Glad you had a nice joint birthday rrip and some book gifts!
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Thanks!
Glad you were able to enjoy Mackinac Island despite the smoke! It’s been years since I’ve been but I’ve always loved it there.
It was beautiful once the smoke cleared and we could see the lake. We couldn’t even see the Mackinac Bridge the first two days we were there!
Happy belated birthday. Nice haul of books!
Thank you!
Oh my goodness! I’m so glad that you and your family were safe from the wildfire smokes. You sure got a good book haul!
Into the Unknown: https://intotheunknown61.wordpress.com/2026/07/26/%f0%9f%8c%9ffavorite-posts-from-the-other-side-2/
Luckily the fires themselves are pretty far away but all the smoke blew toward us for a week or so. I feel bad for all the people everywhere who’ve had to evacuate because of fires this summer.
Me too. I hope that everyone is safe from the wildfires.
I signed up for the sprinkle portion of Christmas in July, and I just sent my final gift off to my person yesterday. I am glad you got great gifts from your person, and family for your birthday 🙂 Have a great week!
Thank you! Sprinkles throughout the month sounded like a fun idea too.
Glad your trip to Mackinac Island went well and wasn’t spoilt by too much smoke. I like the look of Fortune of Sand – happy reading and have a good week.
Thank you!
oooh ….I love a good historical fiction and have always wanted to try out A Founding Mother and hope that one is a keeper for you. Sorry you had to deal with smoke for your visit to Mackinac Island, being a resident and native in Utah I definitely relate to that lol Its truly horrible.
We spent last summer in Colorado and wow, all of you in that area have to deal with a lot of fires! Although it feels like it’s been getting worse everywhere over the past few years.
I’m glad the smoke wasn’t awful when you were on Mackinac Island. I’ve always wanted to visit there. We’re downsizing to a Class B van, so we’re hoping to do more traveling to the northeast and east coasts. We have family in Durham, so we may be heading to NC next year! Looking forward to your thoughts on The Covenant of Water. It’s on my list.
Congratulations on the Class B! You don’t tow a vehicle, do you? The B seems like it will be a lot more maneuverable. And yay for a possible visit to NC! I hope you’ll stop by Asheville if you have time and it’s on the way. The NC mountains are gorgeous. I’m biased but a lot of people agree with me! 🙂