Weekly Update for January 9, 2022


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Weekly Update at Introverted Reader

Welcome to my weekly update for January 9, 2022!

I hope everyone had happy holidays!

I did not mean to disappear over the past month or so but life got busy. We spent several weekends at my parents’ house near Asheville, NC and my sister visited us here in Charleston, SC. That left little time for blogging and I decided I was okay with that. Life is too short to let an unpaid hobby take over, no matter how much I love this community. I admire those of you who manage to juggle all your responsibilities and still post regularly!

Since mid-October, I’ve read 19 high school nonfiction books and read at least half of five more as a round one panelist for the Cybils awards. We had a lot of fantastic nominations so it was hard to narrow the field to just five finalists. You can see and read about our choices on the Cybils website.

I normally like to include pictures from my travel adventures with my husband but it’s been so long since I posted, I don’t know where to start. I’ll take that back up when I get back into my normal schedule.

High School Nonfiction Finalists for the 2021 Cybils Awards

Posted:

Since my last update on November 28, I’ve posted

My Top Ten (Plus Two) Books of 2021

I announced that I’ll be hosting the 2022 Books in Translation Challenge and the 2022 Southern Literature Challenge

Books I Added to My TBR during Nonfiction November

Read:

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This is what I’ve read since November 28.

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor–4 Stars

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, read by Marin Ireland–4 Stars

Handling Depression (Handling Health Challenges) (Cybils Nomination) by Marie-Therese Miller–3 Stars

Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke (Cybils Nomination) by Andrew Maraniss–4 Stars

Can We Talk About Consent?: A book about freedom, choices, and agreement (Cybils Nomination) by Justin Hancock–4 Stars

Race Against Time: The Untold Story of Scipio Jones and the Battle to Save Twelve Innocent Men (Cybils Nomination) by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace–4 Stars

Notes from a Young Black Chef (Adapted for Young Adults) (Cybils Nomination) by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein–4 Stars

The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks (Montague Siblings #3) by Mackenzi Lee, read by Christian Coulson–4 Stars

Punching Bag (Cybils Nomination) by Rex Ogle–4 Stars

A Very Merry Christmas by Cathy Lamb–3 Stars

The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller–4 Stars

The Lost and Found Bookshop by Susan Wiggs, read by Emily Rankin–3 Stars

Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory, read by Janina Edwards–4 Stars

Mistletoe Murder (Lucy Stone #1) by Leslie Meier–3 Stars

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan–4 Stars

A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli, read by Richa Moorjani–3.5 Stars

Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones–4 Stars

The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer–4 Stars

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, read by Janet Song–4 Stars

Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day by Clemency Burton-Hill–5 Stars

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil–4.5 Stars

Goldie Vance: Larceny in La La Land by Jackie Ball et al.–3 Stars

Kim Reaper Volume 2: Vampire Island by Sarah Graley-4 Stars

Ganymede (The Clockwork Century #3) by Cherie Priest, read by Edoardo Ballerini–4 Stars

The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar–4 Stars

Currently Reading:

The Preservationist by David Maine

A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey, read by Frankie Corzo

My Family and Other Animals (The Corfu Trilogy #1) by Gerald Durrell

The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, edited by Caroline Kennedy

2021 Reading Challenge Summary:

I’m happy with the outcome of my reading challenges last year. Challenge title links go to my personal progress page and host links go to the relevant sign-up page.

Up Next:

I have got to review some books! I’m trying to slow down my reading this year and make more time for reviewing. I’m going to try to focus on that over the next weeks. Of course, I also need to start getting tax documents together, which is always time-consuming. We’ll see how much I get done….

What did your week look like?

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?


Other Posts You May Enjoy:

38 Comments

  1. I missed your posts, and am glad you’re back! I think for once I haven’t read any of the books you’ve listed, although I had The Preservationist on my radar once upon a time.

  2. Taking time in the world of family is really important. Blogging is still here when you can. I went on a tangent because I like Cathy Lamb so just added the novella to my Kindle wish list!

  3. Happy New Year to you, too! I also went AWOL over the holidays…it’s such a busy time of year! I am looking forward to seeing all your upcoming travel pics!

  4. Good job on your 2021 reading challenges and on your reading over the past month. I agree that when things get going with family, it’s much more difficult to keep up with posting. I’ll bet you had fun doing the reading for CYBILS round 1 even though it is so much to get through! I have been working on round 2 graphic novels.

    1. I was a band geek in high school but don’t play now and rarely listen to instrumental music. Year of Wonder set a great tone for my day–when I remembered to look at it. I’m going through it again this year and hoping to actually listen to every day.

  5. Are you a high school librarian? Your reading list sounds like what mine was like before I retired. I am a Round 2 Cybils judge for Nonfiction. So I am making my way through the titles you and your team selected as finalists. Last year in this role I read 21 books in the 6 weeks of Round 2 judging as ALL nonfiction was lumped together. It was a massive job, as was yours at Round 1. My Sunday Salon Post

    1. No, I worked in healthcare before we started traveling. I would love to be a librarian but I can’t convince myself that the time and money to go back to school is justified by librarian pay and job availability. It looks like a tough job market.

      Good luck choosing the winner! I would hate to choose just one title from that group.

  6. Yes, family time is much more important than blogging. I usually keep up with my own postings but fall behind when it comes to blog-hopping. It’s all about balance.

    Ah… taxes. I need to start gathering our paperwork for that, too. Thanks for the reminder. 🙂

  7. Glad you had a good holiday with lots of family time! I disappeared for several week, too, while we had a full house and am slowly get back on track with reading and blogging. My Family and Other Animals is on my list, so I’ll be curious to hear what you think of it.

    1. Then welcome back to you too! I didn’t expect to be so busy during the holidays but we haven’t made it home for Christmas since 2018. We took advantage of my husband’s long weekends.

      My Family and Other Animals is charming so far.

  8. Interesting to see what is being published for children and young adults. I hope it helps at least some of them become real readers.

    best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com

  9. We have missed seeing you in the blogosphere, but I’m glad you got to spend time with family. We did a lot of family visiting over the past couple of months, too, but now we are grounded at home with colds.

    I thought about doing High School Nonfiction this year instead of Fiction Picture Books for the Cybils. I thought it might be a nice change.

    Can’t wait to see your travel photos!

  10. Glad you got to spend so much time with your family! Happy New Year!

    Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!

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