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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.
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.
- Books in Translation Reading Challenge (hosted here at Introverted Reader) Progress: 8/4
- Southern Literature Reading Challenge (hosted here at Introverted Reader) Progress: 9/7
- New (To You) Narrator Reading Challenge (hosted here at Introverted Reader) Progress: 29/6
- Uncorked Reading Challenge (hosted at The Uncorked Librarian) Progress: 12/12
- Nonfiction Reader Challenge (hosted at Book’d Out) Progress: 12/12
- Diversity Reading Challenge (hosted at Celebrity Readers) General Progress: 48/25; Monthly Progress: 12/12
- Audiobook Reading Challenge (hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer and That’s What I’m Talking About) Progress: 49/20
- Book Voyage: Read Around the World Challenge (hosted at The Book Girls’ Guide) Progress: 12/12
- Classics Club (hosted at The Classics Club) Progress: 8/50 by April 15, 2026
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?
38 Comments
How lovely that you got to spend time with family. Glad to see you back!
Thank you!
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.
The Preservationist is pretty good so far. It’s been on my TBR forever so when I finally found it, I had to grab it.
Wow, that’s a lot of reading! I’m glad you had a good holiday, and here’s to a great 2022!
Thank you!
Welcome back! It is always great to spend time with family and friends. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
Thanks!
You have some good looking books! Enjoy your week and your reading, and here are my WEEKLY UPDATES
Thanks!
Family should always been a priority.
Congratulations on your 2021 reading accomplishments!
Wishing you a great reading week
Thank you!
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!
I’m not a huge romance reader so I only rated it 3 stars but I suspect you’ll enjoy it even more. It was cute!
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!
Thank you!
I’m glad you had some time for family and other balance in your life.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
I missed the blog world but it was nice to get a lot of family time in.
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.
Thanks! I need to work on building a cushion of posts for busy times, but it’s hard enough for me to even get one or two scheduled ahead of time! Have fun with the Cybils! I had fun with the process.
wow, that’s a a lot of books read, congrats!
Year of Wonder is a great book to discover more classical music.
https://wordsandpeace.com/2022/01/09/sunday-post-48-1-8-2022/
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.
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
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.
Welcome back! Hope your 2022 is off to a great start! 🙂
So far so good, thanks!
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. 🙂
Taxes–everyone’s favorite chore, right?
Welcome back! Looking forward to seeing pictures of your travels. Good luck getting everything sorted. https://cindysbookcorner.blogspot.com/2022/01/stacking-shelves-5sunday-post-2.html
Thank you!
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.
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.
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
There are definitely some fabulous books aimed at the younger crowd out there. Many of them are appropriate for adult readers too.
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!
I really enjoyed reading the high school nonfiction and learned a lot. You should give it a try! I hope you feel better soon.
Glad you got to spend so much time with your family! Happy New Year!
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
Thank you!