Three on Thursday | 2018 Summer Book Bingo!

There's a new section on the sidebar to the right for this year's Summer Book Bingo. The cards are ready - it's time to start planning!

And since it's Thursday, here are three things you need to know about this year's Summer Book Bingo:

1. Books you finish between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend count. This year that means books you finish May 26 - September 3. This might be a great opportunity to finish books you started a while back ... or you could simply get a headstart by starting now and "finishing" Memorial Day Weekend.

2. You get to interpret the relevance of the square to the book. You won't need to defend your book choice ... but I'm hoping that's because you won't need to. That said, I'm expecting that you'll read a book that matches the square. One of the reasons I host this challenge is to post a list of categories that inspire our reading. Summer reading should not be a slog! To that end, I deleted "A Collection of Short Stories" (as promised). And thanks to a suggestion from Juliann, I added "With a  cover that matches a current WIP" (fun!).

This year, we have 98 categories. Some of my lifetime favorite books have been books I read - initially with a little hesitation - as part of this challenge in previous years. I wish the same discovery and satisfaction for you.

3. Each book you read counts for one square, so a "full" bingo card means you read a book for all 25 squares on your card. Yep, even the free space in the middle - but you can read any book you want for that square.

...and two more:

1. I checked Instagram this morning and the tag #2018SummerBookBingo is available.

2. All of these things are documented in the rules, linked in the sidebar.

Here's to another great summer of books and reading - and sharing about our plans, progress and accomplishments!

Head on over to Carole's for more Three on Thursday posts.

Book Bingo 2017 | Mid-summer Update.

you can see all these books on my Summer Bingo 2017 shelf on Goodreads

Hello, readers! Do y'all feel like it's "mid-summer" already? School starts around here in just three weeks (yep, August 7 ... crazy, huh?!) so for a lot of folks, summer is winding down. Same with my bingo card.

Friday morning I finished Hallelujah Anyway for a fourth bingo. I also finished South of Broad (upper right corner); it was even better than I expected, which is saying a lot! I gave it five stars, bringing my summer reading total to five five-star books. I've already raved here about Jimmy Carter's A Full Life, but I haven't shared much at all about the other four. Here are the short reviews I posted on Goodreads.

South of Broad by Pat Conroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book Bingo - An author who died last year.

Pat Conroy can tell a story beautifully and this is one of his best. Beach Music has been on my all-time favorites shelf for years; this one goes there, too. It has all the things I love about a book - an epic story, family secrets, interesting characters, great settings (Charleston and San Francisco) a little mystery and a little love.

As I was reading this - and raving about how good it was - a few friends said they'd read The Prince of Tides and wasn't Conroy a really dark author. I replied that Beach Music was different - all the great things, and yes, a little dark, but the overall feeling is that the book is just.plain.good. South of Broad is like that, too.

Note - I listened to parts and read parts. The audio was decent. The southern accent wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible; and the male narrator did a fine job with both male and female characters.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book Bingo - Set in a place I'd like to vacation.

An hour into the book, I wasn't sure I'd chosen the right square for this book; the cold, hard frontier of 1920's Alaska is certainly not a place I'd like to vacation! But as I got deeper into the book, I saw love and friendship and wild beauty and I decided it was OK.

I love everything about this book. It's magical, heartbreaking and beautifully written.

Sigh, I can't wait for Ivey's next book!

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddartha Mukherjee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summer Bingo - Non-fiction about science. I'm adding this book to my "everyone should read" shelf (along with Gawade's Being Mortal, Mukherjee's previous book The Emperor of All Maladies and Ellenberg's How Not to Be Wrong) and recommending it to nearly everyone.

My friend Bonny wrote a wonderful review.

I'll just add this:
Fascinating material, beautifully presented, ultimately approachable and such important information for everyone to understand. The moral and ethical problems we're facing now around genetic testing and gene therapy give me pause. Where we could be in another five or ten years, well ...

The genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of human imagination. It is Narcissus reflected.

It is nonsense to speak about nature or nurture in absolutes or abstracts. Whether nature, that is the gene, or nurture, that is the environment, dominates in the development of a feature or function depends acutely on the individual feature and the context.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summer Bingo - Translation. Wow. I LOVED this book on audio. Listening to it - hearing the names just roll off easily, the inflection that helped me see the really funny parts (seriously, I laughed out loud many times) and the sad parts. I am so glad I gave the book another chance - a big thank you to all my friends on Goodreads who kept telling me how wonderful it was!!

notes from my 2008 reading: it was ok, but honestly, after so loving love in the time of cholera, i was disappointed. it may be a while before i attempt another of his books.

That's right, back in 2008, I read the book and gave it two stars ... just goes to show that time of life - and book format! - can make a huge difference in how we perceive books.

I then spent most of the rest of Friday (hence, no blog post 😉) sorting through my to-read shelves to come up with a plan for the remaining six squares. I started LaRose (An author of color) and A Piece of the World (About art) and committed to three others (Strangers on a Train, The History of Love and The Memoir Project).

That leaves just the Free Square undecided. I've only purchased two books this summer - The Memoir Project and Hillbilly Elegy (which I was going to read for Bingo, but decided I'm just not in the mood); there's room in the budget for a third (and I have audible credits). I'm hoping y'all can help me choose something good. Recommendations welcome!!

Once I finish this card, I'll get back to the Read Harder Challenge. I still have a ways to go ... but there are several titles (including Beartown, Their Eyes Were Watching God and One Man's Meat) I've been looking forward to for months!

It's been a wonderful summer - and honestly a pretty good year - of reading so far. I hope you can say the same!

The Four Day Sweater.

I did it. Stillwater is finished (well except for blocking which will most definitely happen today, I'm almost sure). 

I shared my progress on Instagram - many of you were following along and it was wonderful to have your support! - so I have lots of photos. This morning I put them all together - they tell quite a story!

I used just over 800 yards of yarn (I added an inch of length) and made about a 33" sweater (details on Ravelry here). It fits great for a summer cardigan. When I knit it again - in wool - for winter, I'll add a little more ease.

I love the pattern - it's easy to follow with nice details (mirrored shaping, lace, the beautiful 3x2 ribbing) and look forward to knitting more of Marie's designs.

I'm not so sure, though, that I'll knit anything in four days! It was way more knitting than I expected - yep, turns out both of those time trials were optimistic - maybe 20-22 hours total? And the cotton, especially in that lovely 3x2 ribbing was hard on my shoulder and elbow. It worked out well that I finished the body (the first 2-1/2" of ribbing) on Day 2 and rested until Day 3 to start the neckband (293 stitches and another 2-1/2" of ribbing).  The neckband took me all morning and I had to ice my shoulder before continuing. I knitted just a little more that day (half of the first sleeve). Yesterday (Day 4), I felt fine (whew - I was worried!) and had no trouble - or pain - finishing the sleeves. 

All that knitting went along great with audiobooks - I finished two: Kerouac's On  the Road (About travel) and Auster's New York Trilogy (Set in a place I want to know more about) and started Ivey's The Snow Child (which will finally give me a second bingo when I finish). 

I also got outside to walk and run - we had a little blue sky amidst all the thunder storms.

In the evenings, we watched a few movies - The Infiltrator (Bryan Cranston is wonderful as always but the story is really bloody), Manchester by the Sea (definitely award worthy, but whoa, not very uplifting) and the latest Mission Impossible (I am not a Tom Cruise fan, but it was entertaining and perfect summer fun) and caught up on Grantchester (sigh. I love that show) - while I worked on some mindless stockinette (yep, Stole 2.0 is out of hibernation!)

And now it's Wednesday - feels like I've been away for weeks, not just days. I'm happy to be back!

Here's to a short week ... and another weekend just three days away!

Linking up with Kat to see what are y'all are knitting and reading.

Unraveled Wednesday | For Real.

While there has been a decent amount of forward progress this week on both the knitting (Clue 2 of the TTL Mystery done and the body of Tide Chart bound off) and reading fronts (two more books added to my "read" pile), there has been a bit of real unraveling.

First, I frogged Lucy. Maybe I was never really committed to her (quite unlike me, I never added a photo to my Ravelry project page), but when I got to thinking about the upcoming Stillwater KAL, I thought that cardigan - especially in cream cotton - would be a better fit for my wardrobe. Sunday afternoon, I unraveled a sleeve and half a body, re-skeined the yarn, soaked it and hung it up to dry.

This morning, I wound the yarn, printed the pattern and thought about swatching :-)

On the reading front, the unraveling came after I finished The Heart Goes Last (for the Speculative Fiction square). It was a disappointment and I needed something good to get back on track. The Classic square seemed like a good bet. I tried Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Wuthering Heights. ugh, ugh and ugh. I visited my bookshelves and considered re-reading Heidi, Little Women or anything by Jane Austen. But I already have a Re-read square ... and mostly, I'm sure there are plenty of classics I still need to discover.

Searching around on Goodreads, it appeared I'd never read Howard's End. A quick visit to LibriVox turned up a recording by my favorite narrator (Elizabeth Klett). The first couple of chapters seemed really familiar (I remembered the concert scene with the lost umbrella), but after that, it was all new. And most enjoyable. I was hoping - foolishly I know - for a happy ending. Forster writes manners like Austen, but his social commentary - and plotting - is much more like Wharton.

After all that, here's what my Bingo shelf looked like early this morning

The first two rows (12 books!) are finished. I'm still re-thinking and shuffling those bottom two rows. I haven't committed to the free square and there is more unraveling to come. I just downloaded Hillbilly Elegy ($4.99 on Kindle today) and think that will be a nice fit for Set in a place you'd like to know more about. ...in any event, it might be a while before I get another Bingo!

Linking up with Kat and looking forward to reading about forward progress!

Unraveled Wednesday | A Spoiler and a Bingo!

Posting this mid-afternoon because until about an hour ago, all I had to share on the knitting front was a lot of stockinette. But after a few hours at the kitchen counter (listening to The Heart Goes Last), I have this

on Ravelry here

and only three more repeats of that mosaic left before I'm ready for clue 2 tomorrow. I'm calling this project "Never Say Never":

"I was explaining to my sister that I wasn’t going to participate in this year’s MKAL because I didn’t really like knitting (or wearing) two colored shawls unless they were Georgia Tech’s gameday colors. As soon as those words were out of my mouth, I remembered that I had white & gold to knit myself a new gameday piece for the fall. Never say never!"

This is my fourth MKAL with Kirsten and the first time I'm actually using more than one color.

Earlier this morning, I also finished another book and woot! I have a Bingo!

That book was Jimmy Carter's latest memoir, A Full Life. I completely enjoyed it and took a little more time than usual with my review on Goodreads:

A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summer Bingo - Memoir of a US political figure.

I would certainly give five stars to the person that Carter is - his optimism, intelligence, integrity and basic decency are sadly lacking from today's political landscape. I was too young to vote for him (I missed the 1980 election by a few weeks), or to know much first hand about the issues he faced. And I was surprised (and also saddened, given today's politics) by how bipartisan Washington was back then. Carter had a bold agenda and managed to accomplish much of it. The book was a little choppy and I debated about four vs five stars, but ultimately decided it really doesn't matter. So - five stars!

I listened to him narrate about 80% of the book and read along as well. I really enjoyed listening to him tell his story, but think I'd recommend the book, because it includes photographs and paintings (by him!) that add a lot to the material.

Three quotations sum up nicely what I loved about the book - and the man:

From the Introduction, talking about his four years as President:

I look back on those four years with peace and satisfaction, knowing that I did my best and had some notable accomplishments. Vice President Mondale summarized our administration by saying, "We told the truth, we obeyed the law, we kept the peace." I would add, "We championed human rights."

Sad, isn't it - no President since then could say that.

From his 1970 inaugural address as Georgia's governor:

and I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over. No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever again have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job, or simple justice.

And finally, from a section titled "A Future America", on the second to last page:

When people in other nations face a challenge or a problem, it would be good to have them look to Washington for assistance or as a sterling example.

Our government should be known to be opposed to war, dedicated to the resolution of disputes by peaceful means, and, whenever possible, eager to accomplish this goal. We should be seen as the unswerving champions of human rights, both among our own citizens and within the global community. America should be the focal point around which other nations can rally against threats to the quality of our common environment. We should be willing to lead by example in sharing our great wealth with those in need. Our own society should provide equal opportunity for all citizens and assure that they are provided the basic necessities of life.

Joining in with Kat and crew today (and looking forward to seeing what y'all are knitting and reading this week)!

Unraveled Wednesday.

In stark contrast with yesterday's most wordy post, today's is heavy on the photos. Knock on wood, but this past week was all about forward progress. I finished a few things (two books and two knitting projects - more on those later) and started a few more. First up, the books - I'm honing in on my first bingo with that fourth row.

I'm listening to (and reading) A Full Life. Carter narrates the audio and I highly recommend it (especially if you have that Audiobook narrated by the author square). The "audio" is actually eight CDs borrowed from the library and the only CD player I have is in my car, so (thankfully!) it's taking a little while to listen. I'm filling in with the book (also borrowed from the library) and so glad I have both. The book contains illustrations of Carter's paintings and photographs that really enhance the material.

I'm also listening to The Cold Dish.  This is the first book in the Longmire series (now on TV) and my dad loved it. I'm happy to finally be discovering it for myself.

On the knitting front, I cast on the Quintissential Cardigan on Sunday. It's knit in pieces so I started with a sleeve (you know, a really BIG swatch). Happy to report it blocked out to gauge and I started the second sleeve today (seen in progress above).

I also swatched for Tide Chart and hope to get that started for real tomorrow.

I did make a little progress with the CDs and that second sleeve today ... because I visited Katie and Sam! This is the first time I've seen him in person since our lake trip. He's scooting around like crazy. and still just as happy and willing to ham it up for the camera.

...and now I have a new lock screen photo.

Joining in today with Kat and crew. Look forward to seeing what y'all are reading and knitting!

Unraveled Wednesday | Time.

Huh, how did it get to be almost 3pm already? I guess my unraveled story today is about time.

A late-ish early morning walk with Marc, a quick walk with Holly, a delightful 90 minute FaceTime with Honoré, a most Important waxing appointment, a latté, a pedicure, another quick walk, catching up on a bunch of blog posts and a few minutes with my latest book and knitting and I guess 3pm makes sense! Only the FaceTime and the Important appointment were on my calendar. Sometimes unraveling isn't a bad thing!

The knitting is Colorwash (last seen here) and the book is The Keeper of Lost Causes (Kat's recommendation for "Set in a different country"). She told me it was one of those "you'll need to get your own dinner" books and I have to agree!

I have an hour before I need to shower (yep, "retired" life is good :-) and dress to meet my sister for #negroniweek. I wonder how many pages I can read?

Have you enjoyed any unraveled time lately?

Joining in with Kat and crew today.

Unraveled Wednesday.

Happily, most of this week's knitting progress has been "forward". There was a small setback Monday evening when I discovered I'd forgotten to make two buttonholes along the right edge. The sad part is that one of them was 27 rows back. The happy part is that the buttonholes are worked as yarn over/knit two together, so I could add them in without ripping everything back (whew!)

in process ... done!

Along with ten repeats of knitting, I also finished three books.

It feels like I'm off to a great Bingo start - I gave all three (Sea Change, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and My Name is Lucy Barton) four stars.

Now I'm still listening to - and completely loving - One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was reading it for the Read Harder challenge, so I set it aside last week. But after finishing the first three books, I picked it back up and decided it would fit on my card - a Re-read, a Translation or the free square. It's nice to have so many options!

I got to listen to almost three hours today (ugh. traffic.) when I drove to and from Charlie's house. More on our outing in another post, but I can't resist sharing just one photo.

and now I'm enjoying this.

Endeavour. Season Two.

Joining in with Kat and crew today. Can't wait to see what y'all are knitting and reading!

Unraveled Wednesday | Queued.

Today I'm not sharing about works in progress - knitting (still the test knit, still going ok) or reading (listening to One Hundred Years of Solitude and loving it). Today is about the summer queues.

On the knitting front, I'm thinking about Alaska (I leave August 16). A summer trip to someplace chilly is a different experience for me and I need a few new pieces. Over the past weeks, I've played around a lot with my stash and my queue and have settled on this:

Items 6 and 7 (not shown) are cowls. Putting them in the Nice to Have category so as not to give myself too much pressure 😉. I have 11 weeks. It seems doable. So glad to have Kat's KAL to keep me focused!

On the reading front - it's Bingo!

I love planning out all the books almost as much as I enjoy the actual reading. Here's where I've ended up

link to my Summer Bingo 2017 shelf on Goodreads

I have books earmarked for all the squares except the middle one. Figure that gives me some flexibility - I'm sure some book is going to come along between now and Labor Day that I'll just have to read! 

As I'd hoped, I didn't have to s-t-r-e-t-c-h any of the squares to fit something I'd actually want to read. ...at least not much! I have Mill on the Floss for "Recommended by a librarian". That one came recommended by my friend Carole, who just happens to be a librarian. And A Conjuring of Light (the 3rd and concluding book in V.E. Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic series) is certainly "Set in a place I'd like to know more about" ... it just doesn't happen to be a real place! And finally there's Day Drinking (a recent gift from my sister) which is "50 cocktails for a mellow buzz". Surely y'all would agree that's "About food"?

With all the knitting I have planned, a lot of these are audiobooks (10 total), but nine are real books. That's probably more "real book" reading than I've done in a long time - and a whopping seven of those are books from my own shelf (two are re-reads). I'm only buying one, Jabbok. It comes highly recommended from a friend who lives in Alabama, where the author is from. I couldn't find it at the library, but I have a feeling this is a book I'll be happy to own.

And that's it - lots of plans ... and a whole summer to make them happen!

I've really enjoyed reading about what so many of you have planned for summer reading.  It's going to be fun to follow and cheer along! Same with the knitting. Thank you Kat, for bringing us all together!

The Bingo Cards are Ready!

Yes indeed - the summer bingo cards are ready! I've added a section for "summer book bingo" to the sidebar:

When you click the "card generator" link, you'll see something like this

I suggest you refresh the page once (there's a "refreshing" link at the top of the page) and then print your card. I snagged a screen shot of mine so I'd have an electronic copy as well.

There are 101 total categories - thank you everyone for your wonderful input and suggestions. It's a solid - and fun! - list. And with that many categories, each card will be very different. I can't wait to see what y'all end up with!

Remember, books you finish from Saturday, May 27 through Monday, September 4 count. It is perfectly ok to start reading now.

Happy Friday ... and happy planning!

Book Bingo 2017 | Preparations.

I am delighted that so many of you are looking forward to another summer of reading, sparked by Book Bingo - we're going to have fun!

I'm pretty sure most of you know the "rules", but for ease of reference, here you go:

1. books you finish between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend count. This year that means books you finish May 27 - September 4. this might be a great opportunity to finish books you started a while back ... or you could simply get a headstart by "finishing" that weekend.

2. you get to interpret the relevance of the square to the book. You won't need to defend your book choice ... but I'm hoping that's because you won't need to. That said, I'm expecting that you'll read a book that matches the square. One of the reasons I wanted to host this "challenge" is to post a list of categories that I'd want to be part of. As I post this, there are 89 categories. Some of my lifetime favorite books have been books I read - unwillingly?!- as part of this challenge in previous years. I wish the same discovery and satisfaction for you.

3. each book you read counts for one square, so a "full" bingo card means you read a book for all 25 squares on your card. (yep, even the free space in the middle - but you can read any book you want for that square).

4. there will be prize(s). leaving those details TBD until I know how it's going. Regardless, to be considered for prizes - and honestly more because I want to keep in touch! - you need to share your Bingo card (plans, books, Bingos!). you can tag me on Instagram (@mere2007) or via a link here.

So - here's the list of categories (there's also a link on the sidebar). What's missing? what do you hate? what would you refuse to read? what might you be incented to pull off the shelf?

My plan is to have the cards ready to go by May 22, so I need your input by May 19. Please leave your input in the comments or email me directly.

And thank you in advance for your participation - reading is good. but reading in a community is better. (and filling your bingo card is the best!)

edited on April 29 to fix the link to the category list (sorry about that!)

Summer Book Bingo Wrap-up.

Before we turn another page on the calendar, let's take a few minutes to celebrate a great summer of reading. We had ten participants* (including me) - for a total of 189 books and 77 Bingos.  Wow!

Here are links to all the recap posts:

Lydia (25 books and  12 Bingos)

Bonny (25 books and  12 Bingos)

Kym - (24 books and  12 Bingos)

Carole (25 books and  12 Bingos)

Margene (18 books and 4 Bingos)

Vicki (9 books and no Bingos)

Debbie (25 books and 12 Bingos)

Patty (no Bingos)

Penny (14 books and 4 Bingos)

me (24 books and 9 Bingos)

Now comes the part when I randomly choose a winner. The plan was that each Bingo would get one entry in the drawing. But when I realized I'd have to cut up almost 70 pieces of paper, I changed the rules! I gave each participant one entry and each cover an additional entry. 14 pieces of paper was much more manageable. And the winner is ...

Penny, there's a little something coming to your in-box.

Finally, I haven't heard (but I also haven't looked) what might be happening around Book Bingo next summer now that Ann and Michael have stopped their podcast. I hope it will still be around in some form; or we might have to do it on our own. Of course that's months away :-)

Thank you everyone for participating and cheering each other along. It was a great summer of reading. together!

*plus my sister who never shared anything on-line but reported an almost-cover and nine Bingos.

Summer Reading Recap.

Here's the short version:

I read 39 books.

I did not cover my Bingo card.

my final card - nine Bingos!

If you'd asked me back on May 25 what I thought this summer's reading might bring, I wouldn't have guessed either of those. I came really close on Bingo, but couldn't manage to read a literary journal cover to cover. As recently as last Friday, I was seriously thinking about spending a few hours with one, just to do it. But then I thought more about the breadth and quality of the rest of my summer reading and decided to finish up two books for the Read Harder challenge instead.

Here's the longer version of what I read:

24 books for Bingo (if you click on the image, it will take you to my Goodreads shelf where you can see more about the titles, how they fit the squares, and what I thought about them).

sorted by rating, date finished (most recent 5 star book is top left)

13 books for Read Harder (ditto about the image) and finished all the reading for that challenge (I still need to watch a movie based on one of the books to compare/contrast; that won't happen until Sara visits later this year). The image below is all 24 books I read for the challenge.

sorted by rating, date finished

Two other books - which turned out to be my least favorite books so far this year. I'm done talking about those!

Nine books landed on my 2016 Favorites shelf and one (Invisible Man) also on my All-time Favorites. I counted nine books as 5-stars, a whopping 24 as 4-stars, four as 3-stars and those two duds. I listened to 19 of the books and and read 20. 26 were fiction and 13 were non-fiction.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• The next book I'm going to choose for bookclub - The Last Painting of Sara de Vos.
• The book that rocked my world - Redefining Realness.
• The most beautifully written book about racism in America - Citizen: An American Lyric.
• The high-school classic I'm glad I finally read - The Outsiders (and of course Invisible Man).
• The best more recent book I'm glad I finally read - The Shipping News.
• The best geek-out book ever - A Short History of Nearly Everything.
• The book that made me wish I were traveling to Great Britain - The Road to Little Dribbling.
• ...and to Paris - Paris in Love.
• ...but not North Korea - This is Paradise!
• The book that made me want to read Shakespeare (and also very glad I'm not in 7th grade) - The Wednesday Wars.
• The best "real" book to share with a friend - Pax.

I'm grateful to all of you, many of whom are also my Goodreads friends, for your recommendations. It was a great summer of reading!

One final note about Bingo - if you played along (no matter how many Bingos you got), please be sure to share a blog post or a photo on Instagram (and tag me @mere2007).  I'm going to do a wrap up and draw for a prize later this month.

Book Bingo 2016 | Mid-summer Update.

my card this morning

This is the third summer we've played bingo (and read a lot of books); I keep thinking there's no way this year's summer reading can possibly be as good... and I'm happy to be wrong (again!).


Here's my Summer Bingo 2016 shelf on Goodreads, sorted by rating (and some date algorithm I'm not quite sure about)

see this shelf on Goodreads here

Those first two on the top row are my 5-star reads, favorites not only for this year, but also all-time; and also books I could've read in high school or college, but am just now getting around to.

The next 16 (!!!!) were 4-star reads. I loved them all and would definitely recommend them to others. I love how diverse that collection is - fantasy, science fiction, romance, classics, narrative non-fiction, verse, memoir. This is, in a nutshell, what I love about Book Bingo.

I've written short reviews on Goodreads for each book; please click over to my shelf  if you want to see more details about any of them.  I just wrote about Invisible Man this morning. I finished it Monday evening, but needed to let it marinate a few days to decide what to write. This book rocked my world for the six days I read it.

Monday afternoon I abandoned the audio and picked up Sara's high school copy (marginalia and all!) If you haven't read this book, I think you should. Maybe my little review will tell you why.

Ellison wrote this in his 1981 introduction 

"my task was one of revealing the human universals hidden within the plight of one who was both black and American, and not only as a means of conveying my personal vision of possibility, but as a way of dealing with the sheer rhetorical challenge involved in communicating across our barriers of race and religion, class, color and region -- barriers which ... still function to prevent what would otherwise have been a more or less natural recognition of the reality of black and white fraternity."

I think he succeeded in his task. This book got inside me (as did Joe Morton's fabulous narration - I listened to the first 3/4 on Audible); it's made me look at racism differently and it's made me very sad to realize that the "truths" Ellison wrote about 60 years ago are still that. 

I finished the last 1/4 reading Sara's much-annotated edition from high school. Her notes were helpful and insightful (and made me glad I wouldn't have to take a test or write a paper). But she wrote nothing next to one of my favorite passages 

"Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain." (emphasis mine) 

A powerful message still.

In summary, I've read 20 books for a Bingo square since Memorial Day. And finishing Invisible Man gives me four Bingos.  Five more to go to cover my card. I'm guessing  Louise Penny's newest (due out on August 30) will be the last - and sitting in that key lower left corner, will give me my last three Bingos.

How's your summer reading going? I hope you're enjoying it...and maybe even finding a few surprises!

(remember, by my rules, you have until midnight on Labor Day (Monday, September 5) to play; you can read more about Book Bingo here.)

A Private Book Signing.

One of my Book Bingo squares is "Written by an author you've met." I haven't actually met many authors except at book signings, where - even if I have a photo of me and the author - I'm sure those authors have no idea who I am (does it count as a "meeting" if only one of us remembers?)

My friend, Lauren, however, has met an author. She is one of Karen White's Pilates trainers. From the stories Lauren shares and from Karen's own Instagram feed, I know she's very outgoing. I thought she might enjoy the opportunity to indulge a bit of fangirl... So I asked Lauren to ask

and yesterday evening, I met Karen ... enjoying the tail end of a workout.

She was friendly, personable and fun (and can you believe how great she looks after a hard hour of Pilates?!) She asked me to tell her a little about myself; I mentioned Book Bingo and the square I was hoping to complete with our meeting.

I'm looking forward to the book - it's set in France and Apalachicola, Florida and there are bees! Sounds intriguing and certainly a welcome change after spending 45+ hours in the 1760's with Jamie and Claire!

me, Karen and Lauren (from Lauren's Instagram)

Ten on Tuesday | Listening and ...

I think we're getting serious about Summer Book Bingo with the Ten on Tuesday crowd. Today, Carole's asked us to share things we like to do while listening to books. Listening to books, "reading with my ears", has changed the way I read. For sure, it's allowed me to read more - which is, I think, a very good thing. But it's also allowed me to experience books in new and different ways; the right narrator can engage me in a story better than that little voice inside my head (it can pronounce all the names, do an accent, speak Russian, or Spanish...and of course, English!)

And it's allowed me to multi-task. Here are a few of the things I love to do while I'm listening:

today's nap time entertainment...along with my audiobook

1. Knit (unless I'm counting or trying to figure out a pattern).

2. Walk Holly.

3. Run.

4. Drive.

5. "Watch" golf. Sometimes Marc just likes to know I'm around, ya know?!

6. Fold laundry.

7. Unload the dishwasher.

8. Clean the bathroom or the kitchen.

9. Dust (this is H-U-G-E - I hate to dust!)

10. Sit in a waiting room...when I don't want to talk to anyone. Earbuds in my ears....

I'm seven hours into a 45 hour audiobook (Drums of Autumn, for the "with a season in the title" square). Obviously any and all suggestions on what else I could be doing are gonna be most welcome - thank you in advance! (and thank you, Carole!)

If you're not already playing along, click here to join the Ten on Tuesday fun.

p.s. I did that bit of listening and reading while this was going on in the other room.

Summer Book Bingo 2016.

Ok, y'all, it's officially the start of summer - Books on the Nightstand has released the 2016 Book Bingo cards! Click here to listen to the podcast episode and here to download your card.

Here's mine.

I've got ideas for almost all the squares. As in previous years, I'm trying to read books I already own or books I've been meaning to read (The Outsiders, Invisible Man). One square has me stumped - I emailed my mom last night about the "that your parents didn't/wouldn't have let you read as a kid" because I don't remember anything but encouragement to read whatever I wanted! I'm looking forward to the "literary journal" and "verse novel" - those are two new-to-me genres. And that upper left corner "a random book from a shelf" should be fun, too.

I hope you're planning to play along. This summer, books you finish between Saturday, May 28 (the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend) and Monday, September 5 (the end of Labor Day Weekend) count. We'll follow the same rules as in previous years - each book counts for one square. You can read whatever you want for the middle square. This is supposed to be fun, so a bit of "liberal interpretation" of the categories is ok! Each completed Bingo (a row, a column or a diagonal) earns you one entry in the drawing. I'll choose a winner from the pool of Bingos in September.

Wishing you a summer of delightful reading...and more than a few Bingos!

And the Grand Prize Goes to...

Thank you so much to everyone who played along in this year's Summer Book Bingo. Based on blog posts and Instagram, we had seven participants (Carole, Kym, Bonny, Margene, Patty, Lydia and Audra). These seven ladies finished an astonishing 127 books for Bingo squares, and scored a record 48 total Bingos.

I ended up with 50 pieces of paper in my bag, 48 for each Bingo and one each for Patty and Lydia who were just...unlucky with their cards.

Kym, there's a little something coming your way, but I hope everyone feels like a winner for having a great summer of reading!

Book Bingo | Wrapping Up.

...what a great summer of reading! I promised a few of you a wrap-up on my own Book Bingo(s) and wanted to share next steps for choosing one lucky participant (because we're all winners in this game!) for the grand prize.

Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I read a whopping 40 books for a Bingo square. I wrapped up the first card back on August 11 when I finished all 849 pages of 11/23/63. I read 15 books for my second card...but no Bingos. I could've pushed and read Bone Black (with a red cover - middle left) for two ... but I spent the weekend out and about, not reading.

my second card

I made separate shelves on Goodreads for each card. Here are the covers for the ones I finished, sorted by rating. I wrote short reviews on Goodreads for each book; you can check out the links below if you're interested.

For my first card, I gave five stars to all six books on that top row. Highly recommend every single one...and recommend all the others as well. There wasn't a bad one in the bunch.

Card #1 - link to Goodreads

The second card was a bit...more interesting. I gave five stars to the first three, four to the next nine and ... I'm not sure I'd recommend those last three. Y'all know what I thought about Go Set a Watchman. Those other two were just not my thing. I'm glad I read them, but I'm not sure you need to!

Card #2 - link to Goodreads

And now, apparently, reading and I are on a break. Since I finished Mink River - one of my favorites of the year, and certainly the summer - on Monday morning, I haven't even started another book. It has only been three days, but still, it seems really weird. Kind of like when I realized Monday evening that I hadn't knitted all day. not even one little stitch. (that has since been remedied - I've made good progress on two projects this week).

I'm hosting bookclub tonight - Big Little Lies, which I read so many books ago I can't even remember the characters' names (yikes! I've got some re-reading to do today!) and next month's selection is All the Light We Cannot See. I've already put the audio on my phone, and I fully expect to start listening tomorrow. But for my eyes, I'm not sure. I do want to read the other eight books from my second card (note that I admitted defeat with the Play square...not gonna happen!) and I own most of them already, so that's easy. We'll see. I'm sure the break won't last for long.

Kym, Bonny and Carole have already posted about covering their cards - that's 12 Bingos apiece!!!  If you played along, please share your final card on your blog (and be sure I see your post) or on Instagram (you can tag me @mere2007 to be sure I see it). Remember, each Bingo gets you one entry in the grand prize drawing. I'm planning to draw on Monday, September 21 and share the results back here then.

Many thanks to every one of you for sharing your encouragement, recommendations and enthusiasm for reading. Personally, this has been my best reading summer in a long time. maybe ever. And much of that is because of you!

One Word Wednesday | Bingo!