Sunday Salon: December 17, 2017

My life in books:
Since my last Sunday Salon, here's what I've read.

  

• The Atlas of Forgotten Places by Jenny D. Williams--wonderful book!
• The Rooster Bar by John Grisham--A Grisham with a twist
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds--YA and super good

• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds--extraordinary YA

• Currently reading--The Librarian of Auschwitz

Challenge updates:

• Read Your Own Damn Books--My goal was to read 25 books from my TBR shelves this year and I am up to 40 so this challenge is feeling really good!
• Travel the World in Books--The idea is to read books set in as many countries as possible. I added Uganda and Senegal in the past two weeks to make it 34 countries.
• Literary Escapes--Similar to the previous challenge, this one tracks the US states. I didn't add any new states, but my total is 21 states so far.
• Read all of the ALA YA Award Winners--complete

My life outside books:

Working:
I am officially on winter break! Our last week or so of work was quite strange since it was cancelled for the last seven days due to the Thomas Fire. It turns out we are getting paid for the 7 days we're missing, don't have to take sick/vacation days, and we don't have to make up the days either. I, of course, got a bunch of work done during some of those days "off."

Family:

Big family news: my daughter was accepted to Vassar College for next year! Wahoooooo! We are both so excited as it is her number one choice. Vassar is in Poughkeepsie, New York, so it's very far away, but I know she will get a fantastic education, have a great time, and get to experience living in the snow. She has no idea how cold it will be!

Well, Santa Barbara has had quite the crazy past couple of weeks with the Thomas Fire forcing us to stay mostly inside, wear masks when we had to outside, destroying homes, and reminding us of our fragile existence here. To see my post about it, click here. We have now been forced to evacuate and are living at a friend's house across town. We thought it would be for a night, but it seems it will be at least until Wednesday. I did a terrible job of packing, bringing clothes I thought I didn't want to lose rather than clothes to wear now and clothes that match. Duh. The clean up will begin next week (we hope)--how do you clean up inches of ash on EVERYTHING?! They say we'll be wearing N-95 masks for weeks.

Watching:

I am watching the new/current seasons of:

• Madam Secretary
• Criminal Minds
• The Crown, season 2--Watched the whole season and loved it!