Sunday Salon: December 1, 2019

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz has taken over running The Sunday Salon.

My life in books over the past week: 

• Body Leaping Backwards: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood by Maureen Stanton
• The Guardians by John Grisham
• Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas

Challenge progress:

• Diversity Reading Challenge--I have read 63 books.
• Literary Escapes--I have read books set in 39 states so far, adding Alabama and Kentucky in the past 2 weeks. I have read in 58 countries so far, adding Martinique (French Caribbean) in the past 2 weeks.
• Motif Reading Challenge--The December motif is "Last Chance" (read a book you've been meaning to read this year.
• Non-fiction--I have read 26 books so far.

Completed challenges:

• My Own Books--I read 21 books off my shelves from March 15 to May 15, 2019.
• Big Book Challenge--I read 8 books over 400 pages during the summer.
• YA Award Winners--I have read all 11 winners
• A to Z Reading--I have read books with titles for al l26 letters

My life outside books:

For the past few days I have been enjoying reading with the Thankfully Reading Weekend and managed to read a fair amount. But, I didn't read as much as I had hoped because we have begun our winter holiday Liberty Puzzle sessions, which are always intense and enjoyable. So far we've done 4 puzzles. I just love the smell of the wood pieces and the beautiful shapes of the puzzle pieces.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year with just me, my parents, and our next door neighbor who is newly widowed. It was his first holiday on his own so it was nice to have him with us.

The "excitement" of the week was that a fire broke out Monday night in the hills above Santa Barbara (The Cave Fire) and moved quickly down the canyons toward town. The first responders were amazing, as always, as they worked to contain the fire; there were no structures lost or any injuries. Rain on Tuesday night helped their efforts and everyone was back in their homes by Wednesday night in time for Thanksgiving. The fire is currently 85% contained.

I am participating in #TBTBSanta and mailed off my package to my person. She has acknowledged it so I can now publicly say she is Sprite of Sprite Writes. She seems totally cool.