Weekly Round Up: Mostly Books

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Last week was a busy week, action packed with travel and a family party.  I owe you another travel story, but first I need to pop in with a weekly round up or we will never catch up on books.

Eats

Nothing much to report, but we had a very fun family party this weekend.  SIL#1 and family came to town in preparation for this summer's big family wedding, and the whole gang of us and our dogs met at SIL#4s house for a taco feast.

Workouts/Wellness

I did a ton of walking on my trip as per usual, which I enjoyed but which left me exhausted.  I'm taking a beat to think about my fitness life.  It feels like it is a constant cycle of hard work and exhaustion with no clear end game.  More to come, and in the meantime dog walks and hiking are keeping me off the couch.

Watches

It's all about TV right now.  I finished season seven of Outlander, just in time for season eight.  Let's see if I can stay current for the final season.

Also up at bat: season two of The Pitt.

Reads

So much to talk about!  Let's do this!

Sadly, all stories must come to an end, and I finished my slow savor of Inhale, Exhale.  I recommend that you drop everything and get your hands on it ASAP.

But wait, what did I really think?  I mean, I know the author so how about spilling some more tea?

The best way to tell you that is to compare it with the other books that I read in February.  Here is the list in order started:

Heart the Lover by Lily King

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Lovers and Writers by Lily King

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (DNF)

Inhale, Exhale by Nicole MacPherson

Don't Call it a Comeback by Keira D'Amato (DNF)

And here is the list ranked by order of enjoyment:

Lovers and Writers by Lily King

Inhale, Exhale by Nicole MacPherson

Heart the Lover by Lily King

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (DNF)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Don't Call it a Comeback by Keira D'Amato (DNF) 

Everybody who is anybody has read Heart the Lover recently, and is somewhat likely to have read Friends and Lovers.  So now you have context for how much I adored Inhale, Exhale.

Alrighty, let's move on to books that I've picked up since we last talked:

First up, when a book wins the triple endorsement of Engie, Stephany, and Kim, it is a sign from the universe to get on that.  Consider this post a quadruple endorsement for Promise Me Sunshine.

Next up, I had two really great audiobooks drop into my lap for my latest road trip.  The only issue is that they were both about fairly heavy subjects so I had to take regular podcast breaks to cut through the doom mood that I was getting from both books.

Heavy but great book #1: Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn.  The author had a similar experience to the author of We Were the Lucky Ones where an off hand comment made her realize that her family's experience in WWII was a bit out of the ordinary and that there was a book waiting to be written.  And that's where the similarity ends!  Kuehn's dad was always very tight lipped about the family's past, and a few inconsistencies in his story led her to "google that" in a pre-google world.  She found that the family name was everywhere in the history books, for reasons that you can guess from the title.  She went through periods of being fascinated and periods of being disgusted and walking away from the story, which is how she came to realize that she needed to tell it.

Heavy but great book #2: A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back by Kevin Hazzard.  Hazzard made his second career as a paramedic in Atlanta, and oh my he has some stories to tell.  He also has a way with words and a certain tone that made this book a must read.

After finishing the heavy but good duo, my podcast feed was running low and I still had a few hours of road time left, so I went for a palate cleanser.  Jenny and Julie recently read my official favorite book of last year, so I decided it was time for a revisit, but with the audio version this time.  What book?  Aw yiss, you know I'm talking about Sky Daddy.  It is just as delightful (an odd word to describe a book about a woman who has a plane crash fetish, but accurate) the second time around.

Now it's time to talk about the DNF of the week, which is Midwives by Chris Bohjalian.  This is a book club pick, and normally I would read it no matter what but I just couldn't even with this book.  My first impression was "this is a book about women written by a man", and my second impression was "this is a really boring book about women written by a man that is about bad things happening to women and I don't want to read it".  I asked ChatGPT to get me up to speed, and I understand what he was trying to do, but I just didn't buy the setting and was bored out of my mind.  The kicker is that I've read two other books by the same author that were centered around female protagonists, and I never once had the "book about women written by a man" thought.

Last and not least: a classic that I ran into on the road.  I grew up hearing the name Eudora Welty, but so far as I remember I never read any of her books.  I had an encounter with her on my travels last week that had me reaching for my phone and browsing Libby.  I just started The Optimist's Daughter. It's too soon to say what I think, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it tonight.

Peace Out!  Who has read any of these books?  I'll be back soon with the deets on my trip...I will leave you with the teasers that I had an encounter with a serious wad of cash and that I ran into something having to do with Eudora Welty.