Sunday Salon: Bookkeeping, 1-13-2013

One reason I fell away from participating in the Sunday Salon for a while was that I'd come to feel like my posts here needed to be topical--in the "have a topic" sense, that is, not the "time-sensitive, hot-button" sense, although sometimes that applied too--and I was finding myself lacking the time, energy, and/or brainpower to write posts like that every week. I don't think I've recovered it, to be honest, but since the only topic the Salon really asks for is books, I guess I should let that be enough for a Sunday post some weeks.

Reading in Progress

I’ve finished three of the four books I was reading last Sunday:

The Tell, by Hester Kaplan (Shelf Awareness review coming)
Hell is Other Parents, by Deborah Copaken Kogan (review posting tomorrow)
Year Zero, by Rob Reid (audiobook read by John Hodgman) (review coming)

I finished the audiobook on the way to work Friday morning, and I don’t think I’ll start another one right away--I build up a backlog of podcasts while I’m reading an audiobook, and I’ll be spending drive time this week listening to those. I'm hoping to finish The Revolution Was Televised this weekend

After mulling it over publicly last week, I’ve bitten the bullet and resumed--almost six years on--reading The Historian. I left off on page 497 in April 2007, 179 pages from the end, and I’ve still got over 100 pages to go. It wasn’t long after starting it again that I remembered why I set it aside, but I was also reminded of why I never did bail on it completely. I have the rest of January to get it done for Fizzy Jill’s “Procrastination-along,” a.k.a. #peeon, and I think it just might happen. I’m on a mission, and I’ve got this great button she made for me to keep me going:

Aside from that, since last week was good for finishing books, the coming week looks like it'll be one for starting them.

Recent additions to TBR Purgatory

(Books acquired in December and January, not including galleys for review consideration)

Carry the One: A Novel by Carol Anshaw

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean

The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

The Snow Child: A Novel by Eowyn Ivey

The Darlings: A Novel by Cristina Alger

The Fault in Our Stars (Collector's Edition) by John Green

(Yes, I’ve read it already--it was one of my 2012 Books of the Year. However, I read it in e-book and I decided I really wanted a nice keeper copy.)




If you’d like another place to convene online with fellow bookish, bloggish folks when The Sunday Salon’s not in session, check out the Book Bloggers Community on Google+. Becca from Lost in Books started this group around the first of the year. It’s growing quickly, and there are some good conversations going on there...which is part of the point:

“This is a friendly, non-judgmental community for book bloggers.
GUIDELINES:
1. You must run a book blog to join.
2. No spamming will be permitted.
3. You cannot just add links here. You MUST participate in discussions. This is a community, not an advertising agency.
4. Most of all this is to be fun! Learn, laugh, share, grow. :)”

See you there, maybe? Unless you're too busy reading something good, of course...