ENJOY your books, everybody!

Let's celebrate this week by reading another book or two or three.

An excellent book

Family Lore ~ by Elizabeth Acevedo, 2023, literary fiction, 384 pages

Flor has a gift:  she can predict, to the day, when someone will die.  So when she decides she wants a living wake — a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led — her sisters are surprised.  Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s?  Does she have other motives?  She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.  But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets:  her sisters are hiding things, too.  And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City.  This is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces — one family’s journey through their history.

NOTE:  Since I'm the librarian for our little Crown Center, I was about to reshelve this book yesterday when I read what it was about.  I went back to the notebook where we sign our own book choices in and out, using our names and apartment numbers, and the date when we took it and when we returned it.  Seeing that a neighbor I know had just read it, I signed it out and when I ran into Linda walking her dog later, I asked what she thought.  Her answer was short and sweet:  "Excellent!"

Week in Review

• On Monday, I mused about the 10/10 book I had just read, HERE.  And that's it for the week, my slowest reading and writing week that I can remember ever.  This is another reason I'm so ready to crack open this book and get immersed in the story of the lives of these sisters.
• 
  is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Old friends

March 16th was the 86th birthday of my friend Shirley.  We've been friends since 6th grade.  Years ago, she sent me a letter with this old B/W photo of the two of us.  I just learned last night that she died two days after her birthday last month.  I started thinking of other friends and realized Ginny in Florida is now the friend I have had the longest, though we didn't meet until we were in high school.  She was a year ahead of me in school (and in age), but we keep in touch even though neither of us now lives in our hometown.

Epistolary fiction

 

Kate & Frida (Book 2 of 2 in the Love & Saffron Series) ~ by Kim Fay, 2025, epistolary fiction (Paris, Seattle, Sarajevo), 320 pages, 10/10

Sometimes a book can change your life . . . Twentysomething Frida Rodriguez arrives in Paris in 1991, relishing the city's butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent (hoping to go to Sarajevo).  But then she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, and receives more than just the book she requests.  A friendship begins that will redefine the person she wants to become.

Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida's free spirit and is spurred to believe in herself as a writer, to kiss her handsome coworker, and to find beauty even in loss.  Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives — both personally and globally — Kate and Frida sustain and nourish each other as they learn the necessity of embracing joy, especially through our darkest hours.

This novel is a love letter to bookshops and booksellers, to the passion we bring to life in our twenties, and to the last years before the internet changed everything.

________________________________________________________________

* I read the large print edition of this novel (the white one above) and loved it, even though I haven't read the first in the series.  Now I want to get that one.

My neighbor handed me this book

The Correspondent ~ by Virginia Evans, 2025, epistolary fiction, 304 pages

This is the life story of Sybil Van Antwerp, a prickly, retired lawyer in her 70s, through her letters and emails to friends, family, and even famous authors like Joan Didion and Ann Patchett.  The book explores themes of aging, regret, forgiveness, and connection as Sybil confronts her past, including the loss of a child and her adoption, through her correspondence.  It's praised for its realistic and memorable character, its celebration of the written word, and its poignant look at a life unfolding through communication.

When Betty handed me this book, she motioned "zipping her mouth closed," saying she wasn't going to tell me her opinion.  However, she had texted to ask if I wanted this book.  She doesn't usually do that unless she enjoyed reading it.  If you've read it, you can tell me whether it's good or bad, if you like.  I'll still read it either way.

Week in Review

• For Monday Musing, I mused about a book that will probably take me forever to read, HERE.
• On Twosday, I wrote about the words SWiss and SWeet, HERE.
• I wrote about the number of steps in my Wednesday's workout, HERE, after walking to the grocery store.
• On Saturday, I learned that my daughter's father-in-law died, so I looked up all the times I've blogged about dying, HERE.  I didn't think to ask how old he was.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Food and a shopping list

Today was a good day, so I was able to walk to the grocery store to buy what I needed, including stuff from the deli counter, like cole slaw and ham salad.  Another plus is that I got in 4,000 steps by simply going to the store.  I also walked in the halls in my building this afternoon and evening.  That means I have more than doubled that number (8,303 steps), and it's not even bedtime yet.

Today's healthy lunch

When I ate lunch today, I noticed a word connection.  I was still hungry after eating a Swiss cheese sandwich (no, I didn't melt it), and I noticed leftover sweet potato yams in the fridge.  You know me.  Yes, I noticed SWiss and SWeet in the names of those foods.

While looking for an illustration for my blog post, I found this:  "Swiss cheese is widely considered one of the healthiest cheese options."  That is when I realized that today is TWOsday, so here are two things I ate for my healthy lunch today.