It’s been a busy week on my little blog. 

There’s still time to enter to win The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly. Register with your favorite story or memory about Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Details here: Literary Giveaway Blog Hop and Little Women memories. Be sure to check the 70+ other blogs also participating in this giveaway with a variety of prizes. I had a lot of fun blog hopping yesterday afternoon.

I’ve completed Thing 1 and Thing 2 for 23 Things for Professional Development (cpd23). There are hundreds of people around the world participating in this professional development opportunity and it’s not too late to catch up. I am looking forward to this week’s focus on my personal brand and online presence.

Last night I put up my first post for the From Left to Write Book Club: Musings Inspired by The Unexpected Circumnavigation by Christi Grab. The book club posts will be gathered together sometime on Tuesday.

So welcome to everyone coming to Joy’s Book Blog from the Literary Blog Hop, cpd23, and the From Left to Write Book Club.  Today is Monday. Most weeks on Mondays, I participate in the “It’s Monday! What Are Your Reading?” meme hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. Be sure to check out her post today to see her selections and the list of links to all the other participating bloggers.

Read

I finished Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. I started this book months ago as a library book, but finished it on my iPad using the Kindle app. I told a friend it was good, but flawed. Then, on second thought, wrote back to say that was too tepid of a review. Using the techniques from Change Anything, I am writing for ninety minutes most days after months of telling myself “write, dammit” had produced no results.

Book Review: The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore covered the book and my book club’s discussion of it. It was a good pick. I also posted Book Review: Best Kept Secret by Amy Hatvany. For Weekend Cooking, I had a review book to cover: Book Review: The Stocked Kitchen by Sarah Kallio and Stacey Krastins.

Reading

I’m currently reading Watching the English by anthropologist Kate Fox. It’s laugh out loud funny and I’m learning a lot about my own American-ness by comparing it to the English. The English-American friend who lent me this book reports that it’s uncannily accurate.

The other book I’ve started is The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig. I wasn’t sure about it at first — it switches time periods and point of view characters and I wasn’t very happy about that because I was enjoying the first character’s story when it got interrupted. But, I eventually came ’round to the second character, too, and now it’s all good.

Will Read

Next up, The Pharmacist’s Mate by Amy Fusselman, Bobblehead Dad by Jim Higley, and 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson in, maybe, that order. They look like quick reads so I may finish all three this week.