Happy St. Patrick’s Day! My blog celebration of St. Patrick’s Day was on Saturday in the form of a Weekend Cooking post about cabbage salad. Cabbage is cheap, plentiful, and tasty around St. Patrick’s Day — so pick up a head and make Cabbage Salad with Fennel and Red Pepper or another great slaw to celebrate.

Read

I’m still on my reading for fun kick. The maple trees started blooming and I need all the help I can get to keep my energy and mood boosted. Maybe this week I’ll get back to my chunky books.

Someone is recreating the Jack the Ripper murders in modern London

I started and finished The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. This was a fun way to review the Jack the Ripper story in advance of our hoped-for trip to London this year. It’s set in current times, but someone is recreating the grisly murders on their anniversary dates and even with all those modern CCTV cameras, no one can catch him.

I finished and reviewed Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. That proved to be a great book club pick for Women’s History Month. We had a terrific discussion on Thursday night.

Cress by Marissa Meyer was the novel on my phone and I finished it, too. I tend to read e-books slowly, so you know that I was entranced if I finished one in a week. This was the third (after Cinder and Scarlet) in a terrific series that re-tells fairy tales in the context of a far-future when Earthens and Lunars are at war.

Reading

An English country house party featuring academics dressed in historical costume who want to restore Richard III’s reputation

On my phone, I picked up an anthology that includes a prequel to the Marissa Meyer series that began with Cinder. It was free! Check it out here: The Fierce Reads Anthology: A Tor.Com Original. I couldn’t get into the first story, but I’m enjoying the second one that has a kind of Russian fairy tale quality to it.

The Murders of Richard III, the second in the Jacqueline Kirby suspense novel series by Elizabeth Peters, is my new fun book. It has some echoes, oddly, with Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale that I read last week. This one features academics gathered for a small conference in an English country house. But they are dressed in costume, portraying their favorite historical character from the time of Richard III, the much-maligned king accused of killing his two nephews. This group hopes to rescue Richard III’s image and clear his name.

And, I finally got back to my chunky read late yesterday — Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. I’m still not half-way through but I keep getting pulled into the life and times of London in the 1600s.

Will Read

I’ll be surprised if I start anything new this week with all of that going on.

What are you reading?

It’s Monday! What Are Your Reading? is a weekly 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.