Sunday Salon for 26 November 2023
Happy Sunday! Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at ReaderBuzz. Check out her post and the links to see what other bloggers have been up to in the last week.
How’s the weather?
Cool but sunny — which was perfect for the West County Community Action Network’s annual back-to-back Black Lives Matter vigils. We did one on Black Friday in front of the longest strip mall in America and then our usual Saturday vigil the following day.
What are you reading?
I’m 61% of the way through A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. I’m learning a lot about Indiana at the time that my grandparents became adults in the 1920s — when the Ku Klux Klan had a political and social hold on the state.
I’m 50% of the way through Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier — such an engaging story about Mary Anning, the real-life fossil collector in Lyme Regis during the first half of the 1800s.
I made a schedule last week and that has really motivated progress for me. I’m aiming for a chapter a day in the first book which I’m reading in print but also listening to the audiobook while I walk. Remarkable Creatures is an e-book — I plan to read 10% a day.
What are you watching?
We have way too many streaming services right now — a natural consequence of purchasing our first streaming device a few months ago. I took full advantage of Peacock this week.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was a tradition of my childhood, but I haven’t been able to watch for several years. This year, I watched it live from start to finish. So much fun. My favorite discovery was & Juliet — a musical that re-imagines Juliet’s fate at the end of the Shakespeare play. What if she lived?
Then, I realized that Peacock gives me access to the Hallmark Channel. I can finally see what all the fuss is about around Hallmark holiday movies! So far, I’ve watched two and liked one. We’ll see if that ratio improves through the season.
What are you writing?
For Black Friday, I reviewed a book that I think will make a delightful gift for the British mystery lover in your life: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson.
I made a more detailed plot outline for Act One of my novel. I think that I’m going to switch gears, now, and take some time to work on developing my characters.
How are you this fine Sunday?
I guess I’ll be watching Hallmark movies this winter too, lol.
A busy week. I love watching christmassy movies.
This is a nice topic for a Sunday. I don’t get on the PC much on the weekend but might try one day.
I absolutely love Remarkable Creatures, one of my favourite books by Tracy Chevlaier (although her others are also wonderful).
Our weather is sunny after a week of rain and even sleet yesterday. Let’s see how long it takes. LOL
Remarkable Creatures sounds amazing! I will have to jot that one down for later! And I am all about Hallmark right now. Lol.
Enjoy your week!!
Someone in my family told me our grandfather was a member of the KKK. Not sure if that was in Indiana or Kentucky (he lived in both states) but ugh…I didn’t need to know THAT about him.
Streaming services…sometimes I nearly have a panic attack thinking about all the ones I subscribe to but haven’t watched in a long time and maybe I only subscribe to that particular one because there is ONE particular series that I HAVE to see and I’m waiting for new episodes. I wonder if I should unsubscribe while I’m waiting for the new episodes?
And then I hear about another series that sounds interesting and do a search and find out it’s on a service that I do NOT have a subscription to. Ughhhhhh. What to do? What to do?????
My d-i-l loves the Hallmark Channel; honestly I have never watched it, but the commercials for it have dissuaded me from taking a look at it. I hope you will share more. I trust your judgment.
My grandfather’s best friend wrote and published the story of his life, and my dad passed on a copy to me. I read this book about a man born in the 1890s who grew up in rural Louisiana and became a lawyer. I was shocked to run across a chapter where this man proudly describes his activities in the KKK. I do hope my grandfather was too busy on the farm to have participated.
I just saw that about having access to Hallmark Channel too! I’m going to try to work in some holiday movies.
I find the Hallmark movies a bit of hit and miss, it often depends on the actors for me since the storylines are pretty similar.
Good luck with your schedule.
Wishing you a happy reading week