This Summer So Far….in Books

I’m kind of breaking the rules by talking about books too but, oh well ! 

A while ago we took a small hiatus from book blogging because a lot of things were going on. Not big things, just general busy-ness. Partially inspired by this post from River City Reading I tried to put these past few weeks into books.

Visions of the Sea

For the week of July 4th  we went on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico !  It was 4 days of tasty meals, sun, clear water and a missing cellphone fiasco that could have left us stranded in Mexico. While this wasn’t my first cruise I was  fascinated by the cruising  lifestyle. Cruise ships are like these nonstop floating  party and hospitality machines that attract people of all ages and backgrounds.

On our last day at sea I discovered the 5th deck was where everyone came to read, I pulled up a chair (with a glass of White Zinfandel) and got through half of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson to the sounds of crashing waves.  After coming back I started reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, his essay about his experiences on a 7 day cruise. I’ve never read his essays before, but I can see why he is so beloved in the literary community. What I find so fascinating is how nothing much has changed for the cruising world  in nearly 20 years, it’s crazy how true it all still is !

 

 

 

This Old House

Parquet floors ?

Jess and I have shared an apartment for the last 2 1/2 years and recently  moved. I really loved the old apartment; it was huge,  in downtown and had an exposed brick wall–like Andrea in  Devil Wears Prada. However,  it was getting pricey and the parking was less than glamorous. So we moved to an area called the Near West End. While the new place has great parking and trees  it’s kind of…old.  Like no dishwasher/washing machine old. The community is listed in the National Register for Historic Places and it made me think of Beautiful Creatures, because so much of that story is about old Southern homes.

In related news…a post on Bookshelf 3.0 should be coming soon !

Move ALL the books !

Moving was quite an experience, but perhaps the worst part of it was that it took  1 college trunk, 2 suitcases and a 35 gallon Rubbermaid tub to move the books. When I first moved on my own–3 months into book blogging– I could fit them all in my college trunk. My overflowing 

One of many trips

TBR pile is pretty much all because of the book blogger world which makes me think of the one book series that was kind of the catalyst of this whole crazy book blog. The Mortal Instruments series.  I’m not sure if we’ve ever mentioned this but part of the genesis of Books and Sensibility  came from when I was unemployed and started annotating a copy of City of Bones Jess was reading. We were tossing the idea of putting that online and the rest is a (disputed) history. Needless to say I have a love/hate relationship with the TMI books… and I’m okay with that.

One Ticket to  Colby, NC Please 

It’s hot and I can’t talk about summer without giving a should out to Sarah Dessen, an author I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of. I picked up This Lullaby at random from the school library 10 years ago and have been reading her ever since. I still haven’t gotten through all of her books, so I think this summer I’m going to tackle The Moon and More. I recently found out her fictional Colby, NC is based on Emerald Isle, NC which is like 4 hours away from where I live so I’m totally doing a road trip one day !