monday musings…

I know I’ve been doing Monday Mini’s for a few weeks now and I was proud that I had finally gotten some kind of blogging groove going. But me being me and all… I didn’t even read enough for mini’s this week. Why am I so schedule/planning resistant?? lol

So for today we have Monday Musings. Hey, it’s my blog just go with it! It still has the two M's thing going on. lol

It gives me a chance to declare my April TBR pile. I've been doing this the past few months hoping it would keep me on track and so far so good. We’ll see if I can continue the TBR reading streak. It’s not looking good. It’s April 10th and I still haven’t started any of these. But I read fast so there’s hope!



*Title links lead to Goodreads
*Quoted summaries from Goodreads
*All books were either provided by the publisher/via ALA

Alex & Eliza: A Love Story by Melissa de la Cruz – “the love story of a young Alexander Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler”
With the Hamilton craze still in full force the publisher is really pushing this one. I have yet to find a de la Cruz book that struck a chord with me but I’m willing to give it a try.

Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven – “Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America’s Fattest Teen.” But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is.”
I posted a pic of my TBR pile on Instagram and asked people to help me pick what to read – this book was recommended by several people so here it is!

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli – “Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.
Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess.”
This is the book I’m most excited to read. I loved Albertalli’s adorable and poingant Simon vs the Homo Sapien Agenda and hoping for the same squishy feelings twith this one.

What Light by Jay Asher – “Sierra's family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon—it's a bucolic setting for a girl to grow up in, except that every year, they pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other. 
Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life eclipses the other.”
I’ve had this one on my pile for a long time and I know it’s April but the Christmas theme is calling to me right now.

Black Widow: Red Vengeance (Black Widow #1) by Margaret Stohl – “The Avengers’ iconic master spy is back, and she’s seeing red.”
It appears that I might need to read book #1 first so this one is a might read for now until I look into it a bit more.

Bought:

I don’t know if I’m about to go through another huge reading genre shift – before blogging I mostly read biographies and travel books – but I’m really getting drawn to non-fiction. The only reason I haven’t dove in is because of how many books I have on my TBR pile. I REALLY need to make a dent before buying dozens of new books. But I did cave and pick this one up.

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama XIV, Desmond Tutu, Douglas Abrams (translator) 

“Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity."

I was flipping through this book at Target and was struck by the humor between the two men and how their religions and approach to life may be different but they so easily saw each others perspectives and did so respectfully. There’s so little of that in our world right now that I want to absorb as much of it as I can wherever I can.



On a non bookish note:

I have a horrible attention span but want to try audio books one day so I started with shorter podcasts.

I’ve been listening to Presidential by The Washington Post and I’m almost done with all 54 presidents! Woo-hoo!

It’s been very illuminating. I remember very little about history and thought I would be bored to death but it’s been fun! It’s not a super heavy history lesson but more a glimpse at the men’s lives so that you understand why they led the way they did or better understand some of the decisions they made. Even my husband, who does know his history, found it interesting. I found the lesser known presidents to be the most interesting which was a surprise.

I also thought by listening to this, I could maybe understand how we got to our current political climate. On that front it gave me conflicted feelings. I’ve learned that we have always been a volatile democracy. So in that sense I felt less worried. America has been through a lot of awful things in the past and we've always come out the other side. On the other hand – we’re always volatile. There’s always been partisanship, corruption and media bias. And now we have the internet to amplify it all. 

That leaves me wondering if we will ever come together. But I digress – it was a good podcast to brush up on the presidency AND yes! I have expanded my attention span so win-win.

Hopefully, I will have read enough to get back to my mini reviews next week.