The winter-or-spring dance has continued from March, with surprising (and honestly, desperately needed) amounts of water coming out of the sky. Nevada’s the driest state in the nation and we’ve been in a bad drought even by our own sad standards for the last few years, so it’s great, but since these are the four months every other year that I have to be driving about 40 minutes each way to work every day, I wish had happened any other time. On the bright side, I’ve been racing through podcasts and audiobooks lately!
In Books…
- Innocent Traitor: I love Alison Weir’s non-fiction, so I wanted to love her first stab into a fictional story about the time period she so often writes about. But I didn’t…her inexperience with the genre is obvious, and although there’s interesting stuff here, the writing of both dialogue and internal monologues come off clunky. But her later fiction has good reviews, so I’m looking forward to reading more.
- Moonglow: Even though I haven’t been able to be to book club since January (I can’t wait to get back in June!), I have been keeping up with our selections. This month’s pick was Michael Chabon’s latest novel, the first of his that I’ve read. Loosely based on his actual great-uncle’s life, it’s a wonderful blend of the personal and the epic.
- Big Little Lies: Instead of reading an Amazon freebie that I was not looking forward to, I let myself pull it out and bump up a book I’ve been really wanting to read since I started hearing rave reviews of the HBO series. Liane Moriarty is outside my usual wheelhouse, but I quite enjoyed this fast-paced look at marriage, mommy politics, and murder.
- The Children of Henry VIII: Back into Alison Weir, but this time nonfiction. There was a lot of overlap with the novel I read earlier in the month, honestly, since it covers many of the same people in the same time period, but I found it a much more rewarding experience. She’s got such a great touch with history.
- The Leavers: I won a copy of Lisa Ko’s hyped debut through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program, and I had a hard time with it, honestly. While I loved the portions of the book that told the mother’s story, I found the dominant narrative around the son to be difficult because I found him such a hard character to connect with or like.
In Life…
- Still in session, but only about 5 weeks left to go! This month saw our first two major bill movement deadlines: bills had to pass out of their first committee, and then their first house. A significant number of bills failed at each of these deadlines, so we’re now left with a smaller pool of bills to track and work on. But a smaller number doesn’t mean any less work, things are still very busy and will be until sine die.
One Thing:
- I’ve long since been a better baker than I am a cook (probably because my mom was the same way), but for the past few celebrations with my in-laws, including Easter a few weeks ago, I’ve found recipes on Sally’s Baking Addiction and they’ve turned out amazing! Her recipes are straightforward, tested, and delicious. I even bought her cookbook!
Gratuitous Pug Picture:
