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The Sunday Salon

Happy belated Thanksgiving, to those of you in the United States! It was a very busy weekend here at my parents’ house; we had family come up to visit, including a 110-pound Newfoundland! We avoided the shopping rush on Friday, only to be sucked back into it yesterday. And it truly is crazy; as I was searching for a parking place at the mall, I saw a woman steal a parking place that another woman was waiting for. The woman who was waiting honked her horn furiously; the woman who stole the place got out of her car and walked into the mall, with the other woman screaming obscenities and honking her horn at her! Crazy. Then today I went to Anthropologie to buy gifts. Since Anthro is one of my favorite stores, and since I nearly always find something I like in there, it was hard not to buy for myself!

In terms of reading, I spent most of this week re-reading The Thorn Birds, a book I first read about this time of year when I was thirteen or so. Now that I’m re-reading it at the age of 27, I’m wondering why my mom ever allowed me to read this back then! Very racy. But very good, in a naughty sort of way. It’s literally one of those books that’s perfect for reading while sitting under a warm blanket by the fire.

Since this is the last weekend in November, I guess I’ll talk about what I read this month. Seven books total:

Lords of the White Castle, by Elizabeth Chadwick

American Rose, by Karen Abbott

The Land of Green Ginger, by Winifred Holtby

The King’s Daughter, by Christie Dickason

The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton

Some Tame Gazelle, by Barbara Pym

The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough

I read a couple of chunksters this month, including the highly anticipated (at least for me) The Distant Hours. Pretty much everything I read this month was good; the lowest rating I gave was to American Rose (three stars). As far as book buying goes, I mostly failed in my quest to acquire less (especially since I’m potentially going to be moving in the next couple of months!); I acquired twelve books this month, including the ARCs I got through Amazon Vine. I’ve accepted far fewer ARCs this year due to the far that I’ve been focusing on the out-of-the-way classics; but I was excited to see that Susan Vreeland has a new book coming out soon.

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