The Shadow of the Wind...and a Tuna!

It's going to be 90 degrees and humid here in Maine today. After a horrible July, August is turning out quite summery, finally!



My mom fell Friday morning and ended up in the hospital. The procedure for her back has been rescheduled for Monday.




This is a long book at almost 5oo pages so it took me awhile to finish it. It was worth it, though. Mystery, intrigue, love, humor, death. This novel has it all.



The foreign setting of Barcelona is fresh and I loved all the Spanish names. They add so much flavor.


I see that Carlos Ruiz Zafon has a new book out. I saw it at Border's and it looks like a winner, too, so I will have to pick it up sometime.



In other news, my husband caught a tuna on Thursday. It weighed in at over 600 lbs. and was 100 inches long. He fought it for almost 8 hours! This is the largest one he's ever brought in. The six-hundred pounders are usually in their prime and this one was fiesty and refused to give up. It pulled the boat backwards in circles for hours. My husband was soaked. Luckily he had a buddy with him to help. You can see more pictures here.


So, lots of excitement here. Just two more weeks of vacation before school resumes. I really need a little boredom so I'll be happy to go back to work. Hopefully, this week will be a beach and reading one!

Just an Update

I'm back in Maine from Florida. My mom is still in agony from her four compression fractures. She'll find out tomorrow if she is a candidate for a precedure where they inject cement into her spine. If so, it will happen on Friday. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this will occur.

I'm still working on The Shadow of the Wind. It takes place in Barcelona so that makes it interesting. I don't think I've ever read a book set there.

Daniel Sempere finds a book written by Julian Carax and it leads him on a quest to find out more about the author. The novel is full of quirky characters and mysteries.

I'm enjoying it but haven't had much time to read since getting back because my granddaughter, Kylie, is visiting for the weekend. We went to the library yesterday and she picked out three books that we are going to read today.

Two Books in One Week

I'm in Florida this Sunday caring for my ailing mom. She has a compression fracture and is in a great deal of pain.

I finished this book before leaving Maine. I had read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and loved it so thought I'd try this one of hers. It is well written but just doesn't have as interesting a story as her other one.

Peony is almost 16 and falls in love with with a guy she meets at her parents' showing of a play called The Peony Pavillion. Peony really identifies with the main character. No one realizes that she slips away and meets the love of her life...and death. Unfortunately, Peony is betrothed to another and will be marrying him once she turns 16. To avoid that she starves herself to death. The majority of the book tells of Peony's struggles to get into the afterworld.

The rites of the dead are very interesting but it was just so hard to care about a dead character!

This is the book I took with me to Florida and I gulped it! Usually, when I'm on a plane, I doze off but, not this time. I just kept turning the pages.

There are two main characters. Sarah lives in 1942 France during the round-up of thousands of Jewish children by the French under orders by the Germans. They ended up being gassed in a concentration camp. This is a part of French history they would rather forget. When the police come knocking on her door in the middle of the night, 10-year old Sarah doesn't realize that she'll never return. She locks her little brother in a secret hiding place and takes the key with her.

Fast-forward sixty years to 2002 France. Julia Jarmond is an American married to an arrogant, philandering jerk. They have an eleven-year-old daughter. Julia works for an American magazine and her boss gives her the assignment to write about the 60th anniversary of the round-up. Her investigation leads her to the realization that her husband's family's home had originally housed a Jewish family.

The more Julia learns about Sarah, the more she learns about herself. Their two stories alternate in short chapters that I just couldn't stop reading!

We have a retirement home in Florida so I'm staying there overnight but visiting with my mom during the day. So, it's time to get on the road.

Songs of the Humpback Whale

Very foggy here in Maine this morning. My husband has gone fishing so it's a good day to curl up with a good book.


This is the last Jodi Picoult novel I had left to read except for her latest. This is also her first one, I believe. I started it about a year and a half ago but just couldn't seem to get interested in it. So, I thought I'd try it again. This time I was ready and enjoyed it.

The novel is told in 5 different voices. The main character is Jane Jones. She's a speech therapist, married to Oliver Jones who is a research scientist and an expert in the songs of humpback whales. After a fight, she leaves him with her teenage daughter and heads across the country to visit her brother in Massachusetts. He works at an apple orchard for a man named Sam.

Jane, Oliver, and Sam tell their stories in a straightforward manner but Rebecca, the teenager, tells her story backwards, which takes a little getting used to, and Jane's brother, Joley, tells his story in letter form. I'm glad I stuck with it, though!

It's Sunday, Again

I'm sitting on the couch this Sunday morning watching the oak and pine trees flutter in the sunny breeze.

It's been a busy week taking care of upgrades around our campsite so I haven't read as much as I'd like. Usually, I get through quite a few pages when I get in bed at night but this week, I've been falling asleep almost right away.

So, I'm still working on and enjoying Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult. I've got less than 100 pags left so should finish up soon.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone, and I hope you find time for some reading!

Bel Canto

It's a beautiful, sunny afternoon here on the coast of Maine. My husband went fishing so I took advantage of the peace and quiet to read on our screened porch


I've looked at this book so many times at the bookstore. I'd pick it up and read all the awards it's won then I'd read the premise and lose interest. It just didn't appeal to me.

A couple weeks ago I joined the local library for the summer and the friendly librarian recommended it so I figured, what the heck, it won't cost me anything to try it.

I loved it! It is so well written! Her descriptions are just beautiful and the strange situation seems ordinary. Basically, a group of terrorists invade the home of the vice-president of a South American country where a birthday celebration is being held for a Japanese investor. At that party is Roxanne Coss, an opera singer hired because she's the investor's favorite singer. See what I mean? It doesn't sound that great, does it? But, what happens over the months that they are held hostage and the relationships that develop make for an amazing story.

And the ending! I'm still trying to work that out!

So, if you're like me and have been putting this book off, put it on the top of your TBR pile!

Sunday Salon

Happy Fourth of July to those in America!

We had a delicious lobster feed last night. Lots of company this weekend so not much reading is getting done. I'm still working on Bel Canto and really liking it. I can't believe it took me so long to get to it.