Friday Reads 6.28.24
How Does Your (Literary and Literal) Garden Grow?
June is nearly in the books (how?) (WHY? 😭), which means my creative juices are about to shoot through the roof. July is almost always one of my biggest writing months, and this one is shaping up to be a doozy. I mentioned last week a small, controlled explosion on the new book, which I have to say, worked better than I could have imagined. I netted 9,000 words in 5 days and am almost done pulling the thread through. Clear sailing ahead starting next week! (She says, with fingers crossed.)
My garden is not doing as well as I’d hoped. The rosemary and basil are champs, and I’ve already harvested and replanted some onions and chives (oh, the chives…). But the Roma tomatoes drowned, and then the deer or birds took the rest. The peppers are malingering. My begonias just did not. The calla lily is doing well though. Randy replanted the one camilla that survived the freeze of last Christmas, and it seems to be healthy but lonely. It’s been a really hit or miss situation in the backyard. How about you? How’s your garden grow?
In the literary garden, my TBR continues to swell at a ridiculous rate. In addition to a couple of blurb books awaiting my attention, I started a fun book this week called THE NATURE OF WITCHES by Rachel Griffin. My dad read it and loved it. It’s an academy book with young elemental witches who have powers based on the seasons…and one witch who has all four seasons’ powers. Enjoying it so far!
We started watching DARK MATTER, an adaptation of Blake Crouch's older title of the same name. I loved that book, a true mind-bending sci-fi thriller, and the TV show on Apple TV is pretty cool. There are lots of Easter eggs from the crime fiction world in the late 2000s, too.
I also bought ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK by Chris Whitaker. The blurbs and reviews sold me on this, but I first saw the recommendation from
, and she has excellent taste, so I grabbed it.I have loaded up the Kindle with all sorts of beach reads in hopes of finding my toes in the sand sometime soon. One is Emily Henry’s HAPPY PLACE, which I saved from last year, and will segue directly into FUNNY STORY.
This brings me to this piece in the NYT on Emily Henry’s hard-earned success, which has the most unfortunate subhead of the week: The author of “Funny Story” churned out five consecutive No. 1 best-sellers without leaving her comfort zone. How did she pull it off?
Pfft. I take umbrage when professional writers who reliably publish a book a year are referred to as “churning it out.”
<inserts meditative chants here>
Here’s something silly instead to wrap up this week… the Bridgerton Season 3 soundtrack is stellar and has been really helping my focus. The only problem is it switches to other orchestral soundtracks when I’m finished, and I didn’t notice until I was deep into Pacific Rim. I was wondering why the typing was getting faster and the story more intense!
That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this weekend! Any recommendations?
Our basil is EXPLODING. Last year, it grew really tall. This year, it's grown vertically from when we potted it, but it's also expanded outward to basically dominate the pot it's currently in. I foresee a lot of pasta sauce and Caprese sandwiches in the weeks ahead (not that I'm complaining...).
I got a different kind of pepper this year, and it's flavorful but not spicy at all. Swing and a miss. I wanted some heat.
On the literary front, my book garden is bursting at the seams, but this is nothing new. Currently reading IT'S ONE OF US. :)
Just finished Funny Story and loved it. I just ordered All The Colors of the Dark. I’m off this week so I’m looking forward to having time carved out to read it.