Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Ann wrote: "After 5 weeks I went grocery shopping this morning WAY early. No one there. Two grocery carts and 700 dollars later I can eat again. Sometimes I think shopping therapy is important for mental healt..."

Amazon also told me that a new Firestick remote and my shampoo weren't high need.

The horror.

Emily wrote: "I just started running. I decided a few weeks ago that I would set a goal to run a half marathon next year (we have a local one that my boss organizes). So I downloaded the Couch to 5K app and have..."

I actually downloaded the Couch to 5k app in January and it was a mess. I tried to do it on a treadmill since it was still cold. If I learned anything it's that I cannot run in a straight enough line to be on a treadmill yet 😂

But now that it's getting warmer and I officially know that I won't be back in the school this year, I really should restart it and just run outside.

I also desperately need to get back to my yoga routine.

Yea I haven't found a good stretch routine yet, but I need to because my legs are not enjoying the running without a stretch lol.

Ann wrote: "After 5 weeks I went grocery shopping this morning WAY early. No one there. Two grocery carts and 700 dollars later I can eat again. Sometimes I think shopping therapy is important for mental healt..."

Amazon told me Swiffer duster replacements and hair product weren't high need but root touch-up was. I definitely agree on the root touch-up since I look 20 years older than my age since I ran out a few days ago, but I wonder how they make their decisions. How can duster replacements not be critical during allergy season??!!

I did the Couch to 5K app a few years ago, it worked really well for me. I’m thinking of starting back up now that it’s getting warmer. We also just got a vegetable garden plot up the hill from our apartment through our Gemeinde (like our local council). It’s so exciting, our evenings lately have been spent digging, watering and planting, it’s going to be heaps of work but I’m so thrilled. It’s the most I’ve been out in seven weeks. They’re starting to ease restrictions here on Monday, but very slowly - hairdressers, physio and garden centres can open but still have to follow strict guidelines. Schools should open May 11. My work is starting to ramp up very slowly, but I’ve asked to be last in line since I’ll still have the Spider home for another two weeks at least.

I read an article last week or so quoting a Walmart executive saying that the latest stock they were running out of was hair dyes and such! It'd been Lysol and other cleaning products and soap... then the paper products... and now hair care!

My prediction, and tell everyone you heard it here first: come mid-June or so, kid's swimming pools will be the item everyone is running out of it. Think about it: community pools likely won't open this summer, and people probably aren't going to want to get a big pool installed in this economy. So, they turn to a kiddie pool to keep the kids happy, or to soak their own feet in. Invest now, people!

I already know quite a few people who have bought kiddie pools for their backyard haha! It's gotten quite warm over here... perfect spring weather.

That’s a good idea Steve about the kiddie pools! Those pools go fast anyways. I remember buying one several years ago for my oldest grandson. I’ll have to search the garage for it. It will come in handy next week for us. Highs between 87-91 all week! That’s really hot for April/early May!

Tracy wrote: "ZeeJane wrote: "Hubby's boss called a couple days ago and their small company was able to get part of the federal stimulus small business loan/grant program, yay! So as of yesterday my husband is b..."

It was such a fun experience! I placed my order the previous night and she was at the store when they opened, I was shocked at how fast I got a spot (I did the flexible time option). I 'followed' her on the app as she went through the store, it was such a hoot LOL! Only two things were out of stock, that we couldn't find substitutes (tortilla shells and kleenex), and the whole process went very smoothly. I ended up signing up for their monthly express option, and I bumped up my tip to 15% so definitely a bit pricey, but I still got a cart full of groceries, delivered to my door for under $160, (not including the monthly express fee). Not bad at all, and we're now set for a couple more weeks :)

Checked my library account this morning and all due dates have been adjusted again, til June 5th now. I still have 8 physical library books un-read in my pile, (including the one that I just started), so I might actually get through all of them! The other library system in my area has been adding lots of new e-books though, so those keep causing me to stray lol :) It is SO nice to still be able to read, even with the libraries being shut down since March.

My son's b-day is May 16 so I spent yesterday scrambling to get gifts ordered. So many things are out of stock/not ship-able right now, ugh. He's turning 12 and wants a bike, but there's no way to make that happen right now since he'd have to go into the store to try them out and that's just not happening any time soon. So, onto plan B. He likes puzzles, so I thought I'd get a couple online. HA! Puzzles are as hot of a commodity as toilet paper, sheesh! I literally spent over 2 hours trying to find a puzzle for him, did get one ordered but it's from a higher-end game site, so the thing cost $25 plus almost $10 shipping for a 500 piece puzzle oiy! I'm now waiting for a shipping notice. Keeping fingers crossed!

My kids also have gotten into playing a very casual version of badminton in our yard, and due to the birdies ending up in trees or on the roof all.the.time. they're down to 2 of them. Thought that would be a good, practical gift and stumbled onto a specialty badminton store in the Chicago area that ships. My mind is boggled that there's a store that only sells badminton supplies. How is that even a thing? LOL. Got a shipping notice this morning that his 12 birdies are already on the way, yay!

And then the kid loves watches/clocks, so my husband ordered him this complicated circuit/electronics set that you build, to make a digital clock. It's pretty cool looking and it will be a father-kid project, but it's coming from Hong Kong um.... got a shipping notice already today, with a delivery date of May 27th lol. Ah, well, we'll give him an IOU for it :)

Those sound like great gifts, ZeeJane! I need to think about Mother's Day gifts for my mom.. It hasn't even crossed my mind yet!

Emily wrote: "Those sound like great gifts, ZeeJane! I need to think about Mother's Day gifts for my mom.. It hasn't even crossed my mind yet!"

Oh gosh, haven't even thought about Mothers Day, eek!

I just started a free online class through Harvard University. The class is ChinaX Book Club: Five Authors, Five Books, Five Views of China. The featured books and authors are:
1. China in Ten Words by Yu Hua
2. Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
3. Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke
4. Waiting by Ha Jin
5. The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai by Wang Anyi

It's an interesting class so far! I'm only familiar with one of the authors, Yan Lianke. I just finished one of his books and have started another.

Wow! That sounds so intriguing, Pam!

Wow Pam. I would love a class like that, but maybe not just China, actually any country might be interesting. What an education when you are done.

The back of my truck looks like a library. Things could be worse. So many people from the senior center have called me and said they need books, they are bored. So many don't have kindles or computers or money to buy books. So I have collected books from my shelves and other friends and loaded my car. I am making every other week book stops. They can get in the back of my truck and browse and I am not even near them. If someone wants their book back when they are done I have put bookmarks with their name on them in the book and at some time, they will come back. It has been fun and rewarding. Who knows when the library will reopen.

I did a very similar thing, Ann. I posted on Facebook with a picture of my bookshelves and offered to deliver books to whoever wanted to borrow! I ended up loaning out over 25 books to 12 different people. It got me out of the house driving around to deliver them, so it was a perk for me too!

Ann wrote: "The back of my truck looks like a library. Things could be worse. So many people from the senior center have called me and said they need books, they are bored. So many don't have kindles or comput..."

That's such a neat idea!

I had someone ask me about borrowing books, and I put out a selection of 6. She then came by and thought they all looked good and took them all. These were all books I haven't read yet, so I couldn't vouch for any of them.

Oregon State University Press has a giveaway for Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots by DJ Lee. It runs May 13-20, 2020. (NOTE: I work for OSU, but not for the Press). It would be a good book for prompts #2, #16, #22, #40, or #48

Synopsis:
When DJ Lee’s dear friend vanishes in the vast Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana, she travels there to seek answers. The journey unexpectedly brings to an end her fifteen-year quest to uncover the buried history of her family in this remote place. Although Lee doesn’t find all the answers, she comes away with a penetrating memoir that weaves her present-day story with past excursions into the region, wilderness history, and family secrets.

As she grapples with wild animal stand-offs, bush plane flights in dense fog, raging forest fires, and strange characters who have come to the wilderness to seek or hide, Lee learns how she can survive emotionally and how the wilderness survives as an ecosystem. Her growing knowledge of the life cycles of salmon and wolverine, the regenerative role of fire, and Nimíipuu land practices helps her find intimacy in this remote landscape.

Skillfully intertwining history, outdoor adventure, and mystery, Lee’s memoir is an engaging contribution to the growing body of literature on women and wilderness and a lyrical tribute to the spiritual connection between people and the natural world.

Evening/afternoon/morning all.

Lending books and making your truck into a book van are brilliant ideas. We’re lucky our library has been doing click and collect. Browse the online catalogue (or have someone do it for you if you’re not internet savvy or don’t have access to a computer/internet), reserve the book and then they will contact you and arrange a time for someone to pick it up. Then they leave it on the front step of the library for you to take. Contactless library service. They reckon it’s working better than normal. And they can keep all of the books clean as they are sanitised and nobody picks them up and snots on them during the day. They reckon libraries won’t be open for months yet and it’s the best way for it to still be open without actually having to be open.

That's what our library started doing this week, Jacqueline. We have drive thru windows, though, so that makes it a lot easier to pick up and drop off.

We don't have drive thru windows. I think we're lucky to have a decent library in such a small town. It's linked to the libraries in the 3 adjoining council areas so they share books which makes it even better.

Ours did it from the start and it has been popular. My Hubby is the boss of the local Council that runs it and is a reader himself so it was important that he keep it open in some form since he knows how much people rely on being able to access their books, audiobooks, DVDs etc. We don't have anywhere to buy CDs and DVDs out here and a lot of people rely on the library to be able to have access to them. Also our internet isn't great so Netflix and that haven't really taken off. Not that a lot of locals can afford it at the moment. With the drought there's been a rather huge decline in ready cash for luxuries around here.

We are hoping to at least be able to return our books...I've had mine since February something...and pick up our holds. But so far no one has been manning the library at all. Feels weird to still be told to keep books until they tell you. Some of my holds are really good books and I can't wait to get them.

My father, in retirement, works at a library part time in Delaware (which I love so much as his retirement way to get out of the house) said they're planning the curbside library stuff, too. He said the director of the library goes in every day and has left things at the backdoor for people to pick up in the meantime if you know the code word so to speak. He said they're meeting weekly on Zoom (also something I love so much... my 65 year old dad learning how to Zoom) and talking about how they'll socially distance computers and they'll be taking all the returns, wiping them down, and holding them in the basement for 3 days before returning them to shelves. When everything shut down, the library staff came in for a week or two and just clean every surface possible. Took all the books off shelves...wiped the books...wiped the shelves.

My work's county library that I have a card for extended expiration dates to 9/15/20. My local county is sometime this summer. Unfortunately, we're moving out of county in June, so we don't know how we're going to return those books without a return trip back! (It's not a far trip.. just a minor annoyance and making sure we don't lose them in the wrong box in our move).

Our libraries are still closed but we can now return books through the drop box. Our state is doing a slow re-open. Starting Saturday, we have a mandatory face covering in public spaces order but more places can open. Still no hair salons, dine-in food, or gyms.

My local library has been doing curbside pick-up since the end of April. We can only put on hold those books which are on the shelf at my own library; we can't yet get books from other libraries in the library system. We can also return books in the bookdrop. The quarantine books for three days before they're available to be checked out again.

I used curbside pickup once so far - it felt like Christmas!! I'm so happy to have the library available again even if it is in a limited capacity.

I just found out that our libraries are opening for browsing starting on the 18th! It's at a 25% capacity, in line with Phase 1 opening, but I am so excited to possibly get to go walk through the stacks again!

Hairdressers didn't close down here in Australia (there was only one hairdresser though instead of the 6 usual ones in Just Cuts, a cheaper chain walk in off the street hairdressers in the town near the farm the other week) and cafes, restaurants and pubs and clubs can open their dining rooms to 10 people at a time from today. Apparently beauty parlours and nail people were taking bookings again last week too since my middle sons GF was going on about booking for nails and eyelashes and stuff last week. Also her Mother is a nail tech and she was taking bookings last week as well. Outdoor gyms, playgrounds and parks are opening again today as well even though the ones here in my town aren't. The stipulation is that they must be sanitised after every use but they can't have someone standing on duty at every playground 24/7 to do that so they decided not to open. There was a thing on the radio this morning for the big town 120km away that people needed to sanitise between uses so they're not really going by the government regs on it. They're expecting people to do it themselves which isn't really what is supposed to happen. Oh and no face masks being worn anywhere really.

My understanding is that NZ & Australia are pretty safe as long as they make all visitors quarantine. Being an island is a help. They did a lot right while it seems the US is trying to do everything wrong, so that we will end up with lots of deaths and economic problems also and everything lasting a long time.

My husband sings in 4 choirs and that will be the last thing to ever resume as it was found to be about the most efficient way to transmit disease. Even group singing in church is questionable. And you can't do it over Zoom or other platforms because there is always some slight difference of time lag and it sounds horrible. 3 trips, 2 festivals and 2 conventions that he had planned have been canceled. Another thing he did was singing at nursing homes, and of course they all stopped visitors and events weeks ago. However, for one of them, he can connect to the event person and she can broadcast him to the rooms by closed circuit TV. He can't see his audience but at least they can see and hear him. I'm sure they appreciate it as most of their activities have been canceled and I think they even have to stay in their rooms for meals.

Robin wrote: "My understanding is that NZ & Australia are pretty safe as long as they make all visitors quarantine. Being an island is a help. They did a lot right while it seems the US is trying to do everythin..."


Ahhh, that's rough! Our governor had a press conference earlier today and it looks like our state's number are definitely trending in the right direction, yay! The state has been divided into sections and two of them are going to be opening up this weekend, which is HUGE news! There will still be restrictions, like reduced capacity limits, but restaurants/bars, retail stores etc are getting the green light to open up, after being closed for over two months now. We're not in either of the areas opening up, but it's making me feel pretty optimistic right now that things will follow soon in our county :) I'm such a homebody anyways, but I'd love to be able to go back to the library!!!! Maybe in June.....

I think this is the only place I can share this where I know people will just get it.

Sadly, despite my nightly reading to my daughter for years, and although she’s enjoyed that, and many of the books we’ve read, it hasn’t translated into her being a reader. At all. She just doesn’t like reading. It breaks my heart a little bit, but c’est la vie. We all like different things and she’s still awesome.

Anyway, when she got home from school the other day, she asked me to drive her back up, as she’d left a book behind. I’d assumed it was some kind of homework book as she’s done this before, but no, it was actually a book book. She’d finished all of her math work in class, asked the teacher what she should do, and she told her to pick a book from the shelves and read it. She read for an hour in class, headphones on, totally immersed. I had to drive her back up to get the book, she read it in the car, while eating lunch (she told me she wanted to read while she waited till her lunch cooked down, and when I pointed out that it wasn’t that hot, she told me it was just an excuse to read her book), she read it while getting her hair cut. Finished it in a day. And what book was it? Oliver freaking Twist. 😂 An abridged version, but still, pretty much the last book I’d expect her to get engrossed in or enjoy (she gave it 9.5 out of 10). She even made her own bookmark for it, which read “Oliver deserves better”. Now she’s stolen my copy from my bookshelf and is going to read it again. What the hell?? 🤣

Jody wrote: "I think this is the only place I can share this where I know people will just get it.

Sadly, despite my nightly reading to my daughter for years, and although she’s enjoyed that, and many of the ..."

I love that Jody... and totally did not see Oliver Twist being at the end of it.

Jody wrote: "I think this is the only place I can share this where I know people will just get it.

Sadly, despite my nightly reading to my daughter for years, and although she’s enjoyed that, and many of the ..."

That is great, Jody!! I love that. My 11-year-old nephew called me a couple of weeks ago to tell me he decided he loved reading. My sister noticed his recent interest and told him he should call and tell me because I would be excited. He is coming to visit me in 2 weeks and asked if we could spend some time in the evening reading instead of just watching TV. :-)

Jody wrote: "I think this is the only place I can share this where I know people will just get it.

Sadly, despite my nightly reading to my daughter for years, and although she’s enjoyed that, and many of the ..."

Wow! That is great. It's disappointing when our kids don't appreciate books like we do. My son reads articles on line but it has always been a struggle to get him to read a novel. In high school, he blamed it on the selection of "girl books" such as The Bluest Eye and The Awakening. I'm pretty sure that for college classes he read parts of books and faked the rest. My husband and I always read to him, and he actually learned to read when he was 4. He doesn't read full nonfiction books either, so it's not just the genre.

The one exception I know of is that he actually read The Martian, making it possibly the only book our whole family has read and enjoyed. I think he could appreciate audiobooks, as he likes podcasts, and when we were on a college search trip, I got the first couple Harry Potter books from the library. He wasn't thrilled, since they were "kid's books" and he was 18, but after while, when we stopped driving, he was the one saying, "Wait, I want to hear this part."

My husband usually reads history or biography and not much of that because of his many trips, meetings and activities. During the pandemic, he has read more than in whole previous years. He started with sports books and biographies but is now going through the entire Foundation series. He will stay up at night reading, which rarely happened before.

My adult daughter and daughter-in-law both like to read, but they both have minimalist housekeeping tendencies, of not liking a lot of books "cluttering" up their shelves. Hard for me to understand - No matter how many shelves I have, I always have books overflowing. This turned out to be a blessing during quarantine as I literally have enough volumes for several years' reading.

Hey all, Just checking in on our US members to see how you are all holding up with all the rioting going on. It hit a town over from me today. It's spreading and I hope that everyone is safe. Take care of yourselves XX

My son & daughter-in-law live one mile east of the murder scene and one mile south of the main riot area. They are fine, residential areas haven't been affected, they were already working from home because of pandemic, but they have sirens & helicopters most of the night and lots of smoke. Just about all local businesses have closed. We lived in Minneapolis 25 years and still have many contacts there.

Here in Madison WI a peaceful daytime protest apparently turned into smashing windows downtown. We are over 5 miles from there but heard sirens. Lots of questions about whether the destructive people in any of these cities are actually locals.

I'm reading that most of the people arrested in Minneapolis were actually people from out of state. It's so disheartening.

Jody wrote: "I think this is the only place I can share this where I know people will just get it.

Sadly, despite my nightly reading to my daughter for years, and although she’s enjoyed that, and many of the ..."

Wow, that's awesome! My oldest hated reading. Made me so sad, until we realized through the course of figuring out her educational challenges that's she's an audio-visual learner and has a really hard time processing written words. Figuring that out we introduced her to graphic novels and she loves them! She just finished the Tokyo Ghoul series and is working through Patterson's Maximum Ride graphic series now. And, the kid is writing/illustrating her own graphic novel, this mama is sooo proud :) :)

Tracy-we live about 20 minutes outside one of the biggest cities in MI, Grand Rapids, and the downtown area was bad last night :( The beautiful Art Museum was vandalized, numerous businesses were looted etc. So, so sad. Other cities in our state have also had flare-ups. So disheartening because our covid numbers have been doing so well and more of our restrictions were supposed to ease up soon. But, with as many people out this weekend in close-proximity to each other, I'm afraid we're going to see the virus start spreading again ahhhh.

Robin-I'm such a minimalist too, I literally only own one book (besides religious texts). And it killed me to buy that one book, but I went to an author meet n' greet of Ilona and Gordon Andrews and bought a Kate Daniels book so they could sign. Otherwise ALL of my books come from the library, or kindle cheapies/freebies :)

Tracy wrote: "Hey all, Just checking in on our US members to see how you are all holding up with all the rioting going on. It hit a town over from me today. It's spreading and I hope that everyone is safe. Take ..."

I'm outside of Philly and yesterday/last night was its first day of violence. My wife works at a hospital downtown (but remotely since March) and was getting alerts about what was going on around the hospital. They were saying that if you were at the hospital, basically prepare to be there overnight, and make sure your car isn't on the street.

This whole world is disheartening right now with the pandemic and the US political situation. I disabled Facebook again this morning because I just can't keep looking at posts related to this all. I need distractions!

Steve wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Hey all, Just checking in on our US members to see how you are all holding up with all the rioting going on. It hit a town over from me today. It's spreading and I hope that everyone ..."

I ditched FB a while back, it just feeds into all the divisiveness/nastiness going on. Very sad when people, who you thought you knew and respected, are spouting off crap :( Between the pandemic/civil unrest going on now we've lost our church and several friends, in large part over what has been posted on FB.

Our governor announced yesterday our Stay-at-home order, which has been in place since March, is Lifted YAAAY! Still a few businesses that need to remain closed (casinos, gyms, salons etc), but retail is opening up later this week and you can now have outdoor gatherings with up to 100 people. Next week you can start eating inside restaurants, which is going to feel soooo weird lol. Social Distancing measures still in place, like masks, but our state's numbers are looking great right now!

Libraries still closed til the 12th, but I'm thinking that may get adjusted now. One of our states big library co-ops is getting ready to start offering curbside though, so when that goes into affect I'll be so happy! I'm doing ok with my kindle/overdrive/Amazon kindle cheapies, but my 12 year old son NEEDS new books lol.

Seattle has been a protest mess. But the smaller town where I live has been ok. A group of guys are out every night walking the streets in front of local businesses to keep looters out. Don't know if this is good or not.
As for reading, I am so thankful for a kindle, but so want a real book to hold in my hands. Library has no plans of any kind of opening as of yet. I keep thinking of my holds sitting there on their shelves collecting dust

Ann wrote: "Seattle has been a protest mess. But the smaller town where I live has been ok. A group of guys are out every night walking the streets in front of local businesses to keep looters out. Don't know ..."

Ha yes-I just want to touch real books at this point, I don't even care what they are, LOL.

Even the dictionary feels good.

I love the library. It is a great place for so many reasons. There are 3 books that I just have to own and want to give to other people to have on their shelves too.

Our Bodies, Ourselves
The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina—Separating the Myth from the Medicine
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

Books meant to build up not tear down people. The main message being you are normal. You are beautiful in all of your differences.
Some books are just meant to be shared.

Anastasia wrote: "I love the library. It is a great place for so many reasons. There are 3 books that I just have to own and want to give to other people to have on their shelves

I only know OUR BODIES OURSELVES. I got my first copy in the 60’s from a friend who helped write it. It was terrific then. I probably should look at one of the newer versions.

So I saw this and it reminded me of our prompt this year.

Very off topic, but... I have a new granddaughter named Violet, and am looking for children's books with either a character named Violet or the word Violet in the title. does anyone have suggestions?

There are quite a lot of adult books with violet in the title, many with steamy pictures on the cover... not what I was going for LOL.

Ana A wrote: "

So I saw this and it reminded me of our prompt this year."

Clever!

Lizzy wrote: "Very off topic, but... I have a new granddaughter named Violet, and am looking for children's books with either a character named Violet or the word Violet in the title. does anyone have suggestion..."

Don't know what it's like but there's this book - Violet.

Congrats on your new granddaughter, Lizzy!