Monday Reading Update

Morning all. If you follow me on Facebook you'll know that my fiance's, David's, family has had a rough go of it. His mother passed away last week quite suddenly, and we've been busy with all of the things that go along with a time like this. David is doing better every day, though it will take a long time to heal. Thank you all for your words of comfort and prayer that you've offered on Facebook, Twitter, and via email. I assure you that we appreciate it more than you can imagine. 

I'm back to work today, and swimming in email, but I wanted to drop by and touch base with you all. I have some fun posts pre-scheduled this week...reviews and lists and requests for recommendations and whatnot, and I'll surely be reading comments and visiting blogs again during my downtime.

I've only really been reading one book for the last several days and mostly only just before bed. I took off to be with David in his hometown without a book, so I picked up Susannah Cahalan's Brain on Fire when I was browsing around in Target.

I've seen this book show up on plenty of "best of" lists this year, and so far it's an enthralling read. I find it easy to dip in and out of this one. Though, in the author's situation, when she was incoherent and in and out of consciousness for a month (the month she's writing about)...it'll be interesting to see how she handles the uncertainties and herself as an unreliable character in her own life. 

The Book Cellar, 3 West Central Ave. 

David and I hit up a small independent bookstore in Temple, TX called The Book Cellar during a bit of downtime. It was, without a doubt, the most entertaining trip to a bookstore I've had in a long time. The owner is a quirky, eclectic, snarky kind of fellow with big bushy hair and a high IQ (he says). We started with a tour of the store filled with lots of his anecdotes and then moved on to some browsing from there. 

I told the owner I needed more Octavia Butler in my life, and he surfaced from somewhere in the bowels of the store with Clay's Ark. I haven't read it, and I haven't heard much about it before, but I'm up for anything by Butler. I also found a well-loved copy of Les Miserables in the classics section, so I'll be giving that one a go in 2014. I figured I could start with a tattered copy since it will likely be much MORE tattered by the time I read all 1000+ pages.

I hope you all had a glorious weekend. Have you added any new books to your collection lately? 

Hosted weekly by super-awesome Sheila from BookJourney.