Thanks Wendy. We might get a thunderstorm today, yay! It was super fun seeing Lesley & Rod come through here. And Elif Shafak is a new author to me — but now I need to be alerted to whatever she puts out next.
Hope all is well with you in California. Happy July 4th!

Hey Heather. Great to hear from you! I hope you are getting some hikes in. I will have to check your site as it seemed like you were going to be moving soon.
Luckily we’re in the south of Alberta and all the fires are in the north. It’s terrible though. But the smoke has been alleviated by a southern wind.
I hope you are well. Happy reading.

I recently read a short story by Elif Shafak, my first of anything by the author, and based on your thoughts about The Island of Missing Trees, I will be picking that one up to read too. Mary Lawson’s book sounds good too.

I hope you have a wonderful summer, Susan!

Sounds like you had a lovely solstice. What a wonderful experience to meet people you follow on line in real life! So exciting.

It really stays light up your way during the summer! It’s pretty black dark here by 9:30 PM.

The Island of Missing Trees sounds really good. I’ll have to add that to my list. I hope you keep enjoying the summer and that the fires stay away.

Hi Stargazer. LoL I felt a bit old for the Maame novel but liked how she’s caught a bit between two cultures. I also want to check out Shafak’s 10 mins, 38 secs.
I am a big introvert so worry over meeting others but Lesley, the blogger of Coastal Horizons, couldn’t have been friendlier and so it was easy talking with her. And she seemed the same person from her blog. So I guess if a blog reflects the true you then you know it’s a good one eh?

Hi AJ, yeah it was a fun visit with a fellow blogger which I had never had before. And I need to investigate Elif Shafak’s backlist sometime. Her storytelling could open up eastern worlds to me I think. Happy reading. Enjoy your weekend.

Thanks Mae. I agree Shafak is quite a storyteller. How she was able to weave this one and keep it all intact with the various parts and interesting was pretty amazing. I think I might read her novel 10 Minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World sometime. The novel above was my first of hers.
And meeting Lesley was a lot of fun. She has a great blog too. Cheers!

Meeting another blogger is great.

best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com