Thanks Lesley, enjoy your comments & thoughts. I was a bit wary of sharing my photo ha but I guess I’ll live. It’s not the greatest picture but it illustrates these days during the pandemic. Our hair salons here are closed at the moment. Hmm. I hope you are enjoying the Louise Penny book! The Conjure Women is going fine so far (a bit long). I have not read Melanie Benjamin before – so I might start with The Aviator’s Wife. Perhaps her novel on the blizzard will bring more readers to Laskin’s book (I think so). Enjoy your week & some movies!

Thanks Heather, we are having a warm week here. We need good movies & TV now as we’re kept home so much! I’m looking forward to the Tucci/Firth one. We just finished The Queen’s Gambit TV series which was quite enjoyable — the actress is very good. I’m making my way slowly through the audiobook of Conjure Women …. and there’s some good storytelling. Hope you are all good there — I plan to visit your site soon. Cheers.

I’m glad you shared your First Book of the Year photo, so I can now put a name to a face. I, too, have COVID-era hair, but finally made an appointment to get it cut next weekend. I haven’t been in a hair salon since last February! Thankfully, my hair is long and straight, so it’s not awful, but I do miss my highlights. That will have to wait, though. I don’t want to sit in a salon for 2 hours just to get that done.

My first book of the year is All the Devils Are Here (Louise Penny), which is just as good as I had heard. Great escape reading! I hope you are enjoying your book. It sounds interesting.

The Children’s Blizzard sounds promising. I wonder how David Laskin feels about a book about the same subject as his sharing the same title. Maybe readers will feel inspired to read his nonfiction work after reading Melanie Benjamin’s novel.

Oooh, I love Stanley Tucci and can’t wait to watch Supernova. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! The Dig sounds good, too. Thanks for all your recommendations. Take good care.

I had a hard time with The Great Gatsby in general, I don’t think a prequel will be on my list but I hope it’s good for those who are interested.

Conjure Women has been on my list since it came out. I’m hoping to get to it before May. Fingers crossed. I hope you enjoy it!

I hope you have a fabulous week!

Hey Jane, thanks for your thoughts. Yeah it seems the author of The Children’s Blizzard is receiving flak for having the same title as the nonfiction book. Hmm.
I like the looks too of The Dig and Conjure Women is turning out to be a good tale – I’m impressed by the author’s storytelling of this.
You make a good point about Nick and I’m not sure if I’ll get to it — the critic at The Post only gave it 3 stars and it is hard to mess with a classic.
Happy 2021 to you !

Yeah Rachel: I’m still reading 2020 books. There’s lot to keep up with. Good luck with the Obama book! Happy 2021.

Nick actually doesn’t appeal at all. I love The Great Gatsby and Nick’s role as everyman narrator means his backstory doesn’t matter. But maybe that’s just me…

The Children’s Blizzard is appealing, but why couldn’t they pick a title even a teensy bit different from the non-fiction of the same name, which I’ve already read and thought very good, gripping, etc.

I must set up to watchlist The Dig – love, love, love the premise. And yes, Carey Mulligan was heartbreaking in Never Let Me Go.

Thanks JoAnn. Yeah so far the first book is going well. I’m also still trying to catch up with 2020 reads! Too much to read. Hope you are well. Enjoy your week!

Thanks Ti. I wish you luck on The Overstory …. and look forward to hearing your thoughts on that one and also the novel Nick. I’m not comfortable with my photo up there but I’ll leave it, argh. And yeah The Memory Police is quite a different kind of story as you will see … and it’s like what’s going on today in some ways. Be safe out there. California seems to be falling apart … with Covid. Yikes.