I'm Baaack!

 I'm finally back to writing. I've had several weeks' worth of reading to do for my two book clubs as well as just some personal reading that I felt I owed myself. Consequently, my blog has suffered. Additionally, we were finally able to take a few days earlier this month to travel to New Jersey to see my oldest daughter and her family. And we finished it off by seeing our youngest daughter on our way back through PA and taking her to dinner one night.

Reading-wise, as I said, it was busy. Six books in June from my last post on the 10th of June, and nine more this month - finished the ninth one just yesterday. Of those fifteen, nine were nonfiction, and six were fiction.

It wasn't always comfortable reading. We have had very hot weather - 90 degrees plus for over two weeks - and again our air conditioner has been broken for most of that time. Oh, and did I say I got no reading done on our 4-day trip north?

But I have been diligent in writing reviews on my Goodreads account. They are getting better. Not great yet, but a few readers do respond by hitting the thumbs-up icon. 

And I watched most of the 2021 Tour de France and am still watching a fair amount of the Tokyo Olympics. Remember, I carried the 1984 torch on its way to Los Angeles. And I watched the U.S. Open and the (British) Open in the last two months. So I have had a few things other than blogging to do I guess.

Notable nonfiction during this period: Nuremburg: Infamy on Trial (Joseph Persico); The Sixth Extinction (Elizabeth Kolbert); Season to Taste (Molly Birnbaum); Essays After Eighty (Donald Hall); Gallopoli (Alan Moorehead)

Best fiction: Before the Poison (Peter Robinson); The Last Bookshop in London (Madeline Martin); Angels in the Gloom (Anne Perry); Flashman (George MacDonald Frazer)

Snow, Car, and Furnace Problems, and Finished a Book - Busy. Busy, Busy

 This week has been a doozy. First, I got us cleaned up by Tuesday from last weekend's.

But then, the outside air conditioner/furnace unit froze up so the fan would not rotate, causing the motor to get to the "burning out" phase. So I had to trudge through the icy crunchy snow-covered grass to break up the ice around the fans.

Yesterday, the Saturn wouldn't start. I figured it was the battery. It was. Fortunately, it was still in warranty. AAA came out and started it. They ran a test on it and said it was a dead battery. So I drove it around the corner to the shop I had bought the battery from. They replaced it for no charge. Took about 30 minutes. The only negative thing was none of the staff was wearing masks.

Overnight, the snow and sleet returned. There's a break,now but it's due to resume anytime.

Tomorrow I'll have to clean the car off and then the driveway.

But on a positive note, I finally finished "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins. It is 626 pages. I began it in May of last year. Written in 1886, it was one of the first of the mystery-thriller genre. Collins wrote another in the same genre in 1860. It was called "The Moonstone". I actually liked it better. Now to choose another big book. My latest Charles Todd/Inspector Rutledge is coming; it was released on Tuesday.