Friday Book Memes - Book Beginnings, #Friday56, and Book Blogger Hop

First up is Rose City Reader sharing Book Beginnings on Fridays. I'll give you a little about the book in a minute, but here's the opening chapter:

September 1972Thirty-five years ago, Havens would have opened his eyes and thought of the day ahead as lacking. The surprise of old age is how comfortable a person can be with an empty day, how companionable it can be. If anything, Havens wants the day to empty itself even more, allow for memories to pay a visit, and should he decide to spend his time doing nothing more than sitting in his recliner and missing her, what's to stop him?

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Now, for which book this is from - it's a book that was just published a couple weeks ago: The Last Blue by Isla Morley. I was super-excited to start this one when I read the summary last night. In part: "...What they see will haunt Clay into his old age -- Jubilee Buford, a woman whose skin is a shocking and unmistakable shade of blue." I recognized the...concept? as being a big deal in a book I'd seen mentioned by a few book bloggers - The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Sure enough, both books seem to be about the same population - the blue people! I'm still waiting on The Book Woman from the library, but I'm now even more excited to start reading The Last Blue (which I received from the publisher in exchange for my unbiased review).

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Next up, I'd like to share with you a bit of page 56 from The Last Blue, for #Friday56, hosted by Freda's Voice.

Levi hands Jubilee a small wooden box. Something shuffles inside.
Through the slats, she sees two wide eyes and a beak about the size of a pinky fingernail -- a baby owl. "Hi, little guy!"
"I guess flying lessons didn't go too well." Levi is always going on about what a waste of time it is interfering with nature instead of letting it take its course, but half of her patients come from him. This is one is meant as a peace offering.

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And for today's Book Blogger Hop hosted by Ramblings for a Coffee Addicted Writer, we're asked: "If you own an eBook, would you also purchase a print copy as well?"

Hmm....While I was stubborn about switching to my kindle for reading, now most of my books are Netgalley reviews or library loans (which are all online while the library is closed). I can read in bed or with less-optimal light on my kindle. But it's hard for me to page back through on a kindle to get an excerpt for a review, or just to find something I thought happened to review while I'm reading..

Since reading on my kindle is usually easier (the actual reading, not reviewing or finding excerpts and such), I'm more likely to buy a book I really like as an eBook if I originally read it as a paperback or hard-cover. Make sense?

That being said, I may buy a print copy of a book I really liked on my kindle in order to share it with friends.

So I'm a solid maybe, either way. Hahaha...

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Friday Book Memes

I feel like my random Friday would be pretty lame. In the last week, I went to get groceries once (last Saturday), had to report to a work meeting on Monday, and then went to the meat processing plant today (to pick up a 1/4 of a cow - yay!). Ten random things of my week of mostly reading would be really lame. LOL Instead, let's stick with the books :)

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Today I'm joining in on the Book Blogger Hop from Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.

If you could add one interactive feature to reading books, what would it be?

Well, my first thought is a way to look up the meanings of words, except I bet my kindle could do that and I just don't know how. LOL If that already exists, I guess next it would be awesome to have access to pictures of things, and not just definitions. For example, I recently finished reading The Grace Kelly Dress, and it would have been cool to have a photograph of the real Princess Grace in her wedding dress. Or when I'm reading books based in other countries (like The Henna Artist in Jaipur), pictures of some of the home or clothing design features that I wasn't familiar with.

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Next up is the Book Beginnings Meme from Rose City Reader. Right now I'm reading Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Before the map of Yale, there are two passages. The first one is in something that isn't English (maybe Spanish?), and doesn't seem to translate to the second passage. So for this meme, I'm sharing the second passage, which I suppose is technically before the beginning of the book, but I like it anyway.

There is a girl, a girl who does not fear death
Because she has her father and her mother and her twelve hunter brothers,
A home of three floors and a barnyard farmhouse,
In the middle of the farm, an apple tree that gives love apples in the winter and summer.
In the farm there are seven grottos,
Each and every grotto secured....
Death was light and slipped in through the lock.
--Death and the Girl, Sephardic ballad

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Last but not least (maybe I should mix up the order next time?) is the Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice.

Here's my chosen excerpt from page 56 of Ninth House:

She glanced back at the Grays gathered around Payne Whitney. Was it her imagination or was there something in the bent of their shoulders, the way they huddled together by the gymnasium doors? Alex knew better than to look too closely, but in that fleeting moment she could have sworn they looked frightened. What did the dead have to fear?
She could hear Darlington's voice in her head: When was the first time you saw them? Low and halting, as if he wasn't sure whether the question was taboo. But the real question, the right question, was: When was the first time you knew to be afraid?Alex was glad he'd never had the sense to ask.

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That's it for my Friday - I'm 26% through Ninth House so far and excited to get back to reading! Here in Michigan, we're still practicing social distancing, so it's the perfect time to read! Wishing for the very best for you and yours :)

Friday, Friday, Friday!

Welcome to Friday! With just a few weeks left til school (and my work) start back up again, I'm feeling even more focused to read, read, read!

I found a few book-ish memes to play along with this week. If that's how you found me, welcome! I've just started jumping on a few memes again lately, remembering how fun they all were way back when this blog was new (15+ years, whoa!).

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This is my first time on the Book Blogger Hop from Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. This week's question (suggested by Elizabeth at Silver's Review) is:

What authors do you always read and recommend?

 I really needed a few minutes to think on this question. See, most of my reading is books I've been given to review. So when I finally get around to choosing, I usually have other people's recommendations or books that I've heard about lately and want to read.
One author I've read some really varied books from and enjoyed is Kristin Hannah. With a lot of books with different characters and subjects, I really feel she has a lot to offer for a variety of readers. Even while recommending her, there are some books of hers that I have yet to read.
I'm excited to read others' responses to this question, since my list of books/authors recommended to me is always growing :)

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A couple weeks ago I really enjoyed the Book Beginnings meme from Rose City Reader, so I'm back!

The book I'm reading this week is a translated winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize called A Fist or a Heart by Kristin Eiriksdottir. It starts out:

My hands get no cleaner than an old bathtub. My fingernails are all clipped as short as possible, but the chemicals have managed to claw their way through the dead skin, into the bone. As if there's no enamel.

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And last but not least for this week is the Friday 56 from Freda's Voice.


Here is my excerpt from page 56 of A Fist or a Heart:

SON:He'll never leave, will he? And if he does leave, he'll just come right back again?GRANDFATHER:You may have to kill him.

Wow. Sort of a deceptive excerpt - actually an excerpt of an excerpt. Part of the book is about a playwright, and this is just part of a play that character has written.