The Sunday Salon: Thankfully Reading 2012 Wrap-Up

I hope everyone that celebrated had a lovely Thanksgiving - I love this opportunity to pause as the year comes to an end before the craziness of the holidays. Especially in the aftermath of Sandy, there is much to be thankful of this year and many reminders of how fortunate my family has been this year.  I spent the weekend at my parents house and enjoyed a lot of quality time with them catching up and planning for Christmas.

 Jenn of Jenn's Bookshelves and Jennifer from Literate Housewife hosted Thankfully Reading 2012 - an event where participants enjoy an unstructured read a thon and read as they can throughout the long weekend. Despite having very few plans, I got far less reading done than I would have liked. As a child, I read constantly but this weekend I wondered how I ever got any reading done in my house with the constant distractions. My parents feel the need to be in perpetual motion (the cleanliness and efficiency of their house is evidence of that) so there a few opportunities to just sit and read. I have concluded that I read a lot while waiting or in transit- as a passenger in the car while my parents drove, waiting for them during doctor's appointments or other errands or on the city bus to and from school. This weekend was no exception - I did the bulk of my reading/listening on the bus to and from the city, on my daily neighborhood walks and just before sleeping each night.


Despite the limited reading time, I finished The Bungalow by Sarah Jio and made a lot of progress on The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds by Alexander McCall Smith. The Bungalow is a delightful story and I was glad to escape into it for the weekend. So many bloggers have raved about this and other of the author's novels - I can see why. With The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, I have discovered a new favorite audio narrator - Davina Porter. The book is set in Edinburgh and Porter does a beautiful job with the Scottish accents - I feel like I am listening to my grandmother speak. Another delight.

I also had the chance to sneak in some Small Business Saturday shopping at Booktowne in downtown Manasquan, NJ.  Manasquan had a lot of storm damage so I was encouraged to see so many people out shopping on Main Street on Sunday and the bookstore was packed. I got some great books for a little one in my life and it felt good to patronize a small business - especially one that lost weeks of sales thanks to the storm.  Please consider shopping locally this holiday when you can.



Ahh - the weekend is coming to an end but I know these good memories and reading delights will carry me through the week!