This week....

I'm reading

This week I read A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang by Lee Onhwa. The main reason I read it is because it fits the AAPI month category for the Goodreads challenge, but as a bonus it also counts for the Speccy Fiction Challenge. Hopefully I will will review it soon!

I also started The Call of the Camino by Suzanne Redfearn. This is the next Cook the Books read so I need to finish it and cook something inspired by it too before the end of the month.

I did go to one event for Melbourne Writers Festival this week. As part of the in the suburbs series author Benjamin Stevenson came to visit my local library. Unfortunately I could not fit in any other events for the rest of the festival so I am glad that I at least got to attend this one! Benjamin Stevenson is the author of the Ernest Cunningham mystery series. It was very interesting to hear about his inspirations, about a potential TV adaptation, about how he nearly killed off Ernest at the end of the second book and so much more!

It was our read on a theme book club meeting this weekend. There were only 4 of us there but we still managed to have some lively discussion feature books about Mothers and Daughters. I read Amy Tan's book The Bonesetter's Daughter. Our next theme is Immigration, so I will have to see what books I have that suit this theme. 

I'm watching

Now that we are back from holiday we have started watching Masterchef Australia. I wasn't sure whether we should go back and watch all the episodes from the beginning but in the end we just jumped in at episode 8 or so and went from there!

We also finished watching Alan and Amanda's Greek Job which features them renovating a house in Corfu! The series is always a lot of fun!


Life

It was back to work this week. I might have only done four days but I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the week!

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors You Wish Were Still Writing Today
Weekend Cooking: Taste of Two Continents Food Walking Tour - Istanbul
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - April Statistics






I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings

This week....or more precisely the last couple of weeks.

 

First of all.....Happy Star Wars Day

It's a bit strange to me that I am all over this Star Wars thing now. Up until about 10 years ago I had never seen a Star Wars movie but my husband is a big fan so we now watch all the spin offs and I already know we will be going to the movies to see the new Mandalorian movie when it comes out soon. I still have never seen all of the movies though.

I'm reading

As a general rule, I don't read as much while I am holidays as I do when I am home. Occasionally we have holidays where that doesn't apply, but over the last two and a bit weeks where we have been in Turkiye it has definitely been the case.

Since my last This Week post I finished reading both New Chapters on the French Riviera by Jennifer Bohnet and The Hotel by the Sea by Julie Caplin (which I reviewed here and here respectively).

I then decided to read The Astral Library by Kate Quinn, as it fit two categories in the Goodreads Spring challenge, and because I really enjoy her historical fiction writing. This one is most definitely not historical fiction. I enjoyed it, but it did take me a while to get through, and it isn't my favourite book of hers.

After that I read The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan. My read on a theme book club theme for May is Mothers and Daughters and this book definitely met that theme. I have only ever read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and that was in the 1990s so it was interesting reading this book now.

My final read while I was away was An Italian Island Love Story by Leonie Mack. This is part of her Wedding Adventures series which I really love! it was perfect plane reading! 

My reading numbers were down for April (mostly because I was too busy being on holiday). I read 7 books in total. I gave most of them a grade of 4 out of 5 but nothing really jumps out as being a best of the month. Hopefully next month. 

Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen

Bookish Travel

While I didn't read many books, I did visit quite a few places in April (both in real life and through books!)

Europe

UK - Hopes and Dreams at the Chocolate Pot Cafe

Greece - The Islander's Daughter

France - New Chapters on the French Riviera

Portugal - The Hotel by the Sea

Australia

Queensland - Something in the Air in Pelican Crossing

America

Maine - The Seven Rings

Massachusetts - The Astral Library

I'm watching

We flew a Chinese airline this time as we had to rebook our flights to avoid the conflict in the Middle East. We would absolutely fly them again, but I know to expect that the entertainment selection is limited. I therefore only watched a couple of documentaries. One was about various destinations in China and another was an Italian documentary about The Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. When I say watched, I am being literal here as I couldn't understand what was being said in either of them!

Life

We had the most amazing time in Turkiye! Apart from one day we had amazing weather, we saw some amazing sights and food. If you have ever thought about visiting Turkiye, then do it. We would both love to go back!

The first few days we were there daughter came to stay with us with her partner we had never met before so we enjoyed time with them visiting some of the major sights including The Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar and we did a foodie walking tour. After they left we did a Turkish bath, visited the Basilica Cistern and more. We then joined our tour which included a visit to Topkapi Palace.

After that we left Istanbul and headed to Cannakale which was our base for spending time on the Gallipoli peninsula. The whole reason we booked this tour was so we could attend the Dawn Service at Anzac Cove on Anzac Day and it was a truly memorable experience.

After that we headed to see the ancient cities of Troy and Ephesus, visited places like Pamukkale and finally Cappadocia where we were able to take a hot air balloon ride!

It was a such a fantastic trip!

Now I have to get ready to go back to work tomorrow! 

Posts from the last week


Blog Tour: The Hotel by the Sea by Julie Caplin
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - May Links
Six Degrees of Separation: Wild Dark Shore to The Enlightenment of Bees





I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings

Six Degrees of Separation: Wild Dark Shore to The Enlightenment of bees

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings.

This month the starting point is Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghey, which is a book I intend to read at some point...maybe!

For my first link I am choosing Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. I read this book many, many years ago, back in the 1990s at some point.

Another book I remember loving back then was The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Our current read on a theme book club theme is Mothers and Daughters, and would both of those books would have been good for that theme. I am, however, reading another book by Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter. This was one of the books that I read on the plane on the way home yesterday.

From here, there are a gazillion books that are have the title of The something's daughter and I was tempted to go down that route. Instead though I am choosing The Astral Library by Kate Quinn because it was a book that I read while we were in Turkiye.

A Turkish author I love is Elif Shafak. In anticipation of our trip, I had borrowed her book The Forty Rules of Love from the library but had to return it unread as I ran out of time. I will be reborrowing it soon though. 

Another book that I was really looking for to reading but had to return unread was The Enlightenment of Bees by Rachel Linden. I will be reborrowing this one too!

Next month's starting point is a book by Austrian author Stefan Zweig – The Post-Office Girl. 

Will you be joining us?