Grab the Lapels

Sunday Lowdown #43

This Week’s Blog Posts:

On Tuesday, I shared my thoughts on Prison Baby by Deborah Jiang-Stein, a memoir about the author’s experience growing up mixed-race and adopted into a Jewish family in the 1960s when she discovers at age twelve that she had been born in prison to a drug-addicted mother. Thanks for all your comments! Do you have a preferred memoir from a person affected by incarceration? Let me know in the comments!

Thursday was Thanksgiving in the United States, but I have many international readers! Thus, I posted my conversation with Lindsay Lerman, yet another wonderful Meet the Writer feature I was excited to share. Lerman discusses escapism, active creativity, defining success, and wanting to be Mariah Carey when she grew up. If you haven’t done so, please check out our conversation.

  • Lindsay Lerman

Next Week’s Blog Posts:

Oh, joy! I’m wigging out over my review of Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of ’80s and ’90s Teen Fiction by Gabrielle Moss. This beautifully-made nostalgia trip was totally my jam, so do your homegirl a solid and come back on Monday to read my review. *Care Bear stare*

Jackie @ Death by Tsundoku and I are hoping to get our discussion of Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon’s second novel in the Owl Mage trilogy called Owlsight done. This post — should we finish it! — will be up on Wednesday.

On Friday I get to share one of my favorite posts: the TBR list for the next month. I haven’t crafted my reading to be festive for the holidays, but am trying to read many library books that I added to my TBR ages ago before they all get weeded out of the collection!

  • LYLC, sis!
  • Interesting conversation!
  • Start of the month — om nom nom.

Book I’m Reading Aloud to My Spouse:

We’re still reading Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural, edited by Henry Mazzeo. I was hoping to be reading A Christmas Carol by now, but it’s slow going. Some stories are long enough to take 2-4 nights to finish, others we get through lickety-split no shit.

We did start listening to French Exit by Patrick deWitt on our Thanksgiving commute. We’re almost done (just 90 minutes to go) and love the characters. I think the voice actor adds loads to the story, especially her portrayal of Frances and Malcolm. I can’t remember who recommended this novella to me — it was definitely a blogger — but it looks like Laila @ Big Reading Life has read it. Let me know in the comments if you’ve read it!

  • Read by Lorna Waver

Books Added to the TBR Pile:

Just one book?? Thanks to Ami for her recommendation!

18 comments

  5. Intrigued by your Thanksgiving commute. How long was it? How about a road trip post one day. From where I am (Perth WA) I could drive 2 full days to get to the next state capital and theoretically at least, I could drive diagonally across the continent (5,000 plus km) and go through just 3 or 4 towns with a pop. of more than 10,000

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    • The commute is about 3.5 hours (in Michigan we measure travel by time, much to the annoyance of everyone else). Or, it’s 200 miles. As we near places with multiple on/off ramps, things get backed up and we have to pause the audio book. I can’t drive like a wild woman and focus on the antics of a story.

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  6. Oooh, Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural sounds like a really good read! I love creepy stories like that. I’m sort of impressed that you only added one book to your TBR? How do you do that?! I feel like I always have to at least add two at a time. xD I mean, because you wouldn’t want the one to get lonely, of course.

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