Here are my January reads for one Reading Event, One Buddy Read, & our indie bookstore book club—The Midway Murder Club put on by Folklore Bookshop.
Bottom Book—#USPresidents reading event 1776 by David McCullough about George Washington & the Revolutionary War. Middle Book—Marcel Proust‘s Swann‘s Way the 1st vol of In The Search For Lost Time #Proust2026 Buddy Read for January & February. Then the book club read—The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon.

I really loved @CSeydel Auld Lang Syne intro so I thought I'd borrow the idea and introduce myself.

My name is Sandi Brower. Used to be a Sandra but that felt too stringent to my personality! think Sandi from Grease.

I've been married for 35 years to the love of my life and we have 3 grown children two gave us a cute daughter-in-law and the other one a son-in-law. ⬇️

My 2025 reading wrap-up from The Margins app… sadly, there were many foreign author books that they didn't have in their database I read so these stats are off by 10 books or so.
The reading age is interesting- figures as I read a lot of classics! 😆
Does anyone else use Margins as their book tracking app? I just started so still learning. I love the graphics they use!

When you turn a corner and the dream bookstore comes into view. Have you ever seen the inside of Old Fox Books in Annapolis, Maryland? It‘s like walking into an old English library in a grand manor. Gorgeous!!!

What are you reading right now? i‘m in a retro murder thriller mood.

This book was released Tuesday. Gemini by Jeffrey Kluger. A story about the NASA Gemini Program and its foundational lift-off to enable man‘s ability to land on the moon.

Need a little mystery as you move from October to November? I'm just starting The Gallery Assistant. Has grabbed me quickly. That doesn't happen much anymore. Let's see if it stays that way. I'll let you know in a review.

#thegalleryassistant #katebelli #mystery #newreleasebook

😎Soaking up the rays as we start heading into cooler weather 🍁 with a new book: Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill.
🔞if you‘re not a timid reader and you‘re looking for a new book about the underbelly of Manhattan‘s Lower East Side from the 1980s this might be your book.

I'm not afraid of eye-opening reads. To me literary reading of reality helps us understand the people of our world better. IMHO it also strengthens our values and morals.

Exciting news! My latest book review of "Salem's Fall" by Rektok Ross is live!

Prepare yourself for a whirlwind of steam, screams, dreams, and spine-chilling nightmares! ?‍⬛
https://linesuponapage.wordpress.com/2025/08/03/salems-fall-by-rektok-ross/

Get ready for thrills, Chills, and echoes of the past in Salem‘s Fall by Rekrok Ross. You will never know who the threat is, who is the lifesaver, and who just might be lurking around the corner ready to nab you!

Salem‘a Fall is as intriguing and haunting as these ancient homes of Ironton, Colorado. #rektokross #netgalley #salemsfallstreetteam #newbookcomingsoon

I was hoping this book wasn't so self-help and more historical fiction and I got my wish. Socrates never wrote things down so we only have his teachings from his students like Aristotle. This book is a good New Year goal setting reference if you like learning about how to think common sensically and some easy reading.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFKYNhXY/

Have you read Lightening Bottles by Marissa Stapley yet?

This is for the reader who loves Daisy Jones and the Six or anything by Nick Hornsby.

@marissastapleyofficial The Lightening Bottles is full of mystery, romance, heartbreak and music, grunge to be exact. It might just make you cry like it did me. I'm a sucker for a good fictional celebrity book.

Reading outside on a beautiful afternoon with the Aspen‘s quaking in the breeze.

How is your day so far?

#readingisbliss

A little night reading…

Where would we be without shared library books. I love that we can borrow a book from another library. This one is from Colorado. This is my fourth book of the month from another library system.

#librarybook #interlibraryloan #nelliebowles #tfp #tfpbookclub #tfpbookclub #readabooktolearn #shhhimreading #wasatchcountylibrary #highplainslibrarydistrict

Sipping chocolate, a good book and Indie music is what‘s up today.

Where is your favorite place to read?

Welcome to the Harvest—the party never dies, but you might.

Spring Harvest follows friends at a rural music festival that must fight to survive a vampire siege.

Run, don‘t walk to the bookstore, and grab this absolutely addictive read that Kirkus Reviews calls “riveting” and Collider says “leaves readers breathless and clamoring for more”! Just whatever you do, don‘t forget to take along your garlic!
#SpringHarvestBook

Some pink, a little red and a lot of Public Opinion.

William Lippmann had me agreeing with him until he said, “I argue that representative government, either in what is ordinarily called politics, or in industry, cannot be worked successfully, no matter what the basis of election, unless there is an independent, expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions.”
Who chooses these experts? Who?

Not my usual book review.

Not sure this will work for me as there isn't enough room to jot down a full review.
However, I love the Netgalley Reading Journal,

I wish that as a child there had been a book like this. This book was definitely up my loving the supernatural type of stories. Lora Senf can write like the best of them! This book is up there with The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I recommend reading this with your child or recommending it to the purchasing librarian at your local Library, I know I will! I've got a few kids who wander the stacks looking for books like The Clackity.

1. Edie Howard - doing everything she can to save her business and home, The Blue Lion Hotel
2. James Geddes- artist and current resident at the Blue Lion Hotel. Flawed.

(favorites from this book, not my overall favorites of all time. Can't choose one except Emily from Emily of New Moon. Think Anne Shirley but sweeter.)

@Eggs @Jabberwocky

This closely based “true story of one of the most shocking crimes in recent Italian history, The City Of The Living is a spellbinding, intoxicating journey into the darkest corners of Contemporary Rome.”

Written in an easy, conversational way. It's hard to put down and filled with thrills and chills.

#europaeditions #nicolalagioia

1. I don‘t withdraw, however I do take a break for a week or two.
2. Scott Reintgen
3. L.M. Montgomery

Thanks, @Eggs for always doing fun Wednesday Qs. #wondrouswednesday

Have you read this book? It sounds interesting and also insightful on dealing with Dementia

Every year in the town we lived in in Florida they had a Zombie walk. These are a few of our friends prepping for the zombie video they were making to psych up everyone for the upcoming event. I can‘t find pictures I only have video of our last walk. Between the blood, gore and dead eyes, all I can say is it was pretty epic!

#scarathlon #zombiewalk #photochallenge #teamcryptkeeper

Good game, @Eggs thanks for this one!

1. As a child there were actually two books: The Secret Garden, & The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I couldn‘t choose between them if I tried!

2. When I turned 7, My dad & I starting taking walkabouts around towns we‘d visit, usually towns he had lived in. Ones that have special meaning to him. I learn so much about his life from those walks.

3. Oct. 7th crawling through an archeological site in Eqypt.

October 18 scarathlon photo challenge: Zombie

While searching the Internet for a good Zombie book, I ran into this article on CNET. Now you too can be informed on how to protect yourself from a Zombie invasion… i guess you can thank me later 😂

#scarathlon #scarathlonphotochallenge #teamcryptkeeper

https://www.cnet.com/pictures/everything-you-need-to-zombie-proof-your-life-pict...

A year ago I read One Hundred Saturdays by Michael Frank, based in his interactions with Stella Levi a 92 yr old Jewish woman who survived her horror in Auschwitz-Birkenau after her community in Rhodes, Greece was sent to the Camps.

This book affected me deeply, & more poignant was visiting Rhodes 2 days after the initial attack on Israel. I felt such deep sadness as I walked through the Juderia.

This is a book to put on your list.
#nonfiction

Watched this Stephen King produced series from 2001. What a doozy… this is based on the book The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

Is it fun when a cameo is done by the so called directors or authors of movies- like Stan Lee in all of his Marvel Movies? I think so, what do you think?

#scarathlon #TeamCryptKeeper @LiseWorks
#halloweenmovies @Clwojick @StayCurious

October 17th Scarathlon photo challenge: Haunt
@LiseWorks #TeamCryptKeepers #scarathlon @StayCurious @Clwojick

i spy with my little eye for the photo challenge today a picture that another posted…
Cute theme. Thanks, @Clwojick!
October 15, 2023

#scarathlon #TeamCryptKeeper @LiseWorks @StayCurious #scarathlonphotochallenge

#scarathlon #TeamCryptKeepers #scarathlon23 @LiseWorks

2 books so many bingo spots!!

i really love the oldie horror movies. They might now be as scary as say, IT or other movies but psychological thrillers get me everytime! October 1st-14th

What is your favorite generation of scary movies?

#scarathlon #teamcryptkeepers @LiseWorks @StayCurious @Clwojick

This bingo has been fun to work on for the first half of #scarathlon.
Is anyone else having as much fun as I am?

Sorry about the overload of posts, I was gone with no cell service or Wi-Fi for almost 2 weeks… just catching up.
#TeamCryptKeeper #scarathlon2023 @LiseWorks

Thank heavens for the Happy Halloween Scarathloners! word challenge or my halfway mark might be even lower, still not bad for being away on a cruise to the Mediterranean for 2 weeks, although I did fit in a lot of reading. 📚🎃
84,555 points for #TeamCryptKeepers
@LiseWorks
#scarathlon

@Clwojick thanks for the challenge.

What a fun readathon!! Second book in the Wicked Witches of the Midwest book series.
Helping me rack up the points.
#onemorechapter #scarathlon @LiseWorks

Still working on adding up my points…

#scarathlon #teamcryptkeepers @LiseWorks

Please excuse me for being late to the party!! We were on a cruise & the wifi service was spotty at best.
However, I did keep up on my buddy read of The Shuddering. Sadly, I wasn‘t able to get game number 1 though, & now cramming in game 2. Looked like a challenge!!
#buddyread #scarathlon #teamcryptkeepers
I‘ll update my points soon, I‘ve been reading & enjoying the challenge for the last two weeks! So many fun/scary books to explore.

Feels remarkably familiar.

Someone placed these books in a box unprotected & out in the rain for over a weeks. I was going to save them back at the start when it was sunny as I drove past on my way home from the park & thought, no someone will take all the magazines out of the LFL & put these books in it. Didn‘t happen.
The house owner doesn‘t own the LFL…Bugs & moisture destroyed the books one of which came from the free area in the P.Library. I can‘t save them. I‘m sad.

A little town on the border of Maine & Canada filled with a rich tapestry of characters.
The book addresses Postpartum Depression, & the aftermath of everyone left who has to deal with their loved ones suicide.
Postpartum depression is so often overlooked even by doctors that the one suffering doesn‘t feel as if she can talk about what she‘s going through.

My daughter suffered from PPD with the birth of her first baby. Luckily I knew the signs.

Do you need a beach/summer read? Summer Retreat is “Mean Girls meets Scream in this heart-pounding psychological thriller about a group of friends stranded on an island with a serial killer on the loose.”

Coming June 13, 2023 (which is a great present for my birthday!) if you‘ve read Ski Weekend, you will know this author has a vivid thriller mind.

Have you read The Graphic Novel (comic book at the time it was released) Maus?
It‘s an interesting way to the tell the story of an Auschwitz survivor.

*check out the gorgeous handwriting our purchasing librarian has. 🤩

Ms.Berest literally took my breath away on pgs 188,189,193 &199 of The Postcard —the most sobering pages I have ever read in my 53 years of life. I‘ve read so many books on the Holocaust, & the treatment of the Jewish People in Concentration Camps, however, The Postcard is the most comprehensive story of a race‘s eradication in modern times. This book should be read by EVERYONE.

https://bookingitwithsandra.wordpress.com/2023/05/16/the-postcard/

My #bookspinbingo Board for May.

I thought for fun I‘d add books to the free zones even though they are not going to count. If I don‘t get to them, I‘ll add them to June‘s Book Spin…
I‘m hoping this will help me read those upcoming ARCs in a more timely manner. 🙃

@TheAromaofBooks you are fantastic! Thanks for putting this together.

1. I love to walk in the woods
2. Eating potato chips
3. Historical Fiction: The Postcard by Anne Beresr, The Light between us Andrew Fukuda, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks #wonderouswednesday

“The tailor sees everyone as badly dressed,
the hairdresser, everyone disheveled,
the milliner, everyone hatless,
The physiotherapist, everyone injured
and I, psychiatrist, see everyone as mad.”
Section 16

#europaeditions

A history of 1 family lost at Auschwitz whose names show up on a postcard to their loved ones.
In honor of Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day I‘m reading (ch.4 so far) the upcoming book The Postcard.
We can‘t forget the 6 million people who died due to hatred. The holocaust is near & dear to my heart & this book is reinforcing the need to remember those who were victims of that hated & never forget & fight against this ever happening again.

The Hourglass by Keiran Goddard is a jumbled mind strewn out on the page trying to get over the lose of two loves- one of a girlfriend and one of a mother.
Even a week after finishing reading the book I‘m not sure how I feel about it. I feel sadness for the protagonist of the story over the heart wrenching profoundness of his losses, and yet, I feel like so much of his problem is also of his own making by being so desperate for love itself.

“Most people expect seers to live somewhere weird. A creepy house on the corner with roses that never bloom. Some lonely farm with a hunched roof. Anything mysterious.
Which is why people are always surprised by Grammy‘s very suburban townhome.”

A sunny lunch break at work means a sandwich and starting a new book.

I‘m getting really sick of the snow. A high of 40° feels like heaven when the sun shines, and that is crazy being that I don‘t even like a temperature less than 50°.

Have you read anything by Connor Sullivan? He is a new author for me.
Wolf Trap was released March 14, 2023