Tiny Tuesday!

I was purging some things from a footlocker and consolidating some things from my parents to put in there, when I found these tiny gifts tucked inside. I’d long wondered where they were! They’re beautiful, beaded bookmarks made by Tom’s mother for each of us, and I photographed them next to some novels you may remember.

This book turned twenty in October of last year. HOW IS THAT TRUE?

Meanwhile, this denim-clad dude turns twenty in January of next year. My gosh, TJB would be paying some steep tuition to put both Daniel and Adam through college.

As for April reading, I sure didn’t meet the number I read in March. I spent a lot of time working on the fifth book in the Neverending Saga, plus we spent more time with friends in April than in previous months, so I’m not mad.

Here’s the April book report.

One of the few books I read in 2020 was Barbara Neely’s Blanche on the Lam, the first in a series of four that I bought and downloaded as ebooks. Though I hadn’t previously heard of her, when Neely died in March 2020, many writers and booksellers whose accounts I follow on social media mentioned her and piqued my interest in her work. I enjoyed that first book, but like so many others in the TBR pile, the series fell victim to my pandemic non-reading issue.

I decided to make the rest of the Blanche books part of my April reading. Blanche White is a middle-aged, dark-skinned Black woman who juggles her job as a domestic worker with raising her late sister’s children, maintaining a network of friends, being wary of but not hopeless about romance, and doing a bit of amateur sleuthing. The books are somewhat light on the mysteries but rich in commentary about social and political issues such as violence against women, racism, class boundaries, and sexism.

I love Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti series’ characters and their relationships. I feel like Venice is another character. I’m always happy to visit it all again in her mysteries. She never disappoints.

I think I have two more to read in Leon’s series; I’m trying to make them last a bit longer.

I read the tenth (most recent, from 2019) in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series. Flavia is always a delight, and the new private investigation firm opened by her ‘tween self with her father’s loyal friend and servant Arthur Dogger will hopefully keep this series going, though Bradley has made no promises.

I also read some nonfiction.

Published in 2017, reading it post-2020 election was a bit surreal. A mix of memoir and optimism about our potential as a nation and as citizens.