Wednesday Round Up 12.18.19

Happy Wednesday, readers and knitters. Wednesdays are when I do a double link up because they make such a lovely pair:

• Kat at As Kat Knits hosts a superb group of readers and knitters for Unraveled Wednesdays; and
• Sam at Taking on a World of Words hosts WWW Wednesdays. The Wednesdays stand for What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? and What do you think you’ll read next?

Thank you both for being wonderful hosts and helping me find great communities that I enjoy so much!

Reading

Finished Books:

Code Name Helene was amazing! I love WWII books set in France so of course this was no exception. This novel tells the story of Nancy Wake, an Australian woman who links up with the British Special Operations and works to help the French Resistance fight the Nazis. She was an amazing woman! Lawhon did a fantastic job telling Nancy’s story, before and after the war. This book will be published in March 2020 – please make sure it’s on your librarian’s radar!

The Manor House Murder was a quick and easy cozy mystery set in the English countryside. There’s a murder at a church conference and all of a sudden, the politics of the pious are put on display. The author had a wide cast of characters, all with interesting motives for murder. I wasn’t able to guess the murderer, so that made it good fun!

I’ve been dipping in and out of The Montessori Toddler for a bit and finished it this week. I wish I had this when my oldest was a baby; this book normalized so many toddler behaviors and gave useful and helpful advice for parents. Not to mention, this book is gorgeous. Beautiful pictures, simple charts, and thick pages. I almost bought this on Kindle but am so glad that I went for the physical copy – I love seeing it on my shelves!

Ruta Sepetys is so good at writing page turners! The Fountains of Silence is her most recent contribution to YA literature and I really enjoyed it. Set in the 1950s under General Franco’s dictatorship, Madrid welcomes Americans tourists. But Daniel, a teenage Texan who dreams of being a photographer while his father pushes him toward his family’s oil business, has an eye for what’s just beneath the surface. He quickly falls for Ana, a young woman working in his hotel and who’s family has suffered tremendously under Franco’s rule — as most families in Spain have. This book has heft, but it moves quickly!

Currently Reading:

Watching You was published last December (and Jewell already has a new book out!) but my library just ordered it and I found it on the New Arrivals shelf. It’s a thriller, which are hit or miss for me. I started this last night and it’s a page turner, but I always hold my breath and expect to be disappointed in the end. Here’s to NOT being disappointed by this one!

Up Next:

I’m definitely getting to Starless Sea this week because my library hold just came in last night!! I am so excited — it looks like so many people are loving this one and I feel it will be a great book to round out the year.

I’ve had Peace Like a River out from the library for about a month now and I checked it out at the library over the summer but never got to it. I want to read it!! I’m hoping to get to it right after The Starless Sea.

And last in my library stack is Olive Kitteridge. I started this in 2008 and abandoned it. But now I’m 11 years older and want to try again, given that this book received such a fuss and now there’s a sequel out. Wish me luck!

Let’s see what I can actually manage this week!

Knitting

I am still working on So Faded Pint Sized. I am still on the sleeves!! This shouldn’t be taking me so long, but it is. And that’s okay. My Baby Birdie won’t grow out of it anytime soon so there’s plenty of time. I’m going to try to really tackle it this weekend during tv time with my hubby. I know if I just sit down and work on it, then it will get done in no time! But — the books have been so good this week that I couldn’t bear to do anything else after I put my littles into their beds.

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Thank you so much for visiting me today! Let me know if you’ve read any of the books in this post and what you thought about them. And I’m always taking book recommendations! I’m looking forward to hopping around to other people who have linked up today!