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Sunday Salon: January 14, 2018


My life in books:
Happy New Year Everyone! Except for one YA fiction, my reading the past two weeks has been non-fiction heavy because I am a judge for round 2 of the CYBILS. I'm doing junior high and senior high non-fiction so will be reading fourteen non-fiction books by early February. I am not allowed to post any reviews until the winners are announced, but I'm listing the books I've read here.
 
Junior High non-fiction finalists that I've read:
  • Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story by Sandra Neil Wallace
  • Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton Reveal'd by Mary Losure
  • Motor Girls: How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly into the Twentieth Century by Sue Macy
  • The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin W. Sandler
  • Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Scheinkin
High School non-fiction finalists that I've read:
  • March Against Fear: the Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power by Ann Bausum
  • A Dog in the Cave: the Wolves Who Made Us Human by Kay Frydenborg
  • Queer, There, and Everywhere by Sarah Prager
  • Fiction I am currently reading--Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork
Challenges progress:
  • Non-fiction--My goal is 20 books and I've read 8. Thank you CYBILS!
  • Literary Voyage around the world--The idea was to read books set in as many countries as possible. I the UK and the North Pole/Russia so far.
  • Literary Escapes--Similar to the previous challenge, this one tracks the US states. I have read books set in OK, PA, MA, and AL so far.
  • Read all of the ALA YA Award Winners--these haven't been announced yet.
My life outside books:
Working:
Getting back to work after almost a month off (due to the fires in Santa Barbara) was weird. I think everyone felt a bit disjointed the first couple of days, but we were all happy to reconnect with one another after such a weird fire experience. I was trying to focus my work life since I've felt pretty scattered, trying to do far too many things and have been going in a number of different directions. But, just as I was trying to focus, the mudslides hit Santa Barbara and I've been subbing at one of our local high schools. We have about 25% of our teachers who cannot get to work since the freeways are closed into Santa Barbara.

Family:
We've had a fairly quiet first couple of weeks of 2018, thank goodness! My daughter headed back to boarding school this past Monday so the house definitely seems quieter. It's her final semester of high school and I know she is ready to move on. Senior-itis has hit!

I wrote that paragraph before the mudslides hit Santa Barbara on January 9 We are only two blocks from the destruction so it's been very intense this week, but our house and we are fine and safe. You can see my post about it here.

Watching

With my daughter at home, I found myself sitting next to hear watching random episodes of Suits and Scandal. Both are fun shows, but it's always weird to episodes that aren't in order.

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