BW45: Never Have I Ever Book Edition

 

Happy Sunday!  Welp! My google domain was hacked and blocked and I spent the last couple weeks dealing with IT issues. Google wasn't so accommodating so I purchased a new domain else where and spent a few more days interpreting conflicting directions between Google and the new Host because you know, Google just has to be different. Finally everything worked yesterday.  Whew! 

The new url:

www.literaryexplorationsociety.com

If you managed to find me, congratulations!  If not, continue use the old URL of 

 www.read52booksin52weeks.blogspot.com

Which means I'm going to leave you with L.E.S.T.E.R.'s edition of Never Have I Ever!  

• Read a book in one sitting
• Throw a book across the room.
• Hated a book everyone else loved. 
• Stayed up all night reading.
• Folded a page corner to mark your page
• Fallen in love with a fictional character.
• Cried while reading.
• Had a book hangover.
• Binge read all day.
• Ruined a book in the bath.
• Missed a meal because you were reading.
• Broken a book buying ban.
• Skipped ahead to the ending.
• Read the last page first. 
• Written in the margins of the page.
• Visited a place you read about in a book. 
• Made someone read your favorite book.
• Debated the book versus the movie. 

Happy reading!   I will no longer be using Mr. Linky, so please tell me about the books you are reading in the comments.  

BW44: November Remember

 

Happy Sunday!  Do you think November is secret and silent?  The time is changing once again, the 1st is All Saints Day, the 2nd is All Souls day, the third is voting day, the 4th is common sense day, the 5th is Men Make Dinner Day, the 6th is National Nacho Day (I guess because there are no leftovers or they burned the dinner), and the 7th is Book Lovers Day.   Why one day to love books when we love books all year round? I don't know.   I feel sorry for those who don't read. They don't know what they are missing. 

This month we celebrate Non fiction, our contemporary author of the month is Ann Patchett as well as our literary legend Agatha Christie.  

Our letter of the week is I which stands for imaginary, imagery, idioms, internal conflict, interjection, and irony.  

Make of it what you will and have fun! 

Please note, I won't be using Mr. Linky's Magical Widgets application anymore so please leave a message about the books you are reading in the comments with a link to your website.

❤️❤️❤️

BW43: October by Robert Frost

 

Happy Sunday!  I can't believe October is almost over and daylight savings time is ending.  The year is moving way too fast.  I've been deep cleaning my house and am exhausted so will leave you with a poem from one of my favorite poets,  Robert Frost. 

October

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild, 

Should waste them all. 

The crows above the forest call;

To-morrow they may form and go. 

O hushed October morning mild, 

Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know; 

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf; 

One from our trees, one far away;

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst. 

Slow, slow! 

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, 

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

BW42: Blind Date with a Book

 

Happy Sunday! 42 is the answer, except we don't know the question. Which leads us to our next letter which in our A to Z and Back Again which is  K and our next bingo quest which is a Blind Date with a Book! 

Let's go on an adventure.  Whether it is the library, the book store, google or your own shelves, pick a random book to read this week.  Preferably one you know nothing about.  

For the library or bookstore, choose a genre, choose a section of shelves, picked a shelf, and then pick a number between one and thirty and read whatever book you discover.   Or pick out a random book, don't read the synopsis (yes, I know how hard that is not too) and read it. 

For your own shelves, fill out slips of paper with one through fifty or more if you have a large TBR pile, put them in a jar, and let one of your family members pick a number.  

Or let one of your family members randomly or not so randomly pick a book for you to read.  James not so randomly picked out a One Piece novelization for me to read which fortunately is 148 pages.  I also randomly picked up Wreck by Catherine Newman (A Good Morning America book club book) at the airport which is also a short read.  

K fits for this week as I am still reading Dean Koontz The Friend of the Family which is not so scary but mysterious. 

We'll see which one keeps my attention. LOL! 

Have fun! 

BW41: Little bit of this and that

 

Happy Sunday!  

Book Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are Revolting.  I hope they revolt and win against the use of AI in editing and polishing new releases.  I have come across a few books by series authors  primarily published in 2024 and later which were horribly written and dumbed down. None of them sounded like the author's voice.  And if you happen to notice sentences in which - is used instead of commas, that is an AI thing.  I played with Microsoft Word's AI editor and discovered it uses dashes instead of commas, in some instances. Which is when I began to notice the same thing in books published from 2024 onward.  

The 2026 Nobel Prize winner for Literature is poet Anne Carson for “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”.  Essentially she likes to reimagine ancient Greek literature and philosophy. 

Let's not forget it's is banned book week month and it looks like Sarah J Maas, author of the Romantasy Court of Thorn and Roses as well and Throne of Glass series are on the hot seat this year!   No, neither series interests me.  

Check out Modern Mrs. Darcy's 20 Banned Books I find Myself Recommending all the Time or the Best Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books on Goodreads and read a banned book this month.  The list incredibly includes the Harry Potter series, Fahrenheit 451, and Frankenstein of all things.  

Check out the Marginalian's latest Timeless Advice on Writing: The Collected Wisdom of Great Writers which will provide some great reads to peruse, plus keep you occupied for quite a while.  

Happy Reading! 

BW40: October Spooktacular

 

Welcome to October and our spooktacular reading month. Spooky to me doesn't equal horror. I detest blood and guts horror books or movies. Give me emotion, give me pee in your pants scary moments.  Give me tense moments that make you laugh or cry. Give me mind bending stories with devious and conniving characters and lots of twists and turns.  Give me stories that make me think and go whoa, I didn't see that coming.  Entertain me, thrill me, shock me. 

If you haven't read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Bram Stoker's Dracula, now would be the perfect time.  Put away all your preconceived notions as the books are very different from the movies and will shock and amaze you.  If you have read it, dip your toes into retellings of the story as well as the reimagining's of  Bram Stoker's Dracula. 

There are a number of ways to go with psychological thrillers, gothic, science fiction, supernatural, apocalyptic and dystopian as well as reads full of bad guys, vampires, werewolves and monsters of the deep. 

Unmissable new thriller books of 2026, vouched for by the experts

20 Must-Read Mysteries & Thrillers Heating Up This Winter

Audible's Psychological Science Fiction

The 10 Most Captivating Apocalypse Novels

The Most Anticipated Gothic and Dark Academia Novels of Fall 2026

12 Scary-Good Supernatural Thrillers

Currently on my TBR shelves for October is Dean Koontz's The Friend of The Family about a girl liberated from a carnival sideshow who discovers her mysterious purpose.  

Also Mervyn Peake's Ghormengast trilogy starting with Titus Groan in which "a grand miasma of doom and foreboding weaves over the sterile rituals of the castle. Villainous Steerpike seeks to exploit the gaps between the formal rituals and the emotional needs of the ruling family for his own profit."   

I'm contemplating a reread of Elizabeth Kostakova's The Historian since she is returning to a story about Dracula with the soon to be released  Mystery Play in which "the youngest son in a family of historians who has been hunted by dark forces associated with Dracula finds himself in peril at the hands of a new threat."

Have a thrilling, chilling, spooktacular October! 

BW39: Autumn

 

Happy Sunday!  Autumn slipped in while I was busy elsewhere. We are in the those in between days when the weather doesn't know what it wants to do.  I'm still plugging away reading Robin Hobb in the realm of the Elderling series with The Fitz and The Fool Trilogy.   I'll miss all the characters after finishing the last two books.  As with other multiple books series, I'll be sure to revisit them down the road.  Midway through Fool's Quest at the moment and just go to an exciting part and almost forgot to write my post for this coming week.  LOL! 

It time to delve into Autumn books as well as prepare for our Spooktacular read  for the month of October.  More on that next week! 

Autumnal Reads by Halcyon Days of Summer

Clean Fall Reads: Cozy Books to Read This Autumn

34 Books You Need to Read This Fall

 Fall in Love: 14 Cozy Autumn Romance Reads

Happy Reading! 

BW38: On an Apple Ripe September Morning

 

Happy Sunday! We are on vacation and traveling home today so will leave you with a Poem for your pleasure.

On an apple-ripe September morning

Through the mist-chill fields I went

With a pitch-fork on my shoulder

Less for use than for devilment.

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,

In Cassidy’s haggard last night,

And we owed them a day at the threshing

Since last year. O it was delight

To be paying bills of laughter

And chaffy gossip in kind

With work thrown in to ballast

The fantasy-soaring mind.

As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered

As I looked into the drain

If ever a summer morning should find me

Shovelling up eels again.

And I thought of the wasps’ nest in the bank

And how I got chased one day

Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,

How I covered my face with hay.

The wet leaves of the cocksfoot

Polished my boots as I

Went round by the glistening bog-holes

Lost in unthinking joy.

I’ll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,

The best job at the mill

With plenty of time to talk of our loves

As we wait for the bags to fill.

Maybe Mary might call round…

And then I came to the haggard gate,

And I knew as I entered that I had come

Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.

~ Patrick Kavanagh

BW37: P is for .....

 

Happy Sunday!  Today is Positive Thinking Day, National Peanut Day, Defy Superstition Day,  Fortune Cookie Day, Grandparents Day, Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day, Uncle Sam Day, and Pet Memorial Day. Make of it what you will and see what ideas they bring to mind for stories to read.   

Today is also my younger brother's 60th Birthday which means I've spend the past three or four weeks putting together a scrap book/photo album of memories, questions, and quests for the future.  It's been a fascinating and memorable dip into the past, present, and future. I finished it a couple days ago and mailed it out in time for his birthday  I'm tired. LOL!  

So I will leave you with a few interesting reads to explore: 

How to Be a Good Explorer on the Lifelong Expedition to Yourself

The Case for Prince who is also one of our Bingo Quests. Read a book about Prince, or a prince, or someone royal. 

Choose to read a book from the Hay Festival Book Club list. 

11 Great Books for New Sci-Fi/Fantasy Readers  I've read the majority of this list. 

Best Philosophical Fiction which brings to mind our Philip K Dick quest from Mind Voyages. I recently finished his Galactic Pot Healer which was dystopian, philosophical, and weird. 

Which reminds me, it's time to start thinking about what you want to read for our October Spooktacular. 

"I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain." — Purple Rain, Prince

BW36: Q is for Quirky

Happy Sunday! This week while we honor the workers on Labor Day, and the fallen on 9/11, we also have the fun and the frivolous.  Today is actually Read A Book day which supposedly appeared somewhere around 2017.  For those of who read every day, it seems weird that people would actually have to be reminded that books exist and that today is the day to read.  How sad is that....   The 7th is Neither Rain nor Snow day, the 8th Star Trek day, the 9th International Soduku Day, the 10th Swap Ideas day, the 11th is Rosh Hashanah, and the 12th is Chocolate Milk Shake Day. 

Our letter of the week is Q leading into our next Bingo Quest of Quirky:  something which is or someone who is, odd or unusual.  Q also stands for Quantum Mechanics, Queen, Quilting, Quintessential, Quack, and Queue to name a few.  And of course Quest.  

All bookish adventures are quests whether it's a heroes quest, side quest, a journey or jaunt, an undertaking or adventure, be it medieval, geographical, scientifical, or an odyssey through space.  

My adventures lately have been with Robin Hobb in the Realm of the Elderlings. I'm currently on the Tawny Man Trilogy and about to start the second book The Golden Fool in which we learn more about the Fool's past.  No spoilers. I have to admin some of the characters are quite quirky. *Grin*

Plus I'm looking forward to the latest installment in J.D. Robb's In Death series with #63 Fury in Death, release date September 8th. 

Happy Reading!

BW35: Authors of the Month - Kristin Hannah and George Orwell

 

Happy Sunday! We are heading into September and the fourth quarter of the year. Where did the time go?  This month we honor the American worker on Labor Day, remember the ones we lost on September 11th,  celebrate those who were Prisoners of War and those still Missing in Action on the 18th,  have fun with International Talk Like a Pirate day on the 19th,  welcome the beginning of Fall with the Autumn Equinox on the 22nd, and get silly with Ask a Stupid Question day on the 28th. 

Our literary legend of the month is George Orwell and our Contemporary Author is Kristin Hannah.  While both authors write stories that are entertaining and educational, George's books will make you think and are must reads, Kristin's historical fiction as well as contemporary stories will tug at the heartstrings.   

The ultimate guide to George Orwell’s books.  It's probably time for me to read 1984 again as much of the story reflects today with the manipulation of information, the changes in vocabulary, big brother type digital surveillance and the ability to track people through cameras, phones, and more.  

"A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching. Thought Police, Big Brother, Orwellian - these words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984. The story of one man's Nightmare Odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality."

Kristin Hannah’s books: a complete guide

I recently finished Hannah's historical fiction novel about nurses and Vietnam in The Women.  The Nightingale made me cry, whereas The Women not only made me cry, but made me mad for the suffering of the nurses and those who didn't believe them. 

"Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets―and becomes one of―the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era." 

Both authors are well worth reading! 

BW34: Bingo Quest: Finish the Series

Happy Sunday!  This is a week of celebrations as Hubby and I are celebrating our 29th Anniversary and his birthday a couple days later.   One of my wedding promises was that I'd never combine the two which I've kept to this day.  I told our technicians on Friday he would off on his birthday and your gift to hubby is the day off.  One gave me a deer in the headlights look and the other said, we'll handle it, have fun.  

Our life has turned into the long running series which will never get rewritten or taken over by another author. Whilst our life is a standalone I do love to read series. Like how I segued there? Hee hee!

I enjoy getting to know the characters and immersing myself in their world, their lives, troubles, and tribulations.  Some series I read until I can read no more.  Madam or Sir author, will you be coming out with another? 

Some I may read two or three. I give them a chance. Maybe the next one will be better? But find that the world is not intriguing enough or the characters fail to resonate with me.   

And some I discover have been taken over by another author whose writing makes it no longer for me.  Don't you hate it when the normal author's name is in huge letters at the top and below the title is the author who has taken over?  Fool me once.  When I immerse myself in an author's writing I can always tell the difference. Their writing voice is totally different.    

A few times I've discovered new series when the authors names are similar, right next to each other on the store shelf. I bought what I thought was a Dan Brown story only to discover it wasn't.  I thought he had branched out into writing techno thrillers but it didn't have his voice so I rechecked the cover. Duh! The book was written by Dale Brown who turned into a favorite of mine.  

While in the midst of finishing series, I'll begin new ones. You'd think I'd finish one before I start the other.  It took me ten years to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of time yet I binged read Diana Gabaldan's Outlander Series in six months.  

I discovered Robin Hobb last year and have been slowly making my way through the Realm of the Elderlings. I finished Farseer, Liveship Traders, and the Rain Wild trilogy. I recently back tracked and am currently reading The Tawny Man Trilogy.  I needed a break from Fitz for a while. LOL! 

Who are your favorite series authors?