Happy Sunday! I’m sitting in my recliner, waiting for my bread machine to finish baking a loaf of sugar-free banana bread, and sipping on a hot coffee with peppermint mocha creamer. I’ve got a cinnamon and cloves candle burning and Fireplace for Your Home crackling on the TV. It’s raining off and on, keeping the temperatures cool (high 70s/low 80s – cool for Florida!) and I wanted to take a minute to check in.

This week is week 7 of the school year. Last year I thought I had discovered the most exhausted I had ever been, and then this year said “Hold my milk carton.” I can’t say a lot about my situation here because kids and parents are always looking for a way to “gotcha” – just know that if you’ve been keeping up with how Florida has been handling the crisis in the news, you’ve probably got an idea of what it feels like. Suffice it to say that it took me a little longer this year to get back into the brain space that allows me to have a reading routine.

I’ve been keeping up with the current season of Destiny 2, and when I’m playing solo I stream occasionally so feel free to follow/subscribe to my Twitch channel to get updates when I’m online and playing. Sometimes I’m on mic and sometimes I’m not but I do try to respond to anything typed int he chat. Keep it positive or get blocked. I’m hoping to branch out and stream other games but Destiny is just so familiar right now and I don’t have a lot of brain space to wrap around something new.

I’m currently reading three books.

I have been really into the fairy tale/myth/folklore retellings that have been hot in the publishing industry in the past couple of years, so when For the Wolf popped up on some of the “most anticipated” lists for 2021, I immediately added it to my preorders. It looks like Red Riding Hood but really it’s more like Beauty and the Beast, but only on the surface. There are a lot of things happening around the castle in the woods, and our two main characters may not be enough to hold the evil at bay. I’m about 67% of my way through and it’s balancing on the fine line between boring and suspenseful. There is a lot of repetitive language that weighs down the middle of the book, but it’s just interesting enough that I want to know where it all goes.

Amazon is getting ready to release season one of The Wheel of Time series on its Prime service, so I figured it was finally time for me to actually read through the series. The reviews of the show look good, so I’d like to have my foundation in the books firm before viewing so I can give honest and informed feedback.This is one of those books/series that I think I had to be in the right place to stick with, and so far that has proven to be true. I’ve read this first book several times but never stuck with it through the second one and beyond.

The similarities this story has with The Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR) are obvious, but it’s different enough that you don’t become complacent in your reading. Also I would strongly recommend this series if you liked the LOTR movies but could not get through reading the books. I couldn’t either, dear reader, and there is no shame in it. These books will offer a similar journey but with more modern and easily absorbed language. The plot is a lot so if you’d like a quick summary try this link for more info.

Now a major motion picture (again), Dune is a book that I have never read. I’ve taken it out of the library several times, but never started it before I had to return it. The trailers for the movie look amazing, and so much like I am reading The Eye of the World ahead of the series release, I wanted to make sure that I had read the classic before watching the (2021) movie version.

A small piece of trivia that my friend Ed Burmila likes to bring up about this novel is that when it was originally written and shopped around, no actual book publishers would buy it. So Frank Herbert published it through an auto repair manual printing company, and the profits kept that company in business for many years. If you want more info about the book, its plot and history, you can read more about it here.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope to provide you with some new reviews soon!

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