Hello, and Happy November!  What's everyone reading this month? 

I'm listening to The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, which is very charming.  I'm reading Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood, which is certainly not any great work of literature, but it's short and easy to read, and it will fufill one of last cateogry of the 2024 HF challenge that I need to complete. 

Speaking of the challenge . . . Caroline, any plans for 2025? I certainly don't mean to be presumptous, and you've been so kind to put the challenges together for a lot of years now, but if you're so inclined . . .  If not, we could certainly go back to the ol' standby, the alphabet challenge.  

Shelley,

I'm game for creating a new challenge.  I don't recall ever doing the aplhabet challenge in this forum.  Was that an option?

CR

Thanks, Caroline!  I believe one year, many, many years, ago, we did an alphabet challenge.  I'd have to look back at my reading journal to figure out when.  I've done it on my own several times since. The challenge was just to read a book for each letter of the alphabet.  The letter could be the beginning of the book title (excepting, I think words like "A," "The," etc.) or the first letter of the author's first or last name.  Something like that.  However, if you want to put together something more creative, I'm sure we would all be grateful!  

Hello!  Where is everyone this month? 

I finished listening to The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson yesterday (which I really enjoyed) and started listening to Unsinkable by Jenni L. Walsh (which I am also enjoying so far). Both are relatively new releases. 

I also finished Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood (a quick little fluff read but not too bad) and then started reading The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox. I'e read/listened to 42 books so far this year, and I'm hoping to make my goal of 50 before the end of December.  Kind of proud of myself since I haven't read that many books in a year in a very long time!  Each year I promise I'm going to read more, but I never seem to manage it.  Definitely on track this year! I'm also happy to report that I only have one more category to go with the HF Challenge for 2024, which is the "book from the libary" category.  I guess I should get myself down to the library soon and get a library card.  Since we moved 3 years ago, I have never even been to the library.  Kind of shameful, but when you have over 200 unread books on your bookshelf, Kindle and Audible, one doesn't have much need of the library.  LOL! 

Just finished The Shattered Tree by Charles Todd.  Also finished An Extravagent Death by Charles Finch and The Last Romanov by  Dora Levy Mossanen, all of which I quite liked.

Hello!  We are quiet around here this month! I finished listening to Unsinkable, which was pretty good.  I wearied of the attitudes of the two main characters, and I was hoping more of a connection between the two women would be more exciting than it was, but all in all, not a bad listen.  I bailed on The Meaning of Night, as I just wasn't getting into it, and I am now reading The Rhino Keeper.  I'm only about 50 pages in, and I'm a little "meh" on it, but it's short, so I will likely persevere.  

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was reading Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews - not HF.  It was good but it took me forever to read for some reason.

Anyway, I'm reading The Twisted Sword by Graham Winston.  Second to least book in the Poldark series.

I'm hoping to finalize the 2025 HF challenge during this break, so stay tuned!

CR

Carolyn - Oooh!  I will be checking back frequently to see the 2025 challenge.  So exciting!