Literary Exploration Society to Expand Reading (Formerly 52 Books)

Sunday, August 18, 2024

BW34: Seeds

Happy Sunday! What do you think of when you hear the word "Seeds." Planting, germinating, thinking, gardening, tennis players, seeds of doubt, seeds of thought, parable of the mustard seed, or maybe even Svalbard to name a few.

Read a book with seed in the title.

Read a fiction or nonfiction book about Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

What to Read: 20 Children’s Books About Seeds and Plants

Rachel Gullo's Books That Were Seeds for My Novel

The Unusual Crops of Strange Trees & Plants

Best Fiction Books About Plants

Orchards in Romance Novels

“You shall be my roots and

I will be your shade,

though the sun burns my leaves.

You shall quench my thirst and

I will feed you fruit,

though time takes my seed.

And when I'm lost and can tell nothing of this earth

you will give me hope.

And my voice you will always hear.

And my hand you will always have.

For I will shelter you.

And I will comfort you.

And even when we are nothing left,

not even in death,

I will remember you.”

― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Happy Reading!

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

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Sunday, August 11, 2024

BW33: 52 Books Bingo - Tell Me a Secret

Happy Sunday! Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Tell Me a Secret. I loved books with secrets. Books about secret agents, secret societies, secret doors and passageways, secret towns or a town with a secret, secret friendships or relationships, family secrets. That hidden something the characters, people, companies, or place want to keep hidden and everyone else is trying to uncover. Read a book about a secret or with secret in the title.

Pan MacMillan’s Books with secrets

Modern Mrs. Darcy’s 20 notable novels featuring family secrets

Penguin Random House Page-Turning Spy Novels

Goodread’s Best Books of Secrets

Big T, little T, what begins with T: Tenacious, transparent, taboo, and twists.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

Sunday, August 4, 2024

BW32: August Author of the Month - Marie Brennan

Happy Sunday! Welcome to August and our Author of the Month - Marie Brennan who is best known for her Memoirs of Lady Trent series. Brennan has also written several other science fiction fantasy series as well as numerous short stories. I am currently on the third book in her Lady Trent series - Voyage of the Basilisk - and looking forward to reading the rest of the series which just so happen to be available for free on Kindle Unlimited.

August is also Romance Awareness Month and International Pirate Month which means it looks like we'll have some swashbuckling pirates to read about as well. And since we're still in the Dog Days of Summer, today is National Water Balloon Day. So fill up some balloons with water and cool down with a royal water balloon fight.

We're counting down the year with our A to Z and Back again challenge and this week's letter is U. Big U, little U, authors names that begins with U. Uris, Unger, Undset, Ure, Underhill to name a few. Also, look for books with U in the title such as Unbroken, U is for Undertow, The Ugly Duckling, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, or Under the Net.

Understand?

Have fun uncovering unique and uplifting or ubiquitous reads!

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Sunday, July 28, 2024

BW31: Vetiver by John Ashbery

Big V, little V, what begins with V. Virtual, vintage, vanguard, vault, vernacular, verses, and vignettes all sound good to me.

Vetiver

By

John Ashbery

Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay,

As the flowers recited their lines

And pike stirred at the bottom of the pond.

The pen was cool to the touch.

The staircase swept upward

Through fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholy

Already distilled in letters of the alphabet.

It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugar

Palaces and also lines of care

At the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks,

The color once known as “ashes of roses.”

How many snakes and lizards shed their skins

For time to be passing on like this,

Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound toward

The conclusion. It had all been working so well and now,

Well, it just kind of came apart in the hand

As a change is voiced, sharp

As a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowed

Past us into a basin called infinity.

There was no charge for anything, the gates

Had been left open intentionally.

Don’t follow, you can have whatever it is.

And in some room someone examines his youth,

Finds it dry and hollow, porous to the touch.

O keep me with you, unless the outdoors

Embraces both of us, unites us, unless

The birdcatchers put away their twigs,

The fishermen haul in their sleek empty nets

And others become part of the immense crowd

Around this bonfire, a situation

That has come to mean us to us, and the crying

In the leaves is saved, the last silver drops.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

BW30: Water

Happy Sunday. It's hot, hot, hot and since today is National Ice Cream Day, a bowl or cone filled with ice cream would absolutely hit the spot. Also our next 52 Books Bingo Category will help keep us cool - Water. Read a story set in, on, around or under a body of water. A story about the ocean, a lake, a pond, a river, or even a puddle. A story in which it seems water is almost a character. There are so many ways to go with this category.

Once by the Pacific

Robert Frost

The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in,

And thought of doing something to the shore

That water never did to land before.

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.

You could not tell, and yet it looked as if

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,

The cliff in being backed by continent;

It looked as if a night of dark intent

Was coming, and not only a night, an age.

Someone had better be prepared for rage.

There would be more than ocean-water broken

Before God's last Put out the light was spoken.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

Sunday, July 14, 2024

BW29: Xylophone

Happy Sunday! We're on X in our A to Z and Back and Again and X seems to be one of the hardest letters to find for titles and or authors so let's make it easy. Find a book with a x anywhere in the title with the X sound such as excellent, excel, extra, exploit, or fox, tux, wax, maximum, or hoax. Looking on my shelves, I find Exit Strategy by Martha Wells, Axis by Robert Charles Wilson, or Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch. Authors such as Qui Xiaolong or Roxanne St. Claire or Alexandra Ivy or C.J. Box. Have fun and be creative.

Xylophone

Jimmy

Synapses, flick flack, brain waves, where was I? There i went

Rewinded it, but it sounds all too different.

I better record this, but it's too late. Where was I?

A thousand smiles in my motor functions. It's moving, like a butterfly.

I'm moving, like a butterfly, my mind is moving, like a butterfly.

And that's all there is to it.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

BW28: July Author of the Month - Ashley Poston

Happy Sunday! Our July author of the month is Ashley Poston. I recently read The Dead Romantics and fell in love with the charming story about a ghostwriter who falls in love with a ghost. It was humorous as well as touching and hit me in all the feels. Which meant I wanted to read more of her stories and added the time slipping romance, The Seven Year Slip as well as her young adult science fiction adventure Heart of Iron to my stacks.

Plus her newest novel, released on June 25th, A Novel Love Story:

"Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.

But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel…

Because it is.

This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.

Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.

Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.

Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own."

I love books about books. We probably all dream of getting lost in the fictional settings from our books at one time or another. Which fictional setting would you most like to dive into?

Big Y, little Y, what begins with Y: Yesterday, Yearn, Yum, Yoga, and Yabba Dabba Doo!

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Sunday, June 30, 2024

BW27: Zen and the art of ....

Happy Sunday! We're headed for a heat wave this coming week, and I've peopled way too much so totally ready to hibernate in the cool with one or two or three books. We're past the halfway point in our 52 Books journey and moving backwards through the alphabet from Z to A. We can be zen, we can zoom, we can zigzag, we can stay in the zone. We can read books that move in reverse chronology. We can read books about Z and the art of ... motorcycles, writing, saving the planet, or even the art of stand up comedy. We can read about zoo's or zombie's or zorro or zealots. There are so many ways we can go.

Zinfandel

By
Rick Fernandez

In the skies a wizard flies

Spreading magic dust.
There is a fire in his eyes
It's Zinfandel or bust.

The animals have seen his stare
And await their manna from heaven.
There's so much magic in the air
As they go on misbehaving.

The seal he wears a crown of gold
The deer in field goes grazing.
Behold! Behold! as tales are told
In this magicland so amazing.

Happy Reading!

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Sunday, June 23, 2024

BW26: We're halfway there

Happy Sunday! Are you ready for the halftime show? The year is zipping right along, full of zingy and Zen reads, full of zaddy characters, zaffre settings, and zeal. I added to my stacks when on vacation in Texas when we stopped by a Barnes and Noble while waiting for a table at the restaurant across the way, plus found a little book store at the airport while waiting for a very delayed flight to return home. Plus I had fun exploring my nieces and nephews book shelves and since we have similar tastes in science fiction and fantasy, chatting about stories. And now I'm off again for a belated father's day celebration with my father in law so time is short.

What has been your most favorite story so far this year? Have you discovered a new author or series to explore? Any interesting book news you'd like to share?

June 23rd is Let it Go Day, June 24th is Celebration of the Senses day, June 25th is the day to celebrate The Beatles, the 26th is Forgiveness day, the 27th is National Handshake Day, the 28th is National Food Truck Holiday and last but not least, the 29th is Hug Holiday. So don't worry and be happy, go out and shake someone's hand or give them a huge hug, and eat plenty of food, while you listen to the Beatles.

Peace!

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Sunday, June 16, 2024

BW25: Happy Father's Day

Happy Sunday and happy Father's day to all our dad's. The June Solstice is upon us as of the 20th which means we are celebrating the beginning of Summer here in the Northern hemisphere and Winter in the Southern hemisphere.

An Ode To Dads

Melodia Ortez

Dads are the rock that holds us strong,

A compass to guide us all along,

The foundation of our lives they create,

A stronghold of love that's never late.

With strength and support, they stand by our side,

A beacon of hope that never hides,

Dads are the world we live in each day,

And their love is what lights the way.

Y is for Yabba Dabba Do, Yesteryear, Yum, and Yes.

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Sunday, June 9, 2024

BW24: X marks the spot

Happy Sunday! It's time to go on a reading adventure and conveniently, our next 52 Books Bingo category is Adventure. Find a book about a treasure hunt or go on a treasure hunt for a new title or unread book in your home library.

Pick a book by the cover and pick it up. What captured your attention? The author, the title, or the picture? Does it tickle your fancy? Is it by an author you've read before or a brand new author? Don't peak at the synopsis on the back or the inside flap. Yes, I know, it's ridiculously hard. What do you think it will be about? Suppose you go into it blind and read it. Were your suppositions close or no cigar?

Choose a random book based on its position on the shelf in your home library or the public library, or the book store. Decide in advance or leave it up to chance and pick a shelf, pick an aisle, pick a genre. First decide which shelf you will choose from - top, 2nd, 3rd, fourth, or bottom shelf, pick a number between 1 and 30, assuming there are probably 30 books to a shelf, then read that book.

My son does it all the time when we go to Barnes and Noble and finds the most fascinating reads, for himself, me, or for his dad.

Have fun treasure hunting!

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Sunday, June 2, 2024

BW23: Words

Welcome to June and our month of celebrating fathers, summer, gardening, and the great outdoors. This week is devoted to the window of the world with words. The wild and wacky, wonderful and winsome, the witty and weary, world of words that whisper and weave the wonderous who, what, where, when, and why of words.

Our author of the month is Akwaeke Emezi, a Nigerian author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as a film writer, musician, and artist. Last year, I read one of her stories - You Made A Fool Out of Me with Your Beauty. There were so many layers to this story: loss and grief, sexual attraction, choices, and love, sorrow and learning to live again. After the loss of her husband, Feyi is trying to figure out if she can ever love again. She plunges into the dating waters full steam ahead, trying to figure out who and what she wants. She's a woman exploring the sexual waters and falling in love with someone she didn't expect. The beginning of the story fooled me when it went full boil with a sexual escapade, but I gave it a chance. It simmered down and the more I learned more about Feyi, the deeper I became invested in her story. It was crude, it was raw. It was full of angst, full of sorrow. Full of choices, and full of love.

“It was like a fork in the road has closed, shut off by an avalanche of grief, choked with rocks and a broken heart. It wasn't supposed to open, and honestly, it still hadn't, but somehow, an entirely new path had formed, green and creeping.”

You Made A Fool Out of Me with Your Beauty sticks with you long after finishing it and makes one think. One of the themes is all about choice. The choice on the characters who wants to make a choice for himself, when in the past, all his choices were for his children. When he choose himself, it got me to thinking about some decisions we make which aren't about the other person but about us. Food for thought.

I'm looking forward to reading The Death of Vivek Oji next.

Her stories aren't for the faint at heart as they contain LQBTQ supporting cast characters, graphic sex, and crude language, so if you'd like, stick with our letter of the week, and check out Oscar Wilde, E.B. White, Elie Wiesel, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Colson Whitehead, Alice Walker, or Martin Walker to name a few.

Happy reading!

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Pages

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Sunday, August 4, 2024

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Vetiver

By

John Ashbery

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Sunday, June 23, 2024

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Sunday, June 9, 2024

Sunday, June 2, 2024