July's Favorite Finds

I was never one to want busy summers but as the kids have grown so have the activities and I do love the community and joy they provide. This year we have three kids working summer jobs, two who went on a missions trip, one who went to camp, and two months of swim team has just come to a close.

Now we enter a sweet three weeks between swim team ending and cross country starting. I’m enjoying not running off to morning practices and swim meets but also eager to get some larger house projects done during this little lull.

In between all the activities I’ve been listening, watching, and reading whenever there’s spare time or while doing a chore.

Listening:

This could fall into the listening or reading category because I toggle between doing both. Lonesome Dove has accompanied me while pulling weeds, making dinner, or driving. Two other friends are reading it with me and we gathered this very morning at a local coffee shop to discuss it up to the end of Part 2.

I’ve heard of Lonesome Dove for as long as I can remember even though I know of no one who had read it. It was just one of those cultural things I knew about, probably due to the miniseries coming out when I was eleven years old. I knew it was about a cattle drive but that was it. I became more aware of it recently through Bookstagram. Maybe it was the fact it just celebrated it’s fortieth anniversary, or that an interest in westerns has risen recently (hello, Yellowstone), but it seems a new generation has discovered it.

It definitely develops at the pace of a trail ride: slow yet steady, taking in the scenery as you go. The characters have time to develop between hail storms, bandit raids, and river crossings, and I’ve come to love so many of them. And my Ennegram five personality is googling things like “how common was prostitution in the Old West?” (way more than Little House on the Prairie lets on) or “are there such things as water moccasin nests?” or “can you survive after being scalped?”

I’ll give a final review once I make it to the end of the trail.

Watching:

The kids and I watched Young Sherlock and it was a good romp and fun to watch together although it had a pretty convoluted plot. This spring I blew through The Gilded Age and completely enjoyed the lavish production and large cast of characters. If you like period dramas this one is sure to suck you in as old money and new money struggle for social and economic power. It’s like Downton Abbey in the United States.

Reading:

I loved Emma M. Lion so I decided to explore Beth Brower’s back list, starting with The Q. I don’t know what it is about Beth Brower’s writing but even when she’s not writing fantasy there’s a fantastic element to her stories. The Q follows Quincy St. Claire who is obsessed with running her uncle’s newspaper business and has made it incredibly successful and profitable.

However, when her uncle dies, he specifies that she can’t inherit the business until she fulfills various requirements, although Quincy doesn’t know what those requirements are. The only person her uncle entrusted with those details was her annoying solicitor, Arch. Now Quincy risks losing what she loves most, her business, if she can’t crack the code on her uncle’s mysterious requirements.

I didn’t like this book as much as Emma but it was a unique and enjoyable read.