Peacefield

Frankie, I keep the wee chunk of Berlin wall in a little jar on my bookshelf. Next to my other little jar of sand from a beach I visited in Maine many years ago . I keep a few photos inside the van Gogh book/box, but that's it for now. They also had a Monet box and a Klimt so it was hard to decide which one I wanted! I started and finished Boundary Waters over my long weekend. It was the second in the 'Cork O'Connor' series by William Kent Krueger and I loved it. It kept the pace and I honestly couldn't put it down. Plus with this series all being set in northern Minnesota, everything seemed very familiar to me which made me love it more. I'm looking forward to book 3! I don't own it, so until I do I decided to start up The Last Bookaneer again by Matthew Pearl. Hopefully my brain gets on board this time!

Ahhh, yes! I know it well. For some reason my mind went to air travel and I was like oooh, nice Pretty much every building in existence here has air conditioning but I'm with you on it being a big win with your new job! Congrats again Wooo Noll for having a job and a good holiday coming up! I'm so very happy for you. Today is the end of a long work week for me! It's a half day for me so later I'll hit the gym for a workout before my dance jam class. Tomorrow morning I'm meeting an old colleague of mine for breakfast and then I'm keeping myself home to get some much needed things done. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

BookShelfy, when you were talking about your new job up there you mentioned 'air con.' What is that? Congrats and a shhhYIPPEEshhh from me on your job! Being the old Scrooge that I am, I probably won't be putting up any Christmas stuff for another few weeks. But you have fun, Athena! I baked a couple loaves of lemon zucchini bread last night for a bake sale today at work and they smell so good sitting next to me on my desk! My cup of coffee is slowly inching itself towards them...

Hmm... what does yeast extract even taste like, though? I'm intrigued! Sausage rolls also make me think of Fatayer, which is a Lebanese meat pie. They are ground beef (minced) and onions inside yummy buttered dough. I make them a few times a year and they are my fave .

What exactly is Marmite? I'm afraid to watch that video in case it'll put me off, ha! I normally think of pigs-in-a-blanket as mini hot dogs wrapped in flaky dough, but according to Google they can be wrapped in bacon too. Who knew?! I forgot about those though - I haven't had them in years! I remember my mom making them when I was a kid and serving them with Macaroni and Cheese. So the meat inside a sausage roll is minced? Or is an actual sausage in casing? It's popular at parties to have slow cookers full of bacon wrapped 'wienies'.' My friend has a really good recipe with brown sugar and honey. Now I'm hungry...

Yes, I'm afraid I know not of this 'sausage roll' to which you speak. But it's not like you Brits know of every American delicacy, right? We don't normally put a savory meat inside a flaky pastry, at least in my neck-o-the woods. Pastry like that is reserved for sweet jams and custards. Now regular dough, yes, because we have meat pies and things like calzones. I love to watch videos of people from the UK try food from the US and vice versa

HBD, Noll! I hope you have a fab day, and 28 is nothing! Just wait until you're 40, it's all downhill from there! I hope Boris is on the mend, Athena. It's so hard seeing pets ill, I know, especially since they can't tell you exactly what's wrong. I'm afraid I'm one of those grumpy bah humbug winter types. Getting to work when it's dark and going home when it's dark is just too depressing for me. The worse part is driving in the snow and ice. Maybe if I lived somewhere else where the winters weren't so frigid like they are in MN I'd like it better? But I cannot wait until the winter solstice next month when the days start getting longer. Yay!

Oooh, I quite like the sound of this one, Diane! It sounds right up my alley and also something my mom would like too, so I'm adding it to my wishlist. Thanks!!

Love it, Frankie! What a treasure . It looks like it'd be fun to make, too!

I haven't read a ton of King's work since his old stuff, but I did enjoy Under the Dome and my favorite by far was Joyland. I was underwhelmed by Dr. Sleep and only really enjoyed one of the short stories in Full Dark, No Stars. I haven't read Revival, Mr. Mercedes or the one about JFK. Pre-It, I loved it all@

I'm sorry I couldn't partake in this weekend's read-a-thon, Frankie! I curse my brain sometimes since I have so many things I like/need to do, and reading sometimes takes a back seat I'm about to go start my own blog and will fill you in on some details. I hope you all got a lot of reading in yourselves! I think you might want to wait to read TIotF, as it's pretty involved and intense. I just had a friend in fact who had to quit because it was too much for her. But honestly if you can make it through the 2nd part, you're home free and will be SO glad you stuck with it! Funnily enough, Frankie, I have a degree in Interior Design. So yes, I love putting things together to look just so, and I'm very attached to the things I buy or that get handed down to me. Or gifts I receive, for that matter! I even have a tiny chunk of the Berlin wall, which I received from a foreign exchange student friend of mine while we were in high school. The van Gogh book isn't a book, it's a box but made to look like a book . I got it this past May when I was in California. Bobbly, it's interesting to hear your opinion on The Slap! Did you all get the TV show over there? I think Zachary Quinto was in it. Thanks, Athena!

Oh man, how is it already Thursday?? Between work and the gym, this week has been nuts. At night I haven't been in the mood to do anything that required great concentration and focus, so I've been watching a lot of Midsomer Murders and not reading my book . I did, however, rearrange my bookshelves last weekend like I promised so below are the 'after' photos. It struck me that they don't look too awfully different from the 'before,' but it still felt good to change things up a bit. Frankie, you'll notice I took out all the records I had on the bottom shelf. I DO have a record cabinet, and it's full. I also have records in my closet in addition to the ones on my book shelf . I have a lot to say the least. Some of them are mine, but most of them belonged to my dad. He had a massive jazz collection that I love to peruse and play. I decided one of my winter projects would be to catalog all the records in a spreadsheet so I've got them in the dining room waiting to be looked at. Oh my god, Frankie, TIotF is the BEST! You seriously cannot get any better than a book like that. To say I would highly recommend it is a huge understatement. And yes, TLatU is a Tracy Chevalier. She is another one of my favorite authors. She writes lovely historical fiction and I've read everything of hers. She has a new one coming out in the spring of 2016 called At the Edge of the Orchard and I can't wait! Her most recent one before this was The Last Runaway and was about runaway slaves in Ohio in 1850. Fascinating and another one I'd highly recommend. Thanks for The Slap recommendation! I thought I saw this advertised on TV awhile ago but I didn't know it was a book first. Creating a blog/thread for myself is on my to-do list this weekend . Rest assured I'll post a photo of my chair collection! The top shelf on this one is dedicated to my TBR books (disappointingly sparse compared to most of your guys'!). The bottom shelf is for my art/design books and other movie/music titles. The rest of the shelves house fiction/poetry that I love and cherish. This is my little shelf strictly for United States and Minnesota history . The rest of my book collection, which are mostly fiction paperbacks, are in 4 plastic bins under my bed. Hopefully one of these days I'll move into a house that will hold many more shelves on which I can put them!

You don't have to be intimidated, Frankie! It's 784 pages of AWESOMENESS !! Plus this beautiful piece of art is at its core and it's a Pulitzer Prize winner! Seriously, you can't go wrong

I mentioned earlier that I need to rearrange my bookshelves and I'm determined to do it this weekend! I need to make room for more books but the trouble is I also like my other 'stuff.' Obviously more bookshelves would be ideal but my place just can't hold any more. I wanted to do a before and after, so here are the befores

Oooh, thanks for that recommendation, Frankie, that looks like something I'd enjoy! I've added it to my Wish List at Amazon. I really enjoy stories told from different perspectives. Though not suspenseful-type reads, 2 of my top 10 books are like that, The Instance of the Fingerpost and The Lady and the Unicorn. Did you hear that they're making a film of GotT? Emily Blunt is apparently going to be playing Rachel. I've not heard of the director but he did The Help, which I loved, so hopefully that's a good sign. I promise I'm going to start my own blog/thread this weekend and feature my chair collection! I think I have a free hour or two

Thanks, Athena! Last night I decided to start The Magnolia League by Katie Crouch. It's not on par with the type of suspenseful book I was thinking of but I wasn't in the mood for anything else on my shelf that fit the bill so Magnolia League it is! I picked this one up at the book sale I went to last month so I know nothing about the author or other works by her. Let's hope it's not too disappointing!

I finished Girl on the Train last night and was gripping the book pretty tight during those last pages! I really like this type of narrative, where it's taken from different people's points of view. It's funny though because even though I saw each chapter and who's perspective it was told from, I didn't really pay attention to the date that was listed. I think it would've confused me and I would have been constantly checking back to compare dates. After I finished, however, I did go back and see what was happening when and how it compared to what was happening to someone else in the story at that time. I feel like I'm still in a suspense/thriller-y mood, so I'm going to hunt around and see what I have that fits the bill .

I saw Paddington last week (loved it, so cute!) and Saturday night I watched Pitch Perfect 2. I thought the first movie was vastly superior.

Wow, that's very surprising and I can't think of a critic's statement I'd agree with less, Bobbly! I'm looking forward to reading your review too .

I finished Girl on the Train last night and am deciding on what to read next. I'm very much in the mood for more suspenseful-type reading! Hmmm... I'm so glad you enjoyed The Goldfinch, Bobbly!!

Woo-hoo for jobs and double woo-hoo for art clubs! Love those . We have 4-H over here, is it the same organization in Finland? Wiki says it's a 'Global network of youth organizations whose mission is "engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development." Libraries here are for the most part free. I haven't been in awhile but I think the only books they charge for are brand new best-sellers where there are a lot of people waiting to read. That's kind of odd to me, you'd think that maybe they'd shorten the borrowing time or something so everyone would have a chance with a book, not charge extra.

Well, I had to re-start Girl on the Train since it had been about a week since last reading, but I've begun in earnest now . I'm a 1/3rd in and am very much intrigued! I also picked up a book for my mom for the holidays entitled Minnesota Nature Notes by Jim Gilbert. A review of the book on Amazon perfectly sums up what it's about: If you live in Minnesota, if you love Minnesota, if you know someone who does, you need this book. If you don't understand why people live here, or have wondered what it would be like...you need to buy this book! Jim Gilbert, a resident naturalist and phenologist (observer and recorder of nature) has written a wonderful "diary" of the nature of our state. Week by week he takes us through the expected changes we can observe through the seasons by watching the birds and critters, the plants and the weather - even providing such wonderfully minute information as the "Ice-out" dates on Lakes Waconia and Wolf over a ten year period. An engaging writer, Gilbert draws you from the pages of the book, first to the window, then out into the weather. I thought it would be a perfect book, especially for the cabin, so we could keep track of all the busy-ness of the outdoors in nature .

HBD this weekend, Athena! I hope you have a lot of fun at your celebration with your friends, family and food! Your weekend sounds lovely, Virginia. A perfect blend of shopping, relaxing and being with ones you love. I'm doing my usual of working from home tomorrow and then hitting the gym for my Zumba class. Saturday morning bright and early I'm meeting my friends at a flea market, the last of the season, and will be having lunch afterwards. Other than that I also see house cleaning in my future and hopefully reading and working on art projects. I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead of them!

Ooooh, I hope one of them is for The Goldfinch!

That's nice the new season of BBT starts not that long after it does here in the US, Claire. Too bad it's not like that with British series starting over here!