Thanks, as always, goes to Sam @ Taking on a World of Words for hosting the weekly meme that keeps my TBR under some semblance of control and keeping the blog schedule organized. Two weeks in a row – let this start a streak!
If you want to participate in WWW, feel free! The more the merrier (and the bigger my TBR becomes). All you have to do is answer the Three W’s:
- What did you recently finish?
- What are you currently reading?
- And, what do you think you’ll read next?
CURRENTLY READING
My Big Summer Book, War and Peace is now my Big Fall Book. I am a bit panicked at how I am going to keep it going because I’m at a section that seems ripe for putting it aside – why are there so many chapters about Napoleon?!
The Once and Future Witches is just sitting there. Poor book. If I don’t touch it this week I think that I will put it back into my TBR shelf out of shame.
I am one chapter from finishing The People’s History of the United States! Actually, I’m hoping to finish it today.
I am half way through Lodestar, the fifth in The Keeper of the Lost Cities series. The drama of being a hyper-magical girl who is the key to keeping the whole world safe…I can’t stop.
WHAT DID I RECENTLY FINISH?
The only “book” I finished this week was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. The writing that convinced the colonies to break away from England was not a long read but it was a bit think. My favorite quote from the whole thing though is found in the section where he is arguing that we need our own navy because,
“We are not the little people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might have trusted our property in the streets, of fields rather; and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows”
Common Sense
This whole “life was better when we slept with unlocked doors” is always trotted out by people to demonstrate that our society used to be better but I didn’t realize that someone had been making this argument since 1776. I was cackling.
WHAT WILL I READ NEXT?
I am anxiously awaiting the first of the Cybils recommendations to start pouring in so I know there will be a lot of YA in the coming weeks!
Tell me, please! What’s on your WWW?
Silver Button Books 
I am so amused that someone has been making this unlocked doors argument since 1776 too!! It seemed like such a 1940s or 50s-based one to me! Also it’s just so dumb. A few years ago I read The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine and it was very amusing – about the author’s quest to try and find Paine’s missing bones. Apparently he had quite the active afterlife 🙂 You might like that one!
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I am adding it to the TBR! I felt the same – this feels like a very baby boomer thing to say. I cannot wait to read about his afterlife, thanks for the recommendation!
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That quote is brilliant! 😂
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Isn’t that hilarious!?! It would be like hearing him say “I walked to school, uphill, both ways.” I cannot stop telling people about it.
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A good load of books there. I want to read The Once and Future Witches at some point.
Have a great week!
Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
My post:
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The Once and Future Witches is starting to make me crazy. Not the book itself….just how many roadblocks I have experienced getting to read the story itself. Mishaps with an e-book, expired time on the audiobook, and now I have lost my physical copy! Someday….
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Oh no! That is all a bit freaky…
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Great looking books! Unlocked doors? Interesting thoughts.
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Isn’t it? I feel like everyone remembers this as being a thing when they were kids and I was surprised to see it referenced in 1776. Made me laugh. Some things never change!
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That’s a great quote about the unlocked doors: how funny! And some big old books you’re reading there. Do you recommend the Indigenous history of the US one? I’m reading the second volume of David Lodge’s memoirs, “Writer’s Luck” and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s “Nervous Conditions”, both of which are very enjoyable though hugely different. Next I want to get a very short volume of short stories read, as I’ve realised another blogger was having a September Short Stories theme and I have just the thing.
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I have really enjoyed the Indigenous People’s History. It is part of a six book series called Revisoning History. After this I am hoping to add the Queer History of America.
Your books are so different! I cannot wait to see your short story choice.
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What an awesome selection of books. I’m reading Dracula right now, but I’m hoping to finish it up tonight. I might have to give Common Sense a try. The locked doors thing is quite humorous.
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