An Unexpectedly Bookish Weekend
An Unexpectedly Bookish Weekend
and some perfectly delightful reads
Happy Saturday, my friends! I am so excited to share about my adventures in Milwaukee last weekend, as well as the books that enhanced my trip. Grab your favorite beverage and settle in!
An Unexpectedly Bookish Weekend
As I mentioned last Saturday, I spent last weekend in Milwaukee visiting with family and participating in a half marathon with my 21-year-old niece. All of that was just as delightful as expected, AND I ended up listening to amazing audiobooks, spending over an hour in a bucket list bookshop, and had hours of uninterrupted reading time. Besides the inevitable physical pain of pushing my body over 13.1 miles of pavement, it was an absolutely wonderful weekend.
The first stop was visiting my Oma near the city. Four generations were able to come together to visit her that morning ~ two of her daughters, three granddaughters (me included!) and a great granddaughter! She doesn’t recognize most of us any more, but was tickled to have so many devoted loved ones coming to see her. As anyone with an aging loved one knows, it’s heartbreaking to have our cherished people forget us, but just spending time with them is still so important. We took times visiting with her as to not overwhelm her, as we are a VERY loud and chatty bunch!
After saying goodbye to family, I headed to Boswell Book Company, *the* bookstore in Milwaukee that I have been wanting to go to forever but never have found or made the time for1 until this weekend. I am SO HAPPY I finally went! I am grateful to have had zero timeline for this visit because I was there for a very, very long time. I went in with just an agenda of finding books high on my priority list or that otherwise just struck my eye ~ I’m very happy with my selection ☺
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is super popular in my library, and my own 7th grader wants to read it too. Rather than taking a copy from my students, I figured I’d just buy a copy for our house.
Exposure is on my priority TBR for the season.
Birnam Wood has been on my radar since its release, but I happened to catch the comment from
about it on that day’s newsletter before walking in to the store…. and then this was sitting on a feature table right when I walked in! Kismet.At First Spite is by a favorite author, but for some reason I haven’t read this yet!
After a long time browsing, I headed back to my car and navigated to my hotel, which was right next to the Baird Center downtown, the site of the race expo.2 I checked in, got settled, and then walked over to get our race numbers and shirts. I accidentally first went to the wrong place and ended up at a tattoo convention, which was cool and a very different vibe than the race expo!
And then. Then I went back to the hotel and read. And then went to a hotel restaurant and ate dinner while reading. And then went back to my room and read and took a bath and read and then read some more. It was AMAZING. I often go months and months without ever being home alone - once over a year! - and this uninterrupted quiet reading time was such a balm to my frazzled soul.
On Sunday it was HALF MARATHON DAY! My niece and I had an appropriately and hilariously chaotic experience trying to get to the start and finding each other and then we were off! We got to spend hours together laughing and chatting and being in pain together and truly, nothing is as bonding as ending a half marathon with four miles back and forth on the Hoan Bridge.
And now it’s time for a season of lots more yoga and strength training and COLD excursions with the pups! I love that even my movement routines change with the seasons ♡
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Perfectly Delightful Reads
The first two books here are just perfectly complementary! The covers, yes, but also the NYC locations and stories involving long lost friendships newly resurrected. I listened to Make Me a Mixtape the day before, and on the drive to Milwaukee, and was reading Vintage Contemporaries in print simultaneously. We Solve Murders was the perfect audiobook to keep me hooked on my (painful) drive home.
Make Me a Mixtape by Jennifer Whiteford ~ I just ADORED this quirky romance set in the world of punk bands, cozy coffee shops and NYC. Great queer representation, a male love interest with a belly, loveable side characters and a tiny mystery to solve from the past. THIS is the kind of romance I'm always trying to find ~ original and loveable and with characters who are charmingly realistic. Want even more books like this? Check out my Falling for Romance collection!
Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois ~ I was surprised to find myself just falling into this story of female friendships, gentrification, new motherhood, and most prominently, the publishing industry in New York City. It's quirky and charmingly set in the 1990s and 2000s ~ given that's when I became an adult, it was so nostalgic. It's also one of the very few books written by man but from the POV of a woman and it works SO WELL. This is what I read and read and read at the hotel!
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman ~ I loved this book SO MUCH on audio! The perfect mix of quirky characters, a mystery I couldn't solve and great travel / location descriptions. I so appreciate a mystery that is as much about the characters themselves as it is about the actual case to be solved, and this one fits that description to a T. I can't wait for more in the series!
That’s all for this week ~ thanks for reading!
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The first hurdle to trying new places is always just finding them and putting them in perspective with other places I know in an area. Now that I know where it is, it’s much less intimidating to think of stopping here even when driving through the city!
Race organizers of big races like these seem to think navigating to convention centers in city centers the day before a race is NBD. IT IS A BD. Numerous times I have had to go to McCormick Place in Chicago to pick up a race number and t-shirt the day before a race and the amount of extra driving, traffic, parking stress is TOO MUCH. PLEASE STOP THIS.
I got Olivia Dade’s At First Spite at the library this week! We were at Lego club day but my 5 yo isn’t as invested as my 7 yo so we were browsing books for a long time. Reading in hotels is amazing, I still remember the year it poured rain on Saturday when we were in a hotel for our anniversary and I read for like 4 hours while my husband watched the Panthers game before it cleared out when we went to dinner.
Congratulations on your half marathon 🏅! Having lots of time to read sounds blissful, so restorative. Make me a Mixtage and Vintage Contemporaries both sound fab, will check them out.