Little Thoughts About Books and Stuff

  Currently Reading: Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas Date Started:  Feb. 21 Goodreads Summary:  International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood. If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison. Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father. Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to am...

 I wrote this for this week's IU Flash Fiction Challenge and forgot to submit it...but you get to read it here! Photo copyright K.S. Brooks.  Do not use without attribution. “Ah, there you are.” She said looking up from the book she was reading. “Where have you been?” She got up, picking up her iced  teacup  and sliding into her flip-flops.  “I thought something happened to y ou.”   She walked into the house as Old Rufus made his way up onto the porch. He had been coming here to sun himself for as long as he could remember.  He used to be carried out from the house and placed on a chair, then he got too big for the chair and laid on the floor.  Then he moved to the lake and would still make his way up the back yard to lay in his favorite spot.    He wouldn’t come every day, but she was right, a week was longer than he normally stayed away.  He didn’t do it on purpose, the days had gotten away from him and he suddenly got the cravin...

  Currently Reading: Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann Date Started:  Feb 4 Goodreads Summary:  A re-creation of one of the key moments of twentieth-century history: the partition and independence of India, and the final days of the Raj. Little Thoughts :  I'm really enjoying this book because I keep finding parts that I knew or connections to other historical people or events I already know about.  This is the Feb. pick for the book club I moderate.  Currently Listening: The Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Date Started: Feb 14 Goodreads Summary:  The novel features Jabez North, a manipulative orphan who becomes a ruthless killer; Valerie de Cevennes, a stunning heiress who falls into North’s diabolical trap; and Mr. Peters, a mute detective who communicates his brilliant reasoning through sign language. Little Thoughts :  Listening through Phoebe Reads a Mystery.  Chec...

Currently Listening: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne Date Started:  January 14 Goodreads Summary:  When an unidentified “monster” threatens international shipping, French oceanographer Pierre Aronnax and his unflappable assistant Conseil join an expedition organized by the US Navy to hunt down and destroy the menace. After months of fruitless searching, they finally grapple with their quarry, but Aronnax, Conseil, and the brash Canadian harpooner Ned Land are thrown overboard in the attack, only to find that the “monster” is actually a futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by a shadowy, mystical, preternaturally imposing man who calls himself Captain Nemo. Thus begins a journey of 20,000 leagues—nearly 50,000 miles—that will take Captain Nemo, his crew, and these three adventurers on a journey of discovery through undersea forests, coral graveyards, miles-deep trenches, and even the sunken ruins of Atlantis. Jules Verne’s novel of underse...