camping prep

The West Wing, season 4, with Martin Sheen.  I like watching these; I don't have new observations to add, except that Toby is maybe my favorite.

The secret river by Kate Grenville.  This book has been wandering on and off my TBR list for at least a few years.  I would think about how much I loved The Lieutenant and be excited to read something else by the same author; then I'd worry that nothing could quite match it.

This was so good.  I'd like to come back to this author in a few years and reread the books-- the language is super beautiful, but in an unobtrusive way; it would lull me and at points I'd recognize that I'd read a few paragraphs in almost a trance.  It's the closest I can get to meditating, and it take a special way with sentences to get me there.

The main characters are flawed but relatable (some secondary characters seem a bit thin) and seem historically accurate.  It's a long story-- many years in a character's life-- and some years are passed over in brief, a few years in just a paragraph or two, but it gives a good, full story.  Highly recommended to all historical fiction readers.

Good as Lily by Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm.  This is a really sweet graphic novel for readers reflecting on life choices, not just for YAs.  After I started reading it, I read some reviews that panned it for the romance storyline, but that was a very small part of the story.  There is more to the story than "pick the friend-zoned guy early and you'll be happy later;" each of the character's separate selves is addressed by a different hurdle in the 18-year-old's life.