MichiganTrumpet Toots Again!

Hello and Welcome!! My name is Marianne, recently retired after several *ahem* decades as a lawyer in Boston, MA. Before that, I attended school in Ann Arbor, hence the username. Mine is an eclectic mix of reading, spanning serious to fluff and both fiction and non-fiction. I managed to squeak by with 77 books last year. Whew!

This is my fifth year in the 75er group. Last year was a complete bust as to active posting, Real life intervened as I wrapped up my career. I did plenty of lurking keeping track of you all. I hope to be more present in the upcoming year! I look forward to reacquainting myself with old friends and making some new ones. All the while dodging the BBs flying fast and furious around here!

I ADORE 75er meet ups! The true highlights have been meeting up with Caroline (Cameling), Suzanne (Chatterbox), Darryl (Kidzdoc), Jim (magiciansnephew), Judy (ffortsa), Benita (Benitastrnad), Mark (msf59, and Terri (TLoeffler).

Look me up if you're in the area!

My Top Fiction Reads for 2018:

Transcription
There There
Circe
Macbeth (The Jo Nesbo/Hogarth Shakespeare Series version)
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Go, Went, Gone
Lincoln in the Bardo (For the many actors/voices on the audio version)
Exit West
The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

My Top Non-Fiction Reads For 2018:
Educated
Becoming
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Fashion Climbing: A Memoir With Photographs
The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border
Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret

The Countdown!!




1. The Endless Beach by Jenny Colgan
2. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
3. The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre
4. The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Still is a Boys’ Club by Eileen Pollack
5. Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict
6. Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America by Alissa Quart
7. Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
8. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
9. The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye
10. The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
11. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
12. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
13. First Family: Abigail and John Adams by Joseph Ellis
14. Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
15. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
16. Free Food For Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
17. The Gown by Jennifer Robson
18. White Corridor by Christopher Fowler
19. The Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley
20. Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
21. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
22. The Only Story by Julian Barnes
23. Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King
24. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
25. The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
26. The Art of Racing In the Rain by Garth Stein
27. The Condition by Jennifer Haigh
28. Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey
29. The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr
30. Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz
31. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
32. The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn
33. The Waiter by Matias Faldbakken
34. This is Your Life Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
35. Knife: A New Harry Hole by Jo Nesbo
36. The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott
37. Paris For One and Other Stories by Jojo Mayes
38. The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall
39. The Room on Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel
40. Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg
41. The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan
42. La Seduction by Elaine Sciolino
43. The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman
44. You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
45. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
46. Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen L Carter
47. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
48. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
49. Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the Powerless Woman Who Took On Washington by Patricia Miller
50. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
51. The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee
52. One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
53. The Winemaker’s Wife by Kristin Harmel
54. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
55. The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle
56. Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin
57. The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst

As I took a deep breathe before shutting off the lights of my cleared-out office, it felt vaguely reminiscent of the finale of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Happy and bittersweet all at the same time. It's a Long Road to Tipperary!



So, fellow 75ers -- I toss myself onto your collective wisdom:

What tips or advice to do you have for a successful retirement?

End of the Year Meme, Using Titles I Read in 2018:

Describe yourself: Educated
Describe how you feel: Becoming
Describe where you currently live: Florida
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Heartland
Your favorite form of transportation: A Truck Full of Money
Your best friend is: Circe
You and your friends are: Fashion Climbing
What’s the weather like: Smoke
You fear: Killers of the Flower Moon
What is the best advice you have to give: There Are No Grown-Ups
Thought for the day: There There
How you would like to die: French Exit
Where/What are you eating: Whiskey in a Teacup
My soul’s present condition:Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness

Hi Marianne! Happy reading in your new retirement.

>5 richardderus: My first guest! Welcome, Richard! Only just getting into this retirement gig. It kinda just feels like vacation at the moment. Suppose it will sink in eventually.

Happy New Year, Marianne. Congratulations on your retirement.

>7 BLBera: Welcome, Beth, and thank you! Trying to get back into the swing of the threads and re-learn all my html tricks! I'll try to toddle off to your thread, shortly!

Happy New Year, Marianne and Happy New Thread. Great to see you over here. Congrats on that retirement. How exciting, is that! I still have just over a year and a half left.

How about posting a few of your favorite books from 2018, so we can see what you had been reading.

>9 msf59: Excellent suggestion, Mark! I'll edit my Intro at >1 michigantrumpet: to include.

Hi Marianne, welcome back! Happy new year and happy new thread!

>3 michigantrumpet: - I retired a little over 3 years ago and I have to say, it's the best thing I have ever done for myself. The first year was a wary one, cautiously making sure I could really afford it (despite my financial advisor assuring me that I could). Still, it was an adjustment. But since then, I have loved every minute of it, especially the bad weather days I no longer have to drive through to get to work, the achy mornings I really CAN just roll over and sleep another half hour. But I am never bored. I have hobbies, in good weather I try to spend as much time outdoors as I can, I go to movies and theatre in the middle of the day. Oh, and I read. :-) So, maybe the best advice is to just feel your way, at your own pace. Make plans if that's your thing. My thing is to NOT make plans, to just see what the whim of the day brings me. It's YOUR time now! Enjoy.

Welcome back! And happy retirement!

>11 jessibud2: Thanks for the advice, Shelley! I do like the idea of going to movies and theater in the middle of the day!

>12 drneutron: Hi Jim! I'm so glad to be back! So far, so good!

Wow retirement! That's real news.

I also hear you are headed for Seattle in a few weeks to do some book collecting? I am headed that way too. As is littlest sister and another friend.

Yay, you're back!

I hope that we can have a meet-up, now that I'm back in the great northeast :) We keep talking about going up to Boston for a long weekend...

>14 benitastrnad: Hi Benita! Yes, I am going to Seattle for ALA! Yay! I'm looking forward to seeing you! (and getting a *few* books.)

>15 katiekrug: Hello there Katie! Most definitely need a meet up! Let me know when you think you might be heading our way! Would love to see you in RL!

I'm glad to see you back, Marianne! And it's wonderful that you've retired. I'm now entering Year Four of this stage of my life, and I haven't wondered what to do with myself for a moment. More reading; more time with the aged relatives who need me and the grand-nieces who delight me; more genealogy and cemetery scouting (to document graves on FindAGrave.com for others researching family trees); and time to serve on the Scranton Public Library Board of Trustees. I love that my time is (mostly) my own, but I also want to continue to be involved in things, and to contribute to the communities I love---the one I live in, the one I worked in for nearly 40 years, and the one I grew up in.

>17 laytonwoman3rd: So good to see you, Linda! I LOVE that you are documenting the graves for others. I've used that web site on occasion and sent up many a silent prayer of thanks to whomever had done the legwork. Bless you.

Hi Marianne, so nice to see you back here.

I looked at your NF list with interest as a few of them are in my (immediate, I hope) future, including Educated.

Happy new year, Marianne. I'm so happy to see you here. Happy reading in 2019 and enjoy retirement! (Pssst: One says that retired people have less time than when they were working)

Happy 2019
A year full of books
A year full of friends
A year full of all your wishes realised

I look forward to keeping up with you, Marianne, this year.

Hi Marianne, it's nice to see you here. I retired in mid-2017. The first six months were spent moving to a new home, so it wasn't until a year ago that I began truly living the retired lifestyle. It beats working, that's for sure! My only advice is to go easy on yourself: it takes time to shed those feeling that you need to be doing something or be somewhere. As you do that the things that bring you joy or fulfillment will become clearer, and you'll find your time fills up quickly.

Lovely to see you back, Marianne! Hoping that this year is full of fabulous for you!

Happy 2019, Marianne!

Both my father and father-in-law retired in the last few years and both seem to be doing well with it. My dad has always enjoyed woodworking and has started doing that every day, and my FIL is traveling lots. From day trips to see plays to 2 week long vacations. Both of them read a lot too which is helping with downtime at home
Hope you enjoy your retirement!

Hi, Marianne! Nice to see you posting. You've heard my struggles with retirement, which I won't elaborate on here. But you have so much going on already, i don't think you'll have a problem enjoying yourself, feeling motivated to do interesting things and read interesting books. Looking forward to seeing you in May if not before!

Good answers! Welcome back!

Hi Marianne! Happy new year, and happy first thread of 2019.

Congratulations on retirement. My best piece of advice is to give yourself time to just enjoy NOT WORKING before making any volunteer commitments. People think your time is their time, so say No for a while until you have had time to savor no alarm clock, no rushed lunch hours, no late hours, no obligations.

I retired in January of 2016 and can honestly say I have not had a single day of boredom.

I wanted to let everybody know that the American Library Association Winter Conference will be in Seattle, WA starting January 25 and ending on January 28. Most of the major publishers will be there on the exhibit floor with plenty of Advanced Readers Copy's (ARC's) for people to pick up.

Tim Spaulding, intrepid founder and leader of LT, and Loreanne, the web services librarian for LT, will be there in the ProQuest booth, so you can stop in and meet them. (Rock stars that they are. Yeah LT!) I got confirmation on that this morning. Stop in and say hi to them.

At this point I don't know if LT will be able to give out free passes to the exhibit floor, but the LT people are checking on it. If you are an LT user and live close enough to Seattle it might be worth your while to make plans to attend on Saturday or Sunday and pick up some of those free ARC's.

I don't know if we will have a meetup - yet, but if there is positive response I will plan one. Usually, Saturday night works best for us to meet for food and book talking. I will let you know.

Happy reading in 2019, Marianne, and enjoy your retirement!

Marianne, I join you in the recently retired category. Two months into it, and I am resting more than accomplishing a lot of things I would get done around the house. But, I am very glad that I allow the dust bunnies to stay in the corner where they belong.

I'm adjusting. I think Will may be adjusting more. He sold both practices when he was 59. He's had the house alone during the day for a long time. We are fortunate in that there is an upstairs loft where he has his computer and tb and chairs and a large sofa. I had the downstairs living space. However, because he has hearing issues (or lack thereof), the loud sound from his TV excursions filters down to where I am reading.

I may be using more of the downstairs space which is a large bedroom with a comfortable chair and lots of books.

There are worse things to adjust to. I hope you are enjoying your retirement. Honestly, after 36 years of working in academia in a very demanding, deadline-driven position, when I shut the office door and came home, I haven't missed it at all.

I was MIA a lot in 2018. I hope to visit here more often this year. Happy New Year! Happy Reading! And, happy whatever makes you smile!

Welcome back, Marianne. Congratulations on your retirement!

Hi Marianne, happy to find your thread, so wishing you a Happy New Year and happy retirement! I am no where close to retirement so I have no personal words of wisdom to empart, except do what you want to do and enjoy life!

>18 michigantrumpet: Well, I'm thrilled to find another Find-a-Grave user. It was invaluable to me in my own family research, and I always intended to contribute as much as I could when I had the time. There's nothing more relaxing to me than prowling a cemetery on a nice day, looking for a specific grave to satisfy a request, or just adding to the photo data base. I know some people think it's a peculiar way to spend your time...

I come from a whole family of find-a-grave people. A couple of my cousins started doing it for 4-H project and never quit. It turned out to be a contagious hobby as more of the cousins joined in.

Congratulations on your retirement, Marianne. I retired in October of 2017 and have been busy ever since, well really, I think it was just a continuation of what was going on before as I have been writing and volunteering for many years now but can now chose when to do it instead of going to a full time job. I'm also into genealogy and enjoy exploring cemeteries but don't do any find-a-graving. (Find-a-gravers do great work as long as they don't perpetuate mistakes.)

>34 benitastrnad: Excellent!
>35 Familyhistorian: I've come across, and hopefully corrected, a good many errors, most particularly duplicate memorials, one of which has virtually no information and the other being more complete. There's no doubt there have been some sloppy entries.

Toot, toot.

No retirement tips here... *grin*

How wonderful that you will have more time for books and LT, Marianne. We share the love for Go, Went, Gone. I was glad to see The Line Becomes A River on your NF list. It’s waiting at the library for me.

Enjoy your retirement!

Happy New Year, Marianne! I'm glad you're able to be back spending time on LT.

I think I gave you my retirement tip over on FB - give yourself plenty of time to settle in, a year or more (or forever) if you're so inclined. Don't rush to fill up a schedule. I'm sure you were like me, living by deadlines and meetings and all that, and keeping track of your time in increments. Retirement doesn't (need to) have any of that! So my advice is give yourself time to enjoy that, and to see what your natural rhythms and inclinations bring you.

Dude ... I just found your thread! Was going to chastize you for not coming to visit but realized you had no reason to know I was 75'ing again. Happy new year and happy retirement. :-)

>19 lindapanzo: Hi there, Linda! I was quite taken with Tara Westover's writing in Educated. Her's is a unique experience. While some of what she relates isn't happy reading, she does so in a way which is both clear-eyed and also mostly forgiving. We just finished discussing it in my RL Book Group.

>20 Ameise1: Barbara! Thank you! My mom always says that about not knowing where she found the time to do everything when she was working! I've certainly been keeping myself busy.

>21 PaulCranswick: Hello, Paul. Lovely photo and the very best of wishes - especially for the good folks on 75ers! Hope your 2019 is going well thus far.

>22 lauralkeet: Very sound advice, Laura. I can't imagine taking on moving house immediately after retirement. You are a VERY brave woman! you have my immense admiration for even taking that on. Right now, I still feel as if I still have one foot back in the office. Still making lots of lists and over scheduling my days. Habits of a lifetime are hard to break!

>23 Crazymamie: Howdy, Mamie! And thanks! Hope all's well there with you!

>24 ChelleBearss: Welcome Chelle! thanks for passing along your father and FIL's experiences. I, too, have lots of travel plans fomenting!

>41 michigantrumpet: I'm finding Educated to be a painful read, thus far. It's gotten such rave reviews I'll try to continue with it but this topic disturbs me, somewhat.

I wanted to let you know that LT is going to have the free passes to the exhibit hall at the conference in Seattle. Here is the e-mail from Loreanne with the link to the free pass registration. If you are going to be in Seattle take advantage of the free passes offered by LT. At this point I have not heard from anybody that is planning on attending the conference, so I have not planned a formal meetup. However, I am hoping that we will be able to meet Loreanne and Tim on Saturday night and I would love it if you could join us. Just reply over on my page. I will be staying at the Grand Hyatt Seattle.

I will get a new phone tomorrow and will get you my number so that we can get in touch in Seattle. See you there.

Hi Benita,

Thanks for reaching out and offering to set up a meetup! I'm happy to report that we do, indeed, have free, exhibit hall-only badges for ALA Midwinter.

Please direct anyone who'd like a badge here: https://www.compusystems.com/servlet/ar?evt_uid=313&oi=MuXZMs%2BGlqrHoIiGjo9....

That should automatically fill in the exhibitor invitation code. I just tested it out myself and was able to register successfully without any trouble.

If there's anything else I can do to help, please let me know. Definitely keep me posted as details get hammered out, so I can publicize the meetup in the State of the Thing this month!

Thanks again,
Loranne

Loranne Nasir
Member Support & Social Media Librarian, LibraryThing
LibraryThing | Facebook | Twitter

Hi Marianne,

Long tome no LT see (can't tell if its you or me who has been absent....;)). Great to see a three again though.
>41 michigantrumpet: Educated came highly recommended at my RL book club, but the queue at the library for it is epic. I am thinking that by the time the roar about it dulls down, I may have lost interest. That seems to be the way with popular books and me. It's a rollercoaster alright! ;)

Seattle Meetup

We will plan to meet at the Sheraton Grand Seattle between 5 and 6:00 p.m. on Saturday night, January 26, 2019. There is a Starbucks in the Sheraton Grand. From the pictures it looks like there is lobby type seating close to the Starbucks. I will be there. I will have either a sign or will post on this thread (and others) what I am wearing so you can find me. From here we can decide where to go for meal. Loreanne has told me that she is based in Seattle and knows the area, so she is scouting out a couple of quieter reasonable places where we can go to talk.

I wanted to go to the Seattle Public Library Downtown branch, and meet there. However, it closes at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday nights so that is out. Even so, we will find a quiet place to meet and talk together.

Last winter in Denver we met at the Tattered Cover book store and had a great time. The food there wasn't so good. The coffee was fine. And it turned out to be a good place to meet. I am sure that Loreanne will fine something for us. Or we can stay at the Sheraton. I looked at the map and the Grand Hyatt is not far away, so getting around won't be a problem.

OK. I finally got the meetup in Seattle settled. We are meeting on Saturday, January 26, 2019 at the Tap House Grill at 6:45 p.m. I made reservations for 8. This beer joint says it has 160 kinds of beer. Guess we will see. The address for the place is, 1506 6th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101. Phone number is (206) 816-3314.

See you there!

Yay for Meet Ups! I am in Seattle now, for the ALA Midwinter Conference. I’ll be meeting up this evening with Benita and her sister.

Tomorrow, Ill be on the hunt for ARCs both for Suzanne (Chatterbox) and me. Deb (arubwoman) will be joining the fray. Followed by dinner with Tim and

In the meantime, I have started out somewhat slowly in the reading.

The Endless Beach was entertaining, but the middle of an at least three part series. Having missed the first, I felt a little adrift initially. And then, awaiting the continuation of the series into the next book certainly left one hanging. All taking place on an idyllic and windswept Scottish Isle. Lots of longing and missed opportunities between couples. But, the lawyer comes off looking pretty sympathetic, so that;s good.

Have fun at your meet up, Marianne.

Enjoy the meet up.

Wow, sounds like a great meetup! I’m hoping for something similar in June when the ALA meets next in DC.

Have a wonderful meetup :)

Looks like a fun time at the Seattle ALA meeting, Marianne. Great meetup photo over on FB. I'm glad you were able to go.

It looks like you are finding your retirement busy, Marianne. Hope things are going well.

Not too much tooting goin' on over here! Hope all is well with you.

Hope you come back and update us all soon, Marianne.

Rare sighting of the Michigan Trumpet. Marianne was in New York Visiting us this past week.

>58 magicians_nephew: Yay for Marianne sightings!

>58 magicians_nephew: Thanks for the photo, Jim. We really do miss Ms. M around here.

We surely do miss you. Nice to see you. Are you going to come to Philadelphia for the ALA Midwinter? There might even be a Daryl and Bonnie sighting to add to the nice picture above.

Marianne was definately talking about attending the A LA in Philadelphia

Good to see that Marianne is alive and well and enjoying meet ups. Thanks for the update, Jim.

>58 magicians_nephew: Looking good, Marianne! We miss you. I hope to see you next year.

Well, howdy there everyone! Sure was surprised to see all sorts of activity on my page. Thanks to Jim for posting that lovely photo on my page for me. He and Judy were the most gracious of hosts for my trip to NYC a couple weeks ago.

And thanks to all of you for stopping by and checking in.

Just finished my 50th (!!) book of the year. I had thought that I’d have SOOOO much more time for reading in retirement, but it has not turned out that way. It has been a very rewarding time for traveling, plays, museums, speaker events and even a couple of Michigan football games. I was on the field at Homecoming with the Alumni Band for our annual ‘Blast From the Past.’

I am giving some serious thought to Philadelphia ALA in January 2020. So please come along and we’ll make a real LT hootenanny out of it!!

>65 michigantrumpet:
I reached 75 books last month, so this is proving to be a very good reading year for me. I think I will be going to Philadelphia this year. I know that Bonnie is planning on being there and Mark might be going. It could be a real hootenanny!

>66 benitastrnad: 75 already? Good for you Benita! Brava! I despair over my poor showing this year. But I keep plugging along.

I am looking at possibly returning to work for a couple of months at the start of the year, but have told them I’ll need time for the Philly trip. So, hootenanny it is! Would love to see everyone!

Just finished Book #51: The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee - a memoir of a young woman who escapes from North Korea and lives to tell about it. An astonishing account of her travails (and travels) causing me to appreciate my American privilege anew.

It’s for my real life book club and I can’t wait for the discussion!

Hi Marianne!

The Girl with Seven Names sounds good. Onto my list it goes.

>69 BLBera: I would be interested in your thoughts, Beth. My real life book club will be discussing it this Monday.

Hm. The Phillie ALA is the weekend before I go to the Galapagos. If I plan really well, it's a possibility.

I registered for the ALA Philadelphia conference Friday. Now I have to get a roommate. I plan on getting a conference hotel room. That will make hauling books around much easier. I plan on flying up either Friday or Saturday and leaving late Monday night.

Judy!! Would love to have you and Jim there! Plan! Plan away!

Hi there Benita. Great!! any thoughts which hotel you are looking at? Knowing weather in Philly in January, the closer the better.

All the happy ALA-goers...so envious...as I sit in the windowless secret lounge while they paint my room after the wall and ceiling repairs, contemplating how much this will hurt. I wish I could still travel!

*smooch* for your fun times ahead, Marianne and Co.!

>74 richardderus: Hello Richard! Have been following your ‘remodeling’ efforts. Glad to see the powers that be were responsive and addressed the issue fairly quickly. Not fun for you, of course...

Just finished up two! My totals are creeping up, but oh, so slowly.

The Winemaker’s Wife takes place in WWII France. Our young newlywed heroine must grow up quickly as her family, friends and home come under occupation by Nazi forces. Her initial immaturity was offputting, put I liked the modern era part of the tale involving a woman and her grandmother - who was decidedly kick ass. 3.5 stars

More satisfying was Bill Bryson’s nonfiction look at America on the cusp of major changes - Prohibition, Babe Ruth’s record setting season, the development of ‘talkies’, Lindbergh’s cross Atlantic solo flight, the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and much more. Bryson is a great storyteller and One Summer:America, 1927 is no exception. I’m not usually a fan of author read audiobooks, but this one works for me. 4.5 stars

Nice to see you back posting Marianne.

My own reading keeps hitting a series of funks. I am well on the way to achieving my lowest reading total as an adult. That is hot on last year's previous worst performance.

Hi, Marianne!

>76 michigantrumpet: I really enjoyed that Bryson when I read it a few years ago - I'm glad to see that you did, too!

Thank you for keeping me company in 2019.......onward to 2020.