SqueakyChu Continues Puzzling in 2025 - 3rd Quarter

(continued from here)

Hi Folks!

It's me again...still reading and puzzling.

My name is Madeline. I'm in my late 70s, married, with three grown children, and two grandchildren, ages twelve and seven. I'm a retired nurse, but now I sort of live the life of a librarian as I have a very active Little Free Library on our front lawn (built by my husband), am an avid Bookcrosser, am a devoted fan of LibraryThing, and am the creator of the TIOLI challenge which has been on LT's 75 Books Challenges for many years now.

My favorite reads are literary fiction, particularly contemporary Japanese novels and memoirs. I never know what I will read in the future as...if a book I want to read is on a list...for sure, I'll never read it. Stick around and see what I will read...at random, of course. :D



Pages Read YTD: 4,661
Pages Read per Day: increased to 18
Books in my To Read Pile: increased to 341
BookCrossing Books to be Released: increased to 1,658

JULY


Fun Fair Food by Buffalo - 1,000 pieces

BOOKISH EVENTS:
1. BookCrossing meetup at Potomac Park, Maryland - third Saturday in July - Sorry I had to miss it. :(

COMPLETED:
12. Richard Wright and the Library Card - William Miller - TIOLI #9: Read a book with a title at least six words long (6) - 29 pages

AUG:


Beachgoing by New York Puzzle Company - 1,000 pieces

BOOKISH EVENTS:
1. BookCrossing meetup at the home of ResQGeek in Virginia

COMPLETED
13. About Time - David Duchovny - TIOLI #13: Read a book with a connection to the number 8 (author's surname has 8 letters) - 87 pages
14. Jew Boy - Alan Kaufman - TIOLI #1: Read a book with a title containing only two or three words of which at least two of the words have the same number of letters (3) - 402 pages
15. My Boyfriend is a Bear - Pamela Ribon - TIOLI #13: Read a book with a connection to the number 8 (ISBN is 9781620104873) - 167 pages
16. Democracy in Retrograde - Sami Sage, Emily Amick - TIOLI #7: Read a book with the vowels E, I, and O (in that order) somewhere in the title - 246 pages
17. Concrete Island - J.G. Ballard - TIOLI #4: Read a book where the title (not including subtitles) has at least one word with 3 consonants in a row (NCR) - 176 pages

SEPTEMBER:


The Three Graces by Buffalo - 1,000 pieces

BOOKISH EVENTS:
1. BookCrossing meetup at Park POtomac shopping center, Potomac, Maryland - third Saturday in September - Fun, as always!

BAILED:
---Orbital - Samantha Harvey - Boring!

COMPLETED:
18. Friends With Boys - Faith Erin Hicks - TIOLI #17: #17: Read a book which brings a song to mind (You've Got a Friend by Carole King/both book and song contain the word "friend" in the title) - 206 pages
19. A Brilliant Novel in the Works - Yuvi Zalkow - TIOLI #1: Read a book by an author whose last name starts with X, Y, or Z - 286 pages
20. Everybody Just Breathe - Amanda V. Peterson - TIOLI #10: Read a book with a word in the title starting with the letters WAR EAGLE (E) - 261 pages

CURRENTLY READING:
21. Born Lucky : A Dedicated Father, a Grateful Son, and My Journey on the Spectrum - Leland Vittert - TIOLI #6: Read a book where the title words are in alphabetical order - 22/246 pages = 9% (for October's Challenge)
22. Toward a Meaningful Life - Samuel Jacobson - TIOLI #13: Read a book a book with a word in the title starting with the letters in SEATTLE MARINERS (toward) - 25/317 pages = 8% (for October's Challenge)

I have not made much progress reading this year. It's due to many things: political climate, anxiety and depression, jigsaw puzzling, doomscrolling, games on my iPhone, gardening, trying out new recipes. I still am having fun running the TIOLI challenges here on LT, though. That enjoyment never wears out!

Happy new thread and happy third quarter, Madeline.

My reading has also suffered due to over work (I think) over the last few months so I am attempting to rectify that by making a full return to the TIOLI in July.

>6 PaulCranswick: I noticed you back here. I’m happy for your return, Paul!!

Happy new one!

>7 SqueakyChu: I'm glad to be back and energized, Madeline.

Happy new thread, Madeline! Love those puzzles!

>8 figsfromthistle: >9 PaulCranswick: >10 jessibud2: Thanks, all!

I'll try to be a bit more chatty here in the future.

It's vacation for my extended family. This week: my older son is returning from two weeks in Japan, my daughter-in-law in heading for Hawaii to help out a close friend, and my younger son is taking his kids to a family river house in Virginia.

I am staying home and (maybe) reading...but definitely jigsaw puzzling. Today I'm headed to a local puzzle swap to trade in ten puzzles (and definitely look for more to bring home!).

I want to do more gardening, but it has been terribly hot here. It's either very hot and dry, or we get a deluge of rain. Nothing in between. :(

>10 jessibud2: "The Three Graces" in real life is GORGEOUS, Shelley! It has veins of gold glitter in it. I got it from a puzzle swap, but it has become part of my permanent puzzle collection. I am going to try to get rid of puzzles I don't like as much, are missing pieces, or to which I am not emotionally attached. :D

>11 SqueakyChu: - That was the one I was drawn to. I wish we lived closer so we could swap with each other. My cousin in Mtl is also a big-time puzzler and has bookcases filled with them. She has also started getting rid of some and I wish postage here wasn't so insane because there are several of hers I'd love. I do have one friend here in TO that I swap with but in the past year, I seem to have accumulated more than I get rid of. I have some that are definitely permanent collection so my stash isn't really dwindling any time soon. I was given a puzzle by another friend which, if I am honest, I doubt I will ever attempt. She is the owner of a dalmatian dog and the puzzle, while adorable, is a bundle of dalmatian puppies together. The entire puzzle is black and white with only the occasional pink of a paw pad. EEK

>12 jessibud2: I avoid the crazy puzzles like the one of just dalmation spots you just mentioned! i know that you are not on Facebook, but there is a Free Toronto Puzzle Swap in your city.
This is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/332886410865881/
They host 3-4 "events" a year. Perhpas one of your friends who is on Facebook can help you access the information you would need to join that group. I also found my local free puzzle swap group on Facebook. As a matter of fact, I just got back from one puzzle closet (at a private home in a nearby neighborhood, an 18 minute drive from my house). I took ten puzzles to donate and came home with five, but no one's counting them. :)

>13 SqueakyChu: - I will ask Madeleine to check it for me. I can't access the link without an account and that ain't happening! ;-)

>14 jessibud2: LOL! She can join for you, tell you about the community events, and let you know if there are any "swap closets" that you can use whenever you want. The community events are really fun. I have gone to two of them in my community from my local swap group. One was at a public library in a rented room. The other was outside at a private home (where I actually was today!).

>1 SqueakyChu: Not too many people you meet are named Madeline,
so I'm enjoying the coincidence of Wendy Wax Ocean Beach series with her Maddie, Madeline.

Happy new thread, Madeline!

>4 SqueakyChu: This puzzle is spectacular! From what you say in >11 SqueakyChu:, it sounds like it's even better to see in Real Life. How nice that you were able to add it to your collection.

>16 m.belljackson: I have only one friend named Madeleine (this is how she spells her name). She's actually the only friend with my same name that I've ever had, and I only met her a few years ago (through @jessibud2).

>17 atozgrl: Thanks! I picked up that puzzle for $4 at my local used FOTL book store. They have some great puzzles! Amazingly, most of them are not missing pieces.

>18 SqueakyChu: That was a deal! Nice that the FOTL offers puzzles.

>19 atozgrl: But their prices have gone up! Last year they were three dollars each; this years they’re four dollars each. They have a nice variety of puzzles, and they’re always changing.

12. Richard Wright and the Library Card - William Miller


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TIOLI #9: Read a book with a title at least six words long (6)
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This is a beautiful, poignant children's picture book of the true story of Richard Wright, author of Black Boy and Native Son. It tells of Wright's desire to read books as a young boy, how he was able to get hold of library books with the aid of a white work colleague, and how he was finally able to read the books that he wanted. As this book's author William Miller said about books when he ended this story, "Every page was a ticket to freedom, to the place where he would always be free."

Rating - 5 stars

>21 SqueakyChu: I am definitely going to have to see if I can track down a copy of that one. It would fit in nicely with my Black Studies reading. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Madeline!

>22 alcottacre: Although it's just a kid's book, it makes me want to find and read Black Boy and Native Son now, Stasia.

Happy new thread, Madeline!

>24 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

13. About Time - David Duchovny


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TIOLI #13: Read a book with a connection to the number 8 (author's surname has 8 letters)
--------------------------------------------
I worked my way through this book with a bit of difficulty. I felt I wasn’t quite getting what Duchovny was trying to say in most of his poetry, but occasionally I read some poems that hit the ball right out of the ballpark for me because they were so spot on and good. Those poems talked to me very directly about family relationships, friendship, nature, and animals — things very important to me.

My favorite poems were these:
•Carbon Canyon
•Should’ve Listened to the Road
•Dead Seven
•New Haven
•Another Brick

I loved the spectacular cover photo of a distraught, unshaven Duchovny by photographer Stefan Sappert.

I’m now sorry I never read other books by Duchovny, but I fully intend to do so in the future.

Rating - 3.5 stars

But it's too late--my daughter,
two or three or four, has seen,
leans down farther, her blue eyes
an inch or two from the ground, and says,
"Daddy, look, the ants, there's so many of them."
"Yes, I see. Maybe we should let the mouse sleep, let her sleep."

>26 SqueakyChu: That is a great cover, Madeline.

>27 PaulCranswick: Doesn't it make you want to rush over to comfort him, Paul? I always loved watching David Duchovny on X-Files as Fox Mulder.

I just looked to see what happened to my copy of Holy Cow which Duchovny wrote. I had it for four years unread so I lent it to my friend in Virginia, but never got it back. Not a problem. I found another copy of it, but released that copy because I forgot I didn't have the first copy! Duchovny is a good writer...even though I missed a lot of what he was trying to say in someof his poetry, I really am up for reading any novel he wrote.

>28 SqueakyChu: I haven't read anything of his Madeline, but I recently added a book by Gabriel Byrne with a similar sepia type grainy close up.

14. Jew Boy - Alan Kaufman


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TIOLI #1: Read a book with a title containing only two or three words of which at least two of the words have the same number of letters (3)
------------------------------
Alan Kaufman has a very dramatic way of telling his own story. He begins by recalling life with his Holocaust-survivor mother and post office night shift worker father, his project to collect comic books to get rich, his episode of being beaten up by a neighborhood bully, and his bout with a frightening asthma exacerbation. This was all in the Bronx New York of his childhood. Each chapter then continues as a story unto itself and quite the self-examination of the most memorable experiences of Kaufman’s life.

Kaufman’s a good writer. His narrative is detailed and gritty, and he gives a fairly detailed picture about what it felt like to be in his shoes at some tougher times of his life.

The chapter about Kaufman’s time incarcerated in Nebraska, I found particularly terrifying. Maybe it’s a reflection of the current political climate I find myself in, but reading about this young Jewish man as a prisoner after traveling lightheartedly and then being exposed to undeserved psychological terror was disconcerting to read.

This book, more than anything else, spoke to me about the author’s relationship with Judaism and how it always has been a battle for him. He described the psychological battles his mother, a traumatized Holocaust survivor, showered him with, and yet still, as a young adult, he felt the need to identify as a Jew as well as to defend Jews.

By the end of this book, I was deeply moved and completely captivated by Kaufman’s reflections of what it means to be a Jew. Truly this part of his writing brought me to tears as being a Jew is as wonderful as it is fraught.

The book ends with a powerful poem as this book’s author is also a poet.

I had read his novel Matches a long while ago. I liked that book very much although it was a disturbing read. I’d very much like to read more of Kaufman’s work.

Rating - 5 stars

…I now saw, as every Jew must, that I had to continue to confront my Jewishness with all my confusion and doubt, and struggle until I had an answer, or else learn to live with endless questions. Perhaps this last choice is the true essence of what it means to be a Jew. Most of all I must never be ashamed of who I am but, for better or worse, accept this tragic mantle given to me by the accident of birth and see where the road leads, and follow without fail.

>30 SqueakyChu: That's quite a quote, Madeline. I'm not sure I have the stomach to read the book, but I do understand that accident of birth.

>31 ffortsa: It was quite a book, Judye. It took me two months to read it. I didn’t think I’d like it at all when I first started reading it, but I loved his writing. Some reviewers didn’t like this book because they felt it was too disjointed. I didn’t feel that way at all. I just took each chapter to be a separate essay on a different topic (which just managed to be the chronology of Kaufman’s life). The theme I got from this book of memoirs is that Judaism to Kaufman in his youth was a burden. I think there was a turning point at which he learned to be proud of his identity as a Jew. I was really surprised that it changed him so much that he enlisted as a lone soldier in the IDF (Israel Defense Force). It was those experiences on which he based his novel Matches.

15. My Boyfriend is a Bear - Pamela Ribon


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TIOLI #13: Read a book with a connection to the number 8 (ISBN is 9781620104873)
------------------------------
This is a humorous graphic novel about a young woman who was so tired of guys she didn't like that she took a bear for her boyfriend. The story comes complete with a look at her previous boyfriends (and why she rejected them all), her two best friends (who tend to take her out for liquor-filled meet-ups), and her parents (who are still trying to understand their dughter). A very quick read, this book is sure to put a smile on your face.

Rating - 4 stars

I can always tell how my mom really feels by where she's got her eyebrows.

16. Democracy in Retrograde - Sami Sage, Emily Amick


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TIOLI #7: Read a book with the vowels E, I, and O (in that order) somewhere in the title
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This book is written in a very friendly, engaging style which pulled me immediately in to its important contents. I like how this book is arranged. The beginning tells the topics it will cover. Plus it has a section in which to keep notes. Before the discussion of civic engagement begins, the book talks about how social disengagement over recent years has affected us adversely.

This book walks its readers through personality types and then, based on answers given to questions, it gives specific ways in which the reader can participate in the political process. I was floored by this as I didn’t think I participated as much as I needed to, maybe because of fear these days, but in the section which describes my own personality type, it advised me to “set up a mini-free-book library in your neighborhood and stock it”. This I do! It is my most enduring and favorite hobby!! Just reading this helped me understand that, in my own way, I contribute meaningfully to the political process. I really needed that affirmation. I also intend to continue participating in the political process in various ways that I have found appropriate to me as an individual.

Rating - 4 stars

You don't need to do everything, but we really need everyone to do something.

17. Concrete Island - J.G. Ballard


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TIOLI #4: Read a book where the title (not including subtitles) has at least one word with 3 consonants in a row (NCR)
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I really liked the way this story was written. It reminded me of another novel, The Ark Sakura, by Kobo Abe. In both, each protagonist ends up in a strange, supposedly isolated place only to later be surrounded by weird people!! In Ballard’s story, I really enjoyed reading about what took place after Maitland’s Jaguar rolled over the edge of a highway precipice into a place from which he could not escape! I had no idea what would happen to him or what the two strange people, a huge, simple tramp-like man and a young woman, would do to or for Maitland. I found the ending of the book very suspenseful. It was as strange as the rest of this book!

It was all so surreal…yet quite entertaining! I haven’t read anything by Ballard for years. This is my wake-up call to read more of his works.

Rating - 5 stars

Maitland could feel the bones of his thighs and pelvis emerging through his musculature, his skeleton come to greet him.

18. Friends With Boys - Faith Erin Hicks


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TIOLI #17: Read a book which brings a song to mind (You've Got a Friend by Carole King/both book and song contain the word "friend" in the title)
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This was a thoughtful graphic novel of how a young girl adjusted to being in a public high school after being homeschooled previous to this time. She lives at home with her dad (her mom left him), and three brothers, two of whom are twins. The brothers are popular and comfortable in high school, but feel that their sister Maggy has to learn how adjust mostly by herself. She does a fairly good job as she tries to make friends, but she also has to contend with a ghost. I'm not really sure what that was about, but nevertheless it was an interesting aspect of life at Sanford High School.

Rating - 4 stars

Do we have any cereal that didn't expire six months ago?
It's unlikely.

19. A Brilliant Novel in the Works - Yuvi Zalkow


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TIOLI #1: Read a book by an author whose last name starts with X, Y, or Z
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Oy! What a nebbish! This novel was a funny, and yet troubling, story of Yuvi (also the author’s name) in all of his neurotic glory. He’s an author who can’t seem to get his writing together. He’s also a husband who seems to have difficulty ever agreeing with his wife Julia. He’s the son of an Israeli couple so every now and then this story comes out with a pure Hebrew (make that Israeli!) word. I loved that so much!

The chapters are written in pairs so that the odd chapters follow a straight timeline and the even chapters skip around in time and even in space. In those we learn about everything that makes Yuvi tick, including stories of his youth, his relationship to other family members, and his thoughts about many things.

Another interesting part of this book is that it is a novel about writing a novel. It was quite interesting how this developed from chapter to chapter.

Just wow! I never read a novel structured quite like this one and was truly blown away by its overall creativity.

Rating - 5 stars

He grabs me when I enter the apartment and hugs me so hard that my face is pressed into his shoulder and I'm worried my glasses are going to be crushed from his appreciation.

20. Everybody Just Breathe - Amanda V. Peterson


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TIOLI #10: Read a book with a word in the title starting with the letters WAR EAGLE (E)
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This book was arranged in an interesting way. The patient with COVID is Jack (a composite of all patients with COVID). The book included nurses’ notes (because everything has to be documented in nursing), the author’s rantings, and chronological newspaper headlines following the appearance and development of the COVID pandemic.

I especially loved the author’s writing style which was very intense, blunt, and at times sarcastically funny. Since I am a retired nurse, I found many of the author’s descriptions of nursing issues very familiar. Often I would stop reading just to reflect back on similar situations which happened during my own nursing career.

The writing about COVID, and especially about the composite patient Jack was heartbreaking and brought back many sad memories of that time. I think the author expresses very well how all of us felt in dealing with the COVID pandemic.

This is a very comprehensive account of what life as a nurse during the pandemic felt like…but even more so as this narrative consists of the experiences of just one nurse, a married woman with two children, who volunteered during the COVID pandemic of 2020 to care for this newly identified, highly contagious, and life-threatening illness before anyone knew much about it.

One line of this book said, “When will I be able to watch a wedding without thinking of a virus?” On the same night I read this line, I had attended a wedding, and a virus never crossed my mind. Political thoughts did cross my mind (It is now 2025), and I was happy that the wedding joy erased those thoughts. However, in a previous statement in this book the author said, “Politics…is slowly making me lose my mind.” Some things never change.

One thing I adored about this book were quotes from her two children…always darling and funny. It was great comic relief for us readers as it must have been for the author as she lived through the nightmare year of working with desperately ill COVID patients.

The author was able to so clearly describe the wretched, desperate feeling of what it was like to be alive during the COVID pandemic. I hope never to feel that way again.

Rating - 5 stars

To me, life is fragile, beautiful, and holy. A critical illness puts life into perspective and changes what it means to people.

My new thread begins here.