Weekend Update

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It was a quiet one here with not a lot of going out as it rained a lot but that was good for staying in and working on some projects.

I worked a bit on two traveler’s notebooks I’m making. These are fun for me because the way I make them is to include a variety of papers (some vintage) and it’s just a fun and different type of journal.

The other project I worked on was my own poetry journal. I’m using an recycled Reader’s Digest book that I made in a workshop a while back to collect my own favorite poems. I still have lot of pages to fill out but this weekend I was able to add a couple of more poems.

I finished reading The Crooked Inheritance by Marge Piercy, which I highly recommend. I think I’d only read a poem or two of hers before but I absolutely enjoyed this and had to add a couple of poems from this collection to my journal.

The poems I added are: I Met a Woman Who Wasn’t There, The Closet of Doom and In Praise of Joe.

Also, I know some of you recommended a few other of her poems to me so I will be looking for those and more by her for sure. For now, I’m waiting on several holds at the library and three of those books are poetry books. I can’t wait to get those.

In case you are wondering, sometimes I write out the poems or other times I print them out and then glue them down or use washi tape to add them to a page. It’s exciting to see my journal fill up with poems I enjoy. No doubt it’ll take me quite a while longer to fill this journal but it is a wonderful experience.

Let me know if you are reading any poetry book for National Poetry Month or maybe you are even writing some of your own poetry!

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Unsub

“Caitlin curled into a ball, hugging her bear. She knew what Mercury meant. It meant flashing lights and Breaking News and everybody so scared. A body bag sliding into the coroner’s black van. Killer Claims Eighth Victim. It meant you could never close your eyes or turn your back. Because he could get you anytime, anywhere.”

Unsub
By Meg Gardiner
Source: Advance review copy

Narcotics detective Caitlin Hendrix remembers those days in the late 90s when her father was on the hunt for the Prophet. A man who claimed victims in the Bay Area. Everyone was afraid to go out and no matter all the cryptic clues he left behind with his victims, Detective Mac Hendrix couldn’t catch.

Now years later and two victims are found that bear a strong similarity to the attacks of the Prophet. Caitlin is a rookie detective but given her personal connection she feels she is the one who can help to catch this killer once and for all. Her father warns her to stay away because his life has never been the same after spending so much time only to come up empty-handed.

Caitlin works with the FBI team to determine whether this is the Prophet once again or a copycat killer wanting to gain notoriety. There’s a race against time as the body count starts to rise and the once again the city is plunged into fear.

There were a couple of moments that made me shake my head and think this couldn’t happen surely. Especially, when a member of the general public inserts themselves into the investigation and Caitlin seems to think this is ok and actually relies on her for information. This character wasn’t the typical “CI” that we see in crime shows/novels.

Nevertheless what this book has going for it, is the fast-pace at which the action is developing. I was completely caught up in the investigation and wanting to know how it would end. I was surprised by a few turn of events and overall found this an addicting read. In case you are wondering, this novel was inspired by the events surrounding the Zodiac Killer. This is the first book in the author’s Unsub series and I will look forward to the next one and hopefully see that Caitlin’s career is on the rise.

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Link-o-Rama

Happy April! I am so excited about National Poetry Month that I’ve just gone to my library website and put on hold a couple of poetry books. I’m currently in the middle of The Crooked Inheritance by Marge Piercy, which I’m liking a lot. Next up I plan to read some more new to me poets.

Speaking of poetry, have you seen the shop at Poets.org? I love the Haikubes!

Oh and have you heard of Medieval Pattern poems? Check out these amazing works of art.

Also, not only is this Poetry month but Happy International Edible Book Festival day. There was an event in my area but I found out about it too late to go but I saw these Novel Nibbles. Ok, so they aren’t books but still pretty cool right?

A few other links I wanted to share are the following:

For those of you who enjoy crime fiction, check out the March edition of Topic magazine. Lots of great stuff. I particularly liked the article on the dioramas.

If you enjoy miniatures, then look at these amazing mini pop up books.

Last but not least, a subject close to my heart is that of journaling. Book Riot had a great article on Book Journaling. Before a blog and an excel spreadsheet, I used to keep track of my reading in various journals. So if you’ve done the same or wanted to try that check out the article and you may find some inspiration.

Alright hope you enjoy these and now time to read!

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