Sunday Bookends: New additions to the TBR

/ Lisa R. Howeler

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This past week I received book-related stickers in the mail and was thrilled because I love stickers and putting them in books. I don’t have a lot of places to stick these stickers but it is still fun to have them. I have a reading journal, so I stuck some there and Little Miss took some for her phone.

Do you keep a reading journal? I was all excited to get one (which is just a journal with blank pages that I fill in) but then I ended up not taking the notes about the books I was reading, or doing much of anything I planned to do with it. I do keep a list of the books I’ve read throughout the year (which is much lower this year than last year) in it. I also keep a list of books recommended to me, books I want to read, my favorite books read, movies I’ve watched, and movies I want to watch.

I have a list going of Nancy Drew books I’ve read so far in it and that list actually isn’t that big. I think next year I will start a list of The Hardy Boys books I’ve read. So far, it’s exactly one.

I also ordered a set of magnetic bookmarks with cats on them last week. That was also exciting for me, but I will lose them quickly because I always seem to. I don’t know how. I lay them down next to me, get up, and they’ve fallen into some sort of portal! For example, I stood up tonight while reading to go pick up my kids after they were trick-or-treating and I dropped the bookmark and it was gone. Just gone. It’s possibly buried in  my all-black purse, but even the purse seemed like some sort of portal because when I looked inside, it was gone.

Luckily, I have about 20 other bookmarks I can choose from to replace it. And then lose them as well.

In addition to the stickers and bookmarks, I also received an order of five books from Thriftbooks.

One of them is for Little Miss for school. It’s called Secrets of Civil War Spies by Nancy LeSourd.

The other four were:

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed by Donald Bain

The week before I received three new Nancy Drew books via the True Drew Podcast shop.

Those books were two from the 80s and 90s: The Nancy Drew Files Win, Lose or Die and The Nancy Drew Files Pure Poison. I also ordered an original book, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon.

This week I finished Trick or Treachery by Donald Bain, a Murder, She Wrote book. I finished it in three days after Little Miss told me I couldn’t finish it by the weekend. I showed her. I finished it three days early. She may have had an ulterior motive because with me reading she could get away doing what she wanted during the day. Hmmm…wait a minute!

I also started Home to Harmony by Phillip Gulley and The Nancy Drew Files Win, Place, or Die by Carolyn Keene. The Nancy Drew book is one of the books from the 1990s series. I’m about 50 pages from the end, which isn’t saying much since these books are only 150 pages total. I’ll finish it today. I have to say, I know these books are for kids or preteens, but the plot of this one really isn’t that bad. This is the first one I’ve read as an adult from this particular series. I am certain I read one in high school.

The Husband ordered me a copy of the latest Mitford book by Jan Karon (My Beloved) as a surprise, and it came yesterday. I’d had a bit of a rough few days with a sore tooth and feeling overwhelmed in life, so it was a wonderful surprise that brought me to tears.

I am going to start it sometime in November or maybe even December because it has a Christmas theme. I will not lie, I opened the book after I took a photo of it and inhaled deeply. It was so comforting.

Little Miss and I finished The Good Master this week, and we have been listening to — I kid you not — a Murder, She Wrote book before bed at night.

She said she’s actually enjoying it, so she requests it.

We are also reading the Civil War themed book for school and finishing the second Caddie Woodlawn book, which we forgot to finish when we got distracted by The Good Master.

The Husband is reading….? Oops … forgot to ask but it was Boone’s Lick by Larry McMurty.

The kids and I watched Mrs. Doubtfire last night. It has been years since The Boy has seen it and Little Miss has never seen it.

Earlier in the week I watched Petticoat Junction and yesterday I watched part of The Big Trail with John Wayne from 1930. That movie — wow. That was a crazy journey with very realistic scenes of the wagon trains traveling into the West.

I think I will write a post about it once I finish it. I would love to know more about the making of that movie.

I also watched another two-part Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery. Yes, I’ll definitely recap this one because it was a crazy ride with more romance between Nancy and Frank.

Last week on the blog I shared:

This post linked to my blog post about Murder, She Wrote. That was interesting….Being used as a source for an article.

|| Throwback Tuesday: Why I Don’t Ask Comprehension Questions and What I Do Instead by My Slices of Life ||

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

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This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

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22 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: New additions to the TBR”

  1. Nice stickers! I used to keep a book journal and then when I got my blog, I would copy my reviews onto my blog, then one day I wrote the blog one first and copied it into my book journal … and then somehow I only wrote the blog posts and I’m years behind. I did keep them for years before the blog so (of course) I indexed them on a giant spreadsheet. I love Larry McMurtry but only the non-cowboy ones.

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  2. Those are some really cute stickers! Some years I keep a reading journal, some years I focus on updating book tracker apps, and some years I use a spreadsheet and honestly I can’t make up my mind about what combination of methods I like best 😂 The book journal did use up the most amount of time though. I’ve been wanting to read Rebecca for years but have yet to! I hope you enjoy all of your new books & bookmarks :D.

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  3. Home to Harmony is in my stack of library books but haven’t started it yet. Instead I was trying desperately to like another library book, with a supposed Christmas theme but nope…not only is it boring because there’s not much of a plot in my opinion but also all the author writes about is how the two main characters want to bed each other. Enough already. Book closed.

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  4. I have such fond memories of watching Petticoat Junction whenI was a kid – I was excited when it resurfaced a few years ago and enjoyed many of the episodes once again! It did feel like an end to an era with the passing of June Lockhart this past weekend, too!

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  5. I like to have a reading/writing journal that fits into my purse so I can write wherever I am, but I have two purses—one could hold any size journal and the other is really just a wallet with a crossbody strap—and the small one can’t really hold much of anything. It’s a problem for me and I blame this new small purse for my inability to write every day. Thank you for prompting me to figure out a good solution for this.

    What a great husband you have!

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    • He’s great most of the time *wink*

      My journal is sort of in the middle on size so I can almost fit in in my purse but not quite. I want to get a shoulder bag or whatever they are called so I can keep my kindle and reading journal in one place.

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  6. Bookmarks and stickers wouldn’t be very useful to me. I read 99% of my books on my Kindle. I don’t have a formal reading log either. I use LibraryThing to keep track of my books. I post my reviews there along with brief thoughts and indicate the date I finished a book. I read pretty fast and don’t often take time for interim thoughts as I’m reading! You do look to have a nice assortment of reading going on in your family. Come see my week <a href=”https://inside-dog.blogspot.com/2025/10/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-october_01530968506.html”>here</a>. Happy reading!

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    • I used to read almost all of my books on Kindle too and I do like having it so I can read books at night before bed without using a booklight, but I really do like holding a book too.

      I just have fun with the stickers!

      I use StoryGraph to keep track of my reads since my mom is on my Goodreads and messes up my stats there. Ha!

      Hope you have a great reading week!

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  7. Lots of good books and book arrivals. Hope that tooth has been dealt to. I never read Nancy Drew, I am not sure her books came to NZ when I was growing up. I have tried to keep a book journal but didn’t last.

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  8. I have tried to keep a book journal but really that is what my book blog is (along with Goodreads & StoryGraph etc) so it seemed redundant.

    Love the stickers, I just bought some for my Christmas Cheer Project actually.

    Your Nancy Drew titles look fun, and what a wonderful gift from your hubby.

    Wishing you a lovely week

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    • I can’t keep a Goodreads because my mom is connected to my account and reads much faster than me. I use Storygraph but I also like having something tangible to look at and through later on. Writing it all down is fun for me!

      I hope you have a lovely week too!

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  10. I haven’t used a real bookmark in years. I usually read on my Libby app which isn’t the same, but it’s easy. When I do read a “real” book, I just use whatever is at hand…sometimes, it’s a receipt, sometimes, it’s a bill (after I’ve paid it). In fact, the last bookmark I had was the one I won in a contest you were having. And, I have, in fact, lost it!

    I just finished The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. It was one of those that took me a bit to get into. Once I did, I finished it in just a couple of days. It’s about the Dust Bowl era and the immigration of US citizens to California. It’s not a happy book, at all. I’m hoping the one I just picked is!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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  11. I love book stickers as well. I do keep a reading journal, I keep track of my posts, my monthly stats, books won, and things like that. Yay for your husband surprising you with a book. I hope your tooth is feeling much better. I had a rough week as well, my mom went in the hospital Wednesday, went home Friday, my older sister was admitted yesterday and had her appendix out this morning. She is hopeful to go home today. There has been so much lately. I hope you have a better week!

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    • I’m sorry about your mom and sister! Oh my! that’s a lot. I hope they are both doing better soon.

      My reading journal is pretty much a list book too. I started to write reviews but got caught up with other things and never finished writing them in there. I just share them on here and Instagram now instead.

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  12. No reading journal here. I don’t think it would make sense to do that now after almost 60 years.
    The best I manage in lines of a TBR are the lists I keep on The Internet Archive, but I really kind of toss titles on it and take them off again, so I don’t know I’d even count that.

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