At the bookstore
Chairs and a cat on the Toshikazu Kawaguchi book covers; cats only on books by T. Shigematsu and Syou Ishida. The Japanese are certainly fond of cats. I bought Before Your Memory Fades, the most recent in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Kawaguchi.
How many of these have you read, if any?
On a poetry binge, I couldn't resist this new collection or its colorful cover.
The New Yorker started as a weekly in the mid-1920s, and is now published forty-seven times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Poems, cartoons, satire, and essays are included in each weekly.
I like that there are many short and shorter poems on various subjects in the collection. makes for easy reading.
And I had to get a thriller too
The House Guest by Hank Philippi Ryan, published 2023 by Forge Books.
Description: Alyssa Macallan is terrified when she’s dumped by her wealthy and powerful husband. She begins to suspect her toxic and manipulative soon-to-be-ex is scheming to ruin her—leaving her alone and penniless. And when the FBI shows up at her door, Alyssa knows she really needs a friend.
And then she gets a seductive new friend, one who’s running from a dangerous relationship of her own.
Currently reading/almost finished
I am enjoying the descriptions of the canals in the watery neighborhood of Venice, California, where The Water Lies (October 2025; NetGalley) takes place.
In this mystery, a heavily pregnant woman, Tessa, tries to find the link between Gigi, a woman she just met at a local cafe, and her toddler son who seemed to recognize her.
When Gigi turns up drowned in the canal in front of her house, Tessa becomes unnerved and bent on finding out how her son was connected to Gigi, calling her by her name in the cafe.
Enter Gigi's mom, Barb, also determined to find out how or why her daughter drowned in a shallow canal even though she had been a swim champion in school.
The two women, Tessa and Barb, work together, and so far there are so many twists and turns in the plot that I can't wait to find out what really happened.
What are you reading this week?
