Sunday Salon: Learning Japanese and Other Spring Goals

Welcome to the Sunday Salon. Click on the logo to join in!

I have given myself about 5 months to learn serviceable Japanese. Right now I am listening to Berlitz Japanese in 30 Days (Berlitz in 30 Days) but I think it may not be enough as I am somewhat tone deaf! I'll be browsing  for other learning tools and may even attend a real live language class!

On Tuesday at 3 p.m., Eastern time, I'll be at a book E-VENT or book party for author Deanna Fei, who wrote A Thread of Sky. There will be a video and a live chat.

At 7 p.m. I'll be attending another e-event, a live 30-minute video AuthorChats with Jay Lillie whose new novel, Justice, "gets to the very core of Washington politics and leads to an explosive ending that illustrates the very serious implications of one little-known constitutional oversight."  I've agreed to review the book though I don't know a whole lot about the intricacies of government. Click here for information on the author chat.

I've received a bunch of books in the past few weeks and am eager to read
Island Girl by Lynda Simmons,
Secret Daughter: A Novel by Shilpi Somaya Gowda,
Crunch Time: A Novel of Suspense (Goldy Schulz) by Diane Mott Davidson,

Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of the World's Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler by Jessica Speart, and
Dead by Midnight: A Death on Demand Mystery by Carolyn Hart.

I also bought for my Kindle, Bangkok Noir, a collection of short stories by established mystery writers. Book description: "In Bangkok Noir, the twelve short stories of various shades of black involve gangsters and hitmen, love and betrayal, the supernatural, the possessed and the dispossessed, and the far distant future. Titles in this collection include: John Burdett’s Gone East, Stephen Leather’s Inspector Zhang and the Dead Thai Gangster, Tew Bunnag’s The Mistress Wants Her Freedom, Colin Cotterill’s Halfhead, Pico Iyer’s Thousand and One Nights, Vasit Dejkunjorn's The Sword, Alex Kerr's Daylight, Timothy Hallinan's Hansum Man, Eric Stone's The Lunch That Got Away, Dean Barrett's Death of a Legend, Collin Piprell's Hot Enough to Kill, and Christopher G. Moore’s Dolphin Inc.

The authors and publisher will donate half of their earnings from this book to selected charity organizations which provide education to needy children in Thailand. More information: http://www.bangkoknoir.info/

I've already read three of the stories and they're pretty good!
Happy spring and Easter!