Sunday Salon: When A Book Can Take You Someplace Else

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Also visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer, and It's Monday: What Are You Reading? at Book Journey. Also, Mailbox Monday at its permanent home, and Stacking the Shelves at Tyngas' Reviews.

This was the scene from my window last week and it hasn't changed much since. Some of the snow has melted, but the temperatures have been on a see-saw up and down and we are back in the minus zero wind chill zone, with bits of white being added every day.

I have a love-hate relationship with this unseasonable winter. We haven't had this kind of snow in a few years and so these blizzards and strong winds that blow snow around are almost a new experience. I love the looks of it, have taken lots of pictures, and even gone out occasionally, though I have forsaken yoga classes and am staying away from movie theaters, malls, and places where people who might have the flu congregate.

For the first time ever, I was persuaded to get a flu shot because of the scare in the area - a few people have died and many hospitalized, and the health department here says the flu this season is no respecter of age. The young and old and some seemingly healthy people in between those ages have been hit. My hope - some of these extreme temps will kill those bugs!

Two new books came in last week. Thank heavens for books~

The Fever Tree by Jennifer McVeigh was sent by Penguin for their book tour. A young woman emigrates from London to South Africa in 1880 and has adventures and encounters that reflect a country under colonial rule.

Anyone notice that a few publishers are doing their own tours for their authors? This is the second book I have scheduled for a publisher tour.

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee, from Alfred Knopf, is just right for this season. It's a modern day retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, The Snow Queen. A young girl discovers a boy locked away in a museum, in a city where it always snows; a prisoner of the Snow Queen, he has been waiting for the girl to rescue him. Symbolic, eh?

I am caught up with reading I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War by Jerome Charyn, for a tour in a couple weeks. Also open on my desk are two books pulled from the TBR shelf:
Paris My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (And Dark Chocolate) by Amy Thomas and
Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Taiwanese restaurant owner Eddie Huang.
Three very different books, but I do love the variety!
And of course, there are those wonderful cozies....

What are you reading and in what weather are you enjoying your books? Can't wait to hear!