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Wendy Stephenson Sisk

@priestlakepie

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Pacific Northwest gardener, reading addict and huckleberry picker.

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A few days ago @jillslibrary asked me about my #LastNowNext reads.
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Last:
📕My Friends by Fredrik Backman is my 7th Backman book. I hope he keeps writing for a long time. 😊
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Now:
📘The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi. I’m 1/3 of the way through this story of a young woman struggling to be independent in 1950’s India.
🎧 Briefly Perfectly Human by Alia Arthur, a fascinating memoir about being a death doula.
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Next:
📗Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey is up next and I’ll be reading the Kindle version as the font in my physical copy is too small for my aging eyes. Thank goodness for the Libby app!
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What are you reading?
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#frommyshelves #pnwreaders #bookjoy #lovetoread by @priestlakepie

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9 months ago

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“Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.”
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This is an intriguing book that initially drew me right in. A Hello Kitty lunchbox washes up on the beach of an island in the Pacific Northwest. Inside is the diary of a 15 year old Japanese girl named Nao. Ruth, who finds the lunchbox thinks it may be debris from Japan’s 2011 earthquake. She starts to read the diary and is quickly drawn into the mystery of Nao’s fate.
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The dual narrative goes back and forth between Ruth and Nao and touches on bullying, suicide, philosophy, WWII kamikaze pilots, family dysfunction, quantum physics, ghosts and a 104 year old Zen Buddhist nun.
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While I enjoyed how Nao’s life was slowly revealed, I wasn’t as keen on Ruth’s life and didn’t find any of the characters particularly likable. I feel the story was long and bent time and space a little too much for me. The book is thought provoking though and would make for a great book club discussion. I give it 3.5⭐️’s.
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This is book one for my #tbr26in26 challenge, hosted by @gilioncdumas.
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#frommyshelves #bookthoughts #pnwreaders #lovetoread by @priestlakepie

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9 months ago

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#SixBooksSoon
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Here are six possibilities I may read in January. The top row is from my tbr26in26 which I posted about the other day.
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📕A Tale for the Time Being - I’ve started reading this one.
📙The Henna Artist sounds so good.
📘Once Upon a River got a lot of love when I asked about it the other day so now I’m keen to read it ASAP.
📗The Reinvention of Love is a Helen Humphreys book I’m eager to read.
📕The Masqueraders because I love Heyer’s books and haven’t read a romance in a while.
📙Miss Buncle Married is the sequel to Miss Buncle, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
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Being a mood reader I don’t always read from my possibility stacks but I have fun planning them. 😊
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#booklover #lovetoread #frommyshelves #pnwreaders by @priestlakepie

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9 months ago

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#FavoriteBooks 2025 edition.
Swipe ⬅️ to view.
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In no particular order these are my Top Ten books from 2025:
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📕The Count of Monte Cristo
📗Kate & Frida
📘Coventry
📙All the Broken Pieces
📕Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
📗The Names
📘Eddie Winston is Looking for Love
📙The Whalebone Theatre
📕The Correspondent
📗The Color Purple
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Side note: We are a family of cat lovers and the cover photo shows my newly adopted grand kitties, Esme (top) and Alba (bottom). I’m looking forward to meeting them in person the next time I visit my daughter. I’m pleased with how the Van Gogh inspired AI illustration turned out. 😻
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#bookjoy #booklover #lovetoread #pnwreaders by @priestlakepie

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9 months ago

The only book challenge I’m joining in 2026 is #tbr26in26 hosted by @gilioncdumas. This is the perfect challenge for whittling down books on your shelves. The goal is to read 26 books from your shelves by the end of the year. The only rule is they must all be books you owned on January 1. I like to pick my books at the beginning of the year and will occasionally swap a few for replacement if I’m not feeling the vibe later. But you can also feel free to pick and choose as you go. I’m happy to report after 4 years of this challenge, I’ve made a real dent in my tbr.
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Here are my 26 books for this year, 19 fiction and 7 nonfiction. Some I’ve had sitting around for years and a few I just acquired last month. See any books here you’d recommend?
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#bookjoy #booklover #pnwreaders #frommyshelves by @priestlakepie

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10 months ago

December Wrap-up 📚
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I didn’t read as many books as usual this year, just 70 (usually I average around 100). But I finished off December with a respectable 9 books read.
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The Secret Life of Sunflowers has a dual timeline. Vincent Van Gogh’s sister-in-law, Johanna Bonger Van Gogh, is determined, after the deaths of Vincent and her husband Theo, to make Van Gogh’s art famous. The present day timeline is about a woman who finds Johanna’s diary among her grandmother’s things after her death.
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The Christmas Village, a typical Christmas romance I found a bit boring.
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The Women of Arlington Hall is historical fiction about code breaking and discovering Russian spies during the McCarthy era.
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State of Terror is a thriller involving a new U.S. Secretary of State that I thoroughly enjoyed.
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The Wind Knows My Name tells the story of a young boy on the Kindertransport out of Austria during WW II and how his life intersects with that of a young Salvadoran girl separated from her mother at the U.S. border 80 years later. .
Sex and Vanity - more lavish lifestyles from the author of Crazy Rich Asians.
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The Impossible Fortune continues to feature the Thursday Murder Club Gang. While I enjoyed the book, it’s my least favorite from the series.
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Pomona Afton Can So Solve A Murder is a mystery with a touch of romance and comic relief.
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The Madstone is a historical western recommended by @barbaras.book.obsession. As usual her recommendation was spot on for me. Thanks B. 😊
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And finally my new year’s wish for everyone is happy reading in 2026!
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#bookjoy #booklover #pnwreaders #frommyshelves #decemberwrapup by @priestlakepie

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10 months ago

To finish off #charlieschristmaschallenge here’s a #festivebookishelfontheshelf where you pick a seasonal object that rhymes with an author’s last name.
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🎄Ornament hooks with Geraldine Brooks 🎄
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Btw, Year of Wonders is my favorite Brooks book.
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Thanks to @charliebooksandcoffee for all the festive fun!
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#bookjoy #frommyshelves by @priestlakepie

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10 months ago

Continuing with #charlieschristmaschallenge here’s my version of the scavenger hunt.
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Tree:
The Miracle of Speedy Motors
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Snow, Ice or Frost:
Snowdrift and Other Stories
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Shepherd, Wiseman or Angel:
All Creatures Great and Small
(Australian shepherd)
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Carol, Holly, Robin or Ivy:
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
(Holly Golightly)
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Mary, Joseph or Gabriel:
Frankenstein
(Mary Shelley)
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Book gifted to you or one you’ve gifted:
These Is My Words
(This was originally gifted to me years ago and is a book I gift to others often)
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Thanks to @charliebooksandcoffee for the Christmas fun!
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#frommyshelves #booklover #lovetoread #bookjoy by @priestlakepie

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10 months ago

I love Friends of the Library book sales!!! This is what I scored over the weekend.
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Gabriële - by Anne Berest (who wrote The Postcard, a book I highly recommend) and her sister, Claire Berest, about their great grandmother. I’ve been wanting to read this since it came out and missed my library hold when it came in a few months ago as I was traveling.
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The Henna Artist - I picked this one up after reading a great review on it by Susan @andallthatsass.
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The Wind Knows My Name is an Isabel Allende book that previously escaped me.
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The Monuments Men - I’ve heard bits and pieces about the hidden art treasures during WWII and am curious to learn the whole story. Apparently there’s a movie too, which I’ll likely watch after reading the book.
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State of Terror - this collaboration by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny intrigued me when it came out a few years ago. I started it Saturday afternoon and read through much of Sunday. This political thriller does not disappoint but I have to run errands before I can finish it. Another rain and windstorm is expected today and we’ll probably lose power so I need to stock up.
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Have you read any of my finds?
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#librarybooksale #tbr #frommyshelves #booklover #lovetoread #pnwreaders by @priestlakepie

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10 months ago

Next up for #charlieschristmaschallenge from @charliebooksandcoffee is a red, gold, and green stack. Fortunately the top book has gold lettering because I could only scrounge up two gold books from my shelves. I love these colors together. Very festive!♥️🌟💚
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#bookstack #frommyshelves #booklover #lovetoread #pnwreaders #christmasstack by @priestlakepie

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13

10 months ago

Thanks to @charliebooksandcoffee and her #charlieschristmaschallenge for the inspiration to post. ♥️ Here are three generations of children’s Christmas/seasonal books.
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🎄The Littlest Angel was my mother’s book.
🎄A Christmas Carol is my book.
🎄The Christmas Angel and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey are my daughter’s books.
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Every year growing up my mother gave my sister and me a Christmas ornament so we’d have a start to our own collection when we left home. Over the years several were lost or broken but every year these ornaments make me smile and have a place on my tree. The green caroler is mine at age 6 and the silver star is age 8. 🥰🎄
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#christmasbooks #frommyshelves #ornamentsandbooks #booklover #lovetoread by @priestlakepie

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10 months ago

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I’d did it! I did it! I finally conquered my 10+ year reading nemesis!
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#TheCountOfMonteCristo languished on my shelves, despite repeated reading attempts. Yet something niggling in the back of my mind kept me from tossing the book, permanently. And I’m glad I listened because in TCOMC Alexanre Dumas gives us a master class in the adage, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
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Edmond Dantès is a care-free young sailor, about to be married to the love of this life and given command of a ship. But jealous haters conspire against him and a self-centered judge sends Edmond to prison without trial. Locked in isolation at the dreaded Chàteau d’If, a rocky island fortress off the coast of France, Edmond is destined to never see daylight again. Fourteen years later the Count of Monte Cristo is introduced and we’re off to the races.
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Yes the book is long at just under 1100 pages. But I read it over the course of a month and found much of it flies by quickly. If anyone is contemplating whether to read it or not, I urge you to go ahead. You won’t be sorry.
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I’ve been AWOL here for a few months due to travel and family obligations but am trying to get back on Bookstagram track. I’ve missed this wonderful corner of my world.🥰
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#frommyshelves #bookjoy #booklover #lovetoread #pnwreaders #revengestory by @priestlakepie

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a year ago