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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

 

 

The Sunday Post #271

 

 

 

 

On The Blog Recently

 

• I showed you my favorite books with people on the cover.

 

 

 

 

In My Reading Life

 

I read Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss. The author is a former hostage negotiator who teaches readers how to talk to strangers and get what they want out of the conversation. I learned a lot from the book. The author doesn’t pad the book with unnecessary fluff. He gets right to the point, gives clear examples, and uses bullet points to summarize the most important parts of each chapter. It’s an extremely readable guide that I can see myself referencing in the future. The author also tells stories of his time as an FBI hostage negotiator. I could not do that job. There’s too much pressure! The book mostly focuses on business negotiations where there is a lot of money at stake. Many of the author’s tips can be applied to any negotiation situation, but I wish he’d also talked about lower-stakes negotiations. I was hoping for more tips on dealing with difficult customers or family members. Even though the book didn’t give me everything I wanted, I’m eager to try out the author’s negotiation strategies.

Then I read Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield. It’s historical fiction set in a small town in 1800s England. An unconscious child is pulled out of a river. Three families come forward and claim that the child is their missing family member. Since the child can’t talk, the townspeople set out to uncover her secrets and find her real family. It’s an attention-grabbing mystery with a clever writing style. It’s a novel about storytelling. Each character tells their part of the story to the reader, and the reader is left to piece the puzzle together. As a result, the reader has to keep track of a lot of characters and plot threads. I have mixed feelings about that. The characters are intriguing people, but there are a lot of them, and their stories are detailed, which slows down the book’s pacing. I got impatient a few times. Once Upon A River is entertaining, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. If you’re interested in the author’s work, start with The Thirteenth Tale!

Right now, I’m reading Not So Pure And Simple by Lamar Giles. I don’t have an opinion yet because I just started it. I hope it lives up to the hype. My blogger friends love it.

 

 

In The Rest Of My Life

 

Five things that made me happy recently:

 

1. I’m fully vaccinated! I got my second COVID shot. The side effects weren’t too bad.
2. Did you participate in Dewey’s Readathon? I didn’t get a ton of reading done because I kept falling asleep, but I still enjoyed it. Reading and sleeping are two of my favorite things.
3. I met the kindest, happiest human ever. He’s a middle-aged military veteran with a German shepherd service dog. He overheard me getting verbally abused by an unhappy camper at work, and he came over to give me a pep talk and tell me I was doing a great job. He was sweet and had the best smile. Chatting with him made my day much better. I hope I see him again so I can thank him for being awesome.
4. Bath bombs! I tried one that turned my bath water blood red. Floating in blood water is an unsettling experience, but it smelled like Christmas, so I didn’t care.
5. I went to a restaurant. I hadn’t eaten inside a restaurant since January 8, 2020. The restaurant I went to was big and nearly empty, so I think it was safe enough. I really miss restaurants.

 

 

 

 

Let’s Be Friends

 

 

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!