The Sunday Salon -- Ramblings, really

We had quite the rainy week here in Southern California. Unfortunately, rainy didn't equal lots of reading time for me, I found myself preoccupied with other things and starting to go crazy from the rain. I can't believe it, I really can't, I think I've turned into a California girl. I used to love the rain, but here it seems like everything falls apart when it rains, and also I don't have appropriate footwear and always get soaked somehow on my way into the office.

I did read Genesis by Bernard Beckett, Thicker Than Blood by C.J. Darlington, The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg, and I continued my reading of The Sacredness of Questioning Everything and started So Long Insecurity, You've Been a Bad Friend to Us by Beth Moore.

Which leads me to a startling revelation. I forgot just how much I love to read nonfiction, especially the kind that is categorized as spiritual growth and applies to my life. I think there's a lot of spiritual growth/Christian Life books out there but so many of them are not that interesting to me. But the two I'm reading now feel almost like they were written with me in mind and I do feel I will actually...grow from reading them. They've given me so much to think about, so very very much to think about as I go about my everyday life. I feel absolutely ravenous for more of the same and so that long neglected part of my TBR pile may be getting a bit more attention.

And another thing. I went to see Book of Eli against my initial better judgement. I saw a couple of people tweet about liking it, most notably Tosca Lee (who I think is ridiculously cool) and I decided to give it a chance. And the story was okay, kind of interesting, but I couldn't help but wonder if post-apocalyptic or dystopian films will ever work for me. They always feel like they are on the verge of being something awesome and then they're not. Can anyone recommend a good dystopian film?

Well enough about me. A few things to note this week:

Bloomsbury will be changing the cover of Magic Under Glass. I don't think we know to what yet, but this is a small battle won in a much larger war. In order to follow the continuing efforts to get publishers to abandon the practice of whitewashing covers, you can join Color Online's Readers Against WhiteWashing facebook page.

There's a Persons of Color Reading Challenge that has just been started as well. I absolutely love this interview with Claudia Mair Burney. I think it's also pretty enlightening on the fact that it was a struggle for the publisher to put a person of color on one of her covers. They did it, but in case there was any doubt in your mind, this should show you that these decisions are conscious decisions. That makes it an intentional act against persons of color in favor of money.

In other news, Tess Gerritsen's (incidentally a PoC) Jane Rizzoli series has been adapted for television and ordered to series! Yay!

And on that happy note, I leave you for this Sunday. I hope all is well in your world, that you are surrounded by people who know how valuable you are, and that the books you read become transform your life.