I love annual events that get better and better each year. That's what's been happening with the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, VA. I did some quick math on the drive down and realized I have been going for five years now. I used to zip down on a Friday night and stay til Sunday morning, but my trip has been getting longer and longer each year. This year I started my weekend on Thursday and drove home Sunday afternoon.
Here's my travelogue on what I did there -- my version of "What I Did on My Bookish Vacation."
Yesterday I drove from my home in New Jersey to Charlottesville, Virginia for the Virginia Festival of the Book. I love road trips. Always have. If a trip is less than 6.5 hours, I drive. I loathe waiting in airports, packing a suitcase to fly and living life on an airline or train schedule. All are real stress inducers.
I love warm weather. Not hot sticky weather, but warm weather. This week I took an extended weekend trip to Florida and got just that! I had an opportunity to attend Sleuthfest in Ft. Lauderdale or the London Book Fair. I rolled the dice on sun or rain and picked Florida. As I wrote in last week's newsletter, the last time I was in Lauderdale in March was back in my college days.
Amazon has announced their top 20 books of 2025. Which of these, if any, would you select as your favorite books of the year? Please check all that apply.
Tell us about the books you’ve finished reading with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. During the contest period from November 14th to December 5th at noon ET, three lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win a copy of THE BURNING LIBRARY by Gilly Macmillan and SOME BRIGHT NOWHERE by Ann Packer.
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Coming Soon
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November's Books on Screen roundup includes the films The Running Man, Train Dreams, Wicked: For Good, Hamnet, Karen Kingsbury's The Christmas Ring and Eric Jerome Dickey's Friends and Lovers; the series premieres of "Death by Lightning" on Netflix and "All Her Fault" on Peacock; the season premieres of Apple TV+'s "WondLa" and Netflix's "Unicorn Academy"; the season finales of "The Morning Show" on Apple TV+ and "Anne Rice’s Talamasca: The Secret Order" on AMC; the continuation of CBS's "Tracker" and "Watson," HBO's "IT: Welcome to Derry" and Apple TV+'s "Down Cemetery Road"; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of The Long Walk, The Roses, Caught Stealing, Looking Through Water and Freakier Friday.