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Recent Puzzle Hauls

I have acquired several puzzles over the last few weeks that I am excited about doing. Most are new but a couple are used.

  • Balloons from Ravensburger, 300 pieces – part of their Moments line and it’s just so pretty
  • Diamond Dahlia from Buffalo Games, 500 pieces – looks like a lovely rainbow puzz!le
  • Wine Country Camper from Ceaco, 750 pieces – hard to find puzzle from the Happy Camper series, had to get off Poshmark
  • Amsterdam Weekend from Antelope, 1000 pieces – have wanted this one for a while and decided to take the plunge
  • Whimsical Village, Concord, 500 pieces – saw this and loved it, found on ebay
  • The Tree of Hope, Pintoo, 300 pieces – this brand is new to me and is famous for their plastic pieces
  • Coastal Harbour, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces – recently did one by this artist, Georgia Breeze, and really enjoyed it. This came from the UK but was sold on Amazon, so I didn’t have to mess with high shipping or customs fees
  • Simple Joys, 1canoe2, 1000 pieces – I have done one other by this brand and liked it a lot, this one just looks so relaxing

I am going to try buying fewer puzzles for the next month or so and try to focus on the ones I already have. That is a really difficult challenge for me, though, so we’ll have to see how I do!

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What I Read This Week – June 14th

I have decided to start posting about the books I’ve read on a weekly basis for a while and see how I like it. I may still post more in-depth reviews if the mood strikes me.

I finished three books this week and enjoyed them all.

First up was In the Woods by Tana French. This is the first in the Dublin Murder Squad series, and it was recommended to me by Bookstagram user @electric_bookaloo. It has a lot of complexity in both the details of the case they are working and in the character development, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Next was a re-read of an adolescent classic, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. It was so fun to revisit this book. It has definitely held up to the test of time!

Finally was Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I have seen her all over Bookstagram and decided to start at the beginning with her first novel. I loved it! I enjoyed the juxtaposition of Elsie and Ben’s romance with the current day relationship with Ben’s mother, Susan. The supporting characters were also well-written. Overall great book!

What have you read this week that you enjoyed?

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Houses I Read

Houses I Read is a 1000-piece puzzle from Magnolia, and the artist is Nihal Cifter. This was on my wishlist for a while, and I finally added it to my collection.

I absolutely loved doing this one. The colors are gorgeous and the art is so quirky. It was so much fun. The sky was a bit hard but not too bad since there were no false fits.

Here are a few closeups:

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Pride & Prejudice Map

Pride & Prejudice Map is a 500-piece puzzle from Pippi Post, and the artist is Alexa Zurcher. This puzzle was so delightful! I am a big P&P fan and grabbed this one as soon as I could. (I also got the Little House on the Prairie Map.)

The image is totally enchanting, with the cute buildings and other fun details. If you look closely, you will see that the border is made up of quotes from the book.

I was also impressed with the quality. There was no puzzle dust and no false fits. I’m sure I will do this puzzle again and again!

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Into the Jungle

Into the Jungle is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cobble Hill, and the artist is David Penfound. This is another puzzle I got for free from a friend.

I am very pleased with how it turned out even though there is one piece missing. It provided several sessions of puzzling and is such a nice image. Cobble Hill are a good quality puzzle with a matte/linen finish. Their puzzles are random-cut, which does increase the difficulty of the solve. Towards the end, I was convinced there would be several pieces missing based on the holes I had left to fill, but the odd pieces shapes ended up filling everything except for that one little piece on the left edge.

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Rise & Shine, Benedict Stone

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Do you ever read a book and keep having the vague sense of having read it before? That was my experience with Rise & Shine, Benedict Stone by Phaedra Patrick. Even though there were some parts I didn’t remember, there was enough that was familiar to convince me I must have read this book before. I wouldn’t hold that against the book, though; I am notoriously bad at remembering the plots of books I have read.

Benedict Stone is a jeweler in a small village whose business is almost non-existent and whose wife has recently left him. Then one day his teenage niece surprises him by showing up at his door for a visit. She is reckless and stubborn and turns his life upside down, and he must decide whether to accept the chance to change the way he looks at life.

There is a lot to like about this book. I enjoyed the colorful characters and the great setting. It was very satisfying to see how Benedict took steps toward a better, richer life for himself. Definitely would recommend!

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Gull’s Nest

I just love Charles Wysocki, and this image made for the perfect puzzling experience. The mix of buildings and horse-drawn carts with the landscape elements was ideal for puzzling without getting stuck on any one area.

This one is called Gull’s Nest, and it is a 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games.

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Reading While Black

Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
By Esau McCaulley

📜Summary
Reading While Black is a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation. At a time in which some within the African American community are questioning the place of the Christian faith in the struggle for justice, New Testament scholar McCaulley argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times.

He advocates for a model of interpretation that involves an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, in which the particular questions coming out of Black communities are given pride of place and the Bible is given space to respond by affirming, challenging, and, at times, reshaping Black concerns. McCaulley demonstrates this model with studies on how Scripture speaks to topics often overlooked by white interpreters, such as ethnicity, political protest, policing, and slavery.

Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location as well as the cultures of others. Reading While Black moves the conversation forward.

💬My Thoughts
I really appreciated learning from McCaulley’s perspective on a variety of topics, and I was interested in his interpretation of the Biblical passages he used to support his arguments. I did find the book to be quite scholarly, and I don’t feel that I have the background knowledge I would need to evaluate his conclusions without reading more in this area.

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Seaside Jigsaw Puzzles

As part of the puzzle haul I got from the friend from church who moved away recently, I got a set of Ceaco puzzles labeled “10 Seaside Jigsaw Puzzles.” I ended up doing six of them before I got tired of them and decided to stop. I know I could do the others later, but I don’t think I will.

The puzzles I did included two 100-piece puzzles and four 300-piece puzzles. I did not do the four 500-piece puzzles. Here are pictures of the ones I completed:

The Family, 100 pieces
Dolphin Universe, 100 pieces
Saturn’s Messengers, 300 pieces
Swimming Lessons, 300 pieces
Reach for the Heavens, 300 pieces
Tropical Fish Island, 300 pieces

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More or Less Maddy

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

More or Less Maddy is the newest release from Lisa Genova, and it centers on Maddy Banks, a young woman with bipolar disorder. Genova does an amazing job in this novel of taking us through Maddy’s experiences with depression and mania that lead to her diagnosis of bipolar, as well as the ups and downs she goes through as she struggles to accept what that diagnosis means for her.

I love that Genova brings a background in neuroscience to her writing. As I read this story, I felt like I was right there with Maddy, feeling the highs and the lows she was dealing with both before she got diagnosed and after, when she was trying to reconcile her need for medication and stability with her desire to pursue her dream of comedy.

I could also empathize with her family and friends, who just wanted her to be okay. Yes, that made them less supportive of her dreams than they could be, but I could understand the desire to see Maddy safe and as healthy as possible.

This was an emotional read and I would highly recommend it.