Do you know what day it is? It’s the Wednesday after the Green Bay Packers clinched the number one seed in the NFC! Homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. I’ve been to many playoff games, and two championship games, one in the Packers favor, the other not. Here’s hoping for another championship game on the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field.

It’s also time to take a look at what I’ve read, what I’m reading, and what I’m planning on reading.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently listening to the audiobook and following along with the book of That Time of Year: A Minnesota Life (Amazon) (AbeBooks) by Garrison Keillor. My husband gave me an autographed copy for Christmas (it was strongly hinted that’s what I wanted and he listened.) It’s a memoir of Keillor’s life and how he became a radio star and a writer. So far it’s pretty good, I just didn’t realize how religious he is. He was always joking about the Lutherans of Lake Wobegon, so I assumed he was Lutheran. He’s not. But he doesn’t focus on his religion entirely, just how it shaped his early years.

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished three football related books that I’ll review Super Bowl week (did I happen to mention that the Packers are the #1 seed in the playoffs?):

When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss. (Amazon) (Abebooks) Basis for the Broadway Play by a Pulitzer Prize winning author from Madison, Wisconsin.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning. In When Pride Still Mattered, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss captures the myth and the man, football, God, and country in a thrilling biography destined to become an American classic. 

Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer (Amazon) (AbeBooks) Written the year the Packers went to Super Bowl II, and Lombardi’s last season as coach of the Packers, I’ve always loved this book. When I discovered there was a Packer who was also a writer, he became my favorite from The Glory Years of the 1960s. My husband and my brother are friends with Kramer’s children, and I’ve met the man several times. Could not be a nicer guy. After waiting so many years, he was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. He knows how to tell a good story!

Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL by Jeff Pearlman (Amazon) (AbeBooks) This alternative league started when I was 10, but was in the works for twenty years. The USFL is where NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame stars like Jim Kelly, Steve Young, and the Packers Reggie White got their start. It’s also the story of how the likes of Donald Trump, who was one of the team owners, upended the league, sued the NFL, won the lawsuit and was only awarded $1 in damages. That’s how the book gets it’s name. I’d seen the ESPN documentary 30 for 30 on the USFL and was curious to know more about the league.

Books that I reviewed this past week:

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal

ARC Review: The Fabergé Secret by Charles Belfoure

The Quest of the Missing Map (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #19) by Carolyn Keene

New Kid (New Kid #1) by Jerry Craft

The Murder of Mary Russell (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #14) I was going to post this review later today, but given the fact that the United States has gone crazy, I think I’ll hold off for now!

I re-read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe‘ (AbeBooks) (Amazon) and will review it in a few weeks.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Still on the docket is the sequel to Fried Green Tomatoes, the “sequel”, The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop (AbeBooks) (Amazon), that I got from the library.

“Bud Threadgoode grew up in the bustling little railroad town of Whistle Stop, Alabama, with his mother Ruth, church-going and proper, and his Aunt Idgie, the fun-loving hell-raiser. Together they ran the town’s popular Whistle Stop Cafe, known far and wide for its friendly, fun, and famous “Fried Green Tomatoes.” And as Bud often said to his daughter Ruthie, of his childhood, “How lucky can you get?”

But sadly, as the railroad yards shut down and the town became a ghost town, nothing was left but boarded-up buildings and memories of a happier time.”

I also can’t let a month go by without reading something about the Royal Family. This time it’s an ARC of The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication from NetGalley. Look for my review close to it’s release date of January 19, 2021.

What are you reading? Do you have any recommendations? Drop your list in the comments. Thanks for stopping by!

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