The end of August already. As the heat was extreme, I was in quite a bit and so my reading time increased. We did have a severe storm blow in and a lightning strike so close to the house that we had damage.
It fried our DVD player, 5 outlets in the house and the gas water heater. Xfinity went out for a bit but I will say I was impressed by the quick response time by a technician. Thirty minutes after the storm a tech was outside our house hooking us up. Many people in our area were without electricty and Internet for days. Our neighbor had to have a new air conditioner replaced- yikes! So while I will complain about a $3,800 gas water heater, it was less expensive than a new AC unit.
Here are the books I finished this month (Reviews are in the links)
For Nonfiction- The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede
The Atlas of Abandoned Places
📚 Three Fiction Reads 📚
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
The Quiet American by Graham Greene (Classics Club)
Watching
We abandoned The Terminal List with Chris Pratt after almost finishing the first episode. He is completely unbelievable as a Navy Seal. What we did find and like is an older show called Person of Interest starring Jim Caviezel. It's an interesting concept and we are up into season 2 now. Loving the slow character reveals and development. That said, I don't see us watching all 5 seasons.
Armchair Travel this month took me to Newfoundland, Maine, Australia, Vietnam and many remote places around the world with the Atlas of Abandoned Places :-)
What books and shows did you enjoy this month? Suggestions are always very welcome.
Sharing with Deb at Readerbuzz for Sunday Salon.
That water heater seems pretty expensive. Sorry about all your damage. Hopefully since you have the protector it won't happen again. Fingers crossed. You had a good mix of books & shows recently. We just finished the series Say Nothing and it was very good, pretty gripping too. Not sure what's next but might check out Shrinking, thanks. Looking forward to The Correspondent ... I need to check my copy status. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteSusan, we went with one that would do the job but not as expensive as the one that fried. The electrician and plumber told us the old one was expensive and super duty from back in the day. Couldn't spend that much. I ought to have clarified - that price included the surge protection for the fuse box and a yearly maintenance contract. That will help lower our homeowners insurance. Sometimes I think renting would have been better.....haha
DeletePerson of Interest is very good. I haven't heard of Shrinking, I will have to look it up.
ReplyDeleteJackie, we loved Shrinking as all the characters' stories interconnect.
DeleteOh yikes, that sounds like an awful storm! So sorry it did so much damage. Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteCindy, it was scary! Sounded like it was right outside our window.
DeleteIt's crazy how much it costs to replace things like water heaters these days. We have a family house in Hudson, Florida and it was $8,000 for our tankless, electric water heater. It can be monitored remotely via an app and, like yours, included a service plan.
ReplyDeleteJinjer, we did explore the tankless option but it was awfuly expensive. Nope.
DeleteSorry to hear about your DVD & water heater! Only 3 more months and hurricane season will be over. It's been pretty calm so far.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Johnny Dep grew up inMiramar, Florida?
Vicki, I did not know Johnny Depp was from Florida. Yeah, I a looking forward to the storm season being over. It's daily thunderstorms and that lightning strike was scary.
DeleteI have Atlas of Abandoned Places on my list to read. You had a great reading month.
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry to hear about all the damage you received from the lightning. Whew! I did not realize that lightning could cause so much destruction.
Deb, I hope you can get that atlas book. I think I saw it for kindle for $1.99 recently but I think the book version is better.
DeleteThanks for your thoughts about the lightning strike. We had a coworker who had lightning strike her house and it burned down. It's dangerous for sure!
We started watching Shrinking. I must get back to it.
ReplyDeleteHave a great week!
Marg, we loved Shrinking! Just started Slow Horses.
DeleteYikes at the lightning strike! We once had one so close the windows rattled, but no damage to house, phew. Though, at least it sounds like everyone was okay and it was "just" property damage!
ReplyDeleteNicky, indeed property damage is something we can recover from. I definitely stay inside when I hear thunder!
DeleteWow! That is a lot of damage from a lightning strike. I hope you and your neighbors are recovering.
ReplyDeleteJoy, we are ok now and have things repaired bt at a cost. Welcome to the neighborhood, right?!
DeleteYikes. I've experienced intense storms but never had equipment/appliances fried like you did. So sorry to hear this.
ReplyDeleteI also read Heartland in August and thought it terrific.
I will put Person of Interest on the TBW list--always on the lookout for good, interesting shows. Happy September!
Jane, Heartland was a good read, glad you enjoyed it as well. Happy September to you!
DeleteI'm sorry that lightning strike cause so much damage and expense! September and October worry me and I hope the hurricanes stay far away. You had a good reading month despite it all. I loved The Day the World Came to Town and would like to read Heartwood one of these days. Still hoping I might finish one more book before the month (day, lol!) is over, so I'll wait until next week for a wrap-up. Have a good week, Tina!
ReplyDeleteJoAnn, I have been lazy about getting to comments here. Hectic life for a bit. I agree about Sept/Oct being a worrisome season for the storms. I think they are more active then as the Gulf waters are hotter. We started a new shelf for the hurricane supplies but I am glad we have underground utilities now. That won't keep us from losing electric if it gets bad but it's less likely.
DeleteWow! I had no idea that could happen! I am glad that you were able to get all hooked up so fast.
ReplyDeleteErin, it was crazy!
DeleteThat's a lot of damage from the lightning strike, especially the water heater. Glad it didn't cause a fire. I had no idea a gas water heater is that expensive. We replaced ours once in Nebraska, but I don't think it was that costly. [Just read your response to Susan's comment, so no need to clarify why it was that expensive.] We once had a power surge that fried our microwave, but nothing from lightning. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteWe enjoy Person of Interest, but yeah, I doubt we'll watch all five seasons. We're almost to the end of the first season. The end of season two of Shrinking got me choked up, too. The acting and writing is so good!
You had a good month of reading. I hope to read several from your list. Just need to stop spending so much time playing Mah Jong! :)
Les, this is our first gas water heater and I like it better than the electric ones we have used in the past. Also, we stopped Person of Interest after 10 episodes of season 2. It's a cool show but that was enough.
DeleteI'm now afraid to look at the Mah Jong game online because I might get addicted! I already play way too much on Board Game Arena!
The A/C unit for upstairs got hit by lightning a couple of years ago - in July of course. I think our upstairs was well above 90 for about a week until we got our new unit. Luckily our downstairs unit was fine so we just slept downstairs but it was not fun. And luckily we didn't have any other damage. Glad everything was resolved quickly but ouch on the cost of that water heater!
ReplyDelete