W...W...W...Wednesdays - February 26

This meme was created by MizB at Should Be Reading. To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…


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

What are you currently reading?

Nothing like a contemporary book with a Laura Ingalls Wilder tie-in to satisfy my love of all things Laura. I also don't read enough books where the characters are from a culture I know little about. I'm loving this book so far.

Jobless with a PhD, Lee Lien returns home to her Chicago suburb from grad school, only to find herself contending with issues she’s evaded since college. But when her brother disappears, he leaves behind an object from their mother’s Vietnam past that stirs up a forgotten childhood dream: a gold-leaf brooch, abandoned by an American reporter in Saigon back in 1965, that might be an heirloom belonging to Laura Ingalls Wilder. As Lee explores the tenuous facts of this connection, she unearths more than expected—a trail of clues and enticements that lead her from the dusty stacks of library archives to hilarious prairie life reenactments and ultimately to San Francisco, where her findings will transform strangers’ lives as well as her own.

A dazzling literary mystery about the true origins of a time-tested classic, Pioneer Girl is also the deeply moving tale of a second-generation Vietnamese daughter, the parents she struggles to honor, the missing brother she is expected to bring home—even as her discoveries yield dramatic insights that will free her to live her own life to its full potential.

What did you recently finish reading?

My review of this one is coming on March 4th.

Planning on self-publishing a book? Here’s how to do it.

The book describes the complete process necessary to self-published a book. Unlike those who maintain that self-publishing a book consists of simply uploading the cover and manuscript files, this book details all of the necessary preliminary tasks that have to be finished before uploading the files.
It’s a complete roadmap to get a book self-published. It’s organized by timeframes to break up the workload into manageable chunks.

Uploading files to a packager isn't the entire scope of work. That's actually the easiest task, but there are many more necessary tasks to be done.. This book explains the entire self-publishing process. It breaks up the publishing process into four timeframes starting four months before the availability date. This spreads the workload into easy-to-manage chunks.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I'm scheduled to review this book on March 25 over at The Children's and Teens' Book Connection. The book is on its way to me now, so I should have plenty of time to get to it.

As a straight-A student with a budding romance and loyal best friend, M.T.’s life seems as apple-pie American as her blondish hair and pale skin. But M.T. hides two facts to the contrary: her full name of Monserrat Thalia and her status as an undocumented immigrant.

But it’s harder to hide now that M.T.’s a senior. Her school’s National Honor Society wants her to plan their trip abroad, her best friend won’t stop bugging her to get her driver’s license, and all everyone talks about is where they want to go to college. M.T. is pretty sure she can’t go to college, and with high school ending and her family life unraveling, she’s staring down a future that just seems empty. In the end, M.T. will need to trust herself and others to stake a claim in the life that she wants.

Author Maria E. Andreu draws from her personal experience as a (formerly) undocumented immigrant to explore an issue that affects over one million children in the U.S. But while the subject matter is timely, it is M.T.’s sharp, darkly funny voice and longing for a future that makes this story universally poignant.

What are you reading right now?