Surviving Stay Home, Stay Healthy, Stay Sane

                  Surviving Stay Home, Stay Healthy, Stay Sane

It has been over two months since I posted on February 16 about reading Nathan Dylan Goodwin's books. At that time I had read three of his books. Shortly after the Stay at Home order due to the Covid19 virus a local library notified me that book four was on hold for me. At the time they were shut down and I tried to find a way to access the book. Finally I told them I would pay the postage if they would mail me the book. The book arrived April 7 and I thoroughly enjoyed reading that wonderful book. There are still five more in his genealogy based mystery series. Those in the genealogy world have offered their heart felt appreciation of his writing.

Now it is April 23 and when I attended an online genealogy special interest group this week through the Genealogical Forum of Oregon one of the final discussion questions was something like, "What are you doing to stay sane during the Stay at Home order." I was amazed that most of the group of twenty genealogists had not heard of Nathan's books. They quickly did an online search and brought up the information about his books. Here are the books of his that I have read:

Hiding the Past, 2013, 228 pages

The Lost Ancestor, 2014, 249 pages

The Orange Lilies, 2014, 102 pages

The America Ground, 2015, 249 pages

I did not share with them the other collections of books that kept me busy for months, but in case you are wondering here they are.

In late November a friend from church was downsizing her collection of easy reading books written by Jack Weyland. I won't list them all, but a list is easily found in doing an online search. The first collection of 33 books was $20. These I set aside in a tote as I knew it would take me some time to read them all. When the Stay at Home order took place I had lots of time for reading.

Then in late December this friend offered me the following set of books for $30 which I eagerly said yes to:

7 Donna Vanliere

4 Lisa Wingate (including her new one, Before We Were Yours)

4 Richard Paul Evans

2 Ed J Pinegar

2 John Bytheway

1 Kevin Alan Milne

1 Holly J Wood

1 Ardeth G. Kapp

1 Lisa Valentine Clark

They are fantastic books. As I worked on genealogy when I took breaks I would read the books to rest my mind. When I finished reading all of these I decided to see what other books of Jack Weyland were available and found ten more books. Nine of them were available from ABE Books and I ordered them. They arrived in the first weeks of April. Again I looked online for the one they did not have and found five more books. They are mostly available for Kindle and I prefer Books. So if you happen to have any of these in your possession and want to part with them please let me know:

Charly's Diary, 2013

MacKenzie for Congress, 2011

Favorites from Forever, 2012

Charly Shadow Mountain, 2012

Heather 101, 2012

With Wondering Awe, 2013

Now before I get back to reading, let me tell you about my current list of books that I was going to order from an online vendor. I decided to check my local libraries online catalog just in case. They had all of them saving me $52.97. I placed holds on them and they have set up a drive up delivery system. Here's hoping I can pick them up today. They are:

The Pioneers by David McCullough

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick

The British are Coming by Rick Atkinson

Reading is a very soothing activity and as genealogists we can expand our research by learning from others. I did pass along all of the first set of Jack Weyland books to a friend.