Denise's Reading Blog

Sunday, December 21, 2025

Our Winter Reading Program for Adults is Back!

Here is an excerpt from an email I got from the Maricopa County Library District.

Cozy Reads, Cool Rewards!

Once you’ve signed up, stop by your library to pick up your Winter Reading bookmark! This special bookmark helps you track your reading—and keeps your place in style all season long.

Feeling lucky? You could also win one of our weekly prize drawings! Log at least 60 points in a single week to be automatically entered to win:

Maricopa County Parks Day Pass
Library Swag Bag (includes a book!)
“Rise and Read” Sunrise Simulation Alarm Clock
Book Light

Bookmark Just For Signing Up!

I went to the Georgia T. Lord library in Goodyear to pick up a few holds I had there. I also wanted to finally go to see the upstairs! It was cool! I found a Joy Division CD up there that I checked out. I asked for my bookmark prize and found this flyer for the Winter Reading Program and a bookmark too! 😃

New this year:

Bookmark just for signing up!
Earn 4 tickets to a Valley Suns game at 500 points!

My 2025 Winter Reading Program For Adults Avatar

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

My November 2025 Reads

🚶🏽‍♀️ Audiobook That I Listen To While Walking:

✅ 🚪 Next Door (Chloe Fine, #1) by Blake Pierce (Goodreads Author), Laura Bannister (Narrator)

📖 MY PERSONAL READS:

✅ 🧁 Kiss My Cupcake by Helena Hunting

📘 MY OCCASIONAL READ:

✅ 🌆 Starting Out In The Evening by Brian Morton

Monday, December 1, 2025

Review: Kiss My Cupcake

Kiss My Cupcake by Helena Hunting
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finished reading this book on Wednesday, November 26, 2025 at 6:45 p.m. I got this book for free at a Free Little Library on Navajo Drive near the Main Library in Glendale. I gave a book to the Free Little Library. It was my free copy of "Hello, Summer" by Mary Kay Andrews. I also got a free art project and a homemade bookmark with this book that was in the Little Free Library.

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🧁 Kiss My Cupcake by Helena Hunting

I love how the previous owner of this book put their own personality into it with this heart stamp! It matches the book perfectly!

Awesome! I have never seen this in a book I got from a Little Free Library.

I loved the page stamps too!

I found these homemade bookmarks in the Little Free Library too! =D

Overall, I liked the story. It was fun to read in my free time. It was quite spicy too! I was not expecting that level of spice! Phew! OMG! 😯

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Cute Halloween Calendar from the Fairway Library

I saw this cute Halloween calendar in the Fairway Library when I went to pick up my Family Guy DVD holds.

Prizes FINALLY Came In! | Cozy Books Corner BOX LET’S READ TOGETHER! Summer Reading Challenge!

They said that there was a delay in mailing because there was a lot of prizes to mail. It was a very long wait, but I think that it was well worth it! :)

Monday, November 3, 2025

Review: Starting Out in the Evening

Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I finished reading this book on Monday, November 3, 2025 at 3:41 p.m.

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🌆 Starting Out In The Evening by Brian Morton

I first came across this book when I went to visit the Georgia T. Lord library in Goodyear for the first time. I’ve always wanted to visit that branch because of the pictures I saw. It’s part of the Maricopa County Library District. I went to their book sale area first and saw this book in the stacks. I liked the story. I bought it for one dollar.

“He sighed. It struck her as a poetic sigh, but she was prepared to find poetry in anything he did” (7).

This kind of freaked me out lol.

“But whenever Heather felt uncertain about whether to do something, she did it. She had decided long ago that you never learn anything by holding back” (8).

I like this quote.

* The main girl is giving me psycho vibes. That hand kiss was way too much, in my opinion.

* I’d never thought that Heather would want to sleep with Schiller. I was surprised when they did.

“They left the bar; at almost two in the morning Second Avenue was still throbbing, and Heather felt the power and splendor of the city as vividly as if she’d just arrived” (123).

“The incredible brownness of his eyes. Everything worldly in them was burned away: all vanity gone, all ambition, all disappointment” (133).

“Spring was approaching, and every living being must respond or die.

He wanted to respond. He wanted to open himself—open himself like some … He didn’t know what smile to use. Everything that came to mind was a cliché. Maybe that’s the problem: when you open yourself to life, you begin to think in clichés. It’s better to be guarded.

But that can’t be true. The thing is to let life assault you, make yourself as defenseless as you can. If it bruises you, don’t protest. Love your fate” (138).

* I agree with Heather. Maybe Schiller’s last two books were bad to her because he essentially stopped having a life. He lost his passion. Or it just could be that she didn’t connect with the last two novels. I thought that it was weird when she kissed that picture of Schiller when he was young.

“And then he had a revelation. He understood why we dream. During the night the body shuts down, and the mind receives little information from the outside world; but the narrative function of the mind remains awake, laboring to make stories out of the little information it receives—out of hints and scents and glimmers and tapping sounds from fifteen floors below. The story-making organ never sleeps” (184-185).

“But somehow Paris made everything different. Being in a new place and speaking a new language made every encounter more interesting. A trip to the market in the morning to buy bread, an afternoon spent reading in a café—nothing was routine; a strange place helped you find the poetry in everyday life” (221).

* I felt kind of sad when Heather said goodbye to Schiller for good. 😔

* It took me three months to finish reading this book in my head and I have to say that it was kind of worth it. In the end, it was a story about an out of print author and the people in his life. I enjoyed it some.

7/28/2025

Book lovers never go to bed alone. 👓 @BooksAreCozy's “LET’S READ TOGETHER” SUMMER READING CHALLENGE! 📚☀️

🔆 THE SUMMER READING GAME BOOK PICK:
🌆 Starting Out In The Evening by Brian Morton

Featuring my new Mark-My-Time Bookmark, Reading Timer, and Booklight!

#cozysummerreads #currentlyreading #currentbooks #latenightread

8/6/2025

Nothing like a good old fashioned reading light.

@BooksAreCozy's “LET’S READ TOGETHER” SUMMER READING CHALLENGE! 📚☀️

#cozysummerreads

My October 2025 Reads

📖 MY PERSONAL READS:

✅ [☀️PHOENIX Libby LIBRARY & ALE LIBRARY☀️]: 🎃 Death of a Pumpkin Carver (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery #8) by Lee Hollis

✅ [☀️PHOENIX LIBRARY OverDrive Ebook☀️]: 🧛🏻‍♂️ Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural by Barbara H. Solomon (Editor), Eileen Panetta ...

Cute Fall Pic from MCLD Email

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Review: Death of a Pumpkin Carver

Death of a Pumpkin Carver by Lee Hollis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished reading this book on Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 12:45 p.m.

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🎃 Death of a Pumpkin Carver (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery #8) by Lee Hollis

I listened to the Eaudiobook from Libby from the Phoenix digital library.

Ale got this book for free with her Glendale book sale coupon she got for her Summer Reading prize! We got it at the Main Library in Glendale. Ale let me borrow it from her personal library.

I liked it! It was a nice Halloween story.

My borrower's card from Ale's personal library!

Cute halloween Lisa Frank stickers! :)

“A few Sundays ago, I was having trouble gearing up for some serious fall housecleaning so I decided to have a shot of caffeine to rev up the old engine” (126).

* When that Pinhead actor picked up Hayley at the haunted house and grabbed her chest and slapped his hands away all I could think was that she should have slapped his face instead. I was like, “excuse me?!”. I would have been in disbelief and reported him for sexual assault!

Saturday, October 4, 2025

My September 2025 Reads

📖 MY PERSONAL READS:

✅ ⚰ IWTV Manga by Udoh Shinohara

✅ [☀️PHOENIX hoopla LIBRARY☀️]: 📓 Gender Studies: True Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw by Ajuan Mance

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Instagram Posts | Cozy Books Corner BOX LET’S READ TOGETHER! Summer Reading Challenge!

Eaudiobook + Physical book = ❤️
@BooksAreCozy's “LET’S READ TOGETHER” SUMMER READING CHALLENGE! 📚☀️
📷 Canon PowerShot ELPH 180 Silver Point and Shoot Camera
#cozysummerreads #currentlyreading #currentbooks #audiobook #coffee #beachread #booknook #Libby

7/30/2025

New phone wallpaper: 📖My Current Book Log (July 2025 Reads)
@BooksAreCozy's “LET’S READ TOGETHER” SUMMER READING CHALLENGE! 📚☀️
#cozysummerreads #currentlyreading #currentbooks #booklog