February 24, 2016, Wednesday morning -- Reading Angela Flournoy

Usually, in scouting for readers, I find people reading the news in the morning and books in the afternoon, which was why I was so happy to see, at 7-something in the morning, on my walk to work through the Ingleside neighborhood, this reader enjoying the morning sun with a book.

(The picture of the book is fuzzy because the gate was broken and I had to take the picture from a distance then crop it.)

She is reading The Turner House, by Angela Flournoy, which she learned about from NPR.  It's about a family, and their home, in Detroit.

Her favorite author has been Steinbeck since she read East of Eden when she was ten.

February 15, 2016, Monday morning -- She is reading Zuri Day

Waiting for the bus

She is reading Silken Embrace, by Zuri Day. She chose it because her granddaughter has the same first name as the author, Zuri!

No blog post today -- Happy Valentines and President's Day!

January 23, 2016, Saturday evening -- Reading author unknown

In Bangkok, in the Bangrak neighborhood

She is reading an article in a celebrity magazine. While cell phones are everywhere, and most vendors I saw were passing the time between customers on their cell phones, there were a few who spent their time reading printed text. This woman was all set up with a reading light and was happy to have her photo taken.

January 19, 2016, Tuesday evening -- Reading author unknown

In the sleepy seaside town of Prachuap Khiri Kahn, Thailand

She is selling cuttlefish and reading a romance novel.

Asking permission to photograph her for my blog was challenging. In other countries that I've traveled to I've spoken enough of the local language to explain my blog, but I'd never studied Thai before and the YouTube sites I studied before my vacation didn't cover "how to ask people if they want to be on your reading blog." So, I had to, with a very slow internet connection (Horray for T-Mobile -- free international roaming), show her examples of other posts. She was happy to be photographed.

I also tried some cuttlefish. The cart she is sitting at is attached to a moped/scooter that she drives around town or parks at the market. All the cuttlefish vendors (we saw them in Bangkok, too)  have a horn they toot to let you know cuttlefish is coming through the neighborhood, just like an ice cream truck plays their signature music. After you order, she takes a cuttlefish off the clothesline where it's drying, runs it through the wringer (the device on her left) to flatten it out, then grills it, and then flattens it out further and serves it with a cup of sweet chili sauce with ground peanuts. It's really delicious -- chewy and a little crispy. All this attached to a scooter!