Zoë's 2024 Challenge

Talk 75 Books Challenge for 2024

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Zoë's 2024 Challenge

1_Zoe_
Jan 9, 2024, 6:59 pm

Despite my failure to post (or read, really) in 2023, I'm back for another year! I'll be on maternity leave until August, so I'm hoping that will lead to some reading time eventually. At the very least, I should be able to read more of other people's threads, in theory.

I'll reserve the first ten posts here for various lists, which I'm more likely to keep updated than the thread itself.

2_Zoe_
Edited: Dec 15, 2024, 1:57 pm

Books Read in 2024

January
1. Defiant
2. Platonic

February
SS. Worst Wingman Ever
3. The Exception to the Rule

March
none

April
none

May
4. Green
5. Our Voice of Fire

June
none

July

August
6. Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 1 Volume 1 (audio)
7. Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 1 Volume 2 (audio)

September

October

November

December
8. Cribsheet

3_Zoe_
Edited: Jun 4, 2025, 4:20 pm

Reading Progress by Month

January
Completed Defiant
Completed Platonic
Raising Good Humans Every Day (p. 9)
Our Voice of Fire (p. 79)
Worst Wingman Ever (p. 20)

February
Completed Worst Wingman Ever (short story)
Completed The Exception to the Rule
Our Voice of Fire (p. 146)
A Lady for a Duke (p. 188)

March
A Lady for a Duke (p. 346)
Our Voice of Fire (p. 166)
Cribsheet (p. 163)

April
Green (p. 150)
I'll Be There (But I'll Be Wearing Sweatpants) (p. 62)

May
Completed Green
Completed Our Voice of Fire
I'll Be There (But I'll Be Wearing Sweatpants) (p. 88)
Into the Wild (p. 79)

June
Into the Wild (p. 114)
Logicomix (p. 226)
I'll Be There (But I'll Be Wearing Sweatpants) (p. 89)

July
Into the Wild (p. 161)
Modern Friendship (p. 81)
Logicomix (p. 234)

August
Completed Ascendance of a Bookworm 1 1
Completed Ascendance of a Bookworm 1 2
Logicomix (p. 291)

September
The Secret Syllabus (p. 21)
Logicomix (p. 301)
Teaching with AI
Malkah's Notebook (p. 52)
A Letter to the Luminous Deep

November
Cribsheet

December
Completed Cribsheet

4_Zoe_
Edited: Dec 15, 2024, 1:59 pm

Next Five
Into the Wild
Logicomix
Supercommunicators
Modern Friendship
I'll Be There (But I'll Be Wearing Sweatpants)

Next Twenty
A Lady for a Duke
The Good Life
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Iron Widow
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Educated
*My Teacher is an Alien
You Will Find Your People
How to Know a Person
How to Clean House while Drowning
*The Girl with All the Gifts
The Spanish Love Deception
Bringing Up Bébé
Here for It (the Good, the Bad, and the Queso)
Russell: A Very Short Introduction
The First to Die at the End
Invisible Child
Raising Good Humans Every Day
Poverty, By America
Rebel

7_Zoe_
Edited: Jan 27, 2024, 2:43 pm

Books Started in Previous Years
(that I do want to finish one day)

Bold means I've made more progress on reading the book since the year when I started. Those are probably the most likely to get finished eventually.

Records from 2019-2021 are incomplete. 2023 will be added later.

Started 2023
The Good Life (p. 122)
Expecting Better (p. 177+)
The House in the Cerulean Sea (p. 131)
You Will Find Your People (p. 82)
The Midnight Library (p. 12)
Iron Widow (p. 254)

Started 2022
Relationship-Rich Education (p. 49)
Strengths Based Leadership (p. 49)
The Art of Showing Up (p. 40)
All We Want (p. 47)
Essential Modern Greek Grammar (p. 35)
Carry On (p. 88)
The Friendship Formula (p. 73)
Platonic (p. 216)
Ejaculate Responsibly (p. 32)
The Spanish Love Deception (p. 342)

Started 2021
Asked and Answered: Dialogues on Advocating for Students of Color in Mathematics (p. 134)
Son of the Storm (p. 220)
Mathematics for Human Flourishing (p. 55)

Started 2020
Can We Talk About Race? (p. 34)
Stamped from the Beginning (p. 100)
The Rabbit Effect (p. 54)

Started 2019
Why Nations Fail (p. 42)
Becoming an Academic (p. 97)
The Obesity Code (17%)
The Uninhabitable Earth (p. 44)
The Minimalist Way
Tattoos on the Heart

Started 2018
Dreamland (p. 78)
Science Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (all but annotated bibliography)
We Wear the Mask (p. 141 of 204)
Children of Blood and Bone (p. 483 of 600)
Nobody (p. 54 of 184)
21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act (p. 22)
The Slow Professor (p. 35 of 90)
The Color of Law (p. 43 of 251)
Just Mercy (p. 127 of 318)
In Defense of a Liberal Education (35%)

Started 2017
Strangers in Their Own Land (p. 110 of 261)
Happiness Is: 500 things to be happy about (p. 48 of 271)
The Shame of the Nation (p. 34 of 338)
Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio (49%)
Children of the Broken Treaty (p. 140 of 290)
Hidden Figures (p. 189 of 265)
White Working Class (p. 43)

11_Zoe_
Jan 9, 2024, 7:00 pm

All done! Welcome :)

12norabelle414
Jan 10, 2024, 1:06 pm

Happy New Year, Zoe!

13drneutron
Edited: Jan 10, 2024, 4:21 pm

Welcome back, Zoë!

14FAMeulstee
Jan 10, 2024, 4:28 pm

Happy reading in 2024, Zoë!

15_Zoe_
Jan 10, 2024, 5:34 pm

Thank you Nora, Jim, and Anita!

16qebo
Jan 10, 2024, 6:00 pm

>7 _Zoe_: Books Started in Previous Years
If I'd started a book in 2017, I'd have to start over.

Happy New Year!

17_Zoe_
Jan 10, 2024, 6:10 pm

>16 qebo: Happy New Year!

I think that's probably true for the one fiction book on that list, which I'll go back and remove. And I should probably also remove the one where I've only read 10 pages. But I'm (unreasonably?) optimistic that I can pick up the non-fiction again partway through.

18SqueakyChu
Edited: Jan 10, 2024, 6:45 pm

>1 _Zoe_: That is a very nice maternity leave! Enjoy it. These little one grow up so fast!

>7 _Zoe_: I recently started The Perks of Being a Wallflower but I bailed on it. I didn't find it interesting enough and didn't really feel like reading a coming-of-age story written by a teen. I started it because I wanted to know why it was a banned book. I see some reasons for it. I don't think it should be a banned book, but I can't see it being required reading for high school English either.

You are so good with your bailed books. Whenever I restart a bailed book, I always want to start it from the beginning. I guess that's why I seem to never get back to them and often release them unfinished.

19foggidawn
Jan 11, 2024, 9:31 am

Happy new thread!

20kidzdoc
Jan 11, 2024, 12:11 pm

Happy New Year, Zoë, and congratulations on your new addition!

21MickyFine
Jan 11, 2024, 2:20 pm

Pleased to see you back again, Zoe! Are you back in Canada that you get a year for mat leave or is your institution that awesome? (The (lack of) length for US mat leaves blows my mind).

22_Zoe_
Jan 27, 2024, 2:29 pm

>18 SqueakyChu: I think your approach is probably better overall! I'm going to go back and re-assess which of these books I'm still interested in finishing. I'm sure there are several that I can remove from the list, including The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I chose it for a reading challenge and at first I was happy about the 90s nostalgia, but then it reminded me about why I never particularly liked YA in the 90s. I think the only reason I kept it on the list is because I had initially borrowed a library copy, but was progressing too slowly and had to return it unfinished, leading me to buy my own copy which I now feel obligated to read. But I think it's time to let it go. (Maybe I'll bring it to you in March, if I can find it by then!)

>19 foggidawn: >20 kidzdoc: Thank you Foggi and Darryl!

>21 MickyFine: I'm hoping I really will manage to be back on LibraryThing! I'm still in the United States, so it's a combination of my institution's relatively awesome policies with the academic calendar in general, which lets me piece together bits of leave into a longer stretch.

So I worked for a couple of weeks at the start of the semester (fortunately they didn't have me teaching, so I was basically just trying to be somewhat productive while also sleeping 12 hours a day at that point), then I used two weeks of sick leave before the birth, then almost 8 weeks of sick leave (concurrent with FMLA, for whatever difference that makes) for my recovery after the birth, which brought us to American Thanksgiving, when I had a week off without needing to charge leave. Everything was fully paid up to that point. Then there were three weeks left in the semester, when I used Paid Family Leave—we have up to 12 weeks of that in a year, and it pays about 2/3 of our salary. Then it was Christmas break, which gave me another month and a half of time off without needing to use leave. But I did have occasional tasks to do, like submitting my yearly reappointment portfolio in early January, so I wasn't quite 100% off. Where I got really lucky is for this new spring semester that just started last week; we have a new Paid Parental Leave (in addition to the Paid Family Leave), which was just approved in our new collective agreement in August and gives us 12 weeks fully paid. Then for the last 3 or 4 weeks of the semester I'll use more of the Paid Family Leave. And that will get me to the summer, where I can take a few more months off before returning to work at the start of the fall semester. I could technically even use another month of Paid Family Leave at that point, but I'd rather just return at the start of the semester after ~11 months, versus the mess of having someone else teach my classes for the first month.

I also got a one-year tenure-clock extension, so hopefully at decision time my colleagues won't judge me too harshly for doing little work either this coming summer or this past summer, but we'll see what happens.

I really don't know how people manage without much leave in the US—I feel like we were just in survival mode for the first few months. And that's with Mark on leave too (his company provides six months, which is amazing), plus hiring doulas to help us out.

23_Zoe_
Jan 27, 2024, 2:43 pm

Okay, here are some removals from my books-to-be-continued list:

2022
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (p. 83) - I'm not enjoying it enough to continue
Critical Race Theory in Mathematics Education (p. 17) - I barely even started
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - this was a reread to begin with; I might as well reread from the beginning if I want to get back to it
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage - this is a comic, short enough to reread from the beginning

2018
Could It Happen Here? Canada in the Age of Trump (p. 17 of 192) - barely started, and the sort of book that really belongs to a current moment and is probably too outdated to be interesting now
The Marrow Thieves (p. 44 of 231) - I'm not that far in, so I should really just restart this one if I want to continue five+ years later. Plus my sister has borrowed it, so I don't even have it in my possession right now

2017
The Productivity Project (17%) - I seem to recall that I wanted to read about someone's fun experience trying all the productivity hacks, but it ended up being more an advice book than a memoir, and I don't think this random guy really had the expertise to be giving advice despite having tried the things himself
Small Teaching (p. 51 of 272) - There's now a second edition of this book that I'd read instead

There's probably still some more room for culling, but that's a start anyway.

24norabelle414
Jan 27, 2024, 2:59 pm

>23 _Zoe_: Farewell, books!
I hope you enjoy having a cleaner slate, Zoe.

25SqueakyChu
Edited: Jan 27, 2024, 5:04 pm

>22 _Zoe_: Oh, no! Not another copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower!!! Just kidding, of course. Our Little Free Library would love it. :)

>23 _Zoe_: I periodically cull my To Read books--only because there are about 400 of them, and I won't live long enough to read them all. That is not to say that I plan to die any time soon. I just sort of wiggle all kinds of new-to-me books and new library books into that pile. Plus I'm now hooks on Kanopy movies, and that's been cutting into my reading time. Oh, yeah...and I started to knit again!

26_Zoe_
Feb 1, 2024, 4:49 pm

>24 norabelle414: It really is nice having a cleaner slate! I need to apply the same approach to the physical objects in my house.

>25 SqueakyChu: I cull my to-read books too! I actually find it easiest to get rid of books if I haven't even started them, because then I (probably) don't have any connection to them. I feel guilty about The Perks of Being a Wallflower because I made the decision to buy a copy after I was already partway through; I should have realized that my failure to finish the library copy meant I just wasn't that interested.

It sounds like you're doing all sorts of fun stuff! I enjoy seeing the puzzles you finish. I don't know if my library has Kanopy, but I remember using it through my mother's account when I was visiting, and it was definitely nice to have access to so many movies.

27_Zoe_
Feb 1, 2024, 5:03 pm



1. Defiant by Brandon Sanderson



This is the fourth and final volume of the Skyward series, which has been one of my favourites in recent years (fortunately there's a "Skyward Legacy" series coming in the future!). This might be my least-favourite installment, though, as it started to feel like there weren't any rules for what was and wasn't possible. The whole series is already the sort of "science fiction" that feels more like fantasy in allowing impossible things; for example, telepathy and teleporting are justified in a hand-waving sort of way by some mutation caused by radiation. And whenever the reader starts to get a handle on what the rules might be, some other new thing happens that doesn't quite fit.

But the book was good enough that I actually got through it in my very sleep-deprived state, sometimes reading just a few pages per day, and maybe I over-analyzed it due to my slow pace. I'm definitely planning to read the follow-up series as soon as it comes out, so that's probably the most important indicator of my enjoyment.

28_Zoe_
Feb 1, 2024, 5:13 pm



2. Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends by Marisa G. Franco



Influenced in part by recent research about the importance of social connections for long-term health and well-being, and in part probably by the pandemic and social distancing, I decided a couple of years ago that I should put more effort into my friendships. (It also helps that I had a bit more time after finishing my dissertation, and felt like I had been neglecting friendships for years.)

So I started reading several books on the topic, and this is the second one I've actually finished; it's probably the best by far in providing evidence-based ideas for how to build and improve our friendships. I'd like to list some of the takeaways here, but then I'd never get around to posting this review. Maybe one day. It's very readable too.

29SqueakyChu
Edited: Feb 1, 2024, 5:18 pm

>28 _Zoe_: I think that looks like a great book! I am now interested in seeing my friends more than I am in traveling...because, at my age, both are getting a bit harder. I am also interested in seeing what the book says about toxic friendships. Both Barbara and I have dealt with this issue in the past year. I now made your book into a BB. :D

See you next month, byt the way! :D

30_Zoe_
Feb 1, 2024, 5:40 pm

Once upon a time I tried to post monthly updates on my reading, but I never quite managed to stick with it. What I do usually keep up with is my mini reading updates like this one, in >3 _Zoe_: above:

January Reading Progress
Completed Defiant
Completed Platonic
Raising Good Humans Every Day (p. 9)
Our Voice of Fire (p. 79)
Worst Wingman Ever (p. 20)

Basically it lists any books I completed, and how far along I am in any that I read partially but didn't finish that month.

Instead of trying to duplicate the effort of posting covers etc. for books that I finished, which already get their own posts, I'll try to give monthly updates on the ones in progress instead.


Raising Good Humans Every Day: 50 Simple Ways to Press Pause, Stay Present, and Connect with Your Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields
The structure of 50 ideas made me think that I could read one (short) chapter of this every week throughout the year. Of course I'm already behind. The first idea was definitely very simple, but worth keeping in mind: when you're stressed or overwhelmed, calm yourself first by taking deep breaths. Four counts in, four counts out.


Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising by Brandi Morin
This is a memoir by someone who survived Canada's crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Morin starts by talking about her troubled childhood: her alcoholic grandmother, her alcoholic father, the fights at home, her time in foster care and group homes, a stint in jail. And I know the point is that this is generational trauma, stemming from the treatment of Indigenous people in residential schools and elsewhere. But I must be a terrible person, because I still found it hard to relate to the author and her decisions. She wants to hang out with the cool older girls, so she runs off from the group home and gets raped. She has another older friend who does hard drugs, so she's begging for a needle (the friend fortunately refuses). Her boyfriend dares her to do a break and enter, so she agrees. But as I approach the midpoint of the book, she's just given birth to a daughter (father unknown), which gives her a strong incentive to turn her life around, so I hope I'll find it easier to sympathize with her going forward.


Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez
This is a short story (only 61 pages); it's free to read through Prime and I literally found out about it from a Facebook ad. I've read and enjoyed a full-length book by this author (Part of Your World), and I thought it would be a nice light break from the heavier read above. I'm about halfway through and the male protagonist so far seems to be basically the same person as the last time (late 20s, "rugged" with a beard, hands-on trades-type guy, has a pet dog), but I don't mind. The story is thematically a bit heavier than expected since the female protagonist is a hospice nurse currently caring for her own dying grandmother, but I'm okay with that too. I'll definitely manage to finish this one soon.

31_Zoe_
Feb 1, 2024, 5:43 pm

>29 SqueakyChu: I'm glad to hit you with a book bullet! I hope you do have a chance to read it; I'll look forward to your thoughts. I hope it's still possible for you to travel and see friends for years to come.

And it will be great to see you before too long :) We still haven't figured out the exact dates of the trip, but there's a chance that it will actually start at the very end of February!

32SqueakyChu
Feb 1, 2024, 5:58 pm

>31 _Zoe_: We actually did take a recent trip. In the past summer, Jose and I went to a suburb of Pittsburgh to vist our old roomate Nancy from when I bought our house in Rockville. We hadn't seen her for about ten years. Her husband recently passed away, making our visit a bit sad, but she also invited our son Avi, his wife and their two kids. We spent five days helping her with groundskeeping in preparation for an open house. Her large property contains a 200 year old historic log cabin as well as a historic day lily garden. Avi had a delightful time metal detecting! He found old cow tags and even a world war I watch! I was just happy to be back with my old friend. It was as if no time had passed. She was so...the same! :D

33avatiakh
Feb 4, 2024, 3:09 am

>27 _Zoe_: I'm also enjoying this series and haven't really got into this final one as yet. I think it was the only boook I pre-ordered last year and thought I'd dive in and read it straight away.

34_Zoe_
Feb 11, 2024, 5:20 pm

>32 SqueakyChu: I remember, that trip happened to be exactly when we were passing through DC this summer! But it's for the best that we couldn't see you since I ended up getting Covid, either at Politics & Prose or at a shopping mall somewhere in the area. I think Politics & Prose is more likely since it's a much small space :/

It sounds like you had an amazing trip, though. It's so nice that you could bring Avi and his family, and her property sounds fantastic!

>33 avatiakh: I'm both glad to hear that I'm not alone and sorry to hear that it hasn't lived up to your high expectations either! It would have been the only book I pre-ordered too, except I wanted to get it at Barnes & Noble rather than Amazon.

35SqueakyChu
Edited: Mar 24, 2024, 6:44 pm

>32 SqueakyChu: Yep! I remember you trying to meet up with us wherever we were, but we never knew where we were going to be when so I kept saying no. :D We ended up staying an extra day because of the fire pollution making breathing difficult.

Thanks for not giving us Covid. Our family has it anyway. This week my granddaughter gave it to her immediately family and exposed everyone else (who thankfully remain symptom free) in our family. Our son Josh caught it on his most recent trip to Japan in Dec/Jan and is still coughing from it.

36_Zoe_
Edited: Feb 11, 2024, 8:49 pm



Short Story: Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez



I have an arbitrary 100-page cutoff for whether something counts as a numbered book or not, so at 50-something pages this doesn't make the cut, but it's certainly long enough to be worth mentioning here.

I picked up this short story (free with Prime Reading) after seeing a Facebook ad, because I'd enjoyed another book by this author. And it was basically what I was looking for, a quick and mostly easy read. I wish romance novels were shorter, because I tend to read romance when I want something lighter, and they all seem to be 400 pages long these days. So it was nice to read a short story instead.

I say it's a "mostly" easy read because the content was actually much heavier than I expected in a romance. If I'd glanced at the description for more than two seconds, I might have seen that the protagonist is a hospice nurse taking care of her dying grandmother. And I'm pretty sure the dying grandmother gets more time in the story than the actual romance, so this wasn't quite the fluff I expected.

Still, I enjoyed it. It's already starting to fade from my memory a few days later, but I'm glad I read it.

37_Zoe_
Mar 24, 2024, 5:25 pm

>35 SqueakyChu: I hope everyone in your family has recovered from their Covid now! The lingering cough must be very frustrating.

I think Brendan will be getting his first Covid shot in a couple of days :)

I was lucky to avoid the worst air conditions here while I was away in South Korea.

38_Zoe_
Mar 24, 2024, 5:36 pm



3. The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren



This is a belated review from February, so we'll see how much I remember. I found that my positive impression of the book actually increased with time, and I upgraded it from 4 stars to 4.5, because it was a very satisfying story that I read through without being distracted by other books (very rare for me these days!). It begins with a misplaced email on Valentine's Day, and the protagonists get to know each other through once-a-year emails before eventually meeting a decade later. I always enjoy romances that are based on a deeper foundation than physical appearance, so the fact that they communicated via email for years was a big plus for me.

At 101 pages, this just made my cut-off to be considered a book; I count the acknowledgements etc. even if the story itself is slightly shorter. This is the second of the "Improbable Meet-Cute" series that I read (free on Amazon); as I said in my last review, I appreciate the shorter format for romances, which I often find are too long these days.

39_Zoe_
Mar 24, 2024, 6:10 pm

February Reading Progress
Completed Worst Wingman Ever (short story)
Completed The Exception to the Rule
Our Voice of Fire (p. 146)
A Lady for a Duke (p. 188)

Again, better late than never for an update! I reviewed the two stories that I finished, and here are my thoughts on the books in progress:


Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising by Brandi Morin
I continued to find the author pretty unlikeable and unrelatable, so I still haven't finished this short book even now. But I can see from the reviews on Goodreads etc. that I'm very much in the minority. In the 60-something pages that I read this month, she was overwhelmed by a bad breakup, so she left her kids at her mother's house and went away for several days without telling her mother when she'd be back. When her mother threatened to call child protective services, she dismissed the threat, and her children were taken away. She gets them back eventually.


A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
This is a Regency romance with an unusual premise: a transwoman is left for dead after the battle of Waterloo, and uses the opportunity of her disappearance to live as herself at last. The love interest here is her childhood best friend. I struggled a bit with a suspension of disbelief required here (he really didn't recognize her immediately?), but the book is very readable and I'm enjoying it overall. I still think it's a bit too long, though; it's moved away from the main characters a bit and now has a large focus on the best friend's sister making her debut in London.

And a book not in progress, that was in progress last month:

Raising Good Humans Every Day: 50 Simple Ways to Press Pause, Stay Present, and Connect with Your Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields
I don't know, the first chapter of this just wasn't compelling enough to make me read more, though I still plan to keep going eventually. I also have Cribsheet on the go as a parenting book, and maybe one at a time is enough.

40SqueakyChu
Mar 24, 2024, 6:45 pm

>37 _Zoe_: We’re all fine now. So far I’ve had eight Covid shots!!!

What were you doing in South Korea?!

41_Zoe_
Mar 25, 2024, 4:49 pm

>40 SqueakyChu: That is a lot! I can't remember how many I've had, but it was at least six.

I was just vacationing, as one does when five months pregnant!

42_Zoe_
Apr 17, 2024, 5:11 pm

March Reading Progress
A Lady for a Duke (p. 346)
Our Voice of Fire (p. 166)
Cribsheet (p. 163)

Brendan still mostly only naps when someone is holding him (or in the carseat or stroller, fortunately), and now that has to be in a dark room. So just when I was getting back into reading, my progress stalled again. I've since managed to pick it up a bit by reading on my phone, but that's for the April update; March was just slow. I also started to lose interest in the two main books I was reading, even though I'm close to the end in both.


Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising by Brandi Morin
I only read about 20 more pages of this one, so there's not much to add beyond what I've said previously. I still plan to finish the book though—with only about 50 pages to go, I'm really very close.


A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
The pacing of this one just seems strange to me. The protagonists have been in love for ages, but Viola is determined not to have a conversation about what sort of life they want or could have. I'm starting to find the Regency setting a bit unconvincing as well, with the profanity and open talk about sex and lack of nuance in the social interactions. But again, I'm so close to the end (maybe 70 pages remaining) that I'm determined to finish it eventually, after a bit of a break. I am curious to find out how they'll resolve everything and what will become of the love interest's sister, but I set it aside when there seemed to be another sex scene looming—I want to get on with the plot.


Cribsheet by Emily Oster
I started this data-focused parenting book in the fall, and just picked it up again; unlike Oster's pregnancy book, this one will be relevant for a longer time period, so I can still get through it even reading in fits and starts. I enjoyed the sections I read but can no longer remember what they were about—maybe I should have posted this update two weeks ago. I set it aside when I got to the section on daycares, and I realized it's because I'm a bit nervous about our daycare selection; I'm afraid it will have too heavy an academic focus and not enough developmentally-appropriate focus on play. But that's still months away.

43norabelle414
Aug 14, 2024, 11:54 am

Happy birthday Zoe!!!!

44PaulCranswick
Oct 20, 2024, 9:44 pm

Just wanted to drop by and say hello Zoe.

I also noted that you share a birthday with my dear late mum.