Norabelle414's Trilogy in Three Parts

An ice cream with taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle) I had on one of the recent 100F days.

Hello and welcome! I'm Nora. I live in the Washington DC area. This is my fifteenth year in the 75ers group! Aside from books, I also love:

animals/biology/zoology - I volunteer at the National Zoo
TV - scripted only, mostly science fiction and fantasy, especially anything based on a book
theater - I have season tickets to Arena Stage but I go to shows elsewhere as well
podcasts - especially about books
knitting (I'm on Ravelry), and also occasional cross stitch and embroidery
progressive politics (particularly urbanism)

You can find me on Bluesky @ norabelle (now open to all, no invite needed!)

My reading has been ticking up lately, so I have a few modest goals for 2024:
1) Be more present here, including actually posting on everyone else's thread instead of just lurking
2) Write reviews promptly after finishing a book
3) Read at least two books by the same author DONE!
4) Read another book in a series I've already started DONE!
5) Read at least one book in each of the following categories: romance, science non-fiction, science fiction, picture book, graphic novel, audiobook DONE!
6) Read at least 2 books by the same author that are not in the same series DONE!
7) Get caught up on a series of at least 3 books
8) Read at least 3 books published in 2024
9) Post mid-year reading statistics DONE!

A selection of books I have finished recently:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - 1/5 stars
Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson - 5/5 stars
Mae Jemison (Little People, Big Dreams) by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara and Janna Morton - 4/5 stars
A Slip Under the Microscope {short story} by H. G. Wells - 5/5 stars
She-Hulk (2022) #6 by Rainbow Rowell and Luca Maresca - 4/5 stars
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler - 4/5 stars
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian - 4.5/5 stars

For a full list of books I have read this year, click here: https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=norabelle414&collection=840181...

Happy Friday!!!

Yesterday I worked from home. My dad and brother and I were going to go to a lecture about microbiology at his social club, but it was canceled so we just had dinner. The service there is soooo slow that I got there at 6 but didn't get home until after 10.

It's extremely hot out today (forecasted high of 97F) but I have a library hold to pick up so I will be going out in it at some point. Someone gave me a recipe for baking an individual pizza in the bottom of a loaf pan and I'm excited to try it out, but no way I'm turning on the oven before evening.

Sometime this weekend I'll have No-Specific-Book Club, then Sunday afternoon I'm going to a community theater production of Assassins. Next week my mom will be visiting and she'll stay until after my new nibling is born, so my schedule is going to get weird.

Currently reading:
Still reading Floodpath; almost done with It Takes Two to Tumble. Floodpath is on the long side so I'm going to pick some short books to read next so I don't lose my momentum.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 23

Currently watching:
Finished season 1 of We Are Lady Parts and started season 2.

Happy new thread!

Good riddance to A Portrait of the Artist! Can't wait to see what you have to say about it. Also happy new thread!

Happy new one, Nora!

I read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in a BritLit class in college, and I think that's the only way I got through it...

Happy new thread, Nora!

Happy new thread Nora!
I think I'm caught up. Congrats on reaching your goals already and good luck on the next ones.

Happy new one!

Happy new thread, Nora.

I was interest to note your enthusiasm for progressive urbanism - the sustainability of livable environments is important to me too.

Happy New Thread! I look forward to goal #9 (I love seeing others' statistics).

50. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

When they were kids, Niamh, Ciara, Leonie, Helena, and Elle all joined Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, the official witch’s coven of the UK. As young adults four of them fought a war against the men who wanted magic users to exert total control over normal people and Ciara, who chose the wrong side. Now, in middle age, they are just trying to live their lives as veterinarians, bureaucrats, or moms. They need to work together again when a teen comes along who is more powerful than any boy they’ve met before. It turns out that’s because Theo isn’t a boy, she’s a girl, with all the power that entails. She could bring about the destruction of the Coven, or she could drag them into the modern era.

A really thrilling, modern, pro-trans witchy story. The representation here is not perfect - it’s still a very binary and segregated system of magic. But at least this book, unlike most others of the genre, is trying to engage with the reality of trans experience, and modeling good acceptance by some of the other characters. I really enjoyed spending time with all the characters - even the bad ones! - and they all had really rich backstories and motivations. Much more relatable to me currently than teen main characters. I especially loved the Britishness of the book - even the spellings aren’t changed for a US audience (‘centre’ and ‘favourite’ abound) and I frequently had to google slang words (which I love to do). I had a great time reading it and I can’t wait to keep going in the series, where I hope it will start to transcend being such a direct response to transphobia in the magic book community.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

51. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

It's the 1890s and Stephen Daedalus lives in Dublin and goes to Catholic school. He is pushed around a bit by the other boys, and is openly disdainful of them, knowing he is superior. Later, he is pushed around by a teacher but stands up for himself. He is attracted to a girl at school, a feeling which leads him to hire prostitutes. He feels great guilt over it and confesses to a priest. Then he becomes extremely pious, refusing to engage with anything he finds enjoyable and forcing himself to do uncomfortable things like smell bad smells. His teachers notice and suggest that he would make a good priest, but he decides he doesn't want to be a priest and stops being pious. He doesn't want to do anything anyone suggest he might like to do (be Catholic, not be Catholic, love his mother, etc.), and the girl he likes dares to talk to other men, so he decides he must leave Ireland.

I hated every second of this. It wasn't even fun to hate. I found it incomprehensible on a sentence-level, and on a paragraph-level. Stephen is odious and I couldn't stand him. He clearly thinks he is the only person who has ever had an inner life, especially not women. His only opinion on anything is to oppose it - he hates Catholicism but also hates the idea of not being Catholic, and hates atheists, and hates protestants. He hates Ireland but not for any particular reason, he hates the idea of loving his mother, he hates the rich and hates the poor, he hates athletes and intellectuals, he hates women. He hates his friends who are EXTREMELY patient with him even though all he does is lecture at them and treat them like idiots. He seems to think he is rebelling but no one is really trying to force him to do anything. It reads like the manifesto of a teenage boy with a lot of red flags.

It's very possible (probable) that there are nuances and context that I am missing that make the story make more sense, but the modernist writing style is completely devoid of context so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about that. I could, I suppose, take the time to analyze each sentence one at a time and research its meaning and context, but there's nothing here that leads me to think that would be at all rewarding or worth my time.

Rating: ❤ (1/5)

Thanks Foggi, Ursula, Katie, Mary, Angela, Anita, Paul, and Robyn!

Happy weekend!!!

Yesterday I went to the library to pick up a hold and there was a second hold ready that I hadn't received an alert about yet! Bonus! I browsed the shelves but didn't pick anything out because I already had 6 other books out. I did end up making an individual deep-dish pizza in the oven and it was super easy! Here's the recipe I used: https://boundedbybuns.com/recipes/r/detroit-style-pepperoni-personal-pan-pizza
I like a thick-crust pizza but I don't like sauce on top, but I figured I should try it the way the recipe says the first time. The crust came out GREAT but I still didn't like the sauce on top so next time I might try layering cheese-sauce-cheese. Also I can't eat pepperoni (terrible heartburn) so I didn't put any on but I got some mushrooms to try next time. I'm excited to make it again! It didn't even make a mess, it just used one small bowl and one loaf pan and the pan is deep so there's no way it can mess up the oven.

Today it was over 100F here and so I did not leave the house! I told myself I was not going to play video games this weekend and so I haven't, but that left me feeling a little unmoored. I read a lot and made a long list of tasks like errands to run and things to clean, and I listened to some music. I did a couple of them but not many. I waited until 10pm to do my grocery shopping, but it wasn't much cooler out.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going out to lunch and then to a community theater production of Assassins. I'll have No-Specific-Book-Club in the evening. Everyone in the club has already heard me yell about A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so I'll probably talk about the books I've got out from the library, or the Cat Sebastian I've just finished. My mom is arriving on Monday afternoon, but she's staying with my brother, not me.

Currently reading:
I finished It Takes Two to Tumble. It was fine but not nearly as good as the two more recent Cat Sebastian books I've read so I think I'm going to read her new books but not continue into her back catalog. I read about 125 pages of Floodpath, and started This Is How You Lose the Time War, which is exactly as wonderful as everyone says.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 25

Currently listening:
Last week I made a list of new music people are excited about that I wanted to listen to. First up was Beyonce's Cowboy Carter which came out in March. I am not usually a country listener but some of the songs had a very retro feel and I enjoyed it a lot. I particularly liked "Texas Hold' Em" and "Ya Ya". I also started listening to Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department but I haven't finished so no judgement yet.

Currently watching:
The second half of the Tony Awards, two episodes of Clipped, one episode of The Big Cigar, Last Week Tonight, one episode of Taskmaster New Zealand, finished season 2 of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, and started new show Queenie.

A few quick notes:

1) Updated >1 norabelle414: with a photo
2) Having finished It Takes Two to Tumble I've now completed goal #6, read two books by the same author that are not in the same series
3) Whatever library book I read next is going to be my 300th library book!

Happy new one, Nora!

>17 drneutron: Thanks Jim!

52. It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian

Ben Sedgwick is a kind young vicar who has been asked to look after the unruly children of a local widower. Phillip is that widower, on a short leave from captaining his Navy ship, Patroclus (get it??). He believes in discipline and following orders, but he’s been away a lot and his children don’t trust him. They need the softer touch of the vicar…and maybe Phillip does too….

A perfectly acceptable but insubstantial queer historical romance. I don’t think Ben’s backstory quite made sense to me, and Phillip is pretty distraught about Ben’s engagement for someone who was married to a woman until very recently. I did enjoy the inclusion of a learning disability in the plot, especially the outcome. And these dummies do kiss a lot, which is the important part.
It’s a fine read, but Sebastian’s more recent work is much better, IMO, so I’ll be sticking with that.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

>13 norabelle414: I'm adding Her Majesty's Royal Coven to my TBR list!

>20 foggidawn: I hope you like it!

>14 norabelle414: Well that was a fun review to read. :-) Not a book I've ever aspired to, and even less so now.

It's Monday.

Yesterday I went out to lunch and then to a community theater production of Assassins!, which was very fun. I had No-Specific-Book Club in the evening but there were only two of us. We had a good discussion but I'm hoping the organizer will start scheduling for different time zones so we can get more people in the future.

Today it's a chilly 89F out. After work I'm going to try to get some laundry done. I have not been sleeping enough lately so I would also like to go to bed early (but I've been saying that for weeks....it's just so hard for me to go to bed early when it doesn't get dark until 9pm).
My mom arrives this evening so I'll probably have dinner at my brother's house tomorrow and Wednesday. Thursday I have a zoo volunteer event in the afternoon and then I'm going to a play in the evening.

Currently reading:
A little bit of This Is How You Lose the Time War and a little bit of Floodpath
Reviews behind: 0!!!!
Consecutive reading days: 27

Currently watching:
I finished Ren Faire (the last episode was better than the other two but I thought it was still a little lackluster overall. The documentarians clearly hated everyone involved, which doesn't make for a good documentary) and watched the first episode of series 9 of Grantchester.

It's Tuesday.

I did not get laundry done yesterday (though I did fold and put away previous laundry) and I did not go to bed early. My conjunctivitis is back, exactly 1 month after it started, but it's just the eye goop and not the sore throat so I'm feeling okay. Just trying not to touch my eyes, washing my hands a lot, and lots of eyedrops. I am wearing masks some, but the nose keeps getting soaked with goop so I'm only wearing them when most needed (on the bus). I have a very important work project with a hard deadline of Monday so I can't take the day off today, but I am going to try to telework tomorrow.

Not sure what I'm doing this evening. I will probably go to my brother's after work to see my mom. It's on the cooler side today so we can eat dinner outside. I'm hoping my eye clears up quickly because Thursday is VERY busy.

Currently reading:
Halfway done with both This Is How You Lose the Time War and Floodpath. I'm hoping to finish both of those and another She-Hulk this week, and that'll be it for the month. Next up will be Murderbot book 6 and a non-Cat Sebastian Romance.
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 28

Currently watching:
Finished The Big Cigar (the ending was certainly exciting but there wasn't enough here. it should have been a movie instead), caught up on Fantasmas, and watched another episode of Queenie, which I think is not for me. (There's nothing wrong with it, it's just a certain kind of 'woman learns how to not be in a long-term relationship and then ends up in a better relationship' show that is very popular recently but does not interest me)

Oof, sorry to hear you the conjunctivitis is back. Wishing you and your eyes a speedy recovery!

>22 qebo: Whoops, sorry I missed you there, qebo! It's worth noting that A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is much, much shorter than most of Joyce's other work, so definitely better for the modernism-curious to read it than Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake.

>25 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! I'm feeling better today.

It's Wednesday.

Yesterday after work I went to my brother's house. My mom and I baby-sat my niece while my brother worked late and my sister-in-law went out to dinner. It went much smoother than the last couple times I've baby-sat. My mom read Make Way for Ducklings and I read Hot Dog and Otto the Loyal Long Dog.

I took half a dose of Nyquil last night and slept pretty well, and felt better this morning. I'm definitely not at 100% but my eyes were not goopy this morning.

Today after work I'm going to my brother's house again. Tomorrow I'm teleworking but I have back-to-back meetings at 11, 12, and 1 and then taking off early to go to a zoo event at 4pm, then going to the theater at 8pm. Friday should be quieter.

Currently reading:
Read a good chunk of Floodpath. It's a bit slower and wordier than the first book but I'm enjoying myself.
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 29

Currently watching:
Nothing

I remember enjoying Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, but I tend to like the modernist stuff and I also read it in college so I may have been more pretentious then 😂

Sorry the conjunctivitis is back and I hope it's gone soon! I agreed with your thoughts on It Takes Two to Tumble -- decent, but not as good as her more recent stuff, and I haven't read the rest of that series.

>28 curioussquared: An IRL friend told me that he liked A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and wanted to read it again so I gave him my copy and told him I never wanted to see it again.

I'm #8 on the waiting list for Cat Sebastian's latest, so I should get it in a few weeks.

Happy Thursday!

Yesterday I went to my brother's house after work. On my way I picked up a copy of Hyperbole and a Half from a little free library, and my sister-in-law gave me Anna K, which she had just finished reading.

When I woke up this morning my eyes were goopy again but other than that I felt okay. I made it through my busy day. I had a ton of meetings and then went to a zoo event at 4 and at 8 I watched The Migration, a step performance about The Great Migration. It was very good and it's nice to see something that I normally would not pick out for myself.

Tomorrow I would love to not leave my apartment but I do have a library hold ready for pickup. This weekend I don't have anything planned. I will probably spend some time with my mom at my brother's house but it's all still up in the air.

Currently reading:
Only about 50 pages left to go in Floodpath. The main plot is over and now it's just cleaning up the loose ends.
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 29

>27 norabelle414: Waking up with no goop is a victory all the same, I say. I'm glad you're on the mend :)
>30 norabelle414: Oh hey, I never read Hyperbole and a Half but I have seen a lot of her web comics. Been wanting to check that book out since so I'm eager to see if its any good.
(I love her comic on "A lot" vs "Alot", still makes me laugh).

Hi Nora, did you have a calm weekend?

>31 Ravenwoodwitch: I'm not sure Hyperbole and a Half is something I would bother buying or checking out from the library, but I couldn't resist grabbing it from a Little Free Library

>32 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! It was very calm by your standards!

It's Monday!

Friday I went to the library. I wanted to go earlier in the day (my library branch is so close that as long as I don't have meetings I can pop over there during a telework day no problem) but as usual I put it off until the last (and hottest) minute. I made the loaf pan pizza again but started late so I didn't eat until 9pm. It only takes 20 minutes to bake but the dough takes 2 hours to rise so I need to get started before 3:30 if I want to eat by 6. The cheese-sauce-cheese layering worked out okay but there was a little too much sauce. When you have to put the sauce on top of the cheese it's hard to smooth it around with a spoon so I added too much to try to get coverage. I topped it with mushrooms which were delicious but they don't get much cooking time so I think I'll saute them first next time.

Saturday I did nothing. I didn't want to make any plans in case my family wanted to do something, but they didn't and I kind of wallowed.

Sunday I went over to my brother's house for breakfast. My mom and niece and I gave the dog a bath in the backyard (technically a shower, I guess). I went home after lunch, got some work done, and did some chores.

Currently reading:
Finished Floodpath, She-Hulk (2022) #7, and This Is How You Lose the Time War. Started Fugitive Telemetry.
Reviews behind: 3
Consecutive reading days: 34

Currently watching:
I briefly got caught up on everything! Clipped, Evil, Doctor Who, Fantasmas, Last Week Tonight, Grantchester, D.I. Ray, We Are Lady Parts, and s3 of Taskmaster New Zealand. Now I'm rewatching The Bear before I start season 3.

>34 norabelle414: Sorry you saturday wasn't so good. But that loaf Pizza does sound good. Almost like a Pizza Lassagna.

Reasons I'm in a bad mood today (aside from the general state of the world):

1) The grocery delivery I get on Mondays didn't come until a few minutes before midnight last night (I think....I went to sleep at 11), despite getting a text that it was on its way at 1:30pm. Nothing in it was perishable (I don't order perishables for this very reason) so no real harm done but I don't like my stuff sitting in the hallway all night and I don't like the idea of the company making their delivery staff work that late.

2) After a several-month hiatus, the driver of the shuttle I take to work has started playing the far-right radio station again. It's as bad as you can imagine at this point in time.

3) I finished a project yesterday and sent it to my boss and he responded this morning and said it was "a good start" and I should "continue working on it" and I don't know what that means or what he wants.

4) Sunday I checked my library account and one of the books I have out had 1 available copy and no holds so I assumed my copy could be renewed today instead of due on Jul 5, but this morning the other copy is checked out AND there's a hold so I'm going to have to return it unread. I haven't had to return anything unread since January.

5) Currently two people on either side of me are on the same phone call on speakerphone and it feels like my head is going to explode.

__________

Yesterday after work I went out to dinner with my mom. We were hoping this would make the baby come, like when you go to the bathroom at a restaurant and your food arrives, but no luck. Today I'm on my own, then tomorrow after work I'll go over to my brother's house.

Currently reading:
A little bit of Fugitive Telemetry. I see that this story takes place before Network Effect chronologically, which makes sense but I wish the book had mentioned that up front! I also started Lavash at First Sight before bed. I'm not planning to read any horrible classics this month so I should get back into The Iliad. The podcast will be done next month, I think, and I'm 6 books behind.
Reviews behind: 3
Consecutive reading days: 35

Currently watching:
Grantchester

>35 Ravenwoodwitch: It's more like a little rectangular deep-dish pizza, I'm just messing with the layers trying to figure out how not to have sauce on the top. I highly recommend the recipe to anyone cooking for one. So much easier and cleaner than I thought pizza could be, and it's the perfect size for a hungry person.

>36 norabelle414: Ouch. I'm sorry things are linning up like that it sounds frustrating as hell. Hang in there :)

>36 norabelle414: I feel like any one of those is enough to make me annoyed and all five certainly merit a bad mood. Hope things improve soon!

Re: Murderbot: I think of Fugitive Telemetry as sort of like the Murderbot Christmas special. It's a little interlude that doesn't really advance the overall plot but it definitely a lot of fun anyway. On my last reread of the series I read Fugitive Telemetry before Network Effect and much preferred it that way, especially since System Collapse follows up right on the heels of Network Effect.

>39 curioussquared: Ahhh, I wish the Murderbot books had meaningful or memorable names. I've read the first four and this discussion makes me think that maybe I should read the others out of order in some way, but I'm not motivated enough to look up which book is which.

>38 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! I appreciate it.

>39 curioussquared: That's how I ended up feeling about it as well. I was mostly annoyed that there was no effort in the book or marketing to say "this takes place between Exit Strategy and Network Effect". The marketing copy on the back calls it "a standalone" novel but it's definitely not and it could not take place at any other time.

>40 _Zoe_: It's not that dire! Once I figured out when we were, it was fine. The one I just finished is Fugitive Telemetry, book 6, which takes place between book 4 (Exit Strategy) and book 5 (Network Effect). All the rest are in the same order.

Happy Friday!

You might think that my few days' absence means my new nibling has arrived, but no. His due date was Wednesday but he's still hanging in there.

I was very stressed out at work on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday after work I went to my brother's house for dinner. Thursday was a holiday and I had early dinner at my brother's house and then managed to time my trip home so I was on the Metro right before the fireworks started and it was pretty empty. A good day, except for the heat and humidity.

Today I teleworked and goofed around. I think that my A/C is leaking so I'm trying to clean my apartment enough that I'm not embarrassed to have maintenance come and look at it.

Tomorrow I'm going to have breakfast at my brother's house and then my mom and I are going to take my niece to the library.

Currently reading:
I finished Fugitive Telemetry yesterday. It's probably my least favorite Murderbot but that's not saying much. I started Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which is technically due to the library today but I'm going to try to knock it out this weekend.
Reviews behind: 4
Consecutive reading days: 37

Currently watching:
D.I. Ray and Taskmaster New Zealand

53. Floodpath by Emily B. Martin

Following the events of Sunshield, Ambassador Veran of Alcoro, Prince Iano of Moquoia, formerly-kidnapped anti-slavery advisor Tamsin, and Lark, the Sunshield Bandit, must work together. They are being hunted by both the Moquoian palace, who assume that Iano has been kidnapped, and the mysterious network of slavers known as the Hires, who kidnapped Tamsin with some outside help. Veran must fight through his disadvantages just to survive, and Lark must discover who she really is.

The second half of this duology is a bit longer than it needs to be, but still enjoyable. I found the ending pretty satisfying, if a little too perfect. It’s a decent depiction of disabilities, with the characters finding accommodations for their needs but never feeling like they need to be “solved” or “fixed”. The political issues didn’t really work for me in the end….a classist faction of the working class is wholly responsible for conspiracies to maintain the slave economy, and the rich are just caught in the crossfire? But it’s hard to do anything else in a semi-historical setting and in the tradition of princes and princesses having adventures. I really hope she writes more in this world because I enjoy watching it expand and grow.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

54. She-Hulk (2022) #7 by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Luca Maresca

Jen and Jack have slept together, finally. Jen gets a new client, a robot who looks like Doctor Doom but is not Doctor Doom but is being tried for the crimes of Doctor Doom. (Jen sure takes on a lot of clients but we’ve never actually seen her do any work for them.) Jen goes to find April and Mark, who attacked her on the street (yesterday? A week ago? I still don’t know what time it is) but it’s a trap and Jen gets kidnapped.

Things are happening, finally. (Though I said that about #4 and it didn’t pay off until this issue.) There’s an actual spoiler in this one! I’m excited to see what happens in the next one!

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

It's Tuesday.

Still no nibling! He will arrive tomorrow, at the latest.

Saturday I had breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law and niece and mom, then my mom and I took my niece to the library. We took her to the library a couple times last year but this was the first time she was old enough to really get it and she had a blast. As soon as we got inside she grabbed a book off the first display she saw and sat down on the floor to "read" it (it was an adult book so no luck). Next she played with an easel that had a sudoku puzzle taped to it, with magnetic numbers you could use to complete the puzzle. What a cute idea! She really liked matching the magnetic numbers to the numbers already on the puzzle. She wandered through the teen section, trying to read books (only 2 or 3, not a disaster) until I finally herded her to the kids section. We read several books while playing with toys. It wasn't hard to get her to leave, and she enjoyed picking books to take home. What a delightful kid.

Over the course of the week we read:
Make Way for Ducklings
How to Be a Big Sister
I'm a Big Sister
Leo the Lightning Bug
Look Out, Suzy Goose
1, 2, 3, Do the Dinosaur and
Lionel Poops

So I have a lot of reviews to write.

By the time I got my apartment clean on Sunday the foreshadowed AC leak had gotten very bad. I teleworked yesterday so I could let maintenance in and they got the leak fixed and set up some dehumidifiers but I'm not sure if the carpet is going to be salvageable. I'm really hoping it is, because my friend's cat is going to be staying with me illicitly from the 15th to the 26th.

Today I'm in the office. It's EXTREMELY hot out - well into the 100s F with humidity. Even the low for today is 80F. What a miserable week. I'm going to try to go to the library today but I might wait until after dark (I'm only returning books)

Tomorrow after work I'm going to my brother's house to help my mom with my niece while my brother and sister-in-law and new nibling are in the hospital. Nothing else going on this week. Too hot and stressed to do anything.

Currently reading:
I lost my reading streak and I'm giving up on several library books that are close to or overdue. I need a clean slate. I started The Shadow Cabinet (sequel to Her Majesty's Royal Coven) on the bus this morning.
Reviews behind: 9 (2 books, 7 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 1

Currently crafting:
I haven't really been crafting anything in like a year... but I mended a run in a pair of shorts I wear under skirts (they're the same as tights but they're shorts) and tomorrow I'm planning to mend a couple of my niece's stuffed animals.

Currently watching:
Finished rewatching The Bear and watched the first two episodes of season 3. I started the new show Land of Women, which is nice. Less soapy than I expected it to be.

Yikes to the heat. We're suffering with highs in the low 90s and no AC, but at least it does get down to the mid 60s overnight and should cool off a little tomorrow.

Congrats on the forthcoming nibling!

It's Wednesday.

I have a new nibling! Everyone is doing fine.

Yesterday when I got home the carpet was tacked back down and my maintenance ticket was closed, so I assume it's fine. I did several loads of laundry, including all of the wet towels from the leak, ordered a birthday gift for my dad, and dropped 5 books off at the library.

This morning when I got up I checked the carpet again and I think it's a little bit wet where the leak was before. It could just be left over, or it could be condensation. I put a fresh towel under it and we'll see what it looks like when I get home tonight at like 11pm.

Today is brutally hot again, though not as hot as predicted. With humidity it feels like "only" 97 instead of the predicted 110. After work I'm going to my brother's house to hang out with my mom and niece.

Currently reading:
Read a bit of Her Majesty's Royal Coven on the bus. Nothing going before bed.
Reviews behind: 9 (2 books, 7 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 2

Currently watching:
Nothing

>46 curioussquared: There are always heat waves, of course, but I don't ever remember having such a terrible heat wave in so many different places in the US at once. Scary stuff.

Yay for new niblings! The library trip sounds like a good time. I hope the carpet dries out.

>47 norabelle414: I have a new nibling!
Yay!

Congrats on the new nibling!

And fingers crossed that everything is okay with the carpet. What a hassle!

Congrats on the nibling!

Thank you Robyn. qebo, Mary, and Foggi! Everyone is still doing great! He came home yesterday.

The weather here has still been pretty brutal. We've gotten some actual rain over the last few days, which has helped a lot (I don't think it had rained much in a month or so?) but it's still in the high 90s (100s with humidity) and expected to continue or rise for the next several days.

Wednesday after work I went to my brother's house and baby-sat with my mom. Thursday I was teleworking and it was very nice outside so I logged off a little early so my mom and I could take my niece to the playground. By that time it was back up to the high 90s so it was hard getting her to walk the 3 blocks home. Friday I had a REALLY ROUGH workday and didn't get to log off until 5 (I started work at 7:30 and had been planning to log off early) so I didn't get to my brother's house until after 6. But we still had a nice dinner and bedtime.

Yesterday I had a virtual zoo meeting in the morning, which went well. Then my friend brought over his cat, who is going to be staying here for a few weeks. He and Rory get along fine, they like to silently chase each other in circles and every time I go into the other room they look at me like I've interrupted something. Then my friend and I had lunch. I was planning to have dinner out with my mom so my brother and sister-in-law could have some privacy with the baby but she found a few more things to do around the house.

Things should be going back to normal now (except for the part where I have two cats). As I mentioned it's going to be extremely hot this week so I don't plan to do anything. Next Saturday the zoo book club is resuming, under zoo staff control. The chosen book is How Far the Light Reaches, which I read a couple months ago.

Currently reading:
Still chugging along in The Shadow Cabinet. All the picture books I've read this week have been repeats.
Reviews behind: 9 (2 books, 7 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 5

Currently watching:
Finished Clipped (I liked the ending more than the rest of it. I appreciated that it addressed the racism of white-owned teams full of young Black players directly, if not perfectly). Caught up on Land of Women, DI Ray, Grantchester, and Fantasmas. Watched a couple episodes of Taskmaster New Zealand season 3 (and also season 1, because the official Taskmaster podcast is covering that season now) and The Bear season 3. Started the new show Sunny, about an American woman living in Japan whose husband dies and leaves her a robot. I like it, I think the tone is interesting.

>14 norabelle414: I've started this 3? 4? times. I'm about due to do it again. Morgan and I got over halfway through Ulysses before a move interrupted our reading, which is annoying. I think that doing that one makes me more prepared for A Portrait of the Artist again - or maybe not, we'll see.

Anyway, I think it's clear Joyce was an insufferable person and he not only thought he was smarter/more special than everyone else but he was also determined to show that in every way possible. Morgan and I sometimes really delved into what he was talking about in Ulysses and sometimes just let the writing flow over us, I agree researching every single thing wouldn't be that beneficial.

So I'm sorry you hated it so much, but it was definitely interesting to read your comments!

>54 ursula: I recently started Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (I had to send it back to the library but I'll get it again soon) and was amused to find that it's very very similar to A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. It's written in stream-of-consciousness style and has an outcast main character with a detailed inner life, raised in a very repressive religious environment. The main difference is that Jess' problems are all external and Stephen Daedalus' problems are all self-imposed.

It's Monday.

I did not get much done yesterday and I did not get to see my mom again before she left this morning. Stayed up too late last night.

Today I've finished the few work tasks I was supposed to get done on Friday. It's very hot out but I need to go to the library after work...I have a hold ready that will expire on Wednesday and the week is only going to get hotter. No other plans this week (too hot) but I have a lot of chores I need to do. I've been moving furniture around in my apartment but that resulted in a large empty space on the far side of my bed...the least useful place to have extra space. So I moved some other furniture there, but then that turned out to be the best place to put the second litterbox and food for my visitor cat and now the area is too crowded again. I can't win.

Currently reading:
250 pages into The Shadow Cabinet, which is about halfway. I've been reading it both on the bus and before bedtime, but that's asking for disaster (disaster = being on the bus/metro with nothing to read)
Reviews behind: 9 (2 books, 7 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 7

Currently watching:
I caught up on everything! Went back and watched the rest of season 2 of Life & Beth, which is fine.

It's Tuesday.

I went to the library after work to pick up my hold. I was planning to take a local bus from the stop where my work shuttle drops off to the library (pro - 5 minutes of walking in the sun instead of 15; con - costs $2.25) but the wait for the bus was 23 minutes which was almost as long as it would take me to walk to the library AND walk home. So I just walked, and it wasn't so bad because halfway there the skies got dark and it started raining??? Summer weather is so weird.

I've been trying to source home COVID tests online to replenish my stash. My insurance won't cover them anymore and they're $12ea at the grocery store. So expensive.

Today I'm at the office. It's forecast to be well into the 100s today. Still nothing going on this week.

Currently reading:
On page 310 of The Shadow Cabinet. I'm really enjoying where the plot is going, but it still feels weird to have gender-y magic in a story that acknowledges gender isn't binary or immutable. It's like "men are from Mars and women are from Venus...but we've invented space travel". As the world expands I'm still hoping that there will be a reveal that magic doesn't work the way the characters think that it does, but not much so far.
Reviews behind: 9 (2 books, 7 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 8

Currently watching:
Caught up on DI Ray and Grantchester and now I have nothing to watch.

Congrats on the new nibling!!

I'm sick AGAIN (non-COVID) so I'm mostly resting but I'll be back soon. Still reading The Shadow Cabinet and also started rereading Alanna: The First Adventure just because. I'm still behind on writing reviews and I need to post some mid-year statistics.

55. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Red and Blue are on opposite sides of a war throughout time. They jump back and forth, in and out of different timelines to engineer the future their side wants, or foil their enemy’s plan to do the same. They start exchanging letters, first to taunt each other, but then they fall in love and must decide what future they would really like to have, and what they’re willing to do to get it.

A very sweet and short novel. I loved the format, which is a few pages about when in time the character is on their mission, how they find the latest letter from the other character, and then the text of the letter. The perspective of the first half of the chapter is fairly detached 3rd person and then the text of the letter is so intimate you can feel it in your bones. I don’t think the text supported these two people falling so in love through just a few letters but the letters make you feel it’s true anyway. Because we never see Red or Blue writing the letters, only receiving them, it’s not so much a story about falling deeply in love as it is about being deeply loved. Not a lot happens through most of the book, since Red and Blue eventually jump out of any timeline they’re in, until the end, which is very satisfying. The vibe really reminds me of the Marvel tv show Loki, if you’re into that.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

56. Make Way for Ducklings written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are looking for the perfect place to start a family, and settle on an island in the Charles River in Boston. After hatching 8 eggs, Mrs. Mallard walks her ducklings down the street to Boston Common.

The set-up here really doesn’t hold up. The Mallards reject the river because it has too many turtles (a real threat to eggs and small ducklings), then reject the Commons because there are too many bikes (maybe a threat to ducklings, but not a threat to eggs and much less of a threat than cars), then go back to the river to lay eggs, then walk the ducklings through traffic to the Commons (just because Mr. Mallard will meet them there, not for any particular reason). Mallards are known for their poor choice of nesting places, and for walking their ducklings through traffic to get to the water, but trying to insert anthropomorphic logic doesn’t work, and they already lived in the river!

But….it’s just so cute! You can’t help but love the beautiful brown line drawings and the ducklings’ silly names. I hadn’t seen this book in 30 years but every page has been etched in my brain the whole time, and I think of it every time I see a mother duck and ducklings walking down an urban street (which is fairly often, another reason why this book just works.)

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

Boo, sorry you're sick. Tamora Pierce is one of my fave rereads for when I'm not feeling great -- hope Alanna does the trick. I just read the new First Test graphic novel and loved it and I think I'm going to end up rereading the whole Protector of the Small series as a result 😂

57. Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot, Book 6) by Martha Wells

This book is set between books 4 (Exit Strategy) and 5 (Network Effect) of the series. A dead body is found on the space station Preservation, and of course the first suspect is a recently-arrived bot with “murder” right in their name. But the reader knows that Murderbot would never do that (leave a dead body laying around, obviously), and it is enlisted to help the police figure out the truth.

I do love these books, but this is my least-favorite. I don’t like the idea of Murderbot working with the cops, even reluctantly. The story goes out of its way to constrain Murderbot so it only uses publicly-available information to solve the murder, but I still don’t like having to think about it potentially violating civil rights in a relatively normal society. The ending turns out to be really, really good, but I’m looking forward to moving on in the next book.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

58. Lionel Poops written and illustrated by Éric Veillé

A lion named Lionel needs to poop so he tries to poop several incorrect places (on a cow's head, on top of the Eiffel Tower, etc.) before sitting on the potty to poop.

I thought it was cute, but my niece did not like this one. She rightfully points out that lions poop on the grass, not in a potty.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)

59. 1, 2, 3, Do the Dinosaur by Michelle Robinson, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw

A boy named Tom, dressed as a dinosaur, shows the other dinosaurs how to dance like a dinosaur - stop your feet, swish your tail, roar, etc.

You could not ask for a better book for a toddler who loves dinosaurs. It’s got a kid dressed as a dinosaur, it’s got real dinosaurs. It’s got loud roaring, it’s got whispering. It’s got feet-stomping, it’s got rhymes. It’s got a T. Rex who seems like they’re going to be scary, but actually they’re cute. Love it.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

>62 curioussquared: Thanks Natalie! I'm in a weird zone where I feel okay enough to get up and do things but I'm coughing a lot so I feel like I should stay home. I've taken 3 COVID tests since Tuesday and they're all negative so once again I have no idea what this is or what to do about it (besides rest). Or where I got it, since I haven't really done anything since the last time I saw my niece over a week ago.

I don't reread much, since there are so many new books to read, but a podcast I listen to was covering Alanna and I realized it's been 19 years since I read it and that's a long time! I'm looking forward to seeing how my thoughts have changed.

2024 Mid-Year Statistics (as of 1 July)

So far in 2024, I have read 55 books. That's 10 more than I read all of last year, and more than I've read in any full year since 2014.
9,382 pages, plus 8 hours and 2 minutes of audiobook.
I am averaging 10 days per book, 47 pages per day, 9 books per month.
Average book length was 174 pages.

The longest book was Babel, or the Necessity of Violence at 556 pages.
The shortest book was Waddle! A Scanimation Picture Book at 12 pages.
The only audiobook was The Scarlet Pimpernel at 8 hours and 2 minutes.

I have acquired 22 books (probably more, there are some individual comics I haven't entered yet).
I have bought 15 books (see above).
I have deaccessioned 4 books.

Books read this year:
34 (62%) were marketed for adults
4 (7%) for young adult/middle grade
17 (31%) for children.

38 (58%) of the authors/artists I read were non-male. (Some books have multiple authors/artists)*

15 (27%) had authors/artists of color*
11 (20%) had a main character of color.

7 (13%) had LGBTQ authors/artists*
14 (25%) had an LGBTQ main character.

3 (5%) had trans authors/artists*
3 (5%) had a trans main character.

(*These are to the best of my knowledge. It is very hard to find biographic information about a lot of children's book authors!)

10 (18%) had a main character with a disability.

3 (5%) were translated from another language (French, Japanese, Greek).

13 (24%) of the books I read were were purchased by me.
19 (35%) checked out from the library
1 (2%) free
19 (35%) borrowed (mostly from my niece)
2 (4%) gifts
1 (2%) early review copy

53 books (96%) physical books
1 (2%) ebook
1 (2%) audiobook

30 (55%) prose books
0 poetry*
8 (15%) comics
0 plays
17 (31%) picture books*
(*There's a picture book category now so I'm no longer counting rhyming picture books as poetry)

49 (89%) fiction
6 (11%) non-fiction

5 (9%) rereads

0 books published in 2024
38 books (69%) published in the last 10 years
17 (31%) published before 2014
The oldest book I read was the short story A Slip Under the Microscope, published in 1896

My best reading months so far were February, May, and June, in which I finished 10 books. My worst reading month was March, in which I finished "only" 7 books.

My most-read genre was speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy/horror, of which I read 23 books (42%).
17 (31%) general fiction
4 (7%) Romance
3 (5%) adventure/mystery/thriller
3 (5%) science non-fiction
2 (4%) historical fiction & fantasy
2 (4%) biography/memoir
1 (2%) general non-fiction
0 history non-fiction, 0 collections

38 (69%) were from the US
11 (20%) from the UK
1 (2%) each from France, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Greece, and Costa Rica

A few favorites:
Network Effect (Murderbot book 5) by Martha Wells
A Slip Under the Microscope (short story) by H. G. Wells
Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang
Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

Dishonorable Mention:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy

I'm continuing to keep track of the books I've read that have been in my catalog the longest. Here's what it looks like now (new additions in italics):

1 - Dracula, owned pre-LT, entered July 2007 and read November 2022, 5,597 days later.
2 - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, entered September 2009, read June 2024, 5,380 days later.
3 - The Stranger, entered May 2009, read November 2023, 5,289 days later.
4 - The Windup Girl, entered February 2012, read November 2023, 4,291 days later.
5 - War and Peace, owned pre-LT, entered July 2007, read October 2018, 4,104 days later.
6 - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, owned pre-LT, entered July 2007, read July 2017, 3,669 days later.
7 - The Lady and the Panda, entered April 2014, read June 2023, 3,375 days later.
8 - The Scarlet Pimpernel, entered July 2015, read April 2024, 3,199 days later.
9 - Saga, Vol 1, entered November 2017, read December 2023, 2,239 days later.
10 - Never Let Me Go, entered April 2011, read April 2017, 2,187 days later.
11 - A History of Rock Creek Park, entered December 2014, read September 2020, 2,076 days later.
12 - American Zoo, entered December 2015, read July 2021, 2,026 days later.

Hello Nora!
Tried to catch up, hope I didn't miss anything.
That leak with the AC sounds like a pain in the keister. Hope it's resolved.

And congrats on the new Nibling! From one profesional aunt to another ;)

Hope you feel better, too. My guess would be a cold or the flu but neither of those are ever fun.

I hope you are feeling recovered! Being sick is the pits. Nice stats! I think I will add to what I track next year, I am not keeping track of too much this year.

>69 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Angela! You haven't missed much. My A/C is no longer leaking, as far as I can tell.
I have no idea what's going on with this illness but it is zero fun.

>70 elorin: Thanks Robyn! All of the tracking I do is already captured in LibraryThing, I just enter it into a spreadsheet which calculates the percentages for me.

Monday again.

I rested over the weekend. Saturday was the first meeting of the new zoo volunteer book club, run by the zoo instead of me. I was planning to attend in-person but decided it would be better to attend online with my cough. All the other attendees were online too so it worked out. We spent a brief time discussing the chosen book, How Far the Light Reaches (which I read a couple months ago) and a long time just chatting. I had talked to a couple other volunteers a few weeks ago who did not like the book (too explicit) but they didn't join the meeting. Everyone who was there liked it. They all consistently used the wrong pronouns for the author but since I'm trying to step back from leading the book club I didn't correct anyone.

Yesterday I went to the bookstore to pick up a book I bought for my dad for his birthday (Morally Straight: How the Fight for LGBTQ+ Inclusion Changed the Boy Scouts - and America - thanks for the recommendation Linda!) and bought myself a copy of Red Side Story. Last night a friend texted me at the last minute that she and her husband were going to be grabbing dinner by my apartment and did I want to join, so I did and that was fun.

The weather finally broke and it's been below 90F for a few days, but still very high humidity so not exactly pleasant. Yesterday I felt 100% fine so I'm in the office today, but I have a bit of a tickle in my throat. I'm so tired of this!

I have three library holds to pick up, two of which I started already and returned, to go along with the 6 other books I have out. Whoops!. Thursday I'm having my annual apartment maintenance (HVAC and smoke detector) so I'll be cleaning this week.

Currently reading:
I finished rereading Alanna: The First Adventure (it was fun to revisit and only took 3 hours to read, but I don't feel a great desire to continue. I might read new-to-me Pierce, though) and started rereading Shades of Grey in preparation to read the sequel. I picked The Shadow Cabinet back up on the bus this morning, with 120 pages to go. Hoping to finish those two this month, plus a She-Hulk, and maybe one more? Then I have something fun and different planned for August.
Reviews behind: 5 (1 books, 4 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 14

Currently listening:
I've given the shorter version of Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department a few listens now and it's all fine but nothing really stands out. I'm going to try the extended version and then move on.

Currently playing:
Almost done with My Time at Sandrock and it's getting a little slow because I've done almost all of the side quests.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Sunny (the robot's voice sounded so familiar, and I finally placed it as Joanna Nakamura, who played Emma in Emma Approved!), Land of Women, s3e4 of The Bear, and s3e7 of Taskmaster NZ. I'm toying with signing up for a month of Netflix because the pickings are only going to get slimmer during the Olympics.

>72 norabelle414: I heard rumbles of Netflix kicking their "ad vs ad-free" BS so now may be a good time.
Glad the weather is improving a little.

>73 Ravenwoodwitch: Yeah, the lowest ad-free tier is already at $16 per month and if they get rid of that it'll be $20 per month. I have 3-ish shows I want to watch and if it takes me 2 months that's more than $1 per episode.

A few more statistical notes:

1) I crunched the numbers and made some adjustments and it looks like Network Effect was the 300th book I've read from the library (since I started using LibraryThing in 2007)!! I loved that one so that works out nicely.

2) I'm 5 reviews away from my 600th review on LT, and also 5 reviews behind, so as long as I review them in order, Alanna: The First Adventure will be the 600th review I post on LibraryThing! That also works out nicely.

Sorry to hear you have recurring blergh, Nora. Being sick in the summer is particularly awful.

Glad to hear you're still having a grand time with Murderbot. I just really love that whole series so much.

It's Tuesday.

Yesterday it POURED rain on my way home from work so I did not go to the library. I should have plenty of time to pick up my holds this weekend.

This morning before work I went to my brother's house to meet my new nibling! He's doing great. I was planning on only being an hour late to work but my dad was an hour late to meet me so we could go to my brother's house, which then threw the baby's whole schedule off and I was 2 hours late to work. No one in my office minds but I was frustrated that my plans were foiled. Now that I've made it to the office and the stress is gone I'm very sleepy. I might try to nap on the bus home.

Tonight after work I'm going to tidy my apartment. In the office tomorrow, then more cleaning/tidying, then Thursday I have apartment maintenance. If everything goes smoothly on Thursday I might volunteer at the zoo this weekend, since it shouldn't be too hot.

Currently reading:
A bit of Shades of Grey before bed, then a big chunk of The Shadow Cabinet while waiting for my dad this morning. Only 70 pages left so I might swap the two books.
Reviews behind: 5 (1 books, 4 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 15

Currently listening:
Listened to the extended version of Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department and it's still just fine. I listened to Chappell Roan's 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, which is more my thing. It's good, but I haven't yet listened to her newest single which I think is what brought her to my attention.

Currently watching:
Nothing

>76 MickyFine: I have the latest Murderbot out from the library but I think I'm subconsciously putting it off because I don't want it to be over! (for now)

I need to reread Shades of Grey and pick up a copy of Red Side Story. I really didn't think there would ever be a sequel! I'd also like to do a Thursday Next reread at some point, but it'll probably be next year at this point because I have a lot of other stuff I'm already rereading this year.

I recently discovered Chappell Roan and have been really enjoying her. She's catchy as hell and as soon as I get Hot to Go out of my head, Pink Pony Club replaces it.

>77 norabelle414: I forgot to say in my last post congrats on the new nibling! I'm glad to hear everyone is doing well.

There's only a few tracks from the new TSwift album I really liked: Florida! and I Can Do It with a Broken Heart are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

>78 norabelle414: I totally get that!

>79 curioussquared: I hardly believe it myself, and I've got the book in my hands! It is kind of funny to see the sequels that never manifested listed at the back of Shades of Grey, though I have a lot of sympathy for his writer's block. I believe his next planned book is another Thursday Next so I could reread those after Red Side Story. (I also have yet to read Early Riser or The Constant Rabbit, or the 4th Last Dragonslayer book (which I don't think was ever released in the US?))

>80 MickyFine: Thank you!
I run into an issue sometimes (not exclusive to Taylor Swift) where I enjoy the melody of a song but don't really care for the lyrics or meaning so I don't want to listen to it that much. I have that problem with Florida!!! and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.

It's Wednesday.

I did some cleaning yesterday, though not as much as I should have. I spent a lot of time cleaning my Roomba, which is my most annoying task but hopefully will make vacuuming today much better/easier. It rained some but mostly drizzle. I went to the grocery store.

I'm very tired again today, even though I turned out the lights a little earlier than usual last night. I'm not sure if it's just that 7.5hr isn't enough (definitely true) or that the cats running around causing trouble in the night wakes me up more than I think it does.

Tonight is more tidying/cleaning. Maybe some laundry. Not sure when my apartment maintenance visit will be tomorrow. Usually they have come in the late afternoon since I'm at the far end of the hallway, but last time they arrived at 9am sharp so who knows.

Currently reading:
I swapped my purse book and my bedside book, so I read The Shadow Cabinet before bed and Shades of Grey on the bus. I have 40 pages left in the former so I will probably finish tomorrow, but the latter is much denser than I was expecting (tiny print) and Bookly says I'll have to read over an hour per day to finish by July 31 so I might aim for August instead.
Reviews behind: 5 (1 books, 4 picture books)
Consecutive reading days: 16

Currently watching:
Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (taped on Saturday so it was a bit outdated, in a funny way) and the season finale of DI Ray.

60. How to Be a Big Sister by Marilynn James

A variety of big sisters show how they can help their parents with the new baby.

A very typical big sister book, but I did enjoy that it follows many different big sisters, instead of just one through the book. This allows for the depiction of a wide variety of families, diverse in race, body type, ability, and family structure (single parents, queer parents, etc.)

(Note: This is a Target-exclusive book and is not available elsewhere. Due to that it’s a bit hard to find bibliographic information.)

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

61. I'm a Big Sister by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Maxie Chambliss

A new baby comes home and the big sister isn’t sure what to think. She finds ways she can help her parents with the baby and learns to interact with the baby. Eventually she gets to enjoy being a big sister.

Pretty typical. Fine, but nothing special about it.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

62. Leo the Lightning Bug by Eric Drachman, illustrated by James Muscarello

A young lightning bug named Leo hasn’t learned how to light up yet. He’s bullied by the other young lighting bugs, but his mom says he shouldn’t worry. One day he’s practicing lighting up during a thunderstorm, and he thinks the lightning from the storm is his own light. This gives him the confidence he needs to light up on his own.

The lightning bug drawings are very cute. I like that Leo’s mom calls him “little lion” without over-explaining that “leo” means “lion”, it’s just a little Easter egg. In addition to being a good story about self-confidence, it also treats thunderstorms very neutrally, which is nice.

(Note: I believe this book is supposed to come with a CD, I assume of the author reading the book. This library copy did not include the CD so my review is only of the paper book.)

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

63. Look Out, Suzy Goose by Petr Horáček

Suzy Goose finds that all of the other geese are too loud, so she wanders off into the woods alone. She’s stalked by a hungry fox, who is stalked by a hungry wolf, who is stalked by a hungry bear. Suzy gets startled by an owl and lets out a loud HONK which scares the fox, wolf, and bear away. Suzy decides it’s too lonely in the woods and goes back to the other geese.

Fun, but not particularly poignant. I thought the fox/wolf/bear would be scary, but Suzy’s obliviousness turns it around to funny. Each of the animals makes a noise while they walk, which is fun to read. The illustrations are big, colorful, and lovely.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Happy Friday!!!

Wednesday night and Thursday morning I tidied. Maintenance came to clean my filters at 10:50am, which was perfect because it gave me plenty of extra time to tidy in the morning but I got to relax the rest of the day. I made the little deep-dish pizza (>15 norabelle414:) again, which I've been doing about once a week. I like to put mushrooms on it, and I've been experimenting with how much to cook them beforehand and yesterday I think I got it just right.

Yesterday it rained a bit in the morning (I wonder if we're out of our drought yet?) but today is gorgeous so I guess I have to go out and do something.

Tomorrow morning I'm volunteering at the zoo, then Sunday my friend will come pick up his cat. We'll probably grab lunch at an Irish restaurant across the street from me which is permanently closing next week.

Currently reading:
Very relieved to be done with picture book reviews! Sometimes it's hard to think of what to say!
I finished The Shadow Cabinet last night. Resumed Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which I was halfway through when I had to return it to the library. I'll finish that soon and another She-Hulk which will put me at 12 books for the month. I don't think I'll try to finish anything else this month. Shades of Grey is still my purse book and I have a couple others out from the library, after which I will start my Exciting Plan for August.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 18

Currently watching:
Caught up on Grantchester and watched the first episodes of Those About to Die and Lady in the Lake. Not yet sure what I think about these very different shows.

>85 norabelle414: Leo the Lightning Bug seems like my cup of tea! I’ve requested it from my lib. Thanks! And have a great weekend!

Karen O

Sounds like a lovely weekend ahead for you, Nora.

I had to read Sexing the Cherry for a class in undergrad and did not get on well with it, so I hope you have a better time with your Winterson read.

Hi and good to hear you're doing well reading. So many reviews, what milestones! I like your picture book reviews. Happy reading!

>88 klobrien2: Hi Karen! I do think you will enjoy it.

>89 MickyFine: I actually think I might like that one better than Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. I'll put it on my list (but probably not anytime soon)

>90 elorin: Hi Robyn! I hope my stats lived up to your expectations.

>91 norabelle414: I have very few expectations but I'm aways looking at what people track. Being on LT has been a homecoming of sorts, being among people who love books akin to my love. I have a spreadsheet but it only has a few statistics listed so far. I expect to expand it into next year.

It's Monday.

Friday after work I went to the sushi place across the street (which I just found out is closing in October after 23 years!) for dinner. It was extremely nice weather so I sat outside, but there was some kind of Olympics-themed event with megaphones going on in the plaza so it wasn't very pleasant. I did get some of my book read but not as much as I could have if it wasn't so annoying.

Saturday morning I volunteered at the zoo. I was a bit late because there was an unexpected delay on the Metro (these used to be common but are now very rare, so I don't account for them in my commute time anymore!) but no one cared. The weather was so nice that I almost wished I had signed up for Asia Trail, which is outside, but the bird house is always fun. It's nesting season so there were lots of nesting parents and fledglings around.

Sunday I went out with some friends to an Irish restaurant across the street which I just found out is closing on Wednesday (I think the landlord of this plaza must be a real asshole). They were out of all of the Irish food and beer, which is understandable, but also overcooked my eggs and split our check wrong. I won't be going there again (because they're closing on Wednesday)! I'm hanging on to my friend's cat for a few more days because some construction work going on in his apartment was supposed to be finished by now but is not. I also baked cookies and went to the grocery store and washed all of the cat dishes.

Today I'm in the office. The weather is supposed to get hot and muggy again this week, sigh. Nothing special going on until Sunday, when I'm going out to a nice dinner with a friend and his cousin who is visiting from out of town.

I'm once again going to the National Book Festival this year, and I made a meet-up thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/361962 if anyone else is going too.

Currently reading:
Finished Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and read She-Hulk (2022) #8, and resumed Lavash at First Sight before bed. Read Shades of Grey on the bus. It's somehow even better than I remember? I think I appreciate it more. I have 5 books out from the library (including Lavash) and I've rearranged all of my holds to get ready for my Exciting Plan for August.
Reviews behind: 4
Consecutive reading days: 21

Currently watching:
I rewatched all of season 1 of The Ark and then the first episode of season 2. I thought I was going to be able to watch all episodes of this Syfy show on Peacock right after they air, but I might have to wait until the season is done. I also caught up on Lady in the Lake (I haven't read the book so I thought the whole season was going to be about the missing girl, but she's found by the end of the first episode and the show is more interesting than that)

Oh, I'm glad you're loving your Shades of Grey reread! I haven't read it since I came out when I was literally in high school so I imagine my perspective has changed somewhat since then...

Sorry to hear the dining out experiences this weekend were less than ideal. At least it sounds like the zoo was fun!

I read Shades of Grey just a couple years ago and am trying to decide if my memory of it is fresh enough to tackle the sequel without a re-read. We'll see. :)

>92 elorin: Every year I start with a BookRiot spreadsheet and then I delete a bunch of the columns for stats I don't care about. It makes graphs and stuff for me, which is nice. And now that I'm a rhythm I make sure I'm capturing all the necessary information in LT as I go along so I only update the spreadsheet once a month or so.

>94 curioussquared: YMMV, of course, but I think Fforde really captures the absurd humor in a dystopia. It's also very radical in a way I didn't get when I was 22. I would say that the book has aged well but it's also very possible that reading Jasper Fforde shaped me into the adult I am.

>95 MickyFine: I didn't really mind the restaurant issues, but they're having a closing party on Wednesday and I'm not sure what the point is if they're out of Irish food and beer!
From what I've seen of the reviews I think you'll be fine. Apparently there's some overlap of the plot at the beginning.

A quiet Tuesday.

Not much going on. It rained yesterday afternoon but I was already home from work. Today is rainy and extremely humid. I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning due to both the weather and not sleeping well at all last night. The cats were running around and also my cough is mostly gone so I didn't take any Nyquil for the first time in 2 weeks.

Today after work my friend should hopefully be picking up his cat, after which I will clean up the extra litterbox and extra food area and extra barf. I'm also going to change the sheets and clean the Roomba. If it's not raining I have several books to return to the library (it's definitely going to be rainy.)

I'll probably sign up for a zoo shift this weekend. The only question is whether it will be Bird House or Asia Trail. Or Elephants? I haven't done elephants in a long time (because I'm bad at it, but that's a bad excuse). I need to volunteer at least 50 hours this year and I'm currently at 28.

Currently reading:
Shades of Grey on the bus, Lavash at First Sight before bed.
Reviews behind: 4
Consecutive reading days: 22

Currently watching:
Finished Land of Women (loosely based on La Tierra de las Mujeres) (very enjoyable! I would definitely watch more), caught up on Sunny and started season 3 of Hotel Portofino (I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to try to run a hotel in Mussolini's Italy...)

I'm fascinated that you have a quota for volunteer hours at the zoo. Is this because there's a waiting list for people wanting to volunteer?

I'm sure Rory will be delighted to go back to being a single kitty. Sending dry thoughts for the window when you want to return library books. :)

>98 MickyFine: The volunteer program restructured during COVID, before that interpreters (the education type of volunteering that I do) had to work at least 2 shifts per month. A lot of time and effort is spent training and maintaining the volunteer force so they do want to make sure that isn't wasted (not to mention the onboarding stuff like interviews and background checks)
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (the organization that accredits zoos in North America) requires a robust volunteer force, but I don't know what the exact requirements are (number of volunteers? person-hours? visitor interactions?)

64. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

Eleven-year-old Alanna of Trebond wants to be a knight, but unfortunately she is just a girl. She disguises herself as a boy and swaps places with her brother so she can go to knight school. Bullied for being a "little guy" she bonds with the older boys who come to "Alan's" rescue and trains harder than anyone else so she can stand up for herself. She feels especially connected to Prince Jonathan, a few years ahead of her at school, who shares her magical Gift for healing, and George Cooper, the local thief kingpin. Years pass, and Jonathan selects "Alan" to be his squire when he is sent by his evil uncle to the southern Black City, full of demons.

There's so much going on in this middle grade book that took me ~3 hours to reread. Alanna has trauma from her mother's death and is afraid of the magical powers she inherited from her. The Duke is her magic teacher but is also clearly evil and trying to kill Jonathan and his parents because he's 4th in line for the throne. The groundwork is laid for Alanna to have a thing with Jonathan, which is icky when she's 11 and he's 14+ but gets less so as they get older, and also with George Cooper, who is possibly an adult?? The book spans years within just a few pages, which is hard to wrap my head around. I really liked the set-up of Alanna's bully Ralon being clearly foreshadowed that he would return. I hated the fantasy racism of the Bazhir, Persopolis, and the Black City.

I really enjoyed revisiting this book. I don't think I'll go on to reread the rest of the quartet, but it does make me want to pick up more of Pierce's books I haven't read yet.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

>64 norabelle414: One of my favorite things in my latest reread of this book was everyone calling Alan a little guy. But he's just a little guy!!! So many times and so good every time. Yeah, I don't love either romance in the early books especially. I think George is 17 at the beginning of the book... Pretty sure Tammy has said something in the years since she wrote it about regretting the age gap and the way she set up the romance with Alanna being so young at the beginning.

>101 curioussquared: Same! He is just a little guy!! I love how the slightly older boys are immediately like "excuse me...this is OUR little guy"
Pierce has been so conciliatory about the problematic stuff in her early books and has continued to make up for it and progress and so I can just look back at them with amusement.

65. The Shadow Cabinet (Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, book 2) by Juno Dawson

There's no way to recap this book without huge spoilers for the end of the first book, sorry!

Following the events of the previous book, the witches are mourning the loss of their childhood friend, vile transphobe that she was, and feeling complicated feelings. All of those feelings are great cover for Ciara, secretly living in Niamh’s body and life. In addition to staying under the radar, Ciara is trying to locate the escaped Dabney Hale to piece together her lost memories, but that's complicated by “Niamh’s” appointment as High Priestess. Also hot on Dabney’s trail is Leonie, in search of her warlock brother Radley who went missing trying to find him. Theo is happier now, having magically and mysteriously transitioned, but is spending more time at Elle’s house with Holly since “Niamh” is being weird and distant. Ciara is still sleeping with Niamh's boytoy Luke but whoops! It turns out he's secretly in a men's rights activism and witch-hunting club (thankfully as a double-agent). Oh, and Elle found out about her husband's adultery (which the dumbass continued after finding out his wife and her friends are witches) and accidentally turned him into a statue.

Almost as enjoyable as the first, if a tad too long. It's weird that we never get to meet Radley and that Snow was set up as a villain at the end of the first book then doesn't return, but that's just more fodder for future books. The reveal of Luke's witch-hunter group was genuinely shocking and expanded the world, and spending much of the book in Ciara's head was fascinating. Very morally-complex. I could probably get nitpicky about the world-building, especially with regard to binary gender (we meet an intersex character but her pronoun is “she” so she's a witch and that's the end of the discussion), but I just enjoy reading them so much. They’re really twisty and shocking and dark and funny. I would read a dozen more.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

It's Wednesday.

After work my friend picked up his cat and I cleaned up (some...not enough). It rained so I didn't go to the library, but that's fine because I'm going to need to pick up holds soon for my EXCITING PLAN for August. I wanted to make cookies but I took too long trying to decide what to make. I slept terribly last night, and I can't blame it on wrestling cats or wrinkly sheets. Maybe I can blame it on the humidity?

Work today is busy but after work should be quiet. (and rainy...always rainy)

Currently reading:
Shades of Grey on the bus, nothing before bed. No chance of finishing anything else this month, and I'm not starting my Exciting Plan until tomorrow.
Reviews behind: 2 (I must finish these today...I've actually written 1.5 already but I don't want to post out of order)
Consecutive reading days: 23

Currently watching:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Did I miss what your EXCITING PLAN for August is? Or are you waiting for someone to ask? 🙂

I echo, Katie. What is the Exciting Plan?

>105 katiekrug: Thank you for asking, Katie! (ETA: and Micky!)

EXCITING PLAN for August:

For the month of August I'm going to be reading as many comics (collections, graphic novels, graphic non-fiction, etc.) as I can. I've got a lot of unread graphic memoirs and superhero comic books on my shelves, as well as a lot of series that I started when I used to read a lot and didn't continue when my reading was in a lull. So I've picked about 13 from my books to start with, and 10 to check out from the library, and we'll see how many I can get through!

I came up with the idea because I don't think I'll be baby-sitting much in August so I won't have as many picture books to read & review, if any.
Most comic books won't fit in my purse so I will still be reading prose books on the bus/metro.

>107 norabelle414: This sounds like fun! I look forward to hearing about it next month!

What Micky said 🙂

I like the sound of your exciting plan!!

66. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Fictional Jeanette is the adopted daughter of a religious zealot in 1960s small-town England. She’s a teen subject to her mother’s whims, while also exploring her young lesbian sexuality. She goes about her life fairly normally and enthusiastically, while the people around her tell her that everything is wrong with her. She falls in love with a girl, gets her heart broken, tries to live as herself under the thumb of her mother and their church, and eventually moves out.

A stream-of-consciousness fictionalized memoir, not dissimilar to the dreaded Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But Jeanette is the opposite of Stephen Daedalus: she knows herself and is steadfast in both her Christian faith and her budding sexuality, and never believes herself to be weird or special while everyone around her tells her that she is.

There were lots and lots of bible references that I didn't understand, and references to fairy tales / Arthurian legend that I understood on a surface level but didn't get how they connected to Jeanette's story. Overall the story is much more about Jeanette’s relationship with her Christian faith than her sexuality, which I don’t relate to much, but was interesting to read about. Despite the names her mother and preacher and neighbors call her, she never believes there’s anything wrong with her feelings about girls/women. Obviously the feelings are given to her by God, so there’s no way they could be wrong. Her love affairs are sweet (except for a kind of icky one in the middle) and she herself calls them “wholesome” (though that’s probably the adult Jeanette peeking through).

The writing style still doesn’t do much for me, but I did really like learning about Jeanette’s feelings and her life. I did feel very connected to her at the end, when she returns home for the holidays expecting a dramatic blow-up but her mom just pretends nothing happened.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

67. She-Hulk (2022) #8 by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa

An interlude. We learn April and Mark’s backstories as brilliant scientists obsessed with turning themselves into Hulks. Their experiments lead to their current state as a tiny woman with a giant head and a giant man with a mental disability. They think that the secret to success is to drain She-Hulk’s gamma radiation.

So unnecessary. I guessed most of this from the previous issue and the rest could have been condensed to 2 pages. A whole issue and I still don’t understand why they wanted to be Hulks and not, like, Iron Mans.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)

Nina (Humouress) is in the DC area from Singapore in early September and I thought I'd try to see if folks want to get together for a meetup. Started a thread to discuss here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/362378

Hope you can join us!

Happy August!!

Yesterday was mostly uneventful, except that I got some unexpected reading time when the power in my apartment went out for an hour and a half right after I got home from work. That's summer in DC for you... there was no rain in the forecast and then a violent thunderstorm in the late afternoon.

My horrible, never-ending cough came back yesterday, so I took a half-dose of NyQuil before bed and also put a weighted blanket on and I slept like a baby. Feeling great today (aside from the cough)

I did not go to the library yesterday, but now I have a bunch of comics ready to pick up!

Currently reading:
Shades of Grey on the bus, Lavash at First Sight before bed, and then this morning I started Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 23

Currently listening:
I'm listening to the new podcast series Tested from NPR and the CBC. A thorough history of the policing and controlling of women's bodies in the Olympics, through the present day. It's incredibly well-done but I have to pace myself because it makes me so angry.

Currently watching:
Grantchester and the first episode of the new adaptation of Time Bandits, which I enjoyed (I've never seen the original)

>113 drneutron: Thanks Jim! I would love to

Happy Friday!

I ended up with a big last-minute project yesterday so I worked quite late. I'm annoyed about the timing, because I could have used the extra hours in my last pay period, which ended on Wednesday. I took a break to go to the library before they closed, but only one of my holds was ready so I'll be back. I browsed the comics & graphic novels shelves while I was there, but I didn't pick anything up. Annoyingly the library spine sticker often goes right over the number for graphic novel series, so it's hard to tell which one is first in the series just by looking at the shelf.

I was intending to make pizza for dinner yesterday but I did not get a chance to make the dough ahead (it takes 5 minutes to make the dough but then it has to sit for 2 hours) so I didn't. Maybe today.

I slept okay last night. No cough yesterday but it's back today. Sigh.

Currently reading:
Halfway through both Lavash at First Sight and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 25

Currently watching:
s1e2 of Time Bandits, s3e5 of The Bear, s1e3 of Kite Man, Hell Yeah

>116 norabelle414: Big work projects on a Friday should not be allowed.

Wishing you a lovely, restful weekend.

>117 MickyFine: The work project was on Thursday, which was extra fortunate since my weekend has turned out less than restful.

68. Lavash at First Sight by Taleen Voskuni

Nazeli (‘Elie’ to her white coworkers) is absolutely crushing it at work in marketing for a Bay Area tech company, even if she hasn't gotten a raise or promotion or recognition. When the coworker she's dating dumps her at the start of a big project, she decides she needs a break and accompanies her parents to Chicago for a packaged food convention, representing their Armenian food company. (While continuing to be available for her job 24/7, of course.) There she meets Vanya, also from the Bay Area, also accompanying her Armenian-food-packaging parents, and sparks instantly fly. Unfortunately, their parents are holding on to a 20-year-old grudge, which does not improve when both families enter a cooking competition that is being filmed for a reality show.

I picked this book up without reading the description because I really enjoyed the author's previous book, Sorry, Bro. If I had read the description I might not have, because I find reality shows pretty gross, but this book does too, so it works out fine. This book is just as sweet as Sorry, Bro, with a similar disdain for tech companies. It's a little shorter, and both of these leads have been out to their parents and community for awhile so there's no coming out drama and no fear of homophobia at all. It's nice! All of the relationship conflict, minimal as it is, comes from the feud between their parents which is resolved by the end. Everyone is nice and good (especially Chicagoans) except reality show producers.
Seeing Chicago through the main character’s eyes is very charming. She loves everything about it, especially the fact that it's warm in the summer, “no jackets needed”, which really tickles me. I guess that's a Bay Area thing?

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Somehow, it's Sunday.

Friday I had a much less stressful work day. I pre-made my pizza crust, picked up a ton of comics from the library, ate pizza for dinner, and had a nice evening.

My plan for the weekend was to read in the morning and then catch up on chores - vacuuming, dishes, laundry, watch TV, maybe start a new video game. I did read in the morning, but then at 11am the power went out. The initial estimate for it to come back on was 2pm, and Wednesday's power outage only lasted an hour and a half, so I was not as careful about conserving my phone and computer batteries as I should have been. I had already been reading for about 2 hours and really wanted to do something else, but there was nothing else to do, so I felt frazzled and didn't get anything done all day. I was sure the power was going to come back on any minute but the estimate just kept getting later and later. I left at 6pm to get dinner with some friends (at which point I had a message that the power would be back by 9pm) and returned home at 9:30 to a message it would be back on at 10pm. My apartment wasn't super hot but it was too hot to sleep comfortably. I read for a little while and slept from about 2am to sunrise (6am), the power still out. I took a very cold shower and packed up my electronics and chargers and prepared to head to the mall food court to get coffee and breakfast when the power came back on. I went back to sleep and slept from 8 to 11 which feels very weird.

No idea what I'm going to do with the rest of today. I have to figure out what food in the fridge/freezer is salvageable and what is not, go to the grocery store, do laundry, do dishes. I'm having fancy dinner with some friends this evening but I think I should be home by 9.

Not much going on this week, but I am going to see Rachel Bloom on Sunday night.

Currently reading:
I finished Lavash at First Sight, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine. Started Hark! A Vagrant and continuing to read Shades of Grey as my purse book.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 27

Currently watching:
Caught up on Sunny, the new season of Futurama, s2e2 of The Ark (apparently I can watch the new season on Peacock, I just have to wait a week, which is fine), s3e9 of Taskmaster New Zealand, episode 2 of Those About to Die, s3e6 of The Bear.

Oh I'm sorry about the long power outage. That would be super stressful. Here's hoping the rest of your weekend is much better!

It's Monday.

Felt frazzled the rest of the day on Sunday and couldn't really focus on doing anything. Dinner Sunday night my friends and I went to Maydan, a Michelin-starred Lebanese restaurant, which was wonderful, delicious food and great service. It did give me heartburn last night, which in turn gave me bad nightmares, but still worth it.

Work today has been very stressful. I have a few library holds to pick up (I should have picked them up on Saturday but I was too stressed) but I might just go home instead.

Currently reading:
Did not read anything before bed last night, but I'm just over halfway through Shades of Grey.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 28

Currently watching:
Caught up on the two most recent episodes of Time Bandits.

>107 norabelle414: Hello Nora! I'm catching up.
Good luck with the comic reads :)
Since they're remarking it recently, if you have it, I recomend my favorite graphic novel: The Crow. I'll content warn that it has a lot of self-harm, talk of loss, death and Deadpool levels of violence. But I don't joke when I say the story left me in genuine awe.

>120 norabelle414: Oh that power outtage sounds so annoying! I hope most of the fridge and freezer survived it.

>123 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Angela!
I'm not sure if it's an overall preference or just my current mood, but I'm digging gentler comics right now. However, part of this project is to clear older comics off my TBR to make room for new ones, so I'll keep The Crow in mind for the future!

It's Tuesday.

Dreaded work today but I am here. Nothing else going on.

Currently reading:
Shades of Grey on the bus, Hark! A Vagrant before bed. I'm considering this a reread because I did read the comics on her website religiously while it was running. The beginning of the collection was slow going for a while because it's a little random but now I've gotten into a section where she draws a comic based on the cover of a book she's never read and I love those.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 29

Currently watching:
Season finale of Grantchester, s3e2 of Hotel Portofino, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (a very relevant episode about RFK Jr. which became immediately out-of-date Monday morning. Poor writers.)

Do you usually dread work?

>126 The_Hibernator: I do not. The director of our office is being very difficult right now. I have several layers between him and me so it's not dire, but the vibes are stressful. He's given me a very vague project to work on so I have to come up with several versions without knowing which one he wants, if any, which feels like a waste of my time.

>127 norabelle414: having come from an office where very similar problems would often happen, you have my sympathies.

>127 norabelle414: How long will the vibes continue, do you think?

>128 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! I've definitely had worse, I really like all of my coworkers and the several people between me and the director.

>129 The_Hibernator: They come and go.

Happy Wednesday!

Yesterday went fine. Some other, more pressing issues came up in our office and so the director stopped bothering me about extremely minor things. It feels a little bad to be relieved but the major issues that came up are not anything that directly involves me and there's nothing I can do (except offer to help, which I have). I was in a great mood in the afternoon and picked up some more comics from the library, bringing my total checkouts to a whopping 16. I'm not sure what my limit is. I don't see one anywhere on the website.

Today after work I'm going to just try to relax. I do need to finish cleaning my fridge and freezer and go to the grocery store, but that could also wait until tomorrow.

Currently reading:
I only have 20 pages left in Hark! A Vagrant so I should finish that today. Next up is a middle grade graphic novel about mermaids. I still have a way to go in Shades of Grey so I might read some at home because I have another purse book that I haven't started yet which is due back on the 15th.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 30

Currently watching:
I watched the first two episodes of the Mexican show Women in Blue, which is interesting even if I don't generally like cop shows.

>131 norabelle414: Glad to hear the work stress has tapered off. Any chance the pressing issues will cause the vague project to completely fall off your director's radar?

>132 MickyFine: Unfortunately, no way to tell. This is the third time this has happened (I send him a completed project and he sends it back and says it "needs work" with no information on what he's looking for) and he never says it's good enough, he just eventually stops sending it back to me. We'll see.

>133 norabelle414: Ugh, that's so frustrating. Hang in there, friend!

Happy Thursday!

Yesterday after work I cleaned my fridge.

Today has been very rainy all day, but I think it was kind of cozy. Work was fine, then I got dinner from a food truck nearby. I went to the grocery store to restock the fridge and freezer (my favorite ice cream was half off, how convenient) and took out the trash.

Nothing much going on. I need to bake a cake for work, probably Sunday afternoon, then going out to dinner and to see Rachel Bloom in the evening. I won't be home until very late, which I don't like to do on a Sunday night, but who cares. Maybe I'll take a nap earlier in the day.

Currently reading:
Yesterday I finished Hark! A Vagrant and started The Sea in You, a graphic novel about a teen who meets a mermaid. This morning I finished Shades of Grey and my next purse book will be Hell Followed With Us.
Reviews behind: 4
Consecutive reading days: 31

Currently playing:
Recently I finished as much of My Time at Sandrock as I care to. I picked back up Coral Island, a Stardew Valley-like game, now that I have a fully functional controller, but it's still pretty laggy so I'm giving up. Nothing to play at the moment.

Currently watching:
One episode of Lady in the Lake and one episode of Kite Man, Hell Yeah.

>133 norabelle414: oh gross :/
That is frustrating as hell. Hang in there, girl.

>135 norabelle414: I've been having fun with the latest entry for Harvest Moon if you need a rec.
It's called "Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos"

>136 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks for the rec Angela! I've had Harvest Moon-adjacent things on my wishlist for awhile but I've never gotten into any of them.

69. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel had an unusual childhood, raised by intellectuals in a very small town where they helped run the family funeral home, sometimes called “fun home”. She recreates her childhood in comics form, based on her own extensive journals but with incisive hindsight. She pays special attention to her father, a very flawed, closeted queer man, who died in an accident (or possibly suicide) shortly after Alison came out as a lesbian in college.

I understood going in that this was a pioneer of graphic memoirs and was prepared to appreciate it in that context, but even by today's standards Fun Home is a piece of art. The simple drawings never distract from the story she's telling, and she is open about her attempt to bring her father to life through the illustrations. I especially enjoyed the narration, through captions, which made it feel like Alison was showing me a story instead of expecting me to get lost in the illustrations, which I find hard to do. The story itself is very moving, and as a memoir alone it’s incredibly adept. If you’ve been putting this one off, don’t forget about it, because it really holds up.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

70. Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated by Valentine de Landro

In the near future, all women who step out of line and dare to be fat, unmarried, rude, assertive, or annoying are sent to a “reeducation camp” on another planet, which is really just a prison. When some of these women are recruited to play in a sports competition for the entertainment of the men, Kamau realizes she can use the games as a cover for a rebellion.

I get what DeConnick is trying to do here, but I don't care for it. I thought it was going to be fun, but it's not. A comic about miserable, oppressed, abused, naked women written and illustrated by women is still a comic about miserable, oppressed, abused, naked women. Maybe it could have developed into something enjoyable if it went on for longer, but there's only one other volume and the rebellion hasn't even started at the end of this one. It was nice to see women's bodies drawn by women, and to see one fat body included, but it would have been nicer if she had had anything to do or say that wasn't about her weight. I might read an online summary of the other volume but I didn’t like this enough to keep going.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)

71. Hark! A Vagrant written and illustrated by Kate Beaton

A selection of comic strips from 2007 to 2011 from the website Hark! A Vagrant, covering mostly history and literature. Jokes about Canadian and North American history, various famous writers from the 18th and 19th century, and my very favorite format: comics imagining the plot of Nancy Drew or Edward Gorey books based only on the cover illustration.

I read the website religiously during this time period, so all of these comic strips were familiar to me, and it was a joy to revisit them. I was a little surprised that a few strips haven’t aged well. You wouldn’t think they would be long enough for that, but there were a few jokes about hipsters and duck-face and remixes of classic novels that are solidly 2011. The majority are still hilarious, though, and some have definitely improved with age. I have an extra appreciation for Kate Beaton now that I have read her memoir about her life while she was drawing these very comics. There are some real classics here, but I am looking forward to reading the next volume, as I think her style improved over the years.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

Happy Sunday!

Friday I got pulled into some work stuff in the afternoon (I'm covering for some people who are very busy putting out fires) and missed my window to make pizza crust, boo. I did make pizza on Saturday, though, in addition to going to the library to return books and check out some holds. Didn't do much else.

Today I'm going to bake a cake to take to the office tomorrow, take a nap, then go out to dinner and to see Rachel Bloom.

I don't have anything planned for the coming week, but things at work might be chaotic.

Currently reading:
I finished The Sea in You and Josie and the Pussycats, Vol 2. Next up will be Heartstopper Vol. 2 and Lumberjanes Vol. 7.
Reviews behind: 3 (I've written the latest 2 already but Shades of Grey is giving me some trouble. How do you even describe that book??)
Consecutive reading days: 34

Currently watching:
The finale of season 3 of Taskmaster New Zealand. Not sure what will be airing next on the Taskmaster YouTube page. Maybe nothing since the next UK season is starting in September. I also watched the first episode of Mr. Throwback, a fine sitcom.

The variety of comics/graphic novels out there is astounding. I can't help but feel like I am missing something when I read them, maybe it's that same feeling like I am supposed to get lost in the art? I've read very few though. Thanks for broadening my horizons!

>142 elorin: I get that feeling as well. I have read a decent amount of comics (more than 50 in the last 8 years) and most of them I just think are fine but I would rather be reading the story with words. I have a lot more to go this month but from my experience so far I think I don't really like horror or action-y comics, even fantasy ones. (I like horror novels, especially audiobooks, but I don't even like action scenes in movies). What I do really like are cute, sweet, and funny comics. I love seeing a silly expression on a character's face, like they're feeling a feeling that can't be put into words, or finding sight gags in the background. I like bright colors and fun clothes and cute cats. I also like non-fiction comics which, like Fun Home, try to bring real people's faces and bodies to life on the page.

It's Monday.

Yesterday I baked a cake, tried (but failed) to take a nap, went to grab a quick dinner with some friends and then we went to see Rachel Bloom's Death, Let Me Do My Show. It was very good and funny and also very sad.

Today I might be going to my brother's house for dinner? My dad seems to think we're going but I can't get confirmation from my brother about it.

Currently reading:
Got home too late last night to read before bed but I did read Hell Followed With Us on my short metro rides and on the bus this morning.
Reviews behind: 3 (I've written the latest 2 already but Shades of Grey is giving me some trouble. How do you even describe that book??)
Consecutive reading days: 35

Currently watching:
s1e3 of Those About to Die. I'm kind of watching it as a background show. The individual scenes are nice but I can't be bothered to pay attention to the overall plot.

>143 norabelle414: That about sums up what I like in comics, as well.

72. Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde

Eddie Russet travels with his chromaticologist father (a doctor who treats patients by showing them swatches of particular colors) across the country to East Carmine, a semi-rural village where things are a bit weirder than Eddie is used to. He’s left behind his rich almost-half-fiancée Constance Oxblood but is confident he can earn some merits and do well on his eyesight exam and return to her. Throwing a wrench into his plans is Jane, a grey who can hardly see any color, who is beautiful, rebellious, and a stone-cold bitch (whom Eddie immediately falls in love with). Eddie gets wrapped up in the schemes of these people who don’t always follow the color hierarchy the way they’re supposed to. The high-color prefects are horribly corrupt, and the greys are smart and have rich (figuratively) lives, nothing really makes any sense, and the scales start to fall from his eyes. He can’t decide whether to go back to his old life or forge a new path outside of the color wheel, until he visits the abandoned city of High Saffron and learns things he can’t unknow.

This is almost a perfect, poignant dystopian story about authoritarianism, disability rights, and how fascists use complex social hierarchies to distract people from rising up against them, but it’s too chaotic and absurd for that. And yet, the chaos and absurdity somehow make it better than perfect. Nothing maps perfectly onto our world, nor any of the things that influence it, like the board game Risk or Albert Munsell (not really a horrible despot, as far as I can tell!). Everything is absurd, without real logic, and therefore there can be no gaps in logic.
My favorite absurdities:
-looking at a certain color green gets you high
-spoons are precious because they were left off the list of goods to manufacture
-librarians are deeply valued, but books keep getting banned to the point that there are more librarians than books
-for entertainment everyone listens to people tapping gossip or stories on the radiator pipes in morse code

I only have the smallest quibble with the story, which is the sense of time. The whole book takes place over 4 days, and several times there are 4 or 5 dramatic events in a row, and then everyone eats lunch. But the absurdity fills in all logic holes - maybe days in this world are much longer than ours?

Is this my favorite book ever? It might be. It just really tickles me in all the right ways.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (5/5)

73. The Sea in You written and illustrated by Jessi Sheron

Corinth has a fight with her boyfriend (a frequent occurrence) and is moping on the beach when she hears beautiful singing and is lured into the arms of a mermaid. The two become friends, with Corinth teaching Skylla about hamburgers and ASL and Skylla showing Corinth what it's like to have a friend who doesn't put her down all the time. But they can only be together on the beach, where their two worlds meet, until Skylla gives up her voice so she can be with Corinth all the time.

I really enjoyed this YA graphic novel by a local author/artist that takes place in Ocean City, MD. Most of the human art is a bit generic, but the underwater scenes are GORGEOUS. I particularly liked the depiction of one huge mother mermaid and hundreds of tiny fathers, which is how reproduction works in some deep-sea creatures. The ending is left pretty open, but the main characters end up happy for now, which is good enough.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

74. Josie and the Pussycats, Vol. 2 by Marguerite Bennett and Cameron DeOrdio, illustrated by Audrey Mok and Kelsey Shannon

The Pussycats get “arrested” for plagiarism by Alexandra's twin Alexander, but he was just trying to get his sister's attention. They skip a fancy awards ceremony to play at a charity concert in the park. They invite teen band The Archies (Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, and Jughead) to open for them at an arena show in Tokyo, only to have the teens get kidnapped by all the villains from the Pussycats’ past. They are rescued, of course, with the help of all the friends from the Pussycats' past.

Absolutely hilarious, just like the volume before it. It is a little weird to think of Archie and friends as being significantly younger than the Pussycats? Melody keeps calling them “my teens” (as in, “Oh no, my teens have been kidnapped!”) which had me in stitches. What a great series. I would have loved to read these as individual issues, they have great pacing. I'm really disappointed the series is so short.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday I did end up going to my brother's house for dinner, which had not been expecting to do until my dad texted me about it around 11am. It went fine, it was low-key, but I didn't get home until 10pm. I wanted a little time to relax before bed so ended up going to sleep way too late (with no time to read)

Today should be quieter, knock on wood, and maybe I will have the time and energy to do laundry after work (probably not...I am so tired).

Currently reading:
Hell Followed with Us
I am also experimenting with some new magazines, etc. I have had a delivery Washington Post subscription since I was born, but they have eliminated all of their local coverage and laid off a lot of the writers I liked and have gone seriously downhill so I am looking for other options. I get Washingtonian magazine for local color (no breaking news and not a lot of serious journalism) and I'm hoping that a new organization called The 51st will help fill the void. For national news I've just started reading The Nation, and for the past year I've been reading Bookforum, a quarterly newspaper which examines the news through book reviews and discussion about books.
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 36

Currently watching:
Nothing

>149 norabelle414: - That makes me sad about TWP. I always read it when I lived there and my favorite thing to do was to get the Sunday edition and take it to the diner across the street from my apratment complex and spend quality time with it and a plate of pancakes :)

I still have a digital subscription, but I might cancel it since I rarely use it...

I always liked Washingtonian for the restaurant reviews.

>149 norabelle414: Was your day calmer, Nora? Any energy for laundry? Housework is always tough for me because I dislike that type of work. So I get being too tired!

>150 katiekrug: Sunday is the only day I still get in paper. They've brought back Book World after cancelling it in 2009, which is great, but that and the crossword puzzle are the only parts I use. If I decide to cancel I will just go to a digital-only subscription.

>151 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! My day was quieter but I still did not get any laundry done. I don't have an in-unit washer so I have to lug everything to the basement. I like being able to do multiple loads at once, but it does take more mental energy to get started. I do most of my housework tasks by starting them and going 10-15 minutes until I get bored, but I can't do that with laundry.

It's Wednesday.

Yesterday I relaxed but, as usual, went to bed too late. I did read before bed (though I probably shouldn't have)

Got quite a lot done at work today. This evening I really really need to do laundry. Tomorrow I have an in-person meeting so I will be in the office again, even though it's Thursday. Sunday some friends and I are going to the county fair. Yes, my county (the geographically smallest county in the US) has a county fair. I've never been but I assume it's sponsored by Starbucks and Chipotle.

Currently reading:
40% through Hell Followed with Us. It's due back to the library tomorrow, which isn't going to happen, but I think I could finish it by Sunday. I'm also halfway through Lumberjanes, Vol 7: A Bird's-Eye View and Heartstopper, Volume 2
Reviews behind: 0
Consecutive reading days: 37

Currently watching:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Have fun at the county fair!

"I assume it's sponsored by Starbucks and Chipotle."

Ha! That made me laugh.

Where is the fair held? I'm trying to think of a concrete courtyard between high rises big enough ;-)

Thursday! What a concept.

I did laundry yesterday but not much else. Did not get much sleep last night.

I have two holds to pick up from the library, but it'll be closed well before I get home from the office. I'll try to go tomorrow.

Currently reading:
Did not read on the bus home yesterday or before bed, but I did read a big chunk of Hell Follows with Us this morning.
Consecutive reading days: 38

Currently watching:
I watched the first episode of Bad Monkey, which was not bad, and I rewatched the first episode of Magpie Murders in preparation for the second season (Moonflower Murders) next month.

>154 elorin: Thanks Robyn!!

>155 katiekrug: It's at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center, at Glebe Rd and Arlington Boulevard. (Across from the big Goodwill, if you remember where that is)

Happy Sunday!

Thursday night I slept GREAT. Friday was pretty low-key, as far as work days go, and I did pop over to the library at lunchtime to return 5 books and pick up 4. Yesterday I made pizza for dinner. No toppings but I did add a bit of red pepper. Also went to the grocery store in the evening.

Today I went to the county fair, my first time ever. It was annoying to get to, despite being only maybe 2 miles from my apartment. I could have walked 2.5 miles, or taken a bus 15 minutes then walked 1 mile, or taken a bus 10 minutes then waited 15 minutes then taken another bus 10 minutes, but I opted to take the Metro 15 minutes then a free shuttle 10 minutes (my friends were taking the metro so I met up with them there and we took the shuttle together.) I ate corn dogs, fries, deep-fried mac & cheese, nashville hot chicken sandwich, thai chili chicken tenders, lemonade, red velvet funnel cake, deep-fried oreos, and a mango smoothie. We walked around and looked at all the rides but I'm not much of a ride person, played some games, and looked at the award-winning art, baked goods, etc. A fun time.

This week I thought I was going to have to feed my friend's cat but his plans changed so now I don't have anything going on until the book festival on Saturday. The company that I get a household goods delivery from once a week changed some of their policies and now I can pick the day of the week I want my delivery, which is GREAT. I switched from Monday to Thursday and now I can get perishables again because I don't have to worry about them sitting out in the hallway all day while I'm at work. I've ordered a seasonal vegetable share and some strawberries, to start.

Currently reading:
Finished Lumberjanes, Vol 7: A Bird's-Eye View and Heartstopper, Volume 2. Also read Captain Marvel, Vol.2: Stay Fly and Squirrel Girl, Vol. 2: Squirrel You Know It's True. I started Lore Olympus: Volume One. Up next will be The Do-Over and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.
I have not finished Hell Followed With Us yet but I am halfway through and I will get some good reading time on the bus this week.
Consecutive reading days: 41

Currently watching:
Caught up on Futurama, The Ark, Sunny, Time Bandits, Women in Blue, and Kite Man, Hell Yeah. Also watched Taskmaster Australia s2e1, Those About to Die s1e5, and The Bear s3e8.

75. Lumberjanes, Vol. 7: A Bird’s-Eye View written by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh, illustrated by Carey Pietsch and Ayme Sotuyo

A bunch of kittens have snuck over to Lumberjanes from the boy’s camp and Barney comes to collect them…and reveal that they’re magical kittens! The kittens and Barney have to hide because the camp is being inspected by elder Lumberjanes. But before they can arrive, the elders and Rosie are kidnapped by a giant bird.The Lumberjanes, their counselor Jen, Barney, the magic kittens, and a surly camper from Zodiac cabin all set out to find the elders, riding on one of the kittens which has embiggened itself.

It’s been quite awhile since I read one of these volumes, which is probably for the best. At the time I found it jarring when the writers and artists changed, but now I’m just along for the ride. I still really enjoy the friendly vibes and the casual fantasy. Friendship is dealt with especially well when Hes, the camper from another cabin, just plain doesn't like the Lumberjanes. That's okay! It happens sometimes! I also really like the approach to gender at the end when Barney wants to join the girls camp. And the magical kittens, obvi.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

76. Heartstopper, Volume 2 written and illustrated by Alice Oseman

At the end of last volume, Charlie kissed Nick, who then ran away. In this volume they make up, and make out, but Nick is still struggling with how to define himself and so they keep things a secret for now. Nick spends a lot of time thinking about this new aspect of himself and reconciling it with who he used to think that he was, and Charlie is struggling with his anxiety over being someone’s secret again.

Just as sweet as ever. It’s really hard to judge what it would be like to read this book without having seen the perfect tv adaptation first. I enjoyed it nonetheless. This volume introduces Darcy and Tara, who are my favorites. I do think the tv show gives more detail and backstory than the comics.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

77. Captain Marvel, Vol. 2: Stay Fly written by Kelly Sue DeConnick,illustrated by Marcio Takara and David Lopez

The teen that Captain Marvel saved and returned home last issue has stowed away on her ship. Rocket Racoon from Guardians of the Galaxy is trying to sell Chewie on the black market, but one of the buyers shows up and threatens them. Chewie lays eggs that hatch into flerkin kittens. Carol and Tic accidentally summon Carol’s favorite singer, who can teleport and asks Carol for help getting out of an arranged marriage on a planet where everyone talks in rhyme. Later, Carol gets a letter from Kit that says her old enemy Grace Valentine has broken out of jail. Carol goes back to Earth for 24 hours (at Christmas, of course) to make sure everything is okay.

Great pacing, each issue has a distinct plot. Unlike the previous volume there was very little Guardians of the Galaxy in this one (just Rocket being incredibly annoying), which is good because I don’t like them. There were lots of kittens, which is always great. I liked that Tic’s story wrapped up neatly (if a little weirdly) and Carol’s obvious crush on the singer Lila Cheney. I didn’t really get the last story because I have no idea who Grace Valentine is and so I didn’t understand the stakes. But the first several issues were great.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Hey Nora!
It sounds like you had a great time at the fair, I'm glad :)
Your reading streak looks awesome too! Well done.

It's Monday.

I have a new keyboard at work and I don't think I like it. It looks very sleek but the buttons are very short and the keyboard is very low, even when I put the legs up.

Yesterday evening I made cookies. Went to bed at an okay time but slept terribly. Why??

Not much going on this week.

Currently reading:
Hell Followed With Us on the bus.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 42

Currently watching:
s3e3 and s3e4 of Hotel Portofino. A little annoying that everything takes place during the off-season (what's the point of a show about a hotel if there's no hotelling??) but now all the characters from previous seasons are back so I'm enjoying it more. I especially enjoyed this incredibly subtle dialog:

BANKER, into a telephone: "What? Of course your money is safe in the bank! It's 1929!"

>159 norabelle414: Pleased to see Lumberjanes is still amusing you.

Crossing my fingers you also had a good time with Squirrel Girl as I adored that whole series.

>164 MickyFine: Of course! I'm happy I have a lot more of both Lumberjanes and Squirrel Girl to go.

It Only Tuesday*

I got caught in the rain for a minute on the way home yesterday but by the time I got home I was dry. Did nothing yesterday after work.

Today is quiet in the office. The weather is absolutely stunning so I'm going to walk to the library on my way home. I have 6 holds to pick up, whoops. That's going to put me at 20 check-outs (I have a couple ready to return but they're at home).

Looking forward to my vegetable share delivery on Thursday, playing board games with Mary on Friday, then the National Book Festival on Saturday. I have a lot of authors I'm somewhat interested in but no one that I'm dying to see.

*As if in response to my lamentations in >149 norabelle414: about paper newspapers, The Onion (which was bought earlier this year by a few of its previous writers) has announced they're bringing back the paper edition. What a gift! I've never hit "subscribe" so fast.

Currently reading:
I really need to finish Hell Followed With Us so I read it both on the bus and before bed. I have about 60 pages to go, so I might bring a different purse book tomorrow (the most recent Murderbot) depending on how much I get read today. I still have to finish Lore Olympus Volume One and uhhh a TON of other comics.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 43

Currently watching:
I put s1e1 of Slow Horses on while I was making dinner yesterday and whoops! I rewatched the whole season. Season 4 is coming out in a few weeks.

Happy Wednesday!

Yesterday after work I walked to the library to pick up a ton of holds. I was starving on my way home so I walked through the plaza but I couldn't decide what I wanted (I'm extremely bad at making decisions when I'm hungry) and then I decided on two options but they were both closed (one permanently, one just closed on Tuesdays) so I got cranky and went home and ordered delivery. In-office days are pretty rough for dinner unless I do a lot of prep work on Sunday.

The weather is gorgeous again today! I would love to spend some time outside but we'll see how I feel when I get home.

I forgot to mention that over the weekend I bought a copy of Once There Were Wolves, which is the zoo book club book for September.

Currently reading:
Finished Hell Followed With Us before bed last night, and started System Collapse on the bus this morning.
Reviews behind: 2
Consecutive reading days: 44

Currently watching:
Caught up on Lady in the Lake and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

>167 norabelle414: I'm extremely bad at making decisions when I'm hungry -- Oh, me too! I get worse and worse at finding/preparing food when I cross a certain point, and just get dramatic and flop around, basically.

Happy Saturday!

Just a quick update as I'm off to the National Book Festival all day. There aren't any panels I'm super excited for but I'm sure I'll end up seeing one I love, I always do.

Have a grand time!

>168 foggidawn: Glad I'm not alone! It's a frustrating problem.

>170 MickyFine: Thank you! I did!

78. Squirrel Girl, Vol. 2: Squirrel You Know It's True written by Ryan North, illustrated by Erica Henderson

Issue #5: A group of strangers trapped at the top of the Statue of Liberty by a dinosaur pass the time by telling Golden Age stories that are definitely about Squirrel Girl and not about any other, more famous superheroes.
Issue #6: Squirrel Girl meets Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi, fights a hippo who just needs a job, and runs into the mysterious Girl Squirrel, who is definitely planning something nefarious.
Issue #7: Everyone on Earth is arguing and fighting with each other. Squirrel Girl and friends find out the reason - Girl Squirrel is a Norse god who spreads discord. Good thing she knows another Norse god.
Issue #8: Nancy, Tippy-toe, Thor, other Thor, and Loki return to Earth with a plan to help Squirrel Girl defeat Girl Squirrel.
Plus -
GLX-Mas Special #1: Squirrel Girl goes out on Christmas Eve to buy eggnog and toilet paper, but ends up helping S.H.I.E.L.D. defeat villains on the shores of Lake Michigan
The Thing #8: The Thing invites Squirrel Girl to the big superhero poker game and reminisces about the time she saved him in a fight
Age of Heroes #3: Squirrel Girl leaves the Great Lakes Avengers so that she won't overshadow them.

A fun hodgepodge of Squirrel Girl. I love the complete dedication to Squirrel Girl being the most powerful superhero in the universe. I love that she knows when not to fight, like when she helps the hippo get a job. There’s tons of characters from other comics here, but you don’t need to know any lore to understand what’s going on. I also love the footnotes and fan letters. What a perfect series!

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

79. Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

In the near future, a virus has wiped out most of the human population. Into this vacuum has risen a fundamentalist Christian cult who believe the Flood (as they call the disease) is part of their prophecy, and their role is to be Angels and kill anyone who doesn’t believe. The group experimented on Benji, the teen child of one of their leaders, infecting him with a genetically engineered variant of the virus which will allow him to control the other infected. However, the prophecy relies on their Savior being an innocent girl, which Benji refuses to pretend to be. After losing his dad, who helped him both transition and escape, Benji hides from his mom with a group of survivors in an abandoned LGBTQ community center. They accept his transness, of course, but can they accept that he's an infected monster, and can they trust him enough to bring down the cult together?

I really enjoyed the queer and horror aspects of this book, but found the Christianity a bit annoying. The constant bible references were not meaningful to me and I felt like I was missing a lot. I'm certain this book would be very cathartic to people who have struggled against fundamentalism in their own lives, and I hope they find it! But it was not really for me. I do look forward to reading more from this author in the future, though.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

Hey Nora, just catching up!
>167 norabelle414: I too cannot pick food when I'm hungry, and get to a point where making a decision just makes me mad.
>169 norabelle414: I hope you had a great time!

It's Monday!

Thursday and Friday were very busy work days. My immediate boss gets very stressed out about how picky our new director is and passes that down the line sometimes. Thursday my produce delivery came, I got swiss chard, cabbage, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and hatch chiles (I didn't know what they were until I saw them at the grocery store). I want to make swiss chard shakshouka and coleslaw, not sure what I'll do with the chiles. Friday after work I went to the local board game bar and played Ticket to Ride and Wingspan with Mary and her sisters.

Saturday was the National Book Festival. I got there a little after 9:30 and Mary and I wandered around the exhibit hall. For myself I bought Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa L. Sevigny (recommended by Mary a few months ago, it was the adult book pick for Arizona) and for my niece Beneath by Cori Doerrfeld (the picture book pic for Minnesota). I went to
- a panel about memoirs featuring Camonghne Felix and Safiya Sinclair,
- a panel about time travel novels featuring Peng Shepherd and Edan Lepucki (both panels were fantastic),
- a panel about misinformation featuring Annalee Newitz and Peter Pomerantsev (underwhelming - I was in the back and couldn't see a thing and didn't really learn anything new from the discussion (misinformation is bad and someone should do something about it)), and
- a panel about translation with Emily R. Wilson and M. A. R. Habib (Wilson was a joy, as always, and it was nice to see her paired with a fellow translator instead of the usual mythology-based fiction. I had a great time thinking about how The Iliad is incredibly violent but isn't treated that way, while the Qur'an is almost entirely peaceful but isn't treated that way.)
I went back to the book sale because the time travel books sounded so good. They were out of Lepucki's but I bought All This and More, which is not just time travel but also a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure.
I met up with some online friends at the time travel panel and then met up with some real-life friends at the end of the festival and we played Library of Congress trivia. I said goodbye to Mary and went to get Indian food for dinner.

Yesterday I went to get dumplings with some friends for one of their birthday (his birthday was actually Saturday but I was busy all day obviously) then I went home, did the dishes, returned some very overdue library books, and went to the grocery store.

This week should be quiet at work, because our director is away at a conference. I'm a little sad I didn't get to make pizza last week but I have produce to use now so I might not make any this week either.

Currently reading:
Reading My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book One before bed but it's very dense so slow going. System Collapse is my purse book, I'm about 1/3 through. I also brought Gender Queer with me and read about 70 pages on the bus this morning but I'm getting into the section about sexuality so I probably won't read it on the work bus again.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 49

Currently watching:
Caught up on Bad Monkey, s1e2 of Mr. Throwback, s2e2 of Taskmaster Australia (my God what a good series). I've also rewatched most of season 1 of Pachinko and Magpie Murders before I start season 2.

>174 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Angela!! I think you would really like Hell Followed With Us (>173 norabelle414:), btw. It's very body-horror-y.

Happy Tuesday.

Yesterday I lost the cybertruck game... a game everyone is playing all the time where the only rule is that if you see a cybertruck in real life, you lose. In case you were wondering, it looks very stupid.

I made coleslaw last night with my vegetable share cabbage but of course since cabbage only comes in one size I now have about 2 weeks worth of coleslaw. I didn't dress it all so hopefully it will last long enough in the fridge for me to eat it. I got a recipe from my mom to use the hatch chiles in, I'll probably make that one last since the chiles will last much longer in the fridge than the swiss chard.

Quiet day at work today. No plans afterward except eating coleslaw and cooking more vegetables.

Currently reading:
Continued System Collapse and really loving it. Might be my favorite Murderbot. I also read 20 minutes of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters but I'm going to need to step it up if I want to finish by Saturday (I'm not really enjoying it, I'm tempted to alternate with lighter comics)
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 50 (got a little Bookly trophy for it)

Currently watching:
s1e3 of Mr. Throwback, rewatched s1e6&7 of Pachinko. I'm much more moved by the show the second time around, I think the first watch was just too overwhelming. I didn't love e7, the flashback to Hansu's young adulthood in 1923. The history was interesting but I don't really care for Hansu and it feels like trying to justify his behavior toward Sanju with a tragic backstory.

Hi Nora! Congrats on 75 and beyond :) The National Book Festival sounds like a lot of fun!

I also lost the cybertruck game yesterday. Seeing one always puts me in a bad mood, lol.

My friend and I watched the first episode of season 2 of Taskmaster Australia and weren't sold on this cast, but I think we'll watch more before deciding yes or no.

>178 curioussquared: Thanks Natalie! I don't really want to brag about it because a lot of them are picture books but even so it's still way more books than I've read in many many years!

I was just telling my friend that I think season 2 of TM Australia might be my favorite season of the entire franchise! I would give it one more episode and you'll either love Josh Thomas's energy or hate it.

Happy Wednesday!

Both the director and my boss are on leave this week so it's been quiet and non-stressful. I am so tired of coleslaw.

No plans until Saturday, when I'm volunteering at the zoo.

Currently reading:
Entering the home stretch for the month. I will definitely be able to finish System Collapse (100 pages left) and Gender Queer (70 pages left). I'm hoping to also finish My Favorite Thing Is Monsters though that's a little more iffy (250 pages left, which Bookly says will take me 1.5 hours). I'm hoping I can get a few more short comics in there as well. I'll continue reading the comics I have out from the library in September, as my goal for September will be to finally fucking finish The Iliad (430 pages left)
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 51

Currently watching:
s1e8 of Pachinko

>180 norabelle414: We're going to dive in to the second season of Pachinko without any sort of rewatch - wish us luck!

finally fucking finish The Iliad

Best of luck! It was assigned in AP English and I never finished it. I read The Odyssey as prep for Morgan's and my shared read of Ulysses and made some vague noises about going back to The Iliad but ... that was 4 years ago now.

>180 norabelle414: Glad you get a break from the stressful authority figures in your life right now.
I feel ya on the coleslaw too. I was never a fan of cabbage.

Congrats as well on sailing past 75!

80. Lore Olympus, Volume One written and illustrated by Rachel Smythe

A modern-ish urban fantasy long-form retelling of various ancient Greek myths. Persephone has finally gotten her overbearing mother to let her stay with her cousin Artemis in the big city. They have fun and stay out all night, and one night she meets a mysterious man - Hades, god of the Underworld. Unbeknownst to either of them, Persephone’s drink is drugged by other scheming gods and she’s hidden in the back of Hades’ car, but he’s polite about it and takes care of her. They have romantic feelings for each other but are both very shy and lots of misunderstandings ensue.

I really love the art in this volume. Every character is a different color, kind of a watercolor aura with a human form drawn on top. Very clever, and easy to tell who is who, even over texting etc. Very god-like. But the story didn’t do much for me. Hades is portrayed very sympathetic, especially compared to his dudebro brothers. The modern setting is fine (especially because it’s still kind of a fantasy world with little mention of mortals that don’t directly affect the gods) but it’s still pretty rapey and Persephone is presented as a naive teen who must be protected by a man at all costs. What’s the point in giving everyone phones if you’re not going to give the female characters agency?

I won’t rule out reading more in the series eventually but I’m not rushing to the shelf.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

81. She-Hulk (2022) #9 written by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa

When we last left She-Hulk, she was kidnapped by a mad scientist couple, and then we learned the scientists’ backstory. April plans to use zero energy to steal Jennifer’s gamma radiation. (This is apparently Jack’s old zero energy, which explains where he was the whole time he was missing, and what happened to his energy.) Jack shows up to save Jennifer and in the ensuing fight April accidentally takes Mark’s gamma radiation so now she has twice as much. Jack purposely absorbs the zero energy so he can fight April (and then Jennifer breaks the 4th wall to yell at the audience for a couple pages??) but he doesn’t have his superhero suit anymore to protect him from the effects.

More nonsense, unfortunately. I like that we got actual answers about Jack but most of this issue is just April telling Jen everything the audience learned last issue. None of the gamma/zero radiation/energy/fluid talk makes any sense, which is to be expected, but they keep harping on it over and over again. I’m still not sure what Jen is yelling about in the 4th wall break. That the audience is taking her boyfriend away? I’m not the writer! Trust me, girl, I would much rather read a comic about the two of you just having a nice day.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

I take it "The Iliad" was a slog for you? I plan on audiobooking it one day. Not a bad way to go, since it was originally an oral story. That will make it less of a slog for me.

>183 norabelle414: Always seems like a struggle for writers to soften this story, isn't it?
I read a fanfic once upon time that did it just fine. Even kept the tone and overall vibe of Disney's Hercules. Fun times.

>180 norabelle414: Are you reading the Wilson translation? One of my weirdest literature opinions is that I prefer Iliad to Odyssey. This is strange to me, because I love sea stories!

>177 norabelle414: I lost the Cybertruck game recently. I was with my Dad, who also was grossed out by the truck's design. Did you see the Bluesky post that mistook a Cybertruck for a dumpster?

When I was in the city earlier this week, there was a Cybertruck parked outside one of the high-end hotels on 5th Avenue and people were taking pictures. I walked by and said loudly to my friend, "Why would people want a photo of a trash can?"

I've also seen one (I like to think it's the same one and that there aren't that many dumb people in my general vicinity) a few times locally, and I always point and laugh when I pass. I'm very mature like that 😉

82. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book One written and illustrated by Emil Ferris

10-year-old Karen Reyes, in 1960s Chicago, loves monsters and pulp horror. She draws this diary about her life with her sex-crazed adult brother and religious mentally-ill mother with a recent cancer diagnosis. She feels like she’s different from everyone else, and wishes she were powerful like a monster, so she draws herself as a young werewolf. When her upstairs neighbor Anka is shot to death, Karen dons a trenchcoat like her favorite pulp detectives and tries to solve the murder. She enlists her friends to help her investigate her neighbors, and uncovers even more history and secrets than she was looking for, including Anka's adolescence in Nazi Germany.

The art in this book is obviously very skilled. It’s all done in what appears to be ballpoint pen, on faux lined and hole-punched notebook paper, with sparing (but poignant) use of color. The style ranges from hyper-realistic to fantastical, depending on the needs of the story. It really does look like what an extremely talented school kid would draw in their notebook, in the best way. The narrative, however, is the dreaded stream-of-consciousness and I found it unpleasant to trudge through (though it does get better toward the end). While I enjoyed some of the characters (Karen’s friends) and was somewhat interested in the plot, it drags on and on, and there is too much graphic detail of sexual exploitation and long, long digressions into child abuse. Even the parts of the plot that I was interested in were not compelling enough to warrant the enormous size of this volume. And these 400+ pages still don’t have an ending, with multiple murders and disappearances still unsolved. I see that a second volume came out just a couple months ago (7 years after the first) but I’m not interested enough to continue. I don’t think I would have picked up this first one if I had known there were no resolutions.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)

83. Gender Queer written and illustrated by Maia Kobabe

Cartoonist Maia Kobabe details eir life, with a special focus on eir long and twisted (and ongoing) journey through sexuality and gender.

This book is obviously an homage to Fun Home, and I am glad I read them close together (but not back-to-back). While Kobabe’s thoughts on gender and sexuality are more modern and complicated than Bechdel’s, there are no dark undertones of shame and suicide. The book is sweet and colorful and joyous. What little tension there is comes from Kobabe’s internal feelings that e can’t really find the words to describe eir gender, eir annoyance at people who make assumptions about em, and feeling self-conscious about asserting eir gender and pronouns. I really adored the neat, modern, infographic style of the art. E sometimes incorporates graphs, and is not shy about getting artistic with the lettering. There were many panels I could picture as posters on a dorm room wall. I appreciated that Kobabe admits it feels weird to write a memoir at such a young age, but it’s an important book and I can’t wait to read eir next memoir in the future.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

>181 ursula: Good luck! I really enjoyed my rewatch of Pachinko season 1, but the recap at the beginning of season 2 was pretty good so I think you'll be fine.
I started The Iliad in March and made it halfway, so I think I can do it! Bookly says I need to read 15 minutes per day, but a significant portion of the remaining pages is the endnotes, which I am reading as I go along. (...or sometimes not)

>182 Ravenwoodwitch: I love coleslaw (especially when I make it myself so it's not too saucy or mushy) but there's just soooo much of it. I think I'm only halfway done ...

>185 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! I was doing pretty well with The Iliad until I put it down in May when I got sick, and didn't pick it up again. I've heard the Audre McDonald-narrated audiobook of the Emily Wilson translation (the one I'm reading) is fantastic, but I think it's an Audible-exclusive.

>186 Ravenwoodwitch: I thought it was a little too soft, to be honest. I wanted both Hades and especially Persephone to have more of an edge to them. They were both kind of doormats.

>187 libraryperilous: Yes, the Wilson translation. I love her. And yes, that is weird! I like The Odyssey so much better than The Iliad

>187 libraryperilous: I did see that post about the Cybertruck. There is something about it that just short-circuits the brain. "I'm not sure what that is so it must be... a dumpster?"

>188 katiekrug: I kind of expected to see one downtown or something but right outside my own home?? I assume they were eating dinner in the plaza since it was parked on the street and not in resident parking. I thought about stopping to look at it or take a picture of how dumb it looks but I think that kind of attention (even negative) is what the owners are looking for.

Happy Sunday!

Thursday was uneventful, I didn't even have my usual weekly check-in meetings since my boss is out of town. Friday I had a migraine all day. Not sure where it came from, and nothing I did seemed to help. Yesterday I volunteered at the zoo in the morning, in the bird house. It was a lovely day, with a steady stream of visitors but not too many. Breeding season is mostly over so the birds were a lot more calm than the past few months. Toward the end of my shift I did get pooped on, which is surprisingly the first time that's happened.

Last night I slept TERRIBLY, for no discernable reason, but thankfully I don't have a lot going on today. There's a monthly craft fair in the plaza across the street that I'm going to check out in a few minutes, then I'm watching a podcast livestream this evening.

Tomorrow is a holiday, and I'm meeting up with Jim and Nina for some book shopping and dinner. Wednesday I'm going to my old (several bosses ago) boss' retirement ceremony. Friday I'm having dinner with an old friend. Saturday I have a virtual zoo meeting in the morning then I'm getting my new COVID vaccine in the afternoon.

Currently reading:
Got LOTS of reading done over the past few days: a She-Hulk, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Gender Queer, Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat!, Vol. 3: Careless Whisker(s), System Collapse, Resident Alien, Vol. 1: Welcome to Earth, and Man-Eaters, Vol. 1. Of course that means I'm quite behind on reviews now. I read half of book 13 of The Iliad this morning. It's obviously too big to carry in my purse so I'll be reading A House with Good Bones on the bus, etc. I haven't started it yet and it's due to the library on the 6th, but it's not long so I think I should get through it quick. After that will be Once There Were Wolves, which is for the zoo book club meeting on Sep 21. I also still have 10 more comics out from the library so I'll read those when I need breaks from The Iliad.
(I realized this week that while part of the point of reading comics was to get through the ones on my own shelves, I only ended up reading 3 from my shelves and checking 23 out from the library. Whoops!)
Reviews behind: 4
Consecutive reading days: 55

Currently watching:
s2e1 of Pachinko and s2e3 of Taskmaster Australia. Caught up on The Ark, Futurama, and Sunny, and started the new season of Only Murders in the Building (decided I didn't have time to rewatch the prior 3 seasons, but that's fine)

84. Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat!, Vol. 3: Careless Whisker(s) written by Kate Leth, illustrated by Brittney L. Williams

Issue #13: Black Cat recruits Bailey and Tom to her side, and captures Patsy, Ian, and Jubilee in Bailey’s bag of holding. They escape and head home to regroup.
Issue #14: What remains of Patsy’s gang sneaks into Black Cat’s lair to destroy the magical claws she is using to brainwash everyone
Issue #15: Patsy has a cold and unfortunately it’s a magical one. Every time she sneezes it’s like casting a spell (pretty gross to read in a COVID world!). One sneeze summons America Chavez, another summons the giant tiger manifestation of Patsy’s childhood stuffie, and another disappears her apartment building
Issue #16: One of Patsy’s sneezes alerts her rival Hedy Wolfe to the situation, who apologizes for her previous behavior and introduces Patsy to her new boyfriend, The Devil. He says that Patsy must have caught the flu when she visited Hell recently. She talks through her feelings and decides to become a superhero again
Issue #17: Some of Black Cat’s straggling minions attack Patsy and friends at the mall, but just kidding! They’re normal teens only pretending to be villains.

I would have liked this better if I had read it right after volume 2, but it was still fun. All of the side characters are great, though it’s very hard to tell Jubilee and Bailey apart. The art was cute, and I love Williams’ style (and others do this too, I think) where any time a character is feeling a very strong emotion they are drawn as a little kid. Sweet! This was a fitting end to the series, though I would love to read more about Patsy Walker.

85. System Collapse (Murderbot, book 7) by Martha Wells

Immediately following the events of book 5 (not book 6), the team that is trying to evacuate the colonists from their contaminated planet is informed that a couple generations ago a separatist group left the colony and formed a new settlement elsewhere on the planet, near the gigantic engines used to terraform the atmosphere. Due to interference from the engines, it’s impossible to contact the other settlement, and no one knows if they are contaminated as well, or even alive. So Murderbot, one of ART’s drones (with ART’s personality, of course), and a few team members venture into the dead zone to contact them, with no idea what they’ll find when they get there.

This one is my new favorite Murderbot book. I *love* the use of a communications dead zone to change the stakes without actually raising them. The world is smaller and there’s much less bodily danger than previous books, but it feels more personal. I love the continued investigation of what the pre-Corporation universe looked like. I love both ART’s University and Preservation being so radical in different ways toward the same end. And I especially love the big plan of Murderbot using its knowledge of media to help the colonists understand, the same way that Murderbot uses media to understand things. Lovely. I really hope we get more of these eventually.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

86. Resident Alien, Vol. 1: Welcome to Earth written by Peter Hogan, illustrated by Steve Parkhouse

For the last three years, an alien has been stranded on Earth, hiding out in rural Washington state as retired doctor Harry Vanderspeigle. No one pays him any mind until the town doctor is murdered and the mayor asks Dr. Vanderspeigle to come out of retirement until a replacement can arrive. Harry has been bored on Earth, with no way home, so he figures solving a murder mystery might occupy his time.

I really love the TV show Resident Alien, so I was curious to read the source material. I had heard that the TV show was lightened up a bit when Alan Tudyk was cast, but I’m not sure that’s the case. I think the TV show is a little darker, and a lot funnier, than this. It also has a more diverse cast of side characters; while the Native characters are here from the start, they’re pretty stereotypical. It’s not a particularly objectionable comic, but the tv show is just so much better that it’s hardly worth reading. I might continue just out of curiosity, but I might not.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

It's a holiday Monday!

Yesterday I went to the craft fair but didn't buy anything. A lot of stuff was extremely cute, and all well-priced, but I'm in a phase where I need to have less stuff. I got a bunch of reviews written yesterday, as you can see, and managed to sleep okay last night.

The weather today is gorgeous. I might walk to the library and drop off some books even though I'll have a hold to pick up later this week. Later today I'm meeting up with Jim and Nina.

Currently reading:
Finished the second half of book 13 of The Iliad last night, and read half of book 14 this morning.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 56

Currently watching:
nothing

Find out what books I bought yesterday over on my NEW THREAD!!