#BFCR4 Week 1 check-in! This was an inauspicious start to the challenge, since I was fighting a cold. I had such low energy—I only managed 2 walks & didn‘t make it to the gym. And I counted a lot of herbal tea as water intake! I did complete the tagged book & also realized that it‘s okay to give myself credit for things I‘m already doing (i.e. the herbal tea!) instead of always trying to add on more to do. #runningonreading #bookfitnesschallenge

I didn‘t enjoy this as much as I hoped. I loved the premise—two researchers go back in time to befriend Jane Austen & recover a lost Austen manuscript. There was a wonderful attention to the details of/preparation for time travel, but overall it just felt too serious. I would have preferred a lighter tone—more Austen-ish, to be honest. I‘m not sure if I had too-high expectations, or if I just prefer my time travel lighter & perhaps less realistic!

I really enjoyed this one. Poirot is a little bit of a deus ex machina, with only a cameo appearance or two until almost the end, when he applies his little gray cells, unravels the mystery, and unmasks the murderer. But I enjoyed following the clues through the eyes of the three amateur detectives. This has a satisfying conclusion—one that I kind of anticipated but kept talking myself out of until it was revealed!

I‘ve had a slow start to #BFCR4. Since Sunday, I‘ve felt like I‘m coming down with a cold that hasn‘t materialized. I‘ve had little to no energy, so I‘ve been taking a pass on my exercise goal. Above is my plan for today: books & herbal tea with honey! Other goals: daily spiritual practice has been great, and I‘m counting all the herbal tea toward my water intake goal! And I finished one book on Tuesday—👍🏼 #runningonreading #bookfitnesschallenge

I started this last night, and two pet peeves from the first book reared their heads rather quickly: a rocket-launch double entendre (my pet peeve) on the third page, and a martini reference (my husband‘s pet peeve) on the fourth page. 😬 I wonder if keeping a running tally of these (or playing a drinking game) might be in order? 😂

I love the way Nye‘s work highlights moments of humanity & connection. This volume does that, but feels different from her poems I‘m familiar with. There‘s a thread of grief & anger, at times a voice of outrage. The “Tiny Journalist” refers to a Palestinian girl who began documenting anti-occupation protests at the age of 7. Nye‘s identity as a Palestinian-American, as a daughter of a refugee, provides a powerful voice for these much-needed poems.

Advice

My friend, dying, said do the hard thing first.
Always do the hard thing and you will have a better day.
The second thing will seem less hard.

She didn‘t tell me what to do when everything seems hard.

No Explosions

To enjoy
fireworks
you would have
to have lived
a different kind
of life

I wanted so much to like this more. I think my frustrations were largely due to length. If Chambers had fleshed this out with another 100 pages or so, it might have made the difference. The majority of the book didn‘t build up to the ending effectively for me—the body didn‘t match the conclusion. I didn‘t mind the end, but I wished its ideas had been woven more consistently throughout the whole book. When is her next full-length novel due out? 😏

“I wadn‘t aware that words could hold so much. I didn‘t know a sentence could be so full.”

Goodness, I loved this book. Beautifully written and heartbreaking—just lovely. And this quote!😍 I‘ve seen criticism that the book is too contrived, or the mystery too predictable. Maybe I have a too-willing suspension of disbelief—but I bought into it all & loved it. I finished it over lunch and struggled to keep it together so I could go back to work!😭

I‘m excited to get back into the #bookfitnesschallenge for Round 4! My goals are:
🙏🏼Mental health/wellness: Daily spiritual practice
🏃🏻‍♀️Physical fitness: Exercise 7 times/week (walks in my neighborhood & at work + 1 gym workout)
💧Nutritional: 84 oz. water daily + TBD food goal
📚Books: 15

Today‘s the last day to sign up: https://forms.gle/uAoYtmJEkWjwcZxx5
Check in with @wanderinglynn for more info!

#BFC #BFCr4

Here‘s my hypothetical #OctoberTBR! In the stack: top 3 are from my shelves—ones I meant to read in September before I got distracted by incoming library holds. The bottom four are ones from my shelves that felt appropriately October-y. Then we have a book club pick (Dr. Jekyll), a poetry collection (Joy Harjo), current reads (Agatha Christie & Crawdads), and one remaining library hold I haven‘t started yet (Fated Sky). Will see how far I get!

September reading stats:
🚀SFF: 4
📚Fiction: 3
👧🏽Kids/YA: 2
📕Nonfiction: 1
🖋Poetry: 1
🔍Mystery: 1

🏫Library: 10
📚TBR: 2

📚Print: 9
🎧Audio: 3

💜Favorites: Pastrix, Stay With Me (both #MakeMeReadIt picks!)
❌Least favorite: The Alchemist

I finished this over a week ago & LOVED it...now my husband is reading it & is SO frustrated with it that my enthusiasm has waned a bit.😂 I loved the combination of alternate history, female empowerment in the face of rampant sexism, and its examination of stigma toward mental health treatment/anxiety...all with a Hidden Figures vibe. I HATED the poorly-written sex scenes—if I have to read one more rocket-launch double entendre, I will scream.⤵️

I enjoyed this ending to a fun series—even though I didn‘t like how certain things wrapped up. This book was particularly full of tension & worry (on my part!) for this set of beloved characters. It was fantastic seeing Morgan & Khalila come into their own and demonstrate their skill & power. I also appreciated the (belated) resolution for Jess in sorting out his complicated family past. I still like the 1st book best—but do recommend the series!

1. Goodreads challenge: 106/120, poetry goal: 11/12 (one poetry collection/month). Haven‘t made much progress on reading my own TBR or finishing series, though!
2. My name‘s written on a ceiling beam in a cathedral in England (not graffiti!)
3. Indie/folk
4. Almost EVERYTHING is in March: wedding & first date anniversaries, my birthday & my husband‘s (also my mom and a niece & nephew). But my engagement anniversary is Sept. 17!
5.🖐🏼
#friyayintro

...So much for the flags we bored
Into planets dry as chalk, for the tin cans we filled with fire
And rode like cowboys into all we tried to tame.

—from “The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” by Tracy K. Smith

Tina says what if dark matter is like the space between people
When what holds them together isn‘t exactly love, and I think
That sounds right—how strong the pull can be, as if something
That knows better won‘t let you drift apart so easily, and how
Small and heavy you feel, stuck there spinning in place.

...secret diplomats are what we must be,
as a girl in Qatar once assured me,
each day slipping its blank visa into our hands.
—from “You Are Your Own State Department” by Naomi Shihab Nye

...They are the bravest people on earth right now,
don‘t dare look down on them. Each mind a universe
swirling as many details as yours, as much love
for a humble place. Now the shirt is torn,
the sea too wide for comfort, and nowhere
to receive a letter for a very long time.

And if we can reach out a hand, we better.

My EfM (Education for Ministry) group started back up a couple of weeks ago, so I‘m back into weekly reading assignments. Here‘s my reading this morning, before I dig into that stack of library books!

Here‘s my other #bookhaul excitement for the week: I finally decided what to get with the gift card I won from my library‘s summer reading program. 😍

Annnnd... it‘s an avalanche of library holds! I was so far down on the list for Where the Crawdads Sing, I didn‘t think it would come through for at least another week. But there was the notification this morning, on top of the three I picked up yesterday! I‘m going to be happily busy these next three weeks! #bookhaul #libraryhaul #IwillneverfinishmyTBR

I hit the jackpot on the library holds today!! I didn‘t expect to get The Testaments or the new Becky Chambers so quickly! This will effectively derail my planned TBR for the rest of the month, but I ain‘t mad.

#WondrousWednesday—I‘ll play!
1. Visited 22, not counting 🇺🇸 (country of origin, current home). Have lived in three of the 22: 🇬🇧 🇮🇹 🇿🇦
2. 🌊
3. So many! But I‘ll go with Greece. 🇬🇷
4. Inevitably something British. Bonus if there‘s magic involved. Or tea. 😁

Trying to decide on an audiobook to start tomorrow... too many good choices!

Final check-in for #bookfitnesschallenge #BFCR3! Above are this week‘s stats. Overall: I mostly hit my physical fitness & spiritual practice goals, and I went over my book goal by one! Nutrition goals were more hit or miss, but I‘ve gotten consistent with more water intake, so that‘s a start! Thank you to @wanderinglynn for organizing, and to everyone who‘s participated—these challenges have helped me set better habits & that‘s a win all around!

“Since Palestinians are also Semites, being pro-justice for Palestinians is never an anti-Semitic position, no matter what anybody says.”

Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets, and I‘m so glad to have this book in my hands. These poems are difficult to read (content-wise), but so, so needed.

Saturday reading! I am SO enjoying this book. I started it on Thursday and have already devoured 2/3 of it. One of my fellow book clubbers said he read it in two days and immediately went out and bought the sequel. I can see why! Although I have to ask—anyone else reading this find the “romantic” husband/wife scenes a little cringey? I‘ve read about five too many “rocket launch” double entendres. 😬

LOVE. This goes on the shelf next to Anne Lamott & Rachel Held Evans & all my other favorite honest, vulnerable, strong, hilarious women of faith. This is my favorite kind of spiritual autobiography—an author who speaks of her journey of faith and relationship with God with such openness, humor, and lack of pretension—and a swear or five. This both challenged & encouraged me...now I need to bump up her book Accidental Saints in my reading queue!

I‘ve read this before & found it mediocre, and this re-read for book club didn‘t change my opinion—I actually downgraded my GR rating from 3 to 2 stars. I found myself rolling my eyes a lot as I read—it‘s filled with way too many obvious, clichéd platitudes and egregious capitalizations of phrases to make them seem More Meaningful. I get frustrated with generic inspirational parables that for me have no bearing on real life. And this book is that.

This was wonderful! Fascinating world-building, strong female characters, palace intrigue, and DRAGONS. I did feel like the final battle wrapped things up a little too quickly, and I wish the author had been a bit braver in demanding a higher cost from her characters (though I guess a lot of that came earlier on in the book). But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this and want to read more—both from this author as well as in this world she‘s created.

I had forgotten this was coming out this month until I saw my library hold pop up yesterday as available! I placed a hold while the book was still listed as “on order”—and I‘m pretty sure I ended up first in line for my library‘s copy. 😍 Really looking forward to the conclusion of this series.

1. Florence, Italy 🇮🇹😍
2. High of 98F ☄️🥵
3. An accidental date (when he asked me, it sounded like it was a group of people going to a play together) with a very socially awkward math grad student. We went to see a production of Medea on campus at Stanford—it turned out to be a lesbian retelling, complete with an onstage sex scene in the middle of the play. 🤭 A w k w a r d. And yet he asked for a 2nd date! 😬
4. Neither
5. #Friyayintro 💜👍🏼

A tale of two book clubs... I need to (re-)read the tagged book for my library book club on the 16th, but I‘d really rather be reading The Calculating Stars for my other book club (meeting on the 29th). I know The Alchemist has been really meaningful to a lot of people, but I found it pretty “meh” when I read it before. At least it‘s a short/quick one for a re-read! Once I get halfway through, I‘ve told myself I can start Calculating Stars.😁

#BFCR3 Week 5 Check-in! This was a pretty good week—I traded one walk at work for one neighborhood walk, because of the holiday (but my neighborhood walks are more intense than walks around the campus at work!). I‘ve gotten more lax on my nutrition goals, but have better habits there than before the #bookfitnesschallenge, so I‘m counting that as a win overall. Now I just need to keep it up and finish three more books this week to hit my book goal!

I loved this middle grade summer camp novel, told in emails and letters between two very different girls. Avery and Bett are thrown together when their dads, who are dating, send them off (unwillingly) to the same camp. Other voices chime in throughout the novel, and the full cast recording was fantastic. It‘s a sweet update on a Parent Trap-type story, and I was rooting for everyone to find their happy ending.

This is SO GOOD. I was a little reluctant to pick it up, anticipating that its heavier subject matter would make it a difficult read. But I had a hard time putting it down, even as I was frustrated and angered by the heartbreak inflicted on each of the characters, by circumstances and by each other. It was also a fascinating counterpoint to An American Marriage, which I‘d read not too long ago (both #MakeMeReadIt picks!).

I discovered this poem from Rilke‘s Book of Hours this morning, through a podcast called “Interesting People Reading Poetry.” Krista Tippett read it and talked about its meaning to her—and all of it was exactly what I needed right now. 💜💜💜

*This translation is by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

This was an absolute delight—Hanff‘s journal of her long-awaited trip to London, on the occasion of the British publication of 84, Charing Cross Road. Hanff‘s voice is just as hilarious & charming as it was in her Charing Cross letters. It‘s so much fun to hear her impressions of London and its denizens as she‘s swept away for tours & excursions by dozens of friends & fans. Definitely read Charing Cross first—this is a delightful companion to it!

I still have a handful of poems I want to post about from this collection, but I finished it several weeks ago & need to write a review before I forget! This was wonderful. Well-crafted poetry ranging from personal themes (my favorite, a sort of villanelle on growing up in the 70s) to more national/universal subjects (one of my favorites was an erasure poem created from the Declaration of Independence). I can see why she was the US Poet Laureate!

Forgot to post my #bookfitnesschallenge #BFCR3 weekly check-in yesterday! This was a pretty good week. I missed one of my walks at work and one day of hitting my daily 72 oz. of water goal, but mostly hit everything else. And with 4 books completed this week, I‘m at 10/15 for my book goal overall. 🙌🏼 Here‘s to a great week 5, everybody!!

#SeptemberTBR! Two for book clubs, the last three of my #MakeMeReadIt picks (I really am going to finish them!), two poetry, a couple more from the TBR, and that giant chunkster of a fantasy novel that I‘m a third of the way through. I‘ll probably add an audiobook or two as well... and will see how far I get with the rest!

August Reading! LOTS of good books this month, but my favorites were: The Summer Before the War and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. Honorable mentions: Wade in the Water, We Need to Talk About Kevin.

August Stats:

📰Nonfiction: 3 📚Fiction: 2 🔍Mystery: 2 👧🏽YA/Kids: 2 ⚡️SFF: 1 🖋Poetry: 1

📚Print: 7 🎧Audio: 3 💻eBook: 1
🏫Library: 8 📚TBR: 2 🔂Re-read: 1

Another satisfyingly good Matthew Swift book. A crisis threatens London—the sun won‘t rise, two groups of magic-wielders threaten war, and Swift must find a so-called chosen one while trying to fend off the embodiment of darkness stalking the streets. Intentionally pictured in front of my husband‘s Dresden Files books—because I feel Matthew Swift is urban fantasy done better. (Although I‘ve only read the first of the Dresden Files, so...🤷🏻‍♀️)

I enjoyed this—a fun, yet also academic exploration of Jane Austen fandom in its many permutations, from films to fanfic. There was some great literary analysis of Austen adaptations (Clueless, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the Pemberley Digital series), and the discussion of fandom sparked a lot of thought for me as to how I interact with texts as a fan (beyond just the merch!).

Finally starting my fourth book from #MakeMeReadIt, and I LOVE the dedication!

This was a bit of an off week for my #bookfitnesschallenge #BFCR3. I‘m on track with my book goal, mostly hit my physical fitness goals, almost completed my spiritual practice goal, and crapped out on my nutrition goals. There was a lot of extra food out at work this week & two birthday parties today...and I kinda gave up on no sugar in my tea.😔I got tired of not enjoying my morning tea! Really, I need to find a natural sweetener that I like.⤵️

“...he stretched himself out further over the seat, achieving that posture seen on any form of public transport whereby one man and his testicles, by the simple act of sitting back and spreading his knees, can occupy enough space for five.”

😆😂🤣

For the first 100 pages or so, I thought this was a moving & powerful memoir (even though I found the poetry unnecessary & a bit lazy). As the book went on, Alexie relied more & more on repetition without really doing much that was new w/ the repeated passages. What was described as a “quilt” of a memoir felt more like a bundle of cloth scraps—it could be a gorgeous whole, with some craft & some editing—but as it is, it just didn‘t work for me. ⤵️