This book is very good, but has a super irritating design choice—these skinny, multi-page sidebars. I don‘t like sidebars much at the best of times (I am a “read it all in order” person and sidebars mess with an explicit reading order), but these are the worst I‘ve seen. It‘s ridiculous to have to keep turning the pages back and forth!

This is my least favorite Bujold so far. I usually love her romances—but that‘s because the character interactions largely serve the plot, whereas in this book it‘s the other way round. I was fascinated by the worldbuilding and the magic of the knives, but the second half of the book dragged with all the focus being on the couple. The ending is abrupt, but it was originally conceived as a single book—I may read the second to get more of the world!

So does that mean that Fangorn is older than Tom Bombadil? Or is Tom not a living thing walking upon the earth? 🤔 #FellowshipofTolkien #LotRChapteraDay

OK, yeah, I definitely relate to the Entwives too 😆 #LotRChapterADay #FellowshipofTolkien

Just as much a delight as the first book, maybe more! Maud adventures across the ocean to retrieve another keeper of the artifact, only for the old woman to be killed on their first night of a six-night voyage. She has only Robin‘s visions and her own considerable charm and wit to rely on as she recruits assistance to solve the murder and retrieve the second piece of the contract. Also lots of hot f/f sex, oh my. 🥵☺️

Fall vibes 🍂🍁🎃

I like this author‘s attitude to canning—that you don‘t need massive amounts of sugar, basically. And she has a more efficient way of dealing with the jars and lids than I‘ve seen before. There are lots of interesting recipes in this book, both basic and more unusual, plus recipes for ways to use those preserved foods, which I appreciate even though almost none of those recipes are relevant to me.

Poor Legolas is just “Thranduil‘s kid” and doesn‘t get called by his own name like everyone else 😂 It‘s funny, because I forget he‘s theoretically a prince. Elven royalty does not seem to do much sitting around and getting fed grapes, even if Elrond, Celeborn, and Galadriel stay safe in their beautiful homes and have other people come to them. #FellowshipofTolkien

Why is Loki like this?! And all the other gods, especially Odín… like, maybe try judging people by their actions, and not making your own prophecies come true by treating them poorly? ?

It‘s kind of odd to review the story when it‘s literally the mythology (as much as is known today) of a particular religion. Gaiman tells it well. I still don‘t like audiobooks; I wished I could go back and check things, and I got bored more easily than usual.

I was expecting a cookbook, and this has recipes in it, but only a few. Mostly it tries to persuade the reader to store and preserve lots of food (and other emergency supplies) and explains ways of doing so. It is simultaneously very specific to 2009 and still topical today. (The few times she mentions the possible coming flu pandemic… well.) I am somewhat persuaded. I appreciate the focus on not just providing for oneself, but one‘s community.

Here‘s my #bookspin list for September. Yes, I might be a little bit ready for fall!!! 🍁🍂🎃🎃🎃 @TheAromaofBooks

I enjoyed this thriller about the fight against racism and gentrification. Some aspects were far-fetched but really, I think it‘s just that Cole took multiple things at once simply one step above reality. It got more violent toward the end than I expected; it made sense with the story but I think the tone could have been foreshadowed better. My August #bookspin

Making my annual audiobook attempt! 😂 I may switch to the ebook if/when my hold comes in, but I do like the way Neil Gaiman reads.

I greatly enjoyed this different spin on a post-apocalyptic book, set in a society that developed on the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre after the sea rose and flooded everything. Tetley is an odd but fun protagonist. The short book is split into two parts, each of which ends in a way that thoroughly recontextualizes the rest of that part—both times I could tell there was something big coming, but not what. Warning: absolute tons of swearing 😂

“… usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), ancient and just.”

I have at times identified with ents and especially entwives. But let‘s be real. At heart, I am a hobbit 😂

#LotRChapteraday #FellowshipofTolkien

A very exciting continuation of the story—no second-book slump here! Kira ends up on a long, dangerous journey as she attempts to understand the world she lives in and where she belongs. The physical world of Partials is expanded with much more of the continental US, the pre-apocalyptic world is expanded with more about how things got the way they are, and the POV is also expanded to more characters. I‘m looking forward to how things will tie up.

I took a food preservation class at my local library and got excited. Also, they are apparently having a contest among the county branches to have more books checked out. I was happy to help out 😁 #libraryhaul

I was going to say “you folks are going to love this whenever images are back” but I can see Litsy images again! So, please enjoy this tweet that I found!

This was a fun reread! I‘d forgotten a lot of it, especially from after the riddle chapter. Thorough gets to be kind of a jerk after they find the hoard! I really liked the message of the dragon‘s gold making people nasty and greedy—if all you‘re focused on is money, you‘re unpleasant to the people around you. Whereas Bilbo manages to give up his bit of the hoard and makes some progress toward peace… and still ends up with plenty of treasure.

I picked up this book at the library because I had been reading Huda Fahmy‘s webcomic and wanted to see how she and her husband met. I was surprised to find that this is not a comic, but partially text narration and partially comics/illustrated. It works surprisingly well! This book is funny, charming, and touching. I really liked seeing how Fahmy‘s faith affects her life. And the love story is so sweet! It helps that they are both nerds like me!

I haven‘t even started reading this book and I already think it‘s super cute from the thick pink cover 😆

A very satisfactory conclusion to the duology. I really enjoyed all the gods popping up and the roles they took. Plus Roscoe! Bri continues to be a little slow on the uptake but it is YA. I don‘t want to say too much about the ending but it did turn out happier than I expected, but still satisfying.

There is a preview of Bayron‘s next book (unrelated) at the end of this one, which I didn‘t realize was already out, so I need to read that one!

Here‘s my #bookspin list for August. Pretty sure this is the same list as the last few months. I‘ve caught up as much as I desired with a few authors who have then come off the list… but I‘ve also added more as I remembered authors whose books I still want to read, so the full list has 25 authors on it still 😂

#Pemberlittens #hashtagbrigade – this recent episode of Grammar Girl may be of interest! She interviews someone who wrote a book on the exclamation point and other names for that punctuation mark come up. She mentions that the question mark was called a “note of interrogation”! And get this—the exclamation point was a “note of admiration”! 😄

This is a very interesting book. I didn‘t love it, but I liked it enough to be happy to race through it in time for my book club discussion—and I definitely think it will make a good discussion. What happens when women, apparently as part of a normal but unpredictable and far from universal biological process, turn into dragons? The book was slow paced and short on “why,” but that‘s OK. Wonderful characters.

Hope the pic with flowers loads 🤞🏻

This was an enjoyable Sense and Sensibility retelling! The heroes might have been a little too perfect to be believed, but the fantasy was fun. I liked the ways the author changed the story to make sense in the present day. Bonus, sapphic Marianne character means hot butch Brandon character 😍

My kiddo decided to take this picture while I was still reading the book. He‘s getting good with a phone camera!

Here is my Gandalf with The Hobbit. He is showing off his ridiculously tolerant self. And also pushing the boundaries because he knows he isn‘t allowed on the table but I‘m tolerating him being on the pile of comics 😆

He is not a particularly wise cat, but he is a gray and white escape artist. #LotRChapterADay #FellowshipofTolkien

Really fun genderfluid fantasy novel about a girl who would be her father‘s heir if she were only a boy… who can transform things with her magic. I really enjoyed the many forms magic takes in this world, as well as all the complex characters. Cielo is the kind of trickster love interest who is always fun to read about, though Azzurra really stole the show. I wish the worldbuilding had been clearer; I found the political entities confusing.

I loved this book! Twisty and vicious with amazing takes on Greek mythology, bloodthirsty plants, and hidden gardens. All the characters felt very real, with the possible exception of one… is he a full human being, I wonder? I‘m really looking forward to book 2, which seems like it will have a completely different kind of plot. One small negative is that Briseis seemed really slow on the uptake at times.

Why would anyone name their child Briseis? It‘s like you‘re asking for bad stuff to happen to them.

It‘s been a while since I‘ve read a Charles de Lint book and while this had all the magic I remember, I just didn‘t like it that much. It felt a bit shallow and slow, and there were POV issues. The defeat of the main bad guy didn‘t make any sense to me—I kept waiting for it to be explained but it wasn‘t.

Finished this after a morning of berry picking!

“Chapter IV: Fourth Chapter.” I guess Forster is already sick of the descriptive chapter titles 😂 #hashtagbrigade

Definitely a good sick day read! This is a fun fantasy adventure, the Napoleonic Wars with dragons and a big helping of comedy of manners. Actually, something I notice in a lot of Novik‘s books is one or more characters totally missing the social rules and the main character seemingly helpless to explain them—it annoyed me in Laurence more than in El. But I certainly loved Temeraire and I‘m looking forward to the rest of the series!

@BarkingMadRead As usual, I have a free ebook edition, so I put my mug in the picture to make it a little more interesting 😂

She may not eat my eyeballs, but she won‘t pose for a picture, either 😹

This book was a delight, just as I expected! I‘ve been a Caitlin Doughty fan for a long time and this was pretty similar to the older, short videos on her Ask a Mortician channel, with the added twist of her writing directly to children, who ask very creative questions. I learned a lot. Apparently in my state it‘s legal to be buried with your pet!

FYI @TheAromaofBooks my #bookspin list is the same as last month! When I‘m trying to read author backlists, the list doesn‘t seem to shorten much 😂

Finished on a rainy vacation day. An enjoyable YA dystopia. I would have read this really differently a few years ago before COVID; as it is, I was skeptical at first of how the virus/immunity worked, but it eventually became clear that it‘s not a normal virus, maybe not really a virus at all. The main character is relatable and it‘s very exciting with lots of fights and twists.

This was my #doublespin sometime recently, maybe April?

The plot of this book is really fun—the clone of an alien heroine has been hidden on Earth and, once retrieved by her space army, tries to figure out how to live up to the legacy of her predecessor, while fighting a genocidal enemy. Unfortunately it felt really dumbed-down and the dialogue was too on the nose, especially the other Earth kids. The space battle near the end was great but I don‘t actually understand how they defeated the Big Bad.

I don‘t know, I tried. I just couldn‘t bring myself to care. This was my #bookspin for June, I think.

The vacation on a lakeshore is nice though!

I wish I could have gotten a picture with one of the vultures hanging around our vacation house!

I greatly enjoyed this book. Kingfisher keeps the tone light and funny despite it being unmistakably a horror novel. Sam, the archaeoentemologist main character, is a constant delight, and all of the other characters are great—even the nosy old man across the street. I loved the inclusion of actual horrible occultists as connections to her family!

Finished this book on the way to the shore for a mini-vacation! It‘s a cute graphic novel about a girl who wants to be a witch and then discovers that she is one. I wanted to like it more than I did but I found it a bit too shallow and trite. I‘m not the best audience for this as I am usually not a fan of MG books.

Reading this book, I‘ve come to the conclusion that I‘m not actually ready to declutter (other than the baby stuff I‘ve already identified that really needs to be given away). I kept mentally protesting, “but I DO have room for more bookshelves!” My house doesn‘t have enough organizational stuff to take advantage of the space we have, and we don‘t use what we have well. I‘d prefer to make progress there before deciding my container is full.

Relatable! 😂

Also, I wondered why I‘d never seen the episode of The Twilight Zone that Takei is in. I guess this is why—it was barred from syndication!

This is a beautifully told story of a horrible time in American history—and more importantly, the trauma that George Takei and his family experience in the internment camps, and how George uses that experience in his adult life. The ending made me cry, as I miss my dad too. I did think the framing devices with George giving talks were awkward, especially since there were two and they weren‘t used in a symmetrical way.

My mom‘s name is Nancy 😄

At one (of many) points when I laughed at this book, my husband said “uh-oh, you‘ve just read something either really funny or really relatable.” I read him the panel where Lucy runs out of a restaurant crying, having learned that they are not serving lunch. He proceeded to tell the story of the time we failed to get vegan donuts while I was pregnant, and I cried the whole way home. Needless to say, I found this book very relatable and well done!

My kid was having fun in the play area, so I took some time to wander the graphic novel section. I picked up a couple of books that I‘d been wanting to read and one I‘d never heard of. #libraryhaul

I discovered Mhara Starling during my brief foray into TikTok. She‘s a delightful resource on Wales and witchcraft, especially since I‘ve always been interested in the mythology and folklore of Wales. This book is more of the same—more detail in some places than in her social media. I especially liked the deeper explanations of Welsh folklore. However, it badly—desperately—needed an editor. I am extremely disappointed in the publisher, Llewellyn.

May was a great reading month and I finally did get a #bookspinbingo!