#MentalHealthMonday a bit late🫣 @Kerrbearlib

1. Overwhelmed with projects of my own making🙄
2. Eating right, working out, Calm app, news diet, focusing on things I can control/improve in my life
3. Asking Littens for book recommendations for specific mental health topics

If you‘re reading, I hope you‘re doing well. Consider yourself tagged😊 even though it‘s Tuesday. Just do the time warp again!

The characters in this book take refuge from floods/tidal waves in their former place of employment, the American Museum of Natural History. One recalls the curators from Leningrad who hid in the Hermitage during WWII to preserve the art. Staying hidden in the museum doesn‘t seem like a long-term strategy in this story, though😬

New release library hold is my next read on my Kobo. Hearing lots of mixed reviews on this one, so 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

The gothic mansion was literally slipping off the cliff as MC care person tried to figure out who really killed 3 people decades earlier in the same house, and possibly her predecessor. Bananas! That‘s the word to describe the twists and turns. Totally fun popcorn thriller. If you‘re not down with the completely implausible, then you should skip this one.

#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern

To Kill a Mockingbird. As a former MS English teacher, I‘ve taught this book multiple times. Each year, I‘d find cool connections between characters, new hints of foreshadowing, and details I hadn‘t seen before. I taught many books, but this one is the one that I think surprised me with revelations every year.

It‘s here! #BookMail and #BlameItOnLitsy selection I saw @TheAromaofBooks post about. I peeked inside at various pages and it‘s gorgeous. May just read in small bites. I‘m not painting any time soon, so I can savor the advice here.

Studying for my 🇨🇦 citizenship test. This book seemed like a good place to start for a timeline overview.

Lots of typos, most of which are incorrect dates. So the Hudson Bay Company didn‘t receive a royal charter in 1970, probably 1670, but who‘s counting?😂

#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii

1. Separation anxiety training is going well. They‘re resting here on their beds before we head out.
2. Daily reading in my cozy chair
3. 5 episodes left in Castle. Perfect timing for Yellow Jackets premiere next Friday!
4. Got our Peloton set up; 6 rides so far!
5. Daily Calm

I feel like this observation is old school. Thinking about self-important men these days, I see them beating their chests.

A lot.

Muh-wah-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!

#ReadYourKindle

Powerful novel. Feels like a memoir. Saul was ripped from his Ojibway family & forced into a Residential School, where he tried to escape trauma by playing hockey. His external & internal journey highlight his rage against racism & prejudice, his fight w/ alcoholism, & his healing. I despise sports, but even the hockey sections were so beautifully written, I was eagerly reading. And the conclusion brought me to tears. #OhCanada

@Jess861

#BookMail from yesterday. Not sure when I‘m going to read this one, but I‘m guessing soonish since Shusterman usually delivers such great YA dystopian badness in the best way.

#ReadYourKindle selections for February. I think I can manage these since they all seem like pretty quick reads. Having a thriller as the first pick should motivate me🤞🏼

@CBee

My February #BookSpinBingo board with plenty of spots for my #ReadYourKindle and #ReadYourKobo selections.

📗📘📕📙📒📓

Excited to be posting my first ever #ReadYourKindle and #ReadYourKobo list. Thanks @CBee for hosting this challenge. Definitely looking forward to making a nice dent in my ebooks this year.

Anyone else scroll through your collection and wonder, “Why did I buy this one? What mood was I in that day?”

😂😂😂

Excited for my #BookSpin choice because it coincides with one of the series I want to complete for #SeriesLove2025 🙌🏼 Technically, my #DoubleSpin was for any graphic novel, but I‘ve been itching to read the graphic adaptation of The Road, so I‘m being specific. Not surprising for this Type A human😂

The observations about nature within the first chapters of Indian Horse are beautifully expressed. Enough so, that trying to decide what to share was going to be tough, but then Saul‘s grandmother made this statement. Timely words I‘ll be keeping in the back of my mind. #OhCanada

Love all the stats from the Story Graph. I need to play around with the tags and custom charts.

Anyone else doing anything interesting with your tags there? Do you make any custom charts?

January Wrap Up. Favorite was definitely Mistborn!

February‘s #BookSpinBingo book list. Kept most of the selections the same while moving ahead with some of the challenges I‘m interested in.

Also, I‘ve renewed The Sequel at least 3x with my library. Just got another notification that the due date is coming up. Not sure they‘ll let me renew again. No one has it on hold, but I keep forgetting that I have it on my pile🤦🏻‍♀️

 @TheAromaofBooks

My #BookSpinBingo board for January. No Bingos. I didn‘t read as much as I would have liked, but I really liked or loved 4/5 of my books. I skipped my #bookspin pick since several Littens panned Whose Body? and Sayers is not an author I‘ve had a burning desire to read. Did read my #doublespin and knocked another Kindle book into the read column.

@TheAromaofBooks

Totally blown away by this fantasy. Such a variety of characters. Loved seeing MC Vin transform in several ways as the story progressed. Plus the magic system is impressive. Sanderson explains its complexities well, and clearly leaves room for expansion. I do wonder what happened to the Venture family‘s kandra. I‘m scared it‘s a spy among our group of heroes. Totally up for 19 more stories + the to-be published ones🤓

#CosmereBuddyRead @JacqMac

Meh. Read a few pages each day. For sure, there were some pieces of advice that resonated with me and made me think about how I approach some situations or people.

But there were also many quotes that sounded trite or off, to the point I wondered what was the original problem this monk was replying to. Don‘t feel much calmer after reading, but given the times, maybe remaining just okay is saying a lot.

#MidWinterSolace

Libby is one of the apps that I allow for notifications, so I was super excited to see that one of my libraries obtained this new release. 🙌🏼 Plus the line is short.

The same cannot be said for Beautiful Ugly. I put my hold on that one waaaay too late, so I‘ll be waiting for several months😂

Exploring the Cosmere on this #WhereAreYouMonday

Laundry‘s done. Practiced multiple agility objects with dogs for some indoor exercise. Bread is baking. Black bean burgers are chilling before I bake them. And now I get to escape the second fascist initiation ceremony. Thank you Litten friends for posting positive vibes today and thank you Branden Sanderson and any other authors who help us forget the state of the world, even if just for a while.

From this morning‘s pages out of the #MidWinterSolace book choice.

Really wish 🍑 would internalize this wisdom😮‍💨

🧟‍♀️ I gave a lot of weight to the “plucky” descriptor when I considered which book had characters fighting the machine. If you like zombie stories, I highly recommend Mira Grant‘s entire Newsflesh series. The characters are definitely plucky!

#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern

Perfect for people learning to cook for 1-2 people. I switched to a WFPB diet, so I‘ve been cooking more. Frequently I have leftover veggies that go to waste. Now I‘ve got a much better sense of what I can freeze & how for my next dish, especially soups. Beautiful color photos. Recipes are pretty basic staples. About 1/2 the recipes I can‘t use because they use animal products, but others look yummy.

Creepy👀 I‘m already conscientious about locking doors at night, but this short story takes any form of vigilance to the next level.

As Mrs. Grayson continued to follow her nightly ritual of locking her doors and windows, I wondered if her obsession was more a sign of her growing short-term memory loss. Was there really a thing outside trying to get in?

I could see how the conclusion could be interpreted more than one way. Made this story a hit!

Learned something new about my aging self. I prefer reading ebooks over MMPB. For the past 5 or 6 mornings, I cracked open my MMPB copy of Mistborn and didn‘t even finish the prologue😮‍💨 I kept having to reread. Decided to buy the trilogy as an ebook set last night. This morning in less than an hour, I‘ve read the prologue and I‘m into chapter 2 of the first part.

Font size really matters. #CosmereBuddyRead

Today‘s project: Swapping books from one set of bookcases to another. The husband keeps buying NF books, especially on history and politics. The man hasn‘t met a book on the fall of democracy that he can resist. I‘ve already run out of room for his stacks. Plus I want the board games in the same room as the table. So the work is totally justified.

How an apocalypse could really happen. When the electricity goes out, Rice doesn‘t focus on chaos in cities. His indigenous characters live in far northern Ontario with some knowing how to live off the land. This community responds to the crisis collectively, staying true to their culture, even when outsiders appear to threaten them. A slow beautiful burn of a book with complex & flawed characters. #FictionalTraveler #SomeplaceCold

@julieclair

My Kobo tells me I‘m 86% into this hauntingly realistic apocalyptic story. Finishing it this morning with help from Lizzie who has claimed the ottoman and my legs as her snuggle territory 😂

The male indigenous MC‘s thoughts about his daughter💙

This book is a slow burn, but a captivating slow burn. It‘s depicting how I think an apocalyptic event might occur.

Need opinions on whether I should try Scarpetta books again or just enjoy the TV show when it premieres in 2025.

Last Scarpetta book I read is tagged. How many times can a serial killer go after this woman? I know series authors churn the same tropes, but Cornwell seemed to be really stuck. I‘ve searched for fan wikis about Cornwell/Kay to no avail. Book bloggers seem to have given up around the same time as me.

⬇️⬇️⬇️

Random things I cared about when I was younger that I don‘t care about now:

🚌 Being popular (because I wasn‘t)

🎬 TV & movie award season

✈️ Traveling the world

🎶 Rock concerts

Things older me enjoys:

🏡 A cozy home

☕️ Starting my day with coffee & a book

🐶 Spending time with our dogs

🤫 Quiet

Musings from #MidWinterSolace

What about you? How have you changed?

Large cast of characters, most of whom I despised. Multiple perspectives quicken the pace & heighten the suspense. Who is the victim? I had my suspensions. Details weave together. In some ways it‘s too much coincidence, but who cares! This thriller delivers quite an escape.

This book gives me all these 😬🤢😲 feels. The ushers are just repulsive pigs. Actually, they give pigs a bad rap. The island is creepy as all get out. And the weather just keeps getting worse.

Got some #bookmail yesterday afternoon. Just browsing the pages and the beautiful illustrations, I know I‘m saving this book for a palette cleanse.

There are several, but Scalzi is a favorite. And if Wil Wheaton narrates the audiobook, I will be in geek heaven.

#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern

They are listening as I explain that I get extra reading time right now instead of their play time because we‘re going to agility practice soon. Lizzie‘s already wondering how late their dinner is going to be😂

My subscription to Calm renewed and I thought about asking for a refund. Last year I had a free trial thanks to American Express. But then I thought, why not try adding the Daily Calm to my morning routine. So I‘m reading a few pages of the #MidWinterSolace selection and then meditating. Definitely feel calmer😊

Such a beautiful book. I was going to read a section at a time, but when I started this 2 days ago, I quickly realized I should just read a few pages each day. #MidWinterSolace

Will it? 🐦‍⬛ Loving this mystery. Everyone has secrets. The island is super creepy. There‘s an anonymous note. And everybody‘s drinking waaaay too much.

Truth💜

#MidWinterSolace

📚Excited about both my #bookspin and #doublespin titles for #bookspinbingo this January. Kicking off 2025 with some great mysteries🕵🏻‍♀️

Excited to be making lists for #BookSpinBingo in 2025. I already see a mistake I made though🤦🏻‍♀️ Going to need to change my #FictionalTraveler selection to someplace cold.

@TheAromaofBooks

👩🏻‍💻My first year-end wrap up from The Story Graph. Super happy that I met my reading goal and I‘m really looking forward to reading even more in 2025 with all of my Litten friends. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year‘s Eve!

Squeezed in 4 hours of audio booking time today to complete my #10BeforeTheEnd 🤓

Realized I had read 79 books in 2024, which is just too wonky of a number so I decided to break my rule and count a children‘s book for #80, which I‘m okay with because my goal was 75 books. I hit that goal without including any children‘s books so one sweet story at the end is okay by me.

@ChaoticMissAdventures

LitRPG is not for all readers, but for those of us who love it, I‘m not sure we‘ll ever tire of Carl trawling through the dungeon in his heart-printed boxer shorts outfoxing the rules with the help of Princess Donut and a dwindling cast of fellow crawlers. Many deaths in book 5 and a huge gulp moment at the very end.