No trip to Asheville is complete without a stop at Malaprop's.

I'm currently on the last several days of three weeks of travel. I haven't gotten a lot of reading done, but I did manage to listen to some of the tagged book this morning before hiking to this waterfall in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One more state before we fly home. It's been fun, but it will feel so nice to be back home for a while (even though I have SO MUCH to do when I get back).

Splurged on some travel reading while I was out picking up some supplies. Hopefully these will help occupy me during the cross-country flight to which I am not looking forward to a destination I'm feeling grouchy about visiting.

I finished the tagged book on a somewhat gratuitous but sorely needed solo audiowalk. Although the premise---a vacation rental that goes creepily awry---is perhaps not the wisest choice a day before I check into a short-term rental, it was an enjoyable listen. It's also my June #bookspin selection.

A view from my travels this week. I wanted to post a picture of the sign I saw driving through Las Vegas for "The Library," advertised as "18+" and "now full nude," but I wasn't quick enough to get a photo (delayed because I was aghast), so you'll have to settle for the Grand Canyon. In other news, my family is not enjoying Under the Whispering Door as much as I am, so I spent much of today's drive listening to The Apartment on headphones.

Road trip listening. Getting mixed reviews from my family. I think not all of them are on board with the slow burn.

I enjoyed the latest books enough that I decided to go back to the beginning. Not bad. This is also when I found out that there's a long-running TV series about Bosch. Shows how much I pay attention to TV, I guess.

Came back to confirm that this is still my favorite library. Next time I move, I'm going to base my decision primarily on what the library is like. I hear the one in Brisbane, Queensland (Australia) is pretty awesome.

This series is starting to feel a little insubstantial. Not light, at least not in content, but it feels too intentionally and superficially tied to reality, like a checklist (LA traffic, homelessness, pandemic, insurrection: check). That said, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. The stories and interactions between characters are engaging, and it's a welcome break to put Connelly's books in my headphones after people talking to me all day.

I enjoyed this one. There were a couple of things that were confusing to me (like how I thought Ballard and Olivas had shifted a little in their relationship with one another in the previous novel, but in this one, it's like none of that happened), but overall it was a fun ride. Bosch and Ballard are an interesting team.

So, that's how it ends? I feel like this novel never got up to speed. The narrator is the same age I am, or the same age I was at the time the narrator is that age, and I relate to her in a lot of ways, particularly in her attempts to decode the world and in her unsuccessful but persistent attempts to be straightforward. But I can't say I found the aimlessness or the hanging out in her head very enjoyable most of the time.

I'm finalizing our summer road trip audiobook list and was wondering if Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro would be a good family listen for spouse, two teens, and me. The description seems like something we'd like (fans of Neil Gaiman & The Umbrella Academy), but I nixed Lev Grossman's The Magicians because of at least one scene that I think would be...awkward to listen to as a family. Swearing is fine, but sexy stuff and gore get iffy.

Thoughts?

Jumping in on this one!

🏖️Beach (because it's right by home now!)
🧋Iced Coffee (nitro is especially yum; if only I could find it in decaf)
🗺️ Road Trip!! (with audiobooks on the speakers)
🎪 Outdoor Concerts (when my kids are playing; not a huge fan otherwise)

#thoughtfulthursday @MoonWitch94

I found this volume fatiguing. I had trouble connecting with and keeping track of the characters, and since this trilogy is a period of US history told through the lives of individual characters, not connecting with them makes it difficult to glean meaning. I did note the use of the word "privilege" and other sentiments in use today, which gives me a sense of history repeating itself. Knowing what happened after WWI, this isn't comforting.

🍻🍸🥃🛟🚢🪖🥃🍻👔👗🥃🍻🚂🍸🇺🇸
Nothing to See Here, maybe?
3.5⭐

@Eggs #wondrouswednesday

Huh. This went in a different direction than I expected when I started reading it. I like the interwoven-stories format, but I'm not sure if it accomplishes all that Nagamatsu intends it to, which is a lot. It seems at the same time depressing and unrealistically optimistic. I couldn't help but think there would be some major supply chain issues that the novel doesn't address at all, but I like the sense of unity, even if I don't quite buy it.

It must be challenging to think up so many titles for so many novels. That's the only explanation I can think of for the choice of title for this one as it only barely relates to the story at all. I like the dog, but Hastings kind of gets on my nerves in this one. Poirot seems a little snippy this time, so maybe Hastings is annoying him, too. The whole novel feels a little haphazard, like Christie was feeling weary also. Or I might be projecting.

My #litsyversary came and went, and I totally forgot about it! It was May 27th (or 28th...I think time zones mess with the date). It's been three years since I joined, and what an unusual three years it's been!

This is Camille saying, "Hi!"

One of my students recommended this book to me, and I decided to surprise her and read it before our last class of the school year. It's a fun little book, with both fart jokes and emotional sensitivity. I think I'll read the second in the series, too...and maybe re-read Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

June #bookspinbingo card!

@TheAromaofBooks

May #bookspinbingo card. I count 4 bingos (2 vertical and 1 each diagonal and horizontal). I DNFed 2 titles and finished my #bookspin (Emma in the Night) but not my #doublespin (Beauty for Truth's Sake).
@TheAromaofBooks

I learned about DeRoche from friends who were circumnavigating with their kids several years ago. I followed her blog, so I knew the basic outline of her story and what happens after the book. She has some interesting---and some funny---adventures, but knowing how the story turns out, I couldn't help but assign greater significance to some of the events and interactions. Basically, it's a quick memoir that doesn't make me want to sail.

June #bookspin list! Some of these might not come in at my library in time, but I decided to be optimistic and include them.

I'm trying to finish one or two in the last hours of May before posting my May #bookspinbingo card.

@TheAromaofBooks

A qualified "pick" for this one. It's better than most self-helpy books, and I appreciate how much variety they offer in their examples, including examples of relationships that maybe aren't destined to become "exceptional," but the example dialogues feel somewhat contrived and biased towards a particular way of living life (full-time career, going for drinks with friends) that feels a little limiting. (Cont'd in comments)

Bailing for now, not because I'm not enjoying this one (I am!) but because I only have access to the audio right now, and the recording gives essentially no indication of whose voice is being read, something that, as I understand, is indicated by italics or non-italics in the print version. I just find it too difficult to follow without knowing who's speaking. So, I hope to pick this one up again once I get it in print or eBook.

This novel provides a look at many facets of Deaf culture, addressing schooling, trends in medical recommendations (often influenced by discrimination and bias within the hearing culture), racism, ASL and BASL, classism, and protest, all set within southwest Ohio. The characters are vivid and the story is interesting, but the ending is abrupt and I don't quite understand what point the author was trying to make ending it as she did.

I like the characters in this one a lot, but the story doesn't quite work for me. A couple of the coincidences seem a little off, and some of the smaller subplots are dropped too abruptly. Maybe this is the kind of series where these are picked up in other books?

Photo is a thistle I saw when I was walking today. I really love this purple.

Finished this one up on audio so I could get some chores done this morning. It was relatively fun, and I can see myself picking up more of the novels featuring Renée Ballard. The police protocol details are a little more nitty-gritty than I require, but I like the setting, and it tickled me a bit that, although I have only been to downtown LA once, one of the places I visited---The Last Bookstore---plays a small but significant role in this novel.

1. Somewhere without bugs, seagulls, or crowds. Maybe a beach in Acadia National Park two weeks before Memorial Day.
2. My little family (spouse, our two teens, and me).
3. Hummus, green olive and artichoke tapenade, rice crackers, sliced veggies, watermelon, chocolate tart, NiCola LaCroix.

@MoonWitch94 #thoughtfulthursday

I've never been totally clear on what people meant when they referred to a "police procedural," but now that I've read a scene in which a main character figures out what search terms to use in a case database, I think I'm starting to get the idea.

I'm enjoying these little slices of American life in the early 20th century. This first volume definitely ends abruptly, and I might have to pick up the second before I get the characters from this one all jumbled in my head. This epic is better, less dry than I expected it to be, at least so far. We'll see if it holds my interest through two more volumes.

Last P.E. class until August. I spent most of it, as usual, audiowalking. I'm still tickled that part of this book takes place in San Diego (although it's set more than 100 years ago so is a very different San Diego than the one I live in, there are still people hoping to make it rich in real estate).

Also, I never think the grass looks this brown in real life.

Thoughts while listening to this book:
-Memories of Spain and trying to imagine it in the 1920s (Madrid is easiest, but I probably still pictured it very wrong).
-How does Hemingway put so much imagery and emotion into such straightforward statements?
-These characters are about my grandparents' parents ages, and it gives me vertigo to think of them young like this and trying to figure out life.

Photo: erasers.

I really like Hemingway, but his subdued style and the up-all-night-in-Paris partying in this novel make this audiobook a strange listen while running. I wonder how many other people on the trail with me this morning had Papa's words in their ears?

This is a stirring look at how individual lives shape and are shaped by national events and at what the terms "military coup" and "civil war" mean in everyday life, but I'm afraid that everything that's happened since 2016 has left me leery of reading about government instability and the tyranny of the masses. I'm glad to have learned about this period in history, though, and about how the US in the 60s looked to other parts of the world.

"Oscar Wilde, among others, wryly commented, 'Be yourself, everybody else is taken.'"

Actually, no, he didn't: https://www.professorbuzzkill.com/qnq-23-wilde-be-yourself/

I'm getting so fatigued reading misattributed quotes. It's annoying but somewhat excusable in a social media post, but it really makes me question an author's---and publisher's---credibility when it's in a book. I'm only on page 4, and I've already got one foot out the door.

💠 Done
💠 Audiobook that I started on a run. It's not necessarily well-suited for that purpose.
💠 I really couldn't say. It's just kind of in the buildup right now.
💠 If I own a book, I will sometimes use a pencil to underline or mark a passage with a star then take notes in a separate notebook. Mostly I don't mark them, though, unless it's for #lmpbc :-)

#ThoughtfulThursday @MoonWitch94

Want to play? @phantomx @Jadams1776 @allureofbeauty

This novel feels very male-oriented in a kind of Stand By Me, A River Runs Through It way. It has that view of women and girls as peripheral to the main action of life, acted upon but rarely, if ever, acting for themselves. It's a view I associate with my parents' generation, one that generation seems to look back on with fondness (not as individuals, but in general). I enjoyed this novel a lot, but this masculine bias was always in my awareness.

Not my usual fare. In fact, I've studiously avoided romance since I grew out of my high school Jude Deveraux phase, but after many people whose reading tastes I trust insisted I try some of the newer romances, I figured I ought, out of fairness, to give one a try. And it's fine. It doesn't feel true to the time period at all and is pretty boring in between the steamy bits, but for what it is, it's fine. Now I can resume ignoring the genre.

I wasn't in quite the right mood for this book (I've already been chewing on a lot of these ideas, and I really don't get into dance, which made up a good bit of the mastery discussion and took me back to a very uncomfortable ADF I attended in the early aughts), but I appreciate what Lewis is doing here. I also really like the concept of "nimble grit," the idea that persistence is incredibly valuable, but so is knowing when to pivot.

I found this book delightful. It's a little over-the-top at times, but only enough to be improbable, not impossible. And really, bombings and air raids and evacuations of children and really most of WWII are over-the-top but completely factual, so there you are. The novel feels like an honest depiction of several types of trauma and cultural biases from a child's perspective.

This is a quick read that didn't really do it for me. The timeline is unclear and the writing style cursory. Castro is an author with a good message but no faith that her readers will get the message without her repeating it in plain language over and over again, which is fine, just not what I read fiction for.

I'll plan to get this one in the mail tomorrow or Thursday.
#lmpbc @phantomx @allureofbeauty @Jadams1776 @suvata

Throughout this book I kept thinking about unfettered capitalism and the impunity with which the wealthy move through the world, how in a capitalist economy, enough wealth gives a person license to stop thinking of other people as people but rather as objects, or worse than objects because in capitalist societies, objects have value.

Basically, I find this book intriguing and depressing. So, a qualified "Pick," I guess.

I found this one fun, with multiple sleuths, one of them a writer of mystery novels, which felt playfully meta. I have absolutely no knowledge of bridge, except to know that it's way more complicated than euchre and therefore not something I'm likely to play well, but that didn't hinder my enjoyment of the novel.

Drove across town twice, jogged three miles, helped one of my kids record an orchestra audition, and figured out where the painters left the lightbulbs from the dining room light fixtures (but not why) and still found time to read from three different books, the tagged on audio (while jogging, driving, cooking, cleaning), Remainder on Kobo, and Watership Down as a read-aloud with my son while he put clean sheets on his bed. Multitasking!

Although I think I missed some things listening to this on audio, I did get the rich, evocative imagery and the sense of rage and power vs hopelessness and helplessness. This is a novel that looks into the near future, imagining what happens when we as a society continue to choose to accept injustice for some for the illusion of peace. This story suggests that reforming a broken system isn't going to be nearly enough.

If Burnt Offerings had been written by a woman, it could have been a feminist horror novel, but as it stands, it instead feels vaguely like an indictment of a certain type of woman/wife/mother. I enjoyed reading it but didn't really find it scary or spooky, perhaps because I was a little stuck on the 1970s feel (which I also get reading The Shining). A worthwhile addition for anyone with a desire to get a sense of the history of the horror genre.

This novel isn't what I expected, but I enjoyed reading/listening to it. Without going into spoiler-level detail, I'll just say that I appreciate the nuanced redemption in this book.

It's also my May #bookspin, so the month is off to a solid start, reading-wise.

Trying to get back into the #bookspinbingo swing of things this month!

@TheAromaofBooks #bookspin

I enjoyed the nurse narrator Christie uses in this novel, although the accents (especially the American ones) the audiobook narrator chose were a little distracting. I tend to listen to Christie mysteries at the beginning of the month, which is when I do the monthly deep-clean of the cats' litter boxes, so I find I associate Hercule Poirot with that chore.