It‘s my birthday month!! Yay free book!

I went for Andromeda because the subject matter sounds interesting - about a publishing house, and for Isaac‘s song because Daniel Blacks earlier BOTM book Don‘t Cry for Me was my favourite read of 2022. So moving it made me cry!

#botm

« Damaged women? We don‘t think we deserve kindness. »

I felt this deep down. I used to have trouble accepting kindness from people, I felt I didn‘t deserve it and if I admitted to how much I needed help I‘d have to admit I‘m weak and a failure. It was a terrifying prospect. Therapy helped so much with this, but oh boy does this ring true.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Moving lyrical memoir by a woman who was a competitive swimmer. Streaks of self destruction and glimmers of hope as she pursues a career as a writer. I could relate to the story a lot, having been a competitive gymnast and going through my own self destructive phases.

Very good read and glad I requested it for the #jolabokaflodswap!

Tigger warnings: substance abuse, child abuse, death of a child.

Wahoo! I finished my #lgbtqbookbingo card!

#lgbtqbookbingo2024
#lgbtq2024
@Kenyazero

Bought myself this while in Quebec!

I‘ve been trying to read more indigenous authors and haven‘t read any québécois ones yet (lots of Ontario because that‘s where I‘m from though).

Excited to get to this.

I was going to do a book haul post for what I got for Christmas but I didn‘t get any books! 😳

I think people don‘t know what to buy because I‘m reading so much. Still, I‘m glad I did #jolabokaflodswap this year so at least I got one book!

So here‘s some deer instead 🦌

Here‘s my book from the #jolabokaflodswap!! I had completely forgotten what I‘d requested so it was a lovely surprise!! Thank you @MittenGirlPeach

Starting this now, Christmas morning because I fell asleep super early last night. Whoops.

@MaleficentBookDragon

Getting in some Après Ski yesterday at the Sans Sabots Spa in Mont Tremblant, Québéc.

This is (from bottom up): hot tub, infinity pool, Lac Tremblant.

Very excited for #jolabokaflod tonight!!!

So I absolutely destroyed my reading challenge this year hitting 2x my goal!

Not the most I‘ve ever read but a respectable amount. Going to see how much I can get through this week and increase that number.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love the murderbot series! Absolutely brilliant, gritty and unusual in a way that really interests me. This was a novella and a quick read. Getting me closer to my ultimate year goal.

#10beforetheend and tagged with #lgbtqia for non-binary characters, but would you say murderbot is asexual??

#lgbtqbookbingo2024
@Kenyazero

My #jolabokaflodswap package is here! Thank you so much @MittenGirlPeach !!

Thanks for sending it wrapped, I‘m leaving tomorrow to see my family in Canada and packing a box wasn‘t going to happen lol

@MaleficentBookDragon #js2024

#midwintersolace #litsolace

Brooklyn botanic garden does a Lightscape winter walk at night for a couple months every year. I love going and getting some hot chocolate (with baileys!) and wandering the exhibits.

I‘m a member and like doing walks around there any season tbh, it‘s so close to my apartment.

@TheBookHippie @Chrissyreadit

DNF

I loved the show and tried this on audiobook but I think my issue is that audiobooks are not for me. I will consider reading it in the future but damn it‘s hard to follow when someone is reading to me.

I kept falling asleep or losing my place and had to rewind but didn‘t know where I‘d lost track. It‘s been months and I‘m admiting defeat.

This is the third audiobook I‘ve tried and all of them haven‘t really been for me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Package mailed!!

@MaleficentBookDragon

#jolabokaflodswap #js2024

Needles by Brian Bilston

#poetrymatters

Well…. It lasted 5 minutes before the cats knocked it over 😹

#catsoflitsy
#littenkitten

StoryGraph November wrap up!

Short books because I was really sick. 🤒 glad to say the pneumonia is gone!!! I‘m still tired and coughing a little but I‘m way better and back at work.

Fingers crossed my person for #jolabokaflodswap24 sees this!

I will be flying to Canada for Christmas and need to pack light so I‘m going to need to open the box prior to Christmas Eve. Please wrap my book if you can! If not no worries though.

Thanks!

#JS2024

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Interesting atmospheric novel about a soon to retire school teacher and one of his former pupils turned famous artist. Set in Paris and translated from French. I kept thinking something different would happen, or that anything at all would happen, but that‘s not this type of book. It‘s more meandering and focused on the life and emotions of the teacher.

Interesting read nevertheless, not as good as the 6:41 to Paris.

#10BeforeTheEnd

Oh wow only 3!! Lots on my TBR though.

This is the New York Times notable list of 100 books (fiction and non-fiction). Link in the comments.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Excellent, but I kept falling asleep while reading the beginning (still sick). I can‘t tell if I was bored or the start was slow or if I was just still too sick to read. Worth persevering for the ending.

An LGBTQIA classic published in 1956, about an American living in Paris coming to terms with his homosexuality. His girlfriend Hella is on an extended vacation to Spain, when he meets Giovanni.

#LGBTQBookBingo2024
#10beforetheend

Well, I have pneumonia. 🤒

Have been feeling really under the weather and unable to read for about two weeks. I got slightly worse this morning and went back to the doctor for x rays and yup - bilateral pneumonia.

Fingers crossed all these meds help and I‘m back to work and reading soon.

October wrap up from StoryGraph.

November is going to be much slower. I am travelling a lot and just came back from a conference really sick 🤒 it sucks. I can‘t concentrate to read.

Rapid tested for both Covid and flu, because this feels like the flu (although I did get my vaccine), I was wondering if this was a different strain. Negative for both. Day off today to Veterans Day but I‘ll have to take more time off this week I think.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Soft pick. Targeted at straight couples but there was some interesting bits I got out of this as a single queer woman.

IFS is all about finding the parts of you that are hurt from previous experiences and the protector parts that defend them. It works to calm the protectors and soothe the hurt parts to facilitate better communication with your partner.

Recommended by my therapist, I think it was worth a read.

#10beforetheend

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great debut novel set in a slightly dystopian world where you get another shadow if you are convicted of a crime or hurt someone. Shadesters have reduced rights, wish extra time for healthcare and pay more for everything.

Kris (a shadester) and Beau (a NoShad), a lesbian couple, have a baby with a sperm donor and Beau dies during the birth. Kris and is left to raise the baby, who has a second shadow, on her own.

#lgbtbookbingo2024

“Had she been paying attention, she would have known it hadn‘t happened overnight, that it took a million tiny stabs to bleed democracy dry.”

That hit home a little too hard.

US friends, please VOTE!! I cannot as I‘m here on a visa but I‘m very concerned about the future of the country.

#hyggehourreadathon (from last night!).

I started this book about grief. It was on my StoryGraph recommendations and I plowed through about a third of it yesterday.

Beautifully written and devastating depiction of losing your wife at a vulnerable time, during childbirth. The main character struggles as a new mother, alone.

It‘s got a dystopian flavour, and is lgbtqia. Definitely up my alley, thanks StoryGraph algorithm.

#lgbtqbookbingo2024

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Love this series! It‘s so cute and heartwarming. A great prequel, even if I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Before Legends & Lattes, Viv the orc is flighting with the Ravens against a fearsome necromancer and is injured in the battle. This is the story of her convalescence and maybe of a few fights along the way.

Worth a read if you like cosy fantasy with lgbtqia themes.

#lgbtqbookbingo2024
@Kenyazero

Oooo!

So tempted but I got a kindle Paperwhite in 2021 and it still works great.

Also the price tag 😱 $279.99!

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I think this is an important book, the messy emotions and queer family structure highlighted are all true, but I struggled with it a bit. Accepting the decisions the three of them had come to was … I didn‘t really believe it.

I saw myself a lot in Ames, their trauma, struggles with dissociation. It was hard to sit with and see on the page. I‘m not trans, but as a queer person I struggled a lot.

#readyoukindle
#lgbtqbookbingo2024

Sat inside Book Trader Cafe for a bit in this glass portion and read my kindle. Feel a little silly reading a kindle in a bookstore but no one seemed to mind!

Another used bookstore! Grey Matter Books in New Haven, CT.

There‘s so many here it‘s great. 😊

#WhereAreYouMonday takes me to my current home city of NYC! I love reading about where I live or where I‘m going to travel.

The familiarity of the place and feeling you get when you have a deeper understanding of a place is something I love.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!!

I‘m in the US so without my family this year but we‘re going to do a zoom Thanksgiving meal tonight.

Also happy indigenous peoples day to everyone in the US!

😂 Yes as someone who lives in NYC this is correct.

Beinecke Rare book and manuscript library is to die for!!! 😍

Amazing bookstore cafe in New Haven, CT!

Picked up some nonfiction that‘s been on my list for a while.

Back on the train for an hour on the way to New Haven!

This has been on my kindle for a while so started it this morning!

I want to participate in #10beforetheend but struggle to pick books in advance! 😂 I tend to read whatever takes my fancy at that point in time.

I‘ll choose from my incredibly long TBR (physical and kindle) and maybe have to do the occasional Libby book that I put on hold from my TBR that been meaning to get to.

I‘m committed to reading a book a week though to hit my goal of 52 this year.

Hope that‘s okay! @ChaoticMissAdventures

Staying at a place called the mermaid inn so the backdrop seems fitting but totally unrelated to the book.

⭐️⭐️💫

Historical fiction surrounding Lefcadio Hearn, a (real) man of Greek and British descent, who was influential in the introducing the western world to Japan through his writing. The book is a description of his life by three women who loved him.

I felt it left out the most interesting parts and was too meandering. Just not for me.

Bank sq books in Mystic CT had moved but I found another bookstore!

No other books like this 😂

Too bad it‘s closed this early.

Love a little free library! This one is in Mystic CT!

#littlefreelibrary

Great view of the city while leaving!

#nyc

Train reading! I think I sat on the wrong side for the view but at least I have a window.

Delayed post but here‘s what I got from the Brooklyn Book Festival! Two free books (the poet X and the sweetest fruits), one indigenous (birdie), one in translation (exposed) and one from an author I want to read everything by (Little rot)!

Going away this weekend so hopefully I get through some books! I‘ve got The Sweetest fruits and my kindle with me. 😊

Who doesn‘t love a story about a murderous robot with a conscious?

Murderbot is a SecUnit sent on intergalactic space missions with the humans who hire the spacecrafts. But unlike the other units, which must obey every command, Murderbot can think for itself. It just chooses to help so it will remain undetected.

In this shortish novel, the first in the series, we‘re introduced to Murderbot and it‘s thinking.

Great story, entertaining scifi.

If anyone is interested in this short story I just reviewed, it‘s available for free from the publisher! 😊

https://subterraneanpress.com/goblins-greatcoats-ebook/

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Free ebook short story in the same world as Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, very entertaining for 22 pages!

#readyourkindle @CBee

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Such rich language and the grief really comes through from the page. Had to read it across multiple sittings because my heart would ache for both the main character and Laila.

Worth a read!

(Messy kitchen but I bought myself flowers!)

#lgbt
#trans
#lgbtbookbingo2024
@Kenyazero

September wrap up from StoryGraph!

A great trio of books that I enjoyed a lot! Station eleven was by far my favourite. Probably contender for best book this year for me.

On track with my reading goal, although this month was a bit behind. I‘m aiming for a book a week, so 52 total and I‘m at 39! Exactly 75% of the way through.