What a crap shoot! As is the case with most short story collections, there were a few good stories, but mostly not. #pop23 #charatersnameinthetitle

This is one of my favorite series. I reread it when I‘m stressed or sad or both. It is far from perfect; some of the language is very 90‘s as is the general viewpoint. But it‘s lighthearted and funny and was the first thing to make me laugh when my mom passed. #pop23 #bookthatiwishicouldreadforthefirsttime #iknowthatisnotapeacock

July sucked. I didn‘t realize how much it sucked until I looked through my feed and found I really didn‘t have anything to show for the month. All I read were comfort reads. (Pictured is a character from the lobster fest I found myself at.)

I‘m kicking myself for not reading this sooner. It would have meshed beautifully with Firekeeper‘s Daughter for our library‘s winter read. So far it‘s gorgeous. The author is narrating and she reads in this gorgeous dreamy way.

Picking favorite books is stupidly hard! Thanks @CBee and @chasjjlee

“that ten cent Clark Gable that thinks he‘s so slick he can slide uphill.” Is just a beautiful insult.

I kept forgetting that this was the first in the series and that the next doesn‘t come out for a few months. Miss Gail is the queen of protagonists who find themselves unlikeable, but are really rather sweet. This is not a particularly deep story but it‘s nice and has been good company. (Pictured is my very confused fuzzy cat. The neighbors keep firing off illegal fireworks and she just wants to sleep.) #pop23 #bookthatwasselfpublished

It‘s taken me a while to get invested in the story, but I‘m so close to the end now that I need to finish it.

The Poisoner‘s Handbook is harder in places and more uplifting in others than I expected. It was also fascinating! The two men that this book was really about, Norris and Gettler, made forensic science what it is today in America.

“If I won my 250,000, mightn‘t I have lots of roses?” Said by Katherine Schaub, one of the radium girls during their lawsuit against the U.S. Radium Corporation, in the hopes of flowers for her funeral.
Of all the horrific crimes reported on in The Poisoner‘s Handbook, this one is the first to make me sob.

“Until the early 19th century a few tools existed to detect a toxic substance in a corpse.”

History of science makes me so happy! #FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

1. Younger me would have ADORED Howl‘s Moving Castle. Like if it was a character driven fantasy, I was/am all in.

2. I typically go full librarian on my friends and cater to their tastes when I recommend stuff, but if I‘m just giving them one of my favorites, it‘s gonna be The Night Circus.

3. I would love love love to meet Deborah Harkness and Gail Carriger. I would make an ass out of myself, but whatever. #wondrouswednesday @Eggs

Book sale day 1 is done! My coworker and I manned the brat tent. I‘m going to take some ibuprofen and snuggle up with the Poisoner‘s Handbook. I promise I‘m not looking for ideas!

This is an interesting concept: a modern FBI agent is stolen and taken to a steampunk world where, upon freedom, she becomes a police detective there. Her partner is a lovable curmudgeon in awe of her. There are some holes (like vocabulary of the supporting characters) and weirdness (they have mostly the same food as we have) but overall it‘s a charming story. #pop23 #authorwithsameinitials

Sleepy Sunday morning and I‘m trying to find my motivation with this fun audiobook.

I have the day off! I‘m celebrating by starting the newest Gail Carriger and a coffee. (I know it should be tea, but needs must.)

Well, shit. I wanted to get things done today, but instead I finished this book. I haven‘t read a whole book through in a day since I was a teenager. You might love Revelator. It‘s spooky, twisty, and you can‘t trust anyone.

I needed some time to get to Revelator. It feels, so far, like an episode of Old Gods of Appalachia but without the tenderness. Mind you, that‘s not bad! It‘s just very different. My reading buddy and I are shirking our eternal laundry responsibilities, and maybe that‘s okay.

This has all of the heart and sudden twists of most of MJD‘s work with the lovely addition of history. It was fluffy fun that didn‘t go where I thought it would! (Pictured here is Jeremiah from the community garden I‘m helping build) #storyofadivorce #pop23

MJD is queen of the one liner.

My next few weeks are going to suck so I‘m reading fluff. Get ready for snark and silliness!

May is hard on me: we have a lot a lot going on at work, there are some anniversaries that bring me down, and everything seems to hit at once. I don‘t tend to stray from my comfort reads for the month. However, the Rivers of London series is on my comfort reads list!

This was cute and fluffy. It felt like nothing happened for a large portion of the book, but strangely enough, that wasn‘t a bad thing. The narrator had a beautiful voice that lent itself to a very chill and charming read. #pop23 #bookwithasonglyricasatitle (The Muffin, here pictured, wonders when it will be dinner.)

Self Care Sunday: laundry, vacuuming, and a new mystery!

Cute, scary, and nostalgic. It‘s like if John Hughes directed Alien. #pop23 #bookthattookplaceinthedecadeyouwereborn

There are many stories about going on a trip to spread ashes and this was… one of them. I don‘t know what I just read. It wasn‘t bad, but it wasn‘t great either.

Once upon a time, I loved the Bourne books. I inhaled them. Fam, I cannot do it any longer. This was uninspired. Wednesday All-Kitty (pictured here) was also not into it. Life is too short for mediocre books.

Brian Freeman is coming to our library next week, so I‘m trying to get in one of his books. It‘s… okay. I might just not be in the mood for a spy thriller. Anyway, these are the fidgets I‘m demoing for a program later this month.

I love this idea! Thanks @CBee and @chasjjlee #readingbracket2023

This was a beautiful book. It was sweet and loving and the characters felt real, but it was written as a memoir so there were parts that were unresolved. I picked it up initially to review it for our Winter Read for next year, and I‘m so glad that I did. When Women Were Dragons will stick with me. #pop23 #bookaboutafamily (pictured are ducks from the hardware store for cute tax)

This has been a busy week full of emotional hangovers. I have so many things that I should be doing, but all I want to do is get back to this story. I‘m going to take me, my book, and my snack to bed.

After a very long day yesterday, I decided to start this. I am so happy that this is as long as it is. I am absolutely loving it.

This book had it all: mysterious ne‘er-do-wells, chases, a sinister sideshow, will-they-won‘t-they romance, witty rejoinder, a plucky heroine, a brooding aristocrat, a tumultuous secret, and a perpetually sleepy bulldog! I‘m so glad I work late today, because I stayed up far too late working on this. #pop23 #historicalfiction #wellkinda

I love the trope of enemies to friends and am thoroughly enjoying Veronica and Stoker‘s relationship. Here‘s what our Adult DIY folks will be making tomorrow. I‘m so excited!

Today is for prepping for a Library DIY project tomorrow afternoon and starting on the first Veronica Speedwell.

I tried really hard, but I didn‘t read the first book in the series and I couldn‘t get into the mythos of this.

For NPM, we‘re (me and my coworker I weaseled into working on it with me) have a selection of poems on our library‘s Insta and on Stories in the Cloud. You can even dial in and listen to us read to you! The Stories in the Cloud number is 715-304-3400!

Another gem from this chapter, in Helenese, is “It‘s not dumb if it works.”

I‘ve tried several times to get into this book, and maybe this will be the one!

(Pictured:Tonight‘s Adult DIY- we did beginning block printing. I was worried that they wouldn‘t be into it because it‘s kind of a basic intro, but the folks had a great time!)

I‘ll play!
1. Alexia Tarrabotti from Soulless- she‘s practical, funny, and a force to be reckoned with. I found her when I was in my mid 20‘s and she was what I needed.
2. Sarah Bishop from the All Saints trilogy- I love those books, and Diana‘s Aunt Sarah feels more like a real woman than the two protagonists.
3. Sophie from Howl‘s Moving Castle- she‘s so real and so feisty! #wondrouswednesday

Do I have STACKS of books I should be reviewing for work? Yes. Do I have ARCs that I should read right now? Also yes. Am I reading a new Buffy book despite not reading the comic in forever so I feel a little lost? Definitely.

I‘m not really into celebrity memoirs: celebrities often feel too much like a fantasy. Tom Felton, on the other hand, has told his story in a very humble, reality-based way. He feels like a person you‘d actually meet. His story wasn‘t necessarily relatable, but it was real. #pop23 #celebritymemoir

Thank you to the publishers for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

Friends, this style of writing is not for me. The dialogue between the Irish characters felt like an ad for Lucky Charms. I‘m confident that no one actually sounds like that. I didn‘t get through much of the plot because I was cringing so hard. There are folks who will love the quaintness of this story, but I‘m not one of them.

I need something light to offset the, unexpectedly, heavy pie book I started this weekend. This is light, but maybe I went too far. Other reviewers said that the dialogue was like a Lucky Charms commercial. They weren‘t wrong. This is rough.

Do you ever open TikTok and think you‘re just going to look at some silly videos only to immediately get called out? Like, same. Goddamnit.

Expect a lot of quotes from this book. Rossi Anastopoulo is very funny.

I‘m recovering from a nasty bout of norovirus. Instead of getting up and walking all the way to the kitchen for a library book, I grabbed one of my ARCs that I never managed to get to.

What an insanely beautiful book! The writing was lush and loving. This coming of age story isn‘t like any that I‘ve read: it‘s a spiritual coming of age. What will Antonio become? Can he hang onto the magic that Ultima shows him? Will he ever have his questions answered? #pop23 #bookishouldhavereadinhighschool

“There are many gods,” Cico whispered, “gods of beauty and magic, gods of the garden, gods in our own backyards- but we go off to foreign countries to find new ones, we reach the stars to find new ones-“