I do so appreciate a good Elon dig.

I recently subscribed to SK‘s Substack, and it turns out I have a few gift subscriptions. It‘s a one-month subscription. Anyone interested? I have five to offer, so I‘ll set a deadline of noon tomorrow (1200 CT on 30 May). If more than five people are interested I‘ll do a drawing. Simply comment below if you‘re interested, and I‘ll let you know if you‘re a winner! Feel free to repost, but only comments on this post will count.

Thanks for the tag @Eggs
1 - I actually like my name, though I went through a period of disliking it (more specifically being OVER Annie) and trying to go by AC around sixth grade. But now I‘m good with Anne. Maybe I should have tried Cordelia…😜
2 - Danny; Boris and Natasha; Laddy Buck (not sure I named that one); Paula (who was in fact Apollo and never forgave me)
3 - Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman; Jordan from Real Genius

Tag if you wanna!

Hope in this sense is just the recognition that…the future is not (as it is so often spoken of) a place that already exists, toward which we are trudging, but a place that we are creating with what we do and how we do it (or don‘t) in the present.

Starting this one today.

Okay, I get it now. I never had anyone assign this, so I just never got around to it. Now I feel all sorts of wrecked. What an incredible piece of writing - and SE Hinton was 15 when she started it?! Okay, brb, need to go track down her other work.

I wasn‘t sure at first, but this was a very interesting and thought-provoking read. Why is there such scarcity in America? In housing, clean energy, and tech development (not innovation, but the follow-up), Klein and Thompson posit that yesterday‘s policies hinder today‘s and tomorrow‘s progress. I‘d like to see some more concrete examples of how to solve these problems, especially at a grassroots level, but it‘s worth a read regardless.

I finished this on audio and…holy crap, Sarah Kendzior is so spot-on about everything. Her predictions from Trump‘s first term have all come true, everything she was worried about has come to pass. We should call her Cassandra. I need to find everything she‘s ever written now, and you need to read this book! I subscribed to her Substack a few months ago, and I just upgraded to paid when I finished this. Seriously, read it.

This book is what I wanted Angela Garbes‘ work to be: personal yet with research and numbers to back up the claim that modern motherhood is unsustainable. While a lot of the information is familiar, and there are no quick fixes offered here, Grose‘s work gives a solid foundation to the general unease and overwhelm so many of us feel. If you‘re interested in the economic value of caretakers, this one‘s a good piece.

I didn‘t finish it in one day, but I did wrap it up this morning over tea. Just as good as the first, there‘s no connection between them (except a blink-and-you‘ll-miss-it cameo by an unnamed Riley). Quinn has baggage to deal with when she joins Logan‘s D&D group at her new school, and their brewing attraction could scuttle the whole game. Green flags abound in these stories! Just the pick-me-up I needed when the world is terrible.

I read this entire book in one day. It was fun, low stakes but engaging, I loved the characters, and there was just enough teen angst to make it feel real. I‘m glad to have the next one ready to go. And I‘ve already talked it up to a friend who caught me reading it while kiddo danced.

🥰 My first paying gig as a musician was with the Columbus Junior Theater, performing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the summer between sophomore and junior years of high school. The next year, CJT became Columbus Children‘s Theater, and that summer I played for their production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I LOVED playing for CJT/CCT!

I finished this a week or two ago, and I‘ve already forgotten most of it. The first section was promising, but other writers have trod the same territory and done it better. I don‘t remember most of part two, and the self-help part three was boring and useless (yes, we should all learn to focus on breathing, that‘s revolutionary, thanks). I‘m sorry I wasted money, time, and shelf space on this one.

A very good essay collection, with a combination of travel stories, behind-the-scenes of the Rick Steves machine, memoir, cultural studies, and humor. It‘s not a travel guide, but more of a travel guide‘s raison d‘être. If you like the writing style of the Rick Steves guidebooks, you‘ll probably enjoy Hewitt‘s writing here. Recommended. And honestly, I liked this MUCH more than the RS travel writing book from a few years ago.

Low pick. The story is important and worth telling, though I agree with other reviews that the way it‘s told could be better. It‘s repetitive in many places, and I feel like I wouldn‘t necessarily like Jones if I knew her in person. She makes some leaps of logic, and has expectations of people that sometimes exceed reality (and is then disappointed in them). But, what she‘s been through and how she fought back are worth sharing. 👇🏻

I couldn‘t connect with this on audio. I think because multiple essays/authors share readers, and it messed with my mind. I may try again in print sometime, but for now it‘s a DNF.

I love this series! I sat down last night and read the entire thing. Some serious revelations in this one! Now I have to wait for October when the final volume comes out, but then I can reread the entire series.

And hubby picked up my library #bookhaul today, too 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think I have a problem (actually, I have two: not enough time to read and not enough bookshelves)

Did I need to order 20 new books from Book Outlet? Well, no, not really. Did I cross my fingers that this would arrive while hubby is at work so I don‘t have to explain why I‘ve received something like six book deliveries in the past week or so? Well, yes, of course. And then I tried to find places for them so they‘re accessible but not OBVIOUSLY new. Don‘t mind me being a little crazy over here. #bookmail is the best mail.

“…it is about dumbing down society for a more easily les population, and it is about using libraries for political gain.”

This, all of this.

#bookmail is the best mail!

Today‘s #bookmail from BN (bottom left) and Bookshop.org for the rest. I may have had to sneak the boxes into the house so hubby didn‘t see them, as this may have been the third and fourth book packages this week… The bottom two are for kiddo, and the top two (the skinny ones) are mine.

I may also have several preorders filtering in over the rest of the year. And a sizable order from Book Outlet shipping soon. I really shouldn‘t be unsupervised.

Continuing my political/current events self-education with a slight pivot. Starting this one while hubby and kiddo battle it out on the chess board.

This book was amazing! You have to read it. Ressa is a Philippine American dual citizen, journalist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her story is incredible. She describes her work to preserve the integrity of journalism and democracy in the Philippines, the global south, and the world. What she‘s been through under Duterte and his successor, her fight against Facebook/social media misinformation…it‘s all so relevant. Just take my word and read it.

Like many compilations, this is a mixed bag. It suffers from being already outdated, although many of the contributors‘ predictions were spot-on for this disastrous second term. I found a lot to be rambling and unhelpful. The highlight was the penultimate essay, “The Right Type of Citizenship” by Jefferson Cowie. It focuses on the Left needing a solid action plan and vision to combat the Right‘s American exceptionalism and 👇🏻

Recent #bookmail - two kinda different vibes here…

Starting this while kiddo has her violin lesson. This is Mr. Weasley, who tolerates my presence in his home once a week.

Gardening metaphor? Carpentry? Yes, these both work. I can get behind this imagery for treating cancer. They‘re both much better than the kitchen metaphor.

BUT, these are about treatment. Earlier she discussed RESEARCH, and I stand by the “front lines” idea for that. Treatment and research are different aspects and deserve different approaches.

So Lesser lost her younger sister to cancer, but she still has some…views…on cancer that don‘t make sense to me. Apparently it was the sister‘s fault?

The kitchen of cancer research? I guess I‘m just not seeing how this is better than “front lines.”

Maybe it‘s my perspective. I‘m a military brat. My paternal grandparents, father, at least three uncles, cousin, brother, and sister-in-law all served. I served. My husband still serves. To me, military service is a legacy, and while it has areas of concern, it‘s not shameful. Maybe that‘s why I‘m not getting Lesser‘s point here.

Today‘s #bookmail courtesy of Haymarket Books: two of the last Solnit books I didn‘t already have (and part of her “Haymarket rainbow”), plus this book on AI that looks very interesting but wasn‘t released as an ebook (ironic, I think).

Starting this one while #DannyBoy whaps me with his tail.

For the next two days (I think, it may just be today and tomorrow), Barnes & Noble members can use PREORDER25 to get 25% off preorders. It‘s not valid on signed copies, though. But Rebecca Solnit, Joyce Vance, Ali Hazelwood (one just announced today as well as the companion to Bride), Frederik Backman, and so many others have new books coming out. I may have indulged a little…a lot…

Who, but the French, would look at snails oozing across a rain-dampened path and think, “I‘ll bet if I sautéed those in garlic butter, they‘d be delicious”?

#DannyBoy missed me while I was working today. And now he must wash my face because he‘s a much better and cleaner cat than I am.

“Just to be entirely clear on this point: The Sound of Music fans were so rowdy, they were bothering Austrian drunks chugging one-liter mugs of beer.”

I don‘t know why, but this is cracking me up, and I could use a good laugh.

Meh, I wanted this to be better. Mack has a few decent observations from growing up in Hitler‘s Germany, but it‘s all very slapdash. It feels too casual and anecdotal and I wanted so badly for there to be some depth of understanding. I think he had good intentions, seeing where we were heading, but it didn‘t come together well enough. And after reading Ruth Ben-Ghiat‘s Strongmen, this just doesn‘t get it done.

My recent #bookmail has a visual theme, even if one is very, very different from the others! Thanks to The Ripped Bodice for the signed Jasmine Guillory books, and to Haymarket Books for a club that exposes me to books I would probably never otherwise encounter.

Despite #DannyBoy‘s best efforts, and the weight of the real-world insanity, I finally finished this amazing book. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to understand what is happening and how we got here, although be cautioned that Russell Vought and Co seem to be using this as a how-to guide.

#DannyBoy has opinions about me reading, even when he chooses not to be on my lap. Apparently I‘m not getting this book back anytime soon.
#catsofLitsy

Another low pick, this continues Gigi and Pike‘s story. One plot thread gets resolved annoyingly quickly, and I kept expecting more from it, but it gets abandoned for the more dangerous one. This felt even less plausible than the first, and I feel like I‘d need to read some of the first-gen Gallo stories to understand the full dynamic here. Still, it‘s a pleasant-enough read when I‘m preoccupied with the state of the world.

Low pick. MMC is a biker with a past, FMC is a good girl from a close-knit family. They‘re both tattoo artists, but when Pike walks into his first day at Inked he‘s surprised to find his spring-break fling is the boss‘s daughter AND his new colleague. Danger appears from Pike‘s past, and he and Gigi turn to his MC for protection.

Turns out Bliss has a massive set of connected series and I‘ve fallen right into the middle. Ends on a cliffhanger.

KA‘s first rom-com, and it‘s great! Daphne‘s a rugged outdoorswoman trying to get her novel published, and Chris becomes the face of her pseudonym. What could go wrong? I loved it.

I‘ve only gotten into audiobooks in the last two years or so, but the past few months they‘ve been big for me. I‘m surprised by this perfect balance, though.

As with any collection, some of these essays are better than others. A few of them didn‘t age particularly well, but most are spot on. I did the audio version, narrated by Banhi Turpin, and it was mostly well done but with a handful of words she mispronounced so wildly that I lost the whole sentence trying to parse it. I‘m glad I finally read it, and I‘ll probably read more of Gay‘s work at some point, but I‘m not racing to do so.

Another “dark romance,” this one features a motorcycle club theme. Morris stumbles across a woman on the run, and takes both her and her child under his wing. They‘re stalked by her abusive husband, but with a band of unlikely friends Alice starts to have hope for the future. Another one I‘m glad is on Hoopla, but it was pretty good.

I needed a change of pace and a distraction from reality. I think this is “dark romance” and my first foray into mob stories. This is Chicago Bratva, or Russian mafia, and the start of a 9-book series. Adbuction/seduction, but the MCs have already had one encounter that resulted in a pregnancy, which she concealed. Glad it was on Hoopla, but an enjoyable enough read.

From one of my least favorites to one of my fave favorites. Lukas may be my top hero, and I liked that the conflict seemed more natural than some. Also the stuff between Scarlett and Pen worked out in a believable way. Scarlett‘s running away was a tad extreme, but sure. I was surprised I liked this as much, given the MCs were college-age, but this worked for me in a way that Check & Mate didn‘t.

This book was very good, if a bit beyond my depth, and also felt like an intro rather than a deep dive. It‘s largely about how the few can co-opt the direction of organizations, deliberately or not, and why that doesn‘t often serve the greater good. Dovetails nicely with Angela Y. Davis‘ book I read around the same time. Recommended.

The first AH book I haven‘t loved, but I did like it. It feels more New Adult than Young Adult, I think, which wasn‘t my favorite. Mallory felt VERY young, which I guess makes sense, as she‘s a young woman forced very early into an adult role, and throughout the book she deals with the consequences of that. It was fine, but one of the few I don‘t see myself rereading. It was fun to read this while kiddo and hubby played endless rounds of chess.