It will be very dull when I shall have killed myself, as it were, and live only in trying to do, and to be, as other people like. I don't see any end to it. I might as well never have lived.

A humorous expose of negging techniques that's a reasonably funny short listen, though probably more fun in its original tiktok form. To make for a longer audiobook it has a section of the author and his mom interviewing each other, which was heavy on “you know, like...“ and then an advice section which was pretty entertaining. I'm not a big fan of prank humor, so it wasn't really for me.

#BlameItOnLitsy #MonthlyNonfiction2025

I've never encountered this feature for a kindle book before! Very cool, especially since I DNF'd book 2. 😂

I had the same problem with this as the first book, which is that the whole Austenland experience seems to be a real drag. I skimmed ahead some and am not sorry I bailed.

#JaneAustenThenAndNow #Pemberlittens @Crinoline_Laphroaig

“The components of a free press are reporters who aren't afraid to tell a story and citizens who aren't afraid to talk to reporters.“

“Could you explain why you think criminals have the right to that kind of shield?“

“Could you explain why, in a nation that assumes innocence until conviction, you would stick a label like 'criminal' on people who've never been convicted of a crime?“

Another outrageously wrong cover, this one a Kindle cash-grab rather than a foreign language edition.

This social satire from 1926 didn't wear well. The title character is an amiable working class girl who just wants to live a simple working class life, but happens to have been born so ethereally beautiful, no one can resist her. Hijinks ensue that make everyone involved utterly miserable, especially her. Far more depressing than funny.

I wonder if Tyler was inspired to write this by All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome?

I haven't related to an Anne Tyler book so much in years, and I loved it.

Just happened across this on K.J. Charles' Redbubble site.

#junespecials #cheese
@eggs @alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I've been fine-tuning to try and enjoy the fun of the bingo without feeling too much pressure. We'll see how this month goes.

This is such a hard question! I can't remember a time when I wasn't a bookworm and I always read so much. But this feels like a right answer, if not *the* right answer.

Just got the audiobook today. I figured since the author is a performer, I'd probably enjoy the book most in that format. Also have Mutual Aid to read, which is nonfiction by a transgender activist.

May books read and DNF'd.

I got two last minute bingos thanks to @MatchlessMarie today. :-) I really tried to find a book with a straw on the cover but there was just nothing that grabbed me. Still four bingos doesn't suck.

I didn't read my #DoubleSpin book! 😱 I did start it, but it seemed like a serious commitment and I didn't have the bandwith. Will definitely try to finish it before the end of the year.

In my quest to reduce pressure, I removed three books from my list that I decided I really wasn't all that interested in trying. Go me!

I was looking at my library wishlist and noticed that Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall by Spike Milligan was still there. I listened to it a while back, so I removed it from my wishlist. The library gave me a notification saying “Adolph Hitler has been removed from your wishlist.“

If only it was that easy!

There's nothing like reading Terry Pratchett for being reminded that there's nothing new under the sun.

#OokBookClub

I don't think I've ever participated in this before but... 1) My daughter has finished the semester! (CC) She worked very hard but needed so much support, I feel like I took a class too!

2) I wrote in depth about a book! Doesn't happen that much anymore and it makes me happy.

3) Fresh peas from the garden, so nummy.

4) The pressure-reducing plans I made for this month were pretty successful.

5) Solved a phrazle in one move. 😎

#5JoysFriday

Haven't a clue what's going on in that picture, but I had to use it.

I saw the #BeyondTheYellowBrickRoad group reading this & was surprised I couldn't place it in my memory. I've definitely read it multiple times but I think it must be one I didn't go back to as an adult. Not hard to see why... Dorothy and Ozma are both kind of obnoxious in this one and I feel bad for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. Still lot of fun to be had though.

A nice variety this month. Contemporary romance, literary fiction, fantasy romance and audiobook nonfiction.

Hey #QueerBC peeps, May is almost over so here are some discussion questions for our author Neon Yang! (Formerly known as JY Yang.) Answer any or all if you're so inclined!

I love finding these wacky foreign covers! I guess that's supposed to be Queen Crosspatch? Who's so obviously a sexy minx! 😂

This was cute but a little sappy for my tastes. Burnett was better at writing for older children, I think. I did wonder if this inspired Rumer Godden's wonderful doll stories.

#CHILDRENSCLASSICREAD2025

I fondly recalled the Hipsters (they've all had hip replacements) from “Community“ reading this. Osman's gang is considerably more subtle & refined but equally willing to make use of stereotypes about being old & befuddled when it suits their purposes. And they're also heartbreakingly vulnerable to the issues of old age.

Didn't love the fat-shaming & copaganda, and was iffy on the moral ambiguity but the cast is so endearing I enjoyed it anyway.

A powerful listening experience. It's a sad, horrific, true story of the massive consequences of health inequality, told with humanity and grace. I understand now why this became his cause, and there's hope in the fact that so much has and still can be done to help. (Though as an American, it's hard not to fear we've taken such a wrong turn, we soon won't even be able to help ourselves.)

#RealHistory #HonestHistory #MonthlyNonfiction2025

I did! Willa for a lot of reasons. Same initial as my old name. Feminine version of William, “strong protector.“ Partial homage to a woman named Wilma who was very important in my life but no way was I naming myself Wilma. (She quite agreed. 😂) I came across it in a book and liked it.

2. Most of them were dreadful but I had two hamsters named Haba and Sima, which were taken from a Zipha Keatley Snyder book.

3. Cleery from Magic in the Alley

#BookSpin list for June. I've been working on customizing it for maximum potential enjoyment.

1. No obvious standout this month, perhaps because I was tremendously picky about everything! I guess the favorite I read was Paladin's Strength and the favorite I listened to was Great Big Beautiful Life.

2. I found a Laura London (Tom & Sharon Curtis) romance I somehow missed when they were reprinted, called The Testimony, so I'm looking forward to that. I hope the time in which I could appreciate them is not completely past!

I didn't have a specific goal for #JumpStartSummer but I think my subconscious goal was to take pressure off. So I didn't just read, but also DNF'd and took books off my TBR, and I do feel much freer!

In addition to these I finished, I listened to about an hour of Undercooked by Dan Ahdoot (probably a DNF), about an hour of Everything is Tuberculosis (definitely will finish) and started reading The Thursday Murder Club, from my #BookSpinBingo.

Charming romance about two privileged Black teens dealing with the emotional fallout of perfectionist parents. This can be read as a follow-up to Williams' lovely adult romance Seven Days in June or as a standalone.

More at my blog: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/05/30/audre-and-bash-are-just-friends-by-tia...

#WhereAreYouMonday

I'm in the fascinating, fragrant city of Ankh-Morpork. Unfortunately, so is a dragon.

@Cupcake12

Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I'll murmur agreement, not actually *say* anything, I'm not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and almost be heard...

But no man said anything. The cowards, each man thought.

And so we have entered a strange era of human history: A preventable, curable infectious disease remains our deadliest. That's the world we are currently choosing.

I actually had kind of a love/hate experience with this book, but I enjoyed a lot of it and am glad to have finally read it.

#Roll100

My #Bookspin choice was a book by K.L. Noone; I intended to start with The Magician but this turned out the be a prequel. It's a short fantasy romance with some lovely writing, and definitely piques interest for the next book.

#JumpStartSummer (this time for sure!) book #1

Hey, fellow members of @PuddleJumper's Queer Book Club!

A reminder that we'll be discussing the work of Neon Yang at the end of the month. I'll be posting some general discussion questions around the 30th; feel free to participate and/or post a review of what you read. Please let me know if you'd like to be tagged, or removed from my tag list. (For this month only -- for permanent tags, contact @Puddlejumper)

#QueerBC

Good grief, you are all way too polite. Nobody told me I was doing this a week early. 🤣

High schooler Huda tries to maintain control when her parents start divorce proceedings. I've enjoyed all her previous books but I guess I wasn't the right audience for this one and it just didn't grab me.

#SeriesLove

I liked this even more than Paladin's Grace, because the characters are such delightful gentle giants.

More at my blog: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/05/22/tbr-challenge-paladins-strength-by-t-k...

#SeriesLove2025
#URC rodent on cover. (The main one -- this is an alternate.)

There was no town. There was only the road, which was damp clay splotched with stones, like a toad's back. Perhaps the whole world was a toad. It was no stupider than anyone else's cosmology. Clara would leave the order of St. Ursa and found the order of St. Toad. They would sleep a lot. Yes. Sleeping seemed like a good commandment for the order. Sleep and hot tea. Yes.

Pleased with my #JumpStartSummer weekend. Despite spending 4 1/2 hours on Eurovision 🤣, I met my goals of reading Erasure and Floating Hotel, listened to a couple of hours of Great Big Beautiful Life, cleaned a bunch of short reads off my ereader and am in chapter five of Paladin's Strength. Will certainly read for at least another hour tonight, but might as well post now.

Character-driven science fiction of the kind described as cozy, notwithstanding murder and torture. The premise is great, like an old star-studied movie: a lot of people, all with their own secrets, living out interconnected stories in an hotel spaceship. The plotting isn't as well done as the prose, and I felt let down by the ending, though it does have some lovely poignancy.

Unless you count the Lord of the Rings as one book, which I don't really, it's probably this fanfic, which according to GoodReads has 2184 pages.

I don't even read fanfic! But this one was so popular with my family members I gave it a try. It wasn't as good as rereading The Lord of the Rings again, but it was interesting.

My brain was too tired for my current book (The Floating Hotel) so I read a bunch of little free stories that were cluttering up my ereader, mostly extra epilogues to romances. I don't know why I bother, they're hardly ever worth reading, but at least I did a lot of deleting. I don't even like digital clutter!

#JumpStartSummer

Two very different books for May, I wonder what the next weeks will hold...

There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.

I got to a good start on #JumpStartSummer by not being able to sleep last night 🙄 and finishing Erasure. (Full disclosure: I skipped most of the story-within-a-story, and feel completely justified. 😂)

This was so much more than its main plot description... bitter and satiric yes, but also very quietly human and deeply sad.

#AuthorAMonth

An accidental reread, but that's okay because I liked it both times. There are a few stinkers, but the general madness level is on point.

There are a handful of supervillains who go in for the world-saving routine. It's usually an excuse--dramatic speeches, hijacking the airwaves, self-righteousness and posturing, and it's amazing how saving the world always seems to boil down to giving them personally whatever they want.

This is definitely interesting, but I felt a certain amount of skepticism about it as “science.“ I have a Psychology degree and not only have I seen a fair amount of what I learned in college debunked, but I also had to participate in an experiment which I found completely bogus. Nonetheless, if you accept their theories it does make sense out of a lot of otherwise inexplicable behavior. I would love to see a new update on Trump, *again*. 😫