My Busytown book bag has passed the rigorous Kitty Inspection Process and is all ready for read-alouds Tuesday morning! After a busy several days (family and friends visiting from across the country for my spouse's 50th, an early-morning emergency room visit for my father-in-law (he's doing well now, thankfully), and an earthquake), I feel ready to be back in the classroom with the preschoolers reading about animals.

In the midst of a fun but exhausting weekend, I have a lull between entertaining responsibilities. If I could nap, I would, but instead I'm drinking my coffee and trying to get my brain to focus on the Spanish translation of the tagged. I'm at an interesting point in my understanding of Spanish where reading is easier than I expect, but every now and then I get stuck with no idea how the words go together. This book might take me forever to read.

Today I'm wearing the souvenir I bought while visiting Austin in February. Little did I know the message would have even more significance only a short time later. I wore it to read to the preschoolers a couple of weeks ago. They liked it for the rainbow heart and named the colors for me.

Three faves that I don't hear talked about much:

1) Women Talking
2) Jojo Rabbit
3) The Favourite

Thanks for the tag, @dabbe ! #ThreeListThursday #TLT (on Friday)

This is a pretty straightforward Ballard/Bosch novel, with more focus on the younger Bosch. Touching on so many different cases and personal issues made this one a little challenging to follow sometimes, but it's still an enjoyable read.

I listened to the second half while cleaning my house for friends from out of state to come over. I had a lot of nervous energy, so a lot more things are clean than they were likely to see during dinner.

This one is in my ears today, as well as her "Rise Up With Fists!!"

https://open.spotify.com/track/6MKL3Xdcf3qFhTP2KJhcsn?si=BPaIUl5aQ22zdjSQN5epkw

Tagged book because Jenny Lewis was in the movie version.

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

1. I think so, yes. I enjoy being around books even if I'm not reading them, and libraries and bookstores are must-see destinations when I'm traveling.

2. A rather dark one, but the first I thought of (perhaps because an event organizer mentioned Bernard Schlink at the author event I was at last night, or maybe just because it's a totally on-the-nose title for this question).

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView (thanks for the tag!)

I attended an author event with Gretchen Rubin tonight. She's a great speaker, and aside from me being a total dork when I tried to talk with her, it was a great night! It was her book The Happiness Project that inspired me to start my blog (imperfecthappiness.org) 15 years ago.

This novel captures well the feeling that the tech-bro-owned companies inspire in me...that sense that the world is worse for how they do things but also that there's so little one can do to resist them. And really, what's the alternative? My attempts at resistance remind me of the "Flaming Moe's" episode of The Simpsons where Homer yells, "You just lost yourself a customer!" but the bar is so full, Moe can't hear him. But I still try.

Completely unrelated image, but do any Littens have suggestions for a visit to Madison, Wisconsin? We might be traveling there for the first time this summer, and I'm wondering what the must-see things are there.

This one is weird and moody, which I like, but it's not quite as tight as Chronister's The Bog Wife. I don't quite understand how people live so long without food and water in this story.

Throughout this entire novel, I kept mistaking these little decorations for smashed spiders.

As I've only finished one book this week, this was an easy choice. :-)

#WeeklyFavorites @Read4life

Yet another aspirational library. That little spiral staircase (which also leads to a hidden hallway to the guest rooms). I have mixed feelings about the Gilded Age (and decidedly negative feelings about its current reboot), but they had awesome private libraries---and views.

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC

I'm not sure the setting played much of a role in this mystery, and several of the characters feel almost extraneous, but it's a diverting story nevertheless. I like how Christie writes about aging. This one has a feel reminiscent to The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

I finally made it to Downtown Books & News! I didn't buy anything because I arrived 10 minutes before closing and didn't have enough time to make up my mind (and I still haven't finished the hardcover I brought intending to leave it here), but it's such a cool place and I'm glad I made it there.

75/100
This is apparently my time period for movie watching.
Three faves: Babe, A Serious Man, Fargo (and In the Bedroom and Sixth Sense because I can't stop with just 3)
Thanks for the tag, @dabbe !
#ThreeListThursday #TLT

April #bookspinbingo card, ready to go!

@TheAromaofBooks

1) I was until junior high when my family moved, and I went from a school where trying hard and doing well were cool to a school where doing those things got you targeted by bullies. So I hid out for a few years, then when we moved again in high school to another high-caliber school district, it took me a while to rebuild my skills. I still did decently through high school and college.
2) A classic.
@TheSpineView #Two4Tuesday

I guess that wraps up my #WeeklyFavorites for March. It's been a pretty good reading month, but moving into April, I feel like I need a refresh of how I approach reading. I've been using audiobooks as a replacement for putting my hands over my ears, and I would rather move *towards* books rather than *away* from reality. So we'll see if I can find a little more balance as we move into spring.

@Read4life

My April #bookspin list!

@TheAromaofBooks

March #bookspinbingo card. I didn't read my #bookspin title, but I finished my #doublespin and managed one bingo...yay!

@TheAromaofBooks

I chose my airplane book. I picked the one I don't think I'll mind leaving behind in a random LFL or indie coffee shop when I finish it to make room for newly-purchased books.

I got to hang out with my teen and my spouse for an outdoor, in-concert-with-the-symphony showing of this classic movie about a grandpa who reads a book aloud to his jaded grandson. There's also kissing and pirates.

This one is decent. It has some fun twists (and some that are a little confusing), but it seems like it can't quite decide how YA it is. Part of that could be the narrator (I listened to part of it on audiobook...the narrator also mispronounced words and whoever was editing the audiobook left background sounds in a few times, which I found distracting), but I think a lot of it is just how tenuous the characters are, like they're not fully formed.

This novel did not go in any of the several directions I expected it to, which was actually kind of delightful. It's a bizarre story of family systems, mourning, and discovering new ways of upholding responsibilities when the old ones no longer work. In a way, it's kind of a coming-of-age story for the painful growing up one does when our parents no longer carry us (literally and metaphorically), for whatever reason and at whatever age.

1) Had a few great runs, including one during which I heard and saw a red shouldered hawk.
2) Saw a North American premier of a bagpipe overture.
3) Spotted the ocean on a walk (which helped balance the walk being through a pretty unfriendly neighborhood).
4) Kitty snuggles.
5) Library visit.
Not pictured: a great phone conversation with my college kid, and my prealgebra class went really well!
@DebinHawaii #5JoysFriday

For an upcoming week-long trip, I'm limiting myself to one physical book plus my Kobo. These two are the current front-runners---Wild Houses and Horror Movie.

Which should I bring? Or should I bring something else entirely?

Other options:

Darkly by Marisha Pessl
Baby X by Kira Peikoff
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

I was surprised at how many disaster movies made the list of nominees.

I loved:
1. The Color Purple
2. Coal Miner's Daughter
3. Norma Rae

In related news, since my elder kid went away to college, my teenaged son and my husband have had greater influence on which movies we watch, which means I am watching a lot of Marvel and Tarantino and not much else. It's nice to be reminded that other movies exist!

@dabbe #TLT #ThreeListThursday

I kept putting this one off because I wanted to re-familiarize myself with There There first, but finally I picked it up, and I'm glad I stopped delaying. The interwoven stories, including those in the past and present and about figures both fictional and historical, are gripping and deal poignantly with how various addictions can draw a person in and how the legacy of colonialism continues today. Another #tob25 longlist title.

We'll see if Silo and I can make some reading progress before this one is due back at the library. I have not had near as much reading time so far this week as I would prefer. Or as Silo would prefer.

Okay, the character is in San Francisco, thinking about an earthquake that Enrico Caruso was in, which was in 1906. Was Caruso in another earthquake in 1905, or is this just a typo that the editors didn't catch before publication? Or maybe it's the character's mistake?

Can you tell this kind of thing irritates me? I don't know how to read it if I don't know the origin of the mistake.

1. Hiking, walking on the beach, huggling my (big, adult-sized) kiddos, listening to the birds.

2. Tagged.

@TheSpineView #Two4Tuesday

Not sure if this is for a specific group, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to jump in.

1. Pretty well. Time feels slippery today, and I'm constantly starving because I've increased my activity level but not my caloric intake (by design), so I'm fighting hangriness.
2. Mostly negative (except for Litsy) unless I'm very careful.
3. I'm taking a break from Facebook and using IG & Bluesky sparingly. So far, so good.
@Kerrbearlib #MentalHealthMonday

When all the library holds come in at once.

This is a mix of #Roll100 titles and books I requested to help me figure out my relationship with social media (except Litsy. I know exactly how I feel about Litsy ❤️).

I've enjoyed all of the books I read this week, but if I have to choose just one, Help Wanted it is! If I'd finished Moon of the Turning Leaves a day earlier, that would have been an easy pick for this week. We'll see if anything I read this week tops that title!

#WeeklyFavorites @Read4life

What a beautiful and immersive follow-up this novel is. I love the portrayal of the landscape and that Rice leaves dialogue in Anishinaabemowin untranslated, with context clues to meaning. While reading this novel, I have found myself observing the world around me differently and requesting from myself more attention in the moment. I find myself contemplating what's most important and how to center those elements in my life. It's a gift of a book.

Friday night splurge. I'm so sad that our indie is moving across the highway in a couple of weeks. I can still get there, but it's a drive rather than a walk (and parking is a pain). I likely won't spend as much at their new location as I have in their current location, but hopefully for them it's a better spot.

1) #ToB goodies.
2) Solar-powered cats.
3) A hike with beautiful views and a chance to identify poison oak without touching it.
4) Climbing 489 "secret" stairs with a friend.
5) Looong shadows on an evening walk.

#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii

I might also have bought myself a #ToB25 t-shirt. I like wearing IYKYK shirts and seeing how many people K (and say so). No one today so far.

After the 6th graders put me through my paces in class tonight, I feel like having something stronger, but I'm trying to convince myself that salad, nonalcoholic kombucha, and post-apocalyptic fiction will nourish me better in the long run---and disturb my sleep less---than a martini.

I first read this in 2009. With this 2025 re-read, I'm struck by how GenX this novel is: disillusion with/suspicion of consumerism, a desire for real experiences, a sense of impending doom not recognized by those in power, a desire for community if for no other reason than to have people to have a beer with while we watched the world burn. 2025 turns out to be a great time for a re-read and a reminder that stability isn't a given.

1. Crocus in New England (first to push through the snow and give me hope that it would be warm again eventually), jasmine in San Diego (I love walking through the neighborhood and wondering why I smell tea and realizing it's the jasmine blossoms).

2. Tagged reminds me of spring, both the literally and emotionally/metaphorically.

@TheSpineView #Two4Tuesday

My mom and my brother both worked at a major discount retailer in a rust belt city for several years, and Waldman captures well the feeling of being trapped---by corporate indifference, by an economically bifurcated community, by the accident of birth and privilege---that those years highlighted for our family (and that led me to boycott the retailer for 25+ years and counting). This is a well written but depressing novel from the #ToB25 longlist.

It's bizarre books like this that make me want to live in Sweden (or anywhere in Scandinavia). I would love to see if the off-the-wall perspectives in Scandinavian fiction are universal within the culture, if they'd be accessible to an ex-pat, and if they would make up for the climate being as near the opposite as possible to the weather in San Diego (which has, unfortunately, become my baseline). This book is delightfully weird.

I'm really enjoying this year's #ToB! I got myself a mug to commemorate finishing the whole shortlist (as I did in 2023). Today's decision and commentary---between Liars and The Book of George---are particularly interesting, and I enjoyed reading them while enjoying decaf from my official mug.

I missed a week, so here's my mid-month #WeeklyFavorites post. @Read4life

I went to the library to pick up one hold, and three more books jumped into my arms. At least I wasn't visiting the animal shelter.

I finally finished my February Bookends post, in which I talk about my solo trip last month, uncomfortable interactions, and, of course, the books I read. Here's where it lives, if you'd like to check it out: http://imperfecthappiness.org/2025/03/13/bookends-february-2025/