Hurray for #JolabokaflodSwap day! Thank you, @Chrissyreadit for spoiling me with two books (I have heard great things about them both—so excited) and a treasure trove of candy. The wrapping paper with books and cats was almost too cute to rip open. Love it all! 😍🎄💗

@MaleficentBookDragon thank you for coordinating! 🥰

#MyLitsyAwards #2025 #Nonfiction @CSeydel

At first, I thought I hadn‘t read enough nonfiction this year to play the nonfiction round. Then, going through my fiction books, I realized I‘d read a ton of great nonfiction too (many thanks to @TheBookHippie for all the great #SundayBuddyRead nonfiction picks)! Yes, the last one is fiction but felt like non due to the extensive research.

#MyLitsyAwards #Fiction #2025

Thanks, @CSeydel ! That was fun looking back through my year in books. So many good ones this year and here‘s hoping for even more in 2026! 🥂🎉

Happy Winter Solstice! Going to try setting some intentions this year with this mindful practice: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSfLwGVinx3/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Heartbreakingly, gut-wrenchingly beautiful adaptation! Might‘ve cried quite a bit— #wdnc if it was an ugly cry. It was so good!

Hurray! My #JolabokaflodSwaphas arrived! @MaleficentBookDragon 🎄🍫📘🥰

Happy Hanukkah for those that celebrate and/or appreciate! Beautiful words from our own, @TheBookHippie 🥰

Packed, labeled, and scheduled for pick up tomorrow. USPS says it‘ll be there 12/19 😊 #JolabokaflodSwap @MaleficentBookDragon

I‘d never thought about Charles Dickens‘ wife, but a post on Instagram had me searching more about Catherine Dickens. Had to find more sources to verify because just couldn‘t wrap my head around it. What a sad story!

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160519-the-forgotten-wife-of-charles-dicke...

Never thought I‘d read and enjoy a Nora Robert‘s book, so thank you @Soubhiville and #AuthorAMonth! Had no idea she writes Sci-fi thrillers under a different name either. This one is action-packed and enjoyable brain candy featuring a tough detective with a complicated past of her own which is just what I needed this busy month.

Written in the 1990s but set in the 2050s, it was interesting to see her take on the future (she played it safe). 😊

I hear ya, Yellow Calf! Just wait until 2020 and 2025, buddy! #SundayBuddyRead

Reading the tagged book for #SundayBuddyRead and the J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts) for #AuthorAMonth this chilly weekend.

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

Stamped, sealed, and ready to send out my well wishes for #WinterNatureCardSwap 💗❄️ @TheBookHippie

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Definitely a bleak start to this book for #SundayBuddyRead

I‘m getting Bukowski vibes 😅

Just squeezing in a #TuesdayTunes post 😅 @TieDyeDude

This week, I‘ve been listening to Bollywood music suggested by my students since we are studying India. It‘s wonderful to see their faces light up when the songs come on. Some of our favorites:

Chaleya: https://youtu.be/VAdGW7QDJiU?si=svgCKRDW8N017v6-

Yeh Ishq Hai: https://youtu.be/b_sCZbYyuO4?si=EuHSNkB1J63QKkxJ

#AuldLangSpine2026 list from @JamieArc 💗

I love it! There are at least 3 books on here that I have read and loved which just tells me that @monalyisha nailed it yet again. I‘m so intrigued by the title of the tagged book. It might be one I read for January! 🎉

It‘s my son‘s 17th birthday; actually born on Thanksgiving Day! He‘s a wonderful young man who‘s nice to his mama still. Also, thankful to have my daughter home from uni and be heading to my folks as I type. #moodboard @dabbe

This library audiobook hold came in right in time for my day off plus #NonfictionNovember Highly recommend! Read well by the author. I learned so much, including:

* Tuberculosis aka Consumption sparked fashion trends
* It kills over a million people a year still today
* About 25% of the world‘s population has been infected by it
* It‘s almost completely treatable and even curable

Enjoying fall audiobook walks with my favorite pooch and soaking in an autumn #BeautyBreak this week.

(Inspired by the #HaikuHive)

Slow walk, stopping lots
I take pictures, Cosmo sniffs,
Small moments collected

Please note: Virginia Robert Guiffre's book“Nobody's Girl“ does not exonerate any of Epstein's associates, including a certain president (who she first met while working at Mar-a-Lago where she also met Ghislaine Maxwell). #SheSaid #NonfictionNovember

In Chapter 38, she actually wrote: “There are other men whom I was trafficked to who have threatened me in another way: by asserting that they will use litigation to bankrupt me. . .

Beautiful day for taking Cosmo out for a walk or two while listening to the tagged audiobook (it‘s really well done with multiple narrators)🐶🐾🍁🍂 #BeautyBreak

Beautiful book written through letters (like 84, Charing Cross Road) warm, wise, and hard to put down once it gets rolling.

It follows the life of Sybil a 70 something who‘s full of life even while looking back at books, regrets, and important people past/present.

Real snowflakes photographed in early 1900s! #BeautyBreak

When the name “Snowflake Bentley” is mentioned in Louise Penny‘s newest book, The Black Wolf, one must Google it. Was delighted to see that this first photographer of snowflakes was real and the amazing Maria Popova had written about him: https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/01/19/wilson-bentley-snowflakes/

After an FBI call warning her of a credible death threat, Virginia told her doctors and wrote this on social media as a record for all to see. It makes the “suicide” ruling on her death last spring hard to believe. #ReleaseTheEpsteinFiles

So good to be back with Chief Inspector Gamache!

(But does his world filled with sinister, hidden corruption in government HAVE to mirror ours so closely, Louise Penny? 😅 At least she lets him see the hope there, too.💗)

Tonight‘s water polo game for son might be 2 hours away, but at least the sunset is giving us a #BeautyBreak 😊

😭 Virginia‘s warmth shines through in asides like this… Didn‘t know that Virginia and her father actually worked at Mar-a-lago. It‘s where she met G. Maxwell

Quirky characters, magic, matriarchs, adventure… This book was a lot of fun! It follows the Montoya family as they try to unravel their powerful grandmother‘s dangerous secret to protect their home for future generations to come. Oh and there‘s a river god, a magical rooster, a circus, a living star, and flowers growing out of people. Somehow she makes it all work! 😂 #LiteraryCrew

#BeautyBreak spending the day in San Francisco‘s Chinatown

Our dog, Cosmo‘s, been honoring his best friend and favorite cat, Hoth, all day! He knew it was National Cat Day before I did! 😅

#WDNCW Word was our boss was disappointed in the morning meeting we led (assigned just the night before 😵‍💫). Instead of wondering what we did, we did not care, asked him directly, and his issue was with other staff venting too much at the expense of students, not us. He even told other admin he appreciated how we steered it back to helping kids. Proud moment because pre-peri us would‘ve hid and stewed instead of talking it out! 😅🏆

Learning so much already! This book was pushed to be squashed even before it was published decades ago. So glad it made it to press! Going to be a good discussion Sunday💗

Like luscious fairytales from a parallel universe! 😍 Loving The Singing Hills Cycle novellas so much!

Finally, seeing a little autumn color here in our corner of California! 😍🍂🍁#BeautyBreak

Starting Nobody‘s Girl (Epstein victim memoir) on audiobook. Only 4 chapters in and this is going to be a tough one! Feels important though, like bearing witness 😢

#tlt @dabbe

I did better than I expected (I‘m such a scaredy cat)! I even found three eerie books on the list that I did really love reading.

I also found one more that intrigued to try (tagged). I loved his book Hearts Invisible Furies and didn‘t know he‘d written something spooky. Intriguing! Thanks, @dabbe !

Dramatic skies #BeautyBreak from yesterday‘s walk

A lake that glows scarlet at night, enchanted home filled with relics, a powerful Empress in exile, ghosts drifting through forests… What a beautiful novella!

Vo‘s world-building is rich and elegant. She weaves the tale of a traveling cleric, Chih, and a hoopoe bird, Almost Brilliant, who are capturing stories and secrets in the Empire of Anh. It‘s the first in series, but I‘ve heard you can read them in any order.

Heartening to see so many out today! #NoKings

We have two little libraries on our 6th-12th grade campus. It was a senior project many years ago but still going strong. Seeing their colorful patterns and well-tousled books makes me smile. They are used and loved. My #BeautyBreak for today 😊

Inspired by @uncommonlycozies here‘s my last fully bloomed rose that hasn‘t yet succumbed to falling apart from the raindrops of yesterday and today. There‘s a metaphor in there somewhere, I‘m sure… #BeautyBreak

Oliver Saks meets The Twilight Zone. I loved this twisty, turny, psychological, philosophical novel. An extraordinary patient comes in to a psychiatrist‘s office, and he is not sure if what‘s she‘s seeing is real. It reminded me of one of my favorite books ever, Into the Silent Lands by Paul Broks.

We do not care that our husband‘s name is listed first on the AT & T bill, sir. I am the one calling to sort out the technical issue and you can talk to me (also an account holder who is the one that actually pays the bill). 😤 #WDNCW

October is the right month for #BannedBooksWeek

Orwell‘s 1984 is absolutely terrifying and important now more than ever. Going to social media news between re-reading the chapters this week made for a strange blurring of reality and fiction.

Lyrics like poetry written in three languages (Spanish, Nahuatl, Quechua) This is the song I‘ve had on repeat for my #TuesdayTunes

https://open.spotify.com/track/5VreKSHPnbZ6K0SciwX1vp?si=_0h3BJ_hQ9eDhxaeX5wg5A

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
#BannedBooksWeek

Just saw this trailer at the movies… 😳🍿 Looks extra steamy!

I love many skies… especially those with clouds at sunset. Photo from my father who I text sky/nature photos to and get from daily. 😊 #SereneSaturdays #BeautyBreak @TheBookHippie @ImperfectCJ

When your kid‘s team is down by 10 points at the water polo 🤽🏼‍♂️ game, sometimes you just need to look up and enjoy the skies! #BeautyBreak 😊

Wow! Gorgeous, creative, heartbreaking, and hopeful. The story of a Greek and a Turk who fall in love in Cyprus while a wise fig tree and their future daughter try to make sense of it all. Some passages read like poetry. This wonderfully complex novel lives up to the hype!

29 for me. Some really great movies on here! I want to go back and watch some again now like If Beale Street Could Talk, Knives Out, and Election. I couldn‘t remember if I‘ve seen Plains, Trains, and Automobiles before. Might have to check that out too! 😅 Thanks, @dabbe #TLT