September‘s #BookSpinBingo board - I got two! It turned out better than I expected, even just a week earlier.

Here‘s my #BookSpinBingo board for October. #BookSpin is The Year of Lear and #DoubleSpin is the first half of Vanity Fair, which is one of my #Roll100 picks as well. I‘m only doing two #Roll100 for the month since VF is hefty and I already read #100 - the other is Murder Is Bad Manners. Fingers crossed for a good reading October!

Just in the nick of time, my October #BookSpin list! And the bingo board is ready for tomorrow!

Yesterday‘s #bookmail I forgot to post until just now. I liked the tagged when I had it from the library and now I can linger over it. I‘ve never used an America‘s Test Kitchen cookbook, but this one looked promising. I have a whole bookcase of cookbooks, but I really love them. Does anyone else get the kitchen blahs around the end of summer? I get tired of the same meals and need to dive into new recipe inspiration.

I don‘t know what I‘ll accomplish this #20in4 as tomorrow is a really busy family day, but I hope to finish I Can Hear You Whisper. I need to make my #BookSpin list and see what else I can pick at.

Squeezed in one last September read. This second book in the second trilogy cleared up some of the weird bits from the first, made good headway in character development and romantic progression, and had a weird storyline that was mostly tangential to said development. Definitely ready for the next one! First finish of #20in4

This difference is not spelling, but capitalization. Seems like a fundamental difference to me.

While I found the transition to Catalina as MC jarring (despite the intervening novella serving just that purpose), overall this was very good. I didn‘t like the 3-year jump with almost no explanation, or seeing Catalina not as the little sister but as a full adult woman with power and desires, but I‘m getting used to it. Interested to see where this trilogy takes us. #SeriesRead2022 @TheSpineView

A delightful story about a mouse with big ideas, a rat with disturbing plans, and a girl with dreams but no sense. It had some scary bits and sad moments, and some laughs. I read it in a day and can‘t wait for kiddo to read it, too. #DannyBoy said I shouldn‘t waste time on a mouse book when there‘s a perfectly good cat to be petted. #catsofLitsy

Well, the #SuperSeptember #readathon is over, and while I finished six books (!) I didn‘t come close to a bingo. I did keep up with buddy reads and got quite a bit of reading in, it just seems to be one of those months that doesn‘t align with the board. And also feels like I‘m not getting anywhere despite actual progress happening. Thanks to @Andrew65 for hosting!

I love a cookbook that has photos - but only when the photos make sense and match the recipes. For instance - this is decidedly not a sweet potato. Also, I‘ve seen scallions in photos without being included in recipes, and similar problems. I find this very frustrating. And a lot of the make-ahead side dishes are just prepped, not cooked, before being frozen. I don‘t see this saving any time, as I now have to allow for defrosting and THEN cooking.

Creepy upper-MG adventure based on La Llorona. Paola is science-minded and space-obsessed. Her friendship with Dante is changing, both because he‘s hanging with the soccer team and because of boy-girl awareness. When third musketeer Emma disappears, they must save her. Enter chupacabras, Mano Pachanos, and all sorts of creepy creatures. I look forward to the next installment.

My first Blyton and it was fine. Implausible, dated, but kiddo loved it. Four friends (two brother-sister pairs) and a parrot, home for school holiday, become obsessed with nearby Isle of Gloom. When they get there, they unwittingly undercover a nefarious operation. First in the Adventure series. This particular edition must have been scanned not typed because there are a lot of errors (it/if, m where it should be rn, etc).

An intense read but an important one, Knott takes us on a nonlinear journey through her struggles to get sober and her history that shapes why she struggles. The trauma she endured, the systemic failures, the hopelessness of addiction - man, it was tough. But the end, when she starts to work it all out and discover her worth, made it all worthwhile. #SheSaid

I really loved this book. For once, the failure to communicate actually made some sense (social awkwardness/anxiety instead of pure stubbornness). The humor was perfect, the growth of the relationship worked - it was a great romance read.

Philosophical cats: is the box half empty or half full? Either way there‘s room for cat.
Is the food dish half empty or half full? I can see the bottom! Starvation is imminent.
#DannyBoy #catsofLitsy #DeadPhilosophersSociety

I‘ve spent the last eleven days rereading these so I can go on to the next trilogy. But now I must diverge into library books coming due, buddy read commitments, and #roll100 #bookspin picks. Why must life interfere so badly with my reading time? All I ask is for 8 uninterrupted hours to read every day…maybe 10…is that so much to ask?

I kinda (completely) forgot we started today. I hope to get a bingo for #BookSpinBingo and start at least one #Roll100 book. And keep up with buddy reads. And not go absolutely crazy because life seems insanely busy right now. #SuperSeptember

The first time I read this I hadn‘t seen Mulan. Now it‘s extra funny.

Wow.

The only thing I don‘t like is deciding if this will go on my poetry shelf, or with my mythology books. Both sections are overflowing, naturally.

I‘m loving so much about this book.

Some of this was interesting, and I learned a lot about several authors I didn‘t know very well (pretty much everyone but JA). But the authors drew conclusions that weren‘t supported. I know the goal of research and writing is to forge new paths, but a lot of this felt like arguing for argument‘s sake. Jane was catty about Anne, so she was mean and their relationship had soured. But Virginia and Katherine must have been closer than the 👇🏻

These are equally mine and kiddo‘s. I love folktales and myth collections. I already had the Graves, but not illustrated! The top two on the right were printed in the USSR, in English. The book you can‘t see for the glare is the tagged. We got 27 total for $11.75 😯 which we rounded up to $20 because it‘s for literacy programs.

More of kiddo‘s book bazaar picks. She got two Boxcar Children, tagged, Quidditch Through the Ages, a Karen Hesse called The Music of Dolphins…and some others we‘d never heard of. Plus three she thought would be good for school!

Kiddo picked these (the two on the right we already have in other versions, but she‘s obsessed with ballet - especially because she had her Nutcracker audition last night and is going to be a soldier and a sheep in this year‘s production! Her first time). Tagged is in our cat books puzzle so she recognized it, though it‘s a “school” copy with extra junk in it.

Today I went to the Centenary Book Bazaar, but it was in the last hour or so and most of my favorite sections were pretty sparse. I did find these promising ladies looking at me. Though I haven‘t started the section on Woolf and Mansfield I thought I‘d grab her stories. I‘m not familiar with her work. #PemberLittens

So it‘s not just a recent product of social media…huh.
(That‘s Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose recent article about Lady Byron had unleashed something of a shitstorm of criticism)

#PemberLittens

Thanks for the tag @Eggs
1 - I‘ve been trying to get back to Iceland for almost twenty years, maybe someday I will.
2 - my guidebook, a fluffy romance read that I can leave in a hotel and replace with a book souvenir. And maybe someday I‘ll read the tagged, which I bought in preparation for my trip all those years ago and never read.
#two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

I really enjoyed this magical romance. I liked that Vivi wanted to maintain a balance between the magical and mundane parts of her, and Rhys was fun and likable. Their chemistry was believable and I loved all the banter. I‘m glad I have the next one to jump straight into! #DannyBoy liked the talking cat Sir Purrcival. #catsofLitsy

I swear to goddess, I had it down to just DQ and the Blyton I‘m reading with kiddo. That was two days ago! And yet here I am, drowning in really good reads again… and in a few days I‘ll add Feline Philosophy for the #DeadPhilosophersSociety too. 🤦🏻‍♀️

This is a fairly short, surprisingly readable look at the social aspects of the world described in Homer‘s epics. Whether that was truly some heroic age, or more reflective of Homer‘s own time is another question altogether. Writing initially in the late 1940s, with revisions in the 1970s, Finley incorporates lessons learned from the Linear B tablets to bolster/adapt his conclusions as appropriate. If you‘re a classics nerd, I recommend this.

To whom it may concern: Target has a bunch of Hocus Pocus stuff on sale right now, including this tarot deck.

I got myself a birthday present at Target, and picked up the #NaturaLitsy buddy read at the library. I don‘t know that I‘ll do the read, but I thought I‘d try it.

I just love #BookSpin #BookSpinBingo announcement day. It starts my morning the best way. My bs is I Can Hear You Whisper and my ds is a #Roll100 pick - Paola Santiago and the River of Tears. Of course, two days into September and I‘m already behind on buddy reads…

In case anyone thinks scholars are dry and humorless…

…what a weirdo.

Well, in August I read 15 books/4877 pages. I completed both my #bookspin and #doublespin picks AND all three #roll100 books (plus a few more from that list). For #20in4 special readathon I read 4.5 books to finish the month strong. Onward we go!

I love having this Norton Shakespeare for its completeness, but dang! It is not easy on the eyes. Also, every time I drag it our hubby jokes I paid a dollar a pound…funny every time…

King Lear is a quintessential tragedy. I need to find a version to watch, now that I‘ve got more of the story down. This was my first time through this one, and I imagine I‘ll read it again someday with the kiddo.

Well…that‘s a mighty useful term…kind of a jack-of-all-trades…

It‘s so rare the entire library pickup is for me and not kiddo! I have the next #SheSaid book, The Ex Hex because I just got an ARC of the sequel, and am finally getting around to joining the Hazelwood bandwagon.

I put my September #BookSpin list together today. I have two #roll100 books (I finished #94 the day of the roll) - The Tale of Despereaux and Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, A Secret Sisterhood for #PemberLittens, and In My Own Moccasins for #SheSaid. Also the entire (so far) Hidden Legacy series since Ruby Fever just came out. I‘m ready for Friday!

And just like that, it‘s over. I really loved sharing this series with kiddo, who also loved it. This book is nine years after the previous installment and brings the family back to Arundel, where Lydia (youngest Penderwick and born after that magical summer) gets to have adventures like her much older sisters once did. 😍

A really good conclusion to another really good series. I need to read Riordan‘s other series (Kane and Magnus Chase), as I‘m no caught up on the Greek series. I hope he continues with another, because I need to know what Nico does next. #doublespin #seriesread2022

Confession: I got through a BA in English and an MA in Humanities without ever taking a Shakespeare class (I read Tempest for MA). I‘m very slowly reading some on my own, and decided to tackle King Lear. I didn‘t realize there were multiple versions (should have, being Shakespeare). What to do? So I‘m reading the Conflated version that follows this side-by-side set to confuse myself less. 😆

Good enough. The character development for Brody and Abby was good, I like how Del was introduced. Vanessa‘s a jerk, the guys are real asses to Cameron. I‘m enjoying this reread, but not as much as the first time through when they came out.

Well, kiddo and I are celebrating end of summer (homeschool fifth grade on Monday) with Deathly Hallows movies today, fam is going canoeing tomorrow…so we‘ll see about this one!

I‘d like to finish the two in progress and then either tackle some of Don Quixote or King Lear for #20in4 special #readathon with @Andrew65 and company.

Thank you Cavalier House Books! I got the tagged today plus this ARC! I know what I‘m reading next month - the entire Hidden Legacy series (I‘ve only read the first 3 + novella) and Sterling‘s books (I need to get The Ex Hex from the library ASAP).

I didn‘t really know what to expect, but I really enjoyed this. I‘m not a huge Bradbury fan, but so far I‘ve liked what I‘ve read. This is a vignette-centered story of the summer of 1928 in Green Town, Illinois. There‘s life, death, love, adventure, and some creepiness thrown in, too. I got this copy from my parents when they moved from OH to ID years ago. It‘s from 1969 and neither of them remember buying or reading it, but someone obviously did.

Better late than never: I finished four books for the #AwesomeAugust readathon. That got me a #BookSpinBingo! Thanks to @Andrew65 for hosting.