1 & 3 — My husband‘s Mother‘s Day spread and my daughter‘s gift to me!
2. My thoughtful neighbor knew I had been struggling with the loss of my mother and my job cut and brought me an incredible goodie bag.
4. Although I‘m no longer the librarian, I found out that I get to stay at my campus and was welcomed warmly to the 12th grade English team.
5. We survived the tornadic storm that hit Houston last night unscathed!
#5JoysFriday

I‘m old, so . . .
1. Rumors by Fleetwood Mac
2. 4 by Foreigner
3. Pyromania by Def Leppard
(and everything by the Eagles)! 😁
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

1. I remember riding my bike to the tiny library in my small town and riding home, my new library books secure in the basket on the front. I would spend quite some time deliberating on my choices since I was only allowed to check out four—it was a tough decision!
2. Most of my books have come from bookstores, but a healthy amount from library book sales, as well.
3. The tagged book—and it‘s quite good!
#WondrousWednesday

1. 👩‍❤️‍👨👫- Family and friends‘ love
🩺 - Health (means more as I age!)
📚 - my books!
2. 👶 - that one of my children will eventually produce a grandchild
💰 - that my school district will receive funding so that all of the librarians whose jobs were cut (myself included) can get our jobs back
👩‍🏫 - that I will survive returning to the classroom with all the grading & planning I escaped when I left
#WondrousWednesday

This is from last Thursday, but too fun not to do it! I got 111 out of 187–better than 68% of quiz takers! Some of the favorites on the list that I would love to rewatch are Amadeus, Dangerous Liaisons, and Blood Simple. #TLT #ThreeListThursday

1. It‘s not springtime without amazing thunderstorms (and, unfortunately, STAAR testing 😫).
2. The tagged book is both spooky and funny!
3. My plans for May include boxing up my office and mentally preparing myself for whatever job I get next. My district cut over 50 librarians and I was among them. Two years was not long enough in my dream job! 😢
#Wondrous Wednesday

I‘m late but here I am!! 😁
1. I really enjoyed the tagged book—lots of creepy things but lots of humor, as well.
2. I‘m trying to decide between Fourth Wing and Demon Copperhead. 🤔
Thanks for the tag, @TheSpineView !
#Two4Tuesday

1. I currently live in the suburbs of Houston but would prefer living in the mountains (a place like Flagstaff, AZ).
2. The tagged book is set in Houston, although I prefer his other book set in Texas (Lonesome Dove).
#Two4Tuesday
Thanks for the tag, @TheSpineView ! ❤️

I have met quite a few since I became a librarian a couple of years ago. To name a few: Kwame Alexander, Julie Murphy, Tehereh Mafi, Neal Shusterman, Justin Cronin, Dan Santat, Jerry Craft, April Henry, and Tracy Wolff, among others. Thank goodness for librarian conferences! 😁
#SundayFunday

1. Emma Thompson
2. Diane Keaton
3. Sally Field
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

A title that captures the last six months of my life would be Things Fall Apart. Watching my mother‘s rapid decline from Alzheimer‘s ending with her death Thursday has been agonizing, and trying to support my dad through it is equally so. Next week I will find out whether I will have a job next year or not (I‘m a school librarian in Texas, where the governor is holding our school funding hostage for his voucher program) so there‘s that . . . 😫

I have a copy of The Iliad and a set of Dickens‘ works that were both published in 1870. I also have a set of Thackeray published in 1890. I started collecting antique books a couple of years ago!
#SundayFunday

I‘m late AND I‘m not following directions because I can‘t choose only 3! So sorry, not sorry! 😂
1. The Big Chill
2. The Shining
3. The Princess Bride
4. Amadeus
5. The Lost Boys
6. Willow
7. Raising Arizona
8. Moonstruck
9. Aliens
10. The Thing
11. Die Hard
12. Ghostbusters
13. Grease
14. The ‘Burbs
15. Dangerous Liaisons
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

1. Of course, the quintessential example of movie trumping book—The Princess Bride!
2. Jaws
3. The Shawshank Redemption

There are other examples of great movies coming from great books, like Jurassic Park, No Country for Old Men, and Doctor Sleep, but to me, they are more equal, while the ones I chose for my list evinced a greater disparity in quality. Just my opinion! 😁
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

Happy School Librarian‘s Day!! 📚❤️
#LibrariansofLitsy

Just to clarify—I love my Kindle and audiobooks!! It‘s just that nothing trumps a physical book. They‘re all great ways to read though!
#WondrousWednesday

Read some great books on March! Especially loved Episode Thirteen and The Power!

Spent last Saturday at Teen Book Con in Houston. Got to hear some great YA authors discuss their process: Tahereh Mafi, Melissa Albert, Faridah Abike-Iyimide, Mason Deaver, Huda Fahmy, Gabi Burton, Kim Johnson, Axie Oh, Ellen Oh, Liselle Sambury, Kristen Simmons, and others. Such a great time! ❤️

1. Classics I‘ve taught—Animal Farm, A Tale of Two Cities, Romeo and Juliet, The Scarlet Letter, Fahrenheit 451, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, etc.
2. Every regency romance written by Georgette Heyer—they‘re my palate-cleansing comfort reads!
3. My favorite epics—Shogun, Lonesome Dove, The Far Pavilions, The Rich are Different
I know this is kind of cheating 😁 but it is three types, so maybe that‘s okay? 😂
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

Three of my favorite bildingsromans are:
1. It by Stephen King—there‘s nothing like a killer paranormal clown to help you transition to adulthood! 🤡
2. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton—I fell in love with this as a teenager and still love it today. This tiny book packs a real emotional wallop! ❤️
3. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward—a lyrical tale of magical realism.
#TLT #ThreeListThursday
Thanks for the tag, @dabbe !

I didn‘t love this but it‘s definitely thought-provoking. Women are suddenly imbued with the power to kill men at will, and chaos results. Men are understandably less than thrilled at suddenly becoming the weaker sex. I felt sympathy for the men being victimized by the women, but then my mind would go to the centuries of women enduring the same treatment. It proves my theory that everything comes back to Animal Farm—humans are corrupted by power!

1. That you have no idea what can be motivating people‘s unpleasant behavior. I‘ve worked with kids whose disruptive, defiant behavior drove me crazy, but when I learned what was going on in their lives, I wondered how they had the energy to even get out of bed in the morning. 😢
2. I‘m a high-school English teacher turned librarian.
3. High-school librarian is my dream job!
#WondrousWednesday

I‘m not a big nonfiction reader, but here goes:
1. I‘m a big SK fan, so his life story woven around tips from his writing experience is a win for me.
2. Hyperbole and a Half is one of the funniest memoirs ever!
3. The Glass Castle left me flabbergasted—I couldn‘t believe those events actually happened.
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

1. My daughter discovered that she could still control our upstairs stereo with an app on her phone after she moved to CA (we‘re in TX). While my husband and I were downstairs, she turned on the stereo upstairs and cranked the volume up and down while it played “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” by Tiny Tim (Insidious)! My husband‘s face!! I professed ignorance but couldn‘t help laughing as we crept up the stairs!
2. Puck, the quintessential prankster!

I went into this blind and so was even more blown away by this quirky, drily humorous and simultaneously gory haunted house tale! Haunted houses are my favorite, but this was like no other haunted house I‘ve ever heard of. The bleeding walls, the shrieking ghosts, the biting ghosts, and a host of other paranormal oddities are dealt with in a matter-of-fact tone that only makes them more surreal. Absolutely LOVED it!!

I really enjoyed this! I feel like it‘s not easy to come up with unique horror tales, and this one was, imo, very different from anything else I‘ve read. The ending was a little weak, and I wanted to kill the male MC a couple of times (can you say toxic masculinity? 🙄) but it was very gripping! Highly recommended for horror fans!

Oh no! I don‘t like where this is going!! I want to put the book in the freezer like Joey! 😭😭

I‘m finally reading this and absolutely love Finch! ❤️

1. Lucas Davenport from the Prey series by John Sandford. I‘ve been reading this series for decades!
2. Virgil Flowers—one of Lucas‘s friends who got his own spinoff series.
3. Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files. I love a good magical detective!
#TLT #ThreeListThursday

I love Wharton‘s writing and this was another great one. Undine Spragg is a memorable character, indeed! She is like a chameleon, adapting herself to every new environment to ensure that she achieves her goals. The changes are surface-level only—inside, her character stays the same: selfish, self-centered, greedy, and ambitious. She hasn‘t a thought to spare for anyone but herself. She actually makes Scarlett O‘Hara look sympathetic! 🤔

1. Oh, gosh, there are so many!! If no one is watching, I‘ll get down to just about anything from disco hits to 70s and 80‘s rock. I guess faves are Boogie Wonderland by Earth Wind & Fire, Footloose, and anything BeeGees, Patti LaBelle, or ELO. 😁
2. Paris, London, Rome . . . I‘d live in any of these places without hesitation!
3. Pjs, a hot cup of coffee, a soft blanket, and my book! ❤️
#WondrousWednesday

OMG!! A vampire appeared briefly at the beginning and we‘re just now seeing them again—at 55% in!! Hello! WHY are the title characters so absent?!? Instead we have a vapid romance between characters I frankly don‘t care about. I‘m just there for the vampires!! *feeling disgruntled*

This is late, but I‘m doing it anyway! 😁
1. Tagged book. I couldn‘t put it down and I‘m still thinking about it.
2. Either Fourth Wing (🤞 I don‘t have a great track record with wildly popular books 😬) or Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
#Two4Tuesday

This was . . . different! It was quite a page-turner, though. I couldn‘t put it down. There‘s a high creep factor throughout the mildly bizarre events of the narrator meeting her boyfriend‘s parents. The mildly bizarre ratchets up to really bizarre and the action kicks in. Still not sure I completely understand the ending! 🤔 Great read!

1. Taking down the winter decorations and putting up Valentines Day stuff in the library. Planning displays is so much fun—it beats the heck out of grading essays! 😂
2. Tagged! Also listening to Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas.
3. Chill and funny (or so I‘m told)!
#MotivationalMonday

I had heard repeatedly that this was a genuinely creepy book, and they were right! I had trouble putting this down. I got annoyed with some of the foolish choices of the characters, but who in the hell could be expected to fully understand what they were up against? Very gripping horror story!

I absolutely loved this! It might have upped the plot complexity to have made Mae more conflicted about what was happening, but I feel like her “sheeple”-like quality represents society as a whole. The book is so spot-on with the approach to social media. Especially terrifying is the thought process behind their ever-more controlling surveillance tactics. I can see people today agreeing with them. Highly recommended for dystopian fans!

My total #WinterGames points for the month are 12,955! This has been a lot of fun, and I thank @dabbe for being an amazing, super-organized team leader! Also thanks to @Clwojick and @StayCurious for organizing this huge event. Yay #UglySweaterSquad for being the best team! Happy New Year, Littens!

1. I gifted a book in the Jolabokaflod swap, and I purchased a small stack for my son‘s girlfriend (all requested—she‘s getting her PhD in English!!), but that‘s it. I received my swap book (Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel) and my daughter gave me Slewfoot by Brom. We‘re supposed to have another gift exchange when my son arrives on the 29th, so more are possible! 🤞
2. I love to give book sleeves!
#Two4Tuesday

Merry Christmas, Litsy friends! Hope you‘re having a wonderful day! 🎄🎅🎁

The book has been on my tbr for awhile and the candy is my favorite. Thanks, @sblbooks for my #JolabokaflodSwap gift!

1. Ugh—this is hard! It‘s a tie between A Christmas Story and A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott version!).
2. All I want for Christmas is a good time for a party with friends in the city.
3. A Christmas Carol or NOS4A2. One is all warm and fuzzy—the other not so much! 😂
#WondrousWednesday

I do love a good haunted house tale! This sounds most promising! “The house would not let them live there without them doing what they were paid to do. The question was whether the money would be enough of a compensation for what the house might do to them. Eunice‘s previous tenants in the Masson House—Jane and Max Renner—could attest to that, presuming Max cared to ever resurface and Jane regained the ability to speak” (38). No spoilers, please!

My #JolabokaflodSwap package is heading in your direction, @TheDaysGoBy ! It should arrive Tuesday.

I‘m at home with an inexplicable fever at the worst possible time! I‘m hoping the combination of Dickens‘ lovely prose and the inimitable Tim Curry‘s performance will raise my spirits. #WinterGames #WinterGamesTBR #USS #UglySweaterSquad

Here‘s my #WinterGames #BucketListBingoCard ! I‘ve already completed some of them, but plenty more to go! #USS #UglySweaterSquad

I‘ve received my #Jolabokaflodswap packages! Sorry, @sblbooks , I opened the package with the chocolate—I didn‘t realize what it was in an Amazon bag. The other package is still sealed!

I like Santa‘s twinkle in this picture! 🎅🎁🎄
#WinterGames #WintergamesDailyPhotoChallenge #Santa #USS #UglySweaterSquad

Horror was my most read genre of 2023 (honestly, it probably is every year). 😁👻👻💀🧛🏻‍♂️🧟‍♀️
#WinterGames #AlltheBooksDec23 #MostReadGenreof2023 #PhotoChallenge #USS #UglySweaterSquad