pickThis book was a slow read. It felt like I was waiting for something to start for most of the book. I do love the lore surrounding Mercy Brown and actually had visited her burial site in RI a few years back. This one is a soft pick me.
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pickThis book was a slow read. It felt like I was waiting for something to start for most of the book. I do love the lore surrounding Mercy Brown and actually had visited her burial site in RI a few years back. This one is a soft pick me.
“Isn't time strange? Time is not linear but a deck of cards that is continuously shuffled.“
“I think time is better represented as a house of cards, an unimaginably large castle of cards, one in which rooms and entire wings collapse and are endlessly rebuilt. Those collapsed rooms and wings hold memories, both personal and collective. That card house is forever haunted by the lost memories and by the ones that are retained but changed.“
“...seems to me more'n'more that the trick to getting by in this world is to hold to your principles, but not so rigidly that you can't move with circumstance.“
pickI was immersed immediately and enjoyed this one. I've seen many reviews that balked at the loosely connected stories, but I found it works here looking at the book as a whole. I recommend reading the author's note: “Novels are never really about what they are about.“ Also, I think Edgar is glad I'm home.
Visited my mom for a few days this week and spent a fair bit of time playing with these guys. Now I'm home and plan to get a lot of reading time in over the next couple of days.
pickI was intrigued by the intro describing Rosalind Belben's books as hard to read but impossible to forget. After reading this one, I'm not sure I agree with ithat statement. I found this book easy to read. Parts are memorable, but I don't feel it'll be a lingering one for me. Belben writes both plainly and with a poetic quality. Overall, it's a slight pick.
Days were yellow in the middle.
Days were mud, paddocks, kelpies, sheep.
Days were helping Jack stir molasses into the feed for the rams.
Days were lemonade scones.
Days were weather.
Time for a reread in preparation for the upcoming adaptation on appletv.
“We went wherever the day took us.“
Best kind of plan sometimes is to have no plans and wander.
April wrap! Another great reading month in the books. Louise Erdrich's The Sentence definitely stood out last month.
pickWrapping up the month with Notes to John. This one is hard to review. It feels a bit intrusive and a bit wrong to say enjoyable. But Didion's writing is always gold and this was definitely an interesting read.
Someone's interested in my book haul on indie bookstore day. There's a couple more books not pictured since Seren was too busy inspecting the goods 😂. I was glad to finally get a copy of Diavola, which I've been wanting to read, was thrilled to grab a copy of book in the Firefly verse, and Catwings was too cute to resist. Plus I think the niblings will love it.
Sunday morning reading, and I'm thoroughly enjoying this book!
Love this section of the book and brings me back the wonder I had upon being introduced to the library as a kid.
“Books everywhere.
So many books, more books than I'd ever seen all in one place. The backs of books, in rows that reached up to the ceiling, books and books and books, at every level, high and low, piles of them, shelf after shelf of them.
Wherever my eye went, books.
Oh! I said.“
Whenever I travel to corporate, a stop at Toadstool Bookshop is a must. Snagged these two books. I love the Murderbot Diaries and want to do a reread soon.
And it's wrap time. March wrap courtesy of StoryGraph.
Unwinding from a travel day with a new book and a fresh veggie sandwich on sourdough. Perfection.
Just a little local library love this evening. 📚☕
so-soI wanted to love this one, but it fell a bit short for me. It's more of a so-so than a pick. But I did enjoy time with my Edgar-cat.
pickEdgar says I am not journaling right now about the best book I've read so far this year. I've read several books (both fiction and nonfiction) by Sarah Moss, and damn, can she write! This was definitely her most vulnerable, and if you choose to read, proceed with caution. It's a hard subject, but she handles in well. She's sharp, intense, and brutally honest even questioning her own unreliability as a narrator of her own story.
“You need a reverse ghost here, a present voice to haunt the past.“
I don't go to many concerts, but I couldn't miss the chance to see Paris Paloma on her US tour this month. And, of course, I had to participate in her book swap, which is part of the tour. I took Naomi Novik's Uprooted and got the tagged book. So now I have a book from the little library of Paris Paloma, which is embossed on the title page. The concert was fantastic too!
Seren and I had a cozy evening with this memoir. Reached about the halfway mark, but now I need to get some sleep!
February wrap
“Life isn‘t supposed to be lived as some kind of example to others; all it is, all it can be, is a crashing together of moments.“
And it's a wrap. At least January turned out to be a solid reading month in spite of the rest of the month's events.
“I wondered if the past rudely visited me, ghostly, uninvited,
or if I walked backwards, uninvited, to haunt it?“
pickListened to Heretic on audio while taking walks over the last week often finding myself at a cafe to scribble in my journal & gather my thoughts as much of this hit very close to home coming from a similar background and subsequently leaving the evangelical church when I was in my early thirties. It's a lot to unpack; even a decade later, I still find myself unpacking more and more. I appreciated hearing someone else's experience and perspective.
pickLit-fic meets sci-fi meets meta-fiction, Okorafor's new novel is my first 5⭐ book of 2025. The story is told from various POVs: Zelu, a complicated woman who refuses to be put into a box (& we're pulled deeply in her innermost workings), interviews from family members portraying how different aspects of Zelu are viewed by them, excerpts from Zelu's novel (Rusted Robots). ⭐Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.⭐
“...Nothing really matches the atmosphere of the old Polaroid film. Except perhaps a poem, a musical phrase, or a forest hung with mist.“
Prepared to say inside as the snow continues to fall all day and then ushers in the subsequent cold this week.
I'm about halfway through this collection and enjoying it. Dark academia stories are a perfect winter read, and Edgar is the perfect reading buddy.
My StoryGraph 2024 wrap-up. It was a solid reading year with lots of fabulous books across many genres. Tagged book was my best of the year. Absolutely LOVE Joy Sullivan's poetry, and I read this volume repeatedly throughout the year and carried it with me for a couple months including across the Atlantic on vacation. Cannot recommend enough ☺️
...“everyday things are rare and exciting when they turn up in unfamiliar places.“
The comfort of little, unexpected things ♥️
pickSeren and I greeted the Winter Solstice lazily this morning. I also finished up Darling Girls, which did not disappoint. The use of both the before/after timeline and the POV of each sister worked very well and added to the story. Compelling and enjoyable read.
pickThis was a fun, quick read on my flights last weekend. And the cover art is gorgeous! #coverlove
pickInteresting voice and subject. Enjoyed reading this one and marked several passages to return to later.
Once again nerding out on StoryGraph's charts. November was a great reading month, and my top 3 are all solid picks. Mallory in Full Color is MG but I'd recommend for any age. Arrangements in Blue was beautifully written. Scorched Earth is collection of moving poetry. Note: this was an ARC; comes out March 2025.)
