ALL THE STARS…even if it sometimes made me uncomfortable (given my mother‘s secret infidelity (TMI?) & my own chronic monogamy & Capricorn tendencies toward extreme loyalty).

So relatable (& also not). Eliot‘s character is startlingly familiar. But am I Cora? We all are, at least in part. Women are constantly navigating their desire & obligation, which are often at odds. And do I know a “charming” “dad” like Sam? 😈

…Yes. But not intimately.👇🏻

What if a Swiss sanitarium could fix me? 😅

My New Year‘s resolution (which I‘m hoping to put into effect before New Year‘s) is to start journaling.

Do any keen journalers have resources they love? I‘m open to whatever — specific notebook brands, pencils (not an inkling), advice about repeated prompts or a general structure that works for you, books about the topic, etc?

Thanks for helping me get excited!

Last night was Tunesday, my favorite local bookstore event featuring a circle of musicians, clogging, and cocktails. I traded in three books and came home with two. And I ate some Portuguese Kale soup while I listened. A delight, as always.

Before I leave my last read behind, I‘d like to use it as an excuse to post another dog photo.

You may not be able to see his teeth in this picture…but check out that tongue! 🥱

This werewolf novel was my first Rachel Harrison. It feels very trendy, like she‘s got her finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist. And I think she & I have the same taste in men. The love interest is tall, wears glasses & band t-shirts, was a nerd in high school, has a vinyl collection, & teaches guitar. BUT…the book isn‘t subtle AT ALL. The metaphors are in your face & I knew who the werewolf that bit Rory was from get-go. Also, “Rory.” A low pick.

“It‘s so itchy underneath. [So,] I scratch…It feels so good. I keep going past the point when I know I should stop…I keep going…until I feel the fur. I look down…There‘s no red, no blood. Only silver. I‘m all oozy silver inside. Silver and fur.”

This is unexpectedly relatable given that it‘s the time of year when my eczema flares up. I wonder if my dermatologist ever considered that I might just be a werewolf? Occam‘s Razor. Simplest explanation.

This walk in the woods today was grounding.

I had an interview on Wednesday that went really well, and I‘ve been deliberating all week about whether I should leave my job. I‘ve ultimately decided against it but it wasn‘t an easy call. How do you say “no” to a job where your would-be employers kick-off the interview by asking you to do a chicken impression? What a silly time we all would‘ve had…

I don‘t think I‘m ready for a new week to begin!

Jess Zimmerman has birthed a beast of a book, about how to reclaim female monster myths, and it is Too Much. Namely, it is Too Fucking Cool. At one point, she admits to her readers, parenthetically, “I want you to think I‘m cool.” Mission fully accomplished! She‘s not cool in a superficial way, either: perfectly imperfect, intentionally curated to be relatable at every turn. Her mistakes are messy and sometimes ugly and she admits those, too.👇🏻

Is anyone else excited to have one whole side of the board done — AND a contender for Best Book in the final showdown slot? 😍

I‘m less enthused that I had to choose between The Usual Desire & Sleep. They‘re both fabulous. I think my decision was probably driven by recency bias...

With November‘s arrival, I‘ve got #AuldLangSpine on the brain. Registration usually goes live around Thanksgiving. As of now, that‘s still the plan! 🍂

Regrettably, I found sections of this “monumentally” boring. Gallot‘s tone is respectful & dedicated but it also feels strangely administrative: infused with professionalism at all times (except for the oddly endearing moment when he admits to being an ornithophobe).

It‘s clear that Gallot, head curator at Pere-Lachaise, has found his true vocation, & I‘m happy for him! But in demystifying the death industry, he‘s made the text *too* mundane.👇🏻

I labored under the delusion that I‘d finish one more book by the time the witching hour struck…but I‘ve come to grips with reality now. While I‘ve got some lingering spooky season reads that I‘ll carry with me into the next month, 12 books is a quite a harvest for me!

And honestly, November is a pretty scary month, too - especially if you‘re a cold, cold baby living in New England. 🥶❄️👶🏼 It‘s not *inappropriate* to be reading chilling tales!

Happy Halloween from Angelina Ballerina and Felix “the Cat!” 🐭🩰🐈‍⬛🐶

The social media algorithm delivered this gem (which I missed when it originally aired back in 2009) unto me. It brought me a few minutes of joy, which I‘d love to pass on! 💎

Joseph Gordon-Levitt performs “Make Em Laugh” from Singin‘ in the Rain on SNL. Live! In one take!

I grew up watching this movie with my grandma. Core memories.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCvOLqMvVQD/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet...

Not my favorite Mary Roach but that‘s because I‘m more interested (for better or worse) in topics like the afterlife, wildlife, & outer space than I am in care of the human body while we‘re alive. Wise? No! Yet true.

Still fascinating (though it made me grimace a few times & I‘ve got a pretty strong stomach).

I remain convinced that Mary Roach is THE coolest person. I hope she gets a personal pig so she can live & write for a very long time. 🐷

Nell is an artist, studying time, infinity, and impermanence, using her body and the landscape around her as her materials.

As winter draws near, Nell is approached by the “head” of a group of women inhabiting an old convent on the west side of her Irish island.

“Maman” wants to commission a mixed-media book about their community. The deadline is Samhain.👇🏻

We booked an Airbnb in NH to belatedly (& quietly & cozily) celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We arrived in the cold, and the dark, and the rain to find that our host had double-booked the cottage. They found us a pet-friendly hotel room to stay in overnight and refunded us (after some not so gentle nudging). Drove the 4 hours home this morning.

Definitely not our best weekend! Photo of Jett to add some cuteness to a very not-cute post!

I didn‘t mean to read this. I mean, I did *eventually*…but it was sitting in my stack the other night when I was really tired & I didn‘t think my brain could handle anything else. So, it got bumped up!

I‘ve been reading a lot of romance lately, in an attempt to recover from all the horror I read at the beginning of the month. 🙈 This was one of the better ones! Tender & sexy, with incredibly moving side relationships (father-son, & two sisters).

I read this quickly, mostly because I was mad at myself for not abandoning it early when I had an inkling that I should. But I kept thinking. “How could I *not* grow to love the story given the premise?” After heartache, Evie, the 30-something American MC, absconds to Northumberland (coastal plains, moors, & castles) to run a bookstore as part of a holiday let. She meets a local farmer — and his dog.

But guess what? Writing matters, buddies!👇🏻

There was a small chunk of this (the part featuring cult leader Jane) where I was a lot less scared than I should have been.

Grateful for King of the Hill, always.

Mamas, hold your coven close. 🖤

True horror. Death, blood, vomit, dirt, bugs…and no happy endings. But that doesn‘t mean the ending wasn‘t satisfying.

Still, I‘d take less blood, vomit, dirt, and bugs, please! 😅 As it turns out, true horror‘s not really my thing. But I kind of knew that. I‘m more of a camp/comedy-horror kinda gal. Still, it‘s good to try something new every once in a while!

A fast read. Low pick.

Oh! It‘s time for #TuesdayTunes.

I‘ve been fighting a cold, so I haven‘t felt like listening to anything too energetic or frenetic. Mellow vibes only. Ella Grace brings them. She lists “Sexuality, Identity, Spirituality and Mental Health” as the pillars of her album. I‘m into it.

Vibes here:
https://spotify.link/L28rDDGWEXb

Adorable juv graphic novel about an anxious little garlic bulb who‘s brought to life to help her witch mother in the garden. When a vampire comes to town, the other animate veggies elect her as their defender.

Includes lessons about judging a book by its cover, finding your own path, being brave, & how to be a good (& a bad) friend — & a good (& a bad) parent. Delightful produce puns made me laugh aloud. I‘d willingly read the next in the series!

Tomorrow is the October meeting of my children‘s fantasy book club at the library. As an icebreaker, I like to start with a themed personality quiz and then we all share our results.

I‘m particularly fond of the quiz I found to match the tagged book this month. If you‘re happy to waste a few silly moments, you can take it, too! It‘s…unique. 😅

https://sophie006liu.github.io/vegetal/

#SundayFunday

It feels like I‘ve been trying to get people to read this slow, quiet, rural ghost story with a strong setting for aeons! It floated under the radar when it was published in 2015, which I think is a travesty. I‘ve been chasing this book‘s vibes for years.

“Thinness isn‘t considered beautiful because it‘s objectively good, but because it signals abstemiousness and fragility and a dedication to staying small. The kind of men who have been in a position to influence the culture like these things.”

*Pictured: Me, this morning, as I inhaled maple cookies for breakfast. Abstemiousness is not my strong suit.

A risky move for me, a mood reader, to try to choose 10 books I‘ll definitely read by the end of the year. As Beth Orton would say (in the spirit of number 9 on my list), “can‘t pin this butterfly down.” Yet, here we are!

1. All Fours
2. The Rachel Incident
3. Wild Dark Shore
4. Rapture
5. Mina‘s Matchbox
6. Small Things Like These
7. Normal Rules Don‘t Apply: Stories
8. Lost Evangeline
9. We Oughta Know OR Pretend We‘re Dead
10. On Mysticism

Although this literary family dramedy (with ducks! & llamas!) took a melancholy turn, it‘s VERY funny.

A daughter/stage actress visits her British parents in the French countryside. They are the quintessential old married couple, bickering in a delightfully wordy (though exasperating) way. He‘s a retired philosophy professor. She‘s Mum & has been for 50 years but was once a vivacious student eager to eat up the world.

A favorite novel this year!

Background info: I do my best to not be terminally “online.” And despite my generational placement (elder Millennial), I‘m actually not *that* tech-savvy.

SO. I created a Reddit account largely because threads kept cropping up with answers to questions I‘d googled. I don‘t use it socially.

ANYWAY, apparently a random username was assigned to me? Leather-Payment?! 😅🙈🙈🙈

Had a quick existential online identity crisis but I think I‘ve fixed it!

I…was not expecting that ending. And then I remembered that Bertino totally blindsided me with the ending of the only other book I‘ve ever read by her (2AM at the Cat‘s Pajamas, about a decade ago). So, that‘s on me! Fool me twice. I write that with trepidation not gleeful surprise. I was upset the last time she did it and I think I‘m upset this time, too. I THINK. 👇🏻

A photo of my shadow, who is her shadow‘s twin, for @Hooked_on_books 🖤🐶🤍. He was annoyed that I called his name when he is so clearly TRYING TO SLEEP.

Currently reading Beautyland (tagged). It‘s SUCH a fast read. I‘m tumbling through it at warp speed.

#SundayFunday‘s question is about our favorite fictional witch.

My answer is, unapologetically, not literary. But I‘ll always snag an opportunity to stan Willow. 🔮 I even have a tattoo dedicated to her on my inner thigh! It‘s a cauldron with criss-crossed pussy willow branches directly beneath. It doesn‘t explicitly scream Buffy but it‘s a tender nod (in a tender spot).

I needed a palate cleanser after an upsetting read & this was exactly what I was hoping it would be…only sexier. Hell yeah! 🌶️ I have the same kind of aching wanderlust as the MC & the same sort of residual romantic trauma that I‘m sure so many of us do after being unceremoniously dumped by first loves. This second-chance romance was pure catharsis in an Amsterdam setting. Some of the conflict & resolution felt unrealistic but so it goes.

I knew this was a horror novel. I was roped in by the utter strangeness of the description (woman gives birth to an owl-baby), the combination of mythology and natural science, and its categorization as magical realism. What I didn‘t realize was how much abject pain the book would be infused with.

At its heart, this is a story about what it means to be a mother when you are ill…👇🏻

#TuesdayTunes

I played this song for my husband. He shrugged and said, “Oh, yeah. The toy piano was huge circa 2004.”

But I can‘t dismiss “The Opposite of Hallelujah” so easily! It‘s been stuck in my head for days. I love it, honestly.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2wqRinazaIlYAcoYT65TlG?si=JomZ18xFTAOzMzdDDCBibg

I went into this collection with a deep love for one of Babbitt‘s essays, “Happy Endings? Of Course, and Also Joy.” I came out of this collection with a deep love for one of Babbitt‘s essays, “Happy Endings? Of Course, and Also Joy.” 😅🙈

The rest are fine. A few sparkling sentences and ideas sprinkled throughout. And, a few ideas to which Babbitt dedicates too much time. 👇🏻

A novel to be studied, and pondered over, and theorized about. I often had no idea what I was reading or where things were headed…but I think that‘s by design. The reader is meant to feel as uncertain and as unmoored as possible — because *that‘s* adolescence. Honestly, that‘s being a person at any age if you get too bogged down inside your own head and fail to connect with others long enough to make things feel real. 👇🏻

“Imagine, always pretending to run a world. Always imitating the sort of people they think they might be if the world were the sort of world it isn‘t. Pretending to be words like “normal” and “wholesome” and “honest” and “decent” and “self-respecting” and all the rest, when even the words aren‘t real. Imagine, being people.”

“Why [Natalie] thought almost hysterically, why don‘t I just *scream?* and knew with humor that she did not know how; screaming was in itself an act perfected by few, a sort of coloratura not given to the many; screaming was not something the Natalies might do unprepared.”

“I think a work of fiction, for children especially, needs to present life as it really is: a mixture of joy and sorrow, of the solvable and unsolvable, of the simple and the complicated. I hope my grandchild will be a reader and that he will learn something about the contradictions of life from books before he is thrust out to learn the same thing firsthand.”

It was too difficult to choose between Sleep & Night Swimmers. And I had to do it because there was no way I was about to knock off Hilary Mantel‘s book (which I still think is going to win) to add one of them to the Wild Card space.

Fortunately, I‘d already filled September in as soon as I finished Sleep (long before I picked up Night Swimmers). So, the decision was made for me by Past Me. 😅

#ReadingBracket2025
#2025ReadingBracket

In September, I read a lot of ecru-colored books with waves on the cover. It‘s a vibe.

My favorites this month were Night Swimmers and Sleep (and Tuck, of course, but that‘s old news). I continued my HMRC (Her Majesty‘s Royal Coven) obsession and saw it through to the bitter (or sweet? No spoilers here!) end.

#AWreads2025
#personalreadingtracker

I caved & bought a book. Mother Horror‘s a big proponent of using every free resource available to you. The problem is, I‘m not an e-book gal. And I couldn‘t find a physical copy of this novella anywhere! I wasn‘t about to miss out on a tale centered on the restoration of a 13th c. stained glass church window…and the divine (?) being that‘s unintentionally summoned in the process.

I bought Halloween slippers while I was at it. Go big or go home!

Basically, a big book o‘ horror recs wherein every single text‘s been written by a woman (preferred pronouns listed whenever possible).

I‘m not officially reviewing the book for a few reasons:

1) I didn‘t read the intermittent essays.

2) I read *nearly* every thematic list…but I skipped one. I already know — beyond a shadow of a doubt — that “splattercore” is not for me. NO THANK YOU! 👇🏻

One of my teacher friends chose this for our IRL Book Club. An easy, quick-clip of a book with a full cast of characters and lots of heart. I don‘t think it‘ll inspire any *revelatory* discussions but I‘m sure my group will have plenty to say.

A dedicated sub & retired teacher dies on the couch in the faculty room during his break period. The staff reflects on his passing in earnest ways, with sentimentality and a dash of humor. 👇🏻

Spotify made a new wacky genre playlist for me called “Bubblegrunge” (think: The Pixies).

I discovered an artist (Jens Lekman) who‘s like the Magnetic Fields but Swedish. Turns out, he co-wrote a book with David Levithan based on his album (?!). It‘s tagged!

Here‘s the song that made me want to know more.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4USztpjKZRDx6XQmxWZkDN?si=1AlZe87FTtWnCC1Q_vIXfA

*Note: the way he sings “avocado” gets me every time. 😅🥑

I can't stop adding spooky books to my TBR. Send help!

Also, how excellent is this hat?!

I just finished a book I loved & was afraid to pick up another novel for fear it would suffer in comparison. So, I grabbed this reader's advisory collection by litfluencer Mother Horror instead, full of book rec lists sorted by “vibes“ (e.g. “Don't Go in the Woods“, “Women vs The Cult“, “Gothic Secret Societies“). Exactly what I needed as October approaches.

Overlong? Maybe. Timey-wimey? Definitely. Questionable ending for a couple of the characters? Yeah… about that. 🏝️🍹🧌 Still incredible? Also yes!

Juno Dawson! What a talent! It‘s been a while since I‘ve gotten so invested in a new series.

I fell in love with this cast of characters. Kissing them goodbye felt like a bit like being stabbed — right in the chest. 💔

Pictures from my last beach trip, for @ImperfectCJ .

It could very well be my final trip of the season — or, at least, the last one where I can go barefoot for a while. I didn‘t stick around for the sunset but I had plenty of peace and beauty without it. I‘m trying to save these moments up to get me through the dark winter.

A man grieving the death of his infant daughter & the dissolution of his marriage rents a seaside cottage in Northern Ireland — just for a week, to give his wife some space until she can stand to look at him again. Then, COVID hits. A week becomes much longer. He goes nowhere, which turns out to be exactly what he needs.

Eventually, his 8 year-old son joins him. And nowhere is exactly what Luca — deaf, misunderstood, & lonely — needs, too.👇🏻