Did you love “Educated”?

How do *you* respond to people who say, “I don‘t know if I believe it” (& therefore, I don‘t love it)?

A book about female friendship, recommended by Jesmyn Ward, & compared to “The Interestings” by Meg Wolitzer?

God(dess), yes. I‘m SO in.

My professor asked us all to create blogs, where we‘ll post our homework & assignments. (Happy to share mine if folks are interested; I‘m proud of my design theme but there‘s not much on it yet). Our first assignment is to write about a favorite picture book. I haven‘t written the entry yet but I decided to go with “Knuffle Bunny.” This meant that I wandered into a laundromat & weirdly did a quick photo shoot even though I had no laundry to do. 😅

This Summer, I started my MLIS (Master‘s in Library & Information Studies) degree. I‘m going at a snail‘s pace (one course at a time). My second course, “Children‘s Services & Materials”, started on Monday. I‘m psyched because it‘s the area in which I‘ve been working for the past 10 years & where I want to continue to focus my energy.

I‘ve gotta admit something, though: I totally deny myself these first 4 rights on the reg. 🙈😅

💕

re “light (wherever it can be found)”: I was just chatting with a young patron about reading in the car. I was reminiscing about it getting dark & trying to read by the streetlights. I‘d wait until we drove past one & cram in a sentence before we zoomed too fast away from its glow. At the next light, one more sentence. I assumed kids now wouldn‘t have this problem (technology, book lights, iPhone flashlights) but she knew the struggle EXACTLY!

Finished “Roomies” at one in the morning after starting it this afternoon, which should tell you everything you need to know.

Super-sexy & feminist, with a relatable, passionate, creative, yet lost protagonist who needs to convince herself of her own worth. Also starring an uber-hot Irish musician with messy brown hair & green eyes. Swoon. 💚

I wish it passed the Bechdel Test, but it‘s truthful in showing how a female friendship can break-down.

“Are all female sex toys bright pink?...You‘d think the colors would be more masculine...”

“I think the flesh-colored ones have a weird sense of sadness to them...like a penis separated from its host...Maybe it‘s because women want pleasure for themselves...and not to feel like they‘re owing it to a dude, even when it‘s a toy.”

“That‘s astute.”

“You‘re pointing out how astute I am for understanding my own sexuality?”

“I knew I‘d like you.”

One of my favorite candles right now hangs out tub-side: Magnolia & Moss. Another of my favorites, I bought as a joke (because the name was too absurd to pass up) but I ended up loving it: Rugged Patchouli.

Thinking of taking my book into a pool of bubbles later...

#basicwitchswap

I‘ve been brainstorming places to hangout & relax & not go stir-crazy once Winter hits. Yesterday, my husband surprised me with a dual membership to the Botanical Garden by our home. I think this is going to work out just fine. 👌🏻

I stumbled upon this article while reading about color & I‘m OBSESSED. I always cite my favorite color as “green”, or, if I‘m feeling specific, “green/blue/gray.” I now know that this shade is called “glaucous.” Please dismiss the connection with glaucoma. Instead, skip straight to the parts about the ocean, Romantic poets, & “Janus Words” or contronyms. 😍

https://www.theawl.com/2017/12/glaucous-the-greeny-blue-of-epic-poetry-and-succu...

Thanks for posting this list of spooky books, @BekahB 😱! I‘ve added a bunch of titles to my TBR: most notably, “Petra‘s Ghost”. 👻 (Click on the article or see comments below for a way better synopsis than the one provided by Litsy.)

https://www.bustle.com/p/20-new-horror-books-for-readers-who-take-spooky-season-...

Kevin Sherry wrote fan mail for me & one of the kiddos at my library! 🙀

Kaylee is a *super* anxious kid who comes from a big family with a lot of LOUD brothers (& one baby sister who looks like an angelic fairy-child); she often gets overlooked & ignored. She told me she either wants to be an author (of mysteries) or a songwriter when she grows up.

I think this is going to be so special for her! Authors are the very best people. 💕

Update: I am still listening to this book. I may always be listening to this book. It will never end. I should have abandoned it but now I‘m too far gone to give in.

Today, the very stodgy British narrator said, “There‘s sucking & excreting going on everywhere“ (re: ants slurping sugar straight out of aphids‘ assholes). I guess that was a moment. 🤷‍♀️🙈

Pictured: me, circa 1993, in the wild woods of New Hampshire.

I forgot to mention something very, VERY important in my #basicwitchswap survey: I‘m a cookie *fiend.* 😍

Here are some of my favorites (anyone else a fan of the criminally underrated hermit cookie?)! 🤤

Congratulations on 100,000, @GrilledCheeseSamurai 🎉!

Choosing one favorite read of 2019, as per the rules of your #SixDigitSamurai #giveaway, is ridiculously hard! I‘ve read a handful of books this year that could easily make it on to a list of my favorite books of all time (not just this year). 😵 Edging slightly ahead of the pack is the tagged book. It‘s my favorite kind of ghost story: subtle, heartbreaking, & gorgeously-written.

Lev Grossman just set his profile picture to this stick figure drawing & I am DYING. 😂😂😂 It‘s ridiculous how much it looks like him! I just...I can‘t.

Also, this book‘s Litsy rating is a TRAVESTY.

1. Picture book: The Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein; Chapter: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
2. Are you sure you want to ask someone who just said her favorite Children‘s book was Bridge to Terabithia? 🙈😭 Anything by AJ Jacobs (esp the tagged) or Mary Roach SLAYS me!
3. Not my fav genre. I like the Veronica Speedwell mysteries (set in the Victorian era).
4. It‘s impossible to choose between eggs benedict & pancakes!
5. 🙌🏻

Thank you so much for everything, @AmberWB ☀️! I‘m excited that you chose “Roomies” off of my TBR! I use the Library for so much of my reading but I have a strict purchasing rule for romance novels. I feel like they just aren‘t the kind of thing you want to borrow. 😆 The middle finger bookmark has been much coveted for a long time, so I can‘t wait to stick it to ‘em (my books, that is)! And these Thin Mint k-cups are coming to work with me TODAY!

If Ma thinks she‘s getting these, she‘s crazy...
#highfivetosummerswap #hftss

@AmberWB

Moxie is particularly interested in the rainbow-colored pens! 🌈 They‘re really going to help her writing career take off! Or, you know...they‘ll help me stay organized with my MLIS (library studies) course this semester. One or the other. We can fight about it later. 😜
#highfivetosummerswap #hftss

@AmberWB

Happy #HighFiveToSummerSwap Day, all!

@AmberWB Moxie & I had so much fun opening your package bright & early this morning! 🐇

#hftss

Every criticism you could make of Mona Awad‘s work, she‘s already mockingly made herself. It‘s “angry...scary-angry” & “obsessed with its own outsiderness.” Her heroine is “passive” & “things just happen to her.” I‘m not sure if this acknowledgment renders the aforementioned criticism invalid, but I kind-of lean towards thinking it does. Either way, her novel is incredibly self-aware, incredibly fucked up, & incredibly captivating, ultimately.👇🏻

It‘s clear to me how vital the library is as a space & service-provider to the underprivileged. This article explains how it should be essential to us all. 💕

And it might just make me less grumpy on a working snow day. 😉 Maybe some of the patrons are taking in the beauty, imagining what it might be like to live in mansion-home with a view. I can dig. ❄️

https://m.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/a-love-letter-to-the-library/Content?oi...

💀😅

1. Pine/fir/juniper (woodsy). Lavender/gardenia/tuberose/basil/sage (floral & herbaceous)
2. Reese‘s pumpkins! 🎃 Kit Kats. Also, I love when something unexpected is mixed with chocolate: pretzels, sea salt, cayenne, flower petals, etc. Milk over dark. Local treats are always welcome!
3. I love ghosts (even if I‘m a skeptic). 👻
4. The magic & possibility in the air. ✨& homemade costumes! I love the creativity the season inspires.
#basicwitchswap

I decided that if I went to the beach late, I might be able to avoid the crowds. I decided right. 👌🏻

My husband‘s at work & he kind-of hates the beach, anyway. I didn‘t call any friends. I‘m really enjoying this time to myself, tbh. I think it‘s emphasized by the fact that the last time we laid on this blanket together, he got sand ALL. OVER. IT. It took everything in me not to complain. Loudly. 😅 Ahhh, sweet, clean-blanketed solitude.

I thought about using all of the characters allotted to me to write “wowowow” as many times as I could but that wouldn‘t do the eloquence of this experimental novel justice.

If I still worked at a bookstore, I‘d put a recommendation for this tale about youth, rebellion, obedience, otherness, class, drug abuse, war, old age, motherhood, trauma, boyhood, manhood, queerness, language, bodies, & remembrance face-out in the poetry section. 👇🏻

“I think of the time Trev and I sat on the toolshed roof, watching the sun sink. I wasn‘t so much surprised by its effect — how, in a few crushed minutes, it changes the way things are seen, including ourselves — but that it was ever mine to see.”

Image credit: lucadgr on Instagram

“The room is silent as a photograph...Her skin had stopped trying, the eyes fallen into her skull, as if peering from inside the brain itself...The only indication that she‘s alive is her favorite yellow blanket, now gray, rising and falling on her chest.”

This description of the passing of Little Dog‘s grandmother made me pause (& cry). My grandmother also had a yellow blanket.👇🏻

“A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.”

“One good thing about national anthems is that we‘re already on our feet, and therefore ready to run.”

Image credit: apoliticalstatement on Instagram

“What if I‘m running outside because the moon tonight is children‘s-book huge and *ridiculous* over the line of pines, the sight of it a strange sphere of medicine?”

“‘I‘m broken in two,‘ the message said. In two, it was the only thought I could keep, sitting in my seat, how losing a person could make more of us, the living, make us two... *Into* — yes, that‘s more like it. As in, *Now I‘m broken into.*”

If you‘re looking for a fun (but not mindless) series to delve into, this should be it!

It‘s speculative/historical fiction about a group of eccentric academics (is there any other kind?) who travel through time to discover the “truth” of history. The books — & Madeleine Maxwell, their protagonist — are funny, smart, sexy, & profane. In the first book, we visit the Cretaceous Period.🦖 (I wish Roanoke was in my future, but they‘re SUPER British.)

Do you have a favorite Little Free Library?

It seems weird to say that this entry might top the one located inside of a tree trunk (https://littlefreelibrary.org/librarian-transforms-110-year-old-tree-into-jaw-dr...) but...it might. Okay, okay. They‘re tied. 🙈

Image credit: @arslinker on Instagram

I accepted a job offer yesterday at one of the Best Small Libraries in America.

I had to give up some things (I‘ll make slightly less & I won‘t be working with kids as much)...but it‘s a beautiful environment & everyone I‘ve met so far seems just as beautiful. I think I‘ll be happy there & they seem really happy to have me. 💖

Thank you, Litsy, for your positivity & good vibes, as I crossed my fingers & waited! ✨

Trees are basically my religion (see: pretty much all of my posts about “Dandelion Wine”). That being said... I‘m seriously thinking about bailing on this book. It has great reviews but it‘s just not doing it for me. It‘s like a lulling nature documentary only without all of the gorgeous visuals.

Anyone else? Bueller?

#basicwitchswap
Never actually felt like such a Capricorn in my entire life. 😂

1. Coffee - esp. a light/medium blend, ground, non-flavored (but I'll drink anything)! We have a grinder which we can use to pulverize whole beans, if need be.*
2. Fiction
3. Light magic; gray fiction
4. Bunnies!
5. Tarot**
6. Story & practice
7. Plants (though I'm an unintentional plant murderer).
8. North? I'm choosing this based solely on Joni Mitchell‘s lyrics from the song (“Case of You“) on the Practical Magic soundtrack. 😅
#basicwitchswap

My life is crazy right now. SUPER significant job upheaval. Cross your fingers that it all turns out the way I‘m hoping. 💀🤞🏻🤞🏻 Despite the chaos, I got my #HighFivetoSummerSwap package sent out this afternoon! It should arrive at its destination on Thursday, 8/29.

#HFTSS

“Give me a church/
made entirely of salt.
Let the walls hiss/
and smoke when/
I return to shore.
I ask for the grace/
of a new freckle/
on my cheek, the lift/
of blue and my mother‘s/
soapy skin to greet me.”

— from “Sea Church” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

*(in case you were curious, this is my spirituality in a nutshell [a clamshell?])

Drunkly reading poetry inside-out & upside-down in this wonderful houseboat cabin in the woods.

Last mini-vaca before grad school kicks back into gear, & the elementary school kids start pouring back into the library. 💛

Not pictured: goose poop. I actually kinda hate lakes, you guys. 🙈

“I put the kettle on and let the sound of boiling water change my mind.”

Art by: Mark Chalmé

“The fluorescent hums steadily above them, as if the scene is a dream the light is having.”

Finally found a book I felt like reading! Phew!

On break, my day is briefly gorgeous. 🌤🍓

I don‘t need another tote but...HECK YES, I DO! Who am I kidding?!

https://outofprint.com/collections/read-like-a-girl/products/read-like-a-girl-to...

It would appear that I was fated to read about crawdads one way or another... 😉🦐

Climbing into bed early, trying to decide between these two very different books. Each will afford me unique opportunities in my upcoming interview.

On the one hand, reading “Where the Crawdads Sing” will show that I can engage with my patron base about the latest, hot reads. On the other, “Me & Mr. Cigar” will allow me to utter the phrase “Butthole Surfers” in an interview (the author was the band‘s frontman). Sooo...YEAH. Tough call. 😅

HELP!

I've been AWFUL at gauging what I want to read lately. So, I figured I'd issue a Reader's Advisory Challenge & see if anyone feels like playing! For guidance, I'll list the genres I typically like & some titles I've enjoyed recently in the comments; otherwise, go nuts! Try to limit yourself to ONE stand-out book suggestion (but I'm open to a Top 3 if restricting yourself is far too difficult). ;)

Excited to see what you all come up with!