And we're back! I suspect Penny saw all the “the monks are so boring, I want Twin Pines!“ comments and decided to give the people what they want. 😂 This is an action movie of a book, with tremendously high stakes, both personal and global. The Twin Pines characters provide a moral center and much needed comic relief. I'm not convinced the author wasn't messing with us, but it was a great pageturner and tearjerker of a read, so I don't care. 😂

“So you're being divorced,“ said my father. “Isn't that rather unnecessary after you've been happy together all these years?“

“We weren't particularly happy, you know.“

“Weren't you? Were you not? I distinctly remember last Christmas seeing you together and thinking how happy you looked, and wondering why.“

A thoughtful YA romance in which guarded Barrett and shy Miles get stuck in a time loop on their first day of college, giving them not only a chance to fall in love, but also to begin processing some very difficult life events.

(It's not a rewrite of “Palm Springs“ but the inspiration is pretty obvious. Also a very fun movie, I just rewatched it.)

I'm wondering if I should read the second book? I enjoyed the characters and the prose, but the genre isn't really my cup of tea. Does anything more happen to Alex in terms of character development or plot or is it just more creepy stuff?

I was just so bored by this one! 😳 I needed the Three Pines characters. Did read the last couple chapters so I'd know what's going on heading into the next book.

#SeriesLove2025

For crying out loud Vonnegut, stop meandering on about yourself and write a damn story!

#AuthorAMonth

A Gothic romance set in Old New York, featuring the most adorable love of an absent-minded-scientist hero.

#HauntedShelf Lets Go Points #ScreamTeam @Puddlejumper

Do you dare face your #HauntedShelf?! It's not too late to sign up!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfs7yHyeyWN9K9pSE-dbPvoNTyyJ9RJVSoKDzbd...

I've been reading all of these collections while I have free KU; this is the first, and though the drawing technique isn't as polished as in the later comics, my favorite. I think it's because while they're all pretty much the same -- cute, relatable vignettes about coupledom -- this is the one in which Chetwynd really lets her freak flag fly. 😂

Anyone have a bingo square for most bizarrely gratuitous homophobia?

Mark Twain, not long before he died a bitter old man, was writing a book much like John Latham's.... Like Latham, he chose to laugh in agony rather than sob in agony about how irresistible forces, whether physical or economic or biological or political or social or military or historical or technological can at any time smash our hopes for moderately happy and healthy lives for ourselves and our loved ones to smithereens.

We like to pretend that so many important discoveries have been made on a certain day, unexpectedly, by one person rather than by a system seeking such knowledge, I think, because we hope that life is like a lottery, where simply anyone can come up with a winning ticket...

Who knows? Tomorrow morning, some absolute nobody, maybe you or I, might fall into an open manhole, and return to street level with a concussion and a cancer cure.

A rather odd collection of previously unpublished stories that will probably be most appreciated by fans. My favorite part of it was an essay about American myths and decline, which is even more painfully relevant than it was in the 90s.

#AuthorAMonth @Soubhiville

This is actually just the start of my impossible aspirational pile! I've been noting #HauntedShelf related books all year. 😂

My mom thought this might amuse me. It does. 😄 Who else thinks Mr. Darcy is in for an interesting time?

#Pemberlittens

Free at Amazon today: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKVZQKK2/?coliid=ISNIPO5T5BE64&colid=1VG92PRS10QV5&p...

#Pemberlittens #JaneAustenThenAndNow

“Are you going out, Sam?“

“Yes, I'm just going to kick some arse, dear.“

“Oh, *good.* Just be sure you wrap up well, then.“

He looked at the face in the mirror. Unfortunately, it was his.

A really interesting look at what we know and don't know about the history of gender nonconformity. With input from historians, this graphic novel presents our current best understanding of different kinds of gender identity throughout the past, as well as sharing voices from the present. The images are based whenever possible on historical records, though the artist also brings some humor. Would make a fantastic high school textbook.

I just noticed that today is Nick's birthday! Celebrate adorably. 😂

Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He'd been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a postgraduate student at the University of What Some Bloke in the Pub Told Me.

Ooops, forgot to check in yesterday.

I had quite a busy weekend -- anniversary party! but read and enjoyed two of my books and bailed on one. Also read a romance and listened to some of Misdirected, an Audible original.

Who needs drugs?

I'm using the two list method this month, for extra flexibility and also to hopefully keep my board tidier. 😁 Last month's was a mess of extra books in the margins.

Four bingos!

Read six books from my #BookSpin list and got two bingos.

#MonthlyNonfiction2025: The Mythmakers The Mad Files, One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman, and Puzzled.

Let's go!

Our August #QueerBC author was Alice Oseman. Feel free to discuss your reading here.

#SummerEnd Readathon. Want to finish these for my #BookSpinBingo board and #QueerBC.

This odd little book didn't entirely gel for me, but it had so many wonderful pieces that I'll call it a pick. There's a very strong sense of place, turns of phrase that made me it feel like the author was inside my brain, and some wonderful joyfulness.

#BookSpinBingo #TBRTarot (green cover)

@TheAromaOfBooks @Cbee

She leads him through the moves whose Spanish terms translate roughly into misogynistic commands: Give me the girl! Tell her no! Ben immediately takes to the simple “Coca Cola,“ where he releases Rue for a beat before winding her back. “Date her cousin!“ the instructor barks as they flop across the floor. “Plug her in!“

Ah, city memories.

September #BookSpin @TheAromaOfBooks

I enjoyed this more than any since the first book. The romance is really heating up and there is *drama*! And the solutions of the mysteries are cleverly deduced.

I'm hoping the next book will have a HEA because I'm not sure my heart can take much more!

#SeriesLove @TheSpineView @Andrew65

A very poignant image.

#BookSpinBingo

Fanny and Edmund are very happy that Sir Thomas is planning to sell his Antigua plantation, so the family will no longer bear the sin of being involved in the slave trade.

#Pemberlittens #JaneAustenThenAndNow

Jonathan sighed. He knew the rules of ettiquete as well as any (and better than most), but he could not see the sense of any rule that made it impolite to keep to one's own house and read one's own books.

Finally got to this, which has been on my #BookSpin list forever. It was... sort of worth it? I described it as a really good writer's worst book.

More on my blog: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/08/22/tbr-challenge-that-scandalous-summer-b...

It hit me today that even after my sister-in-law is okay to be left alone, it'll still be another two days after that before my husband gets home. 😭

I enjoyed Blume as a child but at some point started feeling very put off by her books. This was no exception. Way too many inner monologues by very skeezy people.

#AuthorAMonth @Soubhiville

So many interesting books this week, it was hard to choose. Hetty Dorval was a close contender.

A coming of age story in which young Frankie's life in beautiful British Columbia, and later in Europe, is disrupted several times by the fascinating, enigmatic -- evil? -- Hetty Dorval. I've read books with similar themes before but I'm not sure I've ever read one in which the narrator comes so satisfactorily into their own by the end; no matter who Hetty really is, Frankie will be the person she needs to be.

#PersephoneClub

Fat dancers make me happy.

I still had reason to be proud, to know that my family came from here, that we had history. That above all else, I was of and from this New Hampshire land. I'm trying to say what it felt like then... To have my town look at my daughter and say, *No, we will not make it a safe space for her here.* To have it say, *No, she does not belong, she is not what we believe a child should be.* I'm trying to describe the depths to which that broke my heart.

My family taught me to think of God and be very afraid. The MAD Jews taught me to look heavenward and ask the ancient, resonant question us misfits and outcasts have posed since time immemorial: What, me worry?

If like me, you grew up feeling you intimately knew movies you'd never seen, you might also enjoy these writings on MAD by authors & cartoonists. (Roz Chast & Art Spiegelman contribute short comics.) I was especially intrigued by pieces on the few women contributors and the Jewish influences on MAD, including a Talmud comparison! It needed pruning because there's a *lot* of repeated info, but overall a fun, nostalgic read.

#MonthlyNonfiction2025

A heartbreaking, harrowing memoir that often had me in tears. Abi Maxwell loves all the family history in her New Hampshire town, until she discovers that her “nice“ neighbors have no compunctions about denying the rights and needs of her transgender/autistic child.

The book piles on dramatic emphasis a bit too much, but the text never fails to respect the author's daughters identity, which I admire tremendously.

CW in comments.