Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

I apologize for my delay. I worked outside for four hours today! I'm exhausted!! LOL

Life is almost overwhelmingly busy for me right now. Last week I was convinced the August Monthly Group Read FINAL SELECTION poll had finished and my draft reflected that…then Nadine contacted me regarding the FINAL SELECTION poll, and then I created it. *sigh*

Still working outside for us and neighbors. Our roof sprung a leak, so we’re in the process of getting work scheduled for that…and when I say “we” I really me “ME”! If I don’t do something it doesn’t get done. NO PRESSURE!! LOL 😯😁

Anyway, I am trying to fit in some reading time because I am getting stressed out by all this adulting! 😊

ADMIN STUFF:
THE AUGUST MONTHLY GROUP FINAL SELECTION POLL IS LIVE!
This book could be used to fulfill Prompt #28 A book with an unlikely friendship!
World UFO Day is July 2, 2025!!
https://www.calendarr.com/united-stat...
(My first thought was of the movie ET! "Phone home") 😃
There are four books from which to select:
James by Percival Everett
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

VOTE HERE! The poll will run through Tuesday, June 17!

THE JULY MONTHLY GROUP READ IS Sunrise on the Reaping (Hunger Games #0.5) by Suzanne Collins!
This book could be used to fulfill prompt #5 A book with a snake on the cover or in the title
World Snake Day is July 16, 2025 (I had no idea there was one of these!!)
I’m hopeful that a “sibilant superstar” will volunteer to lead this discussion! Please message either Nadine or myself to volunteer!! (I do not plan to read this one!)

THE JUNE MONTHLY GROUP READ IS West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge!
This book could be used to fulfill prompt #12 A book about a road trip. Take a Road Trip Day is June 20, 2025!
West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
Who is the "tricky traveler" willing to facilitate this discussion? Please message either Nadine or myself to volunteer!
I adore this book! And such an unknown bit of history. Unbelievable what was attempted… I plan to post some questions this weekend.

THE LISTING OF 2025 MONTHLY GROUP READ TOPICS IS HERE!
***

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
Do you like having a more intellectual/educated interpretation of a book during discussion?
I ask because at our IRL book club meeting this Tuesday, one person who has completed an MFA offered an interpretation that the whole book was an allegory, which made total sense to me. But she was basically apologetic for offering a ‘more advanced’ interpretation. Personally, I am always grateful for such information since it typically encourages me to expand my own thought processes beyond just my own reaction to the book. (And IMO that is what a book discussion is all about!) It got me wondering how other readers might feel about that…

FROM LAST WEEK:
Did your parents read to you as a child? If not, how did you discover a love for reading?
I don't remember my mother or grandmother particularly reading TO me, but I remember simply READING!! I imagine my mother did read to me...

2025 READING CHALLENGES:
Popsugar: 39/50
Around the Year (AtY): 51/52
AtY 2025 Anniversary List: 10/10 FINISHED
Read Harder: 16/24
52 Book Club: 44/52

2024 Popsugar: 47/50

FINISHED:
*The Restoration of Celia Fairchild by Marie Bostwick ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for an IRL book club meeting. This book covered so much ground and yet was quite easily followed and understood. It presented pertinent topics for discussion which kept us talking for over an hour! Although some of us surmised some of the ‘twists’ ahead of time, all of us were surprised by some of them! Just a great read. As one member stated, a ‘palate cleanser’ of sorts between some other darker more emotionally intense reads! Though it is not ‘Pollyanna-ish’ IMO, it is a ‘feel-good’ story!
POPSUGAR: #6, #20, #23, #24, #42, #43
ATY: #2, #3, #5, #13, #15, #16, #23, #26, #33, #36, #37, #40, #41, #45, #48
RHC: #24
52 Book Club: #2, #7, #21, #22, #33

*The Tale of Hawthorn House (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter #4) by Susan Wittig Albert ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ was another excellent installment in this most enjoyable series! There were some gems:
For their part, the children viewed Deirdre as something akin to an older sister, which didn’t mean that they always did what she told them, just that they always felt very sorry afterward, and promised to do better.
That made me laugh!
POPSUGAR: #6, #20, #24, #40
ATY: #2, #5, #7, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #19. #20, #36, #36, #37, #40, #41, #45, #48
RHC: #11, #16, #24
52 Book Club: #2, #5, #7, #10, #18, #22, #25, #28/#29, #43, #51-322 pages

*The Tale of Briar Bank (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter #5) by Susan Wittig Albert ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ was yet another very enjoyable addition to this series. I particularly appreciated Albert’s emphasis on the social expectations of the time that no woman could truly be “happy” unless she was married to a man… One of Beatrix’s closest friends in the Land Between the Lakes is now very happily married after standing up to her brother for her own right to decide whom she should and would marry, which she was only able to do after speaking with Beatrix. Albert is a master at creating plots where “Miss Potter” is amazingly at the very center of virtually everything that occurs in the village! And there’s even a dragon in this installment!
POPSUGAR: #6, #20, #24, #40
ATY: #1, #2, #5, #7, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #23, #27, #32, #36, #37, #40, #41, #45, #46, #47, #48
RHC: #4, #16, #24
52 Book Club: #5, #9, #10, #16, #18, #23, #25, #29, #38, #39, #42, #43, #51

CONTINUING:
*The Tale of Applebeck Orchard (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter #6) by Susan Wittig Albert
*The Guncle (The Guncle #1) by Steven Rowley
*The Double Life of Benson Yu by Kevin Chong for an IRL book club meeting
*The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
*Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power by RebeccaSolnit

PLANNED:
*Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict
*The Invisible Husband of Frick Island by Colleen Oakley
*The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
*The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict

L Y N N wrote: "I ask because at our IRL book club meeting this Tuesday, one person who has completed an MFA offered an interpretation that the whole book was an allegory, which made total sense to me. ..."



But which book was the allegory, and what was it??? Don't leave us hanging!!

Happy Thursday, all!

Finally recovered from my trip to Italy, just in time to tackle the madness that is our Summer Reading Program at the library. Life is never dull...

Books read this week:

Mother Nature -- graphic novel based on a movie script by Jamie Lee Curtis. I wanted to like this so badly… but boy, the art really dragged it down. And the story, while it had great themes about climate destruction and family, was a bit of a hot mess.

The Orchid Thief -- not as good as The Library Book by the same author, but still weirdly fascinating. I learned far more about orchids than I ever wanted to know…

Shady Hollow -- Beatrix Potter meets Agatha Christie! A murder mystery involving talking animals may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this was fun.

Currently reading:

The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One
Rabbits
Bury Your Gays
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Three Books to Chill Your Bones: All 3 Scary Stories Books with the Original Art!―The Ultimate Horror Book Set for Kids and Adults
The God Game

QOTW:

Don't really care one way or the other...

sorry about the roof.

I had slotted West by God by Tyler Bell for my magical creature selection based on its blurb but the whole witchum woman thing in it was so brief (and unnecessary) that I'm not counting it. It worked as a suspense book less so as horror. Oh well, I have plenty of fantasy books so I'll search on

Also read (no prompt) The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan which was one of my netgalley arcs and I loved it. We have an ex-military female PI who isn't done for laughs. She was smart, professional and didn't have to do something stupid to get in trouble to give us that hollywood climax of an ending. I appreciated that.

QOTW

Sadly I don't do book discussions. No matter where I've lived the book clubs always read things I wouldn't want to read and there's been no interest in genre (mystery or SFF) book clubs.

I suppose it would depend on how the intellectual perspective was present. If it was done where the rest of us could question it, I probably wouldn't mind. If it was dispensed as the word on high condenscending way then not so much

Happy Thursday!  What a gorgeous day it is today!  Warm sun, cool breeze, low humidity, green trees, just lovely.   I got a tick bite a few days ago, though - my first ever - so now I'm VERY hesitant to spend any more time outside than I need to.  (And I NEED to go out there to cut & tie up some branches for the town to pick up.)  I keep thinking I feel bugs crawling around on me under my clothes.  

I just picked up a can of Deep Woods Off! which is 25% DEET and labelled to work to repel ticks. Fingers crossed.




This week I finished 2 books, 1 for this Challenge, so I am now 37/50

What Kind of Paradise by - this was a NetGalley book, and it fit the bill perfectly for "nontraditional education."  I really liked it, but I wish the author had dug a little deeper.  It felt superficial.  The story is clearly influenced by the Unabomber, and I didn't feel like Brown added enough original material to the story to make it her own (although apparently younger readers have never heard of him so it will feel fresh and new to them!)  This character went through some crazy traumat stuff and we didn't really see her have to deal with it, that bit happened "off camera."  So, it was good but  not great.  I also checked off "digging up the past" in AtY.

Women of Good Fortune by Sophie Wan- this book really surprised me and was much more emotional than I expected.  The cover art says "madcap fluff!" and yes there is a heist, but it's more about the power of friendship, and figuring out what you really want and need in life.  No challenge categories. I look forward to Wan's new book, The Social Circle!


Popsugar 74% 37 /50
Must Reads 20% 2 /10
AtY 77% 40 /52
AtY bonus 10% 1 /10
2025 pub 56% 28 /50
NetGalley ratio 81%  (I have been REALLY good about not requesting new books from NetGalley, so this percentage should start going UP now!)





QotW

I'm no Lit major, I'm just an engineer so I'm lucky I can even spell!! (I exaggerate, but only slightly).  I had to go look up the definition of "allegory" to make sure I had it right just now!  (I did.)  So usually when I talk about a book or a movie, my comments are about whether the plot made sense, and how I felt while reading it / watching it.  If I can pick up on a parallel with an older book, I'll mention it.  (Like when I read Home Fire, I noticed it was an Antigone retelling.)  If I were in a book club, and if someone in my group has an interesting angle to share, or can point out literary allusions that I missed, yes I'm interested, so long as they are not pedantic about it and don't try to dominate the conversation or tell the rest of us we're wrong.

Happy Thursday! Todd left last Friday to start a new job... 1500 miles away. The movers are doing a video call tomorrow to see what all he needs moved, so the house is a shambles. Boxes stacked up everywhere. It's just him who's moving, not all of us. We only moved to Washington three years ago. We'd take a beating on the house if we tried to sell now. I thought we were done with this long distance thing, but here we go again!

2025 Reading Challenges:

52 Book Club: 43/52 (Connections Challenge: 2/21)
ATY: 36/52 (ATY Anniversary Challenge: 8/10, ATY Summer Challenge: 11/25)
The Book Girls’ Guide: 31/74
Booklist Queen: 43/52
Popsugar: 36/50

My Ever-Growing TBR: 67/273 – 24.5% (My goal is 33.3%.)

Recently Completed:

Because He's Jeff Goldblum: The Movies, Memes, and Meaning of Hollywood's Most Enigmatic Actor: This is an unauthorized biography… It wasn’t great, but I love Jeff Goldblum. I’d love to read an actual memoir. A generous four stars. (ATY Summer #1e – a humorous book) ★★★★

Queenie (ATY Summer #4c - a book nominated for an award) ★★★★

The Librarians of Lisbon: Instead of historical fiction, this read more as romantic suspense. The best part was the author’s note at the end that discussed the role of women in WWII as librarians and codebreakers. ★★

Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal: Another American system that favors corporations over people. (ATY Summer #3a – red on the cover) ★★★★

Human Acts (ATY Summer #4e – originally written in a language other than English) ★★★★

Sunrise on the Reaping: A completely unnecessary but fairly enjoyable book. (52 Books #11 – a prequel/ATY Summer #2b – author’s initials in UNSWEETENED ICED TEA) ★★★

Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th ★★★★

King Lear: If only for the Shakespearean insults this one’s five stars. (ATY Summer #5c – originally published before 1900) ★★★★★

Do Me a Favor (ATY Summer #5a – more than one point of view) ★★★★

We Are Watching ★★★

Pemberley: Mr. Darcy's Dragon: Jane Austen Book Club. (ATY Summer #3d – a title word that starts with P) ★★★

Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine Is Complicating the Way We Die: Reasonable Doubt Book Club. (52 Books Connections #2 – shares a title word with the previous book/ATY Summer #5d – challenging subject matter) ★★★★

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (BGG ICYMI #6 – published in 2018) ★★★

Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King ★★★★



Currently Reading:

Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful (ATY Summer #2c – author’s initials in ROOTBEER SODA)
The Last Love Note (ATY Summer #1b – water on the cover/BGG Read Around the World #6 – set in New Zealand or Australia)
First Lie Wins (ATY #29 – second of two books with opposites in their titles: Book 1 – “Last House”/BGG Read Around the USA #6 – set in the south-central US: Louisiana)
The Spectacular (ATY Summer #2a – author’s initials in FRESH-SQUEEZED LEMONADE/BGG Decades #6 – set in the 1950s)
Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I'd Known About Menopause
Puck and Prejudice (ATY Summer #1a – part of a series)
To Kill a Mockingbird (ATY Summer #4a – a main character is a child/Booklist Queen #38 – a banned book)
Hench: Adventures Underground Book Club.
Coven: A Graphic Novel
The Life Impossible (ATY Summer #5b – an author with 10+ books)
One Golden Summer (52 Books Connections #3 – set in the same country as where the previous author is from: Canada/ATY Summer #3e – a sentimental book)



QOTW: I guess it depends on the book club. I've been in book clubs that were just for fun. We never read anything very deep, so I don't think this kind of intellectual discussion would be either necessary or appropriate. But I've also been in book clubs that were much more serious. In Santa Fe, I was in a Pulitzer Prize book club. We only read books that had won a Pulitzer, so the discussions tended to be much more serious. And my Reasonable Doubt book club gets into some pretty serious discussions, but we tend to read nonfiction and science fiction primarily.

Laura Z wrote: "Happy Thursday! Todd left last Friday to start a new job... 1500 miles away. The movers are doing a video call tomorrow to see what all he needs moved, so the house is a shambles. Boxes stacked up ..."



Oh no! How long will he be gone?

Happy Thursday, all.

Man things have been crazy. I've been meaning to post around here but I haven't really had the time. A lot has been going on. Aside from my therapy and volunteer work, I've had to help my mom out with my nephew because she had some stuff going on too that required I step up a bit.

Can you believe I changed a diaper for the first time after putting off that responsibility for close to a year and a half? LOL! I gloved up and masked up, ugh!

Temps here have been miserable. We got up to 105°. Luckily we got rain this past week so that was nice, but temps in the 100s are no joke. And then I overheat and have a skin condition that flares up with heat which makes things worse.

*****
Book News:

Reading wise things have been great. Looking at how my current reading stats are and I'll have finished 73 books for the year so far which for me is impressive. I'm reading around 11 or 12 books a month and staying on top of them pretty well.

*****

So far this month I have finished 6 books and I'm currently reading 4.

*****

Finished:

The Lost World - 4 star read, but I prefer the first book a lot better.

Lost - A fun read, definitely one I'm not used to since it's about mermaids/mermen.

This Is Chance!: The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together - 4 stars. This was intense! The only time I heard of a magnitude 9 earthquake was from the San Andreas movie so it was deeply fascinating to read about a real one.

Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again - 3 star read. I felt like this was a huge invasion of privacy regardless of what side you're on. I don't care if he's the President or the Dali Lama, Biden's health should be no one's business but his own and those closest to him and it shouldn't amount to some kind of massive cover up conspiracy.

( I used this book for the prompt 'Two books with the same title' since I read a book called 'Original Sin' early this year.)

Catching the Light - A re-read but I still love it.

ADHD is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving with ADHD - 4 star read. I was diagnosed with ADHD last year but this is the first time I've started reading about it and this was an excellent place to start, despite the personal narrative from it.

*****

Here are the 4 books I'm currently reading.

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America - About to start chapter 9 and this book is incredible! It has de-throned my favorite book of the year. I honestly don't think any of my future planned books can top this one to be honest.

When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day - I was going to save this as a September read, but since Graff has a new book coming out in August, I figured I'd read this one now, then do a re-read of 'The Only Plane in the Sky' and then read his August new release. So far 'When The Sea' is amazing. I love hearing these personal narratives.

Cloud Warriors: Deadly Storms, Climate Chaos―and the Pioneers Creating a Revolution in Weather Forecasting - Barely working my way through this one but it's interesting so far.

Welcome to Metropolis: The Prequel Junior Novel (Superman) - About to start. It's only 138 pages so it's easy to get through in a day. A middle grade novel, but hey it's Superman!

******

Lastly, in terms of the PS Challenge, I have been doing fairly well. This is the most I've done ever. It helps that there's so much leeway for the prompts to include nonfiction books this time around.

I've done 37 of the prompts so far. I'm trying to see what other books I can fit into the other prompts but they'll work their way in as I go along since I've got other TBR's set up and such.

*****

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
Do you like having a more intellectual/educated interpretation of a book during discussion?

I actually prefer those types of discussions because growing up I always had interpretations that didn't match my peers so I felt out of place a lot of times. Usually classmates had similar responses to books or other school assignments and mine often sounded like it was from a different galaxy or something.

Since I particularly read a lot of nonfiction, I find intellectual interpretations more engaging. I don't get those same feelings/sensations when I read fiction and normally I will skim fiction books if it doesn't hold my intellect in the right way according to my standards.

Happy Thursday!

Last day of our road trip was today, and we're finally back home. It was a nice trip, but it was so hot. I've had enough summer, please bring back spring or fall.

Finished:
The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin by Alison Goodman - 4 stars - not currently for a prompt. I wouldn't start with this book, but if you enjoyed book 1, I think you'll like this one as well. The further adventures of the titular "ill-mannered ladies", a pair of 40-year-old spinsters in Regency England.

As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh - 5 stars - for a book where the main character is an immigrant or refugee. What a powerful, sad, hopeful story. This was so good. I stayed up late in my hotel room to finish it, and I'm still thinking about it days later.

I am currently at 32/50 for Popsugar (27/40 and 5/10).

Currently reading:
Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto - not currently for a prompt. So far this is a lot of fun.

Upcoming/Planned:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - for a book about an overlooked woman in history.

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline - for a book about a road trip.

QOTW:
I usually don't read books that deeply, but I am interested to read deeper, more scholarly thoughts on books as long as they're not condescending.

Happy Thursday, y’all.

It's been a regular week with exercise and other goals being worked on and no unusual or unwished for events.

I have focused on reading and was able to complete 3 books today. Currently I am keeping up with library due dates without too much stress.

Finished:
Anybody Can Do Anything – PS #26 (changes careers). 3* Memoir. An interesting book, but not my kind of humor.

A Moveable Feast – PAS. 3*. I was not sure whether I would like this book after so much discussion about Hemingway. This was also a memoir mostly of his life in Paris. Lots of name dropping. He just seemed a very self absorbed man.

Murder and the First Lady – No prompt. 4*. Cozy Mystery as well as Historical Mystery as real life people are portrayed in the story.

Kills Well with Others – No prompt. 4*. Book #2 of Killers of a Certain Age. Loved the aging assassins theme.

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X – PAS. 4*. Sci-fi. And surprisingly I enjoyed it!

Currently Reading:
Kate: The Journal of A Confederate Nurse – PAS. 65%. So close to being done!

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All - ATY #30 (monster), PAS, PS #44 (book I have avoided). 17%. I will be reading this most of the summer.

Beautiful Ugly – Audiobook. 16%

Just Starting:
The Wind Knows My Name: A Novel – PAS, PS #25 (immigrant/refugee). 1%

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - ATY seasonal

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War – ATY #26, PAS. 5%

On Deck: (owned)
The Pony Wife – PAS
The Brass Verdict – PAS

On Deck: (library)
Waypoints: My Scottish Journey – ATY (due 6/10 with renewal)
The Warsaw Anagrams - PAS
The Vaster Wilds - ATY
Running with Sherman – PS
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West – ATY
A Curious Beginning – ATY, PAS


PS 20/50
ATY 23/52, Anniversary 9/10, Summer 700/5000 points
GR 91/200

QotW: Do you like having a more intellectual/educated interpretation of a book during discussion?

Not really. I read for information or escape/good story.

EDIT: I don't mind if someone shares a more intellectual interpretation, but, I would prefer that it be offered as an alternative rather than THE interpretation.

Nadine in NY wrote: "Oh no! How long will he be gone?"

I expect that he'll keep this job for at least a couple of years before he starts looking for something else closer to home. It's okay. We've done it before. And sometimes it even feels like it's good for us. We seem to appreciate each other more and try to make our time together special.

Jen W., I'm with you. I am at my wits end with summer. Temps reaching as high as 107°F where I live. It's funny because earlier this year I complained too much about the dust storms and now I'm complaining about the heat.

I just want winter and fall year round instead. Is that too much to ask?

*****

Going back to the QOTW, one of the things that helps my intellectual thought is annotating my nonfiction books. I have to absolutely write and make notations/highlights in them. It really helps me to think of what I read even though it makes the reading process a lot longer.

Happy Thursday!

I am exhausted. Came home from Disney Monday night, had a pedicure appointment on Wednesday, my carer coming by on Wednesday and today, and I went shopping for bras and a bathing suit today.

The latter just takes it out of me. I've found a store that is absolutely amazing (they're specialized in big sizes, their cup sizes don't go lower than E!) with the most wonderful employees, but I hate my chesticles so much, it's always near traumatic. Add to that

1) because of my size bras and swimwear is EXPENSIVE AF which is extra painful because I don't WANT this size but I'm too fat to get surgery covered so rip me
2) my sizes are unusual, so there's very little choice
3) I don't want wired bras (they hurt, because my sizes are weird; the wire is always pressing/poking down into my belly, even when standing, but given I sit a lot that's impossible to endure) which don't get made into my size much, if at all, so guess what, even less choice
4) I want my bras to be as plain as possible. I'm an outlier here, but it means that all the options that do exist, I hate, but I have to deal with it. Which means paying €100+ for bras that fit but you hate the look of
5) bathing suits require a wire for any kind of support which, you guessed it, hurts like hell, which means a fortune for a bathing suit that's barely comfortable unless you stand ramrod straight.

It cost €400 for a sports bra (this one was actually a dream), a regular bra, and a bathing suit. Insanity.

There's also the aspect of: if I had to pay for this myself, I wouldn't be able to. I am on benefits, I would literally be incapable of paying these kinds of prices, but cheaper doesn't exist. So while I am grateful for my parents, I hate that they had to drop so much money on so little, while having to drop more the coming months.

ANYWAYS all of this on top of the physical aspect of changing in and out of bras (and some bikini tops that were a work out to fit), left me exhausted and in a lot of pain today. At least I should now be set for a while, because in the next few months we know exactly what to get!

Treated myself to a thick shake tonight; I deserved it. It was delicious. I want another one, haha! It's hot enough!

I also want the burger I had at Disney last weekend (twice) about 10 more times because it was that good. Right now I'm so tired and my mental state is so shit I don't even care xD

Read
Absolutely nothing, because

Currently Reading
A Day of Fallen Night
my current read is a 870 page chonker and with my fatigue levels it was already moving slow (25-50 pages a night) but I haven't read since last Friday due to being away and then recovering. I'd hoped to continue yesterday, but too tired. Same for today. We try again tomorrow!

QOTW
I respect people who can have discussions like that, but I'm just not wired for it. I can discuss what I liked and disliked, but any deeper than that I and I am very likely to have missed it. My brain just doesn't work like that. Allegories I only see when they are SO OBVIOUS (like Animal Farm, though I have to admit I can't be 100% certain I would have caught it if I hadn't known beforehand), or when they apparently don't exist/weren't intended (like Watership Down, but again, I knew beforehand).

This is also why I feel I can't lead a discussion for a read here. I've read Sunrise on the Reaping and loved it; it triggered a reread of the trilogy (I have a week left to listen to Mockingjay. fingers crossed I'll manage!), but I would have no idea how to even go about such a thing!

Happy Thursday everyone! We've had rain all week over here and outside looks bleary and gray. Took advantage of staying indoors by reading a little more than usual. I'm continuing to prioritize LBGTQ+ books and authors this month. After a month long drought of 5-star reads, I read two of them this past week, so yay!

2025 Reading Challenges
Popsugar- 43/50
ATY- 52/52; Anniversary- 9/10; Summer- 1200/5000
52 Book Club- _____; Connections- 2/21
Read Good- 12/12 COMPLETED
Buzzword- 5/12; Cover- 6/12

1001 Books- 5/10
TBR- 20/20 COMPLETED

Finished
Sky Daddy- For a book about a woman who's attracted to planes, this had surprising heart, lol. Loved this one and glad it gave me the Goodreads Armchair Explorer Bookmark. ☆☆☆☆☆
ATY Summer #1E- a humorous book

When We Ride- picked this up because I saw it included in Amazon's Best Books of 2025 so far list and the author is LGBTQ. It was a quick, although heartbreaking read. ☆☆☆ 1/2
ATY Summer #2C- author's initials in: ROOT BEER SODA
52 BC Connections- title shares a word with the previous book's title

Jonny Appleseed- read this for Pride Month and I really liked it. ☆☆☆☆
ATY Summer #4C- a book that has been nominated for an award

Disappoint Me- also read this for Pride Month and I think it may even be a contender for one of the best books I read this year! I appreciated the discussions it provoked, and I absolutely loved that cover! Didn't expect the left-handed protagonist, but that was also a plus! ☆☆☆☆☆
ATY Summer #4B- a book with a wedding
PS #45- a book with a left-handed character

Currently Reading
Memorial
The Complete Fables
Midnight's Children
A Room of One's Own & The Voyage Out

QOTW
Yes, I do. I enjoy being exposed to new ideas and making connections between books, people’s life experiences, and other works of art. As long as someone can support their interpretation, I find it really valuable, even if it’s something I hadn’t considered. But if the analysis isn’t grounded in the text, it can start to feel like a bit of a stretch.

Laura Z wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "Oh no! How long will he be gone?"

I expect that he'll keep this job for at least a couple of years before he starts looking for something else closer to home. It's okay. We've..."



wow, not having a set end date makes it tough!

3 month library TBR: 14/23
3 month Purchasd TBR: 8/24
County Library Challenge: 22/31
City Library Challenge 22/24

Finished: No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain I enjoyed her voicings (things to support) better than her revoicings (things to protest) but very good overall.
More Than Human My friend recommended this as a book they really enjoyed as a teen. It did not disappoint. Even though it's quite old, it didn't feel dated.

The Failed Welfare Revolution: America's Struggle over Guaranteed Income Policy I really enjoyed this book. It was so clearly written, even abstract ideas.

Started: The Democracy Sourcebook

QotW: Yes, I really enjoy in-depth analysis. The contributions I appreciate most these days are when people go back and share specific lines from the book and then what they meant to them.

I had a couple of days off this week (using up vacation time before the end of the fiscal year), and while it was nice to take the time to do some things I'd been putting off (like getting a haircut), I was a little antsy by the end.

Finished:
Hovergirls - This was disappointing. The art is so cute, and the premise is interesting, but the actual execution just fell flat.
Sea Sirens - (PS A snake on the cover) This was all right, but that's about it.
Growing Pangs - (PS A book that reminds you of your childhood) I liked this one more than I expected, helped because I went through a lot of the same things as the main character (not the OCD or friendship drama, though).
Remember Us - A snapshot of a moment in time. A slight read, but not an unenjoyable one.
The Partition Project - The main character annoyed me so much! But I enjoyed learning about a piece of history I hadn't heard of before.
Almost Sunset: A Graphic Novel - I deliberately read this one after the previous title, since both involve Ramadan. I can't really say it was better, since this story covered a smaller slice of time, but I did like the main character more.

Currently Reading:
Which Way to Anywhere
Impossible Creatures
It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

Happy Thursday.

I finished no books this week, but I will finish 2 by Saturday night as another group I'm in is having a read-a-thon. Plus my June books are starting to come in.

I was laughing so hard at an early chapter in Broken that my kids wondered what was wrong with me.

I am up to being number 2 on the list from Sunshine on the Reaping. Lynn - if no one else volunteers, I can lead the discuss.

Series - 4/10
Reading Across Canada - 5/10
Nobel laureates - 2/5

PS - 21/40
Regular ATY - 19/40
Anniversary ATY - 6/10

Currently reading:
Interior Castle - 25%
Death Bringer - 95%
Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah - 65%
Broken - 10%

Buddy Reads:
none at present

QOTW: I wouldn't object to it, but I also wouldn't want every book discussion to feel like English class.

Greetings! My work has calmed down a bit, so I'm actually catching up on a huge backlog of items that kept getting pushed aside due to one emergency or conference or court date after another. I even have time to get a long overdue hair cut and mani/pedi! WOOT!

PS 33/60 ATY 49/62

Finished:
The Summer Country - early 19th Century Barbados - 5 star read! I knew NOTHING about its history, slavery, and why it was different from the other sugar islands before reading this.
Night of the Highland Dragon -last of an excellent fun dragon shapeshifter smutty historical romance trilogy
Fugitive Telemetry - Murderbot plays detective solving a murder mystery.
No Strings Attached - really enjoy this contemporary romance series

Currently reading:
Miss Percy's Travel Guide to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons
Paris for One and Other Stories

QOTW: I am that person! And proud of it, LOL. Just ask my Feminerdy Book Club. I am absolutely not apologetic about it, or pedantic (I hope), but I can't help myself. I've read so diversely, plus I'm quite a bit older than all but one of the other members and I have a fancy education - and a literature degree not just a JD. I love making and shareing ideas and connections that happen when I read. I love hearing others make connections and sharing ideas from their own experience, education, reading. I don't always have that happen - certainly there are many times I just read for plot or character or smut. Nothing wrong with that!

I also have been known to miss something obvious too!

I hear you on feeling overwhelmed. The summer schedule is crazy so far! I'm looking forward to vacation next month.

Finished 21 /50

Alice Will for "book with magical creatures that aren't dragons". I really wanted to like this book, but it was so choppy and just...needed work. It wasn't bad but the writing needs help.

Currently Reading

Many Waters for "book considered healing fiction". I don't know if it fits the technical description for healing fiction, but I've found this whole series to be very healing/soothing/comforting for myself personally so... I'm going with it.

QotW

Oh, yes! I love to hear that stuff too. Good literature can be so rich in meaning and symbolism. Like any good art piece, it will mean different things to different people while also expressing the mind of the author in layers and beauty. Any interpretation is always interesting to hear, especially if it comes from someone with knowledge of the subject!

I’m at 40/50 for the challenge. I think I have 9 of the final 10 books picked out. I’m still conflicted about “a book you want to read based on the last sentence” because I don’t want to know or read the last sentence before I read the book. I might just pick a classic novel that I generally know the ending of and say that’s close enough.

Finished
How to Steal a Galaxy & Last Chance to Save the World I loved this series. I hope the author writes more like this in the future. These were so much fun.

The Murder Machine (a book recommended by an AI chatbot). Since I strongly object to this prompt, I decided to read a book where AI is used as a murder weapon instead. This book is not good. Don’t read it. You can find a better tech thriller, I promise.

Reading

Tess of the D’Urbervilles (a classic you’ve never read)

QOTW
Having studied literature and literary analysis in college, it’s become second nature to look for the themes, allegories, archetypes, etc. I don’t think I would enjoy a book discussion that didn’t mention those topics.

How do I ask this question without being condescending or pedantic? What’s up with the answers mentioning those things? Have you had really terrible book club experiences with people like this? I haven’t been part of any book clubs so I wouldn’t know if people like this are out roaming the wild and ruining book club meetings.

Fortunately, I didn't have classmates or professors like this, and I really enjoyed all of our literature discussions.

Hello all, totally forgot today was Thursday. Had a busy day yesterday with the kiddo. It was a state holiday here and I thought it would be nice to "celebrate" this holiday with my nephew and maybe have him learn a bit more about him (it was Kamehameha Day). So we went and visited his statue, which they drape in lei for the holiday. There happened to be a festival there as well so we checked that out. Then I took him down to the Mokupapapa Discovery Center (it's got a fish tank and you learn about ocean and science stuff). Then we stopped at the small book store next door (one of two bookstores we have in our town) and ended up buying one book each. I had to return some library books and so we also talked about the Naha Stone (which Kamehameha is known to have lifted/moved) that is outside the library. Then we had some lunch and hit up the grocery store before heading home.

I have continued baking this week. I have some banana bread in the oven right now and I made some the other day too. I think I have now made around 10 loafs of banana bread in the past few days. (I give most of it away, I just needed to use the bundle of bananas from the tree that were ripe). I made some with walnuts because the food bank box we got a while ago had some in it and I don't know what else to use it for. Then I made a few plain ones and then today I made one batch with chocolate chips and the other batch vegan. I made the vegan one for my step sister and her friend who is house sitting her house right now. He is pescatarian and so I wasn't sure if he eats eggs so I just made a vegan one to be safe.

As for books I feel a little better about my progress this week. I got a few more read since my last check on Sunday. Just trying to chip away at that ginormous pile I have.

**I got to here about 4 hours ago then life sidetracked me, LOL. Now I am back to finish.**

2025 Challenges:
Popsugar: 35/50
ATY: 38/52 & 7/10
A to Z (Kindle edition): 2/26
Library Summer Reading: 6/20

Goodreads: 74/150
GR WTR: 7/432

Physical TBR: 8/119
Kindle TBR: 0/127
TBR Goal: 8/246

Book Clubs:
PS Monthly: 27/66
Reese: 35/111
Oprah: 14/110
Jenna: 10/78
OSS: 7/39

Finished:
3 finished, 0 Completed Popsugar

Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights
This was an anthology with a bunch of authors that have been banned before and they either wrote about their story or they made a fiction tale that deals with banned books, there's also some graphic stories.

Light For The World To See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope
I saw this was by Kwame Alexander and I just had to check it out.

The Art of Home: A Designer Guide to Creating an Elevated Yet Approachable Home
Pretty good design book with a nice help guide in the back.

-------
Currently Reading
While We Were Dating
Encanto: Nightmares and Sueños
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Ripples & Waves: A Queer Retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid
Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare
A Snake Falls to Earth
West With Giraffes
Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat

On the Backburner
Libby

Physical Library Rentals
The New Girl
Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country
American Poison: A Deadly Invention and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice
Aspca Complete Dog Training Manual
Puppy Brain: How Our Dogs Learn, Think, and Love
Rebellion 1776
My Passion for Design
Old Brand New: Colorful Homes for Maximal Living
Heirloom Rooms: Soulful Stories of Home
The Rebel Diet: Feed Your Appetite and Lose Weight with 100 Defiantly Delicious Recipes
The Milk Street Cookbook: The Definitive Guide to the New Home Cooking, with Every Recipe from Every Episode of the TV Show, 2017-2024
Love Is for All of Us: Poems of Tenderness and Belonging from the LGBTQ+ Community and Friends
Beautiful Ugly
Pride and Prejudice in Space
Squad
Stars in Their Eyes: A Graphic Novel
Lion Dancers
Cravings: All Together: Recipes to Love
Hula
Wait Till Helen Comes: A Graphic Novel
Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Letters, Recipes, and Remembrances
Turning Twelve
Tales of a Seventh-Grade Lizard Boy
Timid
Bedhead Ted
NewsPrints

Library Holds

Magazines: (10/149)
Read since last check-in: 0

Question of the Week:
I'm with Nadine...as long as they are not trying to act like they are smarter than everyone else about it I don't care either way.

Another quick check-in for me. I haven't gotten much reading this past week. I stalled out on the books I had started and thought reading a short story might jumpstart things. While I finished the short story, it kind of fell flat for me. Onward to find a better palate cleanser/reading refresh option! I'm at 11/40 and 0/10 for this challenge and 30/85 for my overall Goodreads Reading Challenge.

Finished:
* Death Row by Freida McFadden, which was a bonus short story FirstReads pick and the first story in the Alibis collection.

Currently Reading:
* The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries edited by Michael Sims;
* The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis, which I slowed down on because my book club isn't discussing it until next month and I don't like to read too far ahead of our meeting; and,
* A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Best Investment Guide That Money Can Buy by Burton G. Malkiel, which I stalled out on because I haven't had time to really focus on it. I decided to order a copy since I had a Bookshop.org gift card and I think a physical copy will work better for me. It's supposed to arrive on Monday 🤓

QotW:
Do you like having a more intellectual/educated interpretation of a book during discussion? It depends on the book, tbh. The last book I can think of where one of my book clubs did that was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I volunteered myself over on the thread for the monthly book read. I posted some intro questions already.
I haven't gotten very far into the book yet but am hoping to read more soon.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Considering how busy I’ve been since last week’s update, I’ve been surprisingly unproductive.

I had originally planned to get my office cleaned and reorganized this past weekend, and I didn’t even get started on it. In fact, I currently have an even bigger mess in there than I did last week! I’d like to say that I’ll have it done by the end of this weekend, but I’ve got a bit too much on the schedule to make that kind of promise. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some time to get this project done next week.

However, I did have a chance to take another ballroom dance lesson this week, which was a lot of fun. I’m trying to decide if dance lessons are something that I want to commit to on a regular basis, but just can’t make up my mind. There are so many other activities that I also want to try!

The SciFi Summer readathon continued this week, and I’m continuing to have a great time! I had a chance to read a couple more SciFi titles this week, but also spent some time focusing on reading books that I have purchased since the beginning of the month. It’s made for an interesting (and fairly eclectic) reading week.

Here are my current challenge and TBR totals…

Goodreads Challenge: 203/250 (81% complete)
Mount TBR Challenge: 119/150 (79% complete)

📚Physical TBR: 97/731
📱Ebook TBR: 12/218
🎧Audiobook TBR: 10/12
TBR Checklist Total: 119/961 (12% complete)

TBR Books DNFed in 2025: 3

I had some Kindle Rewards points that were about to expire, so I bought one ebook this week, which was Heretical Fishing, by Haylock Jobson.

“New” Books Bought in 2025: 108
“New” Books Read in 2025: 84
“New” Books DNFed in 2025: 0
”New” Books Checklist Total: 77% complete

Here are the books I finished this week…

Finished Reading (Fiction):
~I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom — I thought this was an interesting read, but I have to confess that I didn't really like any of the characters. I was impressed with how the author showed the impact of misinformation though, and how quickly it spreads via the Internet. Content Alert: (view spoiler)[ This book includes examples of toxic masculinity and misogyny. (hide spoiler)] 📚: ⭐⭐⭐
~Of Monsters and Mainframes — I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The characters and story were great! 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
~The Inugami Curse — This is the second book in the Detective Kosuke Kindaichi series. I thought this was a really good mystery! Content Alert: (view spoiler)[ This book includes several references to rape. (hide spoiler)] 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Finished Reading (Nonfiction):
None

Finished Reading (Manga, Comic Books, & Graphic Novels):
~Garfield Bacon Me Drool: His 77th Book — This was a fun collection of recent Garfield comics. 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Finished Reading (Poetry and Drama):
None

DNFed:
~Floating Hotel — I read a couple chapters of this book, but just wasn’t interested in the characters or story. I suppose I might find myself getting more invested in it if I continued reading, but there are too many other books competing for my attention right now. 📱

Currently Reading:
~Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — This is the seventh book in the Harry Potter series. This book is a re-read for me, but it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to listen to the audiobook. I’m currently just over halfway through, and will probably finish it over the weekend. 🎧
~Travel the World Without Worries: An Inspirational Guide to Budget and Adventure Travel — I’m enjoying this travel guide so far. The author is focusing primarily on extended backpacking trips, which is a method of traveling I haven’t done before, so I’m finding it interesting to read about. I’m currently halfway through this book as well, and will likely finish it tomorrow afternoon. 📚
~The Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition — This is the first book in The Hunger Games trilogy. While this book is a re-read for me, this is my first time reading the illustrated edition. I’ve only had a chance to read a few chapters this week, but hope to dive back into the story over the weekend. 📚
~Polybius — I bought this book on impulse the last time I was at the bookstore, and it’s been an interesting read so far. That being said, I honestly don’t know if I like it. 📚

QOTW:
I majored in English, so I’d probably be the person throwing some casual literary analysis into the conversation. A deep dive into a text is really satisfying to me, especially if the analysis is well-supported with textual evidence, and it generates an interesting discussion.

I read A Passionate Hope: Hannah's Story as my book about a woman overlooked by history.

I'm reading The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East as my book about a road trip.

QOTW: I guess it depends. On what? Not sure.

Happy Thursday! Figured I should check in before I look up and it's suddenly Saturday again. Has an interesting Sunday night last weekend- there was a gas leak scare at my apartment building so then the gas got shut off until pg&e could come the next day to double check everything was fine, so we had no hot water and couldn't cook, then there was an earthquake-not super strong, but still- and then in the middle of the night a neighbor in the building next door started throwing bottles and it woke me up convinced someone was shattering all our car windows. Not an ideal start to the week!

It turned out my new neighbor's stove had a faulty dial, so when they went to turn of the burner after making food, the dial looked like it was all the way on off, but was still leaking gas. Luckily they noticed before something bad happened!

Finished:
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection- I thought this was really good. Looks at the history of TB and the ways it's still impacting the world. Great audiobook
-no prompt

Don't Let Me Go- a ya book about two boys who are growing closer and start having dreams of past lives that ended tragically. I'm not always a fan of love stories over multiple lifetimes, but I think this one did a it really well. I really liked it.
-no prompt

The River Has Roots- I loved this. A fairy tale novella about sisters, love and the power of language. Loved it.
-no prompt

Currently reading:
Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything in Between- about 1/4 a way through this audiobook about growing up queer in a conservative Muslim family. So far it's very good

The Midnight Shift- my latest book from netgalley, a korean vampire murder mystery


QotW:
I love hearing what other people think of a book, and getting a deeper interpretation of a book. Sometimes a book is just a light read to me, but to someone else it struck a chord with them and hearing their take on it can open my eyes.

Happy still barely Thursday (at least its still Thursday in SoCal)

hard school year...I've been off a week and still sleep all except when I wake up to read. I can usually recover in 2-3 days. Looking forward to my beachfront mini-vacation next week

But as predicted last week i did ramp up the book completions. I finished 3 in the last week:
Daughter of Fire (no prompt)
The Wangs vs. the World (road trip)
Death of the Author (2025 release)

Currently reading:
The Frozen River
The Quiet American
The Berry Pickers
Hitch 22: A Memoir
War and Peace


QOTW:
Absolutely! I started my own book club so I could (A) have those deeper conversations about the books and (B) make sure the books we read lend themselves to those deeper discussions.

Life update: I told some more colleagues about my upcoming retirement, which is making it seem very real. I'm a bit nervous about the financial side, but oh well. I have to do it for my health, and there's nothing more I can do about the finances until 12 weeks beforehand, so it is what it is.

Reading update: I'm at 44/50 in the PS challenge, and most of the remaining books aren't published yet, so I'm taking a hiatus to focus on my Pride reading. This week I finished 3 books:

Dinghai Fusheng Records (The Comic / Manhua) Vol. 1 for the Pride Season Challenge: queer fantasy. Gorgeous artwork, but it's the first volume of a series and didn't reach a satisfying ending in itself. I will just have to go on and read the rest of the series!
The Black Flamingo for the Pride Season Challenge: a book about drag. I liked the premise, but the execution was odd; the plot is YA, but the writing style seems aimed at much younger children.
The Prophet - one of the books left with me by a friend, not for a prompt. There are some very profound passages, but also some rather trite ones. I'm not a fan of the pseudo-archaic style it uses.

Stats:
Finished for PopSugar Challenge: 0 this week, 44/50 total
Finished for Star Trek Series Challenge: 0 this week, 16/18 total
Finished for Readers of the Wild Moor: 0 this week, 15/30 total
Finished for Pride Season Challenge: 2 this week, 2/15 total
Finished for Cosmere Challenge: 0 this week, 2/48 total
Finished outside the challenges: 1 this week, 16 total
All books finished this year: 3 this week, 80 total
GR Seasonal Bookmarks completed: 0 this week, 6/7 total
DNF or paused: 0 this week, 16 total

Challenges completed this year:
GR Community Favorites

Currently Reading:
The Lilac People for the Pride Season Challenge: fiction by a trans author and the GR Rainbow Reader bookmark
Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity for the Pride Season Challenge: non-fiction about aro/ace
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda for my current audiobook
The Valmiki Ramayana Vol. 3 for spiritual bedtime reading

QOTW: Personally I like to hear different interpretations, as long as they have a basis in the work. How academic the discussion should get would depend on the book club and the work, I think. I've been part of academic book clubs where naturally you expect the discussion to be mostly on that level, and I've also been part of book clubs that are purely for pleasure, where I generally wouldn't expect in-depth academic debates unless we happened to choose an academic nonfiction book that month (which might happen occasionally in that particular group). But even with the fiction choices, if someone has particular expertise or insight, we'd generally be happy to hear about it, so long as everyone else also gets a chance to speak. I can recall one discussion that was definitely enriched by having some pagans in the group who were able to explain that some features of the story were there because the author chose to use a pagan trope in their contemporary fantasy story.

Hi all! I subbed yesterday and then had a surprise Girl Scout meeting, so I am exhausted and sore. It'll be my last time subbing for the school year (they've still got 2 more weeks here) as I am swamped the next 2 weeks. We've got a festival and parade tomorrow, and then the Girl Scouts are leading church services on Sunday, which is also Father's Day, so it's a busy weekend, too.

My reading is still very slow. I read a couple of chapters yesterday (during study hall, lol) in Chasing Fireflies. I also switched to the audiobook of Hanging Mary and listened to a few chapters of that, too.

QOTW: I love deeper literary discussions! Sometimes I finish a book and think "I wish I was taking a college class with this book so I could dig deeper into it". lol I don't always see the allegories or metaphors etc when reading by myself, so I like hearing other people's thoughts on it. I also really enjoy when readers have personal or professional knowledge that they can share on a book. Especially if it's cultural experiences which I've never lived.

Hi all,

I'd love to say I've been reading a ton but it's been a busy week. My dog somehow got a scratch or cut on the very tip of his tail. No worries, he's fine, as evidenced by the constant tail wagging. Only problem is it occasionally opens up and now there are little spatters in random spots on my walls. Sighhhhh. I'm considering sticking a tube sock on his tail as a preventative measure.

Currently reading:

Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter: I'm learning all kinds of fun things about the animals who are apparently the backbone of north america and our climate crisis saviors. One fun story for you: when the park service first started looking to do beaver re-introduction in the 40s, they were stuck on how to relocate beavers to remote sites. Horse and cart did not work (for obvious reasons). It was the 40s though and WWII had just ended so they bought up a bunch of surplus army parachutes. Geronimo the Beaver took many test flights as they perfected their system of suitcase parachute dropping. Fear not animal lovers: once they got it down pat, Geronimo was floated down to the choicest habitat along with three young females. Thank you for your service, Geronimo.

Monk's Hood: another murder mystery

Water: nice poems, not really getting much of a water theme though

QOTW
I'm not much of a book discussion girly but I can hold my own if I need to. I never struggled with it in school; it's just not really where my interests lie.

Looks like I'm still limping through updates about every other week or so, and my reading has been suffering these days, audiobooks seem to be the only thing keeping me going here lately. Took a trip to Florida last weekend so the bf could meet my parents and we attended one of my friends' weddings in St. Pete.

24/75 GoodReads Challenge
21/50 PopSugar Challenge

Finished:
1.) Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis (#3 Space Tourism) ⭐⭐⭐💫: Enjoyed this so much more than I thought I would - love the character stories, a little too much to keep track of, but I enjoyed it.

2.) The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (#18 Magical Creatures) ⭐⭐⭐⭐: This was a delight! Really enjoyed this cozy fantasy about a librarian turned potion master.

3.) We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer (#35 LGBTQ+ not about coming out) ⭐⭐⭐💫: This was eerie, and I especially appreciated the extra chapters with the anecdotes on case studies and real life syndromes. I hated the ending though.

4.) The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (No PS prompt) ⭐⭐⭐: Least favorite in this series - felt like complete filler to move the series on with one big change.

5.) Drowning by T.J. Newman (#16 - Set in body of Water) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Action packed summer popcorn thriller. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, and will continue to read what this author publishes.



Currently Reading:
1.) The Safekeep
2.) The Year of Magical Thinking (#42 Start with "Y")



QoTW: Do you like having a more intellectual/educated interpretation of a book during discussion?
I do enjoy a more intellectual conversation for book discussions, I also appreciate any and all bookish discussion, so really I'll take anything! Probably why I enjoy GR so much.

Nadine in NY wrote: "wow, not having a set end date makes it tough!"

Yeah, most of his jobs are remediation work so he's contracted for a set term. But WIPP* is a permanent facility - he could be there a long time if he chooses to stay!

*WIPP stands for Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. It's a deep geological repository in Carlsbad, New Mexico that serves as the nation's only current facility being used for the permanent disposal of transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste.

Laura Z wrote: "Happy Thursday! Todd left last Friday to start a new job... 1500 miles away. The movers are doing a video call tomorrow to see what all he needs moved, so the house is a shambles. Boxes stacked up ..."

Laura - I have so many questions! Moving is so stressful as it is, so I'm glad that you won't all be moving, but I can't imagine living that far away from Todd. Will you be able to see each other in between at all?

Happy Friday!

Finished
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet I loved this book. Almost every essay was somehow both more engaging that I expected and more touching. Despite his popularity, this was actually the first John Green I've read and I will have to check out more of his stuff. No PS prompt.

Children of Time Tchaikowsky was one of my authors that I meant to try this year, because I have a bunch of his books on my TBR but haven't read any yet. I quite enjoyed this, although didn't find any character (human or otherwise) to really invest in. Will keep reading the series, though. No PS prompt.

Good Fortune Picked this up on a whim at the library - I'm always interested in a Pride and Prejudice retelling and this was was set in modern day New York Chinatown, among the Asian community. I liked that aspect of it, some of the way things were updated was a lot of fun, but overall, the book as a whole and the Lizzie character felt a lot more mean-spirited than the original. No PS prompt.

Man, not a great week for ticking the Popsugar boxes! Nor are my current reads planned to slot in anywhere. Hmm, will have to get back to picking books based on outstanding prompts.

Currently Reading
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
The Girl from Everywhere

QotW
Sure, I love hearing different interpretations of books, although, as some have said, I like it being presented as an idea to discuss rather than a definitive "answer". I tend to be a more literal reader, so I don't always appreciate if something's happening on an allegorical level.
(For instance, with Zen and the Art... right now, I definitely feel like there's some stuff going on I'm not getting, and I would love an interpretive explanation!)

Britany wrote: "Laura - I have so many questions! Moving is so stressful as it is, so I'm glad that you won't all be moving, but I can't imagine living that far away from Todd. Will you be able to see each other in between at all?"

Yes, we'll see each other pretty often. He'll be home for the 4th of July, and then he has a conference in Madison, Wisconsin a couple of weeks later. Seth (adult son with non-verbal autism) and I will join him there and enjoy a little vacation. We've already planned a trip for mid-August to visit him, and then I'm sure he'll be home for Labor Day. The school year will be tougher, but we're pretty good at carving out time to see each other.

Hello and happy Friday from Columbus! I missed last weeks check in, we were just getting home from vacation and was thoroughly exhausted. I’ve been working like crazy since and didn’t even realize what day yesterday was lol. Wednesday was my son’s 11th birthday. I started getting back into avid reading when he was just a toddler, 2016 was my first Popsugar reading challenge. The passage of time never fails to amaze me at the most random milestones. My life looks so different from what it did then and here I am with a preteen and still reading everyone’s little book updates ❤️

Finished:
Lonesome Dove for a book based on the last sentence. Okay so I actually have half of the last chapter left of this (library hold was up so I have to wait to check it back out) so I haven’t technically gotten to the last line, I have no idea what it is I just picked this book off a list because everyone always recommends it. I can’t believe how long that book was compared to how little it feels like happened plotwise. I listened to it for like almost 9 hours straight on the way to Hilton Head, I felt like I was starting to get a bit delirious so I switched and checked back in with this off and on. I love that Augustus was always shouting when he talked and I loved that the horse was simply referred to as “the hell bitch”. I thought this was going to be more emotional based on how people described it but idk even the saddest parts didn’t seem to strike that chord for me. Still a decent read, I’m glad I finally ticked it off my list.

John Dies at the End not for a challenge but a past favorite reread to keep myself awake on the other part of my drive south. Jason Pargin’s TikTok is one of my fave accounts, I love his books, I think he’s so funny so I was excited to revisit this book. I actually forgot all about the middle part of this book so that was a fun refresher. There’s just something about dick jokes mixed with cosmic horror that really seems to delight me.

State of Terror for a book with a politician as the main character. I was tickled when I saw that Hillary Rodham Clinton coauthored a political thriller. I love thrillers, but political thrillers are not my fave. This was a pretty straightforward and actually easy to see the plot unfold long before it was revealed. Being someone who is suspicious of any politician, I found the strong bias (and blatant Trump inspired character) very silly but overall this was a fine book. Much like with James Patterson, I suspect the celebrity coauthor contributed little in actual writing and mostly just leant ideas for the plot.

ASAP not for the challenge. I read XOXO last year and felt like picking this one up. Very YA romance, I dont know much of anything about kpop but this holds up even if you’re not a fan of that genre. This was a cute story overall.

Currently Reading:
Mother of Rome
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Great Adventure Catholic Bible

Challenges:
Popsugar - 17/40; 0/4; 0/3; 2/3
Read Harder - 9/24
Classics - 4/12
European Tour - 4/10
12 Friends - 4/12
Yearly Goal - 47/180

I didn’t post for a few weeks.

Finished:

All Fours (Menopause prompt)
Weyward (personal side challenge of books with birds/featuring birds). I’d had this one about a 1/3 finished on audio when it was due back so I just got it back this past week.
In a Book Club Faraway (last sentence prompt)

Started:
Legend of the White Snake (goodreads prompt)
Troublemaker (cult)

Still working on:
One Goal

On deck:
The Crash (audio for a Goodreads prompt)


I don’t remember WHO read to me, but someone did. I don’t think massive variety, but I recall those little golden books being a feature. I have a core memory of thinking I knew how to read, and my sister crushingly telling me I just had the book memorized.

I was a very young kindergartener. I remember being a little slow out of the gates academically in K-1, then somewhere shooting up to high achieving level. I devoured books in 4-6 grade.

Jackie wrote: "Hi all,

I'd love to say I've been reading a ton but it's been a busy week. My dog somehow got a scratch or cut on the very tip of his tail. No worries, he's fine, as evidenced by the constant tail..."

Oh my goodness! Is he a cocker spaniel or springer spaniel by any chance? I have a cocker, and those breeds are known for what our vets jokingly call Happy Tail Syndrome - they injure their tail because they get so excited they don't care what they bash it against with their enthusiastic wagging! It can take a while to heal because they just keep doing it, and I have definitely heard of people resorting to socks and other kinds of padding!

Also, I love the idea of parachuting beavers. What a delightful image!

Holy heck, my sister surprised me with something that's gonna be so epic! I'll have to talk more about it later. I just can't believe it though.

Jackie wrote: "Hi all,

I'd love to say I've been reading a ton but it's been a busy week. My dog somehow got a scratch or cut on the very tip of his tail. No worries, he's fine, as evidenced by the constant tail..."



I started laughing as soon as I read this because I knew what was coming: blood spatter!!


It was the 40s though and WWII had just ended so they bought up a bunch of surplus army parachutes. Geronimo the Beaver took many test flights

Yep, adding that one to my TBR!!!!

Laura Z wrote: "we're pretty good at carving out time to see each other."

That's amazing and so glad to hear it Laura!

Sasha wrote: "Oh my goodness! Is he a cocker spaniel or springer spaniel by any chance?"

He's a lab - german shepherd mix, so 90 pounds of pure enthusiasm. He did have a Happy Tail injury as a rescue in a kennel - they had to hang padding around the inside of his dog run because he kept wagging his tail too hard against the hard walls. We think this current injury may have happened from him wagging his tail against a bush or something that scratched it because we can't find anything else and it's definitely some kind of scratch. In any case, he couldn't care less. I just need him to not lick it and open it back up.

Jackie wrote: "Sasha wrote: "Oh my goodness! Is he a cocker spaniel or springer spaniel by any chance?"

He's a lab - german shepherd mix, so 90 pounds of pure enthusiasm. He did have a Happy Tail injury as a res..."

He sounds amazing <3