A short book of very short, very off-the-wall stories. These stories each take a little random idea and answer the question, what if this little random idea happened in real life? Delightfully bizarre.

The sense of isolation and the double-edged sword of obedience are strong in this novel. The sound of the waves comes through the writing. The pace is slow, and the interactions are frustrating as we follow the development of relationships through hardship. I appreciate the reflective nature of this novel even as I'm not sure I would recommend it except in specific circumstances.

Photo: Somewhere near Half Moon Bay, California, 2005.

Sky water! And I'm reading an appropriately titled book for a downpour. Not thrilled to have to drive in it, but I'm very happy to get precipitation. It's been a ridiculously dry rainy season.

More live music! I enjoyed reading the tagged during the quiet parts (and napping in the car between our son's two concerts...staying up late reading the night before hours of orchestral music isn't a great idea, apparently).

I irritated my spouse and confused my teen and the cats by staying up very late to finish this one. It's not that it's spectacular, but I did find it gripping, and I just didn't feel like stopping reading. Yes, the men in this are all douchebags (at best), and it is annoying how much the women put up with, but it feels not-untrue to me the way that people contort themselves to meet expectations and to try to stave off rejection.

Really?

Started this book today. After just the Author's Note, the Prologue, and this quote, I think I'm going to have fun with this one.

I have read some great books this week, so it was tough to choose, but the tagged edged out Poor Deer and Martyr! by just a little (even with how grouchy the ending still has me feeling).

#WeeklyFavorites @Read4life

I have very strong, mixed feelings about this novel. On the one hand, it's beautiful, focused yet expansive, easy to get lost in. One section had me in tears, which rarely happens for me when reading. On the other hand, I feel cheated. I will not go into details, but I do not like how the story wraps up. So, 99% I loved, 1% really pissed me off.

#tob25 longlist

A poignant exploration of how a child reacts to tragedy and draws conclusions about responsibility and the role that adults play in this process. My family experienced a loss when I was just shy of 4, and the ways in which Margaret attempts to make sense of her loss and the ways that it reverberates through the years feels true to me, although the circumstances were quite different.

Photo: A deer (in maybe Colorado?) in 2015.

The wind is blowing like crazy, and I'm trying to distract myself from worrying about fires. Playing piano has been soothing (grateful that after a year of playing, I have enough skill so it can be something besides frustrating), and I'm enjoying reading the tagged, but it's increasing the sense of foreboding that started with the wind and the news. I might resort to housework to expend some of the restlessness if this keeps up.

#TLT #ThreeListThursday @dabbe

34/100
Not as awesome as it might have been had I made more progress on my TBR, but my English degree plus homeschooling plus the Classics Club challenge helped. That and my love of Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison.

Faves:
1. All the Light We Cannot See
2. Brave New World
3. Beloved

There is a lot going on in this novel. I'm not totally convinced of the motivations for some of the characters' actions, but it's a diverting story to read. I'm intrigued by the trope of the insidiously close-knit village. I see why authors keep coming back to it (and not just because it gives them a controlled environment with a limited cast of characters). It's interesting to explore how people justify their actions and defend/blame one another.

I had a busy day today---listened to the tagged while driving to and from reading to preschoolers and to and from piano lesson. Then I recorded, edited, and submitted four auditions. I felt productive, but perhaps not as productive as Silo, who built a little nest out of my son's dirty socks.

The photo doesn't do the stew justice, but it was SO GOOD. I couldn't find fresh habañeros*, so I used a jalapeño and a few dashes of habañero hot sauce. Caribbean-Style Swiss Chard and Butternut Squash Stew from the tagged.

*About 20 years ago, I had a habañero plant in a container on the balcony of our apartment in North Carolina. It grew to about three feet tall and produced at least a hundred habañeros. And now I can't find one pepper. *sigh*

There's not a lot I can say about this one without giving spoilers, but I can say that I really appreciate how it's written, and I'm looking forward to discussing the ending with my book club. It's not my favorite from the #tob25 shortlist, but I do like it.

Although it ate into my reading time, I enjoyed spending half of the day exploring a bit of my lovely city, situated in the most biodiverse county in the United States. Hopefully, in the years to come, we can make choices as a community to help support this biodiversity while also helping the humans of this ecosystem to live healthy, happy lives, regardless of what happens on a national level.

"She had spent too many decades of close observation to be cowed any longer by the prohibition against anthropomorphism. What began, centuries ago, as a healthy safeguard against projection had become an insidious contributor to human exceptionalism, the belief that nothing else on Earth was like us in any way."

I just realized this existed (I was going to say I "discovered" it, but that seemed a little too Christopher Columbus) and knew I had to join in!

#WeeklyFavorites @Read4life

Oh...kay. So, this is a...book. Longish, loosely interconnected stories that work to varying, universally cringey degrees, and do a self-consciously meta thing that doesn't really work for me. I'm intrigued by the form, and the characters are definitely complex underneath the stereotypes, so I am curious to read other work from this author, even as this one feels kind of hit-and-miss. #tob25

I've been in a crappy mood this week in part because my ears are still plugged and ringing weeks after my illness over the holidays (nearly 4 weeks now). So, I'm trying to focus on #5JoysFriday to balance out my grouchiness:

1. Kitties
2. Tea and reading
3. Reading to preschoolers
4. The symphony (and minimal resulting tinnitus)
5. Helped my kid record and submit his audition for a summer music program.
@DebinHawaii

Looks like I won't be moving for a while, so I might as well plan out some more reading!

What are some books from the #ToB25 Longlist that should have made the shortlist that I *must* pick up once I'm done with the shortlist? (I only have four more to go after I finish the two I'm on.)

#TLT #ThreeListThursday @dabbe
21/104, thanks in large part to using a literature-based curriculum when I homeschooled (we read a lot more than 21 books, but many weren't Newbery Medal winners).

Some faves:
-Walk Two Moons
-Bud Not Buddy
-Caddie Woodlawn

And fave series:
-Dark is Rising
-Chronicles of Prydain (awesome on audio!)
-The Moffats

This is a quick one (read/listened to it all today), and I really liked it. It's kind of brutal, but it's more relatable for me than All Fours, which has similar themes (midlife, the unequal nature of marriage, etc). The weaponized incompetence, the shifting of narrative so the actions of one partner are always justified, the inclination of the other partner to internalize all of the problems in the marriage...all feel true/familiar. #tob25

I went back and forth between the ebook and January LaVoy's awesome narration with this one. Overall, it's a soft pick for me. I like some of the things Link does with these characters, but the novel just feels really long. My favorite thing about this novel was listening to the audiobook for how January LaVoy transitions from teen voices to kid voices to adult voices and trying to figure out what she's doing in her body to create each.

Today I read this classic to the UTK classes I've been visiting weekly. One of the classes made me a lovely "thank you" poster with photos from the first day I read to them. No photo of the poster because it has pictures of the kids on it, but it's so sweet!

There. I finished it. It doesn't feel like a waste of time, but I'm also not sure if I "enjoyed" it, per se. There seem to be a lot of inside jokes and references here, and mostly it feels like a book directed at someone who isn't me, like reading someone else's parents' letters to each other. The connections and threads are interesting, but they don't really have significance to me, and I'm usually able to center myself in any story. #tob25

The amount that I read during the symphony last night is not a statement about the quality of the music. (Although it might be an indication of how well I can focus during slower movements. My 15yo asked, "How do you feel about being a fair-weather fan?" Luckily, I can handle being judged by a teenager now that I'm 30+ years from being one.)

Still working on this one. Still not sure why. My Kobo says I have 3.3 hours to go (54% done). I want to know what happens, but I'm a little worried it will feel like I've wasted my time. Not that being comfy with book, tea, and slippers is ever a *total* waste of time.

This one's not amazing or anything, but it is fun. It says some things about organized religion and about family dynamics and how hard it is to move away from them. There's also some in there about coming into our own as adults. But mostly it's just fun.

Thanks for the tag, @dabbe !

I have read 60 of these. I would have done better if I or my kids had been into the Moomins (so many Moomins on this list!), but I had nearly a clean sweep of the third page. Faves: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh (Milne only...accept no substitutes!), and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

The list is missing Beverly Cleary, which is a travesty.

#TLT #ThreeListThursday

I actually really like this one. There are a couple of silly things and a couple of pieces that aren't explained to my satisfaction, but I enjoy the setup of the mystery. It's pleasantly convoluted, and the misdirection, for the most part, fits with the story rather than feeling like something contrived by the author to throw the reader off (which always feels unfair to me).

I'm not sure what to think of this novel. It's something if a coming-of-age story about a young man learning the contours of his world in the context of his participation in the 2008 presidential election. There's a sense of hope, disillusionment, and something like acceptance. It was interesting to look back at that time from David's perspective, but I'm not sure this one is going to stick with me. (Photo: Utah during election season 2008.)

"...Our Author---likely the greatest author in the world---had organized her books, at least in part, *by color*?"

I'm still not sure about this book, but it does have some amusing bits.

I'm trying to figure out how long I should give this #tob25 shortlist title before I decide to bail. I like the concept, but I'm 9% in, and it's not grabbing me yet. Maybe two more chapters?

I really enjoyed this one, but I had to read it quickly because the MC is so relatable that I felt guilty every time she made a cringey decision. It's sooo SoCal and reminds me why I'm treading carefully in the showbiz-adjacent world I find myself skirting. The whole industry feeds on people's insecurities and the seductiveness of being seen as clever, important, special. I also love that it's a GenX story. #tob25

Spouse and I had a little staycation in town last night and capped it with a trip to Verbatim Books, where I got a little reading nook envy (and a book...Finding Margaret Fuller by Allison Pataki).

My 2024 Year in Books post is up on my blog: https://imperfecthappiness.org/2025/01/03/2024-my-year-in-books/

No audio version this time as my voice is still not back completely after my illness and there are a lot of The Storygraph graphics anyway, which I could narrate, but I'm not sure it would add much.

Photo is of some super-cool clouds on our walk last night.

My younger teen is reading a book and drinking tea! He used to be a huge reader, but he's preferred YouTube videos to books for the past couple of years. This spontaneous reading time warms my heart!

January's #bookspinbingo card is ready to play! Blank spaces (that aren't free spaces) will be filled in with titles once I find out what my remaining Christmas gift books are.
@TheAromaofBooks

December's completed #bookspinbingo card. Close twice, but didn't quite get a bingo this month. I did finish both my #bookspin and #doublespin, so there's that!

@TheAromaofBooks

I like this one a lot. I'm not sure about the ending, but it says some very interesting things about thinking as resistance. I think about the current backlash against the "intellectual elite" in the US, the drop in literacy/reading, and this idea that looking beneath the surface of things is at best a waste of time and at worst unpatriotic/immoral. The antidote appears to be to think/read, but that doesn't seem like enough. #tob25

Although it's a little clunky in places---the POV in the first section switches so often and with so little difference between character voices that it's hard to keep track, and sometimes the plot twists make the story feel a bit like riding in a car with an automatic transmission driven by a two-footed driver---the story overall is enjoyable. I love that it's set in Kansas. What a lovely change of pace!

My reactions to this novel cycled through, 1) "Oh, this is good," 2) "Um, ew?" 3) "Wait...what?" 4) "Why is this guy fighting so much?" Overall, it's a unique look at how family secrets and dysfunctional habits can surface in the face of grief. It presents the reordering of a family as a sort of forced metamorphosis, especially the part where the caterpillar becomes, like, soup before becoming a butterfly. Soft pick. #castthedie #tob25 longlist

This is a lovely assortment of creepy holiday stories, sort of like the seasonal ghost story version of a Whitman's Sampler (which used to capture my imagination as a child, with its little map and exotic-sounding candy names). I feel like there's a little bit for everyone here. My favorites at the moment are the stories by Christopher Golden and Kaaron Warren, but each story in the collection holds its own. (No icky orange creams.)

I wouldn't say I'm *ready* for January (or 2025), but having my #bookspin and #castthedie list ready puts me a little farther along the preparedness path. I've got my #roll100 titles on there, my gift books (some of which I've not received yet), and a lot of #tob25 shortlist titles that I may or may not be able to procure before the end of the month.

@TheAromaofBooks @PuddleJumper

I felt well enough yesterday to lead my offspring in finally constructing and decorating gingerbread houses. We still don't know what I have (not covid, not pneumonia), but there's incremental improvement each day. It's really messing up all of our fancy plans for the holiday break. At least I have energy for some low-key fun stuff...and reading!

Camille is working hard to help me continue recovering from this illness that's still holding on rather more tightly than I'd prefer it to. She stays by me all night, even with all of my coughing and tossing and turning. I'm feeling incrementally better each day. It's slow, but it's progress. At least I have lots to read---and kitty snuggles, of course.

Check out the gorgeous book covers my spouse got me for Christmas! He wrapped them around library books he got from deep in my TBR list, as is our tradition (the library books...the book covers are a new thing). I'm told there are a bunch more coming in, but so far, I have the tagged, plus Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams and Haven by Emma Donoghue. Perfect for #ReadOutTheOld!

This is my third by Chapman, and it might be my favorite. It's got some small tense issues and a timeline or two that don't match up (if someone has three kids in quick succession, those kids will no longer be children after 40 years pass), but perhaps these are intentional, given the narrator. It's an interesting look at grief and vengeance. So, perfect for reading on Christmas? (No, I need some Frank Capra now.)

The timeline in this one is confusing, and the lead-up is long and deliberate while the reveal is almost peremptory. I like the Chicago history, and I like what it says about the past sticking with us, but as a ghost story/fairytale retelling/police procedural, it doesn't really work for me.