This reminded me of a very dear friend, an excellent listener and advisor, who told me that the stages of grief aren't linear, but come and go. It helped a lot, especially when we lost him.

And another one bites the dust!

I enjoyed this and almost feel guilty for not loving it but somehow I don't. I kept thinking about other books; it's got kind of an Amelia Peabody-ish vibe, though with a more Lord Peter/Harriet relationship, and some Jonathan Strange-esque footnotes. I did really like the very gentle touch of sexiness -- Wendell's collarbone, OMG -- but perhaps it just didn't make Emily appealing enough for me.

I've been trying all sorts of “X“ books, and then I realized I had one from back in October. 🤦🏻‍♀️

A The Secret Adversary/Agatha Christie
B The Girl in the Blue Dress/Mary Burchell
C The Celebrants/Steven Rowley
D Legendborn/Tracy Deonn
E Miss Granby‘s Secret/Eleanor Farjeon
F From Dust to Stardust/Kathleen Roony
G Greengage Summer/Rumer Godden
H Here Comes Treble/London Price
I I Shall Never Fall in Love/Hari Connor

cont.

Have done a decent amount of reading this week. I've got 2 1/2 #10BeforeTheEnd books to go.

#SnowyDecemberReadathon
@LiseWorks

The coziest book, but with a touch of sharpness too.

One of the more interesting passages in the book. Christie was hardly free of the prejudices of her time, but she thought about things white feminists of decades later didn't.

This memoir of 1930s archeological digs in Syria is, unsurprisingly, all kinds of problematic. Still, if you're fond of Christie's voice there's a lot to enjoy, not least of which is her own enjoyment. It's kind of awesome to read about a middle-aged woman gamely heading out on adventures, and as a working member of a team. As a fan, it's also fun to notice where she used her experiences in her fiction.

#10BeforeTheEnd @ChaoticMissAdventures

@Read4Life

I spotted a menorah on the cover and grabbed this for #ISpyBingo, not noticing at the time what an unusual menorah it is. This is a delightful multicultural story about a girl visiting her aunt Luisa, who comes from Mexico. Isobel not only learns some new Sephardic Hanukkah customs, but also about her aunt's creativity and love for animals and nature. I would have loved to read this to my kid when she was little.

I enjoyed the unique voice of the main character, but the book is such a slog otherwise. Very little suspense, no sparks with the love interest, and it's so obvious where it's going.

I may just be over N.R. since this is my second DNF. I'm hoping I can find a good Julia Whelan reading for this #AuthorAMonth but they don't seem findable at the library, except one on playaway.

The three rating choices are just not sufficient for my feelings about this book. Will try to say more later. Right now I'm rereading the ending, because I read it on Ambien. 😂

@ChaoticMissAdventures #10BeforeTheEnd

This was my favorite quote from the book. I guess I find it comforting, because I often feel like a jumble of terrible feelings doing its best to somehow be a decent human being anyway.

Gilead was a bit of a slog at times, but ultimately very beautiful. There's so much kindness and thought in it.

#DoubleSpin

Down the hallway, carolers are singing, but you can't quite hear the song. As they travel closer to your room, you determine it's that Joni Mitchell song that makes everyone want to kill themselves, and if anything, the song is even more depressing when song by carolers in a hospital.

An intriguing list! The Last Unicorn is an old fav and I've also read Every Heart a Doorway, but most of the others are new to me! Right now I'm most interested in Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch and Song of the Huntress, and will probably save the Shusterman for February #AuthorAMonth.

(I think I'm missing one book though...?)

@shortsarahrose

thanks @monalyisha!

Five #10BeforeTheEnd books, and a bunch of other challenges as well. It worked out very nicely.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaOfBooks

Not a great reading month for me. Am 65% through Gilead though, so should finish that soon.

@TheAromaOfBooks

I have no particular goals for this, just want to spend some concentrated reading time each day and finish up some stragglers. I'm listening to How Sondheim Can Change Your Life and want to finish Gilead and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorow. (Maybe!)

@LiseWorks

2 #ISpyBingo lines, not bad! I had to finish Thud quickly because it was so cool that it fit “exclamation point in title“ and then it worked for “author in orange letters“ too!

@TheAromaOfBooks

Part original list, part #10BeforeTheEnd books and part other challenges.

Hey #QueerBC, here are some discussions questions for our November author, Adam Silvera. Answer some, all, or none!

Even after he broke up with his boyfriend Theo, even when Theo started seeing Jackson, Griffin expected them to be endgame someday. But then Theo died at 18 and Griffin is left a wreck of grief, guilt, and compulsion. A very intense story with intriguing twists; it engrossed and affected me but was almost too depressing to enjoy.

#QueerBC
@PuddleJumper

This cover, oh this cover! Tommy's top hat is possessed? Albert has been turned into a dog boy? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

I've read this fun collection many times, so tried an audiobook. There are quite a few; mine was narrated by Daniel Philpott, who does a good job on the many different accents. I felt he made T&T sound a little too sardonically sarcastic, but perhaps that's in keeping with their determined un-sentimentality.

#ChristieCapers

All challenge books for #CastTheDie. Don't think I'm going to get everything finished...

@Puddlejumper

... there has developed among those who do it [presidential campaign reporting] so arresting an enthusiasm for overlooking the contradictions inherent in reporting that which occurs only in order to be reported. They are willing, in exchange for “access“, to transmit the images their sources wish transmitted. They are even willing... to present these images not as a story the campaign wants told, but as fact.

“You can't imagine how it is when everyone you know is gone,“ someone I knew who was old would say to me, and I would nod, uncomprehending, yes I can, I can imagine, would even think, God forgive me, that there must be a certain peace in outliving all debts and claims, in being known to no one, floating free. I believed that days would be too full forever, too crowded with friends there was no time to see.

Probably going to DNF at 71%. This is why I don't read #$#$$@#$&* literary fiction.

This is lovely but it seemed like it was getting to a perfect ending and I'm only a quarter in.... 🤔

#BookSpin

Spent the afternoon with some interesting characters!

My husband really liked this so I'm assuming at some point it'll stop depressing the hell out of me.

(Me: “Why can a male teacher never pay attention to a female student without it being a pass?“

My husband: “Because that's what makes it literary fiction.“) 😂

I enjoyed the first half of this collection which are entertaining stories of human foibles. The dryly absurd humor reminded me of Vonnegut, though the prose style is far more erudite and elegant.

The second half, a novella following Eve from Towles' “Rules of Civility“ is kind of a mess. I got no new insights into Eve, who comes across as a Mary Sue, and have no idea what becomes of her. So a low pick overall.

#10BeforeTheEnd halfway there!

Oh my goodness, I got the cutest package from @OutsmartYourShelf! My prizes for winning the #SPNBookBingo2025, delightfully wrapped and all October themed: a book from my wishlist, a creepy bookmark, and a Supernatural-themed word search book! Now I can relive #HauntedShelf for weeks to come. 😁 Thank you Gayle!

Our #FurrowedMiddlebrow nominations for January are two of my favorites authors:

Sharp‘s first book is about a girl who feels like an outsider in her self-consciously artistic family, and strives for an ordinary life.

Ten Way Street is described as having “a little more Noel Streatfeild in it than the average Susan Scarlett,” which got my attention. 😁 It‘s about a governess caring for the difficult children of an actress.

Please vote below!

A rather disappointing end to the series. (Assuming it is the end. Shinn has been revisiting her previous series of late.)

Full review here: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/tbr-challenge-whispering-wood-by-sharo...

#10BeforeTheEnd @ChaoticMissAdventures

Such a great title, but I didn't enjoy the style. She's very much saying “this is how it was,“ and it really wasn't, for me. #HailTheBail

A bit late...

Happy Birthday @MatchlessMarie! I'll probably read more today but am unlikely to finish anything else. Thanksgiving madness is here!

My #37By37 goal was four books, which I met, as well as a short story and two graphic novels. And am several stories into Table for Two, one of my #10BeforeTheEnd books.

I read this solely for @Faranae's #URC and it was a pleasant surprise! I loved reading about women pilots in WW2. (My late mother-in-law took flying lessons back then but her instructor made a pass at her and she quit. 😡 She would have enjoyed this.)

The modern day part of the story was a bit goofy, but satisfying. Sookie is a middle-aged Southern housewife who's long been under the thumb of her domineering, narcissistic mother. cont.

Speaking of little free libraries... my sister hired a young woman to help her out with chores and asked her to take my sister's library books back. And she walked all around the neighborhood putting the books into different free libraries! 😂

Luckily my sister's boyfriend was able to retrieve them all.

Some cute community libraries in Berkeley.

“She took her small bottle of smelling salts out and took a few sniffs and sat and waited.“

This is 2005! I read it and thought, wow, the South is another country. And then was very amused when the author says that very thing in the bonus material.

Took me forever to decipher whats happening in this cover. Rather pretty though.

I've always felt a little out of the loop with Persuasion, never finding it all that romantic, but I think I appreciate it more now. So much suspense, so much yearning! So much snark! 😂

#Pemberlittens #JaneAustenThenAndNow @Crinoline_Laphroaig

Cute story, awesome art.

https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-read...

Absolutely flabbergasted by this article.

#TodayILearned about the enormous progress made in antitrust regulation by the Biden administration, primarily because people were fighting hard for it. Going to try to hold onto that optimistic thought because I am, frankly, depressed AF by the actions of the Democrats.

Very readable and interesting book, though I'm not sure that helpful for the average non-techy person.

#NonFictionNovember @BookwormJillK
#MonthlyNonfiction2025 @julieclair

Pretty sure this would just depress the hell out of me.

#10BeforeTheEnd #HailtheBail @ChaoticMissAdventures

A corrupt administration or a corrupt judge will always find a reason to attack workers. That's why worker power always starts with *workers*, not with the law. Solidarity will get you though periods of legal attacks on unions more than the law will get you through periods of no solidarity.

Willowweep Manor rescues the imperiled denizens of another universe: A gruff colonel, a capable young woman, a butler, a sweet old lady... you get the idea. When things start to go very wrong, Haley as at a loss about how to help her friends--mysteries aren't her thing--but works it out in the end.

Unlike Haley, I love classic mysteries, so I thought this was a hoot, especially the sweet old lady's village stories. Best to read book 1 first.

I started this with a “four chapters a day“ plan and then read it straight through so I was definitely engaged. Set in the 30s, it started out with two interesting characters: Ivy, a thrice-widowed charwoman with an incredibly strong sense of self, and poet Helen, who's kind of lost herself in an affair with a man who won't marry her.

cont.

I was really enjoying this, but halfway though it suddenly started focusing on all these extraneous characters. I'm baffled.

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

A Murderbot short story with no Murderbot! But plenty of ART/Peri, so it's still good.