My boring #BookSpinBingo list for November 2024. I just use posting the list as an excuse to play with all the backgrounds I keep downloading from PicCollage 😆

#Roll100 list for November 2024 contains all print books for once 😆
1. The Trojan Horse (Innes)

2. Mike: The Memoirs of the Hon. Lester B. Pearson (Pearson)

3. The Navigator of New York (Johnston)

Going to call it a low Pick. Still depressingly relevant even 20+ years after publication. I do remain cynical that organizations would ever fully deal with burnout in the ways presented in the case studies, but it‘s nice to imagine.

Working my way through the Reginald Hills I‘ve collected and passing them along. This installment was well structured but on the long side.

I always enjoy reading Flavia‘s voice, but I found it hard to suspend disbelief for some of the plot elements. For this reason I do not regret keeping the series a borrow rather than buy. A possibly spoilery musing is spoiler tagged in a comment.

An Archy McNally novel is always a fun time. This one is a little bit racier than other installments, on a similar level to McNally‘s Risk. But the story is good.

Loved this! Even though I knew roughly how this story ended, the journey there made for a suspenseful read. Great work by Lovell and Kluger.

I‘ve been reading a lot of articles for school this month and will probably fill up my #BookSpinBingo card the same way next month 😆

Great story! I also literally LOLd at the little intro story in the first part of the collection.

October 2024 #Roll100 picks:
1. McNally‘s Gamble, by Lawrence Sanders

2. The Tenth Doctor Vol. 6: Sins of the Father

3. We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story, by Simu Liu (audio)

My favourite of the trilogy (and I suspect many others‘ favourite as well). It has so much heart and adventure. This time round I was moved to tears by Gimli and Galadriel.

#BookSpinBingo list for September 2024 is all set. Thank goodness there‘s a comic book on the list (although have I read the comic book on this month‘s list? Absolutely not 😂)

#5JoysFriday
1️⃣ Going to see orchestra shows for The Legend of Zelda and Studio Ghibli!
2️⃣ Led a study group at work for friends interested in my master‘s program
3️⃣ My parents came to see the new house, and they loved it 🥰
4️⃣ Spent the past couple of days watching the Baldur‘s Gate 3 cast play D&D. So fun!
5️⃣ Found some nice photos to frame and hang on my walls

#Roll100 for September 2024:
1️⃣ The Tenth Doctor, Vol. 5: Arena of Fear
2️⃣ The Order of Time, by Carlo Rovelli
3️⃣ Sherlock: The Casebook, by Guy Adams

A vey good usage guide that encourages the inner wordie rather than the inner grammando. Curzan brings her own experience and input from her students to make this a well-rounded book.

I don‘t generally get along with impossible crime mysteries, and this was unfortunately no exception. I preferred the supernatural explanation. Also the “romance” between Rogan and Sherry made my skin crawl (which is why this is a Pan raher than a So-so).

This was fun, but sometimes the video game metaphors/analogies felt a bit over the top. I did like the cat POV interludes.

#5JoysFriday

1️⃣ My parents are dog-sitting my cousin‘s dog, so I am getting photo updates
2️⃣ Coffee time and lunch time with two great colleagues on Tuesday
3️⃣ Started a playthrough of Baldur‘s Gate 3 on my partner‘s computer
4️⃣ Bought tickets to see the hobbits at ComicCon
5️⃣ Just went on a hold-placing spree at the library. New month, new books on order 😄

I ended up returning this to the library unfinished. I liked some sections more than others—some of the angles for getting characters to narrate the history of monsters felt a bit contrived and it felt repetitive. I did love Strax talking about the Sontarans though 😃

#BookSpinBingo list is all set for August 2024. I‘ve been doing better at carving out time for reading lately, so hoping that continues.

A reread from 2011 and a very good one at that. I‘d completely forgotten how it played out.

#Roll100 for August 2024

1️⃣ The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 3: Conversion

2️⃣ Maigret se trompe (Simenon)

3️⃣ Waverley (Scott)

The Doctor Who comic has by far the best chance of being read 😂

My friend‘s Pusheen stuffy now has her own hand-knit sweater. This was reverse engineered from the Barnes and Noble exclusive Pusheen that came with a cable knit sweater. It‘s on upside down because this particular Pusheen‘s front paws are tucked in rather than outstretched 😂 but the sleeve placement works!

#5JoysFriday
1️⃣ got a free bookcase and it‘s already 90% full
2️⃣ met a cat on my way to work and it let me pet it 😍
3️⃣ laughed at a seagull pacing in the bus shelter like an impatient commuter 😂
4️⃣ the bunny that hangs out in our yard was here for like 3 hours on Weds
5️⃣ the Hobbits are coming to ComicCon 🤩

Boy am I glad I finished this at home instead of on the bus. Some tears were shed. This was very good.

All the feels with this installment 😭❤️ and now I‘m caught up!

An exciting story of salvage on the high seas.

This book is in the middle of Turton‘s oeuvre for me: lighter in tone and style than The Devil and the Dark Water, not as fiendishly intricate as Evelyn Hardcastle. I really liked the world of this book and would class it a postapocalyptic story with a mystery at its heart rather than a mystery set at the end of the world, if that makes sense.

Wow! Excellent and thorough. The super technical chapters about how the solid rocket boosters worked were a tougher slog for me than the chapters in which Vaughan laid out the theory of the normalization of deviance, but this was well worth reading overall. I borrowed my copy but need one of my own for a re-read!

#5JoysFriday for week ending July 12:
1️⃣ Reached end credits on Disney Dreamlight Valley (and immediately bought the expansion 😂)
2️⃣ Baked a cinnamon loaf that turned out well
3️⃣ Had dinner with friends on Thursday
4️⃣ Went for a lunchtime walk in the sun yesterday
5️⃣ Now 95% finished my main knitting project!

This installment features David Tennant in a pre-Doctor role, adding a little bit of extra fun to what are very grave proceedings indeed. The stinger line at the very end was perfect, and overall I liked the pacing and was intrigued by what the Daleks are up to. Looking forward to reading on!

I really like the Art Canada Institute series about various Canadian artists. This one introduced me to the breathtaking landscapes of Takao Tanabe, who paints the prairies and British Columbia.

A low Pick for the setting, which was well described. I found the story mostly satisfying, but I got impatient toward the end. That could be my reading mood though.

#BookSpinBingo list for July 2024 is all set. I suspect that of the three named books on this list, the Farley Mowat has the best chance of being read.

I really enjoyed reading Dame Judi‘s reminiscences of past Shakespeare performances and her thoughts on Shakespeare‘s work in general. The book is written as a conversation and it feels like you‘re listening to her in her drawing room over tea. And now I want to read or re-read all these plays!

After 2 joyful weeks in Denmark and Sweden, I‘m getting back to normal. #5JoysFriday

1. Went for a lunchtime walk with a coworker
2. I had a day off on Monday, which helps with getting back into the swing of things 😂
3. I bought some yummy biscuits in Sweden and will have to fill my suitcase with them next time I go.
4. A friend is bunny-sitting, so I had to visit 😄
5. I went for afternoon tea again!

I was in a reading slump and picked this book up. I read 237 pages in a day. That‘s how much I liked it. Cozy and heartwarming, similar to Days at the Morisaki Bookshop but perhaps with more coffee. I‘m not really a coffee drinker but did find myself craving a latte while reading 😂

I loved the setting, having just been to southern Sweden. However, I was indifferent to the main character, felt her professional nemesis was portrayed as an OTT irredeemable jerk, and didn‘t really care about the murder so I bailed without finding out whodunnit.

Y‘all get a handwritten #BookSpinBingo list for June 2024 because I wrote the books down in the wrong order and can‘t be bothered to change my Word document to match 😂 As always this year it‘s half articles for school, half books, and three of the books are my Roll100 picks.

#Roll100 is being ambitious this month, picking out 2 chunksters for me 😂

1. The Sunne in Splendour (Penman)

2. The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 1 (Big Finish audio drama)

3. A Fine Balance (Mistry)

#5JoysFriday
1. My classmates in my master‘s program are always super encouraging. We pull each other through each assignment.
2. We‘ve had great weather at lunch, perfect for walking.
3. I‘ve enjoyed all the cat manga I read this week.
4. Chatted with 2 great friends today. I always feel uplifted talking to them.
5. I am off for 2 weeks! 😎

This is cute and made me laugh out loud in places, but definitely better suited for reading in small chunks; it‘s a lot of single-page comics and it is possible to consume too many in one sitting.

Looking forward to this, one of my #Roll100 picks for June 2024!

The manager of the local cat cafe recruits Mr Kanda and Kanda's former student Kuju to help him rescue a cat from an abandoned, garbage-ridden flat, but Fukumaru is not happy about yet another guest in HIS house. I loved this little friend, a talkative Siamese cat, and how he and Kuju have developed a bond.

With regard to the one-page stories, I laughed out loud at “The Cat Is the Hat“. Very simple and very silly. Loved it.

Another great installment in the series. Things are getting serious for Nick and Charlie as Nick starts to think about university and how that will affect their relationship. I remember very well the pressure to know exactly what you want to do with your life at that age, and it's probably worse now. I love the text conversations and the glimpses of side characters' storylines.

#5JoysFriday
1. Afternoon tea with friends outdoors on a perfect sunny day

2. A housewarming gift of The Complete Far Side ❤️

3. A band I love is releasing a new album, first in 10 years

4. Played a bunch of Stardew Valley

5. Got good feedback on the first assignment of my next master‘s course (we won‘t talk about the struggle with assignment 2 😬)

#5JoysFriday on Friday this time 😂

1. The in-law family had their 1st BBQ of the year for Mother‘s Day

2. The hosts have a beautiful tuxedo cat with green eyes 😻

3. Saw a 🐰 on the way to work on Tue

4. Had a great email discussion with a colleague about my course

5. Received pretty flowers 🌷from my nephew

3 stars so a pick. I really liked how the main case wrapped up. Was grinning to myself on the bus for that part! So I‘ll hang on to this one.

This was very well done. I like David Mitchell‘s droll humour and he writes well about the subject. No endnoting, but the further reading list contains some good sources. I ended up buying the audio immediately afterward with a spare Libro.fm credit 😄

Once again #FiveJoysFriday goes into Saturday 👀
1. New episodes of Doctor Who dropped on Disney+ this week!

2. Today I had tea with friends I hadn‘t seen for a couple of years.

3. I then went book shopping with these friends 😄

4. We bought some local strawberries (probably greenhouse rather than outdoor), which were good

5. I‘ve been filling my calendar with cool concerts in the fall/winter!