A soft pick. @Jari-chan did warn me!

This reads a little like a novella length fairy tale for adults.

Diane is born to a mother who is incapable of loving her. Despite receiving love and affection from her grandparents, father, & siblings this lack cripples her emotionally and establishes her overachieving adult trajectory. Only through a violent tragedy is she able to close the circle by connecting another victim of the same trauma.

#Roll100

#sundayfunday

Thank you for the tag @Eggs 😊The tagged is the first book that came to mind. 👻

So far the only reading I‘ve managed today is some great signage! ✊🇺🇸

Here‘s my #10beforetheend selection. I‘m always looking for something that encourages me to read what I already own.

A few will do double work for the #OffMyShelf challenge.

The Quincunx will meet #Allergictochunksters and #ChunksterChallenge2025 .

It‘s also a holdover along with The Illusionist from the #14Books14Weeks challenge. 🙊

Wow! 🤯 It doesn‘t get much better than Le Guin, IMO. This book reminded me a little of PKD only it made sense because it was UKLG. 😜

What would you do if you knew your dreams could affect reality? Unfortunately I think most of us would try to use this to our advantage as the terrifyingly normal Dr. Haber does. Who would wish such power away like George Orr?

A great (and short) philosophical novel hidden in an entertaining SciFi story.

#OffMyShelf “flower on cover”

Very sweet, romantic, and charming but not my cup of tea. The comparison to “The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society” is apt (which I also didn‘t love) . This has a similar vibe, though not epistolary.

Eight people come together in post WWII England to share their love of Austen and protect her literary legacy. Their communion helps each of them heal their own trauma and provide a sense of belonging.

#weekendreads

📕For the first time in a long while I am reading the #NancyDrewBR selection on time! 😅

📗”Don‘t Let‘s Go…” is a #Roll100 pick for October 👍

📘”Await Your Reply” is left over from #14Books14Weeks ! 😬

#FridayHappyReadingHour 🥂

Enjoying a Diet Pepsi on ice as I wind down for the weekend. I‘ve got five books on the go and enjoying them all.

The first book in Stout‘s long running Nero Wolfe mystery series. It was a wee bit long-winded but generally satisfying as a whodunnit. What makes it special are the characters: Wolfe tends his orchids and never leaves his brownstone while Archie Goodwin acts as legman and amanuensis (and the Watson to Wolfe‘s Sherlock).

I was curious about the series because Robert Jackson Bennett based his detective team in The Tainted Cup on Wolfe/Goodwin.

#OffMyShelf “pub year ends in 5”

“Well, there are a lot of things we don‘t know and choose and prefer not to know”.

Mantel‘s debut from 1985. Great writing but creepy, very dark and disturbing. There‘s something not quite right about the Axons: elderly Evelyn and her mentally challenged adult daughter Muriel. Unknowingly intertwined is former neighbor Colin, an unlikable school teacher, who is having an affair with Muriel‘s social worker.

Oops! 🙊 I almost forgot to post the #EBBR reminder for October! Hopefully all who plan on reading this next entry in the series either already have their copy or have placed their holds.

Even if the September title wasn‘t my favorite, I always look forward to reading these books each month and remembering how little kid me just loved them.

If anyone wants to be added or removed from the tag list, let me know.

@LitsyEvents

#majicmonday. Thanks for the tag @Eggs

Two things I like about my job:

💼 I get paid. 😜

💼 My boss is awesome! 🤩

One thing I dislike about my job

💼 People who can only delegate but cannot DO! 🙁

#FridayHappyReadingHour

Sitting down with a stack of books and tonic water on ice. Aahhhh….

Officially kicking off the #turnthepage readathon today!

My goal is to just make headway in any or all of the three novels I have on the go at the moment. Unfortunately I have work tomorrow and a busy weekend with some drive time. But I do have the Fleming and the James titles available on audio via Hoopla, so maybe I can listen a bit, if I‘m not too stressed by traffic. 🤞

Hello fellow armchair detectives! What did you think of this month‘s #EBBR selection? No doubt 10 year old me would have enjoyed this as much as any of the previous ones, but old lady me found the cases a little lackluster…maybe a tad uninspired?

I missed a few as usual, though how anyone who is not a whale 🐳 aficionado would know anything about ambergris is beyond me. 😂

#HashtagBrigade

I really enjoyed the re-read. It‘s been decades since I first read it and I got a lot more out of it this second time around. That‘s the beauty of classics and modern classics- they reward multiple reads. While I still prefer the idyllic first section with young (and in love IMO) Charles and Sebastian, I appreciate as an older person the bittersweet feelings for one‘s youth.

Thank you for leading the charge @BarkingMadRead 😊

It‘s always exciting to see what my monthly #Roll100 picks are. I own the memoir “Don‘t Let‘s Go to the Dogs Tonight”. Reading more Gloria Naylor is a permanent goal after loving “The Women of Brewster Place”. The Nothomb title has been recommended by so many-plus it‘s a translation! 👍

#OffMyShelf “recommended”
#AllergictoChuncksters
#ChunksterChallenge2025

Oof! So glad this is over. A 600 page picaresque comic novel that I didn‘t find very funny most of the time. I understand how it will appeal to some readers but alas not I. Buttoned up Raleigh Hayes leaves his ordered life in small town NC to go on a crazy quest to New Orleans on behalf of his estranged father. Along the way he reconnects with what‘s important in life.

#weekendreads

Definitely enjoying the cooler temperatures today.

📕I will finish the Matt Helm today. I picked it up at a FLL along with the James Bond books last week.

📘Handling Sin is my last #Roll100 for September and a bit of a struggle.

📗Loving my revisit to Brideshead for #HashtagBrigade and am reading far, far ahead of planned as a result.

#OffMyShelf “Prolific Author”

I picked this up for 50 cents at the library the other day. While I prefer Christie‘s novels, this was an enjoyable experience/story collection.

Five Poirot, one Miss Marple, two Parker Pyne, and one detective-less story (which felt more like Westmacott than Christie IYKYK). The only one I‘d read before was the Miss Marple, but I had seen all five of the Poirot ones adapted with David Suchet. I ❤️Agatha Christie.

#FridayHappyReadingHour

Let the weekend begin! 😋🧋📚

#Roll100 September pick

Thanks @Bookworm54 for the tip to go the audio route. The narration/performance by Kyle McCarley was excellent!

I enjoyed this “Cinderfella” story only it‘s a half goblin emperor and there‘s not exactly a princess charming at the end. But it is ultimately a heartfelt and heartwarming fantasy. The reader can‘t help but root for Maia, the rejected son of the elf emperor who is unexpectedly thrust on the throne at 19.

Pictured are Cheviots. I thought they were trees until I looked them up. 🙊🐑

Occasionally I have trouble with the classism and conservative attitudes in our #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub titles and this was one of those times.

The male romantic leads are older than their female counterparts and it‘s subtly implied they should be their masters. I didn‘t find the bits meant to be funny humorous and often it felt quite mean spirited. Overall just OK.

#Roll100
#OffMyShelf “One Word Title”

Mary Karr writes beautifully of her tween years and adolescence in Leechfield, Texas in the ‘70s. Not as sympathetic as her first memoir, because it‘s a difficult age for many and particularly for Mary, who is smart but also often impudent and challenging as well as challenged by her home life and the counterculture movement.

I would have made the prologue an epilogue, however.

Waiting at Panera while my dog gets groomed. 😋📚☕️🥗

#weekendreads

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub
#HashtagBrigade
#Roll100

I hope to finish Susan Settles Down and Cherry by Sunday. 🤞

Little Free Library find last night while walking Penny the dog. I already have copies of all but the tagged and might re-home two because I have those same editions even. But I couldn‘t resist grabbing them all. 😆

I first read this in the‘90s after seeing this movie. What a difference 30 years and some water under the bridge make! I am far less romantic now and more clearly see how all three of the main characters are trapped in societal pressures and constraints of their age and class in late 19th century upper class NYC.

Thank you @BarkingMadRead for leading the #hashtagbrigade once again! You are making reading the classics both manageable and fun. 😊

I finished the third book for #SummersEndReadathon !

I quite enjoyed this blend of fantasy and crime fiction. The world threatened by toxic leviathans was interesting and different enough from any other fantasy series I‘ve encountered. The characters were well drawn and believable. Dinios Kol is an engraver. He‘s been genetically augmented to have an edectic memory. He‘s a new assistant to the eccentric yet brilliant investigator Ana Dolabra.

#14Books14Weeks

I regret nothing! 😂 But other library books and/or challenges got in the way, so I only read 11 of the planned 14. I will get to The Impressionist, The Quincunx, and Await Your Reply before the end of the year, I hope.🤞

Thank you for hosting @Liz_M ! This is a great challenge and I love any excuse to make a stack of books! 📚

Hey there #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub reading friends!

Our pick for September is upon us. An unmarried brother and sister set up household in the Scottish Highlands…Susan is nursing a broken heart and Oliver is touchy about his war wound…could romance be in the cards for them? We will find out! 😃

This group is open to all. If anyone wants to be added to or removed from the tag list, let me know.
@LitsyEvents

#SummersEndReadathon

Finished my second book for the readathon. Thematically similar to The Remains of the Day, this is narrated by an older man in postwar Japan grappling with his own complicity with the past and Imperial Japan and with the new generation who view his choices through a different lens under the American occupation. Only two more novels left and I will be an Ishiguro completist.

Hello fellow #EBBR armchair detectives! This is a gentle reminder to get your hands on a copy of next month‘s tagged title, if you are so inclined. 😊

This buddy read is open to all. Please let me know if you would like to be added or removed from the tag list.

@LitsyEvents

#FridayHappyReadingHour

After a much needed afternoon nap, I‘m imbibing a Diet Pepsi with lemon. Ahhhh…to someday not having to work for a living! 🤞

#14Books14Weeks
#OffMyShelf “Magic Realism”

I think I prefer Erdrich‘s later novels, but this was very good. It gives context and background to her debut “Love Medicine”. Set in the early 20th century and told from two perspectives: Pauline who is adrift from real family, mentally scarred and eventually mad and Nanapush, a wise and wisecracking elder who is troubled by the continued incursion on and internal collapse of Native lands and ways.

#SummerEndReadathon

I have tomorrow off work, so I hope I can really indulge in this readathon and finish all three of these books by Labor Day. 🤞 The Erdrich and Ishiguro books are from my #14Books14Weeks stack.

Well fellow sleuths, how‘d you do with this month‘s #EBBR?

I missed many this time around. I have to applaud Sobel‘s efforts in misdirection in this particular book! 👏👏👏

I did read this title as a child because I remembered aspects of a few of the cases: the turned around telescope, the kidnapped pigs, the five items left in the grocery store (the magnet 🧲 that looks like a horse shoe-and what corner store sells magnets? 😂) Good fun!

#weekendreads

Starting the next book for #EBBR

“The Tainted Cup” is pure FOMO 😂

#OffMyShelf “Historical”

Not for the easily offended. Flashman is a terrible, amoral person. He‘s just incredibly lucky. Expelled from Rugby, he joins the army and ends up in Afghanistan, right in time for the first Anglo-Afghan war. I may continue with the series since Zelig-like, he is always at an interesting historical moment. The author is obviously a historian at heart. And I don‘t think the author endorses Flashman‘s behavior. Far from it.

#ChunksterChallenge2025
#AllergictoChunksters
#DoorstopKristen #KLBR
#OffMyShelf

I finished this 1125 page bind-up of all three novels. What a journey! This is the life of a medieval Norwegian woman - from her happy childhood, to her tumultuous courtship and marriage, to her years of motherhood and wifedom, to finally retreat to a nunnery and her death. Undset makes the characters, time and place come alive and feel relevant to the modern reader.

#FridayHappyReadingHour

I‘ve closed the laptop and poured myself an icy virgin G&T 🧊. It‘s HOT 🥵 today.

Then I‘m bound and determined to finish the tagged book on my kindle for #KLBR #DoorstopKristen and Flashman today so I can start fresh for the weekend. 🤞

My #Roll100 picks for September. I intentionally chose SFF titles I‘ve been meaning to read for years and so far, they keep getting picked! 😅👍 Looking forward to The Goblin Emperor!

Cherry I got over a decade ago when I read The Liar‘s Club.

Handling Sin was a recommendation also for over a decade ago when I obsessively followed book blogs.

The las two are off my physical shelf, so bonus.

#OffMyShelf “completely different”
#14Books14Weeks

Short stories are not something I normally gravitate toward, but I did enjoy this book of linked stories featuring a 30 something woman in the‘90s. Lucy‘s a photographer and a real “guy‘s girl”. She sails, she white water rafts, etc. but she is unlucky in love.

I have had this book on my shelf since 1999. 😵‍💫 It‘s moved with me three times in 25 years ! Glad I finally read it. 😅

Thank you @Butterfinger for this beautiful handmade bookmark. 😊

#WhereAreYouMonday

I‘m with Flashman on the 1842 retreat from Kabul of the British Army. He is really is a terrible person but one does get a good feel for the historical situation reading this book.

#OffMyShelf - memoir
#OhCanada

“Healing isn‘t a freeing experience when you‘re in the middle of it. It feels like land mines are exploding and ripping your flesh apart. Everywhere you step is dangerous.”

Powerful and raw. Knott writes about her struggles with addiction and abuse as an indigenous Canadian. Reminded me also of “Tattoos on the Heart” with its appeal to withhold judgment.

Trigger warnings for drug use, sexual assault and abuse.

#WhereAreYouMonday

My current book puts me back in Canada this Monday. A difficult memoir to read because the author has suffered so much pain and violence.

#OffMyShelf “one season”

This was a fast paced procedural but after finishing it, I‘m not sure the plot actually hangs together. DCI Erika Foster is recovering still from the death of her husband when she takes the case of a peer‘s daughter who was brutally murdered in London. She finds herself stymied when the powers that be appear to want to pin the murder on an innocent man. The crime and its unraveling all happen during the winter season.

#weekendreads

Reading the Helen Knott memoir for #OhCanada

The Pam Houston title I was gifted in 1999 😱 for my birthday. There is a dedication inside from the giver, dated. It and the Flashman book are for #14Books14Weeks

#OffMyShelf “translated”

Mon dieu! Zola does not pull his punches. Interesting to read this so close to the Rules of Attraction. The Kill is also a novel about amoral people behaving badly.

Set during the rampant speculation and corruption of the 2nd Empire, Saccard comes up from the provinces to collect his spoils by using any form of fraud or deceit. Everyone is a tool to be exploited him, including his wife and son.