Sobering thought. #slowdown

They also think all of Massachusetts is Boston but that's a story for another day. #kindle #blurb

I miss making half blurry Kindle app posts with quotes that are sort of interesting.

I forgot to post here after #covid oops. But I was returned thanks to this quote about MA politics being largely non-partisan. Luckily they explain why they say something that sounds so ludicrous later on. Remember in MA that Democrats will eat each other, they don't need Republicans for that. #mapoli

Edit: I was not removed. Nobody cares that much about MA politics? 😆

Just wishing for in person #tucsonfestivalofbooks again. #tfob #pandemic

Instagram posts just to get someone‘s attention? I swear I don‘t do that all the time. 🤣 #instagram #eid

This book was written in 2012. It‘s terrible that we all know the answer to this question now. #covid #coronavirus

Making candles, reading about old distance runners. Photographic perspectives from running are fascinating and it‘s time to try it myself. 😳

I need something lighter for this lousy excuse for a year. #candlepinbowling

Eating is an emotion. Not that that will change things, but at least I am reminded. #emotionaleating

I can‘t help but be irritated by these people being so stuck in history that they fail to acknowledge modern settlements. These places need some acknowledgment. Sounds like they‘re out near modern Sunizona. #cochisecounty

I wondered why the media rarely mentioned that in 2015 Republicans loved free trade, but by 2017 they despised it. 🤷‍♀️

The answer to both is yes. It‘s other things that go haywire.

Just reading more pandemic fiction to figure out the world right now. 🤷‍♀️

In this world, less severe than the one depicted, food is sometimes on shelves in supermarkets, travel is still easy but quasi-illegal (and we‘re still mostly in law-abiding mode), and water supplies haven‘t really been affected, but is that next?

Where will money come from? Will garbage trucks still run?

#pandemicreads #dystopian

1. I don‘t plan reading at all.
2. Boggle?
3. That is a good question.
4. After a relatively plausible lie 7 or 8 years ago that went a bit overboard, I‘ve toned it down. Unfortunately.

#friyayintro @4thhouseontheleft @howjessreads

I went to a truck stop after prom. I don‘t remember much else, too long ago.

1. Going outside, for a short time. It‘s also allergy season. :/
2. Introvert, mostly.
3. Seven.
4. How about love for y‘all? 💙
@4thhouseontheleft @howjessreads #friyayintro

This is not the book to read during a major viral outbreak. #virus #ya #outbreak

Later, trying to pinpoint the beginning of the End, I‘d think about the way the sky looked that day.

I think it might be that one last early Spring snowstorm here. Or maybe there is no End.

When dystopia was a fictional genre, we didn‘t realize that bottled water would be one of the first things to go. #dystopian #pandemic #reality

There has to be something good in life, but not here. #classics #stealingbookrecommendations

As I sit looking out a window in idyllic New England, the author muses on how history is defined by the powerful. A common refrain about New England is that it‘s historic. Why then was the history I learned one of an area far from these scenes, one where the desert is as far as the eye can see and Mexico was a major catalyst of history? Sure, this area has a lot for 18th century British rebels.

I‘m always looking for a reason to post this bookmark. One of my friends keeps recommending this book so here we are. I think I read it in high school, but that was a few years...decades... ago. #borders

He‘s engaging and I‘m still listening, but does he not see that white male privilege coming through? It reminds me of a recent Mitch Landrieu memoir. He tries but something is missing. #audiobook #audible #memoir #election

I went walking through the forest yesterday listening to this book. I can‘t help it but my first thoughts, and my second, were what a life of privilege he led.
#audiobook

I just went to my first #SilentBookClub in a few years tonight. In every other book club I‘ve done the average age of participants is usually 55-70. This one was probably 23 or so. In my early forties there‘s no doubt I was by far the oldest. Also they did a lot of let‘s talk about our books before and after. I caught quite a few people recoiling at the idea. Might be some shy introverts at a silent book club. #introvert #bookclub

Sometimes I take pictures for hashtag purposes. #librarieswithcannons #ashlandma

Hello! I‘m starting on a trip of reading from a whole bunch of American states. Anyone want to come along on a #bookroadtrip? #Arizona can be our starting point, how about it?

I just finished the book above and loved how someone was so intrigued by succulents, especially in the UK. Any great recent succulent reads, friends? #SucculentSaturday

Are cacti romantic? I don‘t need romance books. I can break my own heart. #cactus

The 1976 Ford pickup (green, of course) was way more memorable than any limo. 😂 #prom

You have to choose joy. I just chose something different but no. Move forward, choose joy.

I need to start a category for books read because the subject or author of the book found me on social media. I think that number is around 3-5, but bear in mind my Instagram is definitely not bookish. #retro #americana #roadside #diner

I‘m doing some serious identifying with this question. I already made my first big leap. That put kids out of the equation. I‘m working on the second big leap. Will it all work out? Am I just watching forty go past me and not achieving what I should achieve?

I‘m amused by Ange‘s perspectives on social media and her addiction to it. Therefore I will use social media to say something boring and post a picture taken in front of a Dumpster while waiting for someone to photograph a brick wall. (This post fueled by way too much social media and Cafe Bustelo.)

I‘m stuck in the city and there‘s wicked traffic? Is that a thing people say in Minnesota? That sounds straight out of Boston.

Kiddo, heartbreak doesn‘t care about facts like not being together. Just remember that heartbreak isn‘t permanent, but it‘s no easier when you‘re 80.

Seeing the beauty in the world can be really overwhelming. I‘m learning just to see and live it (and when my wannabe amateur photographer eyes come out it gets worse), but truly, it is so much. And what is beauty anyway?

I don‘t mean to dismiss the narrative arc of this book, but the sense of place, of geography, of how lives are forged by these places just speaks to my soul. It might just be my love of New England.

I‘ve never noticed the setting of a book so intently before. I love reading books that are contemporary and set in real places. Most of the time I‘m reading, i either know a place fairly well, or I don‘t. Haverhill in the 70s had to have been very different, and I don‘t know Haverhill that well anyway. I find myself trying to imagine the places mentioned and I can just barely imagine them. #haverhill #newengland

2. Probably one of the Minions movies?
3. This summer, Polar Seltzer and hot dogs.
4. No clue. Maybe 25-ish, but then there are their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren...
5. 👌 #friyayintro @howjessreads

I hate romances. This is going to turn out just fine. It‘s a book, not my Dumpster fire of unrequited crushes. I‘m too old for this. Solo road trips are mostly okay.

Here we go again, falling for another fictional character. Even the real ones are fictional. #lousyromantic #fictionalcrush

From the first time I set foot in Haverhill (which would be when I took this photo in December 2018), I wanted to be there forever. This book definitely makes me question that impulse, but at least the Merrimack River is no longer brown.

I didn‘t expect to experience every emotion in this book. I didn‘t expect to even sympathize with the identification with the rural West and the allure of New England. I didn‘t anticipate all the feelings.

Just another picture of Boston, though you can‘t see it from this picture. I went up this hill because you can see the Boston skyline from 30 miles away, and what do I find at the top of the hill but two Adirondack chairs? So New England.

I‘m feeling everything in this book. The difficult parent relationships. The pull of the East Coast and the rural West. The living on the age divide between those that have only known a digital life and those that recall the analog life. I don‘t have a clue how to portray this so here‘s a picture of Boston I took last month. #memoir #ebook

It‘s funny when you come across a book because you‘re Googling that nice writer you met once in the mid-2000s. The perspective is different when people in a biography or memoir are real. Have you ever read a biography or memoir and had some personal acquaintance with some of the people in it?

#indiebookmarks
Market Street Books, Troy, NY
The Book Rack, Arlington, MA
Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
Water Street Bookstore, Exeter, NH

I‘m sure I have more.

I can‘t help but be reminded of the time Google Maps tried to guide me directly into the Mystic River. Boston is the most horrible place in which to try to follow a GPS. The GPS probably just laughs at you and says good luck, it‘s Boston. 🙄😂

Two of my favorite books are #kindledeals today. Here‘s the first.