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!
rubyslippersreads, quietjenn, Kimzey, catebutler, Cuilin, CarolynM, LeahBergen, Gissy, Tamra, bookandbedandtea, kwmg40, Ruthiella
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
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.
“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
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.
rubyslippersreads, quietjenn, Jess_Read_This, Kimzey, erzascarletbookgasm, catebutler, CarolynM, LeahBergen, Lizpixie, elkeOriginal, Aimeesue, batsy, Tamra, bookandbedandtea, Teresereading, kwmg40, Cathythoughts, Ruthiella, julieclair, MrsK
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.
Another easy pick for the week. What a powerful book - it's in my top two of favorite Pratchetts. The complicated plot is gorgeously arranged and paced, and it had me in tears by the end for several reasons.
*Not* a good entry point to the Watch or Discworld series, because there's so much character growth and unexpected background.
#OokBookClub @JulesG
A review suggests this for those who like “Victorian women protagonists; series long mysteries; family dramas; pastries.“ 😂
I'm really only crazy about the fourth--and still wish Thomas would go back to historical romance!--but enjoyed this anyway. It's super convoluted and I barely understand what happened (might be a me issue) but I'm into the characters, even pathetic, conservative Inspector Treadles, whose wife might (gasp!) run a business!
In a post-apocalyptic world in which men have died out, a group of women and girls navigate their romantic relationships while puzzling out the remnants of previous society. It's pretty funny and often sweet, though not as inclusive as I'd like. (The author does make an effort, but it's pretty cis-centric.)
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
No, you're wrong there--quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.
“You're arresting *Unmentionables*?“
“No uniform. No badge. Carrying weapons. Let's have a bit of law around here, shall we?“ said Vimes. “Snouty, where's that cocoa?“
“We'll get into trouble!“ Knock shouted.
Vimes let Knock wait until he'd lit a cigar. “We're in trouble anyway, Winsborough,' he said, shaking out the match. “It's just a case of deciding what kind we want.“
#TodayILearned about how Amazon can keep offering us free prime trials constantly -- the demands they extort from their sellers make shipping basically free for them.
Amazon, Google, Uber -- all are designed now to screw people over coming and going.
#NonFictionNovember @BookwormJillK
#ScreamTeam, my final points are 13,100.
I finished ~46 books and got 98 bingo lines and 7 completed boards. Got all the word search words, but not a single Cluedo. 😂
sebrittainclark, Laughterhp, MsRadioSilence, kwmg40, vonnie862, TheAromaofBooks, ImperfectCJ, Roary47, Yuki_Onna, IriDas, Seabreeze_Reader
A good, but frustrating month. So many books with the *author* in Orange... so many creatures, without paw prints. I cheated a little for “red hair“ because I thought it was funny. 😂
Blackout? I used Touch Not the Cat for the “classic book“ square, because it's an old genre classic, but I'll let @OutsmartYourShelf decide if that counts or not.
#SPNBookBingo2025
#BookSpinBingo for October - almost a blackout! (I personally count DNFs as a win, and am still listening to Conspiracy in Belgravia.)
My November #Bookspin list. Includes a lot of my #10BeforeTheEnd titles. Also some for #NonfictionNovember.
Following “Dionysus in Wisconsin,“ Ulysses & Sam are disturbed to learn Sam might not have been the only victim of his grandfather's magical schemes, when Ulysses' ex Livia turns up in peril.
I love this relationship and the author's voice--imagine a cozier, Midwest K.J Charles--so this has to be a pick, but oh was I irritated! Ulysses is so willfully oblivious to what's right under his nose. And the ending is... insufficient. But I'll read on!
“You seem very unconcerned about this.“
“Man, I was not raised in the woods by Bolsheviks.“
“Are you a capitalist?“
“You should have asked me if I'm a fellow traveler before you kissed me, don't you think?“ Sam said, smirking.
“But?“
“I'm a librarian.“
“Is that a political affiliation?“
Sam considered this. “Near enough.“
When former star Devin finds himself acting just like his famous werewolf character--complete with glowing eyes and fangs--he turns to the creator of his fan site for help, not realizing he once brutally stomped on her feelings.
Devin's a sweet Himbo, Alex is a cynical loner--but they're both wounded and lonely. I'm not sure the paranormal plotline mixed well with the realism overall, but it's an appealing story. I even liked the sex scenes! 🤯
“I know I asked you this before, but how much do you trust Livia?“
Ulysses glanced up from the show he was calculating. “I don't think she's going to murder me,“ he said. He looked down and sunk the two into a corner pocket.
“That is close to the bare minimum that one expects from others, yes,“ Sam managed.
I hadn't read Wilson before and this was quieter than I was expecting. Quietly amusing, quietly revealing, quietly affecting. Perhaps a bit thinner than it could be, but I quietly enjoyed it.
#HauntedShelf #ScreamTeam
#Chocolatiers #OneSnackToRuleThemAll @Bookwormjillk
#SPNBookBingo2025 @OutsmartYourShelf square: baby
Friends, please welcome @AuntieJulie to Litsy! She's a friend of mine from another website and I persuaded her to give this a try.
I've seen so many adaptation of Christie that completely fail to capture the *tone*, so it was nice how generally authentic feeling these homages are. (Ruth Ware & Kate Mosse's stories are standouts.) Attempts to make Miss Marple far more racially sensitive than her creator ever was are less successful, albeit understandable. (Alyssa Cole had some fun with it and her story made me laugh.) Scratches the Christie itch a bit, though doubt I'd reread.
So obviously perfect for each other!
A short, imaginative graphica memoir about getting and staying married. Rob and John married fairly quietly when it became legal, amidst some ambivalence about accepting heteronormative privilege. But after 10 years married and 20 together, they know, “marriage doesn't define a relationship... unless you want it to.“ My heart, it is mush.
Covers 2013-2022, so be prepared for painful topics.
Just me or is this the BEST COVER EVER?! 😂
I had a bit of trouble getting into this. I think the set-up wasn't strong enough for the odd story it's telling; I just wasn't buying it. But after a bit the mystery and romance got engaging and the danger mounted satisfactorily. A fun read, even if not Stewart's best.
#HauntedShelf #ScreamTeam
#Chocolatiers #OneSnackToRuleThemAll @Bookwormjillk
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