Oh, hey, I forgot to tell y‘all how much I loved MOST ARDENTLY! It dove straight into my heart and tugged, tugged, tugged. It‘s also the second Remixed Classic I‘ve adored, after INTO THE BRIGHT OPEN by Cherie Dimaline, so clearly I need to seek out more of them.

I finished it while I started this book nook. I‘m now fairly far into it, thanks to stints with a couple other audiobooks. #audiocrafting #AuldLangSpine2025

I can see why BETTER LIVING THROUGH BIRDING is so popular! Christian Cooper‘s enthusiasm really shines through. I‘m enjoying it a lot and I want to prioritize his comics the next time I have a Marvel Unlimited subscription.

That said, either the print book has teeny, tiny typeface or I find his prose style very slow. It‘s taking me forever to get through these 296 pages and my progress-to-effort ratio has made me a bit grumpy. #AuldLangSpine2025

The library made me return my favourite cookbook (so rude), so I turned to my mum‘s favourite online chef for inspiration tonight. I once again suspect Nagi Maehashi used a filter to get the colours in her book‘s photo, but my Korean barbecue chicken thighs were delicious even if they weren‘t as gleaming red as hers. (They WERE slightly redder before I sliced them up and tossed them with rice.) I‘d make ‘em again.

Veteran YA writer Julian Winters‘s adult debut is all kinds of moreish with its punchy prose and characters so vibrant you know they‘re off living full lives even when they aren‘t in Denz‘s orbit. Add in plenty of jokes, a few wacky hijinks, and an ever-applicable knowledge of the romcom canon and you‘ve got something that‘s mighty hard to put down. If you‘re at all interested in contemporary romance, you want it when it drops on January 28th.

Casey and I agree THE NIGHT GUEST is some damned good creepy shit. I started it before bed last night (which, yeah, was a CHOICE), read until I was too tired to carry on, and finished it over breakfast this morning.

Ahhhh, this was so good! I tore on through it in less than a day, thoroughly caught up in Imogen‘s identity struggles and her intense friendships. I laughed A LOT (especially at the small German sausage), nodded along with Imogen‘s thought processes, and desperately hoped for her to reject Gretchen‘s prescriptive declarations. It‘ll stay with me for a long while.

Also, I think both Imogen and Tessa would approve of my penguin. #AuldLangSpine2025

This week‘s library haul features a fantasy from @peanutnine ‘s #AuldLangSpine list, Kris Ripper‘s latest (I think), another small town cozy romance, another Junji Ito collection, and some poetry.

This is Casey‘s, “OMG THE TOAST POPPED” face. Little dude loves breakfast foods.

He‘s gonna help me finish THE CITY IN GLASS this morning. It‘s very good but not propulsive, so I haven‘t torn through it the way I usually do with Nghi Vo‘s work. Still, it builds beautifully. I expect affecting things from the ending.

I spent a nice little chunk of time with a play this afternoon! It‘s been ages since I read one, and this look at family and connection to community was a great place to dive back in. I‘ll be looking for more from Joelle Peters.

Stealth shot of Geo with my first #AuldLangSpine2025 read! This karaoke romance novella was lovely. Lots of music, lots of café/bar realism, and some really, really great talk about clothes and how HARD they are when your body doesn‘t fit together the way the fashion industry insists it should. Lily and I started sewing for the same reason, with the same bumps along our roads to good tailoring.

I could say lots of cogent things about how Natalie Wee references her own lived experience, the historical record, various pieces of queer pop culture, and the wider contemporary poetical canon to produce something that feels entirely personal, deeply rooted to a particular story, and universal, all at once, but…

Well, I just wanna tell you I said, ”Fuuuuuuck” about a million times as I read.

Fuuuuuuuck.

5 stars

I thought about nixing my daily short story in 2025, but I decided I might as well keep at it. It gives me a good excuse to seek out new anthologies and collections.

Today‘s offering was an enjoyable Lady Astronaut story by Mary Robinette Kowal, from Reactor‘s 2024 Some of the Best anthology. I read it while I drank some delicious mead from a local apiary.

I‘m gonna be sad when I catch up on the Veronica Speedwell mysteries. They‘ve brought me a lot of joy this year, even given the library bottleneck that left me with a months-long hiatus between the 5th & 6th books.

I finished this book nook during yesterday‘s listening session! It, too, brings me great joy. I‘m so glad Michael‘s started stocking them, and including them in their couponable items, so I could nab it on Boxing Day. #audiocrafting

I was gonna save my ARC of if I THINK THEY LOVE YOU for the new year, but I couldn‘t resist starting it last night and I‘ve struggled to put it down since. It‘s exactly what I feel like: a contemporary romance with great energy and vibrant characters.

The beer was 100% a can buy that paid off. It‘s a tasty, low-alcohol offering that goes down easy with a bit of a bite. $0.10 from every can goes to artist Cyndi Wiebe, too.

I went to a particular library branch today because they had a copy of THE SUNBEARER TRIALS on the shelf and it‘s part of @peanutnine ‘s excellent #AuldLangSpine list. Turned out they also had a bunch of enticing poetry just sitting there, unborrowed, and obviously I wasn‘t gonna leave without the academic look at absinthe I found on the New Releases stand.

I chased the dogs all around the house before I got Geo to sort of halfway pose with THE STORY COLLECTOR, and I maybe shouldn‘t have bothered because it was resoundingly okay. Not bad, but also not especially gripping— though I‘m sure for some people, its treatment of particular kinds of grief makes it exactly the book they‘ve always needed.

I finished THE SUNLIT MAN while I assembled the first wall of my new book nook and played a bit of Candy Crush. While I appreciated it as a look beyond the Cosmere chronology we‘ve seen so far, the story never really sparked for me. I think perhaps it‘s best appreciated by Cosmere superfans who‘ve committed themselves to close readings of all the books, with a huge wealth of detail fresh in their memory.

Got my 2025 reading journal set up while I started THE SUNLIT MAN on audio! I find I‘m way less interested in tracking stuff like genres these days, so I went with a simple monthly list setup, some A to Z challenge pages, a place to log a book for every year I‘ve been alive, a Best Of page, and a spending log.

The book hasn‘t totally grabbed me, though I AM intrigued that it features an established character further on in his timeline.

Happy Christmas to everyone celebrating today! Christmas isn‘t a religiously important holiday for me, but I love giving people presents, seeing the decorations, and reading a few holiday-themed books.

UNDER THE MISTLETOE WITH YOU has emerged as my favourite of the three I bought in this year‘s $0.99 sales. It‘s one of those all-too-rare books marketed as a romcom that‘s ACTUALLY A ROMCOM! There are jokes! And whacky hijinks! Whee!

I went to a super fun afternoon party with an unconventional cookie decorating contest, and now I‘m ready to do some reading! I was too tired to really dig into UNDER THE MISTLETOE WITH YOU last night, but I liked the first 10% very much and I‘m looking forward to more.

Still cooking my way through ZAO FAN. I made a batch of xiao jiaozi a few days back and have been searching for the ideal way to cook them. The book says boiling‘s the way to go, but I find it sucks all the flavour out of the meat and encourages the dumplings to pop apart. Today I tried steaming, with much better results. Some of them still came apart, which makes me think I messed up the meat paste a bit, but they stayed juicy and toothsome.

Casey loooooves cats. He lived with one when he was a tiny puppy, with his first family, and the kennel he stayed at before he moved here was primarily a cattery. They had a few rooms set aside for dual-species pet families to occupy together. It was sweet.

I also love cats, and this book has renewed my determination to someday visit a cat cafe. It‘s full of cat-love, unsurprisingly, with some heartrending bits about the pain of pet-loss.

Winter Solstice library haul! I‘m especially excited for the tagged book, and for the Paris guide. I just booked a week there, in an ACTUAL GARRET. All the literary sources agree you should get a garret when you run away to Paris—unless you‘re d‘Artagnan, in which case you may live in a ground floor flat with only one lackey.

It‘s been a while since I read something not in Litsy‘s database, but tonight‘s treelight read is mysteriously absent. I‘ve filed it under another book with the same setting.

A GIFT-WRAPPED HOLIDAY has great reviews on Kobo, so I didn‘t hesitate to shell out $0.89 for it. Alas, while it isn‘t bad, it ain‘t as sparkly as I thought it‘d be. Sadness. Maybe things‘ll click for me in the last 2/3.

Last night‘s treelight read. I‘m going all in on the holiday stuff now! I initially passed by this collection in Tiffany Reisz‘s Black Friday sale because I thought I‘d read everything in it, but it turns out I was missing the title novella and one of the short stories. I‘m excited to finish it up today, especially since my evening plans got cancelled. Need to fill the void.

An audio copy of WORDS OF RADIANCE came in for me 12 weeks sooner than scheduled. I‘ve been listening as much as possible so I can finish it in time to also squeeze in a holiday romance before Christmas, which meant it was time to break out the Mustang puzzle I‘d been saving for a special occasion. Now that I‘ve seen 50 years of Mustangs all in one place, I can confirm the ‘69 is 100% my fave. I only wish they‘d used the orange convertible here.

Tonight‘s treelight read. Maybe it‘s because it took me over a year to source THE REVOLUTION BUSINESS and a couple months beyond that to actually read it, but it feels very much like a bridge book. Stuff‘s happening, and it‘ll probably be important to the grande finale, but it hasn‘t gripped me the way the first four volumes did. Oh well. It‘s still interesting, just not AS interesting as I expected it to be.

Tonight‘s treelight read. I switched to it after I admitted I was in totally the wrong mood for the portal fantasy/economics-focused SF I‘ve been not-reading for the last day and a half. So far, I‘m feeling the quirky townsfolk, the planned ghost hunt, and the extremely large typeface. It plays well with the miserable cold I‘m fighting off.

This week‘s library haul includes a few comics and a trendy romance.

I read Junji Ito for the first time last week, and it‘s easy to see why he‘s hailed as the king of horror manga. This guy knows his way around the creep factor. I‘m glad my library owns so much of his work.

I almost returned the tagged book unread to make room for a 48-hour audiobook that came in way earlier than expected, but I decided to at least give it a go. Now I‘ve got an exciting new author to explore! While I solved the mystery many hours before Jake, I had such a great time with all the small town community stuff and the strong friendships that I couldn‘t care about the story‘s faults. I made excuses to listen more. #audiobaking

I read the first 26% of THE SUNSHINE COURT earlier, then made myself put it down so it didn‘t take over my whole evening. I think it‘s gonna wreck me and I‘m gonna thank it for doing so.

Some morning short fiction with Casey, who still believes it‘s indecent to get up before 10:00. I‘m enjoying these very British, very Victorian winter ghost stories.

Last night‘s treelight read got off to a great start! I wish the authors didn‘t explain most every reference, but I like the characters and the stranded plane scenario. I‘m about to dive in and see how things go for them now they‘ve arrived in this little Christmassy town!

No second book slump for Allie Therin‘s Sugar & Vice series! TWISTED SHADOWS deepens everything that worked in LIAR CITY. It‘s a great mosaic of intriguing (but not always admirable) characters, banter, and big questions about power of both the supernatural and governmental sort. I ate it all up and can‘t wait to see where the story goes next after that game changer ending!

I finished assembling this tiny bookshop before I started THE LOST BOOKSHOP, but let‘s pretend the two overlapped so I‘ve got an excuse to show it to you, and to tell you I‘m enjoying the book. It‘s got a solid emotional core, and I‘m assuming there‘s magic to the shop itself as well as to Martha‘s perceptions about people. Intriguing. #audiocrafting

Tonight‘s treelight read, with bonus lucky peach. katherena vermette (who‘s gone lower case) is a must-read for me, and I‘m glad the 133 people ahead of me on the holds list tore on through her latest book so I got it semi-quickly. Now here I am, immersed in her glorious prose that practically reads itself.

We‘re at the point in the year where I do a lot of late-night reading by treelight, with flying pigs for company.

Last night I dug into Allie Therin‘s second Sugar & Vice novel. It‘s been a couple years since the first one so it took me a little while to sink back in, but I‘m enjoying it nonetheless. Y‘all know I always want more fantasy mysteries. This one‘s full of compelling characters and X-Men-style questions about fear.

Yeah, so, my attitude towards A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES has officially gone from, “I‘ll probably like this, despite its TWILIGHT vibes,” to, “Ugh, I dislike pretty well everything about Harkness‘s approach and it‘s so LONG and TEDIOUS and WHYYYYYY.”

I‘m gonna finish it in case the time travel element saves it, but I have few hopes.

At least my Wuhan hot dry noodles were good. I increased the noodle:sauce ratio and added MANY mustard tubers.

This is me being SUPER EXCITED to dive into @peanutnine ‘s #AuldLangSpine list. I‘ve already read and loved #s 1, 3, 6, 8, and 11, and I‘ve either requested the others or added them to my library list, depending on their current availability. Alas, my library doesn‘t own #s 12, 17, or 20, so I‘ve wishlisted them on Kobo in the hope of Boxing Day sales.

Saki helped me read a couple more chapters of A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES at lunchtime. I went in hoping I‘d get something like POSSESSION with magic, but as of maybe-25% (the omnibus edition makes it tough to tell) I find it more like TWILIGHT with adult academics instead of high school students. While the content differs, the vibes are there.

I think I‘ll like it overall, but I dunno if I‘ll become an ardent fan. We‘ll see how it unfolds.

Ooh, friends, I loved REBEL BLADE so muuuuuuch! You want this series RIGHT NOW if you‘ve been craving fantasy that perfectly blends the personal, the political, and the magical, with great characters and no easy outs for anyone. (Seriously, none of them has a template for their goals and everything is SO HARD and SO STRESSFUL and SO REAL for them.) I loved not only devouring this dramatic conclusion but also rereading the first two. New faves!

I meant to start REBEL BLADE a week or so ago, but I ran into some concentration issues and decided I didn‘t want to read anything so consequential until they were over. Now the time is here! I read the first third yesterday and I‘m excited to devour another chunk today. This series is so goooooood, y‘all! I‘m gonna miss the hell out of the three central characters when it‘s over, not to mention their world.

Yesterday I remembered I had black bean sauce and today I got a cheap eggplant, so I made black bean eggplant & tofu for supper! It was tasty goodness.

I also made a small start on A WOLFE IN WINTER, which I snagged from Tiffany Reisz‘s 80% off sale. I‘m pretty sure it‘s the last Original Sinners novella I haven‘t read.

And now, some sticky toffee apple cake with my daily short story. ANCESTOR APPROVED is a great anthology so far. It‘s full of emotional truths and I love all the little connections between the stories as these kids (& one dog) converge on the powwow.

The cake recipe is available on the Food Network‘s website. They bill it as the best ever, and they ain‘t wrong. I ate it off my hummingbird plate designed by Coast Salish artist Maynard Johnny Jr.

I was too tired to finish HER BIG CITY NEIGHBOUR last night, so I polished it off over breakfast while Casey monitored the snow situation out the front window. As others have pointed out, it‘s short on plot but it‘s so full of good food and characters who know what they want and are willing to actually TALK to each other that it‘s still a really enjoyable read. I had a great time watching Amy delight in her new city & the relationships it brings.

I got through a big chunk of the tagged book while I worked on this miniature living room/balcony combo destined for my aunt. The Veronica Speedwell series remains a lot of fun. I‘m glad this instalment puts me past my library‘s audio bottleneck at long last so I can listen to them at a decent clip again! #audiocrafting

I didn‘t get a lot of reading done this morning because Casey needed scruffles, but now I‘m tucked away in the woods with two dogs, two cats, and the back half of THE REIGN OF OSIRIS. I haven‘t found it as instantly moreish as THE PASSION OF CLEOPATRA, but it still pushes everyone in intriguing directions and I can‘t wait to see how their latest gambit pays off.

Here I am in my reading nook, waffling back and forth on this Nigerian romance from my freebies stash. I really like the organized crime side of the plot, but the romance itself is full of the sort of meat market/power play character dynamics that put me right off. I‘ve come close to bailing at least three times so far and I might be ready to pull the plug at 47%. We‘ll see what happens in the next chapter.

Today‘s ZAO FAN recipe is miancha, or millet porridge with sweet sesame. It‘s possibly the fattiest breakfast ever with 50g of sesame paste + 2tbsp of sesame oil, but it sure does taste good.

Please note, also, my fabulous new espresso cup by Lac Sul First Nation artist Storm Angeconeb. The foxes frolick all the way around.

I intended to take just a teensy poke at SHADOW BARON before bed last night, then ended up devouring 17%. The onemorechapterness is real.

Now I‘m gonna dive into another big chunk while wee Geo and I wait for his mom to get home from her vacation. We‘re trying to enjoy this precious snuggle time instead of focusing on how basically everything in this picture is in greyscale. My kingdom for a colour ereader to showcase this vibrant cover.