Or dog. Rescue dogs are excellent, too. But right now, Emily is making me extremely happy. She’d been a stray for two years (I hadn’t noticed her) when my neighbor said, “You don’t want a cat, do you?” and I said, “You know, that would be a good idea.” So she told me about this stray cat that was spending a lot of time in my garage, and it turned out to be a three-pawed Maine Coon who might let you pet hero nce (so not feral) but mostly ran like hell any time I got close. Kathleen had been feeding her, but the neighborhood was a full of foxes and Kathleen worried . . .
Continue reading →

I can categorize my reading into roughly three types: wallbangers/DNFs, pleasant one-offs, and re-reads. I know why the first category happens, but it just this week occurred to me to wonder why there two other categories. If I finish a book, doesn’t that mean it was good? Isn’t that enough? Continue reading →

This week my preorder of The Antiquarian Sticker Book: Bibliophilia arrived, and OMG it’s just as excellent as the first Antiquarian Sticker Book. Highly recommend.

What book(s) do you recommend this week?

So I read this article that said the best way to redo a room was to take everything out of it so it was empty and then just put back in what you need, which I though was brilliant until I did it and realized that I now I had acres of stuff piled in all the other rooms. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

What did you work on this week?

Thank you all for the birthday wishes, especially since I wasn’t expecting it since I didn’t yell, “Hey, it’s Constitution Day, I’m a year older!” Very nice surprise. I had a lovely quiet day during which I did anything I wanted to. One of the many great things about old age is that you reset to toddler wisdom and live your life according to “Fuck it, I can do anything I want.” Which this year included buying a curtain of stars to go on my bedroom window, counting my blessings, and once again not dying. All in all, a full and very happy day.

What made you happy this week?

I read new books this week, but nothing I’d recommend. Too many romances that are too much alike. I realize in part that’s a big ask since you know what’s going to happen in almost every romance, the way you get to that HEA matters, so nope, not recommending anything this week.

So help me out here: what did you read that was good this week?

This week I took apart Lavender’s Blue to figure out where I went wrong. I think, once again, it was failing to identify the main story line. The idea was that it would be part of a mystery series that taken together would be a massive romance, but that doesn’t work. Mystery with romance subplot or romance with mystery subplot, although it’s really women’s fiction, I think, so . . .

That’s what I’m working on.

What did you work on this week?

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

How were you happy this week?

This week I read Buzzfeed lists and air fryer recipes and developed a lust for coconut shrimp. Also a lot of hockey romances for some reason; it must have been Guys-On-Skates week. I also started a book and wasn’t sure I liked it, so I quit halfway through and turned to the end and realized I’d read it before and hadn’t liked it. My mind, it’s like a steel sieve. And I read about what it means when your cat bites you but doesn’t bite down, how to make canvas shoes white again, and Modigliani’s miserable life, briefy (NYT). Yeah, it was that kind of week. That last one did make me want to watch the Doctor Who episode about Van Gogh again, but I just can’t face the kind of wracking sobs that ep always reduces me to; good sobs, it’s a fabulous story with a fabulous ending, but no ugly crying this week.

What did you read?