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Posts Tagged ‘book-reviews’

August 2026 TBR

Posted in Books, Cozy, Reading Challenges, Resolutions, Work, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

August remains the busiest month at work at UNT after switching departments. In advising, we are finishing up orientation and helping students navigate difficulties as classes begin. I’m just delighted to be doing it all indoors and in our own building.

This August brings some exciting milestones in my reading year. I am so, so close to finishing my Libro.fm challenge. I think I can do it this month.

Without further ado…here are the books!

[Ok, a little further ado – a disclaimer. I am a Bookshop.org affiliate – I get a cut of the sales from most of the links below.]

Book Clubs

Cozy

Libro.fm

The end is in sight, and I’m pumped and up to the task! *Rocky theme song playing triumphantly in background* I got so excited when I started making this list in late July that I have already finished a couple of these books. 

  • A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater (narrated by Nigel Slater) – Listen to a genre you’ve never tried on audio before. As I have tried almost every genre I read on audio before, it was a challenge to find one to fit this prompt. So I had to go very specific. I can honestly say I’ve never read a foodie memoir written in short essay/vignette form and narrated by the author on audio before, and I am looking forward to it!
  • The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (narrated by Emily Woo Zeller) – Listen to an audiobook by an author of Asian and/or Pacific Island descent. I liked this book, and the audio was…okay. I’m not sure I’m invested enough to commit to the series, though, and if I do, I’ll probably read the hard copy. The character development is good; I would expect no less from R.F. Kuang.
  • The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (narrated by Shane Ghostkeeper, Marin Ireland, and Owen Teale) – Listen to an audiobook by an Indigenous author
  • Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar (narrated by Arian Moayed) – Listen to an audiobook by a South West Asian and/or North African author 
  • Off Menu by Amy Rosen (narrated by Emma Johnson) – Listen to an audiobook from an independent press. The main character is not a great person or friend; her only saving grace is that her parents aren’t great at giving sound advice or being supportive beyond their own agenda, so clearly she’s modeling their bad examples and I can give her a little grace for that (although…if one has the means to do so…and she does…therapy is a thing that adults can do to fill in the inevitable gaps left by their raising and *gestures broadly at the world*…I’m just saying…). Also, the romance trope in this book is one of my least favorites. Both of those things could be chalked up to personal preference (i.e., not necessarily making the book “bad” but just “not for me”). The reason I gave it a low rating, though, was that the writer also dealt with several heavy topics way too lightly – almost flippantly. I suppose it could be argued that the flippancy was due to the (selfish, toxically positive) main character’s voice, but it landed as an excuse not to address the heaviness of the situations in the writing itself. It’s unusual for me to give a 2-star review (I usually just don’t finish if I’m getting so little out of it, but the book was short and checked a box on the challenge), but that was all the enthusiasm I could muster for this book.
  • Plan or join an audiobook outing (third time’s the charm) – I have struggled with this prompt, so I finally just googled “audiobook outing near me” and came across a book club at a local yarn store. As I understand it, they start an audiobook together at their meeting that they listen to while crafting, and they are tasked with finishing the audiobook by the next meeting. So I think I’m going to give it a try. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m just going to take a drive while listening to Flashlight by Susan Choi (narrated by Eunice Wong), and call it a day.

Anti Brain Rot

52 Book Club 

  • The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley – Set in the Arctic or Antarctic
  • Life After Life by Kate Atkinson – Spans a decade or more
  • Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar (narrated by Arian Moayed) – Award-winning book from last year
  • Theo of Golden by Allen Levi – Includes a handwritten interior font
  • Maame by Jessica George – Domestic fiction

Overeducated Women With Cats

Popsugar

  • The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (narrated by Emily Woo Zeller) – A book with “pop” or “sugar” in the title
  • Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – A book about women astronauts

Read Your Bookshelf

  • Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao – water word (in title or on cover)

I hope you have a wonderful August, full of your favorite things.

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January 2026 TBR

Posted in Books, Bookshops, Cozy, Music, Reading Challenges, Resolutions, Work, tagged , , , , on January 3, 2026| 2 Comments »

Happy January, friends! As you can deduce from the picture, I’m utilizing my library card a lot these days. Trying to reorganize the shelves to make room for the books I own is a whole cozy project and one of the first on my list to tackle this year. Anything I can do to slow the inflow of new books that need to find a space will help.

To be clear, I’m not…not buying books. Don’t be absurd. Just not buying as many.

Anyway, here are the reading plans this month. I’ve finished a few from this list already, but I’m looking forward to the rest!

Book Clubs

  • The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter – I listened to this one on the way to and from the farm at Christmas. So good! Although the male voice on the audio gets low and hard to hear at points. That added some stress I didn’t need in holiday traffic. Delightful otherwise, though.
  • The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi – This is for the second meeting of the fantasy book club at a local bookshop that has just announced they’re CLOSING!!! Sad times! I guess we’ll see tomorrow what the plan is going forward, if there is one.
  • Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee 
  • Constellations of Care by Cindy Barukh Milstein 
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone 
  • I may not be able to attend the Rise & Shine book club this month. The theme is “something old,” so I would love to gush over Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, which is one of my faves. Of course, it falls on the one Saturday this month I have to work. And of course, March’s meeting (when the theme is “something funny” – I love funny things and would love to get all those recs!) does, too. UGH.

Series

I’m a sucker for series. I devoured most of the Rebel Blue Ranch series (next up is the enemies-to-lovers one – one of my favorite tropes!) and the Dream Harbor series last month, and the series tab is the largest by far on my TBR. This format is excellent for character development, which is one of my main requirements for really enjoying a book. This year, I’ll be diving into new series as well as re-reading some favorites. I loved Catherine Newman’s Sandwich, so I’m hyped about the follow-up. One of my book clubs is reading The Long Goodbye later this year, so I’m finally starting the Philip Marlow mysteries!  I’m re-reading Inspector Gamache this year, and I quit a few pages into the latest Thursday Murder Club because I forgot some things from previous books that I know would make it more enjoyable, so I’m re-reading those as well. Here are the ones that I’m planning for January.

Reading Challenges

So many reading challenges! My, aren’t we ambitious? I’m going back to fitting books into multiple challenges, and I’m trying to fit as many of my book club selections into them as well, so you’ll see quite a few repeats. Here goes nothing.

Anti Brain Rot Challenge

Another facet of the Anti Brain Rot Challenge is giving yourself deep-dive studies (and designing their corresponding curricula) throughout the year. I have three planned for the year, and the first is going to be learning to play the organ. I already play the piano, so it’s mostly a matter of incorporating the feet. I think. We’ll see. I’m working through an online basics course and brushing up on theory right now, but I imagine there will be several books I add to the syllabus before the end of the “semester.”

Popsugar

52 Book Club

Libro.fm

  • Christmas Days by Jeannette Winterson – Listen to an audiobook read by the author

OWC (Overeducated Women With Cats)

  • The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler – A book that starts a series
  • Endling by Maria Reva – A book long-listed for an award (Booker Prize)
  • Enchantment by Katherine May – A nonfiction book about science or nature

BBBC (Bad Bitch Book Club)

  • This Winter by Alice Oseman – A book with a red cover (which is not the cover of the book that popped up on bookshop.org – but here is its red cover, which is super cute)

Alphabet Challenge

The goal of this one is, in this year of ‘26, to read books where either the title or the author’s name begins with each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. To add a little more spice to the challenge, I’m also going to limit it to books I own.

Read Your Bookshelf

January’s prompt is pretty easy – title includes an article. So any “a,” “an,” or “the.” Look at The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, fulfilling all sorts of different prompts this month!

Book Riot Read Harder

Tournament of Books

I don’t know how much I’ll participate in this one. The start date of the tournament is March 6, and it seems like it would be more fun if I had read all of them by then (and even in my woozy, ambitious New Years state of mind I know that’s not going to happen). But maybe I’ll start with these and see how it goes.

So there we are, starting off the new year with a bang! And by bang, I do mean lots of cozy nights of reading. 

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November 2024 TBR

Posted in Books, Quiet, Reading Challenges, Resolutions, Seasons, tagged , , , , on November 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Happy November! It is a blustery, rainy day with potential for storms. I guess Texas is just gonna have two tornado seasons from now on? Cool. Cool cool cool.

Sounds like a good reason to stay inside and read. 

I’ve got a few things lined up to discuss in book clubs this month:

It is at this point of the year that my interest in actually completing all the reading challenges I’ve taken on starts to fizzle. I begin to relish the idea of reading only for enjoyment for a couple of months. I’m still on track to finish my 180 books (my main reading goal), but my passion for the smaller challenges I chose to broaden my interests and knowledge is seriously waning. Right on schedule, as soon as the first crisp breeze blew through last week, I stocked up on more things at the library just because they caught my eye and started to comb my own collection for “hey – I forgot I had and wanted to read this!” selections.

So while I have finished the libro.fm challenge (post coming up in a few days) and will likely still finish another challenge or two, I’m not gonna sweat it from here on out. I’m just going to do what I want (I mean, even more than usual). I’m going to finish up some of the cozies I listed last month. Then I’ll likely turn to the books below.

But no real promises.

First, there are some library books that need some attention:

Then I may read through some things on Modern Mrs. Darcy’s list of quiet novels. Quiet is the theme of the year, after all. I do really love “compelling, character-driven reads,” and if the rest of these are anywhere near as lovely as Bel Canto (the last one on the list), I’m sold.

One thing is for certain – I will enjoy my reading this month. I hope you enjoy yours as well.

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