February began with a work trip to Washington and a weekend tasting wine outside of Seattle, but the rest of the month has been difficult due to family health issues. Here’s what I read in February: My favorite reads: I’ve already reviewed Signal to Noise and The Last Girl, which were both incredible reads. My…
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, is about our bookish goals for 2023. I wrote about this already in this end of year post, so this will be more of a summary. 2022 was a stressful year, and my initial impulse for 2023 was to make things easy and not…
Instead of a December wrap-up, this is a look at the year as a whole. I was fortunate to have some time off from work this week, so it’s been a perfect time to reflect and to think about my goals for 2023. More on that to come in January! 2022 in my personal life:…
Better late than never, here’s my reading wrap-up for October. It was a busy month, as I traveled to Phoenix last weekend to visit my family, plus two of my sisters came out earlier this month to visit my dad. It was wonderful to reconnect with my mom and my three sisters, and we also…
September was a challenging month, between getting COVID on vacation, getting back to work, family health issues, and just generally easing into fall. I love summer so this time of year is always a bit sad for me. I’m gradually taking down my garden and pulling out my warmer clothes. Of course there are bigger…
Today I’m doing a look at my 2022 reading challenges, while there are still about four months in the year, so I can get readers’ suggestions about what books I should read. I try not to put a lot of stress into reading challenges (life is stressful enough) but challenges often push me to read…
June was a tough month. My father is dealing with a lot of health issues, and we had to cancel the vacation we’d been planning for months. But there are always positives even when times are challenging — my job has been really supportive as I’ve needed a lot of unexpected time off, my sisters…
It’s May, and I’m enjoying the spring, though I’ve been impatient with the cold weather and I’m anxious to begin planting my garden. April was a mostly-good month, with a visit from my sister-in-law and niece and nephew. The Women’s Prize shortlist was announced, but the only book on it I’ve read is Ruth Ozeki’s…
Recently, I posted about making personalized book recommendations. You can find a form here if you’d like to ask for something – just tell me something about the books you like, don’t like, why, and what kinds of books you’re looking to read. I’m sharing two recent requests so you can see what I came…
This week’s Top Ten topic (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is about books that were just too good to review. About a year and a half ago, I posted about books I loved that I didn’t get around to reviewing. Probably this was because of time constraints, though there are other factors: sometimes enough has…
Welcome to the first wrap-up of 2022! It’s been a pretty good month, though I’m getting tired of the cold and I know a lot of people who dealt with Covid this month. Hope you’re hanging in there. First, I want to introduce you to Max and Jasper, two 7-8 month old tabbies (friends, not littermates)…
For the holidays this year, I had a lot of fun choosing book gifts for various family members (and supporting indie bookstores in the process). So I thought it might be fun for The Book Stop to offer personalized book recommendations. I know most of us already have too many books we want to read,…
The Book Stop 