Help! I joined a romance book club?

     You ever do something that's just... not you?

    Well, this week, I did. I joined a romance book club.

    To back up a bit and give you some backstory: I moved in March from Chicago to a small, rural town in Massachusetts. I grew up here, but haven't lived here since I left for college. I've lived in Chicago for 14 years and barely even got home to visit in that time. I had friends growing up, but they've all grown up (as did I), got married and had kids (as... didn't I), and moved away (as did I, until recently). And there just isn't much here, especially in town, in the way of events or... opportunities to meet people and make friends. I've been trying, but it's not like in Chicago where there was a Meetup group for literally whatever your heart could desire (it's how I met quite a lot of my friends there!). No, really; I've scoured Meetup for the area and everything is either in Providence (that has a broken bridge I'd have to cross and sit in traffic to get to), in Boston an hour away, or... not at all. And those groups are just the "normie" groups that every city has, and I don't qualify for half of them (centered around kids' playdates, etc.). So... I've been trying, but it's been overall a lonely six months since I moved.

    So, enter the bookstore. There's a local indie bookstore a few towns over, not exactly close but a half hour away on back roads isn't awful. I LOVE that store, although it's dangerous for my wallet. Very dangerous. Anyway, since they're an indie store, their shelf space isn't the biggest but their selection is impeccable, so I can't really complain. In lieu of a full time library job, if they wanted to hire me, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. (Please...) Also, they have a big event space on the second floor and hold events all the time, where they foster a vibrant community of readers. It's great to see! I saw Sy Montgomery give a talk there a few weeks ago, and she was phenomenal. Anyway, I'm getting off track, but... I really love this store.

    They have two book groups, which sounds like a perfect way to meet people and make friends, right? Right! Except... neither book group is my cup of tea: romance and thrillers. I wish they had a fantasy book group! (But then I'd be picky about that lol, it can't be all nerd guys who don't read women authors, and I wouldn't be very happy if it was all romantasy...) Well, there's no way I'm committing to a thriller book group even if I am absolutely desperate for friends (and I am...), but romance? Eh, we'll see. Not in my top 5 or even 10 genres to read, but I can at least stomach it. And sometimes there are good romances that I enjoy. (My Thoughts On Romance is a whole other blog post that I'll write some day, I promise. And I promise it's not all bookish snobbery; it's mostly just "Eh, it's not for me.")

    Well, this month's book selection for the romance book club just happened to be a book I had already read at the beginning of the year: The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston. And, bonus, I had actually enjoyed it! I mean, it's a romantic ghost story, so it was almost up my alley? That's borderline fantasy-ish. I looked at my Goodreads review and was like, "You know, I had strong enough opinions about this book that I think I could participate in a discussion", despite having read it almost a year ago and having my terrible memory. (Although, I was rooting for the book to take the "tragic romance" angle rather than "happily every after" ending, so... again, contemporary romance isn't exactly my genre lol.) So, I went last night, in an attempt to socialize and make friends.

    Did I make friends? Ehhh, not really. Did I see some people whose styles indicate I would probably like to be friends with them but then was too shy to actually say anything to them? Absolutely. But, baby steps. I went to the group and participated in the discussion (a lot! actually), and had fun. Everyone was nice and the discussion was a lot of fun. And there were a LOT of people! I didn't count exact numbers, but about 40 people. For a book club! That's an amazing turnout! So like... odds are decent that I could make at least one friend among so many people, right?

    Anyway, I did really enjoy the discussion, so much so that I... picked up the book for the next discussion. So I guess I'm in a romance book club now? Hm. (At least they're going to be picking a romantasy read soon, so that'll be more in my territory lol.)

      I swear this isn't a lengthy veiled attempt at saying "Help, I've been kidnapped." I really did join a romance book club.

Current Reads and DNFs - 10/23/2004

     I've been deep into Minecraft with friends the past couple of weeks, but I've still made some time for reading. And... attempting to read and deciding I really didn't want to read those books after all! But first, let's start with the positive!

"The Games Gods Play" by Abigail Owen

 
    I read The Games Gods Play for my book group's discussion for October, so it was a quarter of the book each week. I think I need to do a full review on this, because I overall really enjoyed the plot, but I have... complicated thoughts about it. When I try to talk about it, I think of all the negative things I didn't like, while I'm like, "I promise I liked it!" Overall, I rated it 3.75 on Storygraph, because the middle of the book didn't really hit, but I am looking forward to the sequel.

"Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries" by Heather Fawcett

     I'm about halfway through Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and really enjoying it! However, I'm having a weird time with it because even though I'm genuinely really enjoying it, I... never actually want to pick it up and read it. I like both the writing and the story itself, but I have to really convince myself to sit down and read it instead of anything else in my pile. I think part of it is because the writing style is fairly formal (it's a first person journal by an academic), it's not off-putting really but makes my brain be like, "Ehhh, do we really wanna?" I think this is also why I struggle to sit down and read Jane Austen even though I like what I've read! And I don't even not like the formal writing style, just my ADHD brain wants to put up a fight. Anyway, I know I'm going to like it enough by the end of it (whenever that is) that I've already picked up the sequel and am looking forward to that. (For what it's worth, a friend had the exact same experience with this book. Really enjoyed it but never actually wanted to read it. Weird!) I am, however, switching between the print book and the audiobook (while working in the garden... which is over for the year), which has helped a lot. The audiobook is really well done.

     But, Emily Wilde isn't a flop, and neither was The Games Gods Play, but these two...

"The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society" by C.M. Waggoner and "Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop" by Emmeline Duncan

     I'm sorry to say that I returned both of these to the library today after only reading 30 pages from each. Both were extremely overwritten, something that has been the case with every "cozy mystery" I've tried to pick up. Is that just how the genre is? It's a mystery, leave some stuff up to the imagination! Cozy fantasy doesn't suffer from this (at least the cozy fantasy I've read), so why mystery? I was so disappointed in these and figured that I should return them sooner rather than later since they're brand new and have wait lists. 

a page from "Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop"

     Seriously, you do not need to tell me the main character's entire history with knitting and other creative projects when introducing a minor character. And while I appreciate spreading knowledge about Libro.fm, it (and other internet references and phrases) just seemed shoehorned in. And yes, I understand the irony of me saying this, as my ADHD frequently sends me off on long tangents and explanations and over-explanations, but that's my unedited self. Writing papers or fiction? This just feels like someone was trying to hit their NaNoWriMo word count. (RIP NaNoWriMo by the way, dead in our hearts after they fully announced support for AI writing.)

    Okay, back to the more positive...

Volume 1 of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons manga by Kokonasu Rumba

    For fun and a change of pace, last night I started reading the Animal Crossing manga (there are seven volumes in total, but I only have the first four so far). Now, Animal Crossing is my favorite video game series, and I have put thousands upon thousands of hours into each title in the series. I didn't know what to expect from the manga, and... I'm glad I didn't go in with any expectations, because it is not at all what I would have guessed. Whereas the 2006 Animal Crossing movie, Dôbutsu No Mori, is sweet, heartfelt, and honestly heartbreaking at times, this is... not. It is silly, weird, and definitely made for a younger audience than me. Which is fine! It still made me laugh, especially scenes like Raymond's "museum exhibit":

    So, this week was a bunch of mixed bag, no 5 star reads but at least some that I've been enjoying. But also, I went to the store yesterday to pick up next month's book group book (Weyward by Emilia Hart) and I walked out with four others, so... here's hoping for the near future! Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has been on my "to return to" list for 10 years, so it's finally time to return to it! (It's one of the books that were lost when I was homeless.)

Library Tour

     I moved in March, and have spent a lot of time working on my library space since then. Before I moved, the room didn't even have flooring, so I have designed everything from the ground up (with the exception of the fireplace and brick wall). It's been wonderful being able to make this space truly mine, something I haven't been able to do in all my years of renting. It is my "happy place", as the saying goes. As I just brought a lot of my plants inside for the winter, I thought now was the perfect time to take some pictures! The plants get in the way sometimes, but they make it feel cozy. And they'll be outside again in no time! 

    My home library is also a particular point of pride because I lost about half my book collection when I was homeless about 10 years ago, and have painstakingly rebuilt it, most in the past six months. I held onto my absolute favorites (although not all of them), but many, along with my CDs and records, were lost to me. So this has been a labor of love in many ways. I've only felt "stable", housing-wise, in the last few years, and my books quickly outgrew my small apartment once I did, so being able to expand into (almost) a whole room for just my books has been amazing.

    This room is still a work in progress and is subject to change at any moment (case in point: a frame is on order to hang a map of Tortall on that brick wall), but still... this is how it looks today*! Also, a video tour will be coming SoonTM, I just haven't had time to make it this week.

*when I started writing this post on Wednesday. It is now Saturday and books have been added since then.

The entrance (which separates it from my bedroom area) and first view.

    Long view of my main bookcases (we'll get to their contents shortly)

Reading chair and fish tank. There's a (non-working) fireplace behind the fish tank, maybe one day I'll get it fixed up. The fish tank is home to black mollies, dalmatian mollies, a betta, and a gold inca snail.

Other corner: fish tank, "writing desk" (as if I actually write these days... grand plans and all), and my "favorite series" shelf.

    And to round it out, here is the other corner with my computer desk.

    Isn't it cozy? And sure, the pink Victorian-esque aesthetic may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure is mine. I still have plans to work on—I want to put tin tiles up on the ceiling, I'm on the hunt for the perfect reading lamp and side table for my drinks, and I'll soon have to figure out separate storage for my CD and DVD collections—but for now, this is coming along quite nicely. The grand plan is to eventually buy the whole house when my mom is ready to retire, in which case I'll move my bedroom and office upstairs, and this will just be a library, with floor to ceiling shelves on the wall opposite the windows... but that's down the line. I still need to find a full time job before that can even happen.

    Now, for the individual bookcases so everyone can peruse my titles and my meticulous organizational system... I mean, that's what you're all here for, right? Right.

    First up, we have one of my nonfiction bookcases. The row on top of the bookcase is mostly books about animals, the arts, and a few biographies. A lot of these books, I've had since I was a child/teen, including my decent collection of Monkees books. (Micky's biography is missing, so I need to replace that.) The other three shelves are full of my witchcraft books, arranged by subject within that: nature magic, crafts, mythology, astrology, tarot, etc.

    Across from that is my other nonfiction bookcase, or what I call my "let's make shit" bookcase. Here are my books on crafts, gardening, cooking, etc. as well as my books on library science on the bottom row. Eventually I'd like to set up a little bookcase in/near the kitchen for my cookbooks, but for now, this is where they rest.

    My "other fiction" bookcase (you'll understand after the next one). Utopian/dystopian novels, manga/comics, Arthurian legends on the top shelf. The second shelf holds my CD collection (almost all rebuilt in the past few months thanks to a couple used record stores nearby). On the third shelf are "realistic fiction", poetry, and classics. The bottom shelf is my "room to grow" shelf with my journals, sticker books, and storage. (Although now I'm looking at it and thinking I should move the CDs down to the bottom shelf, so the small shelf doesn't break up the books and look out of place size-wise... as I said, constant work in progress.) Displayed on top is a book of Middle Earth artwork, my record player, a map of Middle Earth, and my dad's sword that I inherited, along with various decor and a statue of Aphrodite.

    Next to that is my science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism bookcase. The science fiction and fantasy are mixed in together, because I felt I didn't have enough scifi to justify separating them (and Anne McCaffrey blended the two, which would be the bulk of my potential scifi shelf), but magical realism is by itself on the bottom (along with some extra copies of books for giveaways and stuff). Although I'd like to move the magical realism shelf to a taller shelf, because one book (The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora by Michael Nesmith) is juuuuust barely too tall for that bottom shelf, and I can make it work but I feel like I shouldn't force it, so that's priority when I get a new bookcase. Anyway, on top of this bookcase is... well, lots of plants, but also The Lost Hero by Terry Pratchett, the only illustrated novel of the Discworld series.

    Think there's a noticeable lack of certain authors on my fantasy bookcase? Never fear, they're probably... on my "favorite series" bookcase!

    This built-in is one of my favorites, both in terms of books on display and aesthetic. (Note: there's also a built-in bookcase on the other side of the fireplace, but it currently holds my DVDs and video games, so I didn't include it in this post. I suspect I'll change it out with books eventually. Like if I ever win the lottery and buy the complete library edition of the Discworld series.) The first two shelves are almost entirely Tamora Pierce, my favorite author of all time, but she does also get to share it with Kristin Cashore's Graceling series. If you're not familiar with Tamora Pierce's works (well, you will be soon by hanging out here!), she writes in two fantasy universes: Tortall and Emelan. The top shelf is Tammy's Tortall works (with space reserved for the looooong awaited sequel to Tempests and Slaughter, which came out in 2017), and the second shelf is her Emelan novels as well as two short story collections. And, as I said, Graceling shares that space. 

an even more updated picture of my Tamora Pierce shelves, as I've been working on collecting the hardcovers I didn't yet have. (I'm done for now since her first series is extremely expensive in hardcover and I'm not too adamant about getting her Emelan books all in hardcover.)

     Underneath that, I have the Witches subseries of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and quite a lot of Middle Earth books. The edition of Lord of the Rings is my dad's copies passed down from the 70s; they're in very rough shape and I really should get a "readable" copy, but... one day. Underneath that is A Series of Unfortunate Events (the first book is missing because I've lent it to someone, and I'm still working on getting the middle books in hardcover, but it is a complete collection) and Jane Austen's works (which, to be honest, I haven't read, I have grand ambitions one day, but... they match the bookcase too perfectly not to put on here!).

    Below that, L.M. Montgomery's classic Anne of Green Gables series (including the recent graphic novel), although I'm missing one and not all the editions match. Maybe one day. Next to that is the complete TV show The Monkees on VHS, which I saved and saved every penny from my allowance and extra chores when I was 13 to buy. And next to that is a very old edition of the complete works of Shakespeare, which I also inherited from my dad. (Okay, technically I think my sister claimed them but then she moved out for college and I took them. You know how it goes.) And finally, the bottom shelf is just notebooks and storage "decor books"; it's mostly blocked by the litterbox generally so I didn't want to put actual books down there.

    Because a personal library is a living entity, always changing, I've already collected more since these pictures. Thanks, local library book sales! But this is a pretty good representation of the overall appearance of my happy place.

Book Weekend!

     This weekend was the family "book weekend" —my mother, sister, and I went to a beach house on Cape Cod to sit around reading books and drinking wine all weekend. (This is actually the first time I've gone, as I only recently moved back to Massachusetts, but it's been annual thing for them for years.) I was very much looking forward to this and packed a few of my "currently reading" titles as well as a new one that just came into the library (you never know what you're in the mood for!), plus a board game called Really Loud Librarians.

"The Games Gods Play" by Abigail Owen, "The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society" by C.M. Waggoner, "Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop" by Emmeline Duncan, and "Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries" by Heather Fawcett

    But then, my "book weekend" became even more book-filled! Saturday morning before we set out, a local library was having their annual book sale and I stopped by. It took less than 15 minutes to fill my bags, because someone had donated their entire first edition hardcover collection of many of Anne McCaffrey's works! Believe it or not, I actually left over half still on the table, but I picked up some of my favorites that I saw (Acorna!) and a lot of Pern books I've been wanting to read. $2 for hardcovers and $1 for paperbacks, how could I not?

Welcome!

     I love books. I grew up reading books, and that led me to a Bachelor's degree in Literature and Master's degree in Library and Information Sciences. Here you'll find a collection of formal reviews, informal thoughts, thought-provoking (or just fun!) quotes, and rambling gushes about my favorites. Coupled with my YouTube channel, I hope to keep this updated on a more rolling basis of "here's what I'm in the middle of and my impressions so far" updates than just formal reviews.

    So, what do I like to read? Well... a lot of things! (You don't study literature and become a librarian if you're only interested in one genre, in my experience.) My favorite genre is definitely fantasy, with science fiction and magical realism close behind. ("What is—and isn't—magical realism?" is a blog post waiting to happen.) I enjoy literary fiction (hello, literature degree) and love stories that are focused on character development just as much as I love stories focused on action. I tend to lean towards women authors (and side-eye anyone who has a "top 10 authors list" with not a SINGLE woman on it, really?) and feminist/activist perspectives. I'm a huge fan of dystopian stories (or at least I was before they started looking more like reality) and Arthurian legends—classics, retellings, reimagined with only a shred of the original legend to recognize it by; you name it.

    What don't I like to read? Generally speaking (there are exceptions to every rule!), I don't like horror. Not because of its literary contributions but because I'm a big weenie and scary easily (exceptions: classic gothic horror like Poe, and zombies. Zombies don't count, for some reason). I'm not a huge fan of romance, although I get in moods sometimes but I'm very picky about it when I do (I don't like smut and prefer swoon-worthy romances akin to Austen... not that I've ever successfully finished an Austen novel yet). I've never gotten into the mystery genre, although I have grand ambitions about hoping to do so at some point. And I absolutely detest Hemmingway, both as an author and as a person, with every fiber of my being (the only good thing about him is that he loved cats).

    I'm a librarian (and avid enthusiast about all library services, not "just" books), animal lover (I live with three cats and a number of fish), and plant addict (both houseplants and outdoor garden). I live in rural Massachusetts and spend my free time trying to tame my very overgrown land into something usable for both myself and native wildlife. I play video games a lot (mostly "cozy" games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, but also competitive shooters and MMOs) and occasionally make content on that on my other YouTube and blog.

    (And if you can't tell, I really like adding in extra thoughts in parentheses.)(I have ADHD and a need to overexplain everything.)

    Here are some links where you can find me elsewhere:
Goodreads | Storygraph | Lifestyle YouTube | Gaming YouTube | Gaming Blog | Bluesky