Finished reading: The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean 📚

Want to read: The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives by Adam Smyth 📚

📚🔖 Read The Literary Power of Hobbits: How JRR Tolkien Shaped Modern Fantasy by Verlyn Flieger (Literary Hub)

Dr. Flieger says:

  1. Tolkien created modern fantasy via fae-ery, the creations of secondary worlds.
  2. The inclusion of hobbits in Middle Earth grounds Tolkien ’s fantasy.

Finished reading: The Price of Pleasure by Kresley Cole 📚

This one made me smile at the end.

Finished reading: The Captain of All Pleasures by Kresley Cole 📚

I do love a sailor heroine.

Finished reading: If You Desire by Kresley Cole 📚

Somehow forgot to post this when I finished it. It was my favorite of the MacCarrick Brothers trilogy.

Finished reading: If You Deceive by Kresley Cole 📚

Finished reading: If You Dare by Kresley Cole 📚

Want to read: Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success by Christine M. Larson 📚

Finished reading: The Devil of Downtown by Joanna Shupe 📚

Another excellent Gilded Age historical romance.

Finished reading: Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun 📚

This made me bawl. I love a childhood best friends to enemies to lovers story, and this one is about English teachers and their mentor English teacher and love through decades.

Auto-generated description: A book cover featuring two people standing behind a blue car in a desert setting with the title Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun and a quote praising the romance in the story.

Today:

  • woke up way too early
  • read about Romance Writers of America filing for bankruptcy and the absurd way they’re trying to blame it on Courtney Milan 🔖📚
  • had my first mammogram (later than I ought) (they used cute stickers to mark my sebaceous cysts)
  • caught up on Season 3 of Bridgerton 📺

Finished reading: The Prince of Broadway by Joanna Shupe 📚

I loved it. A delightful heroine, a debutante with dreams of owning a women-only casino. The bitter casino owner she’s chosen to mentor her. Excellent stuff.

Finished reading: The Essential X-Men Volume 3 by Chris Claremont 📚

Read as single issues and only the Uncanny X-Men books, not the annuals, but this is the easiest way to track reading the comics.

Finished reading: The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe 📚

Gilded Age New York, a hotshot lawyer, and a responsible eldest daughter who finds her responsibility chafing. What’s not to love?

Finished reading: The Essential X-Men Volume 2 by Chris Claremont 📚

Again, read as single issues in Marvel Unlimited, but this is the best way to track. It’s a powerhouse of a run with both Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past in it.

Finished reading: Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean 📚

This has my favorite of Sarah MacLean’s heroes. Give me a guy who is clever and made his own way over a titled rogue any day. (But I like to read about titled rogues, too.)

📚 Reading The Dark Phoenix Saga (not for the first time) and I had forgotten how heavily this whole deal, especially Scott talking to Dark Phoenix about love, influenced Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dark Willow storyline.

🔖📚 Read Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker Made an Irreverent, Charming Kids’ Book by Stephen Bell (Harper’s Bazaar).

I’m super curious to see the book. The article only contains one sample page. It’s gorgeous and I look forward to seeing more.

Currently reading: The Best There is at what He Does: Examining Chris Claremont’s X-Men by Jason Powell 📚

Started watching X-Men 97 📺 which reminded me that I love the X-Men, so now I’m reading this and reading the comics mentioned alongside. Super fun.

Want to read: A Web of Our Own Making by Antón Barba-Kay 📚

Finished reading: No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean 📚

I love every Sarah MacLean heroine.

Finished reading: One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean 📚

Lady Phillipa Marbury is a refreshing take on a bluestocking.

📚🔖 Here is the actual study with the evidence of the correlation between fiction reading and cognition.

🔖📚 Read If You Read a Lot of Fiction, Scientists Have Very Good News About Your Brain.

It’s always good to look at the actual studies behind news articles like this, but the evidence that reading fiction is associated with improved cognition suggests the importance of libraries, I think.