Finished reading: Essential X-Men - Volume 1

I read these as single issues in Marvel Unlimited, but this is the easiest way to track them.

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 📚

My kid told me, “A cross between a piglet and a pug is a puglet.” When I replied, “Good night,” meaning to indicate that it was time to sleep and not to talk, he said, “I just wanted to give you that very valuable information.” I love him the most.

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.

Hello world, I am full of hormonally-induced ill feeling including headache, nausea, and cramps. Until further notice, I hate everything except my family and friends, romance novels, Pepsi with real sugar, and Star Trek.

📚🔖 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.

Just a little reproductive system education, because I’ve met many adults who have uteruses and don’t know this: the menstrual cycle refers to the entire span of time from the first day of one period to the day before the first day of the next. Not just when you’re shedding uterine lining.

🔖 Read a pair of pieces about art and mothering:

The ‘Impossible Life’ of Equal Devotion to Art and Mothering by Jessica Grose (NYT Gift Link)

“Is This The Best Use of My Time?” Sara Fredman in conversation with Catherine Ricketts, author of The Mother Artist.

Finished reading: A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean 📚

I do love a good 19th Century casino. Thank goodness for the romance-guaranteed happily ever after, because there was a lot of this book that made me sad when the two main characters had huge misunderstandings.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words over on Manton’s post about my joining the Micro.blog team!

I want to be clear that I’m not taking over for Jean as community manager. I’m the first of I hope many people who will contribute to curation and community work.

Finished reading: Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean 📚

Yes, I finished this less than 36 hours after I finished the last one.

Between chronic illness and acute illness it feels like I have so little time when I can be doing things besides resting.

🔖📚 Read How Pregnancy Forever Transforms the Body and the Mind by Lucy Jones (Literary Hub).

First pool visit of the season yesterday. If I could do everything in water, I would. 🧜🏻‍♀️

Finished reading: Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean 📚

I love the heroine in this so much. Big eldest daughter, have-to-hold-it-together energy, and I’m so happy the hero is ready and willing to act as a partner and show her that just because she can do everything alone, that doesn’t mean she should have to.

🔖📚 Read What Eve L. Ewing’s Career Trajectory Tells Us About Black Women’s Place in Mainstream Superhero Comics by Ravynn K. Stringfield.

Dr. Stringfield does an awesome job illuminating how Eve L. Ewing’s comics career highlights structural inequality in the comics industry

🔖📚 Read A Daughter Becomes a Mother: On Inhabiting Both Roles in Fiction and in Life by Heidi Reimer (Literary Hub).

Finished reading: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean 📚

My first MacLeaniverse adventure and, of course, I loved it.

Finished reading: The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo 📚

So great. I loved it so much. More later.

Me: goes to Target Ah, it’s so nice to be out in the world.

🔖 Read The films that gave us unrealistic expectations about what makes a ‘home’.

…I too had one of those houses I had always dreamed of. But it wasn’t by design… It was by living my life and creating a home that served the needs of that life.

Now that the offer letter is signed and everybody at the school has been notified, I’m happy to share that next year I’ll be the librarian at my son’s elementary school!