Notes
My aspiration as a parent is to one day have a plan for the day and a half of free time my kid has the first week of school.
If you’re in New Zealand and you have improv experience, you should probably go do this workshop with Bianca Casusöl. She’s the best.
🔖 Read To Be a Consumer of Culture Means Living in a Hostage Situation by Aaron Bady (Slate)
A great exploration of the role of fan labor in culture work.
Looking at my On This Day page, I found this blog post about letting go of self-punishing goals. I really needed it, as I’ve spent much of this vacation staring into the ocean and making plans for how I’ll do everything better once I get home.
📚🔖 Read The Parentified Protagonist: From Shifting Roles to Shapeshifter, a guest post by Stephanie Willing (Teen Librarian Toolbox).
📚 Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter is always valuable. This week, Kelly Jensen takes a deep dive into the use of ChatGPT to decide whether books should be removed from libraries.
Finished reading: Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper 📚
It’s a witchy romance between two bi women and it has a punny title. What’s not to love? Moderately steamy.
📚💬👱♀️ “When Pearl Dragon and cheap wine and even magic have all failed us… there will always be Buffy marathons.” Lana Harper, Payback’s A Witch
😭 I’m not crying, you’re crying.
There was a big storm in Durham a couple days ago. Much of the city was without power. As soon as their power was restored, the libraries opened as cooling centers & places to charge devices. I worry sometimes that there’s no point to my research but I found this reddit comment heartening.
Finished reading: Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander 📚
This book is super queer and super cute. Simone’s a chef. Ray’s a kitchen manager. They take a long time to get together but once they do, it’s 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Warning: Transphobia & a relatedly garbage workplace.
Want to read: Disabilities and the Library by Clayton A. Copeland 📚
Want to read: Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age by Meryl Alper 📚
Want to read: 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow 📚
Want to read: Birth Control: The Insidious Power of Men over Motherhood by Allison Yarrow 📚
🖖🏻 Did I just revise my LinkedIn bio so it starts with a Star Trek quote? Yes, yes I did, and the whole thing is very professional.
🔖 Read On looking down.
A lovely meditation from @dwalbert on the things we notice when we walked. Our family stayed in Le Vésinet, a garden city outside of Paris, for a couple of weeks in May and their greenways existed in a state of studied neglect. Wildflowers sprouted all along the sidewalks. It was beautiful—and something we were only able to notice because we had to walk a kilometer to get to the train station.
📚🔮 “…the Tarot constitutes first and foremost an apprenticeship in seeing.” Marianne Costa, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards
Finished reading: Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel 📚
Gorgeous prose in this book that’s like if The Lion in Winter was mostly a romance between Richard and Philip. Recommend!
I may be leaning into being a middle-aged librarian stereotype, but I’m leaning into being a goth middle-aged librarian stereotype.
🎮 Played the Pikmin 4 demo, ended up buying the Pikmin 1 + 2 bundle, and I feel so guilty every time my little plant guys die in battle. 🌱
📚💗 August 19 is Bookstore Romance Day!
My fiction reading has been almost exclusively romance (across a variety of subgenres) since May and it’s making me very happy. Why not support your favorite indie bookshop & buy a romance from them?
I’ll write up some recommendations in the coming days.
Finished reading: The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes 📚
This one didn’t click with me right away, but that was about me and what else I’ve read recently, not about the book. It’s beautiful and sweet with a bit of spice, too.