Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

February Delights

Even a short month can hold delight in every day. That is, if you seek it out. Writing "Today's delights" at the top of a dedicated space on the journal page is a bit like picking up a fresh piece of stationery, getting a nice pen, and writing "Dear Person I Care About" at the top of the paper. (Sidebar: This is a thing people do still actually do, and sending or receiving a letter definitely counts as a delight.)

That is to say, once you've started and you've put it down in writing, that blank spot waits for you to fill it with something.

Early this month I finished reading the delightful book Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day, written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. The inspiration for the book came out of the earliest days of the COVID era (which we're still in, by the way, along with all the other overlapping eras that create a deep need for small delights in our days). She suggests writing our own lists of 52 things to look forward to, or things that bring us joy (or delight). That's one per week, and surely you can manage to find delight at least once a week.

I build a list of far more than 52 things every month, a few at a time. Some delights definitely come up again and again. I "reappreciate" coffee and good food and chocolate again and again, flowers and trees, sunshine and seasons, birds and mosses, hugs and belly laughs, my body reaching up in yoga, our home of four years and the way we've made it more ours, changing weather, shifting seasons, and the night sky. All right there, gifting me with fresh delight every time I pay attention.

February delights:

  1. Good progress on a new jigsaw puzzle
  2. Ordering a tin of Cougar Gold cheese as a gift for family who work for the federal government
  3. The spinning windcatcher in our front yard rotating fast, twinkling in the sun
  4. Snow on the ground when I got up
  5. Mesmerizing flakes drifting down past evergreen boughs tipped with white
  6. Satisfying ping of canning lids
  7. Rich flavor of tayberry jam
  8. Bright sweetness of raspberry jam
  9. Winey depth of blackberry plum preserves
  10. Sitting down after something like 7 or 8 hours of canning
  11. Snow frosting everything
  12. A storyteller's skill
  13. Arriving at the headquarters exactly when two coworkers got there and all of us waving as we walked towards each other
  14. Knitting in a meeting--tons of progress, beautiful colors
  15. Two couples walking our neighborhood loop at different times, holding hands
  16. One of these women saying to me as I left the housing wearing a big teal wrap, "I love that color!"
  17. Walking fast in the cold on a downtown sidewalk feeling as if I were flying
  18. One of the students bringing ginger cookies to improv class
  19. Laughing
  20. Waking to a snow-covered world
  21. The sound of rain on the roof when I don't have to go out in it
  22. Sweet and salty pickled cherries in yogurt with almonds
  23. Blue sky peeking out
  24. Lush flavors of mushroom soup I made
  25. Birds twittering
  26. Having all that counter space to do lots of cooking
  27. How much light our living room holds on a cold, sunny day
  28. Ducks paddling at the shore as waves rolled in
  29. Mossy roof of a tiny sign kiosk with a jaunty fern growing out of it
  30. Fresh zing of homemade raspberry and tayberry jams
  31. Flurry of jays' cries high in the trees as I listened to a podcast interview with adrienne maree brown talking about connecting with the natural world
  32. Curving up in Warrior 1
  33. Buttery-good mushroom soup with oyster crackers
  34. Hot bath
  35. Walking with my sweetie
  36. Moss-covered tree posed like a dancer
  37. My sweetie describing how he'll fix the hummingbird feeder to make it nicer for them to land on with their tiny feet—such sweetness in that thought
  38. The beautiful kitchen light fixture my sweetie made
  39. Being inside warm and dry when cold rain is pouring down
  40. My sweetie making a new bigger platform for Tiggs to perch on so he can watch kitchen action while not on the island or range hood!
  41. Seeing Jupiter in the sky from my bedroom window, then Rigel and Sirius
  42. Birds in the tree and on bushes doing their bird thing
  43. Quiet sense of home stuff moving along while I work: washer and dryer humming and chugging
  44. Printer putting out actual page, not weird tiny symbols and gobbledygook
  45. Black-capped chickadee, perky on the suet cage
  46. Finding the credit card, ID, and transit cards that were hiding in a backpack after a trip
  47. Felting with wool for the first time, to fill a small couple of holes in a favorite blue wool jacket
  48. A nearly full moon shining in the early morning darkness
  49. Morning sun's rays shooting through tall pines
  50. Riding my bike downhill
  51. Full moon in the night sky
  52. Venus shining over the neighborhood
  53. Sun's warmth on a cold walk
  54. Softness of Tiggs' fur
  55. Holding my sweetie's hand on a walk
  56. Spicy tingle of Bengal Spice tea
  57. Seeing 3 other people on bikes as I rode to the office on a very cold morning
  58. Driver who waited in the slip lane for me to bike past uphill, then waved and smiled when I waved at him
  59. Softly falling snow
  60. Energy of an in-person meeting
  61. Little ferns growing out of the moss on the Dr. Seuss tree outside the living room window
  62. Freshly baked bran muffins with melted butter
  63. Speedy help from the data/GIS whiz on my work team
  64. Finishing slides that are the right length
  65. Sweet potato fries with garlic aioli
  66. My body's curve as I reach to the sky in yoga
  67. Warmth of Tiggs on my legs
  68. Fresh homemade oatmeal cookies
  69. Rain, gentle on the roof
  70. Beautiful results of framing a big puzzle I started over a year ago and finally finished
  71. Insistent train whistle in the distance
  72. Hot fresh biscuits with butter and local honey
  73. How great the kitchen counters look (new, after a big remodeling project)
  74. Birds swooping joyously from fence to bush to feeder to tree and back around
  75. Being outside in fresh air
  76. Bright gold tall yolks of fresh local eggs
  77. Satisfaction of pruned raspberry and tayberry bushes
  78. Not needing my coat on a walk
  79. Mossy sculptures in the woods composed of tree limbs and stumps and trunks
  80. Feeling good about finishing a set of slides I need to present to a legislative committee
  81. Belly laughs
  82. Bright yellow leaf on the path in the nearby forested park
  83. "Spread Kindness" on the display sign on the #21 bus
  84. Creamy mushroom soup with lots of paprika, eaten fresh after making with oyster crackers
  85. Frogs' chorus in the night
  86. Crocuses poking up out of a mossy planting strip
  87. The deep cushion of moss, not grass, in that planting strip
  88. Night chorus of frogs bellowing for love
  89. Tiggs playing with an old toy I got out that he hasn't seen in a while, pouncing again and again
  90. Smell of wood smoke on a walk
  91. Walking with my sweetie
  92. Sitting in a coffee shop/bakery with the hum of people
  93. Assyrian flavors in lemon labneh, roasted cauliflower steak, zoug
  94. Tiny purple flower blooming by the sidewalk
  95. Sleeping in, warm and cozy
  96. Trying a new recipe that's a keeper
  97. Sea salt dark chocolate truffle
  98. Coziness
  99. Rain on the roof, a steady drumming
  100. Flowers blooming on the capitol campus
  101. Unexpected scent of lily of the valley on a downtown street
  102. Homemade tomato jam and Cougar Gold on crackers
  103. Birds twittering on the suet cage
  104. Tiggs making that chittering sound from his tower seat by the window where he can see those birds
  105. Bird going for a ride on the wind spinner in the yard
  106. Hearing a barred owl hooting in the rhododendron park midday
  107. The way the blue paint I picked for the bedroom picks up colors in a painting and a framed jigsaw puzzle hanging on the wall
  108. Perfect timing to roll through stop signs on uphill stops riding home in the dark (which, by the way, is legal in Washington thanks to Safety Stop legislation enacted in 2020)
  109. Biking at night
  110. Spring! Blue sky and sun! 60 degrees!
  111. Trees budding
  112. Flowers blooming
  113. Calls of a jay
  114. Tiggs fully stretched out in the sunshine (on my puzzle table)
  115. Tiggs doing his "roll and scroll" on the living room rug, tipping his head back to look at us, beaming happiness and chirping/talking
  116. Glorious warmth of the sun!
  117. Flowers blooming in so many places
  118. The way the rust orange of a thrift store jacket went perfectly with a top, scarf and hat I already owned
  119. Taking a selfie with my mushroom "pinecone" stump friend just because
  120. Beautiful glassy water in the bay, ducks floating here and there
  121. Stars and planets in the night sky, and being able to see those overhead in our neighborhood
Putting this list together tells me even more about the themes and delightful resonance than I originally thought of when I started the post. Listing them chronologically lets me recognize the way I tune into seasonal shifts. 

And so many! I don't aim for a specific number per day since I can't force delight. It just comes, every single day, as long as I expect it.

Reading this list makes me feel delight-full. What's on your list?

Related Reading

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January Delights

Reading Ross Gay's essays in The Book of Delights got me started on a practice in my journal of recording "today's delights." I kept it up for months, learning along the way that if I looked for delights I found them. In any day, no matter what else happened, I could pause and truly pay attention for a moment. When I did, there waited delight.

At some point for unknown reasons I fell out of the habit. I might occasionally note delights in a day but I stopped setting up my journal each morning with that heading that established up front the expectation that I'd find things to put on the list.

I'm now reading Gay's The Book of (More) Delights and restoring my habit of expecting each day to hold some delights. And sure enough, there they are, just waiting to be noticed. 

Close-up photo of a white daisy with petal tips tinted pink in the midst of green broad-leafed plants. Sometimes I notice scents or flavors: A hot, good-bitter cup of coffee fresh from the French press. The aroma of bread I'm baking made with my sourdough starter and whole wheat flours grown in the Chimacum Valley on the Olympic Peninsula. Hot spiciness of tofu seasoned with gochujang, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and ginger and crisped up in the oven's air fryer setting. The apple ginger jelly I made last fall on a toasted English muffin.

Photo taken at night of a brick-paved city street lined with trees strung with tiny white lights so the trees glow in the dark. At the left and right entrances to the block, a tall lamp post topped with three white lighted balls.
Some of the delights are visual: One tiny white daisy, then another, then realizing the lawn ahead of me was filled with them and it was only January 11th. The very next day spotting a bush full of blush pink flowerheads starting to open. Occidental Square in Seattle full of trees covered with tiny white lights, glowing in the darkness. Sunlight reflecting like dancing mirrors on the waters of the bay when the surface ripples. Reflections of lights seeming to shoot up from the bottom of the bay in the dark like streaks of fireworks when the water is smooth. A stump in the nearby park absolutely covered with turkey tail mushrooms and topped with a bright green moss toupee.

Photo of a green bush covered in pink flower heads. The heads hold many tiny flowers packed close together. Some are opening and are a paler pink than the buds that are still closed. Other delights are tactile: A hot, hot shower. Stepping outside under blue skies in winter and actually feeling warmth from the sun overhead. The silky softness of our cat's fur when he's lying on my lap so I can pet him (rather than being a wildcat trying to stop me from typing on my laptop by swiping at my hands when I'm trying to work—oops, not a delight, more of an anti-delight).

The delight can be sounds: Deep, resonant tones as the windchimes outside my office tap each other. Birds twittering or calling. The knock-knock-knocking I heard on a walk in the rhododendron patch that turned out to be a big pileated woodpecker knocking loose chunks of bark, then cocking its head to one side and then the other to listen for its insect lunch.

Some are social: Riding the train to Seattle with a friend, both of us working away in the dining car and asking each other stray questions. Getting two compliments from strangers in the same day on my dark teal jacket worn over a teal dress, both of them saying how great the color was on me. Talking with people I haven't seen in a long time, in person and not on a screen. Going to a performance of "Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson" with friends and realizing it's been far too long since I watched live theater. Laughing so hard I cried in improv class as two people brought characters to life and kept ramping up to another level of hilarity. Biking to the office and back with a friend, chatting along the way.

Many of them have to do with nature: The bright red flash of spotted towhees at the suet cage hanging in a tree right outside my office window, then the flutter of more wings as dark-eyed juncos and others come in to join the feast. Changes in the weather that give me the chance to take a walk during a break in the rain, or the wind sweeping everything clean. Signs that the world keeps turning and the seasons keep changing no matter what humans do.

Even on days that hold moments (or hours) of chaos, tension, or uncertainty, that day also holds delights. I'll offer up my January 31st list as an example:

  • Rain break that let me take a 30-minute park walk
  • Revisiting the stump covered in turkey tail mushrooms with its mossy toupee
  • Yard bunny!
  • Exploring an Asian market, finding spices and sauces
  • Heat of Thai food that made me keep taking another bite
May you find delight in each day. It's there, if you look for it. 





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2019 Blogging in Review

January: I got the year rolling with a post listing various bike challenges, not all of which I intended to try to complete. Speaking of challenges, compiling a list of everything I read in 2018 was a self-imposed challenge in an effort to give a shout-out to authors who enrich my life with their talents.

 February: I decided to make it a lot easier to spotlight authors by compiling my list of books read in smaller chunks, hence the list of books I read in January.

March: I wrote quite a bit more in March. What I read in February, some musings on how differently we would interact on our streets and roads if we all moved the way we do in grocery stores, a round-up of some of my transportation reading (meaning articles, not books), a piece on why someone who owns a bike would use bikeshare, an introduction to my new e-bike Zelda!, and on the last day of the month the list of what I read in March.

April: My blogging energy continued into the cruelest month, sparked by the biking energy that goes with tackling the #30DaysOfBiking challenge. For a while there I thought I might actually do another run of 30 Days of Blogging to go with the biking, so I pushed out a lot of posts:


I even dropped in another round-up of transportation articles along the way.

May: Then life returned to normal and my blogging pace dropped. I posted the list of my April reading.

June: Another quiet month with only my list of May books.

July: You guessed it -- June reading list. 

August: I should have blogged every single day of my wonderful trip to Copenhagen and London. I didn't. Too busy living the actual life to record it, and that's not an apology.

September: Caught up on the reading list with a July-August round-up, then posted on the innumerable thankless chores of digital housework.

October: Another "too busy to write" month.


December: Something about the end of the year gets me writing again. I had a really wonderful experience with a great version of #BikeSchool, a Twitter chat I lead every so often, this time with guest hosts and the added tags #MoveEquity #WheelsMoveMe to invite in new participants. I belatedly reported on successful completion of the 2019 #coffeeneuring challenge as a series of bike dates with my sweetheart, discussed how my approach to holidays has evolved (and gotten much simpler and easier), and reviewed my year of bike challenge participation. I wrapped it up with a confession about nonfiction books I've started and haven't yet finished to create a bit of public accountability.

And that brings us to 2020. Such a nice, symmetrical number, that. Here's hoping that I round out this new year with enough reading, riding and writing to make me happy. I need high doses of each of these.

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Books I'm Not Done Reading (Yet)

I'll be honest. I appreciate so much the research and thought that goes into writing a really well-done work of nonfiction. Over the years I've read hundreds of such works. And yet -- and yet....

These days I will stay up as if I'm a teenager hiding under the covers with a flashlight to finish a book. (That was a thing, children, back before cell phones. Yes, there was a time before cell phones, back when we chiseled our texts on stones and an emoji was called a "facial expression".)

But I don't do that for nonfiction. I do that for fiction. I do that for fantasy and science fiction and historical fiction, books that make me weep, books with a plot that demands resolution and characters whose lives need to make sense, in the end.

Nonfiction has become the thing I read if I'm really behind on sleep (thanks to all those previous up-too-late-finishing-because-I-have-to-know-what-happened nights). I'll learn something, but the writing won't draw me forward, page after page, toward that place where everything comes to rest. Instead my eyelids will come to rest.

In the spirit of true confession, here's a list of nonfiction books I started over the past year and have yet to finish even though I highly recommend each and every one. Possibly this confessional will prod me into finishing them.

  • How to Eat, by Thich Nhat Hanh, from his Mindfulness Essential series: A souvenir of a bookstore stop while at a conference -- I think possibly this is from DC while I was there for the gigantic Transportation Research Board annual meeting in 2018. Over the years I've owned and read many books on Buddhism and mindfulness meditation, including some of his. The deceptively simple precepts help me slow down and pay attention. I've read a few pages of this -- just snacking, you might say. Currently on loan to Second Daughter.
  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein: I've been meaning to put this on the list ever since the America Walks webinar on the book and finally picked it up. I started on the plane in March 2019 on my way to the National Bike Summit but got so angry on every page I stopped reading a few chapters in. 
    • If I am right that we continue to have de jure segregation, then desegregation is not just a desirable policy; it is a constitutional as well as a moral obligation that we are required to fulfill. 'Let bygones be bygones' is not a legitimate approach if we wish to call ourselves a constitutional democracy. - Richard Rothstein
  • An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Rosanne Dunbar-Ortiz (@RDunbarO). This is everything they didn't teach us in school that we need to know. And yes, this too will make you angry. 
    • By the way, if you don't know whose land you're living on you can look it up. I have lived on the lands of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce), Schitsu'umsh (Coeur d'Alene), Spokane, and Duwamish peoples.
    • ...the history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism--the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society. - Rosanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo). I follow Oluo on Twitter and have had this on my list for far too long. Started in October 2019. Another one that makes me angry -- by which I mean energized to work for change, by the way, not mad at the author. 
    • White Supremacy is this nation's oldest pyramid scheme. Even those who have lost everything to the scheme are still hanging in there, waiting for their turn to cash out. - Ijeoma Oluo
  •  The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City, by Eric Avila. Recommended by Peter Flax, former editor of Bicycling Magazine, in a string of tweets as a corrective to someone's lack of knowledge about the history of highways and what they did to segregate neighborhoods. Highly recommended for anyone working in transportation.
    • ...-The modernist city) enthroned the machine, not ambulatory human beings, as the arbiter of urban spatial design, and it claimed the authority of reason and science, promising to rescue humanity from its self-destructive attachments to history, community, and identity. - Eric Avila
  • That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together, Joanne Lipman (@JoanneLipman): Recommended by a friend. Started in December 2019. If you're a man please read this.
    • Benevolent sexism is a well-meaning comment or attitude that ends up diminishing or undermining women. Just one example: after I guest-anchored the CNBC business program Squawk Box one day, I received a text from a businessman I know. It said, in its entirety, "You looked mighty cute on TV this morning.".... after I told this story to a group of women at a bank, the chief executive officer of the company -- the only man in the room -- taught us all how to think about this. "That's easy," he said. "The correct answer is: 'I assume you mean I sounded smart. Thank you.'" - Joanne Lipman
I have plenty of works of nonfiction I haven't even started, so this isn't my entire TBR (To Be Read) list. It's the TBF list: To Be Finished. Lots of learning -- and restful sleep -- lies ahead.


A note on local economies and these links: You should shop at a local, independently owned bookstore. Or check these out through your local library -- did you know they can do that with e-books too, if that's how you read? Links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links unless otherwise noted. I've never made a penny from Amazon but these links give you access to more information and reader reviews. If I ever do make anything I'll donate it to a local nonprofit, maybe Books to Prisoners (if you live in Seattle, Spokane, Olympia, or Portland, Oregon you can volunteer with them in person).
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What I'm Reading: September-October 2019

My September reading rate was surprisingly high, considering that I had cataract surgeries: Left eye Sept. 9, right eye Sept. 30.

For well over a year I've had an increasingly smeary view of the world -- as if someone put greasy thumbprints right in the middle of my glasses. I have "complicated" eyes: extreme myopia (-10.5 left eye, -10.0 right eye), scars from an old radial keratotomy, and a longer eyeball depth than many.

Thanks to an intraocular lens in each eye I am now reading without any glasses at all. I'm not quite 20/20 -- surgeon didn't want to overshoot on the correction and I don't fit on the normal charts they use to calculate lens power. But it's good enough to read many things (with cheaters for really small print that shouldn't be allowed to exist), ride my bike, look out at our backyard bird feeders and see at least some of a bird's markings.

Recovery from the implant takes place pretty much right away, hence the prolific reading as I tested my new visual acuity. My prescription will continue to settle down for a few more weeks, then I may get some prescription glasses if needed. Otherwise it will be Dollar Store cheaters. And of course, more reading.

I powered on into October without time to put together a post so this is another two-month list. November is my birthday month and maybe I'll get back into my habit of noting each book in a draft post as soon as I've read it when my memory is fresher.

With appreciation for the authors and those who recommend good books, here's what I read in September and October:
  • The Fated Sky, Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette): Wonderful sequel to The Calculating Stars, which won the Hugo Award and kept me up until after 2 a.m. on the very last day of August. Before I went to sleep I ordered this. Without feeling dated, both of these nonetheless take me back to my early days of reading science fiction and the sense of wonder, with a writing style that feels as if it comes straight from that time and yet addresses modern issues and concerns. 
  • Followed by Frost, by Charlie N. Holmberg (@CNHolmberg): Circled back to pick up this 2015 work by an author whose other books I've enjoyed: her Paper Magician series and the more recent one that started with Smoke and Summons.
  •  The Bear and the Nightingale Katherine Arden (@ArdenKatherine): Reread so I could continue with the Winternight trilogy with The Girl in the Tower and then The Winter of the Witch. I don't know Russian fairy tales well enough to know how much it echoes and how much it departs from source material. Didn't matter. Great choice for those who love Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik as much as I do.
  • The Shades of Magic Series: A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, A Conjuring of Light, V. E. Schwab (@VESchwab)
  • The Evermore Chronicles: Before the Broken Star; Into the Hourglass, Emily R. King (@Emily_R_King): Love the central character, Everley Donovan, with her clockwork heart, fencing, and fierce quest for justice for the death of her family. But perhaps it didn't all happen quite as she remembers. I'll be getting the third book in the trilogy, Everafter Song. (Fencing came up again in Creatures of Will and Temper, below.)
  • The House of Sundering Flames, Aliette de Bodard (@AlietteDB): Wonderful conclusion to her Dominion of the Fallen trilogy.
  • The Analog series, Eliot Peper (@EliotPeper): Bandwidth, Borderless, Breach. Like a shorter version of Malka Older's wonderful Infomacracy trilogy, which I read in 2018. If we all rely on a constant feed of information, what happens if someone uses that feed to shape your perceptions, beliefs, even who you might love? And if the company that controls the feed can shape politics and policy, at what point do we outgrow the nation-state?
  • The Rosewater Redemption, Tade Thompson (@TadeThompson): Great conclusion to the Rosewater trilogy; I devoured the first two books while traveling in August.
  • Where the Forest Meets the Stars, by Glendy Vanderah: Picked up on Kindle Unlimited. Loved having a woman scientist at the heart of the story. Lost child enters her life -- or is this child really an alien intelligence that entered the body of a human child who died?
  • Strange Practice; Grave Importance; Dreadful Company, Vivian Shaw (@CeruleanCynic): Thoroughly enjoyed the Dr. Greta Helsing books and I'll look for them in the future if she's writing more. As a human doctor to vampires (which come in different subspecies--who knew?), werewolves, zombies and others Dr. Helsing has quite the practice. Reconstructive surgery for mummies, for example.
  • Creatures of Will and Temper; Creatures of Want and Ruin, Molly Tanzer (@Molly_The_Tanz): Love the idea that a devil possessing you may not be all bad. It depends on the devil, and there are rewards to go with the down side. Both books rest on that same central concept but don't follow the same characters directly and can be read as stand-alones. The women who are central characters aren't traditionally beautiful and they're certainly not helpless. Creatures of Want and Ruin centers on a polyamorous woman engaged to a bisexual man and takes on racists, and Creatures of Will and Temper has both gay and lesbian central characters.
  • The Winter World; The Solar War, A.G. Riddle (@Riddlist): Riddle writes a lot of apocalyptic books and I think I've read most of them thanks to Kindle Unlimited. I have to say they start to blur together after a while.
  • Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (@GWillowWilson): Computer programming, authoritarian religious government censorship and surveillance, and the world of the djinn come together in a really wonderful book; the author, who converted to Islam, says the semi-clueless American Muslim convert in the book isn't really her.
  • The Pearl that Broke Its Shell, Nadia Hashimi (@NashimiForUS): Story jumps back and forth between different generations of Afghan women who followed the tradition of bacha posh, which allows them to dress and be treated as a boy until they're of marriageable age. I so appreciated this look into what it's like for at least some Afghan women. In looking up her Twitter account I discovered she's not only a novelist, she's also a pediatrician and a candidate for a seat in Congress!
  • A Dream so Dark, L.L. McKinney (@ElleOnWords): Loved this sequel to her earlier book A Blade So Black about a new kind of Alice in a darker and more dangerous Wonderland. This has been optioned for a TV series that I will totally binge.
  • The Vine Witch, Luanne G. Smith (@WriterSmith1): Definitely easy to believe that good wine is the result of magic. 
  • The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, K.S. Villoso (@K_Villoso): First in Chronicles of the Bitch Queen. The "wolf" of the title is a young queen in an invented Asian land built around Filipino cultural traditions. In the first sentence of the book she kills a man and her husband goes into exile. Several years of difficult, lonely rule later, she goes in search of him in a country that doesn't respect her nation or her royal status. Good thing she's a trained fighter.
  • Heart of Briar, Laura Anne Gilman (@LAGilman): When a cruel Fey woman bewitches your new boyfriend, takes him away and begins sucking the living essence out of him, what do you do? Partner up with the non-humans who explain the danger to you and head out to save him.
  • Series of very different novellas in the Forward collection, each thought-provoking in its own way: Randomize by Andy Weir (@AndyWeirAuthor, who wrote The Martian), with quantum computing and gambling; Ark by Veronica Roth (author of the Divergent series), about the scientists racing against the impending meteor strike to save as many plant species as possible; Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin (@NKJemisin, author of the Broken Earth trilogy), which is exactly the way I hope it would go if all the racists and eugenicists were to leave Earth. 
  • Started, haven't finished The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City, by Eric Avila. Recommended by Peter Flax in a string of tweets as a corrective to someone's lack of knowledge about the history of highways and what they did to segregate neighborhoods. Highly recommended for anyone working in transportation.
I'm going to skip this month's additions to my TBR (to be read) list and instead may someday publish an updated long list of everything waiting to be read eventually as an update to the list from February.

The importance of online reviews for the author: The numbers matter as much as the content of your review so don't stress out over your writing ability -- just praise what you like about theirs.

A note on local economies and these links: You should shop at a local, independently owned bookstore. Or check these out through your local library -- did you know they can do that with e-books too, if that's how you read? Links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links unless otherwise noted. I've never made a penny from Amazon but these links give you access to more information and reader reviews. If I ever do make anything I'll donate it to a local nonprofit, maybe Books to Prisoners (if you live in Seattle, Spokane, Olympia, or Portland, Oregon you can volunteer with them in person).

Writers on Twitter: I have a Writers list on Twitter. It isn't everyone I read/enjoy but it's a good starting place if you find your tastes and mine overlap. I so appreciate the chances I get to interact with people directly to tell them I enjoy their work.

Related Reading on Reading

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What I'm Reading: July-August 2019

How I spent my summer (including some vacation)--Well, for one thing July absolutely whizzed past. So did August.

That's in no small part because in early August I headed to a fantabulous weeklong study tour in Copenhagen that I could participate in thanks to a scholarship from the Scan Design Foundation.

Followed immediately by vacation days in London with family.

Followed quasi-immediately by the better part of a week at the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals conference and an FHWA meeting in Portland. (I got one day at home to sleep 15 hours straight and do laundry, then back on the train.)

That last bit accompanied by a vicious head cold that started tickling my throat on the plane home from London. Still sick, in fact, and tired of blowing my brain matter out my sinuses, but you can't have everything.

I spent July cramming in all the work I could get done (and still not enough) to hit deadlines that would come up while I was on the road in one of the premier bicycling cities on the planet, plus doing the homework to prep since the "study" part was quite serious. Our agenda ran a solid 11-12 hours most days since we had dinners on the agenda and spent that time processing what we saw and heard each day.

For more on the study trip, vacation time, and conference you can check out my tweet threads:

Copenhagen masterclass


London vacation


#APBP2019
I got a surprising amount of reading done despite all of this. All those hours on the planes and trains, for one thing, and then being sick enough that I couldn't think or work but not so sick I couldn't lie on the sofa with my Kindle and power through. I read really, really fast too. Books in these two months represent a mix of working on the backlog waiting on my Kindle and making some impulse buys along the way.

With appreciation for the authors and those who recommend good books, here's what I read in July.
  • Starless by Jacqueline Carey (@JCareyAuthor). Really wonderful story of a strong young person who fights, protects and loves. Gender identity and the strictures placed around women's behavior by their culture are dominant themes in this quest and love story.
  • Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott (@KimballScott). Recommended by friend and colleague Ida van Schalkwyk, @RoadSafetyPhD on Twitter. Great advice for being a boss -- being clear is not unkind. Scott does write from the perspective of someone who has had large teams to manage and from her tech sector experience. Those of us with a tiny staff in a public agency can nonetheless apply her principles.
  • Rick Steves London 2019 (@RickSteves): Had to read this to prepare for my tourist time in London after the Copenhagen study tour. Lots of great detailed advice, some of which I even took.
  • The Magic of Unkindness, The Grave Raven, and The Halls of Midnight (Books of Conjury trilogy), Kevan Dale (@DaleKevan). First in his trilogy The Books of Conjury. Really enjoyed his tough, resilient one-eyed heroine in this alternate history. She's a witch and Salem's witches died long ago in the battle against demons. Now she has to learn how to use her magic in time to stop the demons from rising again.
  • Sorcery of the Stony Heart by Kevan Dale. A prequel to The Books of Conjury.
  • The Plastic Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg (@CNHolmberg): Another in her series in which magical practice means the ability to use a particular material, whether that's paper or stone or this new-fangled stuff "plastic", to embed and carry out spells.
  • The Green Man's Heir, Juliet E. McKenna (@JulietEMcKenna): As a child I loved works grounded in Celtic myths such as Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. This work shares that background but puts its central character, a woodworker and laborer whose mom isn't human, into the list of suspects for the murder of young women.
  • Native Tongue trilogy: Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin and Susan Squier; The Judas Rose and Earthsong by Suzette Haden Elgin and Julie Vedder. How on earth did I miss these when they first came out! Native Tongue was published in 1984, the year I graduated from WSU with degrees in English and Linguistics. These are works of feminist science fiction with linguistics at the very heart of their plot. If you enjoyed Arrival (based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang) and its grounding in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (very roughly, the idea that the language we uses shapes our perceptions and understanding of the world around us and the world is genuinely different if you use a different language) then you should check these out. The editions I read had extended scholarly essays at the back to place these in context and point to other novels and resources.
What I read in August:
  • Storywalker, David Bridger (@DavidBridger): You're a best-selling author with a well-beloved central character in your fantasy series. Come to find out he's your twin and you're living in parallel worlds and now those worlds have touched.
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward (@JesMimi): Her writing is so strong, unflinching, beautiful, stark. A story of ghosts, pain, imperfect humans, racism, the brutality of incarceration, love.
  • The Mermaid's Sister, by Carrie Anne Noble (@NobleBat): I enjoyed The Gold-Son by Noble (leprechauns are not so cute after all) so when this one popped up as a suggestion for Kindle Unlimited I grabbed it. A wonderful story of the love of sisters grounded in fairy tales without feeling like a retelling.
  • Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit: Didn't actually finish this. I started it on the plane to Copenhagen, knowing that if I actually should be sleeping to reset my body clock to the new time zone then nonfiction is better than fiction. A dense and well-researched work, this, and deeply philosophical about the places walking holds in our societies, cultures, literature, and more. Once I was in the heart of Copenhagen walking everywhere, though, and being pretty continuously lectured at about everything we saw, if I read anything it needed to be some fiction.
  • True Places: A Novel, Sonja Yoerg (@SonjaYoerg): I used to read more books like this, in which a woman stifled by an unfulfilling life has a breakthrough and finds herself. This one has more to recommend it than many with the character of Iris, a young girl raised in the forest by parents who wanted to keep her away from the contaminations of modern society, and what she endures in losing them and entering "civilization" with all its shallowness. If you like Ann Patchett, for example, you'll like this.
  • Storm of Locusts, Rebecca Roanhorse (@RoanhorseBex): Preordered because I so enjoyed her Trail of Lightning, with a kick-ass young Native woman, Maggie Hoskie, as the central character and the grounding in Indian traditions. Another great read in which Maggie wrestles with what her clan powers make her, and what they don't.
  • The Book of Flora, by Meg Elison (@MegElison): Another preorder because the first two works in this series, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and The Book of Etta, were gripping, amazing, terrifying. Post-apocalyptic dystopian worlds are absolute shit for women and those are gay, lesbian, nonbinary, boundary-breaking in any way. Although not a major plot element, living in the Seattle area as I do I enjoy the way the action in this one ends up at "Settle" (post-apocalypse Seattle) and "Bambritch Island" (Bainbridge Island).
  • Gabriel's Road, by Laura Anne Gilman (@LAGilman): I love Gilman's Devil's West series. This is another in that -- I'll keep getting these as long as she keeps writing them. This work gives us insights into Gabriel both before and after he mentors Isobel.
  • Rosewater and Rosewater Insurrection, by Tade Thompson (@TadeThompson): Found thanks to Twitter recommendations (which I generally supplement by looking at reviews -- a good way to find out you're picking up an award-winning book). Put together a science fiction premise (weird alien thing growing in Nigeria that generates free electricity, heals humans, endows some people with a mindreading capability, may have an agenda....) with the politics of a breakaway city, secretive government agencies, imperfect people who do what they can as things fall apart. Can't wait to see where Thompson takes the story in Rosewater Redemption -- preordered. Read these. 
  • The Rewind Files, by Claire Willett (@ClaireWillett): Popped up as a recommendation and that algorithm knows me. Time traveler who works for the government agency tasked with keeping the "real" timeline intact isn't a brand-new concept but this is fast-paced with enjoyable characters. Playwright Willett, who lives in Portland, plans two sequels -- yay!
  • The Sisters of the Winter Wood, Rena Rossner (@RenaRossner): A beautiful work of fairytale retelling grounded in Jewish traditions that brings together several stories including the shapeshifter who puts on and takes off a cloak of fur or feathers. If you're a girl growing into womanhood do you really want to become a bear?
  • Torn and its sequel Fray, Rowenna Miller (@RowennaM): I used to sew quite a bit (made my own clothes and matching dresses for Eldest Daughter and Second Daughter every Christmas when they were little), so I liked the premise of magic stitchery in this. It's much more than that, with a class struggle between the nobility and the working class and international politics and trade agreements. Hmmm, now I wonder if someone has a list of science fiction and fantasy works that do a good job of highlighting the implications of political structures and philosophies. 
  • The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette): I loved her novella The Lady Astronaut of Mars; that led me to this and now I'm starting on the sequel The Fated Sky. I stayed up until after 2 a.m. to tear through this on the very last day of August. Evolving understanding of racism, the double family losses of the Holocaust and then a terrible meteorite strike endangering survival of the human species, the greenhouse effect creating urgency to get off this rock and colonize space, homage to the women who worked as "computers" and made space flight possible that you may have learned of from Hidden Figures, true, passionate love between two people who make each other laugh and admire each other's intellectual brilliance -- so much here! No wonder it just won the Hugo Award. This also led to a NY Times article and quite the Twitter thread on peeing in space.


I'm going to skip this month's additions to my TBR (to be read) list and instead will publish an updated long list of everything waiting to be read eventually as an update to the list from February.

The importance of online reviews for the author: The numbers matter as much as the content of your review so don't stress out over your writing ability -- just praise what you like about theirs.

A note on local economies and these links: You should shop at a local, independently owned bookstore. Or check these out through your local library -- did you know they can do that with e-books too, if that's how you read? Links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links unless otherwise noted. I've never made a penny from Amazon but these links give you access to more information and reader reviews. If I ever do make anything I'll donate it to a local nonprofit that helps people who need it most.

Writers on Twitter: I have a Writers list on Twitter. It isn't everyone I read/enjoy but it's a good starting place if you find your tastes and mine overlap. I so appreciate the chances I get to interact with people directly to tell them I enjoy their work.

Related Reading on Reading

Did you spot the Easter egg? Yes, "things fall apart" was a deliberate reference to the work by Chinua Achebe. Not that the works are directly parallel, simply couldn't resist.
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What I'm Reading: June 2019

I'm not one of those readers who underlines, highlights, makes marginal notations, or otherwise defaces a book. This goes back even before I was buying used books in college and resenting the over-highlighters before me who thought everything in a paragraph was important.

While I'm willing to turn down the corner of a page to mark my place if I don't have a bookmark handy (which is why I finally bought a little tin of book darts, those handy metal pointers that slide onto the edge of a page), I don't want to destroy the book's raw contents for someone else in the future who will bring a different perspective and find different things important if I don't get in the way. I know some people find those fingerprints of past readers interesting. I get that, I just don't do that.

In grad school I used Post-it notes on the edges of pages, with a brief keyword and the page number in case the stick-um came loose. That gave me a fast way to find something interesting or to go back to all the points that related to a paper I was working on, but at the same time made it harder to stack books with all those flaps hanging off the sides.

Quotations in a journal with highlighter: "...to persuade an adversary, talk to them in their language and tell them the story they want to hear." - Nicola Griffith, So Lucky. "Learn what you can, then improvise." - Nicola Griffith, So Lucky.Enter my Kindle and the ability to highlight something, then go to the list of highlighted items any time you like. I combine this with the practice of writing the real keepers in my bullet journal on pages I set aside for quotations, with color blocks to make each quotation its own bright spot on the page. Some books inspire a lot of quote-capturing, others none -- not because they're bad books, just because the kinds of things I like to capture are the ones that can live independent of the book's context and that speak to me for some reason.

This month gave me a lot of quotations.

And now for the June list, with thanks to these fine authors for their talents--
      • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell (@the_jennitaur): Heard her interviewed on the podcast Call Your Girlfriend. The content sounded somewhat similar to Digital Minimalism, which I read in March, but with a different take on why we should reclaim our attention span. Turned out to be even deeper than I had anticipated. If you wonder why and how we got stuck in a rat race that monetizes the space in our brains and how you might step aside and think more deeply about how we save ourselves and the world around us, this is the book for you. Just a few of Odell's insights that will stay with me:
        • Realities are, after all, inhabitable. If we can render a new reality together--with attention--perhaps we can meet each other there.
        • It is with acts of attention that we decide who to hear, who to see, and who in our world has agency. In this way, attention forms the ground not just for love, but for ethics.
        • Context is what appears when you hold your attention open for long enough; the longer you hold it, the more context appears.
        • Given that all of the issues that face us demand an understanding of complexity, interrelationship, and nuance, the ability to seek and understand context is nothing less than a collective survival skill.
      • V is for Vulnerable: Life Outside the Comfort Zone, by Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog): One of those books I bought a while ago that has been lurking under the coffee table. I first read Godin's ideas years ago when he was an early social media expert. A couple of quotes from Godin:
        • A knife works best when it has an edge. To take the edge off, to back off, to play it safe, to smooth it out, to please the uninterested masses--it's not what the knife is for.
        • No feels safe, while yes is dangerous indeed. Yes to possibility and yes to risk and yes to looking someone in the eye and telling her the truth.
      • An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ort (@RDunbarO). Like Warmth of Other Suns, a book I've been meaning to get that came up in a Twitter thread (see below in TBR). Not what I was taught in grade school as a white girl growing up in rural Idaho on the lands of the Nez Perce, then suburban eastern Washington on the lands of the Spokan(e), and an essential corrective to the epic and triumphalist mythologizing of settler colonialism.
      • So Lucky, Nicola Griffith (@NicolaZ): Achingly brilliant. I've loved every one of her other books. Read this essay by Dr. Griffith in the New York Times on implicit ableist bias in literature. Reading this so soon after reading Women Rowing North reinforces my plan to move into a one-level house with universal design located in a neighborhood with essential services nearby, transit service, complete sidewalks, and good bike infrastructure. I can't count on remaining able to get around with active transportation, but I can sure as hell not condemn myself to being trapped in a car-dependent place long after I can't drive. Our current neighborhood has transit service but the house has stairs. A couple of the quotations I captured:
        • ...to persuade an adversary, talk to them in their language and tell them the story they want to hear.
        • Learn what you can, then improvise.
      • Here and Now and Then, by Mike Chen (@MikeChenWriter): Found this as a deal thanks to following SF Signal on Twitter. Description got me: A time-travel paradox in which a man has to choose between two families in different timelines. If you're into SF you know the "grandfather paradox" (can't travel back in time and kill your own grandpa or you won't be born to travel back in time to kill your own grandpa). This work deals with that and carries a message that I live by, which is that we can only go forward from where we are, as who we are -- we can't go back (even with time travel). 
      • Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, by Mary Pipher: This author and I are apparently living the same timeline. Her work Reviving Ophelia informed me as a mother of daughters. I bought a copy of  Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders for every one of my siblings as our mother slipped into vascular dementia and our dad aged alongside her. And now this. Not that I'm aging, exactly -- just adding years of lived experience. Just some of the quotations I captured, all by Mary Pipher unless otherwise noted; Pipher herself writes quotable lines and introduced each chapter with quotations from other women.
        • When we act for the good, we move into our own power and into more authentic and connected lives.
        • Almost everything that happens in the universe is not about us.
        • I think that somehow we learn who we truly are and then live with that decision. - Eleanor Roosevelt
        • The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. - Madeleine L'Engle
        • Old age is not an illness. It is a timeless ascent. As power diminishes, we grow toward more light. - May Sarton
        • Bliss doesn't happen because we are perfect or problem-free but rather because over the years we have become wise enough to occasionally be present for the moment.
      • True Evil, by Greg Iles (@GregIles): I read his Penn Cage novels a while back and enjoyed them so I grabbed this when it popped up in Kindle Unlimited. Also set in Natchez, Mississippi, but with a different central character although Penn makes a brief appearance. FBI agent investigating a murder-for-hire conspiracy with a super-creepy scientist conducting human experimentation as a bonus.
      This month's additions to TBR, with notes on how I found the book. Found a few more physical books stashed in various spots around the house, which is a good problem.
      For a list of what's already waiting patiently on my Kindle, check out What I'm Reading Eventually, which was as of the end of February, and each month's post with what I added that month. I'll post another "eventually" list in a while to keep track as I read and add new books.

      The importance of online reviews for the author: The numbers matter as much as the content of your review so don't stress out over your writing ability -- just praise what you like about theirs.

      A note on local economies and these links: You should shop at a local, independently owned bookstore. Or check these out through your local library -- did you know they can do that with e-books too, if that's how you read? Links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links unless otherwise noted. I've never made a penny from Amazon but these links give you access to more information and reader reviews. If I ever do make anything I'll donate it to a local nonprofit that helps people who need it most.

      Writers on Twitter: I have a Writers list on Twitter. It isn't everyone I read/enjoy but it's a good starting place if you find your tastes and mine overlap. I so appreciate the chances I get to interact with people directly to tell them I enjoy their work.

      Related Reading on Reading
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      What I'm Reading; May 2019

      May could be the month I take a pledge to stop getting more books. For a while, anyway. The TBR list just keeps getting longer. I get more than I read each month. Add in the fact that a couple of sequels have shown up and I need to reread the first books in the series to re-engage, and the backlog will easily take me through the summer. What a wonderful problem!

      In looking at just how many books I purchased in the last 12 months because it's sooooo easy, I also decided I am long overdue in getting my King County library card so I can check out ones I don't really need to own.

      And now for the May list, with thanks to these fine authors for their talents--
      • Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, by Julie C. Dao (@jules_writes): Started in April, finished in May. As I wrote last month -- How to describe this?? Beautiful, for starters. You can detect a strand of a certain European fairy tale or two but I'm not going to give it away -- better to let the realization creep up on you. You will long for Xifeng to make good decisions. This is a massive book and I didn't finish it in April, but before I was finished I got the sequel Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix and preordered the third, Song of the Crimson Flower.
      • Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix, by Julie C. Dao: Yep, started, lived in, and finished this wonderful second book. New main character who has to learn, grow, make difficult decisions.
      • One Word Kill, by Mark Lawrence (@Mark__Lawrence). Teenage boy in England finds out he has leukemia, starts chemo, then his time-traveling future self shows up. I was never a Dungeons and Dragons player, but between this and Stranger Things I'm kind of sorry about that. Looking forward to the other two in this trilogy. 
      • The Fever King, by Victoria Lee (@SoSaidVictoria). Dystopian future with the United States broken apart into small countries due to a virus that gives you magic powers -- if it doesn't kill you. Main character is a bisexual Jewish boy from the part of the country that's regarded as inferior. Themes of hatred of the other, discrimination against refugees, and coming of age. Another of the many young-adult fantasy books I've read and enjoyed over the past few years. Looking forward to the sequels to this one too.
        Stack of books with Kindle leaning up against the right side of the stack, red candle on tall candle holder in background. Book titles mostly about bicycling.This month's additions to TBR, with notes on how I found the book. This month's list includes a stash of physical books from my headboard that I realized I hadn't captured earlier. Most of those are the result of an impulse buy on a vacation or a bike-ride date to nearby downtown Burien. Even with all my Kindle reading I love bookstores so much. A town without a bookstore isn't a town worth visiting.
        • Here and Now and Then, by Mike Chen (@MikeChenWriter): Found this as a deal thanks to following SF Signal on Twitter. Description got me: A time-travel paradox in which a man has to choose between two families in different timelines. If it's as much of a heartbreaker as The Time Traveler's Wife, which continues to haunt me many years after reading it, I'm going to love-hate it.
        • Where the Forest Meets the Stars, by Glendy Vanderah: Available right now on Kindle Unlimited. Sounds like another heartbreaker with a lost child at the center of the story. I don't think I'll read it back to back with Here and Now and Then.
        • Followed by Frost, by Charlie N. Holmberg (@CNHolmberg): Circling back to pick up this 2015 work by an author whose other books I've enjoyed: her Paper Magician series and the more recent one that started with Smoke and Summons.
        • The Girl in the Tower, by Katherine Arden (@Arden_Katherine): Sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale, which I loved. I don't know Russian fairy tales well enough to know how much it echoes and how much it departs from source material. Didn't matter. Great choice for those who love Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik as much as I do.
        • Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, by Ursula K. LeGuin: LeGuin has long been one of my favorite authors. Reading short-story collections by T. Kingfisher reminded me of this book, as I wrote about in my March reading post. I was lucky enough to find a copy of a real, actual book online.
        • How to Eat, by Thich Nhat Hanh, from his Mindfulness Essential series: A souvenir of a bookstore stop while at a conference -- I think possibly this is from DC while I was there for the gigantic Transportation Research Board annual meeting. Over the years I've owned and read many books on Buddhism and mindfulness meditation, including some of his. The deceptively simple precepts help me slow down and pay attention.
        • The Bicycle Effect: Cycling as Meditation, by Juan Carlos Kreimer: Picked this one up on vacation somewhere -- maybe on our 2018 bike tour. It reminds me of the blog posts on bicycling meditation by Seattle riding writer Claire Petersky, which I discovered online before I moved to Seattle and headed a bike nonprofit, which then gave me the opportunity to meet Claire through a nonprofit executive directors' group when we both arrived on our bicycles at the same time.
        • Einstein & the Art of Mindful Cycling: Achieving Balance in the Modern World, by Ben Irvine (@BenIrvineAuthor): Definitely picked this up on that bike tour. I remember going to the bookstore on Lopez Island, correctly answering their trivia contest with a quotation source (A Wrinkle in Time), and getting some coffee next door.
        • Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance, by Adonia Lugo (@UrbanAdonia): Long overdue to read this one ordered from friends at Microcosm Publishing, who put out a lot of great books and zines on bicycling (disclaimer: I've written pieces that were published in a couple of the zines; this link to Microcosm isn't an affiliate link). I'm privileged to know Dr. Lugo and appreciate her insights into the intersections of culture, bicycling, identity, and politics.
        • The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs, by Tristan Gooley (@NaturalNav): This is one of those book purchases reflecting "the kind of person I once was and kind of think I might want to be again, if I ever get around to it." As a kid I had books that showed me animal tracks, plant identification and more. I'd drag my little sister and the babysitter out to marvel at worm castings and what I fervently believed were the entrances to burrows dug by fascinating animals resembling those from The Wind in the Willows. It's also a book purchase reflecting my darker dystopian thoughts, sparked in part by current events and in part by decades of reading science fiction -- it's a real book that won't require batteries so I can still access the information if the grid goes down, and it's on a topic I would need at that point.
        For a list of what's already waiting patiently on my Kindle, check out What I'm Reading Eventually, which was as of the end of February, and each month's post with what I added that month. I'll post another "eventually" list in a while to keep track as I read and add new books.

        The importance of online reviews for the author: The numbers matter as much as the content of your review so don't stress out over your writing ability -- just praise what you like about theirs.

        A note on local economies and these links: You should shop at a local, independently owned bookstore. Or check these out through your local library -- did you know they can do that with e-books too, if that's how you read? Links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links unless otherwise noted. I've never made a penny from Amazon but these links give you access to more information and reader reviews. If I ever do make anything I'll donate it to a local nonprofit that helps people who need it most.

        Writers on Twitter: I have a Writers list on Twitter. It isn't everyone I read/enjoy but it's a good starting place if you find your tastes and mine overlap. I so appreciate the chances I get to interact with people directly to tell them I enjoy their work.
        Related Reading on Reading
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