As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from August.

Country People (Daniel Mason): This was my first Daniel Mason book, and it was very funny. It was a book that I liked and then I loved. The last 10th was so fantastic, infused with hope. Every single character in this book felt like someone I had encountered in Western MA. So in a word, it made me feel like walking into a hug at times.

Fortune Favours the Grave (E.S. Drake): There should be a word for the comfort that comes from spending time with characters you love in a world that you love. This is the second in a series, and I adored everything about it. The mystery, once again, wasn’t a mystery. You’ll guess the murderer super early on, but it doesn’t matter. Forget the mystery. Stay for the great world building.

Shrink Solves Murder (Philippa Perry): It’s hard to put into words just how much I loved this book. If there were the ability to give it extra stars, I would shower it with extra stars. As I was reading it, I said, “I like her writing as much as I like Janice Hallett.” If you know me, there is no higher compliment I can give another human being. I loved the setting, the characters (yes, evenly the thinly disguised Richard Coles), the plot. I didn’t guess the ending AT ALL. I was wrong wrong wrong, and I loved being wrong. Thank you for the most absolutely perfect book.

Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice (Meredith Walker): The title says for teen girls, but I would argue that this book is a yearly must-read for kids AND adults. As in everyone. The yearly part? People change. Maybe not drastically, but we should always be changing and growing, and this book is about getting to know yourself again and again. She doesn’t just tell you to be self-aware. She tells you HOW to be self-aware. The questions you should ask yourself. The way you figure out what is important to you. And she does it with personal stories and funny asides and interesting facts. Extremely well done.

It Could Have Been Her (Lisa Jewell): 3.5 rounded up. Not my favourite of her books. The writing itself is still great. You fly through the pages. But the coincidences strain credulity. And the clown stuff was a distraction. It took me a while to get through, and then I just wanted to be done even though I normally love her books.

Esther Is Now Following You (Tanya Sweeney): This is a funny book to review. It’s well written but uncomfortable. Thought provoking but maybe not the right book for me at this moment. It’s heavy. And a bit devastating. Tread carefully with this one if you’ve been through pregnancy loss.

What did you read last month?

Josh knew that it was going to be hard for me to leave the twins overseas this summer, so he asked where I wanted to go to make it easier, and I said I wanted to look for real magic in Cornwall because that was ground zero for The Magicians by Lev Grossman.

I subscribe to Grossman’s Substack, and I left him a question there: “Any chance you can pass along any must-sees that served as inspiration for when Quentin goes to Cornwall in the Magician King? In any of those places or beyond?” He didn’t write back, but months later, he wrote about Cornwall and posted the first (and only) chapter he wrote from The World in the Walls.

In it, he explains, “Also not exaggerated was the gorgeousness of Cornwall, which I’d always imagined as part Woolf novel (To the Lighthouse), part Gilbert and Sullivan operetta (Penzance), part Arthurian legend (Tintagel) and part old-timey riddle (St. Ives). This turned out to be about right. It’s now one of my favorite places in the world, which is one reason it turns up in most of my books.”

Much better than an answer to my question was getting to read the first chapter of the fictional book. A fictional book inside a work of fiction. How meta. Anyway, I loved it.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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The Wolvog passed this game along, and it amused me. You get shown an item from Costco every day, and you have to guess (within a few cents) how much it costs. It tells you if you’re close (yellow instead of red) and whether you need to go higher or lower.

I’m terrible at it. Perrier sparkling water — started my guessing at $6.59 for the case. It was $19.99.

What would make it even more joyful is if it told you with the answer how much the same item costs at your local grocery store so you could see how much you saved.

Try it.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

The Wolvog is moving into an apartment, and I’ve been lamenting the loss of the landline, because with it goes the loss of the communal answering machine.

No one calls anyone anymore, so I’m sure the kids do not feel the same way because it’s not as if they even get personal voice messages on their mobile, but I miss the days of seeing the light blinking and wondering if the call was for me or someone else.

But moreover, I sort of counted that one day I would leave embarrassing messages on my children’s communal answering machines, and technological changes have taken that joy away from me.

Sigh.

We are back from the last college drop off. They may end up in graduate school, and I’m sure they’ll move to new spaces and need help, but they’re seniors. This was the last time navigating the dorms and filling their under the bed boxes with backup toiletries and eating a have-a-great-year dinner at a favourite restaurant.

It’s pretty bittersweet.

I remember being sad on and off my senior year. Happy that I felt so settled with my friends. Sad that we weren’t going to be living near each other anymore. Happy that I really knew how to navigate college life. Sad that once I felt on top of things, everything was going to change again. I really loved college, and I’m glad the twins got to have positive experiences, too.

But the end will be hard. Especially not knowing what comes next.

On another note, this really is the 1000th Friday Blog Roundup. See here for the explanation. Happy 1000th Roundupaversary.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

And now the blogs…

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But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dear John vents about a very frustrating situation with her late husband’s sister, but I loved this thought island in the tumultuous word sea: “I was angrily composing things in my head, and you were on my shoulder whispering ‘don’t bother. Let karma take care of it. Nothing you say will make a difference.’ It’s been a bit since you were actively advising me on anything, so it was nice to feel you with me.” I am so sorry that Dear John had to read his sister’s words and have them in her head.

Lastly, Slaying, Blogging, Whatever… has a tiny post (just 24 words) that intrigued me so much that I read those 24 words maybe 24 times.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy 1000 Roundups. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 4 – 11) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.