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 February.

The Proof of My Innocence (Jonathan Coe): This is up there as one of the best books I’ve ever read. Coe is always reliably good, but this book is incredible. Sort of a mystery. Sort of not. Thought-provoking, mind-bending. Wow. I’m just blown away by this one. It will leave you thinking about it for weeks afterward.

Big Swiss (Jen Beagin): A friend recommended it, and I put off reading it because I wasn’t sure I would like it. Big mistake. It’s a great story with great characters – every one of them. Except one, but he’s terrible so it’s okay not to like him. It’s being turned into a television show with Jodie Comer as Flavia. I think it will be fantastic.

The Potting Shed Murder (Paula Sutton): This is the sweetest book – the perfect book to read when overwhelmed by the world. I passed it along to ChickieNob the moment I was finished because everyone needs a chance to spend time with kind characters in a beautiful space. I love Pudding Corner. I loved that I guessed every piece of this mystery. It was the least stressful and loveliest read. I am pre-ordering the next book in the series.

What did you read last month?

Who knows when to mark the five-year anniversary of COVID? I looked back at four updates, each a week apart (1, 2, 3, 4), and marveled at how little I knew. And how I would still be masking five years later. Still dealing with it five years later.

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I started a folder called The Price of Things where I take a screenshot of the cost of maple syrup and avocados at the grocery store. I’m not sure what watching the price of maple syrup go up accomplishes except to stoke my rage.

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If you haven’t watched Severance, I recommend watching Severance. It’s really good. But if you are going to watch Severance, know that the Chikhai Bardo episode is one of the most moving, accurate depictions of infertility. Ever. They captured the highs and the lows of five years of trying to build a family.

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

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I promise that I do other things than play games.

But I play a lot of games. It’s better than doomscrolling right now.

A new favourite is Bracket City. Each day, you receive a paragraph with phrases highlighted in yellow. A mistake I made at first was thinking that you needed to tap on the yellow words to solve the clue. You don’t. You can solve any clue at any time, and it will fill the correct spot. For example,

You could type in “hand” for [kind of stand where you are upside down] or “ring” for [bad thing for your phone to do in a theater], and it will change the words in the correct spot. You keep solving until you’ve cleared all the brackets, and you’re left with something that happened on that day in history.

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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.

A week or two ago, Josh came in from taking out the trash and informed me that you really could see all of the planets in the sky. Did I want to see them? Not really, except now that he asked, I would be filled with regret that I had a chance to walk outside and see them and skipped it.

So we walked outside, but I didn’t have my glasses. Josh ran back in twice — one time returning with an empty case and the other time returning with the glasses I left next to my bed.

I put them on and stared at the sky. “That’s one,” he said. “And those three in a row are three planets.”

“No, they’re not,” I told him. “Those are part of Orion.”

Undeterred, he pointed to a bunch of other stars, declared them planets, and then admitted that he had no clue what he was talking about.

And that’s how we unknowingly saw the planets.

We missed the Oscars last weekend. I know a lot of people watch the show even if they haven’t watched the movies, but I hadn’t even heard of many of this year’s movies. That feels strange, and I’m not even sure how it happened.

Back in 1993, the Mississippi flooded, and this chunk of land broke off and floated into the middle of the lake. We called it the Bog (a capital B because it was THE Bog), and people would go down to the lake to see where it was floating. The administration warned us not to step onto it because it wasn’t stable, and we’d likely fall through the marshy land.

That’s kind of what I think of when I think about movies right now. The concept of movies used to be attached to my brain. I knew what was out in theaters, even when I didn’t see the movie. But at some point in this past year, movies broke off from my main brain space and started floating out into the ether. I imagine all the movies hanging out on this figurative bog, and I’m on the shore, watching them float by. I’d like to reattach movies to my brain, but I’m not even sure how I missed so much this year, all things considered.

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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:

• “It’s Up to You” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

One thing I love about RSS feed readers is that they alert you if someone pops back up. Woulda Coulda Shoulda gave an update this week. She perfectly captures the current mood for so many of us: “Life goes on, of course. But the small measure of existential dread I’ve always lived with has multiplied a thousandfold.” It’s a lot. All of it is a lot. But grateful when people check in and share their a lot.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix mark the 10-year anniversary of her final IVF cycle. She writes: “I want to celebrate in some small way on the actual day toward the end of the month, but I don’t have any ideas. How do you celebrate recovering from profound loss?” I agree that it must contain cake — not least of which to mark the sweetness of moving from not being able to imagine the next day to living a great life.

The roundup to the Roundup: Missing all of the movies. 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 Feb 28 – March 7) 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.