Category: Reading

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude: e-readers

Open book resting on stacked books beside text reading “30 Days of Bookish Gratitude” and “Reading, Writing, Books and Other Literary Things.”

Getting back to the digital today. Don’t get me wrong. I love print books. I have shelves full and stacks of print books, most of which I intend to keep.

Oh, but I love my e-reader. I’ve had one since 2009*, back when terrible OCR made digital versions dicey. I once bought a book where the lowercase letter a often showed up as @, as in l@ds. Yeah, that was hard to read.

Things are much better these days, and I appreciate being able to check out and buy ebooks whenever my heart desires. Also, for bigger books? These days, they’re much harder for me to hold, so if something is very long or has tiny print, I’m more often than not getting it in the digital format.

Maybe best of all? I can tuck my e-reader into my purse and venture out with a virtual stack of books. I always have something to read.

*The first book I bought for that e-reader? The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading.

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude: Emma M Lion

An open book on top of a stack of books with the text '30 Days of Bookish Gratitude' and phrases about reading and writing in a decorative font.

Building on yesterday’s post about books and book discovery, I am very grateful I stumbled upon The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower. I’m not even sure how I stumbled across them, but once I did, she was everywhere.

My reading log shows I blazed through the series in April, only pausing to read The Serviceberry for my book club.

I love to read, and I’ve read so many amazing books this year; I don’t mean to play favorites, but it’s been a while since I’ve torn through a series like that. It really was the right series at the right time.

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude: Booking Through Thursday

An open book with pages fanned out, resting on top of two stacked books, against a black background. The text reads '30 Days of Bookish Gratitude' followed by 'Reading • Writing • Books and Other Literary Things'.

Today, I’m grateful for Booking Through Thursday, both the original meme hosted by Deb and everyone who has been playing along for nearly a year now.

Whether you stop by every week, when the mood hits and time allows, or just once. I’m grateful to everyone for doing so. I’ve grown my blogging network, added to my TBR pile, and discovered books I otherwise wouldn’t have known about.

Thank you all for visiting and responding (even if it’s just in your head)!

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude: Little Free Library

An open book on top of a stack of closed books with text '30 Days of Bookish Gratitude' and subtitle about reading, writing, and literary topics.

I’ve written about my love for Little Free Library before. (Hey, it was even a Booking Through Thursday prompt.)

As I’ve mentioned, I’m a Little Free Library steward, and the library was one of our pandemic projects. You can read about how it started and how it’s going. Truth be told, we really do need to refresh the paint, something we didn’t manage to do this year.

One of the things I love is the people I get to meet. There are the steward meetups, of course, and book-packing sessions. But I also get to know the people who visit my library.

There’s the woman with her therapy dog who stops by for children’s books. Families who take walks with their children, each carrying a book to exchange.

And, just the other day, a woman stopped by to drop off a book—but not just any old book. She told me her sister, a librarian, had died over the summer. And as a librarian, her sister had amassed a huge collection of books. To honor her sister and the books, the woman has been seeking out Little Free Libraries so these books can find a new home.

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell now resides in my Little Free Library. I’m telling you, it classes up the place.

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude: Story Bundle

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude

I can’t tell you how many books I’ve acquired thanks to Story Bundle. (A lot; let’s just say a lot.)

If you’re taking on a writing challenge this month, you might want to check out the 2026 Novel Writing Tools Bundle, curated by Kevin J. Anderson.

Need something to read? Consider the 2026 Trilogies Bundle, curated by Lavie Tidhar. It has everything from science fiction to fantasy to horror, twenty-eight (!) trilogies in all.

Story Bundle is unique because payment is on a sliding scale. You can also opt to donate 10% to the bundle’s charitable cause. If nothing else, you might want to sign up for their newsletter list to hear about upcoming bundles.

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude starts now!

30 Days of Bookish Gratitude

With Daylight Saving Time ending today (why is it so dark?), I decided to try something fun this month: posting something bookish or writing-related that I’m grateful for.

I’ve never been able to write a novel in a month; my brain doesn’t work that way. But I do like the idea of a November challenge. In fact, I may attempt two challenges: posting something bookish here each day and completing the revisions of The Marigold Miracle. (Ha, ha, at long last.)

Want to join me? Drop your challenge in the comments below, and we can cheer each other on.

Need some ideas? Here are a few I found:

Writing:

Reading:

Art:

Announcing: The Bookshop @ Writing Wrongs

Here it is. The Bookshop @ Writing Wrongs, my online bookstore.

An open book showcasing its pages, placed on top of other books with a black background. The text reads 'The Bookshop @ Writing Wrongs' with categories including 'Fantasy', 'YA', 'Ghosts', and 'Other Strange Things'.

Feel free to visit. If you spot a typo or a broken link, drop me a note in the comments here. I’d appreciate it. I was going fast and furious with all the connections, uploads, and whatnot.

BookFunnel handles delivery of both the ebook and the audio (you can listen to the audio in their app or in a web browser).

And if you’re in a shopping mood, feel free to use the coupon NOWOPEN at checkout for 25% off. (Good until October 31st.)

My BTT response: the cover I couldn’t resist

Since today’s Booking Through Thursday’s prompt is highly visual and I can’t drop an image in the comments, here’s mine, the book I bought based solely on the cover:

Book cover for Propaganda Girls

Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS by Lisa Rogak was sitting there face-out in Barnes & Noble. I was there to buy another hardcover book: Women of War: The Italian Assassins, Spies, and Couriers Who Fought the Nazis by Suzanne Cope (you’re sensing a trend, aren’t you?), when Propaganda Girls caught my eye.

Y’all, I barely flipped through the pages. Luckily, I had a gift card and a coupon.

I did enjoy the book. If anything, I wanted more detail, not less. Still, it was easy and enjoyable to read, and I don’t regret buying it.

Because just look at that cover.

Books like a river

Open book with autumn stream and rocks.
Open book with autumn stream and rocks. @kevron2002/depositphotos

I’ve been re-reading Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. You know, as one does. This bit from day five jumped out at me:

The first is to treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket. That is to say: think of your backlog not as a container that gradually fills up, and that it’s your job to empty, but as a stream that flows past you, from which you get to pick a few choice items, here and there, without feeling guilty for letting all the others float by.

I have so, so many books. I feel guilty about having so, so many books, even when I give them away in my Little Free Library. And some books I may never re-read, but I keep them around because 1) I like them, and 2) you never know.

I don’t need to hustle and grind my way through my to-be-read pile. All I need to do is dip my hand into the stream and pluck out the next book. Obligation vs. fun and adventure? Well, I know which one I’d rather have.

P.S. Note on the image. It’s from 2012, so definitely human-created, not AI-generated.

Dishes and DST

Oh, y-a-w-n. It’s everybody’s favorite time of year, when we lose an hour. I feel as if I should go look for it; maybe it’s hiding in the basement.

Or not.

I do know that in a week or so, I’ll be grateful for the extra daylight in the evenings. I won’t feel as if I should be hibernating.

Last week, late Saturday/early Sunday, my daughter arrived home after another international adventure, this one in Australia and Italy. We spent most of last week catching up, figuring out groceries for two, getting her car squared away, and watching the Frost Giants play.

Also? I’ve been mystified by how an extra person in the house exponentially increases the number of dirty dishes.

On the writing front, I’ve been heads down working on The Marigold Miracle. I like where it’s going, but I do worry a bit about the length. It’s going to be longer than the first book. Although, since I’ve added a point of view, maybe that’s expected. Then again, it’s fantasy, so I feel like I have more word count to play around with.

In any case, I hope to have this draft wrapped up by the end of March so I can let it rest all of April before diving back in.

Also, I have all of March’s Booking Through Thursday posts ready to go. You can look forward to:

  • March 5: Favorite format for reading
  • March 12: What did you end up loving (or appreciating) from a required reading list
  • March 19: Spring break/vacation reading
  • March 26: Does your reading change with the seasons

Hope to see you on Thursday!