The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon

My friend Eric suggested I read The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald because I'm from Michigan. He didn't even know I'm obsessed with shipwreck stories (should I list them? In the Heart of the Sea, The Wager, Moby-Dick)!

(Parenthetical tangent for other listeners of the podcast Sarah's Bookshelves: I had a moment when Chrissie called The Wager "boring" and neither she nor Sarah could name the Edmund Fitzgerald. Sarah, if you need someone to come on to your show to be an expert on maritime disaster books, consider me your lady.)

So, it turns out that not everyone knows the Edmund Fitzgerald? This is crazy to me. When she was launched, she was the largest ship on the Great Lakes and she was delightful and lovely and fancier than many other ships. 

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At every level in the chain of command, from the captain to the deckhands, the engineers to the oilers, each crew member could be certain that no one at their rank had better accommodations on the Great Lakes. The purpose of all this was not to indulge employees, but to attract the very best crewmen at every position. (location 1164)

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Okay, but before we get to the Fitz, let's talk about the Great Lakes more broadly. For those of you not from (gestures wildly about as if you can see me encompassing the entire Great Lakes region) here, let me give you some facts.

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...hold more than 80 percent of North America’s freshwater, and more than 20 percent of the world’s. If you could empty the Great Lakes over North and South America, you would flood the land in a foot of standing water. (location 226)

From outer space the Great Lakes are North America’s most visible topographical feature. (location 239)

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When people say things like "the only beaches that matter are ocean beaches," I dare them to go to a Lake Michigan beach and think that's somehow worse than Jersey City. *rant kind of over*

Sailors on the Great Lakes are called "lakers" and those who go on the ocean are called "salties." This fact amuses me greatly. And guess what? The Great Lakes are not to be fucked with.

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On the Great Lakes there’s no salt to hold down the waves, so they rise more sharply and travel closer together, like jagged mountains of water coming at you in rapid succession. (location 248)

“When the salty captains first come on the Great Lakes they say, ’How hard can it be?’ ” Rick Barthuli grins, then turns serious. “How hard can it be? Ask thirty thousand men on the bottom of the Great Lakes. That’s how hard. But once the ocean sailors actually sail on the Great Lakes, they stop asking that question.” (location 334)

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So, why do lakers take chances when there have been so many shipwrecks?

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When it comes to hauling goods, trains are roughly twice as efficient as trucks, but ships are almost three times more efficient than trains and six times more efficient than trucks. The difference between ships and trucks, therefore, is not 6 percent or 60 percent—margins any corporation would covet—but 600 percent, an astronomical savings. (location 794)

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So, let's talk about November on the Great Lakes. November is a tricky month. Sometimes it's beautiful - 70 and sunny. Sometimes there's a storm of the century. In the twentieth century, there were two of these storms of the century on November 10. November 10 is the deadliest day on the Great Lakes.

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They then listed other Great Lakes tragedies that occurred on the same deadly day, November 10: the storm of 1913, which killed 254 people; another in 1930, when 67 drowned; and finally the Edmund Fitzgerald, whose twenty-nine-man crew “vanished without a trace in a nighttime torrent of slashing winds and waves on Lake Superior,” Gaines writes. (location 4894)

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The 1913 storm is called the White Hurricane (here's a book to read if that sound interesting to you - Ohio folks, you wouldn't be wrong to go with it) and I was somewhat obsessed with it when I was in high school. It was called the Storm of the Century and then 1975 came around.

In The Gales of November, Bacon walks us through the history of each of the 29 crewmembers on the Edmund Fitzgerald on that fateful November day, from the veteran captain Ernest M. McSorley who was set to retire upon docking the Fitz at the end of this voyage all the way down to the newbie David Weiss, a cadet on board. We then learn about that trip that was going to end the Fitzgerald's shipping season, a trip from Superior, Wisconsin, near Duluth, carrying a full cargo of taconite ore pellets. En route to a steel mill near Detroit, she was caught the next day in a severe storm with near-hurricane-force winds and waves up to 35 feet (11 m) high. 

There was another freighter nearby some 15-20 miles away, the Arthur M. Anderson, and it was in contact as the Fitzgerald as they both headed straight into a deadly storm. Until they weren't in contact anymore. 

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Anderson mate: By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problem? 

McSorley: We are holding our own. 

Anderson mate: Okay, fine. I’ll be talking to you later. (location 4427)

McSorley’s simple, stoic statement, “We are holding our own,” are the last known words from the Edmund Fitzgerald. (location 4434)

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Then the book goes through the theories about how and why the ship sank. Outside of the fact that there was no real-time weather updates on the ship, there were still a lot of questions. Was it the construction of the ship that was made to be flexible and move with the waves? Was it that the load line had been lowered and lowered? Was it that the bulkheads leaked and added water to the taconite iron ore, making the vessel heavier and heavier? Was it that the Fitz had run around on Six Fathom Shoal because McSorley was using outdated navigational maps? Was it complacency (similar to the Titanic, the Fitzgerald had a rep as a ship that couldn't sink and had a decade and a half of weathering Great Lakes storms to prove it)? 

We don't know. The ship was located on the bottom of Lake Superior, split in two. It is now an official gravesite.

The wreck changed things on the Great Lakes and many reforms were put into place after the ship sank, including changes to weather updates, navigation policies, load lines, and changes to late-season Coast Guard inspections. 

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“The Fitzgerald was a very tragic thing,” former GLMA superintendent John Tanner says. “But the safety reforms that were triggered by that accident were incredible.” (location 5426)

In the half century since the Edmund Fitzgerald went under, not one commercial ship has sunk on the Great Lakes, by far the longest run of safe trips since the French fur traders started traversing the same waters four hundred years ago. (location 5459)

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If you know of the Edmund Fitzgerald, it's probably because of the Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." I don't have much to say about that song, but it's haunting and sad and doesn't have a chorus. How it became a #2 Billboard hit is a mystery. 

Look, this book was rad. 4/5 stars

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Lines of note:

Wading through countless books, documentaries, and articles about the Fitz and conducting hundreds of interviews confirmed two things: there remains a great deal of interest in the subject, and there is little everyone agrees on beyond the fact that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank on November 10, 1975. (location 127)

On May 31, 1889, an epic rainstorm broke an earthen dam in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing 2,208 people. The following year President Benjamin Harrison approved the creation of the United States Weather Bureau, forerunner to today’s National Weather Service. (location 382)

They say history is written by the victors. On the Great Lakes, it’s written by the survivors. (location 513)

Tom enrolled at Bowling Green University in Ohio and two brothers went straight to work, while the youngest brother went to college to become an accountant. (location 1414)

I just included this because of the BGSU mention. Someone wrote for the BG News, too, which got a shoutout. (Go Falcons! is implied.)

The Navy’s research on motion fatigue (as opposed to motion sickness) has found the effects so tangible that they can accurately predict the percentage of crewmen who will become effectively dysfunctional after each hour of turbulent seas. “After too many waves,” Michigan Tech professor Guy Meadows says, “anyone can become useless, like being drunk.” (location 4043)

“When the storm was at its worst,” Schwab says, “the Edmund Fitzgerald got to the worst possible place, at the worst possible time.” (location 4406)

Things I looked up:

Rockford, MN (location 3488) - Rockford is a city in Wright and Hennepin counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 4,500 at the 2020 census. While Rockford is mainly located within Wright County, a small part of the city extends into Hennepin County. It is part of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan statistical area. (I legitimately thought the author was confused with Rockford, IL.)

When the duo reached the Mackinac Bridge just before dawn on November 11, Hillery saw something that made him grab his camera, jump out of the car, and start shooting: Truck driver Ivan Wilder and his eleven-year-old son had made it across three-quarters of the bridge when the wind picked up their trailer and smashed it down onto the trunk of a car driving alongside them. (location 4825) - I can't find this photo. Maybe it's better that way.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

In the 1800s, at the peak of the fur trade when beaver hats were all the rage in Europe, traders sold millions of beaver pelts every year, until the original beaver population, estimated between 200 and 400 million, was almost extinct. (location 581)

He didn’t have much need for a barber himself, with his receding hairline, but he’d tell his patrons not to wear hats or they’d go bald, too. (location 1767)

A few years ago, retired engineer John Hayes recalls, a couple twenty-somethings thought the request didn’t apply to them, and stubbornly kept their baseball hats on. (location 1800)

...rakish-looking man photographed in dirty overalls and a hat at a jaunty angle, with a cigarette in his hand and a sly grin suggesting pending mischief, “Handsome Ransom” spent three months working in the copper mines before escaping to a freighter. (location 2588)

Weiss wore a full beard, big brown sunglasses, and a white cowboy hat, thus earning him the nickname “Cowboy” Weiss—an unusual moniker for a Jewish kid from LA. (location 2936)

young man in a cowboy hat parked in a yellow muscle car (location 2950)

GLMA professor John Tanner spotted Weiss in his trademark cowboy hat standing on the side of the road in Acme, just outside of Traverse City, where M-31 meets M-72. (location 2981)

Dad got a big cowboy hat for himself—and he’s the one who always said, ’Don’t wear hats because they make you bald!’ (location 3492)

“Right before Dad got on the ship,” Marilynn says, “he gave his new cowboy hat to us and told us to keep it in good hands. And then we said goodbye.” (location 3514)

Church, fifty-five in 1975, wearing the hat, had left his job at Reserve Mining in Silver Bay just a few years earlier to pursue his dream of working as a porter—a very rare move. (location 5754)

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Have you heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald? When's the last time you were on a boat? 

Podcast Roundup January 2026

I don't want anyone to freak out, but it is 2026. Every time I type the year, it seems crazy. We're living in the future. 

So, podcasts. Here's what's been in my earballs.

Pluribus the Official Podcast - Have you watched Pluribus? It's so good. The podcast is great, too. I learned a lot of behind the scenes things. 

The Birth Keepers from The Guardian - Batshit crazy story of two women who went around talking about how awesome free birth was. What's free birth? You know, no medical experts, no medication, nothing but you and maybe your partner. Preferably in a tent. And it will not come as a shock to you that women and babies died, will it?

Curse of: America's Next Top Model - I remember watching America's Next Top Model when Tyra Banks lost her shit at a model named Tiffany and thinking that Tyra was very unbalanced. Turns out that Tyra is probably not unbalanced, but is probably all about the dolla dolla bills. This was an interesting take on ANTM and its place in the culture. There's nothing terribly surprising here, I don't think, but I liked hearing from the models who were on the show.

Camp Shame -  It would come as no surprise to you that the largest weight loss camp in the country created a culture of eating disorders and unhealthy body image, would it? This was interesting, but I found it frustrating at times, too, because we never really heard from the camp leaders.

The "Planet Money Does a Pop Culture Draft: 1999 Edition" episode of Planet Money - This was amusing and, more importantly, I legit saw two of those movies IN THE THEATER. Dudes, I didn't always boycott the movies. 

The "Zoo's Clues" episode of Sidedoor - Most of Sidedoor is pretty boring history shit about the Smithsonian. In general, I think this podcast should be more interesting. But the National Zoo is affiliated with the Smithsonian and did you know that if so much as a squirrel dies on the sidewalk at the National Zoo, they do a necropsy on it? And did you know that there's a person who does those? And you can hear her talk about it? FASCINATING. That's why I keep Sidedoor on my podcast list, even thought 90% of the episodes are lame. 

"Our 2026 Pop Culture Resolutions" from Pop Culture Happy Hour - I love that the four OG panelists make resolutions and every year go back and revisit them. I love this tradition and this episode is fun, even if I don't care about their actual resolutions.

Okay, I've talked about these episodes before, but the "Barbie Girl" and "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" episodes of Punch Up the Jam make me laugh more than anything on this planet. I have been having a rough January and these have brought me a lot of joy. 

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Do you have a stellar podcast or podcast episode to recommend? 

CBBC: The Vote Is In

 

In previous iterations of voting, I've had to say something like "the vote was really close" in order to console folks whose first place was not chosen. Well, most of you chose the winner as your first place, so I don't think it will be too shocking for anyone to learn that our next book club read will be The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. 

This book is in the public domain, so you can find it on The Internet Archive. My local library had about ten different editions with a copy or two of each, so if you're a library user, you'll probably be able to get it that way, too.

Here's the schedule as I see it. I'm going to give everyone a couple of weeks to find the book and then we'll start on our usual Monday schedule.

Monday, February 2: Chapters 1-10
Monday, February 9: Chapters 11-18
Monday, February 16: Chapters 19-26
Monday, February 23: Chapter 27-34
Monday, March 2: Wrap-up

Thanks once again to all who voted! Who's in for this round of CBBC?

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Other books by the author:
The Poppy War
Babel
Yellowface

I wanted to read Katabasis by R.F. Kuang as my first book for the year because so many people loved it and I loved Babel and this was another dark academia book, so I was all in. 

Alice's graduate school advisor in Magick has died and she really needs him to not be dead. She's never going to graduate and get a job without him. So she needs to go to Hell and get him. But just as she's completing the pentagram that's going to take her there, her nemesis and advisor's other student, Peter shows up. They end up going to Hell together. 

I'm not giving any spoilers. This is literally on the second page of the book.

Since Professor Grimes's demise she had spent her every waking moment reading every monograph, paper, and shred of correspondence she could find on the journey to Hell and back. At least a dozen scholars had made the trip and lived to credibly tell the tale, but very few in the past century. All existing source were unreliable to different degrees and devilishly tricky to translate besides. (page 2) 

Alice and Peter wander around Hell trying to find Grimes and having adventures. 

Look, this book is fine. But do you all know my stance on religion and talk of the afterlife? Well, my stance is that it's all quite boring. The setting and magic here was not as interesting as that of Babel and I was somewhat disappointed. That being said, I did spend an entire snowy Saturday afternoon curled up reading it, so it was readable and there were lots of smart observations that made me laugh. 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

She'd done the White Mountains. How much worse could Hell be? (page 58)

I don't know why this made me laugh as much as it did. Suck it, New Hampshire.

Everyone knew that the nicer a library was, the better the work you did within it. (page 83)

I mean, this is undoubtedly true, right?

Fortunately graduate school had prepared her for this, the constant managing of despair. Everything was always falling apart; nothing in lab went right; you couldn't afford groceries, your cottage had a rat problem, all your instructors hated you, you were always one step away from flushing all your life's work down the toilet. You shoved it to the side of your mind and went to sleep and deferred it all to tomorrow when your brain again functioned well enough to pretend. (page 116-117)

Grad school sucked, yo.

Grimes's generation were at least war magicians; they had pushed the filed forward by leaps and bounds in its practical applications. But Alice and Peter's cohort quibbled over philosophical details. They made flash gadgets for toy companies. The best among them sought residencies in Vegas; the worst among them became consultants. No doubt, magic was on the decline. (page 161)

LOLOLOL. Sob. Sob. 

Did Canada even have universities, or did everyone just ski and eat maple syrup and run away from bears all year round? (page 205)

Again, this made me laugh harder than it should have. Suck it, Canada. 

It was, after all, a golden rule in academia that the more popular one was among the masses, the less valuable one's research had to be. (page 228)

YOU GUYS. There is no record on this blog of the shitty work done by Robert Putnam, who put out a book that was a bestseller with a terrible thesis and this pie chart at the end that said "guesstimate" as if it were there as a placeholder that no one bothered checking. There was some interesting use of data in the book, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also terrible scholarship. ANYWAY. We actually do talk about social capital in our house a lot and I think about Robert Putnam way too often. Also, he spilled red wine on my friend Angie and never apologized. 

Why wouldn't everyone strip away the parts of their selves that caused them pain? She'd like to learn that trick, she thought. If she could sift through that mess in her head, pull out the files that kept torturing her, and burn them. Every small humiliation, every shred of guilt - if only she could unclutter her mind so that all that was left was the elements she wanted to keep: the burning core, the hunger for knowledge, the skills to gain it. You could achieve so much without the burdens of personhood. Who wouldn't wash away the rest? (page 271-272)

I mean, when you put it like that? 

He loved numbers because they behaved the way the were supposed to, because the rules never changed. The square root of sixty-four never ceased to be eight. (page 338)

This, friends, is why I minored in math. I am a social scientist at heart, but people are complicated. There were no clear cut answers when I took my political science and history classes, but when I took a calculus class and it asked me to integrate an expression? I could circle the answer. How satisisfying. 

Things I looked up:

katabasis (title) - (in classical mythology and literature) a descent into the underworld

votary (page 1 - literally the seventh word of the book) - a person, such as a monk or nun, who has made vows of dedication to religious service or a devoted follower or advocate of something

pidge (page 56 for the first time) - this is what I would call a pigeonhole as an American

Nastaliq (page 152) - one of the main calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Urdu, Kashmiri and Punjabi

Linear B (page 152) - a syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language; it predates the modern Greek alphabet by several centuries

tripos (page 170) - the final honors examination for a BA degree at Cambridge University

Chateau Laurier (page 205) - a 660,000-square-foot hotel with 429 guest rooms in the downtown core of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - You guys, I have a confession to make. I've been there.

By Michel Rathwell - https://www.flickr.com/photos/digimages1/36191173260/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124536665

Nuerath (page 223)  - This is the name of a boat in the book. I presume it's named after Otto Karl Wilhelm Neurath who was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist. He was also the inventor of the ISOTYPE method of pictorial statistics and an innovator in museum practice. I dug no deeper. Pictorial statistics sounds dire. 

Festschrift (page 230) - a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the honoree's colleagues, former pupils, and friends. I have never heard this term in my entire life as an academic. Am I true academic? Probably not. I don't have a preferred brand of chalk.

Boltzman brain (page 269) - a thought experiment that suggests that it is probably more likely for a brain to spontaneously form, complete with a memory of having existed in our universe, rather than for the entire universe to come about in the manner cosmologists think it actually did. The idea is named after the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906), who published a hypothesis in 1896, prior to the Big Bang theory, that tried to account for the fact that the universe is not as chaotic as the budding field of thermodynamics seemed to predict. Again, I did not dig any deeper than this because it became obvious that I am not smart enough for this. 

Axiothea (page 303) - Could be one of two women. Axiotheo of Paphos was a 4th-century BCE Cyprian queen. Axiothea of Phlius was a member of the Platonic Academy in the 4th century BCE. I'm leaning towards Axiothea of Philius based on context clues. 

Colossi of Memnon (page 326) - two large stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which stand at the front of the ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, the largest temple in the Theban Necropolis. They have stood since 1350 BC

By MusikAnimal - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41258037

rhizomatic (page 345) - (botany) Resembling or related to a rhizome. (philosophy) Employing rhizomes; not arborescent; spreading without a traditional hierarchy

mathematician Irene Fulmencio (page 349) - I'm pretty sure this is a fictional character, but I'd be happy to be corrected. 

Parmenides (page 408) - Parmenides of Elea (late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia

bident (page 515) - a two-pronged implement resembling a pitchfork. In Renaissance art, the bident is associated with the god Pluto. I felt a little silly after looking this up - it's a bident, not a trident. Sheesh. 

Hat mention (why hats?):

They asked if he wore cowboy hats. (page 375)

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Have you read R.F. Kuang? Would you go to Hell to bring your advisor back?

Tell NGS What To Do: The Date Edition

I have a very sporadic series in which I ask you what to do. I'm coming at you with the most important questions of the day. (I wish there was a sarcasm font. I think you all know that I'm doing this in lieu of gnashing my teeth about the news, right?)

Okay, so Dr. BB has once again been diagnosed with rhabdo. What caused it this time? Well, it certainly wasn't his level of exertion doing bicep curls with ten pound weights. *sigh* He had been doing very little exercise since the last rhabdo round, but he was starting verrrry slowly and this bullshit happened. Anyway, his CK numbers weren't as outrageous as they were last time, so they gave him an IV and sent him home.

So there brings up a level of difficulty with us planning dates. One of my yearly goals was to go on a date every month. It appears as if we can't do anything strenuous so my ideas of regular bike rides in nicer weather or lovely winter hikes in the snow are not really feasible. Dinner and a movie is out because food is hard and movies put me to sleep. 

Here are some tentative ideas.

1) Concert - I have been keeping my eyes open for an artist to come nearby that we might both like to see.

2) Museum outing - Look, my husband is sort of a pill about things like museums, but I like them a lot. Maybe we could find one that would work for both of us?

3) Take a class together - Like...maybe we take an art class or something we've never done before?

4) Shopping outing - Give each other a budget (say $20-$30) and go to a bookstore/dollar store and buy the other person a gift. 

5) Organize a game night at our house - We've done this in the past, but we've had people over less and less as Hannah has gotten more and more reactive, but surely we can invite some of her safe people over for games.

6) Couples yoga - I keep joking that we should do this, but I think it could be fun to find a video or something for this. Is it too physically demanding, though?

I don't know. I feel like a lot of ideas I see out there are food related (food festivals, picnics, etc.), involve physical activity (bowling, axe throwing, hiking), or support things I don't want to support (zoos, aquariums). 

Do you have any ideas for us?

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

Business first: Don't forget that if you want to vote for our next Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) book, head over to the Google poll and do it! I'll be tallying the votes sometime on Wednesday the 21st, so do it before then. 

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Our first IRL book club meeting of 2026 covered I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue. We had a run where everything we read was depressing and sad and this was supposed to be lighter fare.

Jolene hates her job and her colleagues even more. What does she do to combat this feeling of irritation? She writes mean postscripts in emails to her co-workers and then changes the text color to white. Until the day she forgets to change the color. She has to work with the new HR guy on sensitivity training or she might lose her job. Meanwhile, when IT was supposed to be putting monitoring software on her computer, they actually gave her the ability to read everyone's emails and DMs. What secrets about her co-workers does she learn? 

There is a genre of book I can't stand. It's women who don't have their shit together. Think the Shopaholic series, the Bridget Jones books, or, to talk about books from the last decade, Margo's Got Money Troubles or Finlay Donovan. I just can't deal with people incessantly complaining about unhappiness and not doing anything about it. I also can't deal when they make decisions that will obviously make the situation worse. It makes me anxious, it leads to stereotypes of ditzy, incompetent women, and I frequently opt out of them.

So when I started this book and there were gems like these:

I don't have a life, and I will likely celebrate by drinking alone and going down Reddit rabbit holes researching random and upsetting things like fecal-matter transplants, or the Golden State Killer, while making myself regret everything. (page 1)

I turn sharply to face a golden sedan that could be considered vintage if the world didn't want to forget this model ever existed. (page 57)

"But I think we need to normalize being comfortable roasting people. Everyone is way worse than they pretend to be. We should start discussing it openly - it might be a good way to connect people." (page 108)

I was up in arms, ready to DNF, but realizing I would never DNF a book club book. I finished The Luminaries. I finished The Joy Luck Club. So I kept on trucking.

And, dang it, Jolene starting doing things. Her motives were messed up, but she was actively trying things to make her life better. And I started to like her more and more. And by the last 100 pages, I was glad I had read this book. 

The book club discussion was SO GOOD, though. For real. One person really felt like Jolene's character nailed working in a capitalistic society. She liked how the trauma storyline was developed. One person was obsessed with the portrayal of an HR professional who wasn't incompetent (she is in HR, as you might have guessed). A couple of us really just wanted Jolene to stop complaining and do something. But, seriously, I was shocked at how interesting and wide-ranging the conversations went. At one point, we were talking about bullying in the workforce and it turned into all the moms in the room worrying SO MUCH about their children. Egads. 

Should you read it? I don't know. Do Sophie Kinsella books make you shiver in fear? Probably not. Are you interested in a fictional accounting of how big corporations in Canada operate? Maybe. Are you an HR professional? Hm. Hard to say. 3/5 stars

Lines of note:

Grace laughs, because it sounds like I'm joking. Not the rantings of a woman who still hasn't nailed existing in public as a skill set. (page 174)

"I'm going to be too old to work here soon. No one needs me anymore. I'm already useless." (page 231)

This might be the line that turned the book around for me. 

Hat mention (why hats?):

The electronic screens above them are playing an absurd animation of bowling pins wearing cowboy hats breaking each other out of a jail cell. (page 177)

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How do you feel about the women who need to get their shit together genre? Do you find them frustrating or funny? 

Five for Friday, Edition #36: 2026 Has Not Been Awesome

I hit publish on my whole "2026 is all about fun" post and it was like I had challenged a very wrathful god. So what I'm going to do here is start with lighthearted bad stuff, pair it with something I'm grateful for, and that will warm you up for what's going to happen at the end of the post. That way, if you don't want to be depressed as fuck (and who wants to on a Friday?), you can bail early.

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Thing #1: I have been saying the word neologism wrong all my life.

Grateful thing #1: I recently learned how to say neologism correctly. Just kidding, I still say it incorrectly, but note that I know it's wrong.

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Thing #2: Our town recently switched garbage providers. So there was a thing where for a time we had bins for the old place and the new place and they told us to leave our old bins on the curb after the last pickup, which I assumed meant they'd be picked up soon after the last pickup. Well, our last pickup for recycling was December 18 and it was well into the new year before the bin was picked up. 

Now, maybe I could have let this go, but here's the deal. We can't leave our bins on the curb because the curb is sloped. That means we have to put it in the street. For more than three weeks DURING WINTER everyone had these stupid bins out on the street and plows were knocking them over and they were being blown from one end of the street to the next. I got increasingly shrill about this. 

Grateful thing #2: The bins have been removed. 

For weeks!!! Also, the city was supposed to pick up leaves. In November. Ahem.

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Thing #3: During lunch at work, I can only do two of the following things: yoga, eat, go for a walk. That's it. It's hard for me to figure out how to best allocate my time. Since I have to eat or the consequences may include passing out, it really means I choose between doing yoga/stretching or going for a walk. Oh, well. It's on me that I created yearly goals that are in conflict with one another.

Grateful thing #3: I have flexibility to do those three things during lunch.

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Thing #4: I'm worried about Hannah. She's refusing to jump into the car, she has a wart/mole/bump thing that is growing quickly, and tonight I pet her on her hind and she whimpered and tucked tail. I am going to call the vet to see if I can get her an appointment next week. 

Grateful thing #4: We can afford treatment for her if it's something bad. 

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Thing #5: Humphrey's person's cancer came back. He's starting chemo again. He had to have a discussion about where Humphrey will go if...well, you know what if.

Grateful thing #5: We can wrap Humphrey's person in care and compassion and help him through this. We can walk the dog, shovel the sidewalk, teach his classes, and make him food. So much gratitude that we have the resources and health to do this.

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What are you grateful for today?