The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

Shoutout to Diane who recommended The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden when I asked for audiobook recommendations.

It is 1917. Laura Iven is a war nurse who has returned home to Halifax after she was injured. Her mother and father are killed in a terrible explosion in the port. Meanwhile, she has received confusing messages about the death of her brother Freddie at the front in Belgium. She arranges to go back to Europe in order to find out what happened to her brother.

Once there, though, Laura starts to hear rumors of a hotelier who plays violin and creates a space for men to forget about their pain and what happened to Freddie becomes less and less clear. 

Listen, I am not  usually a Great War kind of girl. I actually find most war books too repetitive and dark for me. But this one, with its faint whiff of magical realism, female bonds, and the power of family, both found and natural, hit just the right spot for me. Also, the narrators, Michael Crouch, and January LaVoy, had such lyrical voices that I never found myself drifting off, which has become quite a problem for me with audiobooks recently.

Anyway, this was a great rec. Thanks, Diane! 4/5 stars

Line of note:

"Maybe this is hell," he said, only half joking. He supposed in hell it didn't matter if you were Canadian or German. That put the war in perspective... (chapter 4)

There's a lot of foreshadowing in this line. Super interesting. 

Thing I looked up:

Halifax explosion - I linked to it up above because it's such a crucial plot point. With both of her parents killed in this explosion, Laura had nothing left in Halifax, so heading back to the warfront made sense. Without this explosion, would Laura have stayed in Halifax to recuperate from her war injury and care for her parents?

On December 6, 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc and the Norwegian vessel SS Imo collided in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Laden with high explosives, Mont-Blanc caught fire and detonated, devastating the Richmond district of Halifax. At least 1,782 people, largely in Halifax and Dartmouth, were killed by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured. The blast was the largest human-made explosion at the time. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?

WWI pillbox - a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard-post, often camouflaged, normally equipped with loopholes through which defenders can fire weapons. It is in effect a trench firing step, hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades, and raised to improve the field of fire. The modern concrete pillbox originated on the Western Front of World War I by the German army. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

top hat (chapter 2)

tin hat (chapter 4, chapter 12x2)

larger hat (chapter 7)

pass the hat (chapter 7 x2)

flowered hat (chapter 11)

under her hat (chapter 13)

tipping his hat (chapter 15)

covered his face with his hat (chapter 19)

funny hats (author's note)

Do you read a lot of WWI books? Is there another one I should be reading? 

Pop Sugar Reading Challenge Update

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2022 

2023

2024

2025

As many of you know, I have completed the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge every year since 2018 and this year I am making pretty good progress! However, I am now at the point in the year when I have tackled all the "easy" prompts and now I'm left with the ones I don't know exactly what my approach should be. The good news is that I have completed about 80% of the challenge! The bad news is that...well, you know. I haven't done the other 20%. 

Here is what I need help with. Do you have ideas for me?

1) A book that features a book with a platonic relationship between a man and a woman. Honestly, I had two books on my maybe list and I DNFed one and I can't find the other one in my library systems. 

2) A book about postpartum - I honestly can think of nothing less interesting to me personally, so it would have to be pretty compelling.

3) A book with a character who navigates infertility - Okay, maybe this is the something that's less interesting to me. 

4) A book about birding - I have TRIED SO HARD in this category. I have DNFed the Christian Cooper memoir, The Comfort of Crows, and The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love. I need a romance novel where the meet cute is when they run into each other because they're both using binoculars to watch a rare bird (if that's not in a romance novel, I give that idea away for free).  WHAT IS LEFT TO READ?

5) A sapphic graphic novel - Surely there's one out there I haven't already read? The problem with this one is that the ladies on the Books Unbound podcast always recommend these and when I look at the lists of sapphic graphic novels, I've already read so many of them based on their recommendations. I don't count rereads for the challenge unless it's a requirement for a prompt. 

6) A book that will make me want to travel to Italy - Look, if there's a book that makes me even remotely consider international travel, it would have to be pretty great. Do you know any great books set in Italy? 

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All right, friends. What are your recommendations for me? 

Cleanup on Aisle Five by Ann Larson

Would it surprise anyone to learn that Sarah and I met up at the pool to discuss Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register by Ann Larson last weekend?

Ann Larson needed a job during the pandemic and she was hired on at a grocery store in Utah during the pandemic as a front end manager. Then she wrote all about it. 

It was interesting and well done. But, let's be honest, Nickel and Dimed already did this (and did it better). The most revealing parts of Nickel and Dimed were the passages in which Ehrenreich talked about how the work she did impacted her life - how she couldn't eat if she had to buy medicine, how her feet and legs hurt after working, how she was existing on non-perishable foods because the only place she could afford to stay didn't have a kitchen, etc. 

I think Larson tried to do that by telling the stories of her fellow workers, but since we never really saw anything outside of the store, it was hard to tell how their working conditions really influence decisions they made in their non-working hours. 

But! This is interesting because she worked through the pandemic, so there are some glimmers about that. Also, the rise in self-checkout and how disastrous that is for the workers. All of that was new to me since I worked in a grocery store in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  There's so much in here about poverty, the precariousness of working a job that relies on a body that isn't insured, and how the lack of training leads to poor outcomes for workers and customers. There's also a weird passage where Larson suggests being a vegetarian is worse for the environment than eating meat, which made me stare in the middle distance and wonder if I was living in an alternate universe. 

This is important and I think you should read it, but I also think you should read Nickel and Dimed. 4/5 stars

Lines of note:

Many grocery workers are food insecure. A 2022 report by the Economic Roundtable showed that about three-quarters of workers at Kroger, the second-largest grocery company in the country, struggled to afford regular meals Kroger could not claim that it didn't know. Years earlier, an internal company report showed that hundred of thousands of its employees relied on food aid and other public benefits. It's not surprising perhaps that federal food aid programs are acting as a subsidy to low-wage employers. The nation's largest retailer, Walmart, for example, took in more than $26 billion in its customers' food aid in 2024 alone. (page 22)

It feels like a scam, doesn't it? Why aren't we paying people living wages? 

Another cashier suffered from a toothache so painful that she could barely eat. "I need a root canal," the twenty-five-year-old told me. Since she did not have dental insurance, she was waiting for a spot to open up a dental school...A week later, I asked her if she had seen a dentist. She was still waiting for an appointment. "The good new is, I eat ice cream for dinner. It's the only food that doesn't hurt." (page 26)

As someone with my own dental woes, I hate this. Why isn't dental insurance just health insurance? Hell, even if someone doesn't have health insurance, shouldn't they have a pain free mouth? (I just sat for a minute and wondered what a pain free mouth would be like.)

In Work, Retire, Repeat, the labor economist [Teresa Ghilarducci] described a "tale of two retirements." While the affluent are living longer, healthier lives, and retiring with a nest egg and their dignity, low-income workers are facing destitution. Since almost half of families have no retirement savings, millions must work until they die. Many would-be retirees are punching clocks in warehouses or toiling as home health aides. (page 61-62)

Is anyone else realllly sad when their cashier is past retirement age? On one hand, maybe they are doing it because they want to stay busy. On the other hand, how are we, as a society, not taking care of our most vulnerable?

Most shoppers took delays in stride and laughed when I joked that "this machine has been grumpy today!" But the few that did not could ruin a shift. (page 96)

I'm preaching to the choir because all my blog readers are awesome, but can we all agree to be nice to service workers?

...wage theft also implicates those of us who do not work in supermarkets. TGS shoppers benefited from Whitney's unpaid labor. Everyone who came into the store had a better experience when she worked off the clock to ensure that employees got their schedules on time or when she worked from home. Customer service was propped up by exploitation. (page 184-185)

I hate this. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

pull a rabbit out of a hat (page 92)

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Have you ever worked in a grocery store? Do you use the self-check machines? Have you read Nickel and Dimed? 

Five for Friday, Edition #47

1) Last weekend we went to the Wisconsin Dells with my husband's family. There were twelve adults and eleven children in one VRBO. It was an eight bedroom, four bath building with a kitchen that was smaller than it probably should have been, but there was an arcade with old-fashioned game cabinets in the basement. If you aren't from the upper Midwest, you might not have heard of the Dells, so let me describe it to you. It's a weird tourist-y area with lots of theme parks, especially water parks, and duck boat rides. There's also anything your childlike wonder would like to do - go-karts, ziplining, mini golf, whatever. 

VRBO decor

Our niblings are aged nine to nineteen and every single one of them had a fabulous time. 

If anyone wants to know, we went to Noah's Ark on a Thursday. It was a typical water park with long lines, but the kids had a good time. We rented a cabana and there was always an adult there for the kids to check in with. On Friday, we went to Land of Natura, which is not a typical water park. It's a man-made salt lake with huge inflatables that you climb on and because the lake is deep (up to 25 feet in places), our boys spent most of the day practicing dives, backflips, and somersaults. It was also COLD AND RAINY when went (what do I mean by cold? mid-60s! in July!), so that kept down the crowds. I swear our party made up about a third of the people there. Regardless, most kids said Land of Natura was their favorite part of the weekend, so if you're in the Dells and you have confident swimmers, this is a good option. 

2) Dells Escape Rooms - We had two big groups do different escape rooms. One group was a bunch of the kids with their grandfather and his wife. The rest was our oldest niece (19) and people of my generation. Both teams managed to escape, although I have to admit our room only had like twenty seconds to spare. LOL. If you like escape rooms, these ones are pretty fun. (You might note that I'm wearing a hoodie and my husband is wearing pants. WE WERE ALL VERY COLD. None of us were prepared for how cold it was that weekend.) 

3) Where were the girls when we were in the Dells? I'm glad you asked. Zelda stayed at home and our neighbor came by every day to give her wet food and clean her box. ALSO! SHE READS TO THE CAT. No wonder Zelda ignored us completely when we came home.

Hannah? Hannah was at the swank boarding place just outside Chicago where they take 80 pictures of her doing nothing every day.  Maybe I should have put all these photos in some sort of collage, BUT NO, you have to scroll by each one. 

Nicole talks about how Rex comes back from boarding like he was at a frat party with messed up fur and fleas or whatever. Hannah came back with a powerful thirst, a smell like she has never had a bath in her life, and refusing to eat food. So, that's something, I guess. 

4) Our side and backyard recently became deer daycare. I cannot stress enough to you how crazy this is because WE LIVE IN TOWN. ON A BUSY ROAD. The deer overpopulation here is nuts. 

5) Anniversaries - Earlier this week was the one year anniversary of my mother's death. I am, in a very healthy fashion, ignoring this fact.

6) Giveaway winners - The giveaway winners are Lisa and Jenny! Congratulations! I'll send those packages out in the mail sometime in the next week or so. 

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Have you ever done an escape room? Had a fawn bed down in your yard? Been to Wisconsin Dells? 

What I Spent: July 2026

As a reminder, my husband pays the "big bills" like mortgage, phone, car, and electricity. I pay for groceries and the pets and that somehow evens things out. We recently switched so that he pays for Costco trips. Here's how things shook out last month.

Cars ($36.36, 1.4%) - I bought gas once.

Donation ($40, 1.6%) - I won an item at a silent auction at a fundraiser. *shrug*

Clothing ($45.90, 1.8%) - Look, I bought a shirt at the Grown Up Book Fair. I COULDN'T RESIST.

Eating out ($51, 2%) - I bought coffee FIVE times, went to lunch once, and got an appetizer at a happy hour once. Also, there was food at trivia at the book fair. #noregrets

Entertainment ($59, 2.3%) - This is my Spotify subscription, a book I bought, some craft supplies I bought to make friendship bracelets with my nieces when we were on vacation, and giant dice. 

Fitness ($70.60, 2.8%) - Fitness classes. 

Savings ($300, 11.9%) - Sometimes you think you'll do better at savings and YOU NEVER DO. 

Bills ($306.91, 12.2%) - Water/sewer and insurance for the house and cars.

Pets ($325.20, 12.9%) - This is food for both of them and some steroids for the cat. Don't worry, though, if you thought "that seems low for NGS's girls" because I had to pick up Hannah from boarding where she was for six days which means I've already spent more than this in August. 

Personal care ($356.92, 14.2%) - I got a hair cut, a pedicure, and had to buy things like toothbrush heads and sunscreen, which is stupidly expensive. I also got manicures for me and my husband and a pedicure for my niece when we were on vacation. YOLO, you know? 

Gifts ($396.29, 15.7%) - This was crazy even for me, but blame the book fair, me buying more than $180 worth of stamps to avoid a price hike, birthday, and graduation gifts. When I write it out, it actually seems more than reasonable. 

Groceries ($533.70, 21.2%) - People in this house continue to eat EVERY SINGLE DAY.

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Did you buy new clothing last month? Have to buy something boring like toothbrush heads that upset you by being stupid expensive? 

July 2026 Accountability Buddy

Quick reminder that today is the last day to fill out the form to win a fun Book Fair prize package!

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Wednesday, July 1
15-minute stretch class at lunchtime*

45-minute yoga class at the community center after work

Tuesday, July 2

35-minute yoga video at the student union at lunchtime

15-minute legs - Bodyweight, but it's good. My legs are on fire. 

5-minute calf workout - OMG. So good.

10-minute standing abs - I used 10 pounds here. 

Friday, July 3

35-minute yin yoga for hips, legs, and low back

Saturday, July 4

Day off - I meant to do a workout, but I took a nap instead. Oops.

Sunday, July 5

30-minute functional full body (unilateral) - Unilateral work is very hard for me. I need to do it more. 

15-minute gentle yoga stretch

Monday, July 6

5-minute calf workout in my office as a morning break

30-minute yoga video at the student union at lunchtime

45-minute boot camp fitness class at a local park after work

Tuesday, July 7

5-minute daily stretch - My husband is on a "sitting is worse than smoking" kick, so I'm trying to incorporate five minutes of movement every two hours when I'm work when that's possible. July is slow at my job, so I'm trying to do it here. Try five minutes of something at 10ish, something at lunchtime, and something at 2ish. Will this experiment last? Hm. This was my morning break. 

5-minute ankle pain stretches

30-minute slow flow yoga

Wednesday, July 8

45-minute yoga class at the community center after work

Thursday, July 9

30-minute yoga video in the student union at lunchtime

10-minute dumbbell upper body workout - A Caroline Girvan video I can actually recommend.

10-minute standing lower body

10-minute standing abs

Friday, July 10

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

Saturday, July 11

30-minute full body trisets

15-minute recovery stretch

Sunday, July 12

30-minute Japanese interval walking workout

15-minute gentle yoga - I'd say this video is intermediate. There's half camel and frog and those can be challenging poses.

Monday, July 13

30-minute yoga video in the student union at lunchtime

Tuesday, July 14

20-minute no repeat full body

10-minute standing abs

Wednesday, July 15

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

30-minute bodyweight cardio workout

Thursday, July 16

30-minute yoga video in the student union at lunchtime

Friday, July 17

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

Saturday, July 18

40-minute Bookish Pilates class outside at the community center - Who thought it was a good idea to have a fitness class outside in July? I guess I did? Bookish Pilates means that the instructor chose a playlist of songs that was all from movies and television shows that were based on books. A bit tangential, but there you. 

Source. The Langholf. July 20, 2026. What. A. Weekend. Facebook post. (I hope I did this citation correctly. If I didn't, I hope the Langholf won't sue me.)

Sunday, July 19

45-minute slow yoga flow - This is a bit more advanced with a full gate pose and full moon, so FYI on that. I liked it a lot!

Monday, July 20

30-minute yoga video at the student union during lunchtime

Tuesday, July 21

30-minute no jumping HIIT with weights - I am a sweaty, sweaty mess.

My set-up at home. I want everyone to note the candle on the table EVEN THOUGH IT'S A GAZILLION DEGREES. 

Wednesday, July 22

45-minute yoga class at the community center after work

Thursday, July 23

30-minute yoga video at the student union during lunchtime

Friday, July 24

15-minute stretch class at lunchtime

Saturday July 25

20-minute bicycle ride with my husband - It's the first time he's been out on a ride in a while, so we kept it short - ten minutes out and ten minutes back. He's still having issues with his arm (rhabdo is unkind) 

10-minute standing abs

Sunday, July 26

30-minute total body - Good workout. I'm super sweaty and out of breath. 

Monday, July 27

Day off - Sometimes days just don't go the way you want them to.

Tuesday, July 28

10-minute no jumping cardio - Sheesh. Tough. 

10-minute standing arms with dumbbells 

10-minute standing abs

Wednesday, July 29

45-minute yoga class at the community center after work

Thursday, July 30

Nothing formal, but I was at a waterpark with my nieces and nephews and I did quite a bit of climbing stairs and going down slides.

Friday, July 31

Again, nothing formal, but we were at this crazy waterpark and there was a lot of swimming and climbing and balancing and what a fun place. If I were a stronger swimmer, it would have been even more fun. 

Totals: 24/31 (77.4%) days of 30 minutes or more

Yoga: 14 days

Strength/cardio: 13 days

Short stretch classes at lunchtime: 5 days

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Our local healthcare organization does free stretch classes virtually three times a week. Sign up here! It's free. It's fun. We regularly talk about candy and what's for lunch. It's a delightful break in the middle of the day. You do not have to have your camera on. She has the classes out there for the rest of the year, so you'd only have to register ONCE. 

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Have you ever been to a Pilates class? Do you enjoy a waterpark? 

What I Read: July 2026

I didn't have a ton of time for reading this month, but what time I did have I spent with some very good books. 

7/1: The Unseen World by Liz Moore (library, 2016) - Very good. I recommend this one, especially if you want a good cry. 4.5/5 stars 

7/6: The Spellshop (Spellshop #1) by Sarah Beth Durst (library ebook, 2024) - Nice cozy fantasy. 4.5/5 stars

7/11: Kittentits by Holly Wilson (university library, 2024) - What a ride. I don't know if I liked it exactly, but it was not boring. 3.5/5 stars

7/12: Raised by Ghosts by Brianna Loewinsohn (library, 2025) - Graphic novel about a girl growing up with divorced parents in the '90s. Quiet, but powerful. If you know a teen/tween girl going through it, this might be a good addition to their library. 4/5 stars

7/16: The Enchanted Greenhouse (Spellshop #2) by Sarah Beth Durst (library ebook, 2025) - Lovely cozy fantasy. TINY DRAGONS. 4.5/5 stars

7/18: The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads by Ammon Shea (university library, 2010) - Look, sometimes you want to read a book about a book no one still owns. 4/5 stars

7/23: Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogramatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn (library, 2001) - Scarily prophetic. 5/5 stars

7/25: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (library, 2009) - Sometimes you read a Newbery Honors book and remember that Newbery likes preachy books. For heaven's sake. There was a dragon, though, so that's a thing a did like. 3/5 stars

Total: 8 books
Average star rating: 4.13/5 stars

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Picture book I read:

Bog Myrtle by Sid Sharp - A children's book about sustainability, environmentalism, labor rights, and just being a nice person? Sign me up. What a fun ride. A guest on the Sarah's Bookshelves podcast recommended this book and I am glad she did! (Yes, I'm aware that I called the Grace Lin book preachy, but this one somehow I liked a lot. I'm full of contradictions.)

Did Not Finish:

Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor (The Desert Magician's Duology #1) -  I listened to 80 minutes of this before I gave up. Not quick enough world building for me. DNF at 13%.

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper (Wolf Den Trilogy #1) - I do not need to read about women being abused and sexually mistreated. Some books are not for some readers.  (DNF at 5.1%)

Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love (Love's Academic #1) by India Holton - My audiobook game is lame. DNF at 12%. 

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I desperately need a good audiobook. What recommendations do you have for me?