Vote Correctly, United States

I'm going to interrupt my regularly scheduled posting for a quick reminder that today is Election Day in the United States. If you haven't voted already, please get to your polling place before it closes tonight. Vote as if your democracy is at stake because it is.

Admittedly, it was delightful that it was sunny at 7:30 in the morning.

(No comments. Just go vote.)

October 2026 Books Read

It was the best of times and worst of times when it came to books this month.

10/3: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (library, 2000) - What a ride. 4/5 stars

10/3: Wanderers (Wanderers #1) by Chuck Wendig (library audiobook narrated by Dominic Hoffman and Xe Sands, 2019) - There's a pandemic! And a very long audiobook. I mean, it was okay. I wasn't blown away and won't read the sequel, but I thought it was okay. 3.5/5 stars

10/6: The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner (library ebook, 2025) - This just didn't do it for me at all. 2/5 stars

10/7: The Nightingales by Emil Wilson (library, 2026) - Just a perfect graphic memoir about a teenage girl and her friendship with a dying man. There are POMERANIANS. 5/5 stars - literally NO NOTES

10/14: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori (library, 2016) - Look, this book is my jam. So much to think about. 5/5 stars

10/14: This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Maggie the Undying #1) by Ilona Andrews (library audiobook narrated by Kristen Sieh, 2026) - Frustrating book. There's a lot here to like, but the pacing was off. 3/5 stars

10/17: Voyagers by Meg Charlton (library, 2026) - Two distinct storylines. I liked both of them, but I'm not sure if they worked together. 4/5 stars

10/19: When I Fell From the Sky: The True Story of One Woman's Miraculous Survival by Juliane Koepcke translated from the German by Ross Benjamin (library ebook, 2011 ) - When Koepcke was 17, she was the sole survivor of the 1971 LANSA Flight 508 crash over the jungle of Peru. Interesting, but not truly enough to sustain the length of the book. 3/5 stars

10/25: Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty (library, 2026) - Not enough time travel. 3/5 stars

10/25: Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang (library ebook, 2025) - I'm definitely not the right audience for this one. But things did go absolutely batshit at the end, so if that's your jam, maybe you're the audience. 2.5/5 stars

10/27: Royal Assassin (Realm of the Elderlings: Farseer Trilogy #2) by Robin Hobb (library audiobook narrated by Paul Boehmer, 1996) - The reread continues! There's a bit that's slow when Fitz is mooning around like a teenager after Molly, but he IS a teenager, so it makes sense. But we are introduced to Nighteyes and Fitz grows up. 4.5/5 stars

Total: 11 books

Average star rating: 3.64/5 stars

Did not finish:

Night Objects by Eli Raphael - Look, this is maybe a good book. But I can't deal with a mom death AND teenage sex in the same book. I just can't. DNF at 12%. 

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How many 5 star books did you read in October? 

CBBC Week Three: Convenience Store Woman, Wrap-up

Past discussions:
Week One
Week Two

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"Love Letter to a Convenience Store"

Last week, J and Diane brought to my attention that some books have a special Sayaka Murata "Love Letter to a Convenience Store" (also translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori). My edition of the book didn't have it, but don't worry, you can read in on Lit Hub. 

A taste, if you like:

When it was time to go home, I suddenly had the urge to see you look embarrassed, so I asked, “Do you think a convenience store and a human can have sex together?” thinking it would make you blush and get all flustered. But you answered smoothly, your face utterly serious, “What are you talking about? We’re already doing it, aren’t we? You enter me every day.” I think that’s the moment we became lovers.

I don't know if I can coherently form a question about this. Discuss amongst yourselves. 

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What were your overall thoughts on this book? 

• I love this book. I love Keiko and her weirdness, I love how deftly Muraka has such a biting commentary on life and social expectations in Japan, and I love the ending.
• I would love to know about how much of this book is autobiographical. Muraka did work at a convenience store and it seems to echo a lot of her family life and somewhat unhappy childhood, but maybe I'm reading too much into that.
• This was a reread for me, but I was surprised at how funny I found it to be. I don't remember that much humor when I read it before. 

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Pop culture:

There's not much here, I'm afraid. Wikipedia tells me that the novel was adapted into a radio drama on NHK-FM's FM Theater  and was broadcast from 22:00 to 22:50 on 30 November 2019. Chiaki Kuriyama voiced the role of the protagonist Keiko Furukura.

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Overall questions to consider:

1) Do you think the pressures that Keiko is feeling to get a "real" job and/or get married is unique to Japanese culture? Is this need for conformity universal? Is it the same for men and women?

2) Did you find this book as humorous as I did? Did you think the satire is understated, overstated, or just right?

3) Last week a lot of us were disappointed in the hypocrisy of Keiko's co-workers and friends who were happy for her to be in a relationship with Shiraha, a man who only pages before had been fired for stalking someone. Is this book fundamentally about how we, as humans, prize conformity and/or conventionality above actual happiness? 

4) I tend to think the ending is a happy ending. Keiko is back to doing what she is good at and finding fulfillment and self-acceptance. But some people see the ending as a nod towards assimilation within the capitalistic hegemony. Where do you stand on this debate? Is Keiko empowered at the end of the book or is she exploited? 

5) I don't care for Shiraha, but does he have a point? Are the expectations for men and women different and men have the short end of the stick? Or is it just an excuse for laziness on his part?

6) Which character:

    a. Do you think is happiest?

    b. Would you most like to hang out with for an afternoon?

    c. Do you most relate to?

    d. Would you most like to suggest go to therapy?

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Most iconic line:

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That's a wrap on 2026 CBBC! Thanks for joining and participating. 

As always, if you have ideas for books for next time or suggestions about how CBBC is run, I'm happy to get some feedback. 

NaBloPoMo 2026: The Project

Do you know what month it is?! It's November! And with November comes NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). San is our Fearless NaBloPoMo Leader and you should head over there to get the details. I'm definitely going to be posting every day in November. I've been planning this for MONTHS.

Whew. This has been a long time coming. Remember when I read Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti? She took ten years of her journal entries and put them in alphabetical order and then published them in a book? I was really struck by it. It was fascinating and the whole time I was just thinking about my Line A Day journal and how it was so much more mundane than hers. So...I did it. I took five years of my journal - forgive me for not doing ten - and typed every sentence into a spreadsheet (this took an untold amount of time), alphabetized it all, and edited it for clarity (seriously untold amounts of time and I still find typos every time I reread). The years are 2020-2024, so I'm calling it the Alphabetical COVID Diaries.

I also did a reread of Love Lettering earlier this year and it was still so good. In that book, Meg is a designer who mostly works on wedding invitations and planners. She's obsessed with hand drawn letters. I also read On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes which made me think about how I could look at my daily dog walks through a different lens. Then I came across this on a walk.

 

It's a capital A! It is! So...then I started looking for images to go with my Alphabetical COVID Diaries and if you've spent more than two hours with me since January, you know I've been looking for letters in nature and architecture. I didn't want letters that were designed as letters, you know? I'm not like Meg and I didn't want hand drawn letters, but just accidental letters out there in the world. Because I was always looking for letters, so were the people who spend time with me. Co-workers came in and said "there are Ks on the gate at the Catholic church" or "the entire front of Tutt is covered in Zs." One of my colleagues and I were about to do a huge presentation and she called me over and told me to look at the ceiling that was littered with Hs. 

It has been essentially a year long project and I'll tell you right now that my husband is super sick of it and he's going to be so excited when I hit publish on the last of this. But I think I'll still be looking for letters. 

So that's my project. For NaBloPoMo this year, I'm going to publish my Alphabetical COVID Diaries with roughly a letter a day. Some letters will take two days, but it will all wash out in the end. For those posts, I will always include a photo of the letter that I have found this year. I am also going to CLOSE COMMENTS on the posts because most of them will be boring and mundane (Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Then I went to the grocery store.) and I don't want to add work to NaBloPoMo participants. I'll still have some other content - think book reviews, Five by Friday posts - and those I'll have comments on - but I honestly think it's best if no one tries to make sense or ask questions of the nonsense that's going to come out of this project.

I'm quite excited and I hope everyone will, at the very least, skim these posts so you can learn just how often I am upset about Mondays existing in the world. 

Just to add a bit of suspense to this, I will not even be posting my first Alphabetical COVID Diaries until Thursday because I'm posting my final CBBC post and my regular beginning of the month posts on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, I wanted everyone to know my plan. 

Also, go check out San's list of NaBloPoMo participants and find a new blogger to cheer on this month. 

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Who's excited for this nonsense? Who truly thinks this is nonsense? Who's writing every day in November? Who's cheering on other NaBloPoMo participants?

CBWC October 2026: Week 4

It's Cool Bloggers Walking Club (CBWC) time! Hosted by Elisabeth, we're trying for ten minutes of intentional movement every day.

Friday, October 23 - Thirty-five minutes with Hannah in the morning and ten minutes before bed. I had my COVID and flu vaccinations after work today and didn't want to overtax myself too much since I've historically had bad vaccination reactions. The weather has been crazy here getting into the 40s at night and getting into the 70s during the day. It was no surprise that this sweatshirt ended up on the sidewalk at some point and some kind soul put it on this tree so the owner could find it. However, that kind soul also freaked my dog out. 

Saturday, October 24 - I have a sore arm and a bit of fatigue, but otherwise the vaccines had no impact. Yay! We spent a scary 20 minutes this morning outside (duck hunters still, I think?), 25 minutes after lunch, and 10 minutes before bed. I also walked with my husband to a nearby park where they were holding a fun Fall Fest event. 

Sunday, October 25 - Twenty-five minutes this morning. It was a perfect fall morning. We did a half hour after lunch and ten minutes around the block before bed. 

Monday, October 26 - Thirty-five minutes with Hannah Banana this morning. Dr. BB handled the dog walking for the rest of the day, so that was the majority of my outdoor time for the day. 

Someday I'll get selfie angles right. In the meantime, enjoy Hannah's nostrils. 

Tuesday, October 27 - Forty-five minutes con el perro en la mañana. Half an hour after work. Ten minutes back and forth to the library. Ten minutes around the block before bed.

Sometimes you forget your dog's age and then you see a photo that magnifies her cloudy eyes and you remember that her life is short. 

Wednesday, October 28 - Forty minutes in the morning. Ten minutes around the block before bed. Can I just tell you how creepy it is here right now? The moon is almost full, but the clouds are creepily making it go in and out of view. The leaves are falling and rustling. It feels very autumnal, I tell you.

Thursday, October 29 - Forty-five minutes this morning and another forty after work. We did a quick spin around the block before bed, too. 

This is a dog in the midst of the zoomies. This is the look of a dog who is about to jump on me. I adore her so much. LOOK AT HER LITTLE TEETHS!!!

Friday, October 30 - Thirty-five minutes this morning in the creepy dark. I took a half day at work today and after work Hannah and I enjoyed a glorious hour long walk around our local park. We also did a ten minute round the block before bed. 

CONSTANT VIGILANCE. 

Saturday, October 31 - Happy Halloween! We did a quick 25 minutes this morning, with someone being scared of every tiny sound she heard. And that's probably about all for us this month because we have a busy Halloween ahead of us. 

And that's a wrap on CBWC 2026! What's your plan for getting out there and getting moving in November? 

Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang

Okay, I always say I don't judge a book by its cover, but it has become abundantly clear to me that this is a lie. I will comment on a great cover (and here and here) and bad ones. I will puzzle over cartoony covers with matter that is anything but cartoony. I will be irate if the cover spoils the book. Part of it is that I try not to know very much about a book going into it and sometimes the only thing I know is what is on the cover. 

So if you saw the cover for Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang and all you know about it is that it has something to do with influencer culture, what would you think this was about? And, further, what genre would you say it was about?

Well, this book is a thriller? Horror? I don't know.

Julie Chan and her sister Chloe were separated when they were small children when their parents died. Julie was raised by a neglectful aunt and Chloe was raised by a wealthy white couple. Julie is now struggling to make ends meet as a cashier and Chloe is an influencer and they're mostly estranged. One day Julie gets a mysterious call from her sister and when she goes to check on Chloe, Chloe is dead. So, as you do, Julie TAKES OVER CHLOE'S IDENTITY AND LIFE.

Look, don't go digging into whether or not this is a realistic situation. It is not. But I put on my suspension of disbelief persona and kept reading. (No, I did not. I talked nonstop to my husband about how stupid this was.)

Okay, well, Chloe was part of a pack of influencer people and they all go on an island vacation together with Julie pretending to be Chloe and SHIT GETS WEIRD. I'm not going to say what happens on this island, but I didn't expect these events based on the cover or the rest of the book. It's like the book took a TURN at 70%. You've been warned.

Once again, I can't figure out how to link to direct Goodreads reviews, but Yun wrote this:

and basically Yun is right. I'm old, I don't understand influencer culture, and the satire is lost on me. What is Zhang trying to say here? That influencers are bad for society? Echoes of what true beliefs are? Evil? Is she trying to say something about class divisions? That even wealthy people can be as unhappy as the rest of us plebes? That there's nothing authentic in the world anymore, particularly online? I DON'T KNOW. The messages were too mixed and I'm too old to understand anything about the chronically online. (Unless we're talking about chronically online bloggers, which...huh. Anyone here want to go on an island vacation with me where WEIRD SHIT will happen?)

I think if I had cared more about any of these characters, maybe it wouldn't matter that I don't truly understand the real message. But since each of the influencer characters, including Julie and Chloe, are written as villainous, I just couldn't really feel anything about this book except revulsion and a tiny bit of joy at the unexpected batshit nature of it all.

Eh.

Maybe I'm just not the right generation or right audience. 

2.5/5 stars 

Lines of note:

...was working my usual morning shift, ringing up bananas (4011) and a bag of chia seeds for a platinum-haired lady with a shrieking baby clawing at her breast. (location 68)

Have you ever worked as a grocery store cashier? When I worked at Meijer, a large regional supercenter in the Midwest, the lady who trained me told me that the code for bananas was the first code you learned and the last one you forgot. And she was right. I don't know any of the other produce codes, but bananas are 4011. 

An old woman wearing a thick brown trench coat walks her Pomeranian across the street. The dog has little neon-green boots. (location 1656)

Aw. Little booted puppy. 

And it’s not like I’m the worst. Out of the major influencers, I’m at the bottom of the food chain. Imagine what the people in the double or triple millions are doing. At least I’m not running crypto-scams or filming dead bodies in suicide forests or dancing for TikTok in front of Auschwitz. (location 2013)

The bar is so low, isn't it? 

Things I looked up:

gacha machine (location 2014) - (or gashapon machine) is a Japanese capsule toy vending machine. Users insert coins or tokens, turn a mechanical crank, and receive a random toy packed inside a plastic capsule. - Look. We just called these gumball machines. 

new chara on Genshin (location 2064) - Genshin Impact is an open-world adventure RPG. New characters on Genshin. Boy, do I feel dumb for having to think this through a lot. 

Title spotting:

Julie Chan is dead. Julie Chan is dead. Julie Chan is dead. See? Nothing. In a way, Julie Chan is dead. (location 959)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

blankets and wool hats (location 1755)

Shirts, dresses, jeans, sunglasses, hats. (location 2012)

beach chair, sun hat, and flip-flops (location 2015)

Someone sends a cowboy hat. (location 3551)

 wearing the hat (location 3551)

Tinfoil hats aren’t part of my brand, but they’ve become my loudest supporters regardless. (location 4267)

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Do you want to read a book about influencer culture? Do you wish you'd never heard the world influencer? 

Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty

In Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty, single mother Anna gets herself a job at the Time Travel Agency, where people can travel back in time to witness things, but they cannot change the current timeline. There's a regular customer, Teddy, who's wife left him for another man. We mostly hear about Teddy through text messages he has with his two closest friends. And then there are journal entries from a woman named Jade who appears to be a mother at a school that Anna's daughter attends. There are lots of scenes about how to parents teen girls, what do with a cheating spouse, and, oddly, very few scenes of actual time travel.

Here's my beef with this book. There honestly isn't enough time travel. Anna creates a France Hodgson Burnett tour and here's all we get about it. 

...I had twelve tours completed and three more in progress. My favorites were "The Secret Garden tour" (parts one and two); "Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Literary Life" (parts one through four); "The Evolution of a Writer: Frances Hodgson Burnett"; "Frances Hodgson Burnett: Literary and Social Figure," incorporating her lunch with Emily Dickinson, parties with Oscar Wilde, dinner with Louisa May Alcott, et cetera; "The Eccentric Frances Hodgson Burnett: An Analysis" - oh, look, I liked them all.

(I took them all myself several times, fizzing with pride, the way you admire your own photos after a holiday.) (page 113)

But!! TELL ME ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE AND DO.

I don't know. This book started slowly (it was actually the book I said I was going to DNF on Saturday), picked up ever so briefly, then was slow in the middle, and while the ending was probably worth it and I'd love to chat with you if you read it to know if you figured out how everything tied together, the pacing was just not for readers like me. 

There are parts I really liked, especially the bits with Teddy texting his friends. There's a bit about Anna being a cellist that made me laugh whenever it came around. It felt like a bunch of friends texting each other and I truly enjoyed that. 

But for the most part? I don't know that I'd recommend this one unless you feel like you need to read every book about time travel. 3/5 stars

Lines of note:

Part of the trouble was that history mostly lists political developments, declarations, and documents. There's so little of the day-to-day or domestic. (page 73) - THIS!! When I was in college, I took a women in history course and that's when I first learned about Martha Ballard. The reason Martha Ballard's diary was so important is because a lot of the day by day is missing from the historical record. 

page 158

He found the sea annoying! Too glittery! I love this so much.

I started writing this book around twenty years ago, so I am definitely going to forget people here. Whoever you are, I promise I'll remember you in the middle of the night once the book's gone to print and it's too late to add you. I thank you effusively and deeply apologetically. (first paragraph of the Acknowledgements, page 531) - How perfectly charming. I loved the acknowledgements in this book. 

Things I looked up:

Weet-Bix (page 103) - a popular whole-grain wheat breakfast cereal widely recognized as a cultural staple in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (sold as Weetabix in the United Kingdom and other global markets)

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (page 257) - nicknamed Smithy, Smith was an Australian aviation pioneer. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand.

eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 (page 313) - In April 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa in present-day Indonesia (then part of the Dutch East Indies), erupted in what is now considered the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded human history. This eruption, with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 7, ejected 37–45 km3 (8.9–10.8 cubic miles) of dense-rock equivalent (DRE) material into the atmosphere, and was the most recent confirmed VEI-7 eruption.

The "Year Without a Summer" in 1816—caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora—trapped Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori indoors at a villa on Lake Geneva during freezing, stormy weather. To pass the time, they held a ghost story contest, inspiring 18-year-old Mary Shelley to dream up and write Frankenstein. (The name Mount Tambora rang a bell and I think it's because I read this book.)

Mudgee (page 356) - a historic rural town and food and wine destination in the Central West of New South Wales, Australia, located about 260 km northwest of Sydney along the Cudgegong River

packet of Tim Tams (page 413) -  iconic Australian chocolate biscuits made by Arnott's since 1964.

the Haka (page 525) -  a traditional ceremonial dance of the Māori people of New Zealand that combines rhythmic chanting, vigorous body movements, foot-stomping, and intense facial expressions

the Samoan Siva Tau (page 525) -  a traditional Samoan war dance (or muna style challenge) performed by sports teams—most famously the Manu Samoa rugby union team and the Toa Samoa rugby league team—before international matches

the Tongan Sip Tau (page 525) - a traditional Tongan cultural war dance performed by the Tonga national rugby union and rugby league teams before international matches

the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France in 1520 (page 525) - a summit meeting between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France from 7 to 24 June 1520. Held at Balinghem, between Ardres in France and Guînes in the English Pale of Calais, it was an opulent display of wealth by both kings. The summit was arranged to increase the bond of friendship between the two kings following the Anglo-French treaty of 1514. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

trees of hats (coifs, bonnets, top hats, straw hats) (page 48)

white dress and hat (page 114)

Especially when you wear that hat, you know the one? (page 123)

child's hat (page 169)

pillbox hats and trilby hats (page 265)

weight of a felt hat on my ears (page 271)

feathered beaver hat (page 285)

ribboned hat (page 285)

top hat (page 286)

crescent-shaped bicorne hat (page 289)

bowler hat (page 294)

straw hat (page 342)

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How do you feel about time travel books? Would you want a France Hodgson Burnett tour? I mostly definitely would.