The Nightingales by Emil Wilson

Friends! Have I got a real find for you! When the Sarah's Bookshelves podcast had on an Amazon editor, I basically bookmarked every book she recommended because if it's good enough for Amazon masses, it's probably good enough for me. Look, I'm a basic literary bitch with a dash of dragons. When she talked about The Nightingales by Emil Wilson, I ordered it even though I'm not really a graphic novel kinda gal. 

This is a pseudo true tale. When Wilson, newly out to his parents, left for college, his father invited a co-worker to come live with his parents and sister, Lou. This man is ill with "gay cancer," but he and Lou develop a close relationship despite all their differences. This book blew me away. I laughed, I cried, and I thought really hard.

Plus, there are two Pomeranians who are major characters AND HAVE YOU EVER SEEN CUTER GRAPHIC NOVEL ART THAN THIS?

Pages 42-43

Look at this photo of everyone eating around the dinner table and the dogs! Can you see the dogs?

Pages 132-133

This book was heartbreaking. But the art was wonderful. And I loved how truly real the characters were.

Page 252

Also, I finished this book in about an hour at the dining room table. I started it after dinner, thinking I'd just read a few pages and the next thing I knew, it was time to walk the dog. I was riveted and just got lost in this world.

Two thumbs up. Perfection. No notes. Run to your library or bookstore to get this one. 5/5 stars

Things I looked up:

Sidney Sheldon (page 242) -  an American writer who was prominent in the 1940s and 50s, first working on Broadway plays, and then in motion pictures, notably writing the successful comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, which earned him an Oscar in 1948. He went on to work in television.

James Michener (page 242) - an American writer who wrote more than 40 books, most of which were long, fictional family sagas covering the lives of many generations, set in particular geographic locales and incorporating detailed history. He was also known for the meticulous research that went into his books

Hat mentions (why hats?):

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Has anyone read this? Do you think those two dogs are the cutest? Do you generally read graphic novels or graphic memoir? If you're not a graphic novel person, hear me out - you should start with this one and Wake. They're SO GOOD. 

The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner

My book club read The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner in 2021. I remember it being a book club in the COVID era where we met in someone's garage - hey, is this just a Midwestern thing where people have giant garages and people hang out in them? - and it got sort of mixed reviews, but I thought it was okay and I like how it made me think about how easy it has been to erase the lives and names of women in history. So I picked up The Amalfi Curse to fulfill the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge prompt about making me want to travel to Italy. It would have to be an amazing book to make me want to travel internationally, but I gave it the old college try. 

As in the other Penner novel I've read, there are two timelines here. In one timeline, we have women who live in the village of Positano and they protect their village with magic. 

They were streghe del mare—sea witches—with unparalleled power over the ocean. (location 136)

In another timeline we have a nautical archeologist named Haven who travels to Positano with two missions - to learn more about the numerous shipwrecks off its coast, but also to find gems that her father had discovered on his last dive. 

It's a bit historical mystery - Haven spends so much time in the archives! It's a bit magical realism. It's a bit romance. It's a bit backstabbing academia. 

It's also boring. Our historical sea witch is vaguely interesting, but Penner seems to want to spend more time with children and men and certainly not enough time on the ocean magic. And Haven? What a snoozefest. Penner neglected to give her a back story beyond having dead father - not even showing me how closer they were - so I don't understand her motivations or decision making. 

Maybe this would work for you, but it didn't for me. 2/5 stars

Things I looked up:

belemnite fossil (location 119) - the preserved internal skeleton of an extinct, squid-like marine creature (Belemnitida) that lived from the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous periods (roughly 201 to 66 million years ago)

Tyrrhenian Sea (location 1829) - part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy

millegrain (location 2759) - a jewelry-making technique that adds a continuous border of tiny, uniform metal beads along the edges of a setting, band, or gemstone bezel

tramontana (location 3372) - a cold, dry, strong northerly wind blowing across the Mediterranean and Italy

ubriaco (location 3548) - a traditional, firm cow's milk cheese from the Veneto region of Italy whose wheels are soaked in wine, grape must, or pomace. This sounds revolting. 

Aiutami (location 3597) - this means "help me" in Italian

Hat mentions (why hats?):

dark green hat (location 1370)

dressed in men’s attire, with their hair tucked up in hats (location 2124)

The brim of my hat mussed up his hair (location 2877)

Pulling the brim of my hat down (location 2933)

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Do you want to learn more about ocean magic? Do you want to go to Italy? 

CBWC October 2026: Week 1

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

Thursday, October 1 - Hannah and I did our usual round of walks, including a half hour in the rain in the morning and a half hour in the rain after work. She was having a blast. I was...enjoying watching her have a blast. (I have to admit that I watched a video of someone training their dog to use the cue "look" to look at the camera and I probably should follow their example and train Hannah to actually look at me, but I just love how she looks in profile. I HONESTLY THINK SHE'S TOO CUTE FOR WORDS. ahem)

Friday, October 2 - Forty-five minutes in the (pitch black) morning and ten minutes around the (pitch black) block before bed.

Saturday, October 3 - Half hour walk with Dr. BB and Hannah after lunch. It is the first weekend for duck hunting season, so what that means is that there are gunshots all damn day and Hannah is NOT a fan.

Sunday, October 4 - More duck hunting this morning, so we did a quick 20 minute loop this morning, but we were out for almost an hour after lunch. We play a game where I pretend like I'm running to grab her and she runs away. Then I fall down dramatically on the ground and act like I'm dying and she runs over to jump all over me. We do this over and over again. Look, if you ever come to my town and see this happening, don't worry. We're both okay. Probably. 

Monday, October 5 - Hannah and I were out for about 45 minutes this morning. We also did a ten minute spin right before bed. 

Someone forgot to charge her LED collar, so she's just wandering around with an unnecessary necklace on this morning. 

Tuesday, October 6 - My best girl and I were out for about 35 minutes this morning. Her little doggy ears could pick up more than mine could and there must have been something scary out there because she was NOT HAVING IT. We did another half hour after work.

Wednesday, October 7 - We were out for almost an hour this morning. It was gorgeous out and we walked along the river. And then we did another quick ten minutes around the block before bed. 

Um. I literally walk out the door with the dog with no prep. I don't brush my hair. I don't put on makeup. I mean, no one can see us because it's dark, you know? 

Thursday, October 8 - Today we did forty-five minutes before the sun came up. I want everyone to know that while I whinge about how the sun isn't out, I cherish my walks with Hannah. Life is short and starting the day with a long meander with my best canine friends is one of the absolute best parts of my daily routine. She is getting older and slower and I know there will come a day when I won't have my best girl and so I will not take any of our walks for granted. Plus, I get to see things like this. (We also did about half hour after work and ten minutes before bed.)

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What's something cool you've seen on your CBWC walks? 

Wanderers (Wanderers #1) by Chuck Wendig

Sometimes you hear about an audiobook about a pandemic that is over 32 hours long and you get it immediately from the library, right? Well, that's how I picked up Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. 

A new affliction strikes a small number of Americans. They appear to be sleepwalking in a horde, going to an unknown destination. Nothing seems to hurt them, nothing, that is, except for if you try to stop them. These people are known as the flock and the friends and family who follow them are called shepherds. And there are scientists and people from the CDC trying to figure out what's going on with them.

Meanwhile, in Texas, some bats attack some people at a press conference and those people begin to get sick. 

And...a pandemic begins.

What is so amazing about this book is that it was published in 2019 and the talk of quarantines and social distancing and contact tracing and testing with a swab up your nose WAS SO PRESCIENT. 

But. Hm. It's not a perfect book. There's a lot about religion and I do understand that people would turn to religion in an apocalypse, but the ending of the book was very disappointing to me on this front. Also, there are some very sexually violent scenes that were deeply upsetting (to me - maybe you'd be fine!). It's also pretty blatant in its disregard for people with certain anti-science, pro-religion views. And that's fine! But it's also disturbing how quickly those same people become Nazis. I mean, maybe that's right. Maybe after the 2016 election, Wendig is right to make those connections crystal clear. But I like to think there are non-Nazis out there in the American South. But maybe I'm just sticking my head in the sand.

I liked this, but I didn't love it. Should you read it? I don't know. It's long. It's immersive. But in the end, I thought the first part of the book was far better than the second half and I will not be reading the sequel.  

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

"That is how science and medicine are practiced best, though. We are best when we admit our ignorance up front and then attempt to fill the darkness of not knowing with the light of information and knowledge." (Chapter 9)

I highlighted this as clunky dialogue, but the literal next line was a character calling out this character for being too poetic. It felt like real awareness on the part of the author. 

"It's like I've got a hole inside of my mind and inside that hole is a voice -  sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's quiet, but it's always, always there. That voice tells me that I'm not good enough and the world is going to hell and nothing matters. I'll never be a famous artist, the coral reef is bleached and dead...and it doesn't matter anyway because global warming is going to boil us or bake us, but that only happens if North Korea doesn't drop a bomb in our lap first. Or maybe a plane will crash on my head. Or maybe the ground will swallow me up or maybe I'll get cancer and it will eat me up." (Chapter 14)

Okay, real talk. This was a character explaining to another character why she needed medication for her depression. And, like, isn't this everyone's internal monologue? There is a reason I'm always listening to podcasts or audiobooks - it's an attempt to drown this out. IS THIS NOT NORMAL? 

Anger ran through Shana. People were supposed to have answers. Experts were supposed to know shit. And they didn't know anything. (Chapter 15)

And now we have RFK Jr. 

...Benji knew they would call it a civil war, although in it, civility was lost. (Chapter 59)

Egads. 

Life looked normal at a distance, even though when you looked close, you could see the panic and the chaos setting it. (Chapter 63)

Do you remember this from the early days of the pandemic? Surface level things were sort of normal, but they really weren't?

Is a book only real its printed or is it real the moment its written in a word processing program? Are one's thoughts only real once they leave the mind? Are they real once expressed in an electronic mail or across social media? Or do they only become real once they manifest in a way that has an effect - a tree falling in the forest with someone to hear? Perhaps all of everything is a simulation. (Chapter 68)

I spent too long pondering this. 

Things I looked up:

QEPD (Chapter 64) - the Spanish abbreviation for "que en paz descanse," which translates to "rest in peace" (R.I.P.) in English

dour (Chapter 65) - I looked this up because I thought the narrator pronounced it incorrectly, but it turns out I'm the one who's been pronouncing it incorrectly. 

Lloyd Alexander books (The Prydain Chronicles) (Chapter 65 and 77) - Lloyd Alexander was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

camo hat (Chapter 21 x2, Interlude between Parts II and III)

baseball hat (Interlude between Parts II and III)

John Deere hat (Chapter 26)

Kubota trucker hat (Chapter 42)

all hat and no cattle (Chapter 72) -   All hat and no cattle is a saying that means someone is all talk and no action. It describes a person who tries to look rich or important but lacks real substance. 

cowboy hat (Chapter 79)

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Okay, who's in for a 32 hour audiobook about a pandemic? 

2026 Goals, Q3 Update

It's the most fabulous time of the quarter in which I update you on how well or how poorly my 2026 quarterly goals are going. And I do mean poorly. I am STRUGGLING over here. 

Q1 update
Q2 update

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At least one trip with Dr. BB and Hannah 
You know what? I don't think this is going to happen.

 

At least two trips with friends 

August: I went to Indy with TJC to see Garth!

At least two trips to Michigan to visit my high school friends 

Ooops. I don't even have a plan. I should have a plan. 

Go to a fitness class I've never gone to before

July: I went to a Pilates class as part of my town's Book Fair. 

Make homemade ice cream

July: I made some vanilla ice cream and took it to my book club. 

Become a regular reader of at least five new blogs in 2026

July: I added one blog, but deleted a blog off my blogroll that seems to be inactive. 

August: No progress. 

September: No progress. I'm sort of hoping NaBloPoMo will introduce me to new blogs in November. 

Leave an average of five blog comments on other blogs every day 

July: 20/30 days - I am not so good at this. 

August - 15/31 days - Egads.

September - 15/30 days 

Send at least five postcards every month

July: I sent five cards to graduating seniors on my caseload, a high school graduation card to a friend's daughter, three birthday cards, one just because card, a bill, and one package. No postcards, but I felt good about my mail this month. 

August: I sent two giveaway packages, tiny books to five bloggers, a thank you note, a birthday card, a sympathy card, and some stickers to a friend. This feels like the spirit of the goal. 

September: My records indicate I literally sent not a single piece of mail in September. Zero. This might be an all-time low. (In October I've already sent a card, so I'm already doing better this month.)

Track how many people come to yoga at the student union during lunchtime

July: We met seven times - twice it was just me, four times there were two people, and once there were three people. 

August: We met pretty irregularly (there are issues with the room) - 4, 3, 3, 1, 2. 

September: Also a pretty irregular schedule, but things are more normal in October. 2, 2, 4, 5, 4. 

Use a new journal to track goals, plan out the year, and take time to notice things I'm grateful for 

July: Yes! It's fun to do a line of gratitude daily.

August: It really is fun. 

September: Still keeping on, even though sometimes it's hard. I could use the planning ahead more often, but I'm trying. 

Take a good photo every week and print them out once a quarter and add these photos to the journal. 

July: Done. I had so many photos to choose from!

August: Yes!

September: I have them ordered and just need to pick them up. 

Take photo of five places at least once a month 

July: Whoops. I did 3/5. LOL. I'll have to get back to it in August. 

August: 4/5 - Not too shabby. Ha. 

September: 5/5 - I ended strongly. 

September! I got them all!

Pay myself and charity first 

Honestly, who did January NGS think she was?

Reread 

July: I relistened to Dungeon Crawler Carl. 

August: Nope. 

September: I listened to Assassin's Apprentice. Still so good!

Do a buddy read

August: Sarah and I read Cleanup on Aisle Five!

Gratitude practice

July: Every day!

August: Still doing it!

September: Yes!

Be consistent in working out (at least 80% of days of 30 days of intentional movement) 

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

August: 20/31 (64.5%) days of 30 minutes or more

September: 20/30 (66.7%) days of 30 minutes or more

Spend 750 hours outside

July: 56 hours, 29 minutes

August: 38 hours, 25 minutes

September: 45 hours, 16 minutes

Get on the same page as my husband about home repairs, investments, and a will 

July: LOL. 

August: We talked about a will. For about thirty seconds. 

September: I...am a bad adult. 

Do two more iterations of CBBC on my blog 

Nothing in this quarter, but will run one starting in October. 

Date night with Dr. BB every month 

July: We went to a Fourth of July parade. We went to a fundraiser at our local community center and to book trivia. 

August: I do not know that we did this. 

September: Why are we so bad at this? 

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Just July goals:

Repot two of my office plants - I immediately forgot about this goal as soon as I typed it. 

Text at least one person a day (other than my husband) - I 100% did this! I loved this goal. I texted people who I normally wouldn't just because I was thinking about them. 

Clean out the photo gallery on my phone (rollover goal) - I've done nothing! It's worse now than ever. 

Finish journal project through 2021 (rollover goal) - Done. 

Take a photo a day and post it on the old bloggo - I mean, mixed results. Most days anyway. 

Just August goals:

Repot two of my office plants (rollover goal): Obviously not. 

Finish journal project through the first six months of 2022: I did this! I'm actually all the way through November, so I only have one more month of the entire year to go. 

Clean out the photo gallery on my phone (rollover goal): I have only added to the problem. 

Make plans to see my high school friends in Michigan before the end of the year: These plans are not made. 

Just September goals:

Repot two of my office plants (rollover goal): Those poor plants are still neglected.

Finish 2022 and 2023 of journal project: I DID IT!

Clean out the photo gallery on my phone (rollover goal): Um. I did go through some of my photo gallery on my phone while I was on endless planes. I'm down to about 1600 photos, which is down from close to 4000. So that's something, although it's still too unwieldy. 

Make plans to see my high school friends in Michigan before the end of the year: I did not do this. 

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Who else is limping to the end of the year with their goals? 

CBBC Fall 2026: The Vote Is In

I left you all on a cliffhanger last month about which of the three books would be our next CBBC read.

The voting was so close that there were moments when all three were tied and a good chunk of time when two books were tied for the lead. I had to actually make sure I had all three books in my possession because I was worried you'd all vote on one that I didn't have.

It was a real nail biter.

In the end, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori) pulled out the victory by ONE POINT. 

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. It's a short book, so I think we'll be able to do in a couple of weeks. (I am SO SORRY, friends, but this book has NO CHAPTERS. I'm using page numbers and some language cues.)

Monday, 10/19 - Pages 1-81 (there's a break separated by * * * between two paragraphs - the first paragraph ends in "fix me" and the second paragraph begins with "Somehow I felt")

Monday, 10/26 - Page 81- end

Monday, 11/2 - Wrap-up

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This gives you about 80 pages a week to read, which seems doable since the book is tiny. 

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

Five for Friday, Edition #51

1) The world at large: I try not to talk too much about the news, but between what's coming out of Cornell and the death penalty torture in Tennessee, I'm starting to feel like even the non-federal government failing, endless wars, presidential corruption news is spiraling out of control. And it's all part of the same thing, right? If you put an admitted rapist in the White House, it's clear what the nation's priorities are. And those priorities do not include the safety of women. I might have to put myself back on a news moratorium until after the election.

2) Update on my girls: Zelda gets righteously pissed off when she runs out of water during the work day. This is the outcome. 

Why don't you get her a bigger water bowl? BECAUSE THIS IS THE ONLY ONE SHE'LL DRINK OUT OF. Why do we have a fussypants as a cat? 

Hannah makes a great yoga partner. Just look at this face.

Don't talk about her grey muzzle. Don't talk about it at all. 

3) Campus scenes: This week has been a bit hectic in our household. Here are some scenes from work this week. I'll leave you to figure out what's what. 

4) Earworm ahead: There's this controversy in my local area about building giant power lines. Protest signs have been popping up all over the place. It's making for some interesting alliances and cross party agreement, so at least we all have NIMBYism in common, right? 

I bring it up because whenever I see one of these signs, I start singing the theme song to Firefly. You are SUPER WELCOME if you've never heard that song before because it's awesome. 

5) Blogosphere things: There are two main things I want to talk about. One, Elisabeth is hosting Cool Bloggers Walking Club (CBWC) in October. Go to her page for a printable. Just do 10 minutes of intentional movement a day and you are DOING IT. 

Two, did you know that NaBloPoMo is next month! Egads! I created a Google doc of topics a couple of years ago. Feel free to add to it or look at it for ideas. I have a special project I've been working on since January that is going to end up here on NaBloPoMo, but I want to make sure everyone's getting prepped!!

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Are you currently singing the Firefly theme? What unites people in your area across party lines? Who's in for CBWC and/or NaBloPoMo?