As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from October.

Grave Expectations (Alice Bell): My only regret is that I borrowed this book, but I will buy a copy because I still chuckle to myself when I think about it. This was big, campy fun, and I am so glad the characters are returning for a second book because I adored spending time with them.

One Puzzling Afternoon (Emily Critchley): This book blew me away. I’m not generally drawn to historical fiction, but this book is perfectly structured. The modern day story follows a woman with dementia, and the jumpbacks give the reader information on the woman’s teen years. It is beautiful and aching and heartbreaking. All at once.

The Last One (Will Dean): This was a weird one. I had been looking forward to it, but the story had so many holes that the holes became the focus more than the plot. I’ll try another book by this author in the future because I liked the writing.

Good Bad Girl (Alice Feeney): I usually love Alice Feeney books, and I’m still listing it here because maybe someone else will like it more than I did. This one just didn’t do it for me because I couldn’t connect with any character. Maybe my expectations were too high because I loved her other books so much.

The Christmas Guest (Peter Swanson): This book was bonkers in the best possible way. I am not a Christmas fan and usually wouldn’t choose a book like this, but Christmas is kind of beside the point. The time of year makes part of the plot possible, and it’s such a great twist.

What did you read last month?

The kids are coming home soon. We went up to see them for ten days in October at their colleges, which was amazing, but I am so ready to have them in the house, bothering them 24/7. Making them eat so much food. Watching all of the television shows I’ve saved up to watch with them. Following them from room to room and smothering them in so many hugs.

Beorn is especially happy because I promised him that the Wolvog would split apples with him — his favourite treat — and give him head rubs.

I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THEM.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

An article in the Guardian explained that time optimists are perpetually late because they always optimistically think they’ve left enough time for something, and they haven’t.

While the article talks about timebenders and timekeepers, they don’t discuss time pessimists. I always think something will take longer than it does, so I’m often too early. I pessimistically Eyeore my way into starting a task, thinking it will take an hour, and then discover that the whole thing took eight minutes.

Are you a time optimist or pessimist?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Friendship is a hot topic at the moment, popping up in newspaper articles and Substacks. Anne Helen Petersen wrote last week about the friendship dip, asking people:

Ask yourself: apart from family, how many close friends do you have? You can define “close” however seems appropriate to you … Now that you have an approximate number, think about how that number has changed as you’ve aged. How many close friends did you have in high school? In your 20s? In your 30s or 40s?

Simple question. Think through your friend list. Grab the number. Compare it to other stages in life. She talks about the friendship dip that occurs sometime in your late twenties or early thirties and how we spend middle age reckoning with the damage and building or rekindling friendships.

The problem I always have with these studies is that friendship is defined as people outside the family. But it ignores that in many cultures, your closest friendships come from peers within your family. And those friendships are valued more than friendships with people outside the family because you have more ties to one another. Siblings, cousins, aunts, parents — they may be who you count on for companionship and… well… friendship.

If I could count family, my number would be much higher. If I can’t, it will be lower because I’ve prioritized those relationships. My friendships outside of my family are precious to me, and with some, I know their family as well as I know my own and chat with their parents and siblings. But my friendships inside my family are equally precious to me, especially because these people have known me my whole life.

Last weekend, we drove to Canada for my best friend’s child’s Bat Mitzvah. It would have been over six hours to fly, and under eight hours to drive, so we opted to drive to give ourselves more flexibility. I had to keep remembering that as the hours dragged on the way to the border.

But then we were there and having a great time. It was so good to have this simcha amid all the terribleness in the world. There was also a Viking convention happening at our hotel, which added to the awesomeness of the whole experience.

We drove home eating a bag of All Dressed chips (bad idea) and candy (really bad idea), and we spent Monday with a nutrition hangover. The weekend was a small, good thing.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Separate Life hopped on the idea of recording what she knows. You live life. You pick up understanding along the way. It’s kind of a brilliant way of capturing a point-of-view, and reading it is like temporarily inhabiting another person’s mind. Can’t wait for the series to unfold.

Lastly, Slaying, Blogging, Whatever… captures the catch-22 of blogging. When life is difficult and you could benefit from writing out your feelings, you also have very little time to sit down and unpack your feelings because people need you offline. Sending a hug for a hard time.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy occasions. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 3 – November 10) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.