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 January.

A Deadly Inheritance (Charlotte Vassell): This is the third book in a very good series, and you probably have to read the others to get all of the references. It was a great first book of the year. Charlotte Vassell is so clever, and I love the way all of the characters are interconnected. It would be even better if I didn’t forget so much between books, or if I re-read the earlier books so I could remember all the small details. But no matter; time with Caius and Callie is well-spent, and I love the exchanges between Caius, Matt, and Amy.

Fleishman Is in Trouble (Taffy Brodesser-Akner): I would put this book on a list for the top 100 contemporary fiction books ever written. Does that mean it is perfect? No! And that is the point of the book. We are messy, imperfect, restless, hopeful. It is a brilliant brilliant brilliant book that should be reread every few years. Libby is one of the greatest characters who ever lived.

Death and Other Occupational Hazards (Veronika Dapunt): A cozy mystery with a good ending, with a few highs and lows along the way. Some parts were clever. Some made me cringe. But overall, a lighthearted read about the Apocalypse with shades of Good Omens.

Beth Is Dead (Katie Bernet): Super clever idea, and you will enjoy it (if you like YA because this book is definitely aimed at teens) even if you are only moderately familiar with Little Women, like me. I sense I like this book more than I would enjoy the original Little Women. It’s true — I’ve never read Little Women. But I’m still glad I picked this up.

Meet the Newmans (Jennifer Niven): A solid story that feels like a tv show; everything wraps up exactly as predicted, and you spend your time with lovely people, saying the right things, feeling the right things, and knowing at the end of the book that all will be well in the world. Sometimes you need that kind of story.

It Should Have Been You (Andrea Mara): 4.5 stars rounded up. Mara’s books suck you in. This would make a great beach read – short chapters, you can pop in and out of the story. My only pet peeve with thrillers is when people behave in ways that don’t feel real. There was some of that here, but I still raced through it and enjoyed the twists.

Lost Lambs (Madeline Cash): 4.5 stars rounded down. Rounded down, Melissa? You never round down. Well, there is a first for everything. I mostly enjoyed the story. It was a little… gimicky? It went a lot of places, most of them interesting, but it felt a little empty, too. There were times I underlined a phrase – what a beautiful thought. So. Yes. 4.5 rounded down.

What did you read last month?

Back in elementary school, the kids had to fill out a Valentine’s Day card for everyone in their class. Each kid also decorated a box, and then, before the classroom party, they would walk around and deliver their Valentine’s to each other by dropping it in the other person’s box.

Choosing your Valentine’s Day card design was high-stress because you were limited by the options, time had to be considered (making your own card made it unique but took a long time), and there was fierce competition for the best cards.

We always had a few leftovers that I shoved together into one of the earlier boxes (Spy Ruby Decoder Valentines), and it’s bittersweet to shuffle through the cardboard greetings.

Which is a long way of saying Happy Valentine’s Day one day early. And Happy Friday the 13th, if you celebrate that sort of thing.

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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…

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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:

• “Gelebtes und Ungelebtes” (Elaine ohne Kind)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Speaking of Elaine, The Next 15000 Days pairs a quote Elaine gave her with a photo taken during a walk in the Julian Alps. It’s a simple quote, but I thought we could all use a reminder of kindness these days.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix writes about the impact of other people’s writing. She explains, “It has taken years to develop the habit of asking myself what do I want and what do I need before considering what others want and need.” So she understood the what, but she didn’t understand the how and why. Until she read something and understood herself (and others) better. I love this.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day (a day early). 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 February 6 – 13) 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.

Speaking of the newspaper, did your local newspaper syndicate The Mini Page? Ours was housed in the Style section, and it was an insert that came out for kids to read on the weekend while the parents read the main newspaper.

I loved finding the word “mini” in the Mini Spy, and I shuddered as I read most recipes for Rookie Cookie because I only ate peanut butter and jam.

In my head, it looked like a section in my parents’ newspaper. Though looking through the archive, perhaps not.

I know a lot of people in the world are sad about the massive firings at the Washington Post, which follows on the heels of the closing of the Kennedy Center for two years (to likely have everything memorable about the building destroyed), which follows on the heels of the destruction of the East Wing. I know these things are not related in the sense that two different entities are dismantling Washington institutions, but they are connected in my brain because they are my childhood.

The Washington Post is our local newspaper. Maybe people read it all over the world, but it was designed to cover our local news in addition to global news. When I was little, it told me the movies in my theaters, followed the sports teams in my city, reviewed theater in my area, and covered events on our streets.

Reading the newspaper (fine, most often the Style section) felt impossibly grown-up when I was in grade school. Now, reading the newspaper feels impossibly sad.

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

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The kids have a week off where they align this summer, and I thought it would be fun for all of us to go to Venice. I got out the journal I kept the last time I was in Venice to get the name of the hotel. There was a long entry where I stressed over the cost of the place. My friend had made the reservation for us, and it would cost each of us $60 per night. I lamented that I was paying triple what we’d pay per night for the rest of the trip.

I looked up the hotel today to see the cost per night. Remember, it was $120 per night for a very nice hotel in Venice. That same hotel today? $1,132 per night. Yes, it has been 25 or so years, but that seems excessive, no?

In Rome, it was $40 per night for a whole apartment in Trastevere. A quick search on VRBO shows it will be about $540 per night for a comparable apartment.

I can’t tell if the price difference is normal inflation, supply and demand, or priced to curb tourism. In any case, we’re not going to Italy this year.

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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.