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 March.

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide (Rupert Holmes): This book’s cleverness was a slow burn, so you only truly understood the brilliance of the writing in the last pages. A lot of fun, and I read somewhere that the author is working on a sequel.

The Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman): ChickieNob and I listened to Lesley Manville read the audio version while we walked. This book is so so so good, and Lesley is a fantastic reader—such an enjoyable way to spend a half hour every afternoon.

The Writing Retreat (Julia Bartz): The book was like a bag of chips in both a good way and bad way. I couldn’t stop reading once I got into the story, popping page after page into my eyes, but I felt a little unsatisfied. It’s a solid debut, and I’m curious to see her next book.

A Fatal Grace (Louise Penny): It’s the second book in the Inspector Gamache series. I read these mysteries more for the characters and setting than for the mystery itself. The plot was problematic, and the fat-phobic descriptions bothered me, but the positives outweighed the negatives. On to the next book in the series.

What did you read last month?

There was an article making the internet rounds a few weeks ago about faux vs. real self-care . Faux self-care is any obligation that adds to your stress vs. relieves it. Real self-care is putting your needs first for a moment and doing something to destress. So it’s not the activity that is good or bad, but how it makes you feel.

She explains,

Rethinking how you take care of yourself can slowly transform your quality of life. And crucially, she adds, as you align your individual choices and actions with your beliefs, you can help improve larger social systems that hold women back.

So if the activity makes you feel good, it’s self-care. If the activity feels like one more thing you must fit into your day or buy, it’s not.

Mostly I loved this article for this thought:

Every time you are in a situation where a boundary might need to be asserted or bent, Dr. Lakshmin suggests taking a pause instead of giving in to a knee-jerk reaction.

I am becoming more and more of a fan of the pause.

Pesach begins tonight, and a holiday feels like a good time to take a few days off to think and breathe and not eat bread. I’m bummed about that last one because I really love bread, but I can give it up for the holiday. I will be back in a few days, but I will skip writing the Roundup because I will read posts late, and then I’ll take a few days to recharge. Back mid-week after some real self-care.

Every once in a while, we talk about culling out books from our collection, and then we buy another bookcase, move books into storage, or stack them up in another spot, and the idea disappears for a while.

We got rid of a bunch of books years ago, but I kept pulling them back out of the donate pile, thinking, “What if I decide months from now that I want to read this? What will I do then?” Better to be safe than sorry.

If I love a library book, sometimes I’ll buy it after reading the borrowed copy. I hate the idea of being cut off from a story I liked.

So this article resonated with me about the grief you feel after getting rid of books. I read it like a warning: Do not get rid of anything, Melissa.

Passing it along in case you are also feeling guilty about your stacks.

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

*******

I’m participating in an online book club that meets on the same day each month. I knew the date was creeping closer, but I forgot to finish the book in time. I was okay with the ending being ruined by the first posed question, and I could participate in most of the chat. But afterward, I didn’t know what to do with the book. Should I finish it even though the discussion was over? Drop it for the next book? It felt silly not to read through the final few chapters and see the ending for myself.

This is why I’m not the biggest fan of book clubs — I don’t like reading on a timer. Though I really love the discussion and connection.

Would you finish the book?

P.S. I did.

*******

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.

We had our internet router replaced, and the moment filled me with dread. The old router worked fine-ish. Mostly fine. Would the new router work as well? Or worse?

I always assume worse. I always believe that new is bad. Josh promised me long ago that I would never need to drive a new car. He would give me his old one — one I knew would work — and he would take the unfamiliar one. New shoes hurt your feet until they’re broken in. And new clothes make me feel like I need to be careful. And new glasses take weeks to feel normal.

The only thing new that is good from the get-go is new books.

That’s a pretty small category.

The devices took a bit to pair correctly with the router, which went out after a few minutes. It’s clearly currently back up, but it had a rocky start. Just as I suspected it would.

How do you feel about new things?