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 read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about 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 August.

The Lies I Tell (Julie Clark): This is a fun non-mystery. Meaning, there is no crime you’re trying to solve — you already know who did what. But it’s a clever story of cat and mouse where the characters don’t know how much the other characters know. I still had a few questions by the last page, but it was overall a super engaging read.

Wrong Place Wrong Time (Gillian McAllister): This was a fun, twisty mystery. The narrator’s life is moving backwards, starting on the day of a life-changing event, and jumping backwards in time each chapter so she can understand what happened. I figured out some twists early. Other things surprised me as they fell into place. This felt like reading a kaleidoscope with the pieces constantly arranging themselves. Very very well done.

How To Kill Your Family (Bella Mackie): Ads for this book were everywhere while we were in London. It is best described as wickedly funny. I truly liked Grace, the narrator, and it was a pleasure to spend time with her, killings aside. The end totally surprised me, and it was a fitting conclusion. I loved this.

The It Girl (Ruth Ware): I always like Ruth Ware’s books — I’m never blown away, but they’re totally solid. This gets a bump up due to the setting (a fictional college at Oxford) and the clever ending. I figured out the killer early in the book, but I couldn’t figure out the how or why. The big reveal was fantastic.

Death and Fromage (Ian Moore): This is the second book in the series, and it was even better than the first one. (And I loved the first one.) I felt so happy reading it — it’s such a pleasure to find a book that makes you feel good while you’re spending time with it. It was clever and funny and sweet. Really, the perfect read.

What did you read last month?

The twins are deep in college applications, which means we’ve also been touring colleges on and off since last spring. College is both everything like and nothing like it was when I attended.

I wish you could do college twice. Once when you’re young, both to prepare you for the work world and to give you a soft landing for independence. And again in middle age to appreciate the experience.

We saw this incredible math department. It was a brand new building — only a few years old — and they had long hallways with chalkboard walls where professors had put up problems and students walking by were solving them. And an old stone library with stained glass windows casting colourful dots of light over the books. We’ve listened to campus tour guides talk about school traditions, and watched students reading books on picnic blankets floating on a sea of grass.

Many years ago, I went maternity clothes shopping with a friend who was pregnant. It was hard to support her and project happiness when we weren’t able to get pregnant. But I convinced myself that I would have this experience one day, too. It was in my future.

It’s a very different feeling to covet when the experience is in your past.

Josh and I are planning to be those elderly people who audit college classes in the summer — educational tourism. But that’s different from belonging.

No, this is like looking at all the roads not taken with people who have all of the roads ahead of them. I hope they enjoy this time.

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

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These deliberately terrible designs made me laugh. I mean, it also made me think about how much goes into good design — especially things that seem simple and straightforward on the surface but could clearly be otherwise. But mostly, they made me laugh.

My favourite was probably the uncomfortable wine glass.
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 that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

It feels impossible for the day to arrive and to not think about it, talk about, reflect on it.

Maybe because it still feels like it just happened even though 21 years have passed.

Sending love into the universe today for people who are remembering.

ChickieNob and I had our own London Bridge, a plan for Queen Elizabeth’s death if it should happen while she was at school. I’m glad she was in a class with her brother when their teacher told them the news.

Even though it was a half hour to the end of the school day, I jumped in the car and drove over to get her. We drank tea and cried and watched the BBC coverage. I convinced her to take a brisk walk — I think her majesty would approve — and finally released her to sit quietly with her thoughts. She’s sad, but she’ll be okay.

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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.

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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.

Dubliner in Deutschland muses about things that have changed (or not changed) about the pandemic. I feel the same way: “It feels strange not wearing a mask after being so used to wearing one!” Sometimes I think about how the masks have changed — how we can look at old pictures and think, “Oh, I wouldn’t wear that type of mask anymore. I now wear this one.”

Lastly, Jewish IVF explains why she started a blog while going through infertility, and how the space has become a refuge. She writes, “I can take as little or as much time as I want to formulate thoughts. I can abandon thoughts if I feel like I’m finished thinking about them. I can look back at old pieces and see how I’ve evolved.” Yes. To all of that. Tell her why you write.

The roundup to the Roundup: The loss of Queen Elizabeth. 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 September 2 – 9) 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.