Our library system uses an app called Libby for e-book borrowing.  You can search for a title on the app or browse a category OR browse the last items returned to Libby.  In other words, it’s like GoodReads except you’re seeing what’s available now that other people are done with it.

Popular stuff ends up on that list — new releases — but interesting older books end up on there, too, and enter into a strange loop: person one checks out, reads, and returns an old Nick Hornby book.  The person two sees this book on the list and says, “High Fidelity!  I haven’t thought about that book in years.”  And then they check it out and the loop keeps going with each new person perusing the recently returned list, seeing this old book, and checking it out themselves because they figure someone else found it worthy to spend their time reading.

Unlike the genre lists, I usually know every single book on the recently returned list because, again, they tend to be popular books.  And if they’re not popular to begin with, they become popular because they keep looping around again.

It would be cool if our physical library had a bookshelf like that.  They have a new release section where you can see what’s hot at the moment because it’s new.  But it would also be cool if they put returned books on a special set of shelves for a few days before moving them back to their proper place.

I love peeking at what other people are reading.

Do you ever choose books to read just because you see other people around you reading it?

There’s a post that has been making its way around the Internet for the last week or two.  The author speaks about a lesson she learned at her brother’s funeral.  A community showed up to say goodbye to him.  While the author has friends and family, she realized she didn’t have a community.  At least, not a group of people she could count on in the way that her brother — who invested many of his hours into his community — could when he was at the end of his life.

She describes all the things these people did for the family, and then writes,

This was community. And what I would come to learn, slowly, is that community is about a series of small choices and everyday actions: how to spend a Saturday, what to do when a neighbor falls ill, how to make time when there is none. Knowing others and being known; investing in somewhere instead of trying to be everywhere.

I paused after reading that passage.  Do I have a community or do I have a mishmash of family and friends?
And what is the difference, and how important is that difference?  I checked in with my heart: was I lonely?  There are times when I don’t make time for other people; when I give everything to Josh and the twins and then crawl into bed and move the phone calls I have to make over one day on the to-do list.

I need to stop doing that.

Because, like the author, “My community will be here for my family if I cannot be. And if I die, my kids will be surrounded people who know and love them, quirks and warts and oddities and all.”

It’s a really gorgeous piece.  I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

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

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I’m reading Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets (which is fascinating), and she talks about how our brains are hardwired to compare ourselves to the people around us, and then create a mental narrative of where we stand based on those comparisons.  She writes on page 107: “Our brain is built to seek positive self-image updates.  It is also built to view ourselves in competition with our peers.”

It reminded me an article that I read a few months ago about why the ultrarich still strive for more money even though their rational brain knows that they don’t need to hoard more cash for a rainy day.  The article asks: “But at a certain level of wealth, the next million isn’t going to suddenly revolutionize their lifestyle. What drives people, once they’ve reached that point, to keep pursuing more?”

And then: “Norton says that research regularly points to two central questions that people ask themselves when determining whether they’re satisfied with something in their life: Am I doing better than I was before? and Am I doing better than other people?”  Like Duke’s book, this is also an interesting piece, especially why we latch onto money instead of other measures of success for answering those questions.

It feels overwhelming to stare into a bottomless goal.  An ever-moving enough line.

Your thoughts?

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My new obsession is puzzle fiction.  I fell in love with Robin Sloan’s Sourdough — he’s the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.  It feels a little bit like a food-focused Mr. Penumbra (as opposed to “book-focused”).  So I looked up his website and signed up for his newsletter, hoping he had another book in the works.

One of the newsletters in the archive covered a genre he calls puzzle fiction.  They’re books that sometimes contain a mystery, but they’re not a conventional mystery.  Think The Westing Game.  (Or, really, anything Ellen Raskin.)  They’re more like verbal sudoku or puzzle solving, and he gives a few examples including the 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton) and Gnomon (Nick Harkaway).  Both sound so cool.

I was trying to find other books that fit this genre, books that contain a central puzzle, but they’re not straight mystery.  Maybe Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious series?  Or John Green’s Paper Town?  Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murder?  (That last one may be too much of a mystery-mystery than puzzle fiction.)  As Sloan says, “they just have to be interested in the processes of puzzle-making and puzzle-solving as well as the mental state—not unpleasant—of being puzzled.”

What else would be on this list?

Josh and I are back on the healthy-eating wagon, which means that we mostly text each other several times per day and say things like, “Remember crackers?  Remember how good crackers tasted?”   And then we reassure each other that a handful of almonds are just as satisfying and drink our water.

I gave up sugar for over a month.  I didn’t even cheat and have a cookie while I was making dozens of hamantaschen for our friends.  But then we went to Hershey and a gorged myself on York peppermint patties.  That was a bad idea.  I said goodbye to them once we returned home, even though there are still precious patties left in the bag.  And I went back to almonds and water.

But more than the York peppermint patties, I want crackers.

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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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “How to Choose” (The Uterus Monologues)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I normally don’t include magazine articles, but I have to start off with The Atlantic’s “The Fertility Doctor’s Secret.”  Holy shit.  And probably not a situation the creators of Ancestry.com (or other connection tools such as Facebook) ever imagined during their early years.  “The children Cline fathered with his patients now number at least 50, confirmed by DNA tests from 23andMe or Ancestry.com … They keep in touch through a Facebook group. New siblings pop up in waves, timed perversely after holidays like Christmas or Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, when DNA tests are given as well-intentioned gifts.”  It’s a chilling read.

Life’s Basic Elegance has a post about conflicting feelings.  She talks about a video she posted, pointing out that it’s possible to be sad and filled with hope at the same time.  “Going through seasons of loss and despair is difficult especially when it seems that everyone wants you to move on. But who said moving on means you can’t grieve, that you can’t cry, or that you can’t express your inner brokenness?”  Both truths can exist at the same time.

Lavender Luz has a post about what happens when you’re ready for open adoption but the grandparents are not?  She gives really good advice about setting up healthy boundaries and establishing autonomy as well as closely examining your beliefs.  I love this sentiment: “You will teach your family about love that goes beyond blood and the myriad ways people can be connected through their lives and hearts.”

Lastly, I have to include Res Cogitatae as a fellow dragon wanter. (There are magical creatures I probably want more than a dragon, though the sentiment is the same.) Especially this: “I stopped looking for the door into the faerie realm, the wizard on my doorstep, the quest to come calling … Deep down, though, I’m still the little girl I used to be, the one who escaped to other worlds when she didn’t want to inhabit her own The one who would have given anything to ride on a dragon.”  Me too.

The roundup to the Roundup: I miss crackers.  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 March 15th and 22nd) 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.