Friday | The Last in May!

Friends, I’m kinda flying by the seat of my pants this morning. I was all geared up to publish my favorite books so far this year and then it dawned on me as I snoozed through my alarm yesterday — the end of May isn’t the halfway point of the year. It’s June. EEP! So I’ll be saving that post for the end of next month and will have to re-examine whether my current list is still true after another month of books under my belt. It’s a good problem to have an almost finished post ready to go but it doesn’t put me in a good place for today’s post!

That’s okay. Today will just be a collection of what’s bringing me joy right now. Fridays are made for that!

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Organizing my reading life.

I’ve been trying to keep my July and August reading plans clear in anticipation of the Booker prize, but I just learned that the longlist isn’t announced until August 1. It takes a bit longer for books to arrive from Blackwells, so I probably wouldn’t be able to start on the list in earnest until the end of August/early September anyway. So this is going to open up all of July and at least half of August for me – hurrah!

Thinking about Yellowface

I am still reeling from Yellowface. This is the third time I’ve written about it this week, but I am thinking about who has the right to tell the stories of others. Yellowface raises this question in several different ways and I love being confronted with all of these ideas. I wish RF Kuang were my friend!

Listening to Maria Popova’s On Being interview

I listen to it about twice a year and almost always come away with something new. I’m listening now with an ear towards less is more, which seems counterintuitive with someone as prolific as Popova.

ALSO: how funny to think of Popova as prolific, because she hasn’t done a ton of traditional publishing. But her website, The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) is packed with the wisdom she’s found through reading.

Journaling in my Hobonichi Cousin

This is the picture I opened with. I love the combination of the Tamoe River paper and fountain pens and my journaling has been pretty colorful lately. I’m trying to get something down into my notebook every day, even if I don’t fill up the page. And my incentive for writing daily through the rest of the year will be the purchase of the Pilot Vanishing Point fountain pen (always with an extra fine nib!) for Christmas. I hope I can earn it!

(Another thing I loved about Yellowface: Athena’s love of notebooks! She was a dedicated moleskine user. I love getting these little inside looks at the lives of writers, even when they’re fictional.)

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And that’s all I have time for this morning! This weekend is forecasted to be sunny and warm. I’ll be working at the library on Saturday morning and have no other weekend plans, besides playing outside and scrubbing the house. I’ll be back on Monday with an update on my word of the year. I hope your weekend is full of exactly what you need – take good care!