Day 93 The Unfolding Life
Smart doggy edition
“It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do...”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Welcome to A Reading Journey. This is a blog about reading. Not books, book reviews, author interviews, or any of that good stuff. That’s for other blogs. This blog is about reading. I hope that by sharing my reading journey, you might find yourself reading more or differently.
Weekly Review
The Unfolding Life
The tomatillo plants did recover and look great. We had another night of wind, and they held up well in their cages. The tardy cucumbers are still tiny seedings, but coming along nicely. The basil is loving the heat. The whole garden looks good.
The pool is, indeed, too cold for me to get in it again. It may take another week or two to heat up again since we’ve been down in the 80s most of this week with a corresponding dip in the overnight lows.
My mentee had a huge meltdown this week the day I was scheduled. They didn’t call to let me know, so I showed up. She was sobbing, tears and snot everywhere. Her mom was extremely unhappy, and the other kids had been sent to their rooms for their safety. I spent an hour with her out of the house and got her calmed down. Then I had a long talk with the two of them. It was better when I left. I found it very draining, especially once I remembered that I used to do that every day for my job. Phew! I’m glad to be retired.
The Pupdate
I’m working with Bri on a trick – I toss her probiotic nummy to her and she tries to catch it. I have never had a dog who managed to catch anything. But Bri has learned this. She was 0/3 on the first day, then 1/3 on the second and third days. But even after she caught it and ate it, she was still looking for where it went, which I found hilarious. On her fourth day, she caught 2/3, and this time she didn’t go looking for them. On her fifth day, she caught 2/3 again, but the one she missed was a bad toss by me. On the 6th day, she caught 3/3. What a smart girl!
I had a harder time grooming her. She’s so squirmy, and she is hairiest in the areas where a halter or collar would go. So she has to cooperate, and this requires a lot of treats.
Book Thoughts
Dishing the dirt on the books I finished this week.
The Return of the Elves: Soulbound by Bethany Adams #Fantasy #Series #Audiobook [completed #81] I enjoyed this romantasy, even though it’s not one of my preferred genres.
Downward Facing Doug by Don Winslow #Thriller #Surfers #Humor [completed #82] I’m not sure that Don Winslow is capable of writing a bad story. He defies categorization, and there is always something interesting and unique about the story. I did not see the end of this one coming. Free with the Plus catalog on Audible.
Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant vol. 5 by Guy De Maupassant #Anthology #Audiobook [completed #83] There are 13 volumes in this massive audiobook, and I’ve been stringing them out for a long time. Maupassant is an amazing short story writer. There are no tricks or twists. He just understands people. Well worth studying how it’s done.
To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder by Nancy Rommelmann #TrueCrime #Audiobook [completed #84] Written in an introspective style rather than the more typical true crime play for the emotional gut punch, this is well worth listening to. She spent a lot of time talking about filicide, and it’s far from being as rare as I thought it was. It made me do some deep thinking about how our society sees children as disposable in so many ways.
The Prynne Viper by Bianca Marais #ScienceFiction #ScaryUseOfAI #SurveillanceState #ForcedPregnancyTermination #Audiobook [complete #85] A really unique scifi / body horror story. Free with the Plus catalog on Audible and well worth a listen.
You can always see the covers of the last four books I completed in the “filmstrip” at the top of every newsletter I send out. I love looking at book covers.
The Weekly Specials
A menu of the articles I published this week
Balanced Literacy vs. Structured Literacy - the follow up to the book choices / reading level article that I hadn’t planned to write
The Silver Spire News
In case you didn’t know, I don’t just write about reading. I also write a serialized fantasy called The Silver Spire News. If you like sword and sorcery style fantasy, click that link and join the Guild. We’d love to have you.
Today’s Reading
FICTION BOOKS
The Eight Strokes of the Clock by Maurice LeBlanc #ArseneLupin #BookClub #Mystery #Ebook
Archmage’s Ire by pirateaba #Fantasy #LitRPG #Series #Audiobook
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett #Fantasy #Series #Discword #Audiobook
Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt #Literature #PrintBook #TriggerDomesticViolence #TriggerCult #TriggerChildAbuse #TriggerSuicide #TriggerChildEndangerment
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo #BookClub #Audiobook #HistoricalFiction #Classic #France #Literature
SHORT STORIES
“The Hand” by Guy de Maupassant
NONFICTION BOOKS
City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas by Roger Crowley #Worldbuilding #History #Italy #Seaport #Ebook
POETRY
Beautiful Blooms by Lauren McBride
ARTICLES AND OTHER NON-BOOK READING
“The TTRPG as Oral Literature: Storytelling, Memory, and the Ephemeral Campaign” by Serban Ionita
● Oral narrative accumulates, rather than subordinates, building one clause on top of another rather than constructing complicated hierarchical structures;
● Oral narrative is additive rather than adaptive, relying more upon formulaic repetition than upon accurate original representation;
● Oral narrative is situational rather than abstract, focusing more on the tangible and human than upon the theoretical;
● Finally, and most importantly, oral narrative is participatory rather than distant since the audience takes part in the performance rather than being separated from it. Therefore, the audience’s responses influence what the oral poet will perform next.
Now, tell me if am crazy, but this process, at least to me, sounds quite similar to what happens at a TTRPG table.
Woman of the Day:
Brittany N. Packnett Cunningham (born 1984) is an American activist and the co-founder of Campaign Zero. Packnett Cunningham was raised as the daughter of a pastor and ordained Baptist minister in St. Louis, which led to her commitment to social justice.
INFORMATION GATHERING ~ NOT READING
Quotes
Gratitude places you in the energy field of plentitude. Glow with gratitude and see how awe and joy will make their home in you. — Michael Bernard Beckwith
Journaling Prompts
Has practicing gratitude helped me experience a deeper sense of joy? If so, how?
Vocabulary
A wiseacre is someone who says or does things that are funny but annoying. Wiseacre is an informal and old-fashioned word, as well as a synonym of smart aleck.
Some wiseacre in the audience kept heckling the comedian throughout the performance.
“In 1982’s hit action comedy 48 Hours, a young Eddie Murphy plays a wiseacre criminal on parole in order to help a veteran cop, played by Nick Nolte, solve a case.” — Pete Hammond, Deadline, 4 Aug. 2025
Given the spelling and definition of wiseacre, you might guess that the word was formed directly from the familiar adjective wise. And you might be wise to think so—a wiseacre, after all, is someone who thinks or pretends they’re wiser (more crafty or knowing) than they are. But you would, alas, also be wrong. Unlike wisecrack and wisenheimer, wiseacre came to English not from wise but from the Middle Dutch word wijssegger, meaning “soothsayer.” Wiseacre first appeared in English way back in the 16th century, while all those other wise words appeared centuries later. The etymologies of wiseacre and wise are not completely distinct, however; the ancestors of wiseacre are loosely tied to the same Old English root that gave us wise.
Thanks for reading with me today. I’d love to hear from you about your reading journey, and especially what you’re reading right now.
