Bout of Books 29 kicked off at the start of the week, and I’m intending to take part again.

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, August 17, and runs through Sunday, August 23, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. All reading-in-place times, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges are completely optional. For Bout of Books 29 information and updates, visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Yesterday, I started off the week by finishing Oona Out of Order shortly after midnight. Now I can get it back to the library.

Last night, I read the first chapter of Undercover Bromance, which succeeded in pissing me off by having the main character be remarkably attractive and rich and successful, but unlucky in love. I’m going to give it until the main female character is introduced to see if it has any redeeming qualities, but I’m not holding my breath.

This evening, because I was reminded about it in raidergirl3’s blog post earlier, I started When We Were Vikings. The start of the story makes me uneasy and I’m not sure I want to keep reading it if it’s going to leave me stressed out all the time.

My rest of the plan for the week involves reading the first chapter or two of each of the library books I currently have out to see which can be returned to the library. Including the two above, I’ve started nine, none of which has captured my fancy (but also none of which, so far, has made me want to give up).

I have (ahem) 15 out that I haven’t yet given a shot. If you’ve read any of them and recommend I start there, let me know:

• Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
• Homerooms and Hall Passes by Tom O’Donnell
• The Night Country by Melissa Albert
• Each Tiny Spark by Pablo Cartaya
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Another Word for Home by Jasmine Warga
• The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
• Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno
• The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi
• The First Dinosaur by Ian Lendler
• Highfire by Eoin Colfer
• Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden
• Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (I really want to find my copy of the first book in the series and reread it before starting this one)
• Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer
• The Travelers by Regina Porter

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader Girl is Top Ten Books That Should be Adapted into Netflix Shows/Movies.

With one glaring exception, I am opting not to include anything that, to my knowledge, has already been adapted, even if I haven’t yet seen it (the Cormoran Strike series and The Last Dragonslayer, for instance). By and large, I’ve also excluded novels I absolutely adore, because they’ll just never be done well enough to suit me (the Lady Sherlock series, The Night Circus, Thursday Next, and others).

1. Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks (imagine how adorable this graphic novel would be as a Halloween romance!)
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (because as much as I love the BBC version and like the other versions, there is always room for another adaptation)
3. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (sweet but also serious — think of all the famous gay people they could get to be the chorus!)
4. The Marvels by Brian Selznick (of his three illustrated novels, I think this is the one that would scale best to the small screen)
5. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (a documentary obviously)
6. The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser (this and its sequels are just begging to be turned into an ongoing family tv series)
7. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu (I think someone (Reese Witherspoon, maybe?) is adapting this feminist YA novel to film and I want it NOW)
8. The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin (another documentary — I don’t know why I think that nonfiction that makes me furious should be adapted, except that I guess I want more people to be angry, too)
9. The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson (a multicultural middle-grade caper — this is just waiting for someone to option it)
10. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (how has Masterpiece not grabbed this gothic mystery as an adaptation already?)

Come back another day and I could probably give you a completely different list. I could probably give you a week’s worth of Christmas books that should be adapted…

How about you? What books would you like to see come to the small screen near you?

I just came back from moving the car. After Rudi came home from a late-evening drive to the grocery store and garden, he parked it on one of the two streets we live at the corner of. It’s the one that has designated weekday rush hour no parking zones, and while they may be lifted during the current emergency, we aren’t so positive there won’t be enforcement that we’re willing to risk the ticket.

We forgot to take the keys with us when we went out to the park after work ended for me tonight and Rudi told me not to worry about it when I went to grab him the key when we came home.

Obviously he meant I shouldn’t worry about it because I could just move it later before I came to bed. (Actually, I’m glad I suddenly remembered it. We have only forgotten to move our car … twice maybe? … in the seventeen years we’ve lived here. But it’s not a lesson you really need to learn more than once a decade.)

Anyway, I wore a mask out to move the car because our stairs up to the sidewalk parallel the sidewalk, so you just never know what’s going to be waiting for you in the city, even after midnight. But once I was in the car, I took it off, and I didn’t have to put it back on for the block and a half it took to walk home from where I parked the car legally.

That’s the furthest I’ve walked outside without a mask since April.

Who could have imagined the world we live in right now?

Three days down, one to go with this particular work event. By six tomorrow evening, I should be free to enjoy the weekend.

As with many of the things I do with this job, the work is new and challenging — and requires a lot of me. I learn a lot and I help those in real need (more directly than I might otherwise have expected) and I get to work with some pretty spectacular people, both from my organization and from the larger community. I’d like to think that I’m getting to be better at what I do each day.

But there is definitely a psychic toll to a job where one is always learning and always helping and where the need stretches on indefinitely before you. And that is maybe where I struggle most with this position, particularly now.

In a pre-COVID world, I would have taken trips to the beach and would have spent Friday evenings watching outdoor movies or at concerts under the stars with friends. I would have played volleyball a couple times a week and gone swimming on the weekend and biked to cafes to read while leisurely sipping lemonade. I would have gone to see my parents every couple of months and had rejuvenating lunches with my best friend. I would have taken time away from work to recharge.

And with none of those things really being an option anymore, I’m just not doing that. Even now, as I’m writing this on a Saturday night, I’m thinking about how I need to put together a document for tomorrow morning and wondering if I should open my work laptop to just get it done.

As my boss keeps telling me (from beneath her own, even taller mountain of work), I need to find some time to take off to avoid burning out. But how do I do that and what do I do when I’m not supposed to travel (even though so many other people seem to be disregarding that)? Work will continue to be only a few feet away no matter what.

Please don’t think that I’m really complaining (although I’m definitely whining). I know how lucky I am. So many people are facing real hardship, and my challenges finding balance are insignificant compared to those facing health issues and economic insecurity and having to make life-and-death choices about sending their kids to school and reporting for work and being safe in a myriad of other ways.

So as the world’s tiniest violin plays, I will go and wash the dishes and then get some sleep. Because whether I recharge enough or not, the work awaits again in the morning.

My office is holding a meeting this weekend, so I worked tonight and will work tomorrow and Sunday afternoons, as well.

I’m hoping to squeeze in a little time outside before each workday begins (including a trip to the farmers market on Sunday) and am planning on slamming my laptop closed and running back out as soon as we hit the “leave” button on Zoom each evening. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather gods cooperate with that plan.

Have a great weekend! I expect you all to fill it with loafing and outdoor time and sleeping in on my behalf.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A friend calls to catch up.

2. Rudi and I don’t feel comfortable eating out at restaurants yet, but when we pick up pizza at our favorite restaurant, we eat our first slice or two in the car so we still get to enjoy that fresh out of the oven experience that’s so crucial to perfect pizza.

3. The annual summer sidewalk sale that usually takes place in the next neighborhood over went online and citywide this year, which meant that both our local fish & chip shop and the high-end grocery in our neighborhood were taking part. The former had a discount on gift cards, and the latter had a deal that if you bought a gift card, they threw in their weekly food bag for free. The “provisions” bag contained enough food for at least four meals of salads and the instructions on how to put them together in creative ways.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?