A Decade of Angieville

I woke up this morning a bit flummoxed to realize that today marks my blog's ten year anniversary. How . . . how did that happen? The lovely thing is that the bemusement was almost immediately followed by a palpable thrill of wonder at the fact that I've been doing this thing—this thing that I have come to love, that has become an integral, limb-like part of me—for a decade. There are only a few other things I've been doing that long. I've been married to my husband for just a few years longer than that. I've been a mother for almost exactly two years more. In fact, ten years ago on this night I put my little boy (only had one then) down to bed after a satisfactory night of trick-or-treating, climbed into bed with my notebook, and Aaron sat down and started telling me about how he thought I should start a blog, how it would be a good place to . . . oh, you guys. Talking about this brings the emotions precariously close to the surface.

He told me he thought it would be a good place to talk about books.

Is it odd that I'm crying as I'm typing this right now? It doesn't feel odd. It feels like these tears are because it turned out to be exactly that. And more. That what started out as simply listing the books I'd read and reread that month became an extension of home, when I needed that so much as I was adapting to being a mother and trying to balance so many new and old aspects of my life. It became a forum and an outlet and a marvelous stepping off point into the virtual world of . . . you. All of you. You magnificent community of people who are so varied and so colorful and so vital to me now. You read and you write and you think so much, and you laugh and cry and rage about what you read and write and think about. And you share it with me. And you tell me what books you couldn't imagine living without, and I read them and they become mine, too.

It was a revelation when it all began, and it continues to be one of the brightest elements of my life. To know that when I, as Yeats wrote, "bring you with reverent hands the books of my numberless dreams," that they will be safe. With you.

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Review | The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vols. 1 & 2 by Beth Brower

I feel a bit giddy finally talking to you all about this series. If you'll remember, I fell madly in love with The Q when it came out a few years ago. Now, Beth Brower is writing The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion — a series of novellas set in London in 1883. Each volume is an excerpt from the incorrigible Emma's journals, and the first two volumes are already available with the third on the way soon. I think they'd make rather perfect pandemic reading. Humorous and charming down to their bones, they're just what the doctor ordered to lift your spirits in this uncertain time that just proves to be too much some days. If you're experiencing one of those days, I suggest giving Volume 1 a go (it's only 99 cents on Kindle, $4.99 for a trade paperback copy). It will surprise exactly none of you that I own print and digital editions of both volumes. Miss Emma M. Lion has waited long enough. Come hell or high water (and really, given her track record, both a...

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Bibliocrack Review | You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I've done a shamefully poor job of addressing my love for Cat Sebastian 's books around these parts. I've certainly noted each time her beautiful stories have appeared on my end-of-the-year best of lists, see: The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes , basically every book in The Cabots series , and of course We Could Be So Good . And the pull is, quite simply, this: nobody is as kind and gentle with their characters and with their hearts than Cat Sebastian. Nobody. I haven't always been one for the gentler stories, but I cannot overstate the absolute gift it is sinking into one of Sebastian's exquisitely crafted historicals knowing that I get to spend the next however many pages watching two idiots pine and deny that feelings exist and just take care of each other as they fall in love. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. Not this one or any other. Only two things in the world people count b...

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