We All Need Some Morning Thunder

and tiny needles, lots of links, and a reading catch-up

Hello readers! Yes, I’m bringing the exclamation mark back. It’s time. Today’s newsletter is a bit unhinged in my favorite way, so grab a snack and a cuppa and settle in ♡

I think today’s newsletter title is my favorite of all time. And also, did ANY of you know what I was referring to?? Did my resident romance readers think I was changing the newsletter’s direction in a surprising way?? HA.

IT’S MY NEW TEA OF COURSE. Morning Thunder is my new absolute favorite tea name now and this BOX. Doesn’t it make you just feel like you are going to kick this day’s ass and take a list of names?? That bruiser has steam coming out of its nose! The tea itself is good too, with a strong black tea taste combined with earthy roasted maté. Seriously, this week when I was drinking it at work and those tweens and teens were testing. my. patience, I drew on the power of MORNING THUNDER to stay strong.

My girls went to see Billie Eilish in Minneapolis on Monday night and I’m so very jealous. WORK gets in the way of a whole lot of fun things, but I’m so happy they got to experience that show! The oldest bought the youngest tickets for their combined birthday celebration ~ I love that they’re still so close even at 19 and 13 ♡

Oh, and a foot update¹! Highlight of your week, I know. I’m *finally* starting turn the cover toward recovery ~ “normal” is in sight again, thanks to finally seeking treatment! I had dry needling done this week for my first time ever and my reaction???

I had NO idea what to expect with this, and I white-knuckled my way through it with the mantra that I will do anything to undo my poor self-care decisions after the half marathon in October. Needles stuck in my calves! With electricity going through them! I get to go again next week! I have faith I’ll be able to run again soooooooon.

I had the fortitude to actually read some online content this week ~ here are the highlights:

• Molly Ella
  rounded up some great bookish Substacks ~ if you don’t subscribe to
  Slow Scottish Stories
  yet, definitely get on that. I love her minimalist lifestyle and SCOTLAND.

• Anyone who isn’t enraged and horrified by this election must not work with any marginalized populations …… or in education or libraries. If I’m employed and not in jail in 5 years time, it will be a miracle. And speaking of misinformation……

• Head to the comments on this

  Strong Sense of Place
  piece for some feel-good books after reading about my dystopian future.

• As always,

  The Seasonalist
  comes through with the CONTENT ~ love this interview with a librarian friend about holiday books!

• Ah yes, a little rage sandwich.

  Dana Miranda
  wrote every perfect word with impeccable brilliant fury about why I want to step on every single person who claims to have voted Republican because of high prices. I WILL RELEASE MY MORNING-THUNDER-FUELED-FURY ON YOU.

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And now the books! I was going back through all of my reads from the past six months and realized that there were a few great ones from this summer that slipped through the newsletter cracks! I present them to you today ~ a motley mix.

Oye by Melissa Mogollon ~ This is AMAZING on audio! It's as if it were made precisely for this format, given that the entire story takes place in one-way phone calls and voice messages from teenage Luciana to her older sister Mari. This is a family story, one of a large Columbian-American clan, and one of natural disasters and aging and loss. It's somewhat of a coming of age and coming out story as well, and it all just melds together into a tale you just won't want to stop listening to.

Boss Lady by Alli Frank & Asha Youmans ~ I'm really just loving this author duo - I have enjoyed every book they have written together so far! This book was such a treat, with a middle-aged single mother navigating life with her teen daughters and a job in the airport, alongside her lifelong dream of entrepreneurship, her feisty aging mother, and the husband who abandoned the family years ago. It's so refreshing to read about someone with a different kind of job than is so often depicted in women's fiction, especially a customer-facing job in an airport, which I find just fascinating.

The Marriage Sabbatical by Lian Dolan ~ As someone in a 20-year marriage, this book was made for me. It's a thoughtful contemplation on what keeps a marriage alive over the years, and what can potentially break it or reinvigorate it. Readers who can't even bear the thought of infidelity can just go ahead and skip this one, since that's a major premise of the book, but readers with an open mind might be interested to see how this story tackles the concept of opening up a marriage for a finite period. Honestly, though, it's not the opening of a marriage that interested me so much about this book. It was the concept of a long-married couple being able to be completely free to live their dreams - apart - for a finite period, and not have that be a death knell to a marriage. This isn't a romance, and it isn't a light story. It's just a character-driven story investigating the lives of a middle-aged married couple, and I loved it.²

Have you read any of these books? Have any unsung favorites I should know about? I would love to hear!

That’s all for this week ~ thanks for reading!

I love to hear from readers, so please do reach out to me with questions or feedback at mindfullibrarian@substack.com . If we aren’t already connected on Goodreads, I would love to see you there as well!

1. for anyone new here ~ plantar fasciitis that I let go way way way way too long without taking care of, and a really miserable month of October.

2. I’m a child of divorce, married to a child of divorce, in a happy marriage, and in awe at the entire institution and STAMINA it all takes