Happy September! It’s time for another reading journal update.

I had frequent bad headaches in August because of the wildfire smoke in California. Most days, I felt so dizzy that I couldn’t look at a computer or TV screen. But because I couldn’t do much else, I spent a lot of time reading. I’m still catching up on reviewing all of the books that I read. Here are my final stats for August:

I read 19 books (over six thousand pages) which is double what I’ve read every month except July. This included the entire Temeraire series, which I finally finished for the first time. I abandoned it years ago after I was disappointed in the seventh book, Crucible of Gold, but book eight was sitting on my shelf the whole time. I made it a personal goal just to read till the end of the series. I’ve also tried some dark academia–looking forward to spooky season!

If the picture seems a little furry, that’s my assistant, who likes to be on my desk while I’m working so she can have a close eye on what I’m doing.

Moving on to this month. You may remember that I’ve already done two nautical themes in a row, with Ocean Animals in July and Mermaids in August. But since September 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day, one of my favorite holidays, I had to go for a third nautical theme!

I have so many pirate-themed stationery items that the hard part was narrowing it down to keep this page from being too busy or chaotic. Except for the washi. Why are there no good pirate washi tape designs? I’ve looked and I have some skulls, but those are only pirate-adjacent. I tried to use more generic nautical ones, like those anchors and the maps from Simply Gilded, but both are a little too bright and cheery to match with the pirates.

Please, washi tape designers of the world, make me a good pirate set. With darker colors like browns and blacks and red. I would buy so much of that. I like pretty colors and pastels sometimes, but it clashes with this pirate aesthetic.

Anyway, I’ve already finished reading my first book in September, so here is the first entry:

I’ve read the other Wayward Children novellas (Tor gave them away for free last December) and enjoyed them, but “Across the Green Grass Fields” is probably my favorite so far. I read it more or less in one sitting. I may write a longer review later, but you can see my general thoughts if you can read my handwriting. I recommend the whole series.