Help Save USPS and Get a Book - What's Not to Love?

Perhaps you've heard that things in the US are, in general, garbage. Among all of the garbage things, because there is so much, is the threat to the United States Postal Service. I won't go into what's going on or why because all I'd be doing is quoting people far smarter than me who have already written about it, but instead here are some links

How You Can Support the USPS - LifeHacker

Save the Postal Service - The Atlantic

Why we need the Postal Service - CNN

Congress must stand up to the White House and deliver relief to the Postal Service - The Washington Post

The Postal Service Is in Deep Trouble. Here’s One Way to Get It Out. - Politico

Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal System Ahead of Voting - The New York Times

And if you'd rather listen, here's a podcast from Secretly Incredibly Fascinating about US Post Offices

I'm trying to think what I can do, in my small way, to help. I've reached out to my elected officials (and will probably reach out again a few more times). We have stamps. Then I saw my box of books to donate to the local library. While I would hate to deny my library books that they can sell to help fund the library they a) aren't taking any right now because of the pandemic and b) I've already donated about half my books to them in the before-times. So I figure, what if I offered some of these books to people who want them and I can use USPS to get them to you.

Here you go. If you want any of these books below, leave me a comment and we can connect via email to get addresses and whatnot. I do want to caveat that I can't promise how quickly I will get to the post office (because of pandemic and having a small one in the house ALL THE TIME because of pandemic) but I will do my best and I will make sure to keep you up to date. Anyway, here are the books I have that I don't want to have anymore but you might want to have. So have at it.

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
• The Dinner by Herman Koch
• Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex by Shmuley Boteach
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
• A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan
• Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffengger
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
• Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days by Joey Coleman
• Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen
• The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein
• My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler
• Cherry: A Memoir by Mary Karr
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• With My Body by Nikki Gemmell

July Reading Wrap Up

Each day is 1000 hours long but also flying by at lightning speed, right? For example, it's taken me about 20 minutes to write this far because as soon as I started the goblin (who had been sitting quietly entertaining himself) NEEDED to be in my lap and show me animal noises and I can't NOT do that. Because it's cute and want to spend time with him and also because he will not let me do anything else. 

Speaking of the goblin, it was his birthday this month, so he's officially into the terrible twos except, he's mature for his age (i.e., he has been in this stage for A WHILE now) but it was exciting and also sad that we couldn't do much to celebrate. I mean, not for him, he didn't know what he missed, he just knew he got ice cream cake. But I was sad we couldn't do more. Hopefully we'll be able to better celebrate next year (though honestly, who knows).

One other update before the stats, but last post I wrote about a book I was listening to, Andrea Vernon & The Corporation for Ultrahuman Protection, and how I've been searching for a book that is office satire but the office's business is something ridiculous and I have been burned in the past by books that promised this premise and then DID NOT DELIVER. But I am happy to report that this one did. AND I was a fan of the narrator (Bahni Turpin, who also narrated So You Want to Talk About Race, where I also liked her narration.) So happy I might actually write a review about it. *Gasp*

Anyway, stat time

Number of books read

3

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

Nut Jobs: Cracking California's Strangest $10 Million Heist by Marc Fennell (which is sort of a podcast more than a book but I got it from Audible so I'm counting it)

Andrea Vernon & The Corporation for Ultrahuman Protection by Alexander C. Kane

Number of pages read

726

This is the lowest number this year by a long shot. For whatever reason this month, I just wasn't in the mood for a lot of books and ended up listening to podcasts or music or honestly just scrolling through nonsense social media. I should have probably been reading but focus has been an issue. Though looking at past stats, it's not that unusual for the summer, so maybe it's the weather. I was hoping to at least hit 1,000 pages for the month but didn't happen so what are you gonna do?

Fiction

33%

POC authors

33%

Female authors

33%

US authors

67%

Book formats

audiobook: 100%

Where'd I get the book

Kindle/Audible: 100%

Decades published

2010s: 33%

2020s: 67%

Resolution books

67%

Wow, No Thank You is by Samantha Irby, a black woman

Nut Jobs is by Marc Fennell, an Australian author/reporter

And while this doesn't actually count towards the resolution count, it is sort of nice that the titular Andrea Vernon is a Haitian-American and her boss (and other main character) is Korean-American. And several of the superheroes are people of color. Still by a white guy but at least not an all-white cast.