15th Blogiversary
February 3, 2023
All of this began on February 3, 2008, with a post about how Necromancy Never Pays got its name. It’s been fifteen years so far, of writing about what we can learn from literature.
In honor of the blogiversary, please give me suggestions for fiction you’ve enjoyed. I love reading what other people recommend!
Here is a picture of my cats. I’m nursing Tristan (the white one, a flamepoint siamese mix) through end-stage kidney failure, so it’s good that I’m home more and can sit with him purring on my shoulder as I read.
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Necromancy Never Pays 
Glad you’re on the job – and still enjoying it. Happy Anniversary!
Thanks!
Congratulations on 15 years Jeanne! Sorry to hear about Tristan, he looks a handsome boy. Wishing you cosy days together which it sounds like you are very much having.
Thanks you. Yes, we’re staying cosy and making the most of his last days.
Ailing cats are always deeply upsetting, as all cat-owners know, so I commiserate, Jeanne. After half a century of owning a succession of individual moggies we regretfully decided we couldn’t take the heartache any more, though it gave us more freedom to travel … just as Brexit, Covid and now a UK recession reared its head. Hmm.
Books? I’ve read a few… I’m currently enjoying, but not totally loving, Rebecca Kuang’s doorstopper Babel – an alternative history novel set in Oxford, focused on words, etymology, the roots of colonialism, difference, you’d think it would be right up my street but I shall reserve judgement till I’ve completed the 500+ pages. And I recently liked The Evidence, a Christopher Priest thriller combining speculative features with a murder mystery, all entirely to my taste but to judge from Goodreads not to quite a few others’.
I would have already found a younger cat to help me through this transition with Tristan except that we have also decided to try to stop acquiring animals so that we can travel more.
I’ve been wondering about Babel, so glad to hear what you think. I’ll look at The Evidence!
Happy happy blogging birthday, and I am SO sorry about Tristan’s illness. I’ll say a prayer for St. Francis for him and you.
(I don’t have any book recs at this moment because although I read like crazy in January, nothing really sparked my fancy in the way I wanted it to. Kate Alice Marshall’s These Fleeting Shadows was a damn good time — maybe that one?
These Fleeting Shadows sounds like a good title for these February days.
Happy Blogiversary! I’m very sorry about your kitty. 💜
Thank you. I’m trying to keep him comfortable and feeling glad I can be home enough to do it.
Sorry to hear about Tristan, Jeanne. My own 16yo (Wesley) needs a vet checkup pronto. (I *think*) he’s drinking a lot of water these days, and he’s lost a lot of weight this year, so I fear feline diabetes. (It’s tough to estimate his water consumption since we swapped to a low, broad dish and moved it up to the warmer kitchen radiator area. Maybe I’m just more aware of when he’s drinking than when he went halfway down the basement stairs for it?)
I’m glad you’re still blogging!
We also feared it was feline diabetes from those same symptoms, but it was kidney failure.
I’m glad you’re still reading!
Congratulations on 15 years and thank you for all the thought-provoking posts! Sending hugs to you and a very gentle hug to Tristan.
You’re so welcome, and thank you.
Sending you good thoughts as you care for Tristan.
A recommendation: Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life.
Thanks! I’m still reading Moby Dick–I put it in my bedside table (for 15 years I haven’t been able to keep anything on my bedside table because it’s one of Tristan’s places to drape himself) to read before bed because I ran out of Martin Walker mysteries.
Happy Bloggiversary! and sad news about Tristan. Many {{{hugs}}} Cat purrs are the BEST.
Thank you, they are. I’m getting some as I type this because Tristan has moved from my shoulder to the back of my chair (where he is in the photo).
15 years! Glad you are keeping it up; I always enjoy your posts and comments. Poor Tristan, poor you. I’m glad you can have this cozy quiet time together.
Thank you! I’m glad we can too.
Happy Blogiversary! So sorry about Tristan. I am glad you are able to spend so much time with him.
A wonderful nonfiction book of essays I read recently: Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
Thanks. I was recently introduced to Ross Gay when Laila (at Big Reading Life) said she liked The Book of Delights, which I have a bookmark in partway through.
Many happy returns of the blog! Fiction recs? From 2023 so far, I enjoyed The Monsters We Defy, Rocannon’s World (more than I’d expected), and Cloudstreet.
I am sorry about Tristan, but it’s good to hear he is still comforted by being with you. May your reading and blogging be a comfort to you at this sad time.
Thanks. Book recommendations to keep me in the chair Tristan prefers me to be in will make things a little easier.
I will be celebrating my own fifteen-year-blogoversary in June. I’m thinking about how I might like to celebrate.
Recent fiction reads: Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet was a thoughtful read. We All Want Impossible Things was another standout.
I always celebrate my blogiversary by getting a copy of the last year’s posts in book form, using blog2print. I recommend it, if you like to see your posts in print.
Thanks for the recommendations!
Happy blogiversary! I’m glad you’re here.
So sorry to hear about Tristan. Aging cats are a heartache and a joy all at once. ❤️ I’m glad you’re able to be home with him.
Recent reads I loved: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Philyaw, Surrender by Bono, Early Morning Riser by Heiny.
Thanks for saying so! And thanks for the recommendations!
You’re so right, that aging cats are heartache and joy at once.
May the next 15 years be equally successful and enjoyable! Congrats on the milestone!
Thank you!
It’s like your kitty is in hospice: at home, with the humans he loves, and maintaining quality time.
One fiction book I would recommend:
Cruddy by Lynda Barry
How wonderful that you’ve been here for 15 years. I started almost 10 years ago, and I think of my site as a “grandma blog” for that age. You must have achieved “grand wizard” status, or something, by now!
“Grand rambler” or something, perhaps!