WORDS

• Sometimes when I read personal finance articles about living on a budget, the budget in question is two or three times what I make in a year. This piece from the Financial Diet about living on a $24K salary in New York City is both interesting and more relatable.
• The New York Times gathered 12 pieces of writing from authors including Barbara Kingsolver and Amy Tan in which they share their love for libraries.
• Lit Hub is highlighting 10 books that define a decade. The focus is on 1920 here. (I’ll be posting a similar series soon where I talk about my favorite books from certain decades.)
• If you’re a person of faith, check out this thoughtful post by Addie Zierman. Her ideas about love and judgment are beautifully expressed and much needed right now. This follow-up post is also excellent.
• As someone who occasionally struggles with anxiety, I’ll take any tips I can get, including this one from Cup of Jo.
• Speaking of anxiety, Matt Haig talked to the Guardian about his new picture book for children and how he hopes it will help those who struggle with mental health issues. (I recommended Haig’s book Reasons to Stay Alive in this post.)

INSPIRATION

As part of some recent library training, I’ve been assigned a course by Ryan Dowd about the best practices for interacting with patrons who are homeless. I’m about halfway through the course and have been impressed with Dowd’s insights, not only about homelessness but also trauma and poverty. I looked him up on YouTube and found this talk he gave about moral failure. It’s worth your time.

SCREEN

I saw A Star Is Born last Sunday and am still thinking about it. It’s a phenomenal film.

MUSIC

The soundtrack to A Star Is Born has been on frequent rotation this week.

WEBSITE

Wakelet is a site I discovered for the first time this past week. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s as if Pinterest and Pocket had a baby. It allows you to create collections of links, photos, text, PDFs, and tweets. Wakelet is easy to use and is well designed. I’ve been playing with it a lot, and am a big fan so far.