Tales by the Tide

📚 What I’ve Finished

• The Salt Path by Raynor Winn - A re‑read of this beloved memoir, and it still cracks me open. Its simple, raw beauty never fails to linger.
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - Another comfort read that reconnects me with gratitude and wonder.
• This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El‑Mohtar & Max Gladstone - Kit’s recommendation took me by surprise - eerie, lyrical, full of longing. I didn’t fully understand it, but I deeply felt it.

📖 What I’m Reading Now

• The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn - Also a re‑read. Her reflections on nature, grief, healing—they feel like familiar trails in my soul.
  
• The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner - Just embarked on this historical mystery. I’m excited for its dual timelines and atmospheric secrets.

🌊 What Surprised Me

That I’ve circled back to both Salt Path and Wild Silence so early - turns out the comfort of known landscapes is a balm when July feels heavy with the unknown.

Also surprising: how Time War moved me - its haunting, poetic pulses linger long after the last page.

🕵️‍♀️ On the Raynor Winn Investigation

This week, The Observer published an investigation claiming that key elements of Winn’s memoir may have been embellished or misrepresented - allegations of embezzlement, owning a second home during their “homeless” period, and questions about her husband’s CBD diagnosis. The charity PSPA has distanced itself, and Winn’s team has called the report “highly misleading” while pursuing legal advice 

As a reader who has found solace and strength in these stories, it's unsettling to see the foundations questioned. I still cherish the emotional truths the books carry, even if some factual details may now feel ambiguous. It’s a reminder of how deeply memoirs affect us—and how tangled the space between memory, storytelling, and truth can be.

✨ Standout Quotes & Moments

From The Salt Path:
“Just because you’re homeless doesn’t mean you haven’t got a life, a story, a place in the world.”

From Time War:
“Words can wound, or salve. They can kindle love, or spark war. They start revolutions and stop hearts.”

My own notebook:
“Re‑reading feels like returning to a true north - stories that are home, even when the world shifts.”

How is your July unfolding in terms of reading? Have any books surprised or rooted you this week? I’d love to hear your reflections.

Here’s to the stories that carry us through the days. ☀️

I hadn’t planned on spending my Sunday this way. But isn’t that always how the best things start?

Kit and I were chatting with someone earlier this week who casually mentioned book blogging - and before I knew it, we were talking about tracking our reads, posting reviews, and swapping WordPress tips. They recommended StoryGraph for cataloguing, and I’d never used it before. Out of curiosity, I signed up this morning… and suddenly I was knee-deep in uploading my entire book collection, trying to remember what I’ve read and when, and getting wildly distracted by all the mood and pacing tags.

I didn’t realize how satisfying it would be to see everything laid out like that - books I loved, books I forgot I owned, books I swear I meant to read in 2021. And even though I started the day just poking around, it ended up giving me a bit of clarity on why I want to start this blog.

I’ve always loved reading. But until now, I didn’t have one place to reflect on it - to gather thoughts, keep track of what I’m reading, and maybe connect with other readers. I’m not setting out to be a professional reviewer or anything. I just want to write about books the way I experience them: personally, emotionally, sometimes out of order.

So this is the start of Tales by the Tide - a little coastal-feeling book nook where I can share TBRs, thoughts, reading journals, and whatever else bubbles up. It’s early days (and I still have some serious tag-wrangling to do on StoryGraph), but I already feel like I’m carving out a space I’ll love coming back to.

Thank you for being here as I figure it out

I’ll be sharing my July TBR on Tuesday, if all goes well. For now, I’m just glad I followed the rabbit hole.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
— George R.R. Martin

– Blythe