Hello everyone and welcome to Books Unbound, the podcast where we Unbind books to get to their hearts

with your hosts us. It's Ariel and Raylene. We are here today. Not going to lie, a little downtrodden. We're both a little not as active as

usual. I have just gotten, this is the first day, okay, where I have felt myself. I have just

gotten out of a sickness, a week-long illness. I texted some friends.

I forget if I texted this to you, but I was, I've fallen ill. I literally just, I felt like a

Jane Austen character that had fallen ill. You just need to go to the sea.

Exactly. I just needed some time by the seaside. It was so bad. You guys, I haven't been that sick in ages, but I know, I mean,

you were just sick a couple weeks ago. I was sick for two weeks as well. I've never been that sick

for that long. Like, it was bad. It knocked me out. But I probably won't be sick for like five years now.

That would be kind of a good trade-off. Like I kind of would be fine with that. A little extra

phlegm for a few extra years. I'll take it. It was just one of the, like, I mean, every year you get

sick. Once or twice, you get sick every year. I get that. But it just felt like I mean, every year you get sick. Once or twice you get sick every year.

I get that.

But it just felt like last year I didn't really get sick.

At least I don't remember it.

But then I feel like this one just was deeper.

It just went to a new depth in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time.

Part of me is like, you know, flus and COVID COVIDs and all of these, they do, they do continue to mutate. So I'm like, maybe it was like a new strain of something that got me or maybe it's because I'm in my 30s. I was wondering that too. I'm like, am I just weaker now? Am I just weak? I don't know what it was, but it was something and it got me good. And so the last week I have just been in bed. And it's, you know, again, actually I do kind of remember this for my last cold. It was one of those situations where you know you're actually sick. When you don't, you stop feeling bad about not working. You stop feeling bad about like not being productive. That doesn't even occur to you. It doesn't even occur to you. I'm a slug. I just, I exist to lie down. Exactly. Exactly. I had multiple days of that. God. I went through two boxes of Kleenex. I'm very liberal in my Kleenex use, you know? To me, because to me, that's like the only tool I have. It's all I've got in the trenches. And I'm just like, Kleenex is my friend. And I just like really go through Kleenex a lot. Oh, God, it was horrible, though. It was horrible. I'm, I'm scared. Anyways, I'm still feeling quite tired and quite, I don't know if you can still hear it. Yeah, I can still hear hear in my throat. But I am still feeling quite tired.

But I'm excited for the episode today, everyone, because it's our quarterly update.

Oh, yes. So we started instituting these a couple of years ago because we like really leaning

into our yearly goals and that's like a big part of our reading process. And we like sharing that with you guys.

And then we realized, and because of actually some people's suggestions as well,

...