Life has gotten a little crazy, and for a while I'm going to have much less time to craft the original, well-thought-out content that you've all come to know and love (*cough*). Thankfully, the fantastic book bloggers I follow put up oodles of excellent posts every week. This feature will help keep my blog rolling and serve as inspiration to dive into my Feedly reader every now and then, no matter how nutty the unread count gets.

Happy Friday, y'all! Welcome to the third edition of my Real Good Roundup. If you hadn't noticed, my posting was a little sparse (read: nonexistent) this week, and I'm more grateful than ever for some built-in content to keep things from plummeting to absolute zero.

Without further ado, here's a sampling (in no particular order) of some of the best things I've read recently, both bookish and less so:

• The giveaway portion of this post might be over, but Shannon of River City Reading's list of books for new teachers still offers up some excellent-sounding primers for the structural and social issues inherent to the American education system. I don't plan to go into teaching, and I'm excited to check some of these out!


• Lauren of Malcolm Avenue Review recently had her golden retriever, Bird, trained as a therapy dog. The pair attended their first official therapy event last week, and adorable photos and heartwarming stories ensued.


• Michelle of Free (Read and) Write analyzed the heck out of Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, focusing on the relative dearth of interdisciplinary collaboration in academia and how careful one has to be when writing a research-heavy book intended for the layman. Her points are great, and I asked her if we can be research-nerd buddies. (She said yes.)


• Leah of Books Speak Volumes read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Despite some pause with the book overall, Leah shared five extra-tasty morsels for thought, ranging from how to balance fear and creativity to how acknowledging (and accepting) the possibility of failure can show you what you truly love.


• Jessica at Don't Mind the Mess asserted that there is no one right way to blog, and anyone who tells you so is wrong. After fretting all week about my lack of posting, this was exactly what I needed to read.