I do love a good self-help book. SARK's Succulent Wild Woman came out the year I turned 25 and although I outgrew SARK (lady, I need a job and can't spend my days in a nap hut) never stopped reading on how to be calmer, better, more vibrant, more confident version of myself. Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn - This book is part of WM's collection so I gave it a go. I'm always searching for calm and to try to be happy where I currently am (sitting at a desk that needs to be ...
Read in 2023: Two Magical Realism books
I try to read all genres of books but I do have my preferences. I enjoy nonfiction, summery beach books, some fantasy, some romance, scant YA. Not deep fantasy, not murder/torture, not dystopian. But a genre that's caught my eye lately is magical realism, which are works of fiction that seem to be about real life, but work in a magical component that everyone is aware of. These two books were on my to be read list for a while and I was fortunate enough to find them both at my library on the same ...
A long weekend with a longer one to come
This is what a three-day weekend looks like when you're a middle-aged adult: This will be a short yet hectic workweek because I have a half-day tomorrow (aforementioned mammogram with ultrasound if necessary and I swear to Pete if I need another biopsy I will cut my own bangs), and am off again on Friday for a little bit of adventuring! I finished Spare and I felt really badly for Harry. As badly as I can feel for a super rich, super privileged man, that is. He writes about how his ...
The British Royal Family gossip Superbowl is almost upon us!
When I was young, my grandmother used to mail us her weekly copies of the Star and Enquirer. I didn't bother watching The Crown because I read Kitty Kelley's book and it could get no better than that. My homeschool PhD in the affairs of the Windsor-Mountbatten family makes me eminently qualified to say I believe 90% of what Prince Harry is saying to the press, in the Netflix documentary, and in his upcoming memoir Spare. Which I have, of course, preordered. It is truly a gift to have ...
Show Us Your Books: September 2021
Do you remember?The second Tuesday of September?Don't even need to be a member!To show us your books todayyyyyyyyy! BAAAAAADEEEEYAAAA! The plotlines we dismember!BAAAAAADEEEEYAAAA! Reading always sparks an ember!BAAAAAADEEEEEYAAA! We're blogging about books todaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! It was only a three-book month for me. I'm studying between 9 and 12 hours a week for the CAE exam (obviously one of the worst ideas I've ever had), so pleasure reading has taken a backseat until December. ...
Show us your books: August 2021
Welcome to the monthly book post, where I share what I read while trying to be kind to myself and not beat myself up for reading more. For the last few weeks, my life has resembled a stereotypical country music song without the pretty wife who cooks and cleans my house but I still managed to get the reading done. Yay me! Without further ado, because honestly I'm still a weepy mess about Ollie and the more I type the worse this post will be and I do like people to come back to my ...
Show Us Your Books May 2020
Book post day! One of my favorite bloggy days of the month. It's another four-book month and that is fine. You'll see a reason why my reading is lower than usual in a few. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power -- Deirdre Mask This is exactly the kind of nonfiction book that I love. It's well-researched, relatable, and very easy to read. And you're thinking, "A book about street addresses? Okaaaaaaaaay, nerd." But listen! I had no idea ...
Show Us Your Books April 2020
Book time! I'm continuing to be gentle with myself w/r/t reading goals and such, but this is another four book update and I am pleased. Because if I *did* have a reading goal for 2020 it would be 50 books, and an average of four books a month would put me almost right at that goal. If I cared about reading goals, that is. I read two of these books within three days. You'll notice that I very rarely give a book fewer than 3 stars - it's because of this book linkup! My big reading news ...
Show Us Your Books January 2021
It feels so nice to write 2021. Even if things are ... more of the same. I'm starting to say, "hey self, stop doomscrolling on your phone at nights and maybe read some of these books? Hm?" I read four books since I last recapped. Two were part of my 2020 total. Here for It; Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays - R. Eric Thomas. Thomas wrote a fantastic and hilarious collection of essays about being an outsider. Working-class Black sent to an affluent mostly-white school and ...
Show Us Your Books: My Favorite Reads of 2020
Remember when I used to regularly read? Me too. It was early 2020. The before times when I used to take a train to work every day and NOT spend that time doomscrolling about the weird new virus in Wuhan, China. In the end, I still read 40 books this year. It might end up at 41 if I finish Christina Lauren's Holidaze, which I should. In rereading many of my books posts it seems like I spend a lot of time being sheepish about my weak numbers. That ends now. Let's try this again...I read ...
Show Us Your Books – October 2020
I miss commuting to my job in the city for many reasons, but one of them is the enforced reading time. My commute consisted of a 26 minute train ride, and a 15 minute shuttle ride in the morning, and the the 26 minute train ride in the afternoon. Plus the time spent waiting for said trains and shuttle. That's a good hour and twenty minutes of time per day where all I could do was read. Now I work from home, meaning I sleep in, work past my quit time, then immediately get up and go to the kitchen ...
Show Us Your Books SPRING/SUMMER 2020
You see what I did there with the title? Friends, I'm having a reading problem. It's really really hard for me to read right now. Even the fun, summer, beachy books that I love are a slog, because every time I read about a coffee shop or a picnic or a restaurant or a bar or a carnival or a beach or even two strangers being near each other my heart HURTS. We've lost so much that we could have had back by now because people just couldn't sacrifice the yearly family vacation or the swim club or ...
