Space Station Mir

Happy Top Ten Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl ! Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I Read 1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy I read War and Peace . I know I read it because it took me a whole summer. Darned if I can remember anything but sleigh rides, balls, and the fact that there was a general. 2. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers Urgh. It's been (12!) years since I read this, so maybe I'd think differently now, but I remember finding the narrator incredibly pretentious and condescending. I only finished it because I had to read it for a class (and got into a huge argument with my teacher about it). I met Dave Eggers once at a reading, and he came off as a really nice guy and his other books all sound better, but honestly, I haven't been able to bring myself to read any. 3. Pamela by Samuel Richardson WORST. BOOK. EVER. I literally threw this book across a room. The sexual consent issues in this book drive me batty. It...

This year will mark my tenth as a book blogger. Since 2008, the book blogging world has shifted somewhat, with old players leaving, new ones entering, and sleek new personalized sites replacing tired old blogspots like mine. The end of the Broke and the Bookish , one of the first book blogs I followed, feels like the end of an era (although I'm happy that That Artsy Reader Girl will continue Top Ten Tuesdays). It' s time. Time to find new blog friends to follow, while I hold onto my old blog friends that are still around. I may not be the most chatty, but I appreciate you, and I'm reading! Please feel free to check out some of these blogs as well, and introduce me to new friends or anyone I've been missing out on! New Blogs I'm Following (Note: these are probably not new blogs, just new to me!) 1. Rachel @ Never Enough Novels 2. Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl  (though obvs. I've been following her at the Broke and the Bookish for years, I'd never rea...

Bookish (And Not So Bookish) Thoughts are hosted at Bookishly Boisterous . 1. I am a hoarder. It's not completely new news to me, but I was trying to get rid of more of my boxes of stuff, and...I was just getting so emotional, I couldn't. Intellectually, I know that I don't still need that red wig I used for a Halloween costume ten years ago or an entire box of notebooks from my school years or all the Disney figurines from every birthday cake I've ever had, but I can't throw it away. Not now. Not yet. 2.  Finished listening to A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. It chronicles Sidra, formerly Lovelace, an AI illegally downloaded into a humanesque body, and Pepper, formerly Jane23, a refugee born and bred to be a factory slave. Basically, this book was written for me. I'm all about character development, and just enough plot to pull that along. Plus, space. And aliens. The only downside was that I was more into one story than the other (Pepper/Jane...

Top Ten Tuesdays are now hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. 1. Read at least 54 books. 2. Read more books on Jewish themes and/or by Jewish authors. 3. Read more books on African American themes and/or by African American authors. 4. Read more books about other cultures, including majority cultures outside the U.S.A. and minority cultures within and without the U.S.A. 5. Write at least 50,000 words during the year (not including November). 6. Interview at least one person for my book. 7. Reach out to thank at least one author for their book. 8. Bake (and cook) more recipes from my cookbooks. And I'll leave a couple to grow on :-)

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at the Broke and the Bookish ! This week's topic is "Ten Books We Meant to Read in 2017 But Didn't Get To," however, since I can only think of a few, I'm also listing books I intend to read in 2018.  Books I Meant to Read in 2017 But Didn't Get To 1. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin 2. Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear 3. Brave New Girls: Stories of Girls Who Science and Scheme ed. Paige Daniels and Mary Fan Books I Want to Read in 2018 1. L'Appart by David Lebovitz 2. If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan 3. America's First Daughter by Laura Kamoie and Stephanie Dray 4. Crimes Against a Book Club by Kathy Cooperman 5. The Tiger's Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera 6. The Gatekeepers by Jen Lancaster 7. He, She, It by Marge Piercy

Bookish (And Not So Bookish) Thoughts are hosted at Bookishly Boisterous 1. Today is a snow day! Although I was expecting to face the polar vortex that is the East Coast right now, it wasn't certain if we would get snow, and I certainly didn't expect to have the day off, so this is nice! 2. So far, I've managed to take my dog out for a quick pit stop, and read some of Pie Love by Warren Brown, which I received as a gift. Baking may or may not ensue today. 3. I'm planning to visit Nora Roberts' Turn the Page bookstore this weekend. We'll see if the polar vortex obliges. 4. I'm thinking about reading and writing goals for this year, and I'm newly excited for blog posts in 2018. This time last year, I was all caught up with wedding planning, now I can focus on whatever I want!

Happy New Year! I'm starting off with a roundup of my reading from 2017! 2017 Reading Stats As usual, borrowed and modified from Boston Bibliophile. How many books read in 2017? 64, 12 more than my goal of 52! How many fiction and non fiction?  40 fiction, 21 nonfiction (who am I???), and 3 books of poetry.  Male/Female author ratio? 40 women, 21 men, 1 multi-author poetry collection, 1 multi-author short story collection, and 1 book by a husband/wife team Writers of Color/Minority Writers? 17 writers of color/minority writers, 14 of whom are Jewish, including one African American Jewish author ( my former Hebrew school teacher, Michael Twitty) Favorite book of 2017?   The Magician King and The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman . After taking such a long break since reading the first book, which deeply and painfully affected me, it was incredible to see the development of Quentin as a character and of  The Magicians itself as a world.  ...