Skip to main content

December Wrap-Up

Books Read This Month

  1. Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age by Michael Olesker
  2. Embrace Your Weird by Felicia Day
  3. The 100 Most Jewish Foods, Ed. Alana Newhouse
  4. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
  5. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (reread)
  6. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (reread)
Thoughts 


First, I want to highly, highly recommend Embrace Your Weird by Felicia Day. I've been a fan of hers since watching the Guild and I also read her memoir, You're (Almost)Never Weird on the Internet. My husband is also a huge fan of hers and we used to watch a lot of Geek & Sundry, and that's how he got into Critical Role. My husband actually got this for me. I didn't even know she had a new book out. The promotion for this one has been much more low-key, but I want to shout it from the rooftops! This is such a fun book, or really, a guided journal. Although it's meant to help jumpstart creativity, which it definitely does, I personally found it helpful on a therapeutic level. It's like therapy in book form, and deals especially with issues like anxiety, but really, anything that creatives might struggle with that gets in the way of them and their work or having fun. This is really for anyone who wants to do anything creative for any reason or is just looking for stress-relief. It's low-pressure, quirky, and relaxing in an active way. I recommend buying this along with a nice pencil or two. I actually ended up using colored pencils for some of the drawing prompts, but it's totally up to you!

Second, the His Dark Materials series, starting with The Golden Compass, were among my favorite books as a kid. I remember finding The Subtle Knife in my school library, and then the long wait until The Amber Spyglass came out. I was eager to see HBO's new His Dark Materials television series, which I loved, but I wanted to reread the books to see how accurate the show was. After finishing the first two books, the show, which covers the first book and the first chapter or so of the second book is not only riveting but extremely close to the source material. I'm enjoying this reread immensely; it has been so many years, I have forgotten a lot. It's also nice to see that even though they are children's books, they really hold up to an adult reading. Also, luckily for me, the second book in Philip Pullman's new series on Lyra, The Secret Commonwealth, is out, and I got a copy for Hanukkah, so I can read that next!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel *To Be Released from New Door Books on April 10, 2018* Mindy Vogel is haunted by the future. In frequent daydreams, she toggles between her real, wheelchair-bound life and the adventurous life of her fanfic alter ego, SkyLog officer Kat Wanderer. She's haunted by all that Kat can do which she cannot---belong to an organization of comrades, walk, and fall in love---yet. Because at twenty-four, Mindy's future is very much ahead of her, wheelchair notwithstanding. Through Mindy's "SkyLog" fanzine and related emails, Seidel evokes Star Trek fandom around the turn of the millenium, but also creates a new and compelling science fictional universe, similar to what Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl  does for the Harry Potter fandom with "Simon Snow." Mindy is among the pioneers transitioning fandom from print to digital, boldly encountering like-minded individuals from the comfort of her chair behind the monito...

Books with Single-Word Titles

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Books with Single-Word Titles These are all my favorite books that I could think of with one-word titles. A lot of fantasy, a few nonfiction (minus subtitles) and Kindred , whether you consider it scifi or historical fiction. Also two portmanteaus using the word "bitter." I suppose it's a word that lends itself to amelioration. 1. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler 2. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore 3. Fire by Kristin Cashore 4. Heartless by Marissa Meyer 5. Inheritance by Christopher Paolini 6. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 7. Stoned by Aja Raden (has a subtitle) 8. Educated by Tara Westover 9. Fledgling by Octavia Butler 10. Kindred by Octavia Butler

The Ten Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection

 Most of the books I buy these days are ebooks, or books I'm technically "renting" (I guess that's the right term?) on Kindle Unlimited. I also get a few ebooks for review, usually from LibraryThing or directly from authors. Mostly I get books from the library, but I also try to buy/preorder from my favorite authors--sometimes ebooks or sometimes an actual book if I don't have a signed copy from that author yet! Here are the most recent books I've either bought or rented (TBR would be a whole other list!). Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Top Ten Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection Everlasting Spring: 101 Poems for Every Season of Life by Sonya Matejko (Ebook for review from LibraryThing) Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawagachi (Kindle Unlimited) Spark by Allie Lasky (Kindle Unlimited) The Hannukah Hook-Up by Jessica Topper (Kindle Unlimited) Hooked by M.C. Frank (Kindle Unlimited) A Dance of Blood and Destiny by K.R.S. ...