Space Station Mir

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl ! I'm not that into cover art, so I'm using today's Top Ten Tuesday for a topic I've been meaning to talk about..my favorite books from the past decade! My Favorite Books of the 2010s The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, 2013 The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (2015, 2016, 2017) How Long 'Til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin, 2018 The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater (2012, 2013, 2014, 2016) The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, 2013 The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty, 2017 The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and Smitten Kitchen Everyday by Deb Perelman (2012, 2017) American Cake and American Cookie by Anne Byrne (2016, 2018) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014 The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders, 2019 Educated by Tara Westover, 2018 The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, 2014 Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, 2015 Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice o...

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl ! The Top Ten Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf 1. Touched With Fire: Morris B. Abram and the Battle Against Racial and Religious Discrimination  by David E. Lowe So excited to read this! The author is my former neighbor and good friend's dad, so I'm biased, but he gave an incredible, well-attended talk at Politics & Prose bookstore in D.C. and just won the National Jewish Book Award for Biography ! My parents made sure that I got much of my Hanukkah wishlist : 2. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg 3. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern 4. Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman My parents actually found a signed copy of this at Barnes & Noble! 5. The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman My other latest additions were some thrift store finds: 6. Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster She always makes me laugh! 7. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman Found this in the thrift store just in time...

2020-Bookish Goals 1. Read at least 60 books Last year, I read 89 books, the most I've read in a year in my entire adult life, but I had an unusual year job-wise, and I'm not sure what this year holds for me in that direction, so I want to keep my reading manageable and fun. 2. Reread old favorites and books I have more to learn from Towards the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, I reread Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and enjoyed it so much. It's probably been at least fifteen years since I read it in full and it was still compelling and thoughtful as an adult. The past few years, I've been focusing a lot on new releases and chugging through new-to-me books, but I'm feeling it's time to go back and reread those books that are really meaningful to me. I don't have particular titles in mind, but I want to make more deliberate space for rereading this year. 3. Continue participating in book clubs Last year, I joined a book club for the...

Happy Top Ten Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl ! Top Ten  Five Most Anticipated Books Arriving in the First Half of 2020 1. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel-Mar. 2020 I loved Station Eleven, and this one intrigues me. Also, everyone seems to have an ARC of it, and I'm so jealous! 2. The Empire of Dreams by Rae Carson-April 2020 I loved the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy and I'm excited for another novel set in that universe! 3. We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry-Mar. 2020 A girls' field hockey team turns into witches? I need to read this. 4. The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin-Mar. 2020 Everything N.K. Jemisin writes gets better and better. Plus. I've already read the shirt story I'm pretty sure this is based on. 5. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins-May 2020 HUNGER GAMES. 'Nuff said. Annnd that's it, because I want to focus on rereads and old TBRs and books I already own or can readily get at the librar...

2019 Reading Stats As usual, borrowed and modified from the sadly now discontinued  Boston Bibliophile. How many books read in 2019?  89, which is the most I've read in a year in my entire adult life, and totally busted last year's previous record of 73! How many fiction and nonfiction?  69 fiction, 19 nonfiction, and 1 poetry  Male/female author ratio?  79 books by women and 10 by men Writers of Color/Minority Writers?  At least 10 books by writers of color, an additional 18 by Jewish writers (how fortuitous!), and at least two by LGBTQ writers that I know of Favorite book of 2019?  Wow, I don't know. I feel like this was at least three different years in my reading life. I loved the first book I read in 2019, How Long Til Black Future Month ? by N.K. Jemisin. I loved Man Fast by Natasha Scripture, which I read in August, and feels like a million years ago. Most recently, I loved  Embrace Your Weird by Felicia Day. Longest ...

Books Read This Month Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age by Michael Olesker Embrace Your Weird by Felicia Day The 100 Most Jewish Foods, Ed. Alana Newhouse The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (reread) 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 pers...

Join TCL's Eight Candles Book Tag over at The Chocolate Lady! TCL's Eight Candles Book Tag in Honor of Hanukkah Happy Hanukkah/Chanukah/Hannukah! The first night starts tonight! First Candle – All Alone  – A book you love, but one that no one else seems to know anything about.  Second Candle – Two of You  – A book both you, and someone special to you, have both really enjoyed.   When we first started dating, I got my husband to read this :-) Third Candle – Trifecta  – A book where there is either a love (or hate) triangle, or with three different points of view, or something else related to the number three.   There are three points of view in The Other Queen : the eponymous Mary, Queen of Scots; Bess of Hardwick; and Bess's husband, George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury. The latter two are charged with holding the Queen of Scots under house imprisonment for Elizabeth I, but Mary may be trying to seduce the Earl to her side....

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl ! Top Ten Books On My 2019-2020 Winter TBR List 1. The Power by Naomi Alderman 2. I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Mr. Rogers by Tim Madigan 3. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern 4. The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman 5. Circe by Madeline Miller 6. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite 7. Know My Name by Chanel Miller 8. Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine 9. The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas 10. The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa