How do I feel about staycations? I freaking love them. I hate packing. I have never loved traveling since becoming an adult and no longer being able to curl myself into an airplane chair. Now I have a back injury, anxiety and allergic asthma that is triggered by everything from strong cologne and perfume READ MORE
TOP TEN TUESDAY | AUTHORS I’D LOVE A NEW BOOK FROM
There are so many authors whose books have given me a gift that only that one book could give me. That gift is a new perspective, a new experience, a new turn of phrase, a good laugh – sometimes all of those things. Those books leave me wanting more of that experience, so inevitably READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
I’ve been spending most of my free time out in the garden, digging, pulling weeds, planting seeds, loosening packed earth, potting on seedlings, watering, chatting to the neighbours over the fence and watching fuzzy bee bums as they explore the few flowers that are in bloom. It’s a magical time of year, and the READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | RACELESS – GEORGINA LAWTON
I’m always looking for books that offer new views on to social construct we call race. I like reading both North American and European accounts, because it’s important to understand not only the similarities, but the differences between the two. This book, however, offers a story I’ve never encountered before: The story of a READ MORE
WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | FUNNY THINGS I’VE GOOGLED
I’ve been working on this post for weeks. Trying to take note of anything funny or interesting that I’ve looked up, or anything even remotely not boring. I’ve got nothing. Most of what I Google is how to plant different seeds, where different plants want to live, phone numbers for doctors or dentists in READ MORE
TOP TEN TUESDAY | FAVOURITE BOOK QUOTES
I’m doing an odd mix of quotes on a couple of topics this week. No rhyme or reason, no real point, just a meander through some that I liked or that I felt I could connect to. So here they are, in no particular order: Book quotes “My alma mater was books, a READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
What a surprise, I didn’t read any books this week either! The busy times continue as we had birthdays, mother’s day, and lots more to do in the garden! I snuck in a little more of one of my audiobooks, but that was really it. I have been watching old episodes of Who Do READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | MEREDITH, ALONE – CLAIRE ALEXANDER
Meredith hasn’t left her house in 1,214 days when we first meet her. It’s easy to judge this, to think it’s sad and unhealthy and even to those lacking in sympathy, pathetic. It’s easy to think that she must be miserable. And yet, she isn’t. She’s not exactly happy with her situation, but READ MORE
WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | BOOKS, MOVIES & TV SHOWS I WOULDN’T REVISIT (& WHY)
This is an interesting one. Normally I think about which shows I would like to watch again, but rarely do I think about which I wouldn’t. So this one has taken some thought and I’ve only come up with one so far. The Walking Dead. I enjoyed the characters in this, I was READ MORE
TOP TEN TUESDAY | MAY FLOWERS – BOOKS WITH FLOWERS ON THE COVER
I had so much fun with this prompt. I decided to go with books that have flowers on the cover, and I have to tell you, there are a LOT. There seems to have been a trend a few years back of making dramatic, flower-based cover art, which is both serving me well right READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Well, yet another week has gone by without finishing a book – though I have been chipping away at a few. It’s birthday season, so we have parties, shopping, planning, and wrapping going on! It’s also gardening season, so any spare moment I have is spent setting seeds, potting on seedlings, carrying plants in READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES – SHELBY VAN PELT
Who would have thought that a book partially narrated by an octopus could be one of the most evocative, touching reads I’ve encountered in the past year? And further to that, who would have guessed that the octopus himself would not only be my favourite character in the book – but one of my READ MORE
WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | VILLAINS I’D ROOT FOR INSTEAD OF THE PROTAGONISTS
Oh man. This is such an interesting prompt, but also a bit of a difficult one. My memory isn’t that great, particularly for books I read a while ago. I don’t remember that many books I’ve read with villains at all, let alone ones I’d root for. I do tend to enjoy books that READ MORE
TOP TEN TUESDAY | PETTY/MINOR REASONS I’VE DNFED A BOOK
Hmm. This is an interesting prompt, but I honestly don’t remember many of the reasons I’ve purposely DNFed a book. Most of the time when I don’t finish reading a book it’s either because it just didn’t grip me, or because I got distracted and forgot to come back to it. Honestly. I’m not READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
So really, at this point in my month-long (or longer) reading slump, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t finish a single book this week. I did read a little bit, but I’m doing that thing where I pick up or download a book, read a little bit, pause or put it READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE SOUND OF A WILD SNAIL EATING – ELISABETH TOVA BAILEY
As those of you who have been around here for a while know, I suffer from all kinds of medical issues, both physical and mental. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is an oddly rich yet short book that manages to encompass an entire piece of nature in incredible detail. Bailey became ill READ MORE
WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | SONGS THAT CONFUSED ME WHEN I WAS A KID
I feel like we had this one before, and I didn’t have a very good answer then either. I want to say all of them? I didn’t always get the words right (this was before we had the internet where we could google song lyrics), and even when I did get the words, I READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Well, true to form, I’ve not finished a single book this week. I do have excuses – our fridge broke, then the new one we had delivered is also broken, and we lost three days in shopping for a fridge, waiting around for delivery and plumbers, waiting around for repair people to get in READ MORE