Posted in Chatty

Upcoming & Recent holds I’m excited about!

Hey y’all! Just sharing some excitement and good luck I’ve had with getting in holds for newer books lately at my library. Have you heard of any of these?

From Borrower to wizard, Tom Felton’s adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame saw him catapulted into the limelight aged just twelve when he landed the iconic role of Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films.

Speaking with candour and his own trademark humour, Tom shares his experience of growing up on screen and as part of the wizarding world for the very first time. He tells all about his big break, what filming was really like and the lasting friendships he made during ten years as part of the franchise, as well as the highs and lows of fame and the reality of navigating adult life after filming finished.

Prepare to meet a real-life wizard.

Good people can be bad at relationships.

One night during his divorce, after one too many vodkas and a call with a phone-in-therapist who told him to “journal his feelings,” Matthew Fray started a blog. He needed to figure out how his ex-wife went from the eighteen-year-old college freshman who adored him to the angry woman who thought he was an asshole and left him. As he pieced together the story of his marriage and its end, Matthew began to realize a hard truth: even though he was a decent guy, he was a bad husband.

As he shared raw, uncomfortable, and darkly humorous first-person stories about the lessons he’d learned from his failed marriage, a peculiar thing happened. Matthew started to gain a following. In January 2016 a post he wrote–“She Divorced Me Because I left the Dishes by the Sink”–went viral and was read over four million times.

Filtered through the lens of his own surprising, life-changing experience and his years counseling couples, This Is How Your Marriage Ends exposes the root problem of so many relationships that go wrong. We simply haven’t been taught any of the necessary skills, Matthew explains. In fact, it is sometimes the assumption that we are acting on good intentions that causes us to alienate our partners and foment mistrust.

Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée™.

Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there” sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.

Posted in Book Talk

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Loved So Much I Bought a Physical Copy (or two…)

Hey y’all! Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish question idea that was originally created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, from way back in June 2010! Since January 2018, Top Ten Tuesday has been hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Thanks for taking it over! The idea is to make a list of ten books or bookish things on different topics each week. Check out her site for details on how to join and what the upcoming prompts are. 😊 You can also see all the posts from other bloggers linked on each weekly post on their main site.

Today’s prompt is books that I bought because I loved them so much (prompt recommended by Alecia @ The Staircase Reader). This is one that I can only join because of recent changes in my life, namely having space to HAVE a library of my own of shelves and shelves of books. It’s such a luxury, and it’s basically all I need to be happy in my home.

The books that have moved me most enough to buy a copy tend to be nonfiction or graphic novels (or sometimes both!). This is partly because nonfiction tends to have a lot of information that I like to quickly thumb through and refer to or dip back into on re-reads, and graphic novels or heavily illustrated books are nicer to have a physical copy of to enjoy the art. With that in mind… here’s my list!

The Books

Continue reading “Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Loved So Much I Bought a Physical Copy (or two…)”
Posted in Chatty

Library Love Challenge 2022!

Hey y’all! A couple years ago, I learned of a challenge that was able to wholeheartedly embrace, despite my usual struggles with reading challenges! My impulsiveness will not hinder me for this one, since it’s the 2022 Library Love challenge! Hosted by Angel’s Guilty Pleasures & Books of My Heart, the goal is simple: read books from the library!

Who doesn’t love the library? When I move to a new place, I always go to the library to check it out and get a card within a day or two of moving in. Usually before I’m even fully unpacked. Priorities, right? 👌🏼

So this year I’m joining the 2022 Library Love challenge and going to shoot for at least 36 books (the middle tier). I’ve learned my lesson:, in 2020 I blew that goal out of the water, and the same happened in 2021! So I’m finally seeing that I just read a lot more than I ever thought I would, and almost half of that reading comes from the library! So I’ll set my goal a little higher this year. ☺


Progress!

If you’re interested as well, go see the full post and sign up link from the hosts! The levels for the challenge are:

  • Dewey Decimal: Read 12 books
  • Thrifty Reader: Read 24 books
  • Overdrive Junkie: Read 36 books
  • Library Addict: Read 48 books
  • Library Card on Fire: Read 60+ books

My reads:

  1. How to Be Interesting by Jessica Hagy
  2. We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
  3. My Inner Sky by Mari Andrew
  4. 30 Things I Love About Myself by Radhika Sanghani
  5. Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Wen Hing
  6. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
  7. You Truly Assumed by Sabreen Laila
  8. People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd
  9. The Bone Orchard by Sara A Mueller
  10. Well-Behaved Indian Women by Saumya Dave
  11. Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens
  12. DEWEY DECIMAL LEVEL! So This is Ever After by F.T. Lukens
  13. I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin
  14. Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti
  15. You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar by Pyae Moe Thet War
  16. Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf
  17. An Arrow to the Moon by Emily X.R. Pan
  18. From Little Tokyo, with Love by Sarah Kuhn
  19. Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori
  20. Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship by Irene Latham, Charles Waters,
  21. The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
  22. Soundless by Richelle Mead
  23. The Noh Family by Grace K. Shim
  24. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
  25. THRIFTY READER LEVEL! A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair
  26. Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic by Lauren Ho
  27. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
  28. The Upside of Falling by Alex Light
  29. Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley
  30. The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
  31. If You Ask Me by Libby Hubscher
  32. A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer
  33. The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons
  34. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van pelt
  35. Heartstopper Vol. 2 by Alice Oseman
  36. OVERDRIVE JUNKIE LEVEL! Heartstopper Vol. 3 by Alice Oseman
  37. Heartstopper Vol. 4 by Alice Oseman
  38. Never Fall For Your Fiance by Virginia Heath
  39. Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan
  40. The Replacement Wife by Darby kane
  41. Nothing But The Truth by Holly James
  42. Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola
  43. Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club by Roselle Lim
  44. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
  45. The Bodyguard by Katherine Center
  46. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo
  47. Kiss and Tell by Adib Khorram
  48. LIBRARY ADDICT LEVEL! How To Be Second Best by Jessica Dettmann
  49. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
  50. Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld
  51. Seoulmates by Susan lee
  52. She’s Nice Though by Mia Mercado
  53. Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf by Hayley Krischer
  54. Dune, The Graphic Novel Vol. 1 by Brian Herbert
  55. Commute by Erin Williams
  56. Strange Planet #1 by Nathan W. Pyle
  57. The Office BFFs by Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer
  58. In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
  59. Dune, The Graphic Novel Vol. 2 by Brian Herbert
  60. LIBRARY CARD ON FIRE – MAX LEVEL! I Choose Darkness by Jenny Lawson
  61. Belonging by Nora Krug
  62. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  63. Where We End & Begin by Jane Igharo
  64. Counterfeit by Kristin Chen
  65. Will by Will Smith
  66. When The Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
  67. Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
  68. Loveless by Alice Oseman
  69. As You Wish by Cary Elwes
  70. The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak
  71. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
  72. Meredith, Alone by Claire Alexander
Posted in Chatty

How did I do with the 2021 Library Love Challenge?

Hey y’all! I took part in the library love reading challenge in 2021, which as you can maybe guess from the title, involves reading books that you borrow from the library. Sweet and simple! 😊

During my check in post from July, I was at 28 books and figured I’d aim for 36. The year prior, I hadn’t hit the tier past that, so it seemed like a reasonable goal considering I’d have less time in 2021! So how did it pan out?

The levels for the challenge are:

  • Dewey Decimal: Read 12 books (my goal)
  • Thrifty Reader: Read 24 books
  • Overdrive Junkie: Read 36 books
  • Library Addict: Read 48 books
  • Library Card on Fire: Read 60+ books

My reads:

Continue reading “How did I do with the 2021 Library Love Challenge?”
Posted in Book Talk

What’s on my table

ZOOLOGISTS GUIDE TO the GALAXY by arik kershenbaum

Summary

We are unprepared for the greatest discovery of modern science. Scientists are confident that there is alien life across the universe yet we have not moved beyond our perception of ‘aliens’ as Hollywood stereotypes. The time has come to abandon our fixation on alien monsters and place our expectations on solid scientific footing.

Using his own expert understanding of life on Earth and Darwin’s theory of evolution – which applies throughout the universe – Cambridge zoologist Dr Arik Kershenbaum explains what alien life must be like: how these creatures will move, socialise and communicate.

For example, by observing fishes whose electrical pulses indicate social status, we can see that other planets might allow for communication by electricity. As there was evolutionary pressure to wriggle along a sea floor, Earthling animals tend to have left/right symmetry; on planets where creatures evolved mid-air or in soupy tar they might be lacking any symmetry at all.

Might there be an alien planet with supersonic animals? Will they scream with fear, act honestly, or have technology? Is the universe swarming with robots? Dr Kershenbaum uses cutting-edge science to paint an entertaining and compelling picture of extra-terrestrial life.

Posted in Book Talk

Where can I read We Are All Birds of Uganda?

Hey y’all!

I’ve run into a surprising issue recently. There’s a book I had wanted to read so much I even featured in in a Fast Forward Friday post a while back: We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan. Now that I’m finally getting around to it, I figured I’d track down a library copy to borrow or put on hold!

Oddly, neither library I’m a member of has a digital or physical copy. It’s not that they don’t have it available, they just straight up don’t have it! Both are ample state libraries, so I’m really surprised that there are no copies, since I thought this was a fairly popular and well-received title.

I even tried finding a way to request it via inter-library loan, but it weirdly looks like my main library doesn’t have it as an option! I had to email them and am waiting to hear back on if the librarians have any ideas. In the meantime, I checked Barnes & Noble to see what they had it listed for.

oh…. okay…

Apparently B&N doesn’t have it either, which is stunning because they even have Let’s Play volumes. I originally checked Bookshop.org but they ALSO DON’T HAVE IT! Why is this book so hard to find?? I did eventually find a copy on Book Depository but now I’m waiting to hear back from the librarians… I hope this book is fabulous by the time I get it. 🤣