January 2022 – Page 2

January 2022 Book Club

I’ve been part of a IRL (“in real life” for those who don’t know that acronym) for 10.5 years now. We used to meet on the third Thursday of each month so we call ourselves the “Third Thursday Book Club.” A few months ago, we all decided it was more convenient to meet on the third Wednesday. We joke that we’re now the “Third Thursday Book Club, now on Wednesdays.”

We met this past Wednesday to discuss January’s book. (Due to COVID’s increased numbers, we opted to meet via Zoom rather than in-person.)

We discussed KEEP MOVING: NOTES ON LOSS, CREATIVITY, AND CHANGE by Maggie Smith (click the link to read my review). There were six of us that met and only five read the book. Here are some highlights of our discussion:

Everyone made the comment they didn’t realize KEEP MOVING was mostly the author’s collection of tweets while she was going through her divorce (affirmations to help her stay positive during a time of turmoil). We thought it was going to be more of a memoir.
No one hated the book, but no one loved it either.
A couple of people thought it was generic and unmemorable.
No one could really relate to the author because none of us have been through a divorce (our group is a statistical anomaly).
One person liked the affirmations more than the other sections.
One person read KEEP MOVING via audiobook and the rest of us wondered if that experience was weird given the layout of the book.
The phrase “keep moving” got old by the end because the author tacked it on the end of every. single. affirmation.

Our discussion was really short because KEEP MOVING wasn’t what we thought it was. Like I said in my review, though, I’m glad I read it because of the two little tidbits I got out of it.

After our discussion, we talked about other books we’ve been reading, voting on our new list of books, the Book of the Month club, what’s going on in everyone’s lives, and COVID. I had a great time as always. I really my book club and look forward to it each month, even if I don’t read the book.

Next month’s book is TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE by Jenny Han. I’m very excited to read it. It’s been on my TBR ever since the Netflix show came out, which I still haven’t watched. All things in their proper order.

Have you read KEEP MOVING? If so, what do you think about my book club’s discussion about it?

January 22, 2022/6 Comments/by Jenni Elyse

Review: How To

Title: How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
Author: Randall Munroe
Genre(s): Humor, Illustrated, Non-Fiction
Pages: 308
Source: Own
For: Play Book Tag
Rating:
Sexual Content:

Add to Goodreads

Goodreads Synopsis

For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. HOW TO is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.

My Thoughts

My husband turned me onto the xkcd webcomic about a decade ago. I’m not the most religious follower, but I do like his humor. I found out about HOW TO through my library’s “Best in Books 2019” event and actually won a copy of the book while I was there. I was really excited that out of all the books I could’ve won, I won Randall Munroe’s.

I loved HOW TO. I loved all the crazy things Munroe thought of doing using absurd, over-the-top scientific methods accompanied by his typical stylistic stick figure drawings made HOW TO a delight to read. I also loved that since I was in a physics class last semester, a lot of the physics he used and talked about were things I had just learned, albeit on a much simpler level.

One of my favorite chapters was “How to Throw Things” because he has an interactive element on his website with the physics built in. I think it’s hilarious that Thor AND Chris Hemsworth are available throwers. I recommend playing around with it because it’s fun, even if you haven’t read the chapter.

Anyway, I’m glad my Goodreads group’s tag this month was science and prompted me to finally read HOW TO. It was 9 hours well spent (thanks, Bookly, for the stats).

Have you read HOW TO? If so, what did you think about it?

January 21, 2022/4 Comments/by Jenni Elyse

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday #1

2021 Releases I Was Excited to Read But Didn’t Get To

Since I only read 12 books last year due to unforeseen circumstances, I didn’t get to a lot of the books I wanted to read. Man, this list was hard to narrow down! Here are my top ten books released in 2021 I was excited to read but I didn’t get to:

It’s crazy to me that this list is mostly adult novels. I used to read mostly YA, I’ve started to read more adult novels than YA. I never thought that would happen and until this post prompted me to look at my stats I hadn’t realized it has been happening for the last five years.

What about you? What books released in 2021 were you excited to read but didn’t get to? Do we have any in common?

January 18, 2022/30 Comments/by Jenni Elyse

Sunday News

Sunday News #1

Sunday Post and Sunday Salon are blog news memes hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer and Reader Buzz, respectively. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week on your blog, and showcase books and other things.

Feeling

I’ve been feeling a little bit overwhelmed this week as school started on Monday. It always takes me a couple of weeks to get the hang of my new schedule. I’ve changed my classes around a couple times this week too so everything has been in flux, which hasn’t helped with my anxiety.

I’ve also been getting over an infection so I’ve been feeling sick from the infection and gross from the antibiotics. Thankfully, I took my last antibiotic on Friday morning and I’m starting to slowly feel better.

Blogging

I haven’t blogged much because of school and I’ve missed it, which is a good sign. I’ve been visiting and commenting on blogs, though, which I enjoy doing.

Reading

I’m currently reading HOW TO: ABSURD SCIENTIFIC ADVICE FOR COMMON REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS. It’s hilarious. I love it. I also love that everything I learned in my physics class last semester is showing up in this book.

I’m going to start reading PRINCE CASPIAN today. It’s due back to the library in a week and I want to make sure I get it read before I have to return it.

Listening

I watched Cruella on Disney+ with Corey this week and I’ve been listening to “The Baroque Ball” ever since. I love it. I want to know who sings it, but I can’t find it online. It’s only associated with the composer of the Cruella score, Nicholas Britell, and he definitely doesn’t sing it.

Watching

I discovered a couple new shows this week as I was sitting brain dead after school. The first show I found was a new cooking competition with Gordon Ramsay. I Gordon Ramsay. It’s called The Next Level Chef. It’s like a combination of Masterchef and Cutthroat Kitchen, if you’ve ever seen either one of those.

The second show I discovered is called That’s My Jam. It’s a game show hosted by Jimmy Fallon. It’s a music game show with celebrities and they try to earn points so they can win money for charity. It’s a lot of fun. My favorite so far has been episode two. It had Josh Groban who had to sing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” switching from a baritone to a high voice in the middle of the song and Joseph Gordon-Leavitt who had to sing a pop song as a member of The Cure. It was hilarious.

Loving

I joined Book of the Month for only $5 because a friend had a referral link. She got a free credit and I saved $10. Everybody wins. I’m excited to get my first book in a few days.

Book of the Month seems like an awesome book subscription. You get to choose between five books. If you don’t like any of those books, you can choose a past book. If you’re behind on your reading, you can put the subscription on hold and not be charged the months you’re on hold. And, the only thing that comes in each box is a book. You don’t have to worry about having a ton of book swag cluttering up your house.

If you want to look into it, click here so you can join for $5 if you decide you want to. (Disclosure: I’ll get a free credit if you join with this link.)

Wanting

I want a cobb salad from Chick-Fil-A, but Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays in my neck of the woods.

Needing

I need everyone at the school to wear a mask so I won’t get COVID. I’m triple vaxxed and I wear a mask, but I’m afraid that I’m going to get COVID because of someone who doesn’t take the pandemic seriously. Hardly anyone wears a mask in Utah and the COVID numbers are rising because of the Omicron Persei 8 variant (Omicron Persei 8 is a Futurama reference, so I had to tack on the Persei 8 for funsies).

I talk to my therapist about my anxiety and fear and he says, it’s understandable AND all I can do is cope ahead by doing everything I can do to protect myself, which I’ve done and continue to do. Le sigh.

At least the school mandated everyone be vaccinated before they could register for this semester. I just wonder how many people fudged their info.

How was your week? Anything exciting happen?

January 16, 2022/6 Comments/by Jenni Elyse

Readalong

Narniathon: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

There are spoilers for THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE (LWW) in this post.

Narniathon: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

As I stated in my post Joining the Narniathon21, I’ve decided to participate in a reread of The Chronicles of Narnia hosted by Chris over at Calmgrove. I’ve wanted to reread the series for a couple of years now as I want to see if my feelings, for THE LAST BATTLE in particular, are the same after a reread. I won’t say more than that as I want to discuss those feelings when we read THE LAST BATTLE.

I first read the Narniad 14 years ago as an adult. I read it with a couple of friends and they told me to read it in chronological order rather than published order. Even though it was my first time reading the books, I was familiar with the story of LWW as I had watched a TV adaptation with my mom when I was a teenager.

One of the things that I always thought was weird about LWW (from the adaptation) was how abrupt the ending was. I had always thought the TV people didn’t have the budget to end the story properly. Nope. I was very surprised to find out that the book ending is just as abrupt and that the adaptation was actually quite faithful to the book. The ending is the thing I least like about LWW.

The thing I like the most about LWW (or the Narniad in general) is the Christian allegory. I’m not sure if I knew about the allegory when I watched the adaptation, but I know I knew about it when I read the Narniad 14 years ago. During this read, certain parts of the allegory made more of an impact on me. Of course I understood Aslan’s sacrifice the first time I read LWW. This time, I noticed the wording surrounding the Deep Magic regarding Edmund’s treachery. CS Lewis termed the Deep Magic as “law” and when the White Witch and Aslan discussed what to do about Edmund, the White Witch said the law stated that anyone treacherous belonged to her. It immediately brought to mind an image of Satan and Christ bargaining for a wayward soul.

I’m also much more well-read this time around and I noticed that Lilith, Adam’s first wife in Jewish lore, was mentioned as part of the White Witch’s heritage. I felt like Captain America in Avengers:

I actually really like the Lilith lore and I love reading stories that include her in them. Do you know anything about Lilith? Have you read any other books that include her lore in them?

I wasn’t a reader as a child. I despised reading. In fact, my reading adventures didn’t begin until about 14.5 years ago. I wonder if I had read LWW, or any of the Narniad for that matter, as a child if I would’ve liked them more. I’m also curious if reading them for the first time in chronological order has any bearing on my feelings about the books. What do you think?

Have you read THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE? Did you like it? Why? Why not?

P.S. My two favorite characters from LWW have always been Lucy and Aslan. I think it’s obvious why Aslan’s one of them. Lucy’s one of them because I relate to her the most. She and I are both the youngest in our families, seen as small (her in stature, me in manner) but fierce, wear our hearts on our sleeves, think of others, and are especially fond of animals. Who’s your favorite character?

January 11, 2022/6 Comments/by Jenni Elyse