This past week has been difficult. Not only am I still dealing with the pain in my arm, I’m now also dealing with hives all over my body.
We’re not sure what’s causing the hives. It could be the turmeric I was taking to help the inflammation in my arm. It could be ibuprofen or the creams I’m using for pain relief. (I don’t think it’s the creams because the hives aren’t where I put the cream.) It could be Luci, even though I’ve never reacted to cats before. It could be something I’m eating. Or, it could be something else completely.
I can’t get into an immunologist until early December, which means I have to suffer through these hives until then or hope they go away by stopping the turmeric and ibuprofen, keeping Luci away from me for a few days, and / or changing my diet.
Right now, blogging, commenting, Instagramming, and even reading are the things I want to do the least. I really don’t feel like doing much more than vegging out in front of the TV. Consequently, I’m sad to tell you that I’m taking a hiatus from blogging and maybe social media in general until I’m in a better space. I’m not sure how long my hiatus will be. Hopefully, not too long because I love blogging and the blogging community too much! (If I do any reading, I’ll post to Goodreads if you want to be my friend there.)
Because I’ve already stopped taking turmeric, the inflammation in my arm’s back, which makes it much more difficult to stop the ibuprofen. I did get a cortisone shot yesterday. Hopefully, it will help with the pain. It may take up to two weeks for me to get the full benefits, however.
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Favorite Unlikeable Characters I Can’t Help Love
This week’s prompt is “Favorite ‘Awww’ Moments in Books” and I was going to try doing it. I realized I can’t remember enough details in most of the books I’ve read to come up with anything that fits the prompt. Going rogue seems like the best option. I haven’t been able to participate in the last couple of TTTs so I’m going with one of those topics–“Favorite Unlikeable Characters I Can’t Help Love.” Here are my top characters:
Severus Snape
Harry Potter by JK Rowling
Sebastian Morgenstern
The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare
Cole
Everneath by Brodi Ashton
Dolores Umbridge
Harry Potter by JK Rowling
Annie Wilkes
Misery by Stephen King
Mrs. Danvers
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Eustace Scrubbs
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
Julian
Wonder: The Julian Chapter by RJ Palacio
Miranda Priestly
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
What about you? Which unlikeable characters made your list? Do we have any in common?
I learned in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that life is full of dialectics, or two opposing truths. In this case, the two opposing truths are: 1) I don’t agree with JKR’s stance regarding trans people, and 2) I still love Harry Potter.
I love lists. It’s one of the reasons I participate in Top Ten Tuesday most weeks. One of my favorite lists was BBC’s The Big Read Top 100. Every few years I’d take stock and post the list highlighting the books I had read since the last time I posted it. It was a lot of fun and I miss doing it.
Anyway, back in May, Goodreads posted a similar list. This list is a collection of the 100 most popular books since 1922 and is sorted by publication year. You can click the link to see how Goodreads determined each year’s book.
I didn’t see the original post back in May. I did see Susan’s post on Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books. Because I love lists so much, I decided to join the fun. I’ll put a next to the ones I’ve read, a next to the ones on my TBR, and an next to the ones I’ve attempted and haven’t finished. Without further ado, here’s Goodreads’ list:
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Passing by Nella Larsen
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Joy of Cooking by Irma S Rombauer
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Native Son by Richard Wright
The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
No Exit by Jean Paul-Sartre
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
1984 by George Orwell
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Dune by Frank Herbert
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Carrie by Stephen King
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Kindred by Octavia E Butler
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Watchmen by Alan Moore
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielwski
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Educated by Tara Westover
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This is a very interesting list, isn’t it? I’m surprised that none of the Harry Potter books or Twilight Saga are on it. Harry Potter probably didn’t make the cut because of the controversy with JKR, which is a real shame. I imagine that Twilight wasn’t included because of the polarization the series causes. Are there any books you expected to be on the list that aren’t?
I learned in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that life is full of dialectics, or two opposing truths. In this case, the two opposing truths are: 1) I don’t agree with JKR’s stance regarding trans people, and 2) I still love Harry Potter.
If my count is correct, I’ve read 14 of the 100 and I have 27 on my TBR. What about you? How many have you read? How many are on your TBR?
https://i0.wp.com/jennielyse.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/bookishdiscussions2-sq.png?fit=919%2C918&ssl=1918919Jenni Elysehttps://jennielyse.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/logo_2024_black-1030x312.pngJenni Elyse2022-11-14 00:00:002024-07-09 16:43:51Goodreads Popular Books List
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, andshowcase books and other things.
Feeling
I’m feeling much better. Someone recommended I take turmeric to help with the inflammation in my arm. I bought some pills on Monday and my pain lessened about 80% of what it was by Tuesday evening. Honestly, I don’t know if turmeric’s the cause or if it’s just coincidence. I’ll take it, though!
Because I’m feeling a lot better, I’m going to start my NaNo month on Tuesday. By starting on Tuesday, I’ll be two weeks behind the original commencement and go two weeks into December, ending on the 14th. I think that’s doable!
I started reading my book club’s pick for November this week. It’s THE MAID by Nita Prose. I’m still not really sure what I think about it as I’m not very far into it yet. I’m also still listening to the ECLIPSE audiobook. I’m about a third of the way in.
Listening
This week, I listened to an interesting cover of “We are Young” by Fun. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it on YouTube so I’m sharing the original instead. The cover I’m talking about is part of the soundtrack for the Netflix movie LOOK BOTH WAYS.
Watching
As I mentioned above, I watched LOOK BOTH WAYS, a Netflix movie starring Lili Reinhart, Danny Ramirez, David Corenswet, and Luke Wilson. I really enjoyed the idea of looking at how one decision could impact your life. I also loved the message of life being what you make of it (i.e., happy, fulfilling) even if it doesn’t turn out how planned it to.
Corey and I binged CELEBRITY JEOPARDY and got caught up this week. It was a lot of fun. Some of the actors / comedians are so quick-witted. They play off each other so well. I loved Wil Wheaton’s wager for Final Jeopardy. It was $1701, which references the number on the Enterprise’s hull on Star Trek.
We also saw BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER on Thursday. We were very pleased with it. I thought it honored Chadwick Boseman’s memory nicely while still moving forward into a new era. I got teary a few times. I’m excited to see what happens now.
Loving
I love watching Luci play, discovering the world around her, and interacting with Izzy. (For those who didn’t see the change I made to last week’s post, Corey and I decided that “Luci” fit our new kitten better. Her new official name is Luci McGonagall.) Luci’s fearless whereas Izzy’s a scaredy cat. Luci’s also a jumper whereas Izzy has a mental block and thinks she can’t jump. She can; she just chooses not to jump any higher than the couch or bed. Luci’s already getting on top of things Izzy “couldn’t” at 4 months old.
Wanting
Both Izzy and Luci are sick. Luci has a cold and Izzy has been vomiting and acting lethargic. Izzy seems to be doing a bit better today. We think she may be constipated, but we’re not positive. And, poor Luci can hardly breathe because she’s so stuffed up. They have an appointment scheduled with our vet Monday morning, but I want them to feel better now. I always feel so helpless when my furbabies are sick.
Needing
Even though the turmeric pills have been helping with the pain in my arm, it’s still tingling like it’s asleep whenever I do menial tasks. I need to talk to my primary care physician and figure out what’s causing the problem. Hopefully, it can be fixed without surgery. Corey thinks I’ll probably get a cortisone shot.
Book Blogger Hop is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books in March 2010. As of February 2013, it’s hosted by Billy at Coffee Addicted Writer.
Today’s Question(s) is …
Which do you prefer to be known as: a voracious reader or a book nerd?
My Answer(s) is …
Honestly, I’m okay with either. However, I don’t read nearly as many books as most book bloggers because I’m a slow reader. Because of that, some people may not think I qualify as a voracious reader. It’s okay, though. I really like the idea of being a book nerd.
What about you? What do you prefer to be known as?
