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
Author: RAIN CITY READS
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
TOP TEN TUESDAY | UNREAD BOOKS ON MY SHELVES I WANT TO READ SOON
There are always a thousand books that I absolutely, definitely want to read next. The problem is that I can’t read them all at once, so I have to choose one and then the rest just sort of form an endless queue. I’m writing this a bit ahead of time, so I’m looking on READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THIS MUCH IS TRUE – MIRIAM MARGOLYES
If you have not encountered the incomparable Miriam Margolyes in the past, I don’t know how to describe her to you other than to say that she is a truly singular personality. She is a British dramatic legend who has spent most of her adult life on stage, in front of the camera or READ MORE
WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT?
Well, as confusing as it may seem, I’m going to have to say both. I always thought of myself as an introvert, but I then had a phase where I was going out all the time, had a bunch of different groups of friends I hung out with and was generally pretty good at READ MORE
TOP TEN TUESDAY | CHARACTERS (AND AUTHORS) I’D LIKE TO GO ON VACATION WITH
I’m going to cheat a bit this week because I had a hard time coming up with enough characters to fill a top ten list. But also I kept coming back to wishing I could include some of the writers whose work or interviews have left me feeling like they’d be interesting to have READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Still not a prolific week! I somehow completely missed that it was Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon this week until it was almost over, so I missed out on participating. I finished one book because I decided to join in for an hour or so. I really want to actually join in next time around because READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | HENCH – NATALIE ZINA WALSCHOTS
This book was a fascinating reversal of our usual superhero tale. This one is not only told from the perspective of the villains of the piece, but, even more interestingly, from the perspective of one of their henchwomen. In this story, henches are often contract employees. The story starts with Anna, a novice hench, READ MORE
WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | A MOMENT I WISH I COULD RE-LIVE
Life is so full of small moments, some that you barely register at the time, others that you know are momentous as they happen. One that I keep wishing I could go back to was the last time my baby fell asleep on my shoulder. The warm breath on my neck, the weight of READ MORE
TOP TEN TUESDAY | LGBTQ+ AUTHORS AND STORIES
I’ve been thinking about LGBTQ+ stories lately, as by chance I’ve been reading a lot of books that are either written by LGBTQ+ authors, feature these characters, or both. I’ve found these voices to be not only important representation of this group of people, but also of the human condition in general. People’s reactions READ MORE
LINK-UP | IT’S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Another book-less week, unfortunately. Well, not entirely book-less, I just haven’t finished any. So instead of my usual “Just Shelved” section, I’m going to include a “Started” for the books I started and abandoned (“Currently Reading” will be the books I’m still going with but haven’t completed yet). Started READ MORE