Category Archives: Blog Hops

September 24, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Fall 2024 To-Read List


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Photo of a light brown mug and an opened book lying in a bed of red and yellow autumn leaves on the forest floor. When I first began working on this post, I couldn’t find anything that appealed to me.

There is a lot of gory horror as well as Christmas stories that are generally released in the autumn.

No offense to anyone who loves either of those genres, but I needed to look elsewhere to build my list this week.

Sometimes it pays off to dig deeper and keeps going. Here are some of the upcoming autumn books that have caught my eye.

I’m too much of a mood reader to commit to a specific reading schedule in most cases, but all of these do look interesting.

Thank you to Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits for doing this topic a week early and giving me two more titles to add to my list!

 

Book cover for The City in Glass by Nghi Vo. Image on cover is a drawing of a city on fire just after dusk. We are looking at the flames from far away while standing under two carved stone pillars that are still connected by a piece of stone placed on top of them. There are female figures carved into the pillars. They look a little like Greek goddesses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

Publication Date: October 1

Why I Want to Read It: This novella looks like a nice mixture of several different themes: adventure, romance, and fantasy.

 

Book cover for The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen. Image on cover shows a tabled filled with autumn fruits like apples, some of which are rotten, and a human skull placed on the side of the table. This is an unsettling scene that made me shiver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen

Publication Date: October 8

Why I Want to Read It: The story looks scary but hopefully won’t be gory. Maybe it would be a good Halloween read?

 

Book cover for What Does It Feel Like by Sophie Kinsella. Image on cover is a drwaing of a white woman with long, straight light brown hair who is wearing a fluffy turquoise gown that has a low-cut back and walking away from the audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella

Publication Date: October 8

Why I Want to Read It: I’ve never read her work before. After hearing about her life-threatening cancer diagnosis earlier this year, I’m wondering if I should give her work a try.

 

Book cover for Masquerade by Mike Fu. Image on cover is a drawing of a chrysanthemum-like flower blooming under a full moon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masquerade by Mike Fu

Publication Date: October 29

Why I Want to Read It: My reading pile has been low on mysteries this year, and this one sounds interesting.

 

 

Book cover for The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong. Image on cover is a possibly computer-generated painting of a woman sitting on the back ledge of a covered n wagon and looking out at some homes in the distance. It’s just past dusk and quickly growing dark outside. You can see a fe stars in the sky as well as a lamp hanging over the backside of the wagon and illuminating her and a small black cat who is sitting next to her. It’s a peaceful scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publication Date: November 5

Why I Want to Read It: I’m very into cozy reads at the moment.

 

Book cover for We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson. Image on cover is a drawing of two people, one adult and one child, walking together in a forest that has a thick layer of fog in it that obscures most other details about the scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson

 

Publication Date: November 7

Why I Want to Read It: 2020 sharply reduced my interest in post-apocalyptic stories, but I am slowly coming around to enjoying them again so long as there is no disease component to the plot. A world without the Internet would be so different.

 

Book cover for The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso. Image on cover is a drwaing of three different clocks. One is a normal analogue clock like you’d see anywhere on Earth. The second one has far too many hours noted on it. Instead of 12, there are more like 24. The third clock has interesting symbols by each hour marked on it. They look like they might be Chinese symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso

Publication Date: November 19

Why I Want to Read It: The time travel and reality bending aspects of it sound cool. I also like the fact that the protagonist has a young child but is still able to go on adventures. Good for her!

 

 

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September 18, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Should Have Ended a Different Way

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

 

Photo of a person wearing a hoodie and hunching over a little as they read a book. They are in a room that is only partially illuminated with light, so you can see a weak yellow-orange light behind them but it is not strong enough to show us this person’s age, race, sex, or any other identifying characteristics. So all you see is their silhouette as they read.

Just like last week, I’m digging deep and picking books from a wide variety of genres that I have rarely if ever discussed here before. (So there will be no ranting about the Earth’s Children series today. Ha!)

These were all books I otherwise enjoyed, by the way. I simply wish their endings had been different for reasons I will share below. Beware of spoilers in this post, although I did try to minimize them as much as possible.

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

What Should Have Happened: Either most species should have gone extinct or the characters should have figured out what killed off everyone with a Y chromosome and fixed it.

 

Tyrell by Coe Booth

What Should Have Happened: Tyrell was smart person who was working so hard to get out of poverty. I liked him and hated how ambiguously things ended. In my imagination, everything worked out well for him and he’s living a quiet, happy life. I choose to believe he now has a good job,  a few adorable kids with his wife, and was recently convinced to adopt a dog from the local shelter that he pretends to find annoying but also sneaks treats to when no one is looking.

 

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

What Should Have Happened: Ideally, new evidence would have come forward to exonerate Mary, but I would have accepted any other possible ending as well other than the one we received.  I was annoyed when I read the last few pages of this book even though the rest of it was great.

 

The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery

What Should Have Happened: A time machine and proper medical treatment so that a certain beloved character can live a long, healthy, and happy life. (Yes, I know that’s unrealistic for this era, but it still broke my heart to realize what happened to them).

 

Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan Henry

What Should Have Happened: Once again, we need a time machine so that one of the characters in this book could received the medical care they needed to live to a ripe old age in good health even though I know people with their diagnosis did not live very long back then. It feels deeply unfair that this was their fate, though, and those deaths caused so much pain.

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September 17, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters That Authors Could Redeem


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

The silhouttes of two people with long straight hair who are leaping for joy on the beach as the sun sets. The ocean water behind them is rippling gently. Thank you to Deanna @ A Novel Glimpse for submitting the theme Ten Characters Authors Surprisingly Redeemed. I will be tweaking it a little as it trickier than I thought it would be!

I tend to DNF stories about characters who are really unpleasant, so I had to do a lot of brainstorming to come up with examples.

Redemption is probably  too strong of a word for some of these characters. They have a long way to go before they reach that point in most cases.  What I can say is that I enjoyed reading about them despite their terrible behaviour and I could see how each of them could be redeemed with some more introspection,  remorse over their actions, and attempts to make things right.

Is that close enough to the original theme? I hope so!

Here are my answers:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Holden Caulfield, the angsty protagonist

 

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Heathcliff, the controlling and moody love interest

 

3. Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1) by Margaret Atwood

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Everybody. Or at least the main human characters.

 

4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Juniper Song, the deceptive protagonist.

 

5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: John, the confused protagonist

 

6. Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Logan-6, the brave but impressionable protagonist.

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September 11, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books With Fantastic Endings

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Five hardcover books with bright red covers have been stood up on a white background. They are arranged so their pages are fanned out and their spines are facing each other in a circular pattern. My first impulse for this week’s prompt was to discuss books with fantastic endings that I’ve talked about here before, but I’m going to try to stretch myself and choose titles I have rarely or maybe even never discussed on my blog instead.

Now let’s see if I can briefly describe why I loved these endings without giving away too many spoilers about them.

I will be jumping around among various genres a lot in this post as that’s what my reading habits have always been like.

 

My Real Children by Jo Walton

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: It was open-ended. Given how serious Patricia’s memory loss was, a definitive answer would have felt a little odd to me.

 

Westlake Soul by Rio Youers

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: Westlake performed marvellously in it!

 

Angelica: A Novel by Arthur Phillips

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: As a heads up for those of you who need it, one of the storylines in this book revolved around whether a child was being abused or if her strange behavior could be explained by paranormal means instead. I thought this book did an excellent job of resolving that question while still remaining true to the time period when it was written and when child abuse was rarely if ever discussed in polite company.

 

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: There was a lot of character growth by the final stanza. (This was a story told in the form of poems).

 

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: This entire book took place over a few days in  a maternity ward in an Irish hospital during an outbreak of the 1918 flu. While there were still things about it that felt rushed to me, the ending went a long way in explaining why everything moved so quickly.

 

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: It was happy. Given what happened earlier in the storyline and how often those things turned out tragically back then, that is not at all what I was expecting. It was pleasantly surprising to say goodbye to these characters with the assurance that they were going to be okay.

 

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: I loved how much room it left for a sequel while still tying up nearly all of the important conflicts in the storyline. The fact that romance was not part of this storyline was also refreshing to me. We need more books that focus on non-romantic relationships in my opinion.

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September 10, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Provide a Much-Needed Escape


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A crack has formed in a white wall. The crack is slender but long. Some of the best escapist fiction I’ve ever read have been books that broke the fourth wall.

There is nothing as entertaining and distracting as meeting characters who are aware the reader exists and who might even be aware that they are characters in a story!

I’m specifically focusing on picture books today because of how quickly they pay off as far as breaking the fourth wall and getting straight to the point goes.

That can be a very helpful thing if you’re having trouble concentrating or otherwise need a quick escape from what is happening in the real world.  It’s sort of like taking the quick-release version of an over-the-counter drug instead of taking something that takes an hour to kick in.

If you also like books that break the fourth wall and acknowledge their readers, I’d love to hear what you’ve read that fits this micro-genre.

1. The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone

2. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems

3. The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

4.Harold and the Purple Crayon (Harold, #1) by Crockett Johnson

5. Coral Reefs: A Journey Through an Aquatic World Full of Wonder by Jason Chin

6.Shiloh and Dande the Lion: Embrace diversity, accept others, and courageously be yourself! by Ciara L. Hill

7. Do Not Open This Book by Andy Lee

8. Help! We Need a Title! by Hervé Tullet

9. Is There a Dog in This Book? by Viviane Schwarz

10. The Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett

 

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September 4, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Things I Like and Dislike About the Mystery Genre

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A pale-skinned person holding a book in front of their head. The book has a question mark photoshopped onto its cover. This photo is in black and white. Just like I did for the romance genre version of this topic last year, I will share three things I like and three things I dislike about mysteries.

What I Dislike About the Mystery Genre 

1. Graphic descriptions of death and corpses.

I rarely like to read this stuff in the horror genre these days, much less in genres that have much more realistic explanations of how someone could die. Please give me a fluffy overview instead and then let’s move on to solving the case.

2. Red herrings

This doesn’t seem to be as popular these days, but I dislike mysteries that try to purposefully mislead their audiences early on. Why not share fewer clues overall instead? I don’t mind being confused or not figuring everything out before the main character does.

3. Inspired by true events

Unless the crime in question is a really silly one where no one was physically harmed, I don’t like mixing fiction with fact in this genre. I’d rather see how creative a mystery author can be instead. Fiction is escapism for me the vast majority of the time, so there’s no need to be reminded of real-life tragedies when I’m reading a mystery.

 

 

What I Like About the Mystery Genre

1. Puns

The cozy mystery sub-genre excels at titles that are filled with puns, and I love every single one of them I’ve seen so far. If the titles reference food as well, I basically have to pick them up and at least read their blurbs if nothing else.

2. Justice 

Criminals are almost always brought to justice in this genre even if they’ve managed to fool everyone in their lives up until the point that the protagonist figures out what’s really going on.  I find that so emotionally satisfying. If only real life could be like this, too.

3. Mixing Genres

Mysteries are often mixed with other genres like romance, historical fiction, paranormal, or fantasy. When they’re done well, these tends to be the sorts of books that I cannot put down because I simply must know if the sad attic ghost will finally find peace after their untimely death or if the main character is ever going to realize that his or her neighbour is totally flirting with them and would make a great boyfriend/girlfriend for them.

There’s something about the mystery genre that really lends itself to being combined in these ways in my opinion! Pure mysteries are fun, too, but that blending can really bring out the best of two or more genres.

 

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September 3, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Involving Food (That are Not Cookbooks)


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A whole, fresh pineapple that is wearing sunglasses. It is sitting in front of a bright yellow wall. Thank you to Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext and Hopewell’s Public Library of Life for submitting this topic. 

I’m narrowing this week’s topic down to nonfiction books involving food history.

There is something really cool learning about the history, science, sociology, and/or cultural meaning of various types of food.

I could read about that sort of stuff all day!

1. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

2.Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser

3. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

4. A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain

5. Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

6. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink

7. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

8. Diet for a Small Planet: The Book That Started a Revolution in the Way Americans Eat by Frances Moore Lappé

9. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

10. Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner

11.The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson

12. The Book of Tea by Kakuzō Okakura

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August 28, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Funny Animal Video

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Close-up photo of a little brown baby bunny sitting in a patch of dirt outside. Its ears are perked up as it listens for anything nearby. One of my favourite types of amusing animal videos involves rabbits squeezing through spaces the humans thought were far too small for them to fit through or hopping further than anyone thought they should be able to.

If you’ve never held or otherwise been near a rabbit, know that a lot of their volume can be taken up by their fur and that they hop over and around all sorts of barriers.

Their bodies beneath all of that fluff are smaller and more flexible than you might think, especially if they’re sporting an especially fluffy coat or if it’s the right time of year for their winter fur to grow in.

Here is a short video about a baby rabbit who squeezes thought a cage.

Here is another one.

And a third and final great escape from a so-called rabbit-proof fence. (I do not think anyone consulted the rabbits before deciding to call it that!)

This is a baby bunny who has been temporarily placed in a laundry basket that is much too high for them to jump out of….right?

The tale of a rabbit in a large glass cage.

All of these videos are short. They are a few minutes long at most, and some are more like 20 to 30 seconds of footage.

I adore seeing tiny little rabbits outwit humans. It’s so funny.

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August 27, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Posts I’ve Written That Give You the Best Glimpse of Me


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Stock photo of a white person peeking out at the world through white blinds. I think stories about people is a great way to get to know their personalities, so here are some of the stories I’ve told about myself over the years.

1) Keeping the Pipes Clear

This is how my grandfather found a safe way to involve his young grandchildren in digging ditches and keeping his land from accumulating too much water.

 

2, 3, and 4) Three Fun Facts About Myself

In which I talk about my heart murmur (which is not at all serious or anything, just interesting),  share how I saved a turtle, and graciously responded to a vacation that did not go the way I was hoping. These three things are not at all related to each other, by the way.

 

5) Non-Bookish Hobbies

Did you know I’m trying to become fluent in Spanish and love weightlifting, for example?

 

6. A Review of Reading Breaks

A glimpse into my silly sense of humour as well as an explanation of why I sometimes take breaks from reading.

 

7.  The Pet Fish I Almost Had

I still think about this little fish and hope he or she had a long and happy life.

 

8) Things I Love About Halloween

It’s my favourite holiday of the year!

 

9) A Photo Essay in Memoriam of a Tree

In which I get sentimental about a sick tree I was really hoping would survive but sadly did not. It was so gorgeous when it was alive. Click above for photos.

 

10) What I Do When I’m Not Feeling Well

A lighthearted look at dealing with minor illnesses like the common cold and how I handle them.

 

 

 

 

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August 21, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Book I Wish Were More Popular

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A gorgeous black woman dressed in a mermaid costume and sitting on the sand at the beach as the waves roll in. Her bra is metallic purple, her fin is light green, and her hair has been braided with red extensions. She’s lovely and looks very happy to be there.

It was so tempting for me to list five or six stories today, but I did follow the rules by narrowing down my choices to books that have been published in the last five years that I think should have been far more popular than they were.

My answer for this week’s theme?

The Deep by Rivers Solomon. That link will take you to the Goodreads page for it, and this one will show you my review of it from 2020.

What is it about? Without giving away spoilers, it’s about black mermaids who bear little to no resemblance to Disney’s bubblegum representation of mermaids. Their meaning is much deeper and thought provoking than that.

What I love about this novella are all of the layers readers get to unwrap as they discover more information about Yetu and her people. My impression of her changed several times as I read this book, and I keep hoping someone will finally turn it into a film or TV show.

Other themes in the storyline include intergenerational trauma, the lingering effects of racism, figuring out how to heal from the past, accepting love (both romantic and platonic), and, interestingly enough,  the many differences between aquatic and land-based organisms.

Obviously, humans in their current form cannot live in the ocean. It takes a lot of alterations to make such a thing possible and some of them created opportunities for amusing misunderstandings, so keep an eye out for those moments as they appear.

The world-building leaves a lot of space for readers to come up with our own ideas of how certain things worked or what happened in the time periods Yetu does not have knowledge of as well. This is yet another reason why we need more readers for this book and for an on-screen adaptation to happen.

I need more folks around who would like to discuss the possibilities of this world and what might happen next to the characters!

 

 

 

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