November 12, 2019 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Unconventional Bookmarks

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I’m modifying this week’s prompt a little bit because I’m the sort of reader who gleefully makes bookmarks out of all sorts of unconventional things when I read physical books. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I bought or used a traditional bookmark!

No, this post isn’t going to be about me using oreos and milk or a soft taco as bookmarks. None of the things I’m about to mention have damaged books in any way. They’re just a little off the beaten path.

1. Toilet Paper

It may be unnecessary to specify that this is clean, unused toilet paper, but I’ll do it anyway. Sometimes it’s the best available bookmark when you’re in the washroom reading, need to get up, and don’t have any other way to mark your page.

red maple leaf lying on a wooden floor2. Receipts

They’re bookmark shaped, right? Why not put them to use once you’ve bought your products.

3. Leaves 

Like the toilet paper, I only ever used clean, dry leaves. The bigger they were, the better.

4. Greeting Cards

They’re generally taller and wider than traditional bookmarks, but they seem to have about the same thickness. This is a good thing in my opinion. They won’t tear easily, but they also won’t damage the spine of a paperback.

5. Tissue Paper

I was desperate, and it did not work well due to how easily tissue paper tears.

6. Playing Cards

My family always had extra packs of playing cards lying around when I was growing up. Sometimes I’d grab a card as an impromptu bookmark.

How about all of you? What unconventional bookmarks have you used?

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November 11, 2019 · 1:00 am

5 Ways to Fit More Reading Time In

When I was growing up, I either already knew where the books were or quickly figured it out after visiting a new place for the first time. Sometimes this involved me grabbing a book from my grandparents’ personal library and hiding out underneath the piano to read and nibble on a few crackers while the adults talked.

Since my father was a pastor, this also occasionally meant that I’d sniff out the books in other people’s churches when we visited them. I remember wandering around a particularly large church one day and feeling quite satisfied with myself when one of the doors I opened revealed a small bookshelf in that room.

Immediately, I sat on the floor and read to my heart’s content. All of the books remained in that room, and I put them back neatly where I found them when I decided that enough time had passed for anyone to begin wondering why I’d been away from the service for so long.

That is to say, I have a lot of practice in squeezing reading time out of just about any experience. Here are a few of my favourite ways to get through just a few more pages out while doing ordinary things.

While Waiting

Lego people standing in a tidy queue while waiting to talk to someone who is sitting behind a desk. I read while sitting in waiting rooms, queued up in line, or seeing if a store clerk could find that one last pair of jeans in my size.

There’s something about having a good book to read that makes this time pass much faster.

It’s easier to forget how long you’ve been waiting when you’re in the middle of an exciting scene.

On Transit

Woman standing and waiting for a subway car to stopOne of the nicest things about taking buses, trains, planes, or other forms of mass transit is that you can have a short or long block of time to do all sorts of quiet things in your seat.

I can’t read physical pages while travelling due to how nauseated that would make me, but I can listen to an audio version of a story.

(And, yes, audiobooks totally count as reading).

During Exercise

Woman listening to headphones while resting from a runObviously, this is one of those cases where an audiobook is going to be much easier to “read” than a paperback or e-book.

I have seen people reading novels while using certain fitness machines, though, and I like the idea of killing two birds with one stone that way so long as you do it safely.

One of the things I’m hoping to do this winter is figuring out how to combine reading and exercise in some way. I’m not yet sure how I’ll accomplish that, but it seems like it would be an interesting goal to try to reach.  Audiobooks aren’t the sort of thing I can sit and listen to, but I’m thinking they might be more appealing if I’m doing something else while listening to them.

When You Can’t Sleep

Woman counting sheep in her mind while lying in bed. Outside, a flock of sheep are literally jumping over a fence. Every once in a while, I have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. When this happens, reading a book is a nice, quiet thing to do until my body decides to cooperate and go back to dreamland.

The stuff I choose to read at these late or early hours isn’t the same sort of material I’d read in the middle of the day.

Calm stories are good.

Poetry is soothing.

Action-packed thrillers are not so helpful for my overactive imagination at those hours. But to each their own on that topic!

Instead of…

Birds sitting on concrete statues on a foggy dayI’m going to leave it up to you to fill in the blank here. My answer to this question would be TV shows that I’ve lost interest in. While I understand if a show has the odd episode that doesn’t meet my expectations, I’m not the sort of person who will keep watching something that lost my enthusiasm one or more seasons ago.

There are too many other interesting things in this world to stick with stories that no longer grab my attention the way they did in their first episode or season.

How do you squeeze more reading time in?

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November 7, 2019 · 1:00 am

Dystopian Novels Everyone Should Read

 

Over the course of the next few weeks I will be participating occassionally in the Scifi Month challenge that was created by the bloggers at One More.

Click on the link in that last sentence for more information or to sign up yourself. There is still time to pick a few of their prompts and join in if you’re interested.

Today’s prompt was Future Imperfect. That is we’re supposed to pick something related to dystopian or utopian stories. Therefore, I’ll be talking about some dystopias that everyone who enjoys science fiction should read.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin book cover. Photo shows a mountain and some scrub brush.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

Why everyone should read it: What could be more frightening than living in a world that was forever altered every time a specific person had a vivid dream? I don’t know about all of you, but my nightmares would be pretty scary if they came true.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell book cover. Image is of an eye peering down a hole.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Why everyone should read it: I try to avoid politics on this site, but this book’s message about totalitarianism is just as relevant now as it was when it was first published.

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham book cover.

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

Why everyone should read it: If you don’t fear nuclear war yet, this book might make you change your mind about it. The plot is set generations after a nuclear war. Radiation continues to kill people, though, and society’s response to it has changed all sorts of things about the ways in which people live.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood book cover. Image is of a woman's face and a flower.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Why everyone should read it: Bioengineering is fascinating. The other interesting thing about this book is how few characters it had. Nearly every human on earth had died from a plague when the events of it happened. Many of the animals and plants that humans had tweaked in some way were still alive, so it was like getting to know humanity without meeting many people at all.

The Book of Dave by Will Self book cover. Image on cover is of an etching of a car.

The Book of Dave by Will Self

Why everyone should read it: It’s set five hundred years from now and has amazing plot twists. I first read it at a time in my life when I wasn’t very happy for reasons that seemed almost impossible to fix. Reading about what the future might be like – as dark as that future was –  somehow made me feel better. This book also had some thought-provoking things to say about how we interpret old texts and why it’s so important to take the cultures they came from into context before deciding to base our lives around them.

The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper book cover. Image is of top of a building, a woman standing in profile, and a full moon.

The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper

Why everyone should read it: One of the reasons why I take long breaks from the dystopian genre has to do with how poorly women are treated in most of them and how strong the assumption is that all women will have awful lives in that setting. This Feminist spin to the genre was a breathe of fresh air.

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November 6, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I’ve Recommended & Why

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

man peering at statue of other man who is reading a newspaper.As I mentioned in an earlier response to a Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, I’m hesitant to give or take book recommendations unless I’m sure that they’re actually tailored to the person who is receiving them.

That is, I think recommending a book is sort of like setting a friend or loved one up on a blind date. I wouldn’t tell them to go out for a cup of coffee with so-and-so just because both people are single, like the same genre of music, and have compatible sexual orientations. You need to dig deeper into what someone is looking for before telling them to read a certain book or date a specific person.

Due to that, this list will be short and sweet.

Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss was one of those children’s authors who knew how to talk to adults just as well as he did preschoolers.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

No one is ever too old for lighthearted poetry.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.

I adored Winnie the Pooh’s stories when I was a kid. It made me really happy read an adult interpretation of his adventures.

 

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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November 5, 2019 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Give Off Autumn Vibes

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This is one of those topics that I’m guessing a lot of us will choose the same answers for. Only time will tell if I’m right about that.

Most of these tales are set in the autumn, so that’s by far my biggest reason for choosing them.

I’ve written a similar post to this one recently. Due to that, I’m going to keep this list short and sweet to avoid duplicates.

1. Dead Poets Society by N.H. Kleinbaum

Why:  If you haven’t seen the 1980s adaptation of this book, go find a copy of it. It was incredibly well done, especially later on in the plot once one of the main characters who was depressed feels like all hope is lost. My own struggles with depression were often the worst around the time that autumn turned to winter, so this character’s experiences at the same time of the year make this something I’ll always associate with autumn.

2. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1) byJ.R.R. Tolkien

Why: The Lord of the Rings series also had a lot of themes related to death and the endings of various eras or kingdoms. There’s something about watching the natural world die for the season or go into hibernation that makes me ponder these topics, too.

3. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Why: Most of the events of this tale were not set during the autumn, but the themes in it were heavily related to death, loss, change, and other things I associate with this season.There was also a twist at the end that oddly reminded me of spring! Saying anything else would give away spoilers, though.

4. Autumn Days: Let’s Look at the Seasons by Ann Schweninger

Why: This picture book about autumn is self-explanatory, I think.

5. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Why: It was autumn the first time I read this poem. The subject matter of it has a lot of autumn themes related to things ending, so that only cements it further as something that belongs to this season.

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November 4, 2019 · 1:00 am

10 ASMR Videos I’d Recommend to Beginners

As I said in my first post on this topic:

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a calm tingling sensation that some people feel at the back of their their scalp and down on other parts of their body after being exposed to certain types of auditory stimuli.

ASMR is used for relaxation purposes…it’s similar to many forms of meditation in that you remain with your eyes closed still during it.

Silhouette of a person with long hair standing in a meadow after sunset. The sky is barely still pink, and you can see birds and in the moon in the lighter parts of the sky. I haven’t blogged much about ASMR since I first mentioned it here, but it continues to be a part of my mindfulness and meditation toolbox.

Autonomous sensory meridian response videos cover a much wider range of sensory experiences than can be fit into a single post.

Today I’ll be sharing a list of the ten most common things that can trigger this response and recommending one video for each type of stimuli to check out.

As I mentioned earlier, not every type of ASMR works for everyone. Some people never feel this sensation at all. Feel free to explore multiple ASMR videos before deciding which style, if any, is best for you.

I purposefully chose videos that included little to no talking so that my readers could concentrate on the sounds themselves. There are plenty of other examples out there of videos that do include talking if that’s something you end up enjoying.

Whispering

Close Whispering Just Talking

Whispering is one of the classic ASMR triggers. From what I’ve observed, it seems to be one of the most popular types of these videos online.

Head Massage and Hair Brushing

Ultra Relaxing Scalp Massage for Stress & Sleep, Hair Sounds & Brushing

The head massage and hair brushing ASMR videos are some of my favourite ones! They’re so relaxing.

Tapping

ASMR Tapping 

This video explores fast, slow, hard, and soft taps.

Scratching


Gentle Scratching You Will Fall Asleep to (No Talking)

It always amazes me to see what new sounds the ASMR community comes up with to add to the repertoires. This is something I’ve only started seeing around fairly recently.

Eating

Blowing

Ear Cupping and Blowing

There is also some whispering in this video. Many of the ASMR creators will blend various sounds together to appeal to more than one audience.

Role Play

Haircut Role Play.

The most common role play videos seem to involve hair cuts, massages, dental visits, or medical appointments.

Methodical Work

Whispering and Coin Sorting

What do I mean by methodical work? Think sorting papers, tapping paper clips, or playing around with small and slightly noisy items like coins.

Crinkling

Plastic Crinkle Sounds/ Sleep & Tingles/ No Talking 

This is often combined with the whispering and/or methodical work types.

Buzzing/Vibrations

Layered ASMR Vibrations – Intense and Soothing (No Talking)

I’d never heard of this type before doing research for this post! It’s either brand new or I somehow missed it years ago.

Respond

Are you into ASMR? If so, what is your favourite type of it?

 

 

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October 31, 2019 · 2:34 pm

My Trick or Treat Goodies for Halloween

 

Banner for Trick-or-Treat Book Blog Hop banner. It features a bat and a full moon.

Today is the Trick-or-Treat Reads Halloween Book Event! This event was created by Patricia Lynne and is designed to give readers free books on Halloween. Click here to see what the rest of the participants will be giving away this year. There are a lot of goodies on that list!

I’m giving away copies of two of my books.

Tumble is a short story about a girl named Elle who is being raised in the middle of nowhere by an over-protective single parent. Now that she’s turned eighteen, she’s ready to start making her own decisions in life. But her father only grows more protective of her the further she pulls away from him. What secrets might he be hiding?

Waiting for Earl to Die and Other Stories is an anthology of short science fiction and horror stories. Every character in this collection has a story hidden deeply inside themselves, but not everyone realizes exactly what that story might be.

Both of these books are free on Kobo. Enjoy!

 

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· 1:00 am

Glimpses of Horror: A Review of Regretfully Invited

Book cover for Regretfully Invited by Jan L. Mayes. There is a skull, books, candles, a quill pen, and a page filled with writing on the cover.Title: Regretfully Invited: 13 Short Horror Stories

Author: Jan L. Mayes

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: 2018

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Paranormal, Historical, Contemporary

Length: 86 pages

Source: I received a free copy from Jan.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Blurb:

Find out the answer to this question and more with this 13 story bundle of creepy, horror micro-stories and flash fiction.

No zombies, vampires, or werewolves.

Delve into disturbingly haunting quick tales of murder, madness, and mayhem. Contained in a menacing atmosphere where all is not right in the world.

Included in this bundle:

Double Vision
Based on real events, where midnight visitors could be sinister or a quirk of vision.

Tubsy & The Trauma of Oz
Based on real life hideously shocking consequences of letting a girl’s favourite dolly perform in the school play.

The Grave of Gelert
Based on a visit to the real Gelert’s Grave in Wales, a tribute to the memory of when hasty deadly action brought sorrow.

Mary Annette
Based on the most terrifying teleporting real life marionette ever rejected by a child.

Tinnitus Study 421: Rotary
A 50 word flash fiction experiment that inspired the optimistic psychopath Doctor Bell.

Regretfully Invited
When an audiologist knows too much about Doctor Bell’s tinnitus cure experiments, he takes an unorthodox approach to eliminating them as a witness.

Disembodied
Inspired by real events where left feet keep washing ashore in the Pacific Northwest, but police have no idea who they belong to or where they came from.

Dreams of Debbie
Based on real events after the death of a sister, when a dream may be more than a dream.

Eye Eclipse
A father uses a rare solar eclipse for revenge, inspired by real events when a bystander videos a fatal accident instead of trying to save the child.

Ladykiller
Based on nightmares of an alien apocalypse, where oversleeping has deadly consequences.

Dad’s Death Bells
Based on real events after the death of a father, who might have ghosted back to give a murderous message or last good-bye.

Cofveve Pie
A Mom’s desperate plan to prevent her daughter’s wedding by serving the fiancé a “special dessert”, inspired by real events and the mystery of what cofveve means.

Napkins
Inspired by a big brother who decides to take things into his own hands to protect his sister from Mother’s abuse, but things don’t turn out exactly as planned.

Review:

Book content warning: Murder, torture, cancer, and death of a pet. 

Sometimes it only takes a moment for someone’s destiny to change.

Since I wasn’t familiar with the legend that “The Grave of Gelert” was based on, I went into it with no pre-conceived ideas of what might happen next. This was one of the shortest tales in this collection, and yet it was also the most satisfying. It had a clear beginning, middle, and ending. The fact that the dog, Gelert, was the only character whose named was mentioned only made me more interested in finding out what happened after the king who owned him noticed that the infant prince was missing.

One of the things I noticed happening over and over again in this anthology were that many stories spent precious little time explaining what was happening in them. While I do understand that flash fiction and very short stories in general need to get straight to the point in order to stick to its word counts, there were several times when I had trouble understanding what happened in a scene or what an ending was supposed to mean because of how briefly everything was described. I loved the concepts behind all of them, but this confusion was what ultimately lead me to choose a lower rating than I would have otherwise gone with. This was something that was most noticeable with “Tinnutitus Study 421: Rotary” and “Tubsy & The Trauma of Oz.”

My favourite tale in this collection was “Dreams of Debbie.” It happened shortly after a woman named Debbie died from an aggressive form of breast cancer. Her grieving relatives were struggling to come to terms with her untimely death, and their healing process was not going well. I deeply enjoyed seeing how the plot developed from this point. It was simultaneously satisfying as well as something that made me desperately wish for a sequel.

If you love being scared senseless, Regretfully Invited: 13 Short Horror Stories may be the perfect book for you.

 

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October 30, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Things That Scare Me

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

What an open-ended prompt this week!  Was it supposed to be used for for lighthearted, Halloween-friendly fears or more serious topics? I’m assuming it’s the former, but I’ll include one darker fear in case that is what Long and Short Reviews was actually hoping we’d do.

Only time will tell if everyone else interpreted it the same way. Here are some of the things that make me shudder.

Looking in the Mirror in a Dark Room

I blame the Bloody Mary game and all of the spooky ghost stories I’ve read for this one. During the day, I’m a logical person who knows there’s nothing inside of a mirror that could ever hurt me. This is much less true in the middle of the night when I stumble into the washroom half-asleep and can only see the dimmest reflection of what is in the mirror.

Antique doll wearing a bonnet and dress.

Antique Dolls

I chose the least creepy photo of an antique doll I could find online. The ones that have chipped or broken faces frighten me even more, especially if their eyes look lifelike.

Unexplained Noises, Especially at Night

Yes, many buildings will sometimes creak or make other little noises at night. Knowing the scientific explanation for why this happens doesn’t make it less eerie when it happens at midnight and you’re supposed to be alone in your house.

Absolute Silence

For example, I suffer from insomnia if I try to fall asleep in a perfectly silent room. I need the sound of a fan blowing or, even better, someone breathing gently next to me in order to sleep well.

Perfectly silent outdoor places are scary, too. If I don’t hear bugs buzzing, birds chirping, or some other friendly little noise in a forest, I get too creeped out to stay. It just doesn’t feel right to me at all. As an aside, has anyone else noticed fewer bugs in the summer these days? I could have sworn there were more of them flying and crawling around even a few years ago.

Foggy Days

I love sitting inside my warm, dry apartment and looking at the fog roll in. I do not like going out into the fog, especially in the morning or evening when there isn’t much light out there. There’s something a little scary about not being able to see as far into the distance as you normally can.

The clammy feeling in the air on foggy days is also unnerving to me. It almost feel like being touch by someone’s else wet hands without being able to see who that person is. Scary!

Phone Calls

This last one might need a little explaining. Texting and email are how I’ve kept in touch with my loved ones for many years now. Phone calls are reserved for horrible, urgent news like someone dying or being sent to the hospital with a life-threatening illness. This makes me nervous when my phone does ring and there’s anyone other than my dentist or family doctor on call display because I know that chances are high I’m about to hear heartbreaking news.

Do phone calls mean the same thing to you? How many fears do we share in common?

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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October 29, 2019 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Free Horror Stories

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Happy (almost) Halloween to everyone in the Top Ten Tuesday community!

This is my favourite holiday of the year by far, so the end of October always has a few posts on this topic on my site.

If you feel the same way about this season, here are some free horror stories you can read online to get into the spirit of Halloween.

1. “The Bongcheon-Dong Ghost” by Studio Horang

This is a comic strip about a ghost looking for her baby.

2. “Candle Cove” by Kris Straub

Everyone has a favourite childhood show, but not all of them are as unique as Candle Cove.

3. “The Bog Girl” by Karen Russell

Is anyone else in the TTT community fascinated with bog bodies? I read as many non-fiction articles and books about them as I can find, but fictionalized accounts of them are interesting, too.

4. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates

There are some disturbing themes in this tale, so click carefully if you hate violence (implied or actual). But I loved the character development in it, especially once the protagonist realizes just how few choices she’s been left with.

Potion in the foreground. Skull and lit candle sitting on a book in the background. 5. “Redcap” by Carrie Vaughn.

If you like dark fairy tales, definitely give this one a try.

6. “Hello Moto” by Nnedi Okoafor 

Anything in life can be turned into something frightening if it’s described in the right way. In this case, it’s wigs!

7. “Shiva, Open Your Eye” by Laird Barron

The writing in this short story was simply beautiful. I also enjoyed who the author chose to be the protagonist. Let’s just say it might not be who you’re expecting.

8. “Glashaus” by Madeline Gobbo and Miles Klee

There’s nothing scarier than an old-fashioned haunted house.

9. “A Guilty Conscience” by Nicholas Gordon 

If you get scared easily, this is the best thing on my list to read. It’s much less intense than everything else I recommended.

10. “eyes i dare not meet in dreams” by Sunny Moraine

Finally, this tale should only be read by people who don’t get scared easily. And, yes, the title was not capitalized on purpose. That’s how it’s supposed to be written.

 

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