Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Gifs

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

My creative muscles weren’t as strong as usual for this freebie post. I decided to go with something lighthearted and fun: bookish gifs.

 

Captain Picard sitting in a lounge chair in the sun. He says "All I require is the sit in the sune and read my book. Alone."

Honestly, I can’t blame Captain Picard for this one bit. I’d do the same thing in the Holodeck!

 

Homer Simpson holding his head and screaming. Caption says "that moment when you drop your book in the bath."

 

It’s been years since I did this, but I still shudder at the memory. I hope all of you have kept your books safe, too.

 

Animated character reading a book that says "pretending to be normal"

I have no idea where this one is from, but I love it.

 

Donald Duck reading a book. As he looks away, black claws emerge from the book to grab him.

I loved Donald Duck as a kid, but this scene would have scared me if I’d seen this particular episode.

 

Kitten pouncing when person tries to turn page. Caption says "Stop! I Haven't Finished Reading Yet!"

Ignore the typo in this gif and listen to a funny story. I once tried reading a book with a friend when we were in middle school. We read at different speeds, so I’d get bored and she’d get frustrated. It was a short-lived experiment.

 

Man saying "I'm going to be a big-time blogger."

May we all get there someday.

 

Gif of baby crying when the last page of a book is closed.

This poor baby doesn’t want story time to end. Can you blame him?

 

Woman smiling as she puts a book down

There’s nothing like finishing an immensely satisfying story.

 

I can’t stop giggling at this. I am more forgiving of the occasional typo than Bert apparently is, though.

What are your favourite bookish gifs or memes? 

 

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A Review of Curse of the Nain Rouge: The Legend of Detroit’s Red Devil

Curse of the Nain Rouge: The Legend of Detroit’s Red Devil by Michelle Nunley book cover. Image on cover is of a red, black, and white drawing of a devilish character. Title: Curse of the Nain Rouge: The Legend of Detroit’s Red Devil

Author: Michelle Nunley

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 20, 2020

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade 

Length: 5 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author. 

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

There are many urban legends of hauntings throughout Michigan. Some tell of an ominous white ghost, others of mysterious dog-headed creatures. But none is quite as haunting as that of the curse placed on the city of Detroit by a small red devilish-looking creature . . .  The Nain Rouge.

A short 1200 word story that tells the tale of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, founder of Detroit, and a curse placed on the city by a small red, sharp toothed devilish looking creature. Detroiter’s call him the Nain Rouge. Based on encounters and sightings throughout history, it is said the creature appears before every disaster throughout the city’s history and long list of misfortunes.

Review:

Some curses exist for good reasons. 

I was surprised in a good way by fact that Antoine was such an unlikeable protagonist. There’s something interesting about seeing how such a selfish, egotistical man reacted to a threat to his city that he didn’t believe in or think should be taken seriously. We all have our own blind spots, of course, but Antoine’s blind spots much bigger and more dangerous than most. 

This story could have used a little more character development. I had trouble empathizing with Antoine because nearly everything I learned about him was negative. Yes, he was a villain, and arguably even more so than the Nain Rouge itself, but even the worst person in the world is bound to have some good in him or herself. While I understand that this isn’t the strong suite of most folktales, there was definitely room here to humanize him a tad before he met up with his nemesis. 

My favorite part of this tale was the ending. It tied up the most important plot strings but also explained why this legend continues to be shared three hundred years after it was said to begin. I couldn’t help but the turn the unresolved portions of the storyline over and over in my mind to see if I could think of a good way to resolve them. There’s something to be said for a legend that could still yet have more chapters added to it!

 Curse of the Nain Rouge was a thought-provoking tale that I enjoyed reading. 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Fantasy Vacation

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

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

A large mountain next to a sandy beach. there is a rainbow in the dark sky above and seagulls looking for food where the tide has gone outThe photo I included in today’s post is of a fantasy world. If only it were real!

My perfect vacation would include plenty of time out in nature, especially if it involved beaches and mountains. It would be marvellous to be somewhere that made it possible for both of these things to happen in the same day.

Nature is incredibly soothing to me. I love hearing the tide lap up against the shore or leaves rustle in the wind.

There’s nothing like seeing the majesty of sharp mountain peaks reaching up to the sky after hiking for an hour or two.

Ideally, I’d convince my parents, siblings, sister-in-law, and nephews to join my spouse and I on this trip. I’m quite lucky to have a family that all gets along with each other well. We could rent a couple of houses next door to each other so everyone could find the perfect balance of alone time and family time since many of us are introverts!

What would I do during this trip?

  • Build sand castles with my nephews and whomever else wants to join in
  • Swim
  • Hike
  • Create Land Art from leaves, rocks, shells, and other natural materials
  • Eat whatever delicious meals my sister-in-law made because she loves to cook and is wonderful at it
  • Splurge on a professional massage one day
  • Sing or share stories around a bonfire at night
  • Laugh at old funny family stories
  • Nap (Vacation naps are the best ones ever!)
  • Visit nearby historical sites or museums with likeminded relatives
  • Have an alcoholic beverage or two. I virtually never drink, but sometimes the family will recommend or make something sweet that I enjoy a little bit of

In my experience, the best vacations are the simple ones that you allow to unfold as they will. There’s no need to spend a ton of money on specific excursions or events every day to make me happy.

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: LGBT+ Book Quotes

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Pride month is just around the corner. Since all in-person events for Toronto’s Pride events have been cancelled again this year thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, I decided to start the celebration a little early here instead. May it be safe for us to celebrate in person next year!

 

“The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you’ve just told them.”
Rachel Maddow

 

“Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that’s it. We’re all people. We’re all equal.”
Connor Franta

 

“But this is your life, and it will stretch out before you, and you are the only person who can make it whatever you want it to be.”
Christina Lauren, Autoboyography

 

“Rainbows are gay space lasers. That’s why they’re not straight.”
Oliver Markus Malloy, Introvert Comics: Inside The Mind of an Introvert

 

“Being different is what makes us fun, remember?”
Maulik Pancholy, The Best at It

White piece of cloth that has a rainbow and the phrase "love is love" painted on it.

 

“But you can have more than one family. You can choose your family.”
Phil Stamper, As Far As You’ll Take Me

 

“She’s happy with who she is. Maybe it’s not the heteronormative dream that she grew up wishing for, but… knowing who you are and loving yourself is so much better than that, I think.”
Alice Oseman, Loveless

 

“We all have our own unique place in the infinite gender universe.”
Ashley Mardell, The ABC’s of LGBT+

 

“The joy of discovery is one of the biggest pleasures you’ll ever know.”
Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

 

“In conversation with one of his friends, the openly gay Dr. William Hirsch, Fred Rogers himself concluded that if sexuality was measured on a scale of one to ten: ‘Well, you know, I must be right smack in the middle. Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.”
Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

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First, Do No Harm: A Review of Restore

Book cover for Restore Stories of Singularity #1 by Susan Kay Quinn. Image on cover is of a white robot staring off into the distance. Title: Restore – Stories of Singularity #1

Author: Susan Kaye Quinn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: May 2, 2015

Genre: Science Fiction 

Length: 42 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Blurb:

Restorative Human Medical Care Unit 7435, sentience level fifty, is happiness level five out of ten to serve and heal the human master it loves. But Unit 7435 finds there is a price to be paid for love… and for failing in its primary mission. 

Restore  is a standalone short story that takes place in the world of the Singularity novels. 

Start the novel series with The Legacy Human (Singularity 1).

Review:

Content warning: Terminal illness. I will be not discussing this in my review.

A happy medical care unit is a productive medical care unit.

I liked the fact that Restorative Human Medicine Care Unit 7435 had such a distinct personality. This wasn’t something I was expecting to find, especially based on my first impression of this bot who originally came across as someone who followed strict protocols with no room from deviation. This changed once 7435 decided to identify as female for the day and began receiving commands that were in direct opposition to her programming. (Medical care units in this universe can alter their gender presentation and preferred pronoun based on what makes their patient most comfortable)

With that being said, I struggled with the thin plot. It was difficult to remain interested when so little was happening, especially since 7435 had such a limited understanding of anything other than the various types of psychological and physical medical care she was programmed to provide to her patients. She was an interesting protagonist for sure, but developing a well-rounded storyline from someone whose perspective is naturally so limited is tough.

The world building was otherwise well done. My curiosity was piqued by the differences between legacy and ascender humans in this universe. The narrator knew just enough about this topic to keep me wondering why humanity decided to branch off in these ways and what other ways the two groups might be distinct from each other that a medical bot wouldn’t necessarily be aware of.

I’d recommend Restore to anyone who is a big fan of stories about artificial intelligence. 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Recent Topics I’ve Googled

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

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

Cartoon character holding a magnifying glass and peering through itI love this topic! Here are some things I’ve recently googled and why I looked them up online.

Do pigeons recognize individual humans? 

As you all know, I like to say good morning or good evening to the pigeons who live in my neighbourhood when I pass by them.

I sometimes wonder if they recognize the friendly human who greets them so often.

Yes, it turns out they can recognize individuals.

Isn’t that neat?

 

Signs of a migraine attack

Best ice pack for migraine 

I’ve had occasional but horrid headaches for years. It was during a conversation with a relative who has the same issue recently that I realized my headaches might actually be migraines.

This is something I plan to discuss in detail with my family doctor the next time I have a checkup. In the meantime, I’ve been researching steps I can take to help reduce their frequency, predict when they’re about to happen, and numb the pain without opioids.

(This is in no way a judgement of people who need them, by the way. I’m simply cautious about taking any new medications for a laundry list of reasons that would derail the purpose of this post).

 

How did Victorians make ice cream?

On a more cheerful note, I recently watched a long video called How the Victorians Made Their Exquisite Ice Cream and was curious to learn more about the process as well as what flavours were popular in the 1800s. Imagine spending 5 hours making cucumber ice cream! I think I’ll stick to mint chocolate chip, but kudos to previous generations for trying everything under the sun.

 

Is Harry Potter cheugy? 

I learned about this teen/Generation Z slang term from a recent comedic music video.

Cheugy refers to things that are off-trend and out of date. Some sites say that owning Harry Potter merchandise and/or being too into the franchise in general is cheugy now because that’s only for “old” folks. I can’t stop giggling at that idea.

 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Are Complete Sentences

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Smartphone near an empty notebook and pen. All items are sitting on a white and grey striped blanket. What a creative topic for this week! I’d never thought about book titles that also happen to be complete sentences before.

How easy did you find this prompt? Once I got into the groove of it, I compiled this list pretty easily.

1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

2. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

3. All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

4. Please Don’t Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr

5. In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez

6. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

7. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

8. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

9. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum

10. Please Look After Mom  by Shin Kyung-sook

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Bedroom Battle: A Review of The Teddy Bear’s War

The Teddy Bear's War by Alex Cross book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of a teddy bear holding a sword. Title: The Teddy Bear’s War

Author: Alex Cross

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: January 17, 2021

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 9 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Every little kid is afraid of the dark in some way. The unknown scares us all to some extent. John is no exception. Is there a monster under the bed? A ghost in the closet? Or something else…something we don’t even have a name for? Luckily for John, he has someone looking out for him. When the thing in John’s closet goes bump in the night, it has to go through a Teddy Bear first.

Review:

Bedtime is anything but restful for this bear.

Teddy Bear was an incredibly brave toy. While John slept, he was responsible for protecting the boy from anything that might cause him harm. The reasons why Teddy Bear had taken on this role and what would happen if he failed were fascinating and well developed. I can’t go into more detail about them than that for spoiler reasons, but I was thrilled with how the author explained it all.

I also adored this story’s explanations for where nightmares come from and why they can be so terrifying, especially for kids. Not only did they make perfect sense for the plot, they made me wish that our world worked this way as well.

While I enjoyed every word of this story, the ending was particularly meaningful. It resolved all of the most important plot points while also leaving plenty of room for a sequel if the author ever decides to write one. I loved getting to know these characters and would be first in line to revisit them if we ever get a chance to see what John and Teddy Bear get up to as John grows older and Teddy Bear grows even wiser than he already is.

I can’t recommend The Teddy Bear’s War highly enough! It made my heart sing.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favourite Indulgence

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

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

Shar pei dog getting a face massage. This entire post could be summed up into one word: massages.

There is nothing I enjoy more than getting a gentle massage from someone who has a lot of experience giving them.

It’s one of the most relaxing things I can possibly imagine. I carry tension in my back and shoulders that sometimes translates into pain, so it’s glorious to have all of those knots gently loosened and sorted out.

Years ago, there was a massage studio somewhat close to my house that offered back massages at a pretty reasonable rate.

They’ve since closed, but I will be keeping an eye out for future massage opportunities once this pandemic has ended and it’s safe to get them again.

(And, no, that isn’t my dog in the photo in today’s post. I simply wanted to share a photo related to massage that was G-rated for anyone who reads this at work. Some of the massage photos on stock photo sites can be a little risqué!)

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Mountains on Their Covers

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A mountain half bathed in evening sunlight. It is reflected in a perfectly-still lake at the foot of the mountain. Mountains are one of my favourite natural settings to find on book covers. They’re so majestic and breathtaking!

I spent part of my childhood living right next to a large mountain range, so they also bring up happy memories from those years.

There’s nothing like being nestled right next to the mountains.  You get so much snow in the winter, and the summers are nice and mild as well.

Here are ten beautiful covers that include mountains on them.

This list turned out to have more North American mountains on it than I was originally intending to include. If you know of beautiful book covers about mountain ranges in other parts of the world, I’d love to hear about them.

The Mountains That Remade America- How Sierra Nevada Geology Impacts Modern Life by Craig H Jones book cover. Image on cover shows a mountain in Nevada that's right next to a highway

1. The Mountains That Remade America: How Sierra Nevada Geology Impacts Modern Life
by Craig H Jones

The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti book cover. Image on cover is a photo of snow-covered mountains.

2. The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti

Everest- Mountain without Mercy by Broughton Coburn book cover. Image on cover shows sun setting on Mount Everest.

3. Everest: Mountain without Mercy by Broughton Coburn

Annapurna- The First Conquest of an 8,000-Meter Peak by Maurice Herzog book cover. Image on cover shows sun setting on Annapurna mountain peak.

4. Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8,000-Meter Peak by Maurice Herzog

Uluru- Australia's Aboriginal Heart by Caroline Arnold book cover. Image on cover shows Mount Uluru in all of it's red, dusty glory.

5. Uluru: Australia’s Aboriginal Heart by Caroline Arnold

Walking in the Caucasus - Georgia by Peter Nasmyth book cover. Image on cover shows mountain covered in clouds and snow peeking above a thick forest of pine trees.

6. Walking in the Caucasus – Georgia by Peter Nasmyth

Adirondacks- Views of An American Wilderness by Carl E. Heilman II book cover. Image on cover is panoramic shot from a mountaintop to the lush forest and lake below.

7. Adirondacks: Views of An American Wilderness by Carl E. Heilman II

If Mountains Die- A New Mexico Memoir by John Nichols book cover. Image on cover shows stormy clouds passing over mountains bathed in red evening light.

8. If Mountains Die: A New Mexico Memoir by John Nichols\

Hannibal's March- Alps and Elephants by Gavin de Beer book cover. Image on cover is a painting of the Alps in spring when some snow still remains on them.

9. Hannibal’s March: Alps and Elephants by Gavin de Beer

The Sound of Mountain Water by Wallace Stegner book cover. Image on cover is of a mountain stream filled with water rushing over the many rocks in it.

10. The Sound of Mountain Water by Wallace Stegner

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