December 30, 2020 · 1:00 am

My 20 Most Popular Posts of 2020

A green olympic typewriter that has typed out the number 2020. Every December I make a list of my most popular posts of the year. This is something I first began doing in 2017 with a roundup of my 10 most popular posts.

In 2018, I decided to double that number in response to my blogging buddies Terry Tyler and Tom Williams doing the same thing. I continued that tradition in 2019 and am back again today with this year’s entry.

The first two times I wrote this post, WordPress gobbled them up when I tapped the Schedule button. Talk about frustrating! Let’s cross our fingers and hope the third time is the charm.

Each year there are surprises in these roundups. It’s not always easy to predict which posts will do well immediately, take off months later, or occasionally never garner as much interest as I thought they would.

This year I was a little surprised by how many bookish posts made it to the list. In the past, those topics generally didn’t garner as much interest as they did in 2020.

It was awesome to see so many of my entries for Vintage Science Fiction month be so popular as well. I will be participating in that blogging event again in January, so stay tuned.

I also liked seeing some film and indie book reviews included in the top 20 list. These are topics I could talk about all day.

Fitness was something I blogged about less often than usual this past year. I am hoping to blog more about it in 2021, especially once all of us who can be vaccinated against Covid-19 have been vaccinated and it becomes safer to go places again.

Thank you all for reading what I’ve written this year! Without further ado, here are the top 20 posts of 2020 beginning with #20 on the list.

Winter Blogfest graphic on a blue background with white snowflakes dotting the top and sides. The graphic reads, "Long and Short Reviews Winter Blogfest. A Prize on every post! December 21-January 1."

20. A Free Author Promo Opportunity at Long and Short Reviews 

A girl with a bored expression on her face reading a book.

19. 4 Creative Ways to Overcome a Reading Slump 

Black and white photo of a pug tilting its head in confusion

18. Why Writers Should Eavesdrop Regularly 

Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. She is holding her brand new tribble.

17. Vintage Science Fiction Month: The Trouble with Tribbles

Person standing in a 6+ foot tall tunnel built into thick walls of snow and ice.

16. An Exclusive Interview with Winter 

Film poster for Jumanji. image on poster shows four main characters standing at the mouth of a cave looking out onto a jungle with mountains in the distance.

15. A Review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 

A Bit of Pickled Pumpkin and Other Short Horror Stories by B.A. Loudon book cover. Image on cover is of a pile of pumpkins.

14. A Review of A Bit of Pickled Pumpkin and Other Stories 

A city park landscape. The grass is green and covered in blue flowers. The bushes are just beginning to turn green, and the trees still look bare.

13. A Photo Essay of Toronto in April

gibraltar point lighthouse on Toronto Island in Toronto, Ontario

12. 6 Toronto Urban Legends for Halloween

Child running up a flight of steps

11. 3 Reasons Why You Should Try Mall Walking

Nine speech bubbles in a variety of shapes and pastel colours.

10. Why I Blog About Multiple Topics 

Photo of person's legs and orange shoes as they climb a flight of blue stairs.

9. 3 Reasons Why I Take the Stairs Instead of the Elevator 

A dead tree. The top half has been shorn off and is lying on the ground. Was it damaged in a storm?

8. A Photo Essay of Toronto in March 

Second Variety by Philip K. Dick book cover. Image on cover is of a stylized, human-shaped flame holding the Earth.

7. Vintage Science Fiction Month: Second Variety by Phillip K. Dick

Bananas that are submerged in a bright yellow landscape.

6. On Finding Scope for Imagination During Uncertain Times 

six clouds digitally altered to spell out the word dreams.

5. Let’s Talk About Vivid Quarantine Dreams 

 

A toy apple sitting on three textbooks in front of a blackboard. The toy apple has a window and door painted on it so it looks like a little house.

4. 5 Homeschooling Tips from a Homeschooler 

Book cover for 1NG4. Image on cover is of a metal structure that has been photographed just after dusk.

3. Military Science: A Review of 1NG4

a room filled with levers on its wall

2. Hopeful Science Fiction: Move the World 

Women doing yoga

1. 3 Things I Like About Yoga

Leave a Comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as ,

December 29, 2020 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Books of 2020

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

2020 was a topsy-turvy reading year for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you feel the same way. We’ve all been through a lot this year.

dried plants on top of a small stack of books.The Deep by Rivers Solomon

(My review of it is here).

What I Liked Most About It: The world building was well done and there were many scenes I thought would be memorable on the big or small screen.

 

“Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter” by Kate Clifford Larson

What I Liked Most About It: I had a vague notion of the existence of a member of the Kennedy family who was lobotomized, but I didn’t know why that happened or what their fate was afterwards. Her tale was a sad, poignant one.

 

“The Ghost Child” by Sonya Hartnett

What I Liked Most About It: The magical realism added such a nice touch to the main character’s descriptions of what life was like for her in retirement.

 

“Zombies Run!: Keeping Fit and Living Well in the Current Zombie Emergency” by Naomi Alderman

What I Liked Most About It: Zombies might not be real, but there is a ton of great advice here about how to live as healthily as possible when your community is in lockdown, say, due to a worldwide pandemic.

 

“The Pull of the Stars” by Emma Donoghue

What I Liked Most About It: The descriptions of the 1918 flu pandemic, the medical treatments for it, and how hard these characters worked to keep their patients alive were mesmerizing.

 

“A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future” by Perri Klass

What I Liked Most About It: It gave so many reasons to be grateful to live in 2020, and it provided personal accounts from various historical eras on a topic that isn’t generally discussed in history classes. For the vast majority of human history, about half of all children died before reaching adulthood.  It took us multiple generations and the cooperation of countless scientists, politicians, and ordinary people to slowly create entire societies where the vast majority of children live.

128 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as

December 28, 2020 · 1:00 am

A Photo Essay of Toronto in December

A bare tree branch with a nest in it. Each month I share photos from one of the parks in Toronto to show my readers what our landscape looks like throughout the year. This is the eleventh instalment of this series.

Click on February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November to read the earlier posts.

Other than the amount of snow on the ground, the scenery in December remains almost exactly the same from the beginning to the end of the month. You will probably notice a few differences between the photos in this post and the ones to come in January, but it won’t be as dramatic as it is in the autumn and spring.

It was a balmy 8 Celsius (46 Fahrenheit) and somewhat cloudy when I visited. Typical days during this month generally don’t rise above 2 Celsius (35 Fahrenheit). Snow is common now, but most of it generally melts before the next batch arrives.  This is not the case in January, so my final instalment of this series might need to get a little creative depending on how slippery the sidewalks are then!

Let’s begin our virtual visit.

Landscape portrait of a World War II monument at a park in December. All of the trees are bare.

The first thing I noticed was how washed out everything looked there. It was the sort of day that was dark and cloudy one moment and weakly sunny at the next. I thought this photo captured that in an interesting manner.

A closeup of a World War I monument in a park. It's surrounded by scraggly evergreen bushes.

A closer and clearer look at this entrance to the park. The evergreen bushes in front of the monument have gone dormant now.

A muddy running trail at a park in December.

Mud has returned to the running trail.  I did see two brave souls continuing to jog there and sometimes running onto the sidewalk or to dryer bits of grass when they encountered the biggest puddles. (There would generally be dozens of joggers and walkers politely using the same space in the autumn and spring. I expect to see none at all next month).

Salt scattered on a sidewalk.

The sidewalks are now covered in salt alongside all of the leaves that have decorated them these past few months. They are almost always wet now, so the salt helps to keep them walkable for most pedestrians before the big storms of January make this a much slipperier place for a stroll.

A patch of dirty snow on a sidewalk.

However, anyone who has mobility issues should be cautious here in real life. Even relatively warm and dry days now include patches of snow and half-melted ice scattered here and there. The salt can only do so much, and it will only grow slicker over the next couple of months.

Skyward shot of tree branches against a cloudy sky

The canopy of rustling leaves is 90% gone now and the park is quiet. Last summer we couldn’t see the sky from this perspective. The clouds moved so fast that these photos also might look like they were taken on separate days instead of only a few moments apart.

A tree filled with dead autumn leaves

This sapling was one of a handful of trees that still held onto most of its leaves. A few of them generally retain at least some of their leaves until the end of winter.

A bird's nest in bare tree branches.

With that being said, this is what the majority of trees look like now. Yes, that includes the bird’s nest. Not all of them have old nests, but many of them do.

Two bird nests in the bare branches of a dormant tree.

Some of the largest ones even have two or more nests visible now. No wonder I heard birds chirping everywhere last spring and summer! I think it’s marvellous to see where the birds decided to make their homes eight or nine months ago.

Earlier this year I talked about how wet, spongy, and muddy the ground was as it thawed. You saw a photo of this on the running trail, but it’s something found throughout the park. I couldn’t walk on most of it without caking my shoes in mud.

 

A tree that lost half of its branches and a big chunk of its trunk in an early 2020 winter storm. It's dormant now.

Luckily, our tree friend that lost half of its branches was in a drier section of the park. It seems to have survived our first few snowstorms just fine.

 

A landscape photo of a tree that lost a third of its branches in an early 2020 winter storm.

The zoom lens on my camera helped me get this shot of our tree friend that lost a third of its branches. It still has a wet trunk and drooping branches. I’ve avoided walking underneath them for months now for safety reasons. Soon we will see how they will fare under the heavy ice and snow that coats everything in January.

Do you want to know two of the best things about visiting the park in December? I’ll give you a few hints.

A squirrel climbing up a sapling that has gone dormant for the winter.

This one might be a little tricky to see. Look at the sapling in the centre of the photo if you need help. Yes, that’s a squirrel! It was climbing so vigorously the whole tree was shaking a bit.

A black squirrel sitting on top of a knot of a tree.

There’s something about this time of year that makes squirrels slightly easier to photograph. This little black squirrel is sitting on top of a knot on the right hand side of this tree. I’d just seen it climb out of a hole in the knot. That must be where he or she lives.

My other favourite part of visiting the park now is something I tend to overlook the rest of the year.

A small patch of evergreen trees in a park.

Evergreen trees are one of the few splashes of colour between now and April. I sure appreciate their green addition to the landscape when everything else is drab and various shades of brown, black, and grey for months on end.

A landscape shot of trees in a park who have all lost their leaves and gone dormant.

Here’s another shot of the more typical deciduous areas of the park for reference.

A sidewalk in a park flanked by dormant, bare trees. The grass next to the sidewalk is covered in a thick layer of brown leaves.

Finally, this is what the famous walkway looks like after nearly all of the leaves have fallen.

The plan is to blog about this park again in the icy, snowy depths of January so that every month will have been accounted for. Then I hope to do one final post in the spring to see how our two damaged tree friends fared over the winter.

Take care until next month, readers!

10 Comments

Filed under Personal Life

Tagged as , , , ,

December 24, 2020 · 1:00 am

Solitary Fear: A Review of Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk

Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk by Frank Cowper. Image on cover is of a sinking ship and a ominous skull in the sky watching it. The telling or reading of ghost stories during the Christmas season was once a tradition in Victorian England. This series of books seeks to revive this tradition. Beginning this year, I hope to review all of them during the month of December for as many years as it takes to finish this project. 

Title: Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk – A Ghost Story for Christmas (Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories)

Author: Frank Cowper

Publisher: Biblioasis

Publication Date: 1925 and 2018

Genres: Paranormal, Historical

Length: 64 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Reading a ghost story on Christmas Eve was once as much a part of traditional Christmas celebrations as turkey, eggnog, and Santa Claus.

When he finds an abandoned duck punt on Christmas Eve, a hunter rows out into the marsh and comes across a shipwreck. He climbs aboard to explore—and finds himself trapped when a surge snaps the mooring line and his punt floats away. Sleep eludes him, and soon he discovers that he’s not the only one trapped on the derelict ship.

Review:

Content warning: claustrophobic setting. I will not be discussing this in my review.

This tale was set in an era when the social classes were much more divided than they are these days. That is to say, it was a terrible faux pas to befriend people from lower or upper classes. Since the lonely, financially secure main characters lived in an economically depressed area, this essentially meant that they could hire their neighbours to work for them but could never invite them over for something sociable like dinner.

I love being near all sorts of bodies of water, but they can be melancholy places in disagreeable weather. The thought of purposefully going out exploring in a chilly, watery environment on Christmas Eve made me shake my head and wonder what on Earth the protagonist was thinking.

With that being said, the protagonist’s impulsivity and willingness to take unnecessary risks was exactly what this plot needed to push it forward. He was someone I soon grew to like quite a bit even while shaking my head at his total disregard for his own safety.

The eerie thing about this haunting was that it happened in total darkness after the main character accidentally got trapped on the abandoned ship. Imagine hearing frightening sounds, having no way to discover what was making them, and not being able to move out of fear of walking the wrong way and falling through rotten, gap-filled lumber into a freezing sea!

That imagery alone was what earned this story a horror rating. It wasn’t gory at all, but it sure was horrifying.

 

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 23, 2020 · 1:00 am

The Day Before Christmas Eve: A Review of The Yule Cat

The Yule Cat - a Christmas Short Story by Eldritch Black book cover. Image on coer shows drawing of a blue cat sitting in the snow outside of a village at night. The cat is staring ahead at the reader. Title: The Yule Cat – a Christmas Short Story

Author: Eldritch Black

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 25, 2020

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Holidays

Length: 46 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Strange, scary rumors are flying about the tiny, snowy town below the mountains. Some say a tiger sprang loose from a circus train and roams the snowy meadows. Some say it stalks in the wintry forests. Some say it’s a monster. 

But feisty Maisie Crompton knows that can’t be true. Such things never happen in their sleepy alpine village. 
Or do they?

For soon, Maisie finds herself crossing the path of a spine-chilling legend. The Yule Cat; a fearsome mythical beast collecting snacks for his winter feast. And should Maisie fail in the cat-and-mouse hunt that follows, she might well become the next morsel on his menu…

From the author of Krampus and The Thief of Christmas, The Yule Cat is a short Christmas story brimming with magic, trolls, spooky mythology, and fun and festive chills for readers of all ages

Review:

Be careful what you wish for.

If only I could read that introduction to this review to Maisie! Her envious attitude in the first scene certainly gave me a strong impression of her. I sympathized with her frustration over having to count every last cent so carefully. The holidays are a tough time to be poor, especially for a kid who is watching her best friend show off an expensive new coat. I know the narrator probably wanted us to hope Maisie would learn a valuable lesson about gratitude for what one has. While I had those thoughts as well, I also hoped she’d get a wonderful Christmas gift that matched all of her dreams.

There were a few things about the climax of this story that didn’t quite make sense to me, especially when it came to exactly what Jólakötturinn (The Yule Cat) was capable of. It was never clear to me exactly what the limits of his powers were. Sometimes he seemed capable of things that he hadn’t been a scene before, so I was never sure what to expect from him. It would have been nice to have a firmer understanding of this creature as he was definitely a scary one!

The world building was handled nicely. I appreciated the fact that the author explained a little bit about the backstory of Jólakötturinn for anyone who wasn’t already familiar with that. That attention to detail continued on with the descriptions of the other characters, too. All of their histories were important in order to fully understand how Maisie ended up in such a dangerous predicament on December 23.

Let me end this review with my favourite quote from this tale. It captured the themes of it all nicely.

“He grows when he senses fear, and shrinks when he’s content.”

4 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 22, 2020 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Things I Hope Santa Brings

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

wrapped gifts sitting beneath a christmas treeThis week’s topic was Books I Hope Santa Brings, but my TBR list is already so huge that with a few exceptions I’ll make note of below that I’d rather not receive more books from Santa or anyone else this holiday season!

With that being said, there are some bookish items I wouldn’t mind receiving this holiday season.

Uninterrupted Reading Time 

What could be better than curling into a quiet corner of the house and reading for as long as your heart desires?

Dairy-Free Chocolate/Sweets

Grocery stores and coffee shops are filled with scrumptious holiday sweets at this time of the year.

I always get excited when I read the ingredient list for a new potential treat and realize that it’s safe for my milk allergy!

Caffeine-Free Hot Drinks

I don’t generally eat or drink while reading, but when I do these are the types of things I like to rummage around for in my cupboards. Some stories simply work better when you have something to sip or nibble on while reading them.

If Santa also wants to make my sweets and beverages low-calorie, I’d promise not to give away his secret for accomplishing that.

A Waterproof Case for My iPhone

So I can safely read ebooks while taking a bath, of course!

Warm Reading Socks

My feet grow cold in the winter. They need all of the coziness they can get.

Happy Endings for Protagonists 

Okay, and maybe some of the antagonists, too, if they truly regret their mistakes.

Audiobooks 

These are the one sort of book I wouldn’t mind receiving over the holidays because I can “read” them while exercising or cleaning my house.

I’ve found that the fantasy and young adult genres works particularly well for me in these scenarios, but I wouldn’t say no to science fiction, biographies, or many other genres as well.

Sequels to Unfinished/Disappointing Series 

I don’t want to hurt any author’s feelings by naming specific series here, but there are certain series that really should have been given better (or, in some cases, any) endings. I’d sure love if it they could all be wrapped up properly and respectfully.

77 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as

December 21, 2020 · 1:00 am

Creepy Christmas Poems

Christmas wreath with a Santa placard saying "Merry Christmas" hung from it. The wreath is hung on a slightly ominious black door.

The spookiest Christmas stock photo I could find.

Someone, or possibly more than one person, keeps finding this blog by searching for creepy Christmas poems.

If they ever read this post, I hope they know it was written in direct response to the multiple queries that have popped up in my analytics.

I more or less stopped celebrating Christmas years ago when I moved far away from home, deconverted from my childhood religion, accepted a job in an industry that was always busy and stressful in December, and found myself overwhelmed by the sentimentality and consumerism of secular Christmas.

Now I sound like a grumpy character at the beginning of a Christmas movie who is about to learn a valuable life lesson, but that’s honestly not how I think about this holiday at all.

I enjoy the lights, food, and music that is traditionally shared now, and I cheer for everyone who finds meaning in the other aspects of Christmas (and/or any other winter holiday) as well.

I simply know what my limits are. Luckily, those limits include creepy Christmas poems when new readers show up here looking for them. Here are some poems that celebrate Christmas without a single ounce of sentimentality.

A Christmas Ghost Story by Thomas Hardy

Yule Horror by H.P. Lovecraft

Scary Christmas by Donald R. Wolff JR

Christmas Ghost by Andrew Green

Christmas Poems (That Won’t Make You Throw Up) by various authors

Holiday Horror: A True Story by Lucy Giardino Cortese

Merry Christmas from the Void (an analysis of three H.P. Lovecraft poems)

Merry Christmas by Langston Hughes (scroll down to read it).

 

Which creepy Christmas poems would you add to this list?

4 Comments

Filed under Personal Life, Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 17, 2020 · 1:00 am

Completing the Set: A Review of The Crown Derby Plate

Book cover for Marjorie Bowen's "The Crown Derby Plate- A Ghost Story for Christmas." Image on cover is of a ghost, tombstone, and house.The telling or reading of ghost stories during the Christmas season was once a tradition in Victorian England. This series of books seeks to revive this tradition. Beginning this year, I hope to review all of them during the month of December for as many years as it takes to finish this project. 

Title: The Crown Derby Plate – A Ghost Story for Christmas (Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories)

Author: Marjorie Bowen

Publisher: Biblioasis

Publication Date: 1931 and 2016

Genres: Paranormal, Holiday, Historical

Length: 56 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Blurb: An antique collector hears of an ancient woman with a large collection of china. Hoping to complete a particular set, the collector pays a visit to the woman’s ramshackle house, where she makes a terrifying, ghostly discovery.

Review:

One of the first things that intrigued me about this short story was that was written about a single woman who was a senior citizen. The speculative fiction genre is sadly pretty short on protagonists who fit that demographic, so I’m always in the market for writers who buck that trend.

Martha, the antique collector, was the character who greedily went off in search of a Crown Derby Plate that was the only piece missing from her prized collection. She struck me as the sort of person who has memorized all of the etiquette rules and social niceties while also having a deep understanding of how to use them to quietly get exactly what she wants. While I’d never want to befriend her, I did find the combination of her impeccable manners and selfish motives to be fascinating.

The paranormal elements of the plot were ridiculously easy to figure out in advance. I’d suspect that anyone who has read more than one ghost story in their life would know where this piece was going as soon as Martha set off to visit her neighbour’s dilapidated estate.  It would have been nice to have fewer clues about what was happening there.

With that being said, I loved the spooky atmosphere of the Hartley’s house. This is one of those things that can quickly make or break a ghost story, and it was done well in this case. Miss Lefain, the frail old woman who lived there, was not well enough to do even simple tasks like dusting, so Martha was in for quite a surprise when she saw how run-down the property was.

While it wasn’t specifically written for these groups, this is something that could be a fun story to read to kids or people learning English as a second language who are in the market for something short, simple, and scary.

4 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 16, 2020 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Would Make Great Gifts

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.

This final topic of the year was a little tricky for me because of how many different types of books and readers are out there. Some people love romance, while others think of themselves as the world’s biggest fans of the horror, mystery, or science fiction genres (among many others). There are also readers who joyfully jump around from one genre to the next!

My answers to this prompt are an attempt to recommend books that will appeal to as many sorts of people as possible.

Close-up image of pen resting on a sudoku puzzle

Sudoku, Crossword, Word Search and Other Puzzle Books

Puzzle books are such a broad category that the right selection of them can be found for nearly age group or ability level.

Blank Books

They can be used as diaries, bullet journals, sketchbooks, places to collect favourite poems, quotes, or cheerful messages from friends, and so much more.

Some are so small they can fit into the palm of your hand, while others are large enough to use as a sketchbook.

close-up photo of a colouring book for adults with coloured pencing resting on one of its opened pagesAdult Colouring Books

Colouring isn’t only for kids!

This is a wonderful, calming activity for winter or at other times when staying at home is your best bet.

The subject matter of them varies from floral garden patterns to Lord of the Rings pictures and everything inbetween.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Christmas presents wrapped in red, green, and brown paper and tied with twineIf you enjoyed the film version of this story, definitely do check out the book.

It’s written to appeal to everyone: kids, teens, adults, and senior citizens. Not many stories can say that!

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver was one of those poets who know how to speak both to poetry fanatics as well as to those of us who generally aren’t interested in that genre.

Her work spoke about things that all humans experience, from grief to enjoying a quiet moment in nature to the relief of seeing the sun after a long, dark night.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

No one is ever too old or too young for a story filled with puns, other types of wordplay, and literary jokes in general.

 

On one final note, it’s been a lot of fun participating in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge in 2020. Thank you all for reading my responses to it and writing your own!

17 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as , ,

December 15, 2020 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Nonfiction Books on My Winter 2020-2021 TBR

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

distressed yellow page from a scrapbookAs I’ve mentioned in previous posts, winter is a time when I read much more nonfiction than usual. Here are some of the nonfiction books I’m hoping to check out before spring arrives.

 

Even Better Brownies: 50 Standout Bar Recipes for Every Occasion by Mike Johnson

Release Date: Already released

Why I Want to Read It: 90% of my diet is based on whole foods and quite healthy. The other 10% is decadent by design.

 

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Release Date: Already released

Why I Want to Read It: I’ve enjoyed all of the previous books President Obama has written and look forward to reading about his memories from the White House.

 

It’s Never Too Late: Make the Next Act of Your Life the Best Act of Your Life by Kathie Lee Gifford and Dolly Parton

Release Date: Already released

Why I Want to Read It: The subject matter is relevant to my life (and to the lives of many other people this year!)

 

Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life
by John N. Gray

Release Date: Already released.

Why I Want to Read It: I enjoy reading light-hearted philosophy books like this on occasion.

 

The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook for Beginners: Meal Plans, Expert Guidance, and 100 Recipes to Get You Started by Elena Paravantes

Release Date: December 29

Why I Want to Read It: I’m always on the lookout for new recipes for the healthy 90% of my diet I referenced earlier.

 

Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel Lieberman

Release Date: January 5

Why I Want to Read It: For many years, I was one of those people who genuinely hated exercise due to negative experiences with it in gym class as a kid and a lifelong disinterest in  team sports. I love the idea of reframing exercise in ways that get people like me to enjoy it. That’s something that should be emphasized much more heavily for all age groups and ability levels.

 

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders

Release Date: January 12

Why I Want to Read It: Writing is one of those topics I could talk and read about all day without growing tired of it. There’s so much to say!

 

The Extraction State: A History of Natural Gas in America by Charles Blanchard

Release Date: January 12

Why I Want to Read It: This is one of those ubiquitous parts of life I’d never think to write about but suddenly find myself interested in reading about.

 

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain

Release Date: February 2

Why I Want to Read It: I’m always interested in reading portions of history that either weren’t covered in traditional history courses or were only given a cursory overview. There’s no such thing as having too many details about the past in my opinion.

 

Things I Learned From Falling by Claire Nelson

Release Date: March 5

Why I Want to Read It: Getting seriously hurt while camping or hiking far away from home is something that frightens me. Claire survived this scenario, so it will be interesting to read her account of how she got hurt and how she made it to safety.

 

 

 

123 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as