Tag Archives: Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

June 18, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Humorous Book Titles

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Photo of a white pug who is standing on their back legs and peering over what appears to be a small stool or maybe a picnic table. The dog’s mouth is open and its little tongue is sticking out. It looks like it is smiling. I love this topic and could discuss it endlessly.

1. You Don’t Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps (J. W. Wells & Co., #4) by Tom Holt

2. Surviving Your Stupid Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School by Adam Ruben

3. Knitting With Dog Hair: Better a Sweater from a Dog You Know and Love Than from a Sheep You’ll Never Meet
by Kendall Crolius

4. Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them: How to Keep Your Tractors Happy and Your Family Running
by Roger Welsch

5. Four Eyes Were Never Better Than Two by Kelly Coleman Potter

6. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

7. Unicorns Are Jerks: A Coloring Book Exposing the Cold, Hard, Sparkly Truth by Theo Nicole Lorenz

8. Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison

9. How to Make Your Cat an Internet Celebrity: A Guide to Financial Freedom by Patricia Carlin

10. How To Tell Your Cat About Trump by Breaking Burgh

No, I have not read any of them yet! The titles are great, though.

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June 11, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Things to Do in the Summer

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I know we’ve had this theme for WWBC in the past at least once, but I’m purposefully not looking up my old post or posts about it. Let’s see what my brain comes up with this time.

What do I like to do during the summer?

A black Labrador retriever who is wearing a rainbow-themed fuzzy faux feather wrap around his neck. Is this from a Pride Parade, perhaps? He looks interested in whatever he’s peering at. Eating fresh, local produce. There are a limited number of options for Canadian produce between about November and April or May, and most of those involve apples, cabbage, or other root vegetables. Due to this, I relish all of the seasonal and often more delicate foods that are abundant the rest of the year. Yay for berries, stone fruit, tomatoes, and more!

Going swimming. Yes, some Canadians enjoy a nice Polar Plunge (briefly swimming or wading in the Great Lakes in the dead of winter), but I am so not one of them. Give me sunlight on my skin and enough time for the summer heat to actually warm up the water to non-freezing temperatures before I’ll even think about dipping my toes in at a beach or pool.

Taking morning walks. Even on hot days, the weather can still be decent if you go outside before the sun has warmed up everything too much.  Evening walks can be nice, too, depending on the high temperature of the day.

Attending festivals and parades. I love being surrounded by happy people while celebrating books, cultural events, various minority groups, food, music, or other uplifting topics. You’ll often see dogs walking around with their people at these events, too! I like to pretend that everyone’s dogs know exactly who or what is being celebrated and wholeheartedly endorse it.

Travelling lightly. That is to say, in the summer there’s no need for a winter jacket, mittens,  hat,  scarf, long underwear, or any other extra stuff to remember to put on when I’m out and about. I love walking around in shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt with nothing to carry in my hands other than maybe a bottle of water.

Visiting nature. I think you all could probably guess I’d pick this. Summer can be tricky for park visits depending on the heat and humidity levels and what the air quality index looks like, but on the cooler and less smoky days* I’m definitely up for a picnic, a few rounds of nature or other types of photography, some sightseeing, or a stroll through a forest or flower garden.

*Canada, and I believe many parts of the U.S. as well, have had massive forest fires in recent years during the summer. This can make the air quality too poor for exercising or non-essential outdoor time depending on how bad things get.

So this is my list. What can I say other than I’m easy to please and can amuse myself on a budget. 🙂

 

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June 4, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Book Covers and Why

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A bouquet of little white flowers - possibly of the dogwood variety - lying on an antique hardcover book. The book’s cover is brown and looks like it may have once had a floral design on it. There are scratches and little pieces missing here and there on the cover, though, so it’s hard to tell for sure. Honestly, I’m a little picky about how blurbs and the first few pages of a tale are written and what is or isn’t included in them, but book covers themselves aren’t as important to me. There are many different styles I like or even love and only a few that would deter me from giving something a try.

My favourite types of covers are the ones that are just a little jarring or surprising in a good way for the viewer. That is to say, you glance at them and wonder what the heck in going on in that scene.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

Book cover for The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) by Margaret Atwood. Image on cover shows two women wearing long red dresses and white hats that cover their faces. They are walking beside a tall brick wall in an otherwise desolate scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid’s Tale, #1) by Margaret Atwood

I knew absolutely nothing about this story when I picked it up, but the cover made me feel nervous about their strange clothing and curious about where they were going.

 

Book cover for Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1) by Diana Wynne Jones. Image on cover shows a castle that has somehow sprouted large wooden legs and is walking in a meadow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1) by Diana Wynne Jones

 

This book has been on my TBR list for ages, so all I can go by is the oddly ambulatory castle on the cover that utterly fascinates me.

 

Book cover for A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1) by Christopher Moore. Image on cover shows someone in a grey tunic pushing a baby skeleton in a hot pink carriage. The baby is carrying a scythe and is maybe the grim reaper as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1) by Christopher Moore

 

While I haven’t read this one and it is not currently on my TBR list, it has such an eye-catching cover. I’d never think to draw a baby grim reaper (if that is, indeed who he or she is).

 

Book cover for Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Image on cover shows the silhouette of a young black woman’s head. Her hair has been braided in dozens of little braids and she’s looking up expectedly at something beyond the viewer’s gaze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

There is subtle foreshadowing on this cover that I found delightful after finishing the last chapter and realizing what hints were shared immediately. (It was an excellent read, too!) If only I could go into more detail without spoiling things. Just know that everything in this image matters.

 

Book cover for Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. Image on cover shows two young Victorian girls playing dress up. The one on the right is a preteen and is wearing a long white dress and a paper crown. The one on the left looks like she’s about six, is dressed as a knight, and is sitting on one end of a wooden seesaw. There is a leopard pelt - whether real or fake I cannot tell - lying on the floor between them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

 

Here’s another book I haven’t read that has such an intriguing cover. I’m guessing these girls were playing dress up, but why is a cured leopard pelt part of their games?

 

Book cover for The Deep by Rivers Solomon. Image on cover shows a black mermaid with dreadlocks who is swimming in the ocean next to a whale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Once again, this cover has excellent clues about the storyline embedded in it. I appreciated the fact that it lets the reader know immediately that this is about mermaids without giving away the many important differences between Yetu and, say, Ariel from The Little Mermaid. The mythology of and backstory in this tale are of utmost importance, but one also doesn’t want new fans to know too far ahead of time exactly what to expect for spoiler reasons. Hollywood, please hurry up and turn this into a film. The source material has so many little moments in it that would look amazing on the big screen.

 

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May 28, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Need a Sequel

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A large question mark scribbled in blue ink. I wasn’t able to come up with many answers for this week’s prompt because just about all of the books I wished had sequels were eventually given them regardless of what I thought of how those series turned out.  I’ve been very lucky in that regard.

Let’s see which books I still wish could have sequels. Beware of spoilers for older titles in this post!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Why: The bleak and underwhelming ending. While I still enjoyed the plot, I was expecting the protagonist to accomplish so much more than he actually did.

 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Why: Once again, the ending was dark and a let down from what I assumed was going to happen. I also thought that the way it was wrapped up conflicted with the themes in earlier chapters about what it means to be human and whether clones should be given the same human rights as someone who was conceived in a more traditional manner.

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Why: I’d love to see how the world continued to be rebuilt after the events of this book. It ended on such a hopeful note.

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May 21, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Lessons I Learned From a Book Character

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Lessons learned from Isaac, the protagonist of Isaac’s Song by Daniel Black. I highly recommend reading Don’t Cry for Me, the first book in this series about a family struggling to heal from generational abuse and dysfunction, before tackling the sequel because of how many references and retellings there are of previous events.

So, what did I learn from Isaac:

The worry sorry is written on a white card. The card is being propped up by two sprigs of dried flowers and leaves against a white background. 1) Forgiveness is different for everyone and does not automatically include reconciliation which is not something I was necessarily taught in church growing up. Too often, they’d expect people to forget what happened and welcome the person that hurt them back into their lives without any evidence that the person who harmed them had actually changed.  You can forgive and invite someone back into your life perhaps with very strong boundaries and only after genuine, longterm evidence of change on the transgressor’s part this time. You can also forgive but never interact with that person again. There are many different options.

2) The future is an open book. You could be surprised by a bend in the road five minutes or five weeks or five months from now, so never assume your current circumstances are going to last forever.

3) It takes immense emotional strength to end harmful relationship patterns and cycles which is something outsiders may often overlook or downplay when they’re taking note of what you’ve accomplished in your life. Isaac was far from perfect, but I loved seeing his personal growth as he recovered from the negative aspects of his childhood and built a good life for himself as an adult.

Did I know some of this already? Yes, of course, but some lessons need to be repeated over and over again in many different ways in order to sink in.

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May 14, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Love That Became Films or TV Shows

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Photo of the red, soft chairs in an upscale movie theater. There is a curtain covering the screen and light glowing at the bottom of the curtain, probably to give audience members a better chance to see where they’re walking before the film begins. This will be a longer list, but most of the books on it are older. I have not had as much luck seeing more recent favourites on the small screen or the big screen, but I hope that will change now that the writer’s strike has been over for a while.

Books into films:

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Matilda by Roald Dahl

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Cider House Rules by John Irving

 

Books into TV shows:

 

The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid’s Tale, #1) by Margaret Atwood (And they’re making a tv show based on the sequel, The Testaments, too!)

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett

The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) by Lev Grossman

The Mist by Stephen King

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

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May 7, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite TV Shows and Why

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Black and white photo of a pair of black-rimmed glasses and a tv remote sitting on leather couch. I have cut way back on watching TV these past several years.

When I do sit down to watch a tv show these days, I have a strong preference for lighthearted programs that do not remind me of any of the difficult stuff going on in the world or in life in general at the moment.

So what do I like to watch?

Young Sheldon. This was a prequel to The Big Bang Theory that I’m slowly catching up on. It shows what Sheldon was like as a preteen and teenager and why he behaved the way he did as an adult. I appreciate the kindness Sheldon often experiences in this show as well as all of the references to life in a small town in the 1990s.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It feels like classic, episodic Star Trek to me with the characters visiting a new planet or meeting a different species of alien every week. It’s nice to see problems resolved in this universe so cleanly in most cases.

The Orville. This was originally written as a friendly parody of Star Trek, but it’s become something that honestly feels a lot more like a Star Trek show than, say, Discovery. (Which was not a bad show or anything! It simply didn’t have the time for the lightheartedness or unbridled hope for the future that I prefer in this universe). I love the optimism and humour in The Orville and am thrilled it will have another season coming out at some point.

The Simpsons. Yes, I know this show is an older one, but I’ve started slowly watching beginning from season 1 which came out many years before I  was old enough for such programs. I think I’m on season 2 or 3 now, but I enjoy the silliness of it all and how, no matter what happens in an episode, just about everything will go back to the way it was by the time the next episode rolls around.  The writers have “predicted “ some things in their plots that actually came true, too!

The Last of Us. This is one of the few exceptions to my preference for lighthearted, fluffy shows because it’s so far removed from any of the scary stuff happening in our world right now that I can generally watch it without being reminded of what I watch tv to try to forget. I liked the explanation of how cordyceps takes over the human body in the first season, and I’m hoping the characters will find a cure for it by the time the last episode airs. That would be such a refreshing ending for the zombie genre.

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April 30, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Want Youth to Discover

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A teenage girl sitting at a desk and doing homework. She’s just turned around to see who is behind her and has a thoughtful expression on her face. Since I don’t have kids, maybe these books are already widely loved by kids and teens today.

Either way, I think they’re timeless and worth reading. I’m picking some older books and then including newer ones, too.

1) Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Why? Because Shel understood the weirdness of being a kid.

 

2)The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss

Why? Dr. Seuss knew how to explain complex and important topics to young readers in fun and accessible ways.

 

3) Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery by Deborah Howe

Why? To help develop their critical thinking skills and because the idea of rabbit vampires who drain the life out of vegetables is amusing.

 

4) The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Why? One of the things that really bothered me when I was a kid was how resistant some of my male classmates were to stories about girls. I never complained about the dozens of male protagonists we read about, but somehow it was considered a big deal for them to see the world through a girl’s perspective or empathize with us.

I think books like this one could be a good way to help push against the idea that men and boys are somehow more important or interesting than women and girls.

 

5) The Small Spaces Quartet by Katherine Arden

Why? It’s an exciting middle grade mystery quartet that includes strong friendships and talks about some interesting historical events.

 

6) She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

Why? This is a good introduction to the haunted house genre, and the deeper themes in it about racism and colonialism are thought provoking as well.

 

7) Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Why? It’s a thoughtful and honest discussion about race and racism.

 

8) The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Why? From what I’ve heard, it’s a nuanced coming-of-age story, and every kid and teen should read lots of those!

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April 28, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Need a Sequel

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Photo of a person’s hand who is holding up two fingers. I feel like I’ve been pretty fortunate with the numbers of books I wanted sequels for that eventually were written.

Here are some more books I wish had sequels:

Room by Emma Donoghue

Why: I want to know what Jack’s life is like when he’s older. Spending the first five years of one’s existence in captivity must lead to all sorts of medical and social challenges later on.

 

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Why: Frankenstein’s monster needs a better ending than the one he received!

 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Why: I was confused by the passivity of the main characters in this novel and thought the ending undermined the point the narrator was making about their lives.

 

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Why: I loved these characters and thought they could have a lot more to say. Sorry, have to be vague here to avoid spoilers, but here’s hoping the film adaptation of this that’s in the works shares more about their later lives.

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Why: This was one of the most gentle post-apocalyptic books I’ve ever read, and I wish the final scene could have segued into a sequel that explored this world and how people thrived in it in greater depth.

 

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Why: The last few scenes set up all sorts of possibilities for a contemporary sequel to this tale as the land around Hundreds Hall was sold and new houses began to be built right next to the crumbling mansion. I could just imagine neighbourhood kids exploring this area without realizing the history of the place and what they may find there.

 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Why: Faina‘s child is eventually going to want to know what really happened to their mother which would be an excellent reason to revisit this world.

 

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April 23, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Things I Wish More Books Talked About

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I believe we’ve had this topic before, but I’m purposefully not looking up my old post about it. Let’s see how I answer it this time without that influence.

 (I promise the baby goats in today’s photo are relevant to the post 😂).

Three kids (baby goats) sticking their little white heads between the wooden fence slats as they peer out at the world. 1. Disabled and/or chronically ill heroes whose diagnosis is not the main storyline.

2. Failure. (For example, how characters deal with not getting what they want but maybe ending up with something even better instead).

3. Rabbits. You all know how much I love rabbits!

4. Antarctica. I can think of so few books set there, but with global temperatures rising I wonder if humans will eventually start living there year-round.

5. Fitness and exercise. So many heroes and heroines are described as being in great shape, especially in the thriller genre, but the plot often glosses over how much work it takes to grow and maintain those strong muscles.

6. Sick days. Whether it’s food poisoning, the common cold, or something much more serious, characters in books almost never have a few days spent in bed feeling icky. I find that odd.

7.  Socially awkward characters. I wish we had more examples of protagonists who maybe don’t always make a great first impression but who are wonderful folks once you get to know them.

8. Funny things that pets do (but the pets do not die in the book).

9. Genuinely kind and good people from every walk of life. (Can you tell I’ve been reading too many scary stories lately?)

10. Slice of life fiction. I need low-stakes conflicts. Show me what happens when Henry runs out of coffee beans but doesn’t live close to a coffee house or when Agnes forgets to shut the back gate and the goats all escape. That’s the sort of trouble I want to read about.

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