Tag Archives: Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

August 28, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Had to Read in School and Liked

This list will be a long one. I had some truly wonderful Language Arts teachers over the years. While there were a few books they assigned to us over the years that I didn’t like, I found something enjoyable in the vast majority of our assigned reads.

I’m assuming that all of the WWBC participants have at least heard of these plays, poems, novels, and other works if they haven’t read them. I chose not to write commentary on them to keep this post from turning into a 1000+ word essay, but I’m happy to expand on anything that you’re all not already familiar with. This is roughly sorted by the age when I read them. Little House in the Big Woods was a fourth grade reading assignment, I believe.

Book cover for The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Edgar Allen Poe’s works, especially “The Raven” and “The Masque of the Red Death”

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Othello by William Shakespeare

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Emily Dickinson’s collected poems

e.e. cummings collected poems

The Iliad by Homer (I think we only read excerpts of this one),

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August 21, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What I Read When I’m Not Feeling Well

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

There are three different types of things I like to read when I’m not feeling well. I’ll give everyone a few examples of each one.

Comic Strips

All of these comic strips tend to be a mish-mash of whatever it is their creators have been thinking about recently. There are few if any continuous storylines in them. That makes it hard to explain them to new readers but also a great deal of fun to explore. We never know what might pop up in them next!

The Oatmeal.

Will 5:00 Never Come?

War and Peas.

Humorous Blog Posts and Essays

Doctor Grumpy in the House.

If you enjoy medical humour, this doctor’s blog is fantastic.

The Red Brick Blog.

Sadly, this hasn’t been updated in almost two years, but the archives are filled with some wonderful posts.

Mock Ramblings.

Michael and I have been friends for so long that I no longer remember how we met. If you haven’t already scrolled through his site after reading his previous WWBC posts, I highly recommend doing so sometime. He blogs about everything from his strange dreams, to snippets of the stories he’s working on, to recaps of the amazing D&D games he organizes for his kids.

Not everything he writes is necessarily funny, but when he writes humorous stuff he truly excels at it.

SFF Stories

I’ve chosen not link to specific tales from these magazines because of how particular I am about my science fiction and fantasy. In general, I find that all three of these publications do an excellent job of selecting unique, well-developed stories that show off under-appreciated authors in the SFF genre. If you have any interest at all in speculative fiction, I do recommend scrolling through these links to see what might appeal to you.

Fireside Magazine.

Syntax & Salt Magazine.

Lightspeed Magazine.

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August 14, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Had to Read in School and Didn’t Like

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I was the sort of English student that teachers loved. Not only was it my favourite subject, I enjoyed almost every writer that was ever assigned to us in those courses. Often I’d even go out and read as many other poems, essays, or books by that same author as I could find for the sheer fun of it, but I’ll save those stories for August 28 when we all blog about assigned works that we really enjoyed in school.

There were a few exceptions to my love of literature, however.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I struggled so hard to connect with this book, but the characters were simply too vain and materialistic for me to bond with them at all. Those are simply two personality flaws that I have little patience for in fiction or in real life.

Walt Whitman

While I immediately enjoyed other nineteenth century poets like Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe, Whitman was too verbose for my tastes. He had wonderful ideas, but I kept wanting to edit his poems down to a third of their original size when I read them.

King Lear

There are several Shakespeare plays I really like watching on the stage and will gush about in a few weeks, but King Lear is not one of them. The idea of playing favourites with one’s children deeply irritates me. I’ve seen the longterm effects of that in other families, and it’s destructive for everyone involved.

Due to this, I found it hard to sympathize with King Lear. It seemed to me that he could have easily had a peaceful retirement if he’d only chosen to treat all three of his daughters equally.

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August 7, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Loved But Never Wrote Reviews For

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I’ve written countless books reviews over the years, yet there are still plenty of books out there I love but have not written reviews for. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do everything! Sometimes I also question if it’s ever a good idea to write reviews for older titles. What do you all think?

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
Every book ever written by Octavia E. Butler (but especially The Parable series)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Little House on the Prairies series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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July 31, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite Food and How I Use (+ Recipe)

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Fellow participants, I have one word for you: strawberries.

They’re in season in June and July here in southern Ontario. My grandmother serves strawberries, milk, and sugar to relatives as a light supper on hot days when no one is that hungry and she doesn’t want to heat up the kitchen.

Most of the time, I slice them up and eat them plain. They’re so sweet and juicy that they really don’t need the extra sugar in my opinion.

Occasionally, though, I make my family’s shortcake recipe and eat it with almond milk and sliced strawberries.

This is a pretty forgiving recipe. You can use half the sugar if you’re serving it someone who needs to watch their sugar intake. It works well with many different combinations of flour, fats, and types of milk, too, so feel free to play around with it if you need to avoid certain ingredients for whatever reason.

I should warn you that the shortcake this recipe makes is denser than what you might find in the store, though. Think something heavier, not a fluffy baked good like angel food cake. It’s made that way on purpose so that the shortcake will soak up all of the milk you’re about to pour on it and gradually crumble into cold, soup-y deliciousness as you reach the bottom of the bowl.

Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of flour (i generally use half whole wheat and half white, but 100% white flour works well, too)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk (soy or rice milk works well, too)
2 tablespoons butter (oil or margarine works well, too)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Toppings:

Sliced strawberries
Whipped cream
Table sugar
Milk

Directions:

Stir the three dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Beat eggs, milk, vanilla, and melted butter together in a separate bowl.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients together. Mix everything until it’s moist, but be careful not to overmix it. The batter might look a little lumpy. That’s okay.

Pour the batter into a greased 8 or 9 inch cake pan. A square 8×8 pan also works fine for this recipe.

Bake at 375 Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes. You’ll know it’s finished when you can stick a butter knife or toothpick into the shortbread and have it come out again without any batter sticking to it.

Serving Size and Presentation

This will make about nine servings of shortbread depending on the size of your pan.

Serve with sliced strawberries, a sprinkling of table sugar, a little bit of milk, and (optional) whipped cream.

I nearly always choose strawberries for this dessert because I love them so much, but this also works nicely with other types of berries if anyone reading this dislikes or is allergic to strawberries. Like I said before, there is plenty of flexibility in this recipe. That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy it so much!

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July 24, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favorite Quotes from Books

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Confession: I love quotes. (Those of you who already follow me on Twitter are no doubt 100% unsurprised by this).

I had to restrain myself for this week’s prompt. It would have been so easy to write a 1000+ word post and share dozens of quotes, but I’ll try to keep things short and sweet for the WWBC community.

One of my favourite Harry Potter quotes is in the photo I picked to accompany this post. If you can’t see it, it says “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” I giggle every time I read it.

Technically, I don’t know that the next quote on this list is from a book. I’d like to think that Mark Twain would be amused by me bending the rules slightly to include him, though!

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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July 17, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Fictional Worlds I’d Love to Visit

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I’m guessing that a lot of people are going to pick the Potterverse, Narnia, and the (safe) portions of Middle Earth this week. Count me in for those places, too, but I’m going to spend most of this post talking about worlds that may not get as much attention this week if my predictions are correct.

The Land of Oz.

Something tells me all of you will catch this reference immediately. I’m the sort of person who senses danger early on, so I’d like to think I could visit Oz without running into any of the witches or other dangerous folks there. It would be so cool to see the yellow brick road in person and meet some munchkins.

The Gatsby Mansion from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”

While I’m not actually a fan of this story in general, I do think attending one of the parties at the Gatsby Mansion would be a marvellous way to pass a warm summer evening. The one good thing I can say about the Gatsby family is that they sure did seem to know how to throw a party!

In my imagination, every morsel of food and drink there would have been delectable and the live music would keep everyone dancing until the wee hours of the morning.

Pandora from the 2009 film “Avatar”

Simple things like spending time in nature and exploring new places makes me happy. I’d love to go explore the bright, colourful world that the main character of “Avatar” got to know so well during his stay there. The fact that so many of the creatures there were bioluminescent only makes me more eager to see them for myself!

Pemberly From Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”

Once again, I was not a fan of the novel where this fictional country estate is from, but that wouldn’t keep me from wanting to visit Pemberly anyway. I value spending time in nature, eating delicious food, dancing, and having some peace and quiet at times. Based on the descriptions of this place, I think I could do all of that stuff with ease there.

Jurassic World (but only after the dinosaurs stopped attacking people)

Honestly, how could you not want to see real live dinosaurs in person? I’d definitely wait until all of the safety concerns had been ironed out, and I’d avoid the Tyrannosaurus area in general. I’d be thrilled to see some Triceratops, Gallimimus, Velociraptors, and other species in person once those precautions had been taken.

How about all of you?

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July 10, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite Nonfiction Authors

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There’s something about summer that makes me want to read nonfiction. I still read science fiction, fantasy, and similar genres, but I really enjoy learning about things that really happened.

Here are several of my favourite nonfiction authors. How many of them have you all read?

Barack Obama.

Example: Dreams From My Father.

Why I liked it: President Obama had an interesting childhood for more reasons than I should put into a single blog post. To mention just one of them, I would have been hurt if my father had played such a small role in my daily life when I was growing up. I was impressed by how understanding he was about the role his father did play in his life.

Stephen Hawking.

Example: A Brief History of Time.

Why I liked it: Physics is one of those topics I have a hard time wrapping my mind around but still enjoy reading about quite a bit. Please don’t ask me to give you a full explanation of why time doesn’t always move consistently (especially when those pesky black holes get involved), but I did always enjoy hearing his thoughts on this topic when he was still alive.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Example: Nickle and Dimed: on (Not) Getting By in America

Why I liked it: Ms. Ehrenreich has a conversational writing style that works well for her investigative approach to nonfiction, social justice, and social class. I’m also impressed by the fact that she’s spent so much time literally walking in other people’s shoes while researching her books.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Example: We Should All Be Feminists

Why I liked it: The older I get, the stronger my preferences becomes for writers who know how to get to the point as succinctly as possible. Not only does Ms. Adichie do this, she manages to pack a lot of important information into the things she writes without simplifying it too much. I also appreciate her inclusive approach to social justice. It’s so much more effective to call people in to caring about injustice than it is to call them out for not using exactly the right term(s) while trying to make the world a better place.

Stephen Colbert

Photo credit: Montclair Film.

Example: I Am America (and so Can You!)

Why I liked it: Satire is such an underrated form of comedy, especially when it’s done well. I adore Mr. Colbert’s tongue-in-cheek approach to everything, especially once I learned that he apparently teaches Sunday School in real life and allegedly has been banned from acting like the persona he plays on television when he’s at home relaxing with his wife. Seriously, how funny is that? She must be such a patient woman.

Michael Pollan

Example: In Defence of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

Why I liked it: I always appreciate Mr. Polland’s simple and intuitive approach to eating. No food or food group is forbidden. Instead, we’re all encouraged as much as is possible to eat the sorts of unpackaged ingredients that our ancestors would have recognized.

That is, roast a whole potato instead of eating french fries. Pack an apple instead of an apple-flavoured fruit rollup. The closer something is to the way it was when it was still growing in the field, swimming in a pool of water, or running around in a pen, the better it is for you in the majority of cases.

This is the sort of healthy eating that really speaks to me. I’m always excited to see what he’s written next.

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July 3, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Should Be Made into a Movie and Why

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I have several answers to this week’s prompt! It’s always nice when that happens. To the best of my knowledge, none of these books have or are currently scheduled to be made into films. If any of you have heard differently, I’d sure like to know.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Why: Racism is one of those topics that is always relevant and timely. I’d love to see how this book’s descriptions of what it feels like to be a black man living in a society that discriminates against him would be updated for life in 2019.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Why: Neil Gaiman is a talented writer who has had other books of his made into amazing films and series. I think The Graveyard Book would be a wonderful thing for children to see at Halloween because of how unusual it would be for ghosts to raise a baby in a graveyard. The comedic possibilities there are endless!

Unwind (Unwind, #1) by Neal Shusterman

Why: Between the forced childbirth and the forced organ/issue donation (among many other human rights violations), this is the scariest dystopian novel I’ve ever read. It would make a terrifying movie that I’d be both excited and a little nervous to see.

The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7) by C.S. Lewis

Why: The first few Chronicles of Narnia have been made into films often. Every time Hollywood decides to retell the first few books, I cross my fingers that audiences will be interested enough to keep the series going until the end. The Last Battle is filled with action-packed battles and other scenes about the end of Narnia that I think would look amazing on the big screen.

I’d especially love to see the scenes in this book when everything on Narnia withers away or blinks out of existence, including the plants, animals, and stars. It was a very interesting thing to read about for reasons I can’t discuss here without giving away spoilers. Maybe someday we will get to see the film version of this, though!

Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Why: This is going to give away my age, but I was young enough to be worried about the world as we knew it shutting down for a long time – and maybe even forever – when the Y2K bug was hyped up in the late 1990s.

My mom and I had a few reassuring chats back then about how she and dad would take us to go live on my grandparents’ farm if all of the computers in the world shut down and we had to go back to a low or no-technology existence. Farming is a lot of work, but we always would have had food to eat and a safe place to live in that scenario.

The cool thing about the Last Survivors series was how much detail it went into about how people would band together to survive after a natural disaster that severely affected the balance of life on Earth. Their problems were different than the ones I worried about back in the day, but I loved seeing a fairly realistic and peaceful “end of the world” type of novel.

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June 26, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Humorous Book Titles

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This is one of those topics I could discuss all day without growing tired of it. Here are just a few of the humorous book titles I’ve seen lately. Have any of you ever read them? I’ve only read the first one so far. It was such an interesting look at neurology and some of the various ways the human brain can adapt to a serious illness or injury.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks