April 2023 Reading Roundup

This month I read three bestsellers with three very different female protagonists. Discovered Bionic Readingยฎ, The Last of England, and more. I clock in so much time searching and reading that I can’t remember how I first heard of this unique novel. Perhaps from one of you, dear readers. Yes, let’s go with that. Convenience…

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March 2023 Reading Roundup

This month let’s give thanks to our reading brain! I needed a nonfiction fix, so I perused my Kindle library and found Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryann Wolf. โ€œWE WERE NEVER BORN TO READ. Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with…

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January 2023 Reading Roundup

This year I’m going to try something different. Besides books, I’d like to share essays I’ve read from around the web, as well as any novels I stopped reading. When I joined StoryGraph, I found that to be an interesting option, so why not include them as well? The Rook by Australian author, Daniel O’…

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October 2022 Reading Roundup

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is a one-of-a-kind science fiction story that had my intense attention as soon as I started it. It’s possible I needed to be more sober, but I think it’s because the protagonist houses a working memory (that talks back!) of another ambassador inside her mind. Right? What makes…

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July 2022 Reading Roundup

This month I finished two fiction and one non-fiction book. Woohoo! Let’s go! The Night Tiger has all the delicious elements that I enjoy and seek in historical fiction. Written by Malaysian Yangsze Choo, The Night Tiger is set in 1930s Malaysia and is essentially about a missing finger. The story follows a young dressmaker,…

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June 2022 Reading Roundup

Fact: When I get away from the internet washing machine, I get more reading done. Generally speaking. Although, I have been known to just pass out at nine or look at on my phone before bed. Bad, Lani, bad! Anyway, after reading a Western, I needed something different. In the past, Agatha Christie was my…

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April 2022 Reading Roundup

I loved Project Hail Mary! How can I talk about this without giving anything away? And that ending! I didn’t even know that Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian had written another book. Wait, what? He wrote ANOTHER book between The Martian and Project Hail Mary? And it was voted best sci-fi of the year…

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March 2022 Reading Roundup

How did I manage to read THREE books this month? (Don’t scoff, you ten-books-a-month-readers) Oh, I know! I read fast, page-turners. Here we go! First up is Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. I had bookmarked Jeremy from Hong Kong’s recommendations, and boy howdy, am I glad. I was continuously gobsmacked over what Shackleton…

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February 2022 Reading Roundup

This month all I had time for was one book, but it was 672 pages, so that counts as two novels, right? In January, I summarized the Red Queen story, so if you’re interested, I’d definitely have a look. But here’s my quick version once again if you don’t want to click over: The series…

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January 2022 Reading Roundup

Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New Year! Year of the Tiger and a year of dropping all of the reading challenges. Maybe when I’m no longer working full-time, I can try them again, but until then, I’ll read with no goals in mind. One Book Lane truly summarizes this series best, “Hunger Games meets…

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What is your favorite quote? and other questions

Like many other #bloganuary participants, I’ve struggled to connect with these daily prompts. But since I joined to connect with other bloggers, I’m getting on the dance floor when I like the song. ๐Ÿ’ƒ๐Ÿฝ What is your favorite quote and why? “The voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but new eyes.” —…

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A to Z Bookish Questions

Thanks Rebecca at Rust Belt Girl for this fun idea, who got it from other groovy bloggers. I hope you find the prompts as amusing and thought-provoking as I did. And please share your answers, too! Author Youโ€™ve Read the Most From: Probably Agatha Christie. I started reading her in high school, and sheโ€™s my…

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๐Ÿ“š Reading Roundup: March 2021

A groovy month of beautiful books, my StoryGraph, and how to get out of your literary echo chamber. In January’s Reading Roundup, I shared StoryGraph, an alternative to Goodreads that puts your reading into these colorful and interesting graphs and charts. Now that the first quarter has passed, I thought I’d share what mine looks…

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๐Ÿ“š The gifts of a reading habit

Falling in love with reading has been one of my biggest influences. I can’t imagine my life without a good book or even a shampoo bottle for me to read. I was thirteen when I walked into Waldenbooks out of utter desperation to do something with my time after I had no friends, no outside…

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Discover Prompts, Day 13 + 14: Teach & Book

What books have taught me (an incomplete list): // The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott Oโ€™Dell โ€“ the comfort of solitude // D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths taught me that I could love a book so much that I refused to return it to the library // A book on French cooking taught…

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