Little Thoughts About Books and Stuff

The Academy of American Poets encourage people to carry a poem with them and share it with other throughout the day. I had originally thought to use a poem provided for this year's celebration by Poets.org: Song of Myself, I  by Walt Whitman  I Celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.  I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.  My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.   Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy. I really liked the opening stanza to this poem. But...

Write a poem about your favorite person, place or animal.   This is a poem I wrote about my Dad after he passed away when I was 16. My Daddy To every little girl, her father is unbreakable.  He’s strong and brave. He is her white knight, always riding to her rescue. Then as she gets older she comes to see that he gets sick. He can get hurt. Still he fights the cold, no sweat. A flu; piece of cake. There is nothing he can’t do. When she becomes a teenager she’ll get embarrassed by him. She’ll get mad at him. They’ll fight, but when no one’s around they go back to being a little girl and her daddy, the white knight. Now she’s dating and dreaming about her wedding. She knows how proud he’ll be. One day she’ll find out that her father is breakable.  It will break her heart to find out, but it makes her stronger to know that he was unbreakable.  She’s just like him.

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman My rating: 3 of 5 stars I love Neil Gaiman. I didn't love this book. There were only a handful of stories I really liked and a few of them I had read/heard before picking up this book.  A few I had heard Neil read during a speaking engagement. A few I had listened to in audiobook format. I enjoyed: The Thing About Cassandra Down to a Sunless Sea The Truth is a Cave in the Dark Mountain My Last Landlady Orange The Case of Death and Honey (a Sherlock Holmes story) Click-Clack the Rattlebag Nothing O'clock (Doctor Who story) A number of the stories just weren't holding my attention and I ended up just skipping over them.

The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger My rating: 3 of 5 stars I've been sitting on writing this review for awhile now.  I don't know what to really say about this book.  I went into reading this book after reading a lot of reviews which were all over the place.  A number mention how the story is all over the place and the characters are unsympathetic and I fully agree. I started reading and quickly found that I wasn't finding a connection to these characters so I started skimming the book.  At some point I found myself no longer skimming but really reading the book.  While I never cared about the characters, I found I wanted to know how this story played out. Bianca built barriers to keep herself apart from those around her. Wesley was able to break through her barriers.  Wesley, like Bianca, has sort of built a persona around himself to protect himself from the facts of his life.  Even knowing that they are this way as a kind ...

I met my best friend in a used book store. We bonded over our mutual love of Gothic Fiction and our dislike of The Bard. We share the same biting wit, and views on society. I found her in a copy of Northanger Abbey . She goes where the book goes. BFFs for life and beyond. Your best friend is a ghost.

The Physician's Irish Lady by Susan Macatee My rating: 3 of 5 stars I don't know where I got this book (I'm thinking free download) but I have been wanting to read it for awhile now.  I knew putting on my TBR Pile this year would mean I would get to it and I was happy to finally get to it, but as you can see by my rating I wasn't thrilled. The story idea was good. An Irish lady escapes from indentured servitude in Australia and ends up in NYC. There she escapes being forced into prostitution and ends up on a train leaving Philadelphia.  She treats herself to an upgraded ticket and faints.  On the train is a doctor, who is very upstanding and he can't leave this poor girl alone at the train station.  So he take her home with him to his little Pennsylvania town where he lives with his aunt. The bad guy who tried to force her into prostitution shows up and claims she's his wife but with no proof the sheriff won't let him take her.  In order to protect her...

It's not NanoWriMo yet, but might as well get a jump on naming your novel. Try this fun chart that Riot Director of Content @rebeccaschinsky found and tell us below what you get! (If you don't have a middle name, use the second letter of your first name). A photo posted by Book Riot (@bookriot) on Apr 14, 2015 at 8:58am PDT Mine is: A Clockwork Anxiety of Loss It's not a bad title/idea...hmmm

I'm going to try Fitbit's Healthy Habits.  Week one deals with stress, and I have a lot of stress.  Most of it from my own making, but when you have mild anxiety and social issues it's easy to generate stress for yourself. Day 1 - Mediate for 10 minutes.  I did this before bed, doing a simple breathing exercise of just focusing on my breaths.  I used to count (in 1, out 2, in 3, ect) but after reading 10% Happie r by Dan Harris, I find that it's easier to just focus on in/out with each breath. Today's habit is to walk for 15 minutes outside but it's raining. So I'm going to go for three 5 minute walks around the library today.  This helps because on a rainy day a good number of our patrons don't venture out since we're a big walking community. This plan will get me up and moving instead of sitting all day. Day 3 - Drink a decaf cup of tea...I don't know if I have any in the house, I'll have to check. Day 4 - Listen to music that...

Tell this story Rewrite the ending of your favorite book.  It's not my favorite book, but it's the one ending to a book I wish was different.  He's my quite attempt at a rewrite of the last chapter of Jane Austen's Sense and  Sensibility . CHAPTER 50 After a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son. Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again. In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not feel the continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed ...

Dialogue "Yes, this is how I express myself."  Walking into the house I find my four year old son in an extremely mixed matched outfit, sitting quietly watching television. This was not the outfit I had laid out for him so I was a bit confused but figured he might have changed due to an accident or his tendency to get dirty. I called out a hello to my mother in the kitchen before walking down the hallway to my room.  As I passed by my son’s room I notice the outfit I had picked out for him was still laying neatly at the foot of his bed.  I changed out of my work close and headed into the kitchen. “Mom, why isn’t Jase wearing the outfit I left out for him?” I asked while walking into the room.   My mother stood at the stove stirring a pot of sauce.  Not only did she watch Jase for me during the day she also cooked us a nice dinner before going home to make dinner for her and my dad. “Here taste this.” She held the spoon up for me to taste.  Going on reflex I...

Tell this story There are three children sitting on a log near a stream. One of them looks up at the sky and says...  The three boys, brothers, sat on a log near a stream. One of them, the youngest, looks up at the sky and says “Do you think we should have killed them all?”  The other two look at each other and shrugged. “Yup,” the oldest answered.  The middle brother nodded in agreement, “We had too.“

The Lonely Lords by Grace Burrows #6 - Gareth #7 - Andrew #8 - Douglas #9 - David #10 - Trenton #11 - Worth, Lord of Reckoning #12 - Hadrian I had gotten behind in reading this series and was excited to catch up (not so much finish because I see she's writing more).  However, I feel like this series might have gotten away from the author.  The last few stories, had what felt like loose connections to the original set up of the series. They also start jumping back in time and I felt like they played with the time line a bit.  There were things in some of the earlier books that didn't match up with books that are supposed to be taking place either during the same period or in between earlier books. She has a family tree but only with characters up to book 10, Trenton's book.  I really feel like at this point the series has ended and the next two books are just Lonely Lords that needed a series to belong too.  That being said I'll keep reading, as long a...