Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Hour 42 of #24in48 – Literary Dinner Party

Posted in 24in48, Books, Food, Uncategorized on July 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »

photo (3)

This is how the best dinner parties start.

“Which five bookish people (or animals, I’m not picky) would be around your perfect literary dinner table?”

  1. Britt-Marie, from Britt-Marie was Here. She would be right on time, and she would approve of my cutlery drawer. We could be nerdy about that together.
  2. Ernest Hemingway. I would seat him next to Britt-Marie. They would either go to great lengths to hold each other in detached but respectful regard or they would despise each other, resulting in her prim, passive-aggressive jabs and his outright roguish responses. Either way, entertaining for all. Dinner and a show.
  3. Peeta from The Hunger Games. He would be a charming, polite dinner guest. Someone to balance out the chaos happening across the table. Also, he would probably bring fresh baked bread.
  4. Mark Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. But only if he looked like the Colin Firth version. Because Colin Firth.
  5. The Dormouse from Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps the reason he had so much trouble staying awake at the tea party was that he simply wasn’t getting enough caffeine. Let me introduce you to my coffee, sir.

Who would be at your literary dinner party?

Read Full Post »

Day 2 – #24in48

Posted in 24in48, Books on July 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »

photo 1 (1)

This was my favorite challenge thus far – spine poetry.

It’s Day Two of the 24in48 Readathon, and I’m going to make it! I’ve finished three books:

  • A Day in Provence by Peter Mayle
  • Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
  • Love, Loss, and What We Ate by Padma Lakshmi

Today’s reading is going to be a combination of

  • The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
  • The audiobook of Hunger by Roxane Gay (because 24 hours is A LOT of sitting)
  • Pieces posted in my mastermind group’s Google drive

I’ve consisted on a diet of spinach and goat cheese lasagna, potatoes dressed with onions and various sauces (inspired by Padma Lakshmi), oatmeal, and all the coffee I have in the house.

Thanks to all that coffee, I reached hour fifteen early this morning before napping.

photo 2

Nine hours to go!

Read Full Post »

Hour Zero – The #24in48 Readathon Begins!

Posted in 24in48, Books, Uncategorized on July 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

IMG_0529.JPG

This is what the majority of my weekend is going to look like.

Intro Survey:

Where in the world are you reading from this weekend?
In Denton, Texas – at home with the air conditioner

Have you done the 24in48 readathon before?
Nope – first time!

Where did you hear about the readathon, if it is your first?
A friend posted about it on Facebook.

What book are you most excited about reading this weekend?
Jasper Fforde’s The Big Over Easy

Tell us something about yourself.
I write and read mostly fiction, but I like something from most genres. Winter is my favorite season. And if coffee were a person, I would marry it.

Remind us where to find you online this weekend.
Twitter (@coffeesnob318), Instagram (@_coffeesnob_), and here on the blog.

Read Full Post »

Interlude #24in48

Posted in 24in48, Books on July 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

photo 2 (18)

Just one of my book stacks for this weekend. My whole table is covered with them. I’m too excited. I may just read 30 minutes in each one. THERE ARE TOO MANY BOOKS TO READ HOW CAN I POSSIBLY CHOOSE?!

We interrupt our regularly (if you use that term loosely) scheduled Friday Five to talk about books. I am participating in 24in48 this weekend (which you can read about here and sign up for here if you want to participate online). And yes – I will be reading for 24 hours. I have been training my whole life for just such an event.

photo 3 (14)

I imagine a weekend full of coffee and tea and wine and cereal and leftovers from the lasagna I am making tonight. I am going to be reading some old favorites (The Eyes of the Dragon was my first Stephen King novel. I haven’t read it since sixth grade.), some poetry (I highly recommend Milk and Honey), and of course, foodie books that I’ve been neglecting for too long (Padma Lakshmi is my spice hero).

photo 1 (12)

I hope to get to some of the nonfiction I have been meaning to read, if for no other reason than it’s time to take them back to the library. Non-fiction is rarely my go-to read (foodie books and cookbooks the notable exception), but maybe I can make it a closer friend this weekend.

photo (1)

There will probably be times when I am reading some of the treasures on my e-reader. I have a tendency to forget about these since they don’t take up physical space on my bookshelf (as evidenced by my only having read 37% of Hidden Figures, even though I started it months ago). Maybe I’ll finish the ones I’ve started this weekend.

I will spend at least two hours reading selections from my Mastermind writers group and hopefully having useful feedback to give there. A few friends have had books come out recently (or will have books coming out in the next few months), and I’m going to spend a few hours reading some of them.

Part of participating online is posting in the spaces I’ve selected to be a part of the weekend, so you’ll see posts here, on Instagram, and on Twitter, answering prompts, completing challenges, and updating you on how it’s going.

Let me know if you’re going to join!

Read Full Post »

Friday Five – Plans and Recommendations

Posted in Books, Feminism, Food, Friday Five on July 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Friday Five3

I really love my schedule this month. Tomorrow I am hosting a write-in for my writing group (DFW area writer friends – email or DM me for details if you want to come!), and next weekend I am reading all weekend, and the weekend after that I am hosting my Hemingway party. I don’t usually like to plan all my weekends, but I don’t mind so much when it looks like writing and reading and drinking.

Five things that go with July’s apparent theme:

  1. The reading weekend is in conjunction with 24in48 – basically, as it sounds, you pick 24 hours out of July 22 and 23 and read like crazy. I’M SO EXCITED. If you’re in the area and want to come wrap yourself up in a blanket and read (and not talk other than to ask “May I have more tea?” Or, you know what – just help yourself. The tea is there for the taking.), that’s cool. We can be (silently) excited and literate together.
  2. Shawn Smucker’s The Day the Angels Fell comes out on September 5, but it’s available for pre-order now. I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy, so this is one of the books that I’ll be finishing during 24in48. From what I’ve read so far, I can attest that you will want this book. Go! Pre-order!
  3. My favorite thing I’ve read this year about modesty culture – refusal to accommodate uncontrolled men. I also appreciate her comment moderation instruction to “Be feisty but gracious!” Words to live by. Thinking of making that my mantra.
  4. An artist reimagined the 50 states as food puns. I think Alahama is my fave. Or Kenturkey.
  5. And just in case you’re curious – this is what I’m having for dinner tonight.

What have you been doing/reading/eating lately?

Read Full Post »

What I’m Into – June(ish) 2017

Posted in Andilit, Beauty, Books, What I'm Into on July 6, 2017| 2 Comments »

photo 2

Farm stand, sky and coffee. Pretty great trip!

June was fast-paced with pockets of slow. It’s a busy month at work, so of course I took a week and a half off, because I enjoy full mailboxes. It was a week well spent, though.

This was the first year I got to go to Andi Cumbo-Floyd’s writer’s retreat, and I am hooked. It was so refreshing. It was fun to meet people in person whom I’d only met online, and we got to drive through some beautiful scenery (note bottom left photo – Virginia is freakin’ gorgeous). I also got to spend lots of time with a couple of good friends on the way there and back since we drove from Texas.

No matter how busy it is, though, summer is always a heavy reading time for me. I picked up Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and Susan Hermann Loomis’s In a French Kitchen, both of which I liked. I loved Meagan Spooner’s Hunted. It may be my favorite retelling of Beauty and the Beast. My favorite thing I read this month, though, was Fredrik Backman’s novella called And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. You can read it in one sitting, and if you have someone in your life who is losing their memory, I recommend reading it someplace private where you can ugly cry.

I am growing tomatoes! I have two plants, and they have actual, real green tomatoes on them. I have spent more time on my porch watering and talking to them this month than I have spent on my porch the rest of the last year.

Speaking of the last year, today is my apartmentversary. I have officially been here one year in this great neighborhood where, for the first time in a long time, I did not wake up to fireworks still going off at 4:00 in the morning. Do not ask me if I have finished unpacking yet. It would be a shame for me to be forced to lie to you.

What are you into this month? I’m linking up with Leigh Kramer – drop over there and join the fun!

Read Full Post »

Spinster – A Review

Posted in Books on May 10, 2017| 3 Comments »

spinster

Kate Bolick’s Spinster is an excavation of single womanhood in America. I enjoyed the book (for the most part), and I’m glad I read it (finally). It is an ambitious project – weaving together personal history and anecdotes with the country’s history and also the lives of five women who influenced the author’s life and ended up single – but Bolick handles it well overall.

I loved the profiles of the five women who influenced her life, and I loved reading about how they did so. I enjoyed all the historical aspects of the book and the discussion about what being single has meant for women throughout the history of our country until the present. I was expecting more of a traditional memoir, and while I enjoy memoir well enough, that it did not turn out to be Bolick‘s primary focus was a pleasant surprise.

With a subtitle like “Making a Life of One’s Own,” I expected to see more of that. Most of the memoir portion focused on other people. While I can appreciate that there will be significant others (romantic or otherwise) in anybody’s life and that a memoir will inevitably include some mention of them, the key word there is “some.” Not constant mention. Interdependence and independence are two different things. I was disappointed not to see more discussion about independence. There’s more to it than whether or not one is involved in a romantic relationship. The focus on all the men she’s dated and why they worked or didn’t work or ultimately worked but they broke up anyway was exhausting and felt extraneous. It’s this very focus on discussing who women are in the context of relationships to romantic partners (instead of focus on women as actual people on their own, regardless of romantic relationship or lack thereof) that is the root cause of the double standard for men and women regarding marriage. Parts of the book seemed to reinforce that double standard rather than break it down, which I had hoped would be the point of the book.

I enjoyed the book overall, and I’m happy to have read it. I’m not quite sure it was a successful reclamation of the word Spinster, but maybe it was a start.

 

Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

Read Full Post »

Friday Five – Happy National Poetry Month!

Posted in Beauty, Books, Friday Five, Poetry on April 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Friday Five3

I thought it was time for a new picture. I may be trying out several pictures for Friday Five.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ll be showcasing poets and books of poetry and activism through poetry – basically, if there’s verse to it, it’s fair game.

  1. First up is a book that feeds my obsession with food writing. Nicole Gulotta has a new book out called Eat This Poem: A Literary Feast of Recipes Inspired by Poetry. It’s so gorgeous. I could live in the pages of this book.
  2. Nayyirah Waheed is the author of Salt and Nejma, and her words can slice right through you. Her poetry holds treasures such as:
    “i am mine.
    before i am ever anyone else’s.”
    and
    “you
    not wanting me.
    was
    the beginning of me
    wanting myself.
    thank you.
    -the hurt”
  3. For those who write poetry, Entropy has compiled a list of markets with no reader fees accepting submissions.
  4. If you’re not following Button Poetry, you should fix that. Click like. You know you wanna. I love spoken word, and they highlight a lot of newer poets, which I like as well.
  5. And because ’tis the season – The Mother Warns the Tornado by Catherine Pierce. “I will invent for you a throat and choke you.” Whoa.

Who are some of your favorite poets?

Read Full Post »

What I’m Into – March 2017

Posted in Books, TV, What I'm Into on April 5, 2017| 6 Comments »

photo 3 (12)

This is Diane. She was a birthday gift from the parents. 

March is the best month. It’s a month full of days off (because Spring Break) and usually not terrible weather. Also, I get to celebrate my birthday, so there’s lots of cake and wine.

And this year, there were new boots:

photo 1 (11)

I love them. I also love that they were on clearance. Double happy.

So that was what I spent most of my month doing. Celebrating the birth of me.

I also read a couple of books. I loved Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, and Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton. I had high expectations for both, and I am pleased that they met them.

I’m rewatching Parks and Rec, and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it (yet today), but I love Adam Scott. He’s adorable and hilarious. I love reliving all my favorite moments.

One of my coworkers Jessica (*waves*) gave me a flashcard of the Despicable Me chicken, and I hold it up in staff meetings every time someone tells a bad joke. This, of course, prompted the creation of several other flashcards that I can use to express myself even if I haven’t had enough coffee to verbalize my thoughts. They heavily feature Grant Gustin and Michael Rosenbaum and various other superhero/villain-related folk. I’m not even sorry.

What was your March like?

I’m linking up with Leigh Kramer. Hop over and read what others are into!

Read Full Post »

Friday Five – The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

Posted in Books, Church, Fandom, Friday Five, Fun, Revolution, TV, Writing on March 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Friday Five2

Title reference – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Well, I did it. I turned 42, which really does feel like an answer to something. Getting through this year has felt like an accomplishment. I wonder if this is how every year from now on will be – more aches, less patience with the world and its ridiculous ways, more unlearning and relearning. It’s not so bad, I guess.

Last year at this time, I was freaking out over my blood pressure being high for the first time ever. This year, I am happy to report that it is back to normal (but my heart rate still runs high…because anxiety…working on it) and that my food and activity choices have had a lot to do with that. I have a number of pounds lost, which will make my doctor happy, but I’m happier about other things.

Today’s list is made of stories with which my 42-year-old self identifies.

  1. Addie Zierman’s Of Lent and Emptiness – On fasting/not fasting and Whole30, which I still refuse to try but if I were to try it, posts like this would be what would change my mind. Also, I weirdly miss fasting for Lent.
  2. Shawn Smucker’s On Seeing a Neighbor Hit Their Child, What Maile Did Right, and What I Would Do Differently – I’m mentioned Green Dot training fleetingly, but it is not fleeting in my mind. Scenarios like this go through my head all the time with questions of what would I do, whom would I call, how would I respond.
  3. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls – Our church is starting the second annual collection of books for our Book Bag Project. We give three or four books to graduates of a local preschool to encourage their love of reading. More and more, I am convinced that writers (and artists and musicians and etc.) have incredible power to unlock story and innovation and progress, and I want to be a part of that.
  4. Cat principles. This is basically a to-do list. Also…I remain resolute in my coffee consumption (just…shhh…).
  5. Sometimes, Ray Palmer is my spirit animal. Also, I love Legends of Tomorrow. And Flash. And even Arrow. And especially Supergirl (i.e., Cat Grant). And will always rewatch Smallville and will always, ALWAYS be angry at Season 4. Fandom squee for life.

Hello, 42. Happy to meet you.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »