Showing posts with label bookstagram. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bookstagram. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Short books update for February through now

 I don't feel like writing up reviews for them, but the other books I read in February include Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce (all by C.S. Lewis, of course). I have now finished my CSL class but I feel like rereading Til We Have Faces (the grad student-only read that I skipped as I enrolled in the class as an undergrad), which I only read once at least ten years ago. We'll see if I get around to it. 

I have still not finished reading bell hook's All About Love: New Visions, which I started back in early February. She writes so well, beautifully as well as straightforward, and I am interested in the topic, but I keep dragging myself through one chapter at a time and then not reading again for days if not weeks. I don't know what the issue is. I will say I tend to have this problem with nonfiction over fiction, even if the book topic interests me (remember how I started reading that nonfiction book about the linguistics of/on the Internet right before the pandemic, and never finished it?). I don't want to abandon it; maybe now that I've finished my CSL class I can finish this book. 

I dread going to my [none of your business] doctor for obvious reasons, but I also love it when I have an appointment, because just a block or so away from the building there is a quiet little street that has a cute trendy indie coffee shop where I buy an oat milk latte (mocha or chai or seasonal but always sweet) and then go across that street to an Assistance League thrift store and browse for a while. It's heaven. I bought a khaki mini-skort, two half-priced scarves, and three books, all five dollars or less. The books were 50 cents each (!); one was a Pike Place Market cookbook that I gave my sister (she used to live near Seattle and we visited there once), and the other two were for me: The Eyre Affair and The Daughters of Artemis. I had heard of the Thursday Next series (of which The Eyre Affair is the first) from back when I was reading author blogs (remember blogs?), but I never started it because it felt daunting or something. It's a bookish series that is maybe mysteries and maybe fantastical; I'm not really sure. It being bookish is enough to recommend itself to me. The other one sounds like a thriller mystery book, and judging by the title and summary, I suspect it is sapphic.

This online indie bookstore started by two of my college friends had an International Women's Day sale on their female authored books, so I bought two: Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterton, who I've read and liked before, and Bookshop Cinderella, a romance novel that is also a Cinderella retelling set in a bookstore. I find the title kind of obvious, but it worked on me, so. Tanglewreck looks like a time travel sci fi book. 

The March Disneybound challenge has been taking up all my free time, so I haven't posted anything about books since February. Also, me reading nothing but C.S. Lewis has been uninspiring for bookstagram posts, even though I love him. Ah well.

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Bookworm Math

So I started a bookstagram (read: turned my regular personal IG account into a bookstragram by posting more about books and bookish things) and made a post about a meme that's been floating around Instagram. You've heard of girl math and boy math, and the concept quickly spread into concepts like reading or bookworm math. Here are my contributions.

Bookworm math:

  • Buying books from independent bookstores is basically the same as donating to charity.
    • i.e. noble, selfless, giving, charitable, altruistic, philanthropic, demanded by my religion, Matthew 10:8, etc.
  • Paying $3 for a thrift store book is too expensive, but paying full price for a book at an independent bookstore is not.
    • Let's be real here. Thrift stores get so many book donations and they will never run out of books to sell. I don't want to see a hardcover over $2 or a paperback over $1. Who do they think they are, The Strand? Also, see the previous bullet point.
  • Buying a book from every bookstore, book selling stand/booth/stall, museum gift shop, etc., is the admission fee for visiting it.
    • What do you want me to do, be rude?? break the rules?? It's mandatory!
  • I gave away ten of my books, so now I can buy 20!
    • Makes sense to me. I was so good at weeding my books that I deserve a little treat.
  • Buying yet another bookcase when I run out of shelf space is a good investment.
    • My books need a place to live! What, you want them to live on the floor like so much refuse? You know and I know that I'm going to keep buying books for the rest of my life, so it's a good investment really.
  • I am justified in buying this bookish T-shirt/tote bag/pin/etc. because I'm a librarian. It's basically for work!
    • Note to the IRS: I do not count my bookish purchases as work expenses

Am I right or am I right?