Top Ten Tuesday: Characters Whose Jobs I'd Love To Have

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we're talking about characters with jobs we would want to have. I don't read a lot of books that take place in the workplace, but here is what I came up with! 

  

Emma Woodhouse (Emma): Who doesn't want to be handsome, clever, and rich...and bored enough because you don't need to do anything productive that you start playing matchmaker with your friends?

Margo Manning (Death Prefers Blondes): I mean, I don't know that I would have ever come up with "ringleader of a group of drag queen catburglars" as a job description, but now that I know it's out there I want it. 

Daisy Jones (Daisy Jones and the Six): A beautiful, talented singer developing a slow burn attraction to a hot, talented musician? There are worse jobs to have!

Selin (The Idiot): I sometimes wish I had the chance to go back to college and do it over, I feel like I would pick more interesting classes! Being a college student again, especially at Harvard, would be so interesting.

Georgie McCool (Landline): I don't know that I think I would be any good at it, but working as a TV comedy writer sounds like fun! 

Maud Bailey (Possession): There's a part of me that always wishes I'd gone into academia, which may be one of the reasons I think longingly about being a college student again. Honestly, the idea of getting to research my interests all day every day is the dream!

Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the D'Urbervilles): It's not so much that I think I have any natural gift or even longing for outdoor work, but the book makes Tess's experience as a shepherdess feel so idyllic that I want to give it a try.

Vianne Rocher (Chocolat): I don't actually have any particular fondness for eating chocolate, though I do love the smell, so I think I might make a good chocolatier. At least I wouldn't be tempted to eat my wares!

Lisbeth Salander (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo): Being a genius hacker helping solve mysteries and take down hateful people wouldn't suck.

Clarice Starling (The Silence of the Lambs): Doing criminal profiling for the FBI was at one point very much my dream job!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Characters Whose Jobs I'd Love To Have

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer Reading

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we're talking about summery reads. Since it's been a while since I put together a collection of beachy reads as I am not generally into the kind lighthearted fiction that gets marketed that way, but here are ten books you could definitely enjoy at the beach/laying out in at your local park!

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires: This is not as frivolous as you might think based on the title. It IS a treat to read, but there's real heart and substance as well in a story about, well, southern ladies taking on a vampire.

Shatter Me: I am not big into young adult books, in part because I'm not a young adult anymore. But though many of the tropes I've come to find bothersome about YA are here in force, Mafi's story about a teenage girl whose very touch is lethal grabbed me and didn't let go!

Funny Girl: Nick Hornby books are definition of a beach read for me...they're humorous and not especially deep but almost always enjoyable to read (and then hard to remember later). This is one of his better recent works, about a comedienne in London in the 60s and her co-stars on a hit sitcom.

Sin in the Second City: Nonfiction is not often light enough to be fun summer reading, but this is dishy stuff. It's about Chicago's most famous whorehouse and the madams who ran it, and how their empire wound up crashing down around them, and it's a delight.

Death Prefers Blondes: What if a teenage heiress and her drag queen best friends were cat burglars? This isn't a spectacular book, and is maybe a little overlong, but it's sure fun to read!

Calypso: David Sedaris is one of America's most popular authors for a reason! His autobiographical short stories are witty and sharp and entertaining, and this (his most recent collection) is no different. These ones, though, feel a little more poignant than usual without losing the trademark humor.

The Last Romantics: A little deeper than many might be into for beach reading, this does fall into the family drama subgenre so popular for summer reading.

Daisy Jones and the Six: An oral history of a fictional 70s rock band who made a perfect album and then abruptly broke up on tour, you'll want to hear the band's music from their smash hit Aurora along with reading their story!

Bad Blood: This exposee of Elizabeth Holmes and her compant Theranos isn't really a light read, but it's attention-grabbing enough to keep you from falling asleep in the sunshine.

Astonish Me: A ballerina has an intense affair with a celebrity dancer, then retires into family life without ever really leaving her days of dance behind her. It's told out of chronological order, and while at least one twist is fairly predictable, if you like a dramatic ballet story, this will be a fantastic way to pass time outdoors!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Summer Reading

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite 2019 Releases

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! It's the last day of the year, so let's look back on my favorite releases of the year, eh?

Winter of the Witch: I loved the first two books in this trilogy, so I was nervous about whether Katherine Arden could bring it home and give Vasya the ending she deserved. I shouldn't have worried. This series-closer was amazing and I loved it!

Daisy Jones and the Six: I was a little skeptical at first of this Behind-the-Music-style story about a band who make a best-selling masterpiece and then break up on tour, but I fell in love with Daisy, Billy, and the interplay between all the band members. I just couldn't put it down!

The Last Romantics: I love a long-running family saga, and Conklin's tale about siblings that become tightly bonded when their mother falls into a deep depression after their father's death was a great one. It wasn't perfect, but I found it deeply compelling.

Polite Society: This retelling of Emma in modern-day upper-crust India was darker than the original, but nicely balanced being an homage to Austen and opening up the narrative so that side characters got fuller development.

Say Nothing: I had virtually no understanding of The Troubles going in to this book, and needed some Wikipedia help at the beginning, but this exploration of that time through the story of a mother of ten being "disappeared" was fascinating and informative.

After the Party: Even the Allies had internal fascist movements during the World War II era, and this book explores the way one woman gets involved with Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, combining elegant prose and a determinedly unsympathetic protagonist.

First: This is a thorough biography of Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court and one of my personal heroes. It's a little dry at points, but overall a well-rounded look at a trailblazing woman.

Death Prefers Blondes: If you've ever wondered why heists don't have more drag queens, this is the book for you! It's fast-paced and doesn't forget to slow down for some heartfelt moments among the winky, campy fun. A very entertaining read!

The Club: A teenage German orphan finds himself caught up in a mysterious plot by his aunt, taking him to Cambridge's most exclusive inner circle and exposing the rot at its core. This was uneven, but grabbed and held my attention.

Without A Prayer: How does a 19 year-old end up being beaten to death by his own parents and sister in church in upstate New York? Because that church has become a cult, in an awful but fascinating true story. It reads more like a very extended piece of reporting than a book with narrative structure and falls very short on the kind of analysis and perspective that would let it take off, but it's interesting nevertheless.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite 2019 Releases

Year 4: An Update (And Giveaway!)

Today, I'm 34. When I turned 30, I set some goals for myself for the next decade. One of those goals was to read at least 50 books per year, or 500 total, so I started this blog a couple months later to hold myself accountable and have a place to talk about all those books! Since my reading years begin and end on my birthday, I like to do a check-in post every year to look back on the year that was, both in books and life. Without further ado:

In Reading

• Books read (this year): I've finished 79 books since my last birthday! This is actually my lowest year since I started the blog, which is probably mostly because of session.
• Books read (total): I've finished 345 books since I started the blog! I am obviously very very far ahead of my goal at this point, which would have been 200. I just own so many books that I want to read them as fast as I can! And who knows, I might have a reading slump one of these days.
• Male/Female Authors: I read 42 books by men this year, and 37 by women. This isn't too far away from even, and it actually was neck and neck for much of the year, but the last month and a half or so has been a lot of books by dudes.
• Most Read Genres: My balance between fiction and nonfiction was better this year! I tend to prefer about 2/3 to 1/3 (respectively), and with 55 fiction books this year and 24 nonfiction ones, I came pretty close. For fiction, my most read sub-genres were again contemporary fiction by leaps and bounds, followed by historical and fantasy. For nonfiction, they were biography, followed by medical and history.
• Kindle/Hard Copy: I read more than twice as many books this year in hard copy (54) than on my Kindle (25). My Kindle is great, don't get me wrong. It's easy to use, super portable, very convenient. But the more I read, the more I just like the feeling of a book in my hands!

In Life

• Minnesota trip with Drew: My husband has been talking about wanting to see a Vikings home game for approximately forever, so we finally made it happen last October! We stayed at a great little AirBNB in the trendy, brewery-heavy area of Minneapolis and even though the good guys didn't win, we had an amazing time. I was reading: Seduction
• Girls trip to New Orleans: For my annual trip with my best friends, we went to New Orleans! I'd been very briefly once before, but really enjoyed getting the chance to actually explore the city, relished every delicious thing I ate/drank, and of course, cherished spending time with two of the people I love the most. I was reading: Once Upon A River 
• Work trip to Las Vegas: This year's annual work trip was to Las Vegas, where (of all dorky things), I stopped off to get a library card at the Clark County Library. They have a better selection of audiobooks on Overdrive than my home library! I was reading: Bad Blood
• Beginning of my fourth legislative session: This has been the worst session weather-wise I've ever seen, which isn't saying much, but my bosses, who have been making the commute much longer than I have, totally agree. I didn't even go down for the first two days, and there were some white-knuckle drives even after that. I was reading: The Mind's Eye
• Jeopardy taping: In the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, I was lucky enough to be chosen to be on Jeopardy! Which meant a whirlwind (literally 36 hours) trip to LA to tape and then back to work the next day. Totally worth it! I was reading: Forest Dark
• My Jeopardy episode aired: It was shocking how little I actually remembered of what had happened by the time it aired...I remembered pretty much nothing from the first half of the show at all! Some family and friends came out to a local brewery where we had a viewing party and it was super fun. And now I have my own IMDB page! I was reading: The Fever (review to come)
• End of my forth legislative session: I took on more responsibility this session, and it definitely took me a while to figure out how to balance the new work load. So it was a stressful session, but I got the chance to grow professionally and already know what I need to do better next time around! I was reading: Good Riddance (review to come)
• Summer holidays in Michigan: I hadn't been back for two years! Considering how much I still love the mitten, this was definitely an overdue week of vacation. And it was a hot and humid one, but I got to see family and friends and eat SO MUCH FOOD that I can't get out in Reno! I was reading: The Man in the High Castle (review to come)
• Girls trip to San Francisco: We moved the 2019 edition of our annual escape up a couple months, so that's why there's two of these on this year's update! We spent a lovely weekend in the Bay Area and had a great time exploring the city (especially the Mission District)! I was reading: Death Prefers Blondes (review to come)
• Long weekend at Lake Tahoe: As usual, I accompanied my husband to his annual work event at the lake, during which he worked and I was spectacularly lazy. I was reading: Seeing (review to come)

The Giveaway

Every year, I give away a copy of the book I loved the most out of the ones I've reviewed on the blog over the past 12 months. I reviewed some fantastic books this year, but the one that captured my heart most of all was Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It's sweeping and epic and beautiful and everyone should read it. If you haven't, and would like to, here's your chance! Just enter via the Rafflecopter below during the next week and this book could be yours! Apologies to my international friends, but this giveaway is US-only.

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Year 4: An Update (And Giveaway!)

A Month In The Life: August 2019

August always has that feeling of being The End of Summer. In Michigan, we always started school after Labor Day, which meant that the end of August was (basically) the end of our break. I actually liked going back to school because I was a nerd, but that feeling of August being the last hurrah has never quite left me.

In Books...

• Money Rock: Journalist Pam Kelley tells the story of the titular North Carolina drug dealer...and through it, the story of Charlotte, drug policy, housing policy, and the consequences of incarceration. Smart, insightful, and very accessible.  
• Marie Antoinette: There's a reason this is subtitled "The Journey", because Antonia Fraser skillfully traces the path the young Austrian archduchess took to become at first one of the most fashionable women of her time and eventually the subject of hatred so violent it culminated in her execution. The depth of research on display, without forgetting storytelling, is very impressive.
• Calypso: I always enjoy David Sedaris's work. This collection was generally less funny and more poignant than I typically expect, but as with any essay collection, there were ups and downs. 
• Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: You Must Remember This is one of my favorite podcasts, so when host Karina Longworth mentioned this book as a source for her excellent episode on Lena Horne, I was curious. It paid off! This book is as much about the social environment of Black Hollywood back in the day as it is about the movies, and it's a fascinating look at a time and place that still has relevance to the way our own world works.
• Gilead: This is one of those books that makes me glad I don't DNF books, because it took until about 1/3-1/4 of the way into this for it to really grab me. But once it did, I was hooked. I was worried that this story of a minister looking back on his life would be a little more religious than I was comfortable with, but it was as much philosophical as anything and the beauty of Marilynn Robinson's language kept me rapt. 
• The Forgotten Sister: My second straight month with an Austen retelling! This one is more traditional, focusing on the life of the middle Bennett sister, Mary. Sandwiched between two pairs of tightly bonded siblings, Mary often comes off as a bit of a prig in Pride & Prejudice. While Jennifer Paynter's tale doesn't erase those schoolmarmish tendencies, she gives context for why Mary turned out that way...and gives her a compelling love story of her own.
• Death Prefers Blondes: It's been described as a heist movie meets RuPaul's Drag Race, and that's not inaccurate! Teenage heiress Margo Manning steals fantastic treasures along with her best friends...four drag queens. But when she experiences a personal tragedy, it's no longer for fun and profit, it's for revenge. It's silly, light, and enjoyable, perfect for a vacation or the beach, but don't expect anything special.

In Life...

• Girls trip to the Bay: This year, I got to pick the location, and I chose to beat the heat of northern Nevada by heading over the hill to San Francisco. We got to do some things that I'd never done before (like the Alcatraz tour!), and just hang out in a super-cool city. I love getting to spend time with my best friends and had a blast!

One Thing:

If you've never heard the phrase "Imma let you finish...", you probably have very little interaction with anyone hip to pop culture. It's taken on a life of its own, surpassing the moment at MTV's Video Music Awards a decade ago that launched it into the world. But the impact of that actual moment has spiraled beyond what anyone might have expected, and this deep dive about it at The Washington Post is fantastic.

Gratuitous Pug Picture: 

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A Month In The Life: August 2019