Oh my word I don't know what day it is during these holidays! I meant to participate in this prompt, but now I'm a day late. Whatever!!! AHH! (Here's the link to yesterday's responses!)
I didn't think I'd be getting many new books for Christmas, but combining mine and my daughter's gifts, we got a pretty good stack in the end!
What do you think? Which one should I read first???
TOO LATE! I already read the Kasie West one... Places We've Never Been! AH, I love her stories so much!
Now I need to go check out everyone else's posts to see what's on your stack!
(I did a video about this stack if you want to "watch" me share them... lol!)
Oh my word I am so behind with blogging posts! And now Sunday is almost over, but here I am writing a quick little post! AHH! Life is so crazy.
Listening:
Breaking out the the huge Christmas playlist that includes all my favorite things. My favorite (roughly speaking) is this one from last year by Stray Kids. It's so funny and so great and just try not to sing and dance along!
Watching: We have joined the rest of the world in watching Wednesday on Netflix. It's very fun, isn't it? I think it's funny that it came out at Christmastime instead of Halloween. Whatever! But yeah. We have one more episode and then... what will we watch next???
Looking forward to the season finale of Amazing Race this week. Rooting for two different teams so I have no idea who I'll be cheering for in those final moments!
Reading: Ah I'm so behind on writing up reviews! I've finished a couple more books. Since the last Sunday post I did, I finished Not Going There, The Fox Inheritance and Atomic Habits. I have "one minute reviews" posted on the booktube channel if interested!
Writing: Zero writing as been done. Ugh.
Blogging: Zero blogging has been done. Dang.
YouTubing: Lots of Youtubing has been done though!
Over on the Booktube channel there's much happening, but one video you may be interested in is when I compare my reading to what Rory read in The Gilmore Girls. Dang that girl read some crazy stuff!
On the Kpop channel I just finished editing this fast-paced intense thing that shows off some cool images and moment from MVs this past year. You should totally watch and make me happy!
Health Watch: Well, my husband got covid for Thanksgiving, so we cancelled all our plans. Then a few days later, sure enough, I got it too, so we cancelled all our plans the week after Thansgiving too. That means we missed our outing to see Moulin Rouge at the theater... and kpop movie that I was so excited to support. Sigh. Whatever. Anyway, that was our first bout of covid, so we finally got that over with. My husband has felt pretty crappy, but I only had couple of days were I needed ibuprofen, and have since been fine. Really hoping I can go back to work tomorrow but I haven't tested yet today to see what the verdict is. We have gone through about 12 tests just this past week between the three of us. My daughter didn't get it this time, probably because she had her turn in July and didn't feel the need to join us this time. LOL!
Misc:
* We finally got our tree up today. So now it truly feels like Christmas around here. I have no idea how I'm going to get all the gift buying done though.
Here's hoping life can resume this week and we get through all the events planned for this month!
The prompt for Top Ten Tuesday today is Cozy Reads! With these instructions: "Share books that give off a cozy vibe, whether through atmosphere, setting, or some other factor. Please tell us why they’re cozy for you, too!"
I just finished a cozy read...Not Going There by Terri Osburn. All her books (the ones I've read so far anyway) are cozy! Lovely romances. I need to read more in her Anchor Island series, because I feel like the setting in those would really add to the coziness.
Whenever I'm trying to think of "cozy" books, I think of Anne of Green Gables. Pretty sure there's nothing that's quite as cozy as that one!
One of my favorite authors is Kasie West and think of all her books as cozy, simply because they are fun fluffy cute romances. I am getting behind and need to read her latest ones!
Tweet Cute by Emma Lord is another fun and cozy book. I mean of course there are problems and issues, but mostly it's... cute!
Miracle Creek Christmas by Krista Lynne Jensen is a sweet cozy Christmas romance.
All of Trish Milburn's kpop and kdrama series are cozy... despite all the problems and issues she addresses within the kpop industry.
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell is SOOOO cute and cozy! What a fun fall/autumn/Halloween story!
Scrolling through my Goodreads and realizing that I could use more cozy in my life. And it appea rs that my definition of cozy is a cute fun romance. I don't really do cozy mysteries, so there's nothing like that on my list. But I love fun cute romances and so you'd think I'd have a ton more on my read list, but seriously, scrolling through it and it's mostly rough and wild stories!
What's cozy to you all? I look forward to look at your posts and getting suggestions!
One of my new favorite groups is called TRENDZ... here is the "dance practice" of their latest song. I wanted you to see their amazing choreography, should you happen to choose to click on it! They blow me away with this talent! AHH!
And for something totally different that I'm loving from this week:
Watching: Just keeping up with the Survivor and Amazing Race episodes. I finally got invested in a kdrama from last year called From a Distance, Spring is Green. It tackles some heavy subjects, but stars an adorable kpop idol named Park Jihoon. I'm loving his acting in this one.
Reading: I actually finished several books over the past couple of weeks! It's a miracle! Fingersmith, The Maid, and People We Meet on Vacation. I really enjoyed all of them. You should be able to find my thoughts on all of them here on the blog, or over on the Booktube channel.
Writing: I've been doing pretty awful at my 10,000 word Nano goal, but I did add another 1000 the other day, for a total of almost 3000. Better than nothing, right?
Blogging: The Struggle!
YouTubing:
The Booktube channel is growing fast thanks to the Book Shelf Tour video I shared here last time. I have since uploaded the video where I reorganized the mess and tried to get rid of some things. Here's that one if you missed it:
On the Kpop channel I'm gearing up for all the year end video compilations I love to do. Maybe I'll have a cool one to share next time.
Health Watch: Ugh. It's still terrible in this category of my life. I dug out all my fat pants that I was wearing three years ago before I lost the weight. Most of it is back on now. Just like everyone said it would be. I am learning that "normal" eating won't work at all for sure. (Normal eating meaning normal carbs... not even out of control carbs.)
We all had a bit of a cold at this house since last I wrote. But we never tested for the covid, so who knows?
Misc:
* I'm anxious about what's going to happen with Twitter since I'm quite addicted to that spot. I don't think many of you follow me over there, so it probably won't affect our little interaction here. I am embracing Discord and finding some places there. If you are in a Discord that you find is cool let me know!
* I had a birthday this past week! Is that reason to celebrate? I'm not sure any more!
* We are going to see Mandy Patinkin in concert this weekend. We saw him once upon a time years ago and I'm excited to see him again. He's quite the goofball! And an amazing singer.
A book I read for my own October reading, from my shelves, since I'm attempting to only read things from my own shelves. And wow, this was very different from what I expected! But I quite enjoyed it anyway!
It's about a girl who is raised in a shady environment in Victorian England. This place appears to be a locksmith shop, but is really employing people to steal things for them, that they pawn or otherwise sale. The lady in this house is into infant farming. Which quite curdled my blood. But yeah. And one of these babies is our girl. But the lady ends up keeping this girl to raise as her own daughter.
One day a dude that also has ties to this house comes in with a plot to scam the lady of a house he's been working at. He thinks they can get our girl to pretend to be her maid, and then they will convince the rich girl to marry him at which point they will put her in a madhouse and run off with all her money. Our girl is convinced to do it and off they go to carry forth with their plans.
But if of course things do NOT go as planned. And then the twists and turns start coming! And they just keep coming after that!
There are some disturbing scenes at the madhouse, and other... interesting.... scenes I was not expecting. But I did very much get wrapped up in the story, even if I didn't fall much for these characters. Despite being a long book, I was quite engaged and reading it at every chance I got.
I must say that this should have been a book on my reading list for Pride Month instead of Spooky Month though...
Anyway, wow. I can't say a whole lot more about it for fear of spoiling everything, so if it sounds intriguing, just go for it!
Well this prompt is timely since I just declared my participation in Booktuber challenge that's kind of right along these lines!
That challenge is to read (insert your choice of amount of books here) books from your own shelves before you BUY ANY MORE BOOKS! It's called #ReadWhatYouOwnChallenge. You know we've all done this kind of challenge before, but it's something I've been particularly thinking I need to do anyway. Like TRULY concentrate on doing it and see if I can feel just slightly less guilty about all the unread books around this house.
So I've been reorganizing my hoard of books and as part of that I pared down my TBR to the books I REALLY want to read next... here's that view now:
And so there are books on this shelf that are first or seconds (maybe even thirds and fourths?) in series... and so it's THOSE that I want to catch up on first. Do you see them? Firefight, Goliath, Son, The Young Elites, Shadow Scale, The Gray Wolf Throne, Magic Study and Fire Study, Oathbringer (ha!), just to name a few.
If you are interested in my video declaring my participation in the other challenge, here you go. Of course anyone can do this, so join in if you want!!
I'll also be reading Atomic Habits for Nonfiction November as part of this challenge. WAH! I have too many goals, I hope I can accomplish at least some of them!
Sorry I've been so MIA lately! So much is going on here... well, it's slowed down a bit now but wow, October was INTENSE! We literally had some sort of party or travel, or thing every night for two weeks straight. It was fun, but so very crazy. Anyway. Here's my report!
LISTENING:
I had fun making a Thanksgiving playlist on Spotify. Here's the link if you're interested:
One of my favorite songs from the past month is this from a boy group now called TFN (formerly T1419) and they are a less well known, new-ish group. We got to see them at the festival we went to in October (see below) and then they come out with this new song shortly after. I love love love the choreography! And it's so fun to know them better now after seeing them all in person. They are awesome!
If you want something a little more mellow, I'm in love with this guy's debut solo album. Seriously so good. He's the dude from a brother sister duo group called AKMU. Anyway, this is the title track:
WATCHING:
Doing pretty well at keeping up with Survivor and Amazing Race. Finished Young Actor's Retreat (which I reviewed here) and trying to find a kdrama that captures my attention. Struggling in that department. I haven't really watched much else lately.
READING:
I finished Feed by Mira Grant (reviewed here) and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters... review to come soon. Both strange books. I started The Maid by Nita Prose for book club. I can tell I'm not quite in the mood for it. I may wait another week and read something more... fun... for a minute. I really need something fun right now. What should it be??
WRITING:
I pledged to write 10,000 words as a NANOWRIMO rebel! So far I've done 1000! Woot! I haven't done much this weekend though, so that's not good. But seriously, having this bite-sized goal feels so awesome... and I don't know what it is about doing a big community event like this that makes writing more fun... but there's something there that drives me.
BLOGGING:
I uploaded two posts this week lol! And I already linked to them... my review of Feed and of Young Actors' Retreat. This week I hope to review Fingersmith, maybe do a Top Ten Tuesday, and not sure what else.
YOUTUBING:
I've posted several videos on the new booktube channel. The most popular one so far is a tour of my bookshelves. Go check it out if you haven't yet!
We are now working on a video of us organizing the books. Look for that one to come soon!
The kpop channel has my favorites of the month compilation. So check that one out for some awesome songs that you might fall in love with! There's a bunch of mellow ones on the list this time, if that's your style:
In mid October we went to a thing called KAMP LA 2022... it was a brand new kpop festival that we were so excited about, but it turned out to be quite the fiasco. Half of the artists that were promised to come, didn't come because of visa issues, which is the fault of the festival organizer. We think they didn't have enough money because people didn't buy tickets like they thought and so they messed up the visas on purpose since they wouldn't have money to pay them. In they end they were giving away free tickets (that I paid hundreds of dollars for) and begging people to show up. It was crazy. But still we went because we just wanted to see Super Junior and thankfully they showed up! So... after six years of being into this kpop thing, I finally got to see the group that started it all for me. It was amazing. We did a vlog about the whole experience, with clips from the shows... here:
EATING/EXERCISING:
Struggling. Always struggling. I finished the first month of doTerra's Metapowr stuff and it was all good, but I didn't lose weight or anything miraculous like that. I plan to at least continue with the collagen drink.
MISC:
* I've been so devastated by the tragedy that happened in Seoul last weekend. My sister was there with her friends (in Seoul) but chose to go to a concert that night instead of partying with her friends. Her friends were in the area (Itaewon) where the crush of people happened, but hunkered down in a bar until it was safe to go. It took them hours to get back to their airbnb they were all staying in. They are very traumatized by everything. But I'm so glad that they, and my sister are okay. This is an area my daughter was in just a few months ago and one I've visited myself when we went to Seoul. It's crazy to imagine such a tragedy happening there where everyone is so happy and having fun normally. It will never be the same again.
* Some of the craziness that's happened in the family since I last wrote: a trip to LA for the crazy kpop festival (see above), a trip to Oregon to look at houses and visit my daughter (we decided not to buy a house for now,) a birthday celebration for my husband, a wedding for my nephew, book club, church parties, work parties, an author event, Halloween, cheering on runners for a half marathon... and I can't remember what else.
Seeing the grandkids while in Oregon.
* Oh, and the hot water heater broke, so we have been with out that until just yesterday.
* Now the holiday season is here, so things will just keep being crazy, yes? We might be hosting Thanksgiving at our house, so that should be interesting. Wish me luck!
So, obviously this is technically not a drama. It's a very fun variety show that stars drama actors. I started watching not really knowing what it was all about, but dang.. this has been one of the most fun things I've watched all year! My face seriously got sore for laughing so much!
The dude that directed three different dramas took the main actors from those dramas, and managed to get them together for this retreat where they played games, competed with each other, had missions and just hung out together. At the end, they had them do a pop up restaurant to cook and serve their fans. So much fun!
The actors came from these three dramas:
Love in the Moonlight: Park Bo Gum, Kim Yoo Jung, Jinyoung, Chae Soo Bin, Kwak Dong Yeon
Itaewon Class: Park Seo Joon, Ahn Bo Hyun, Kwon Nara, Ryu Kyung Soo, Lee Joo Young
The Sound of Magic: Ji Chang Wook, Hwang In Yeop, Choi Sung Eun, Kim Bo Yoon, Chi Hae Won
And then seeing what their personalities are "in real life" (of course we'll never know for certain!) but dang In Yeop is so "cool" in his dramas, but so freaking quiet and shy as himself. And I had no idea how old he is... having so many others calling him Hyung and Oppa was so weird, I feel like he should have been a maknae of the group. (He's like 31 or something.) Dong Yeon was surprisingly quiet too. I fell so much more in love with those two actors than I even was before.
And JCW... like.. is he TRULY that adorable all the time? His facial expressions are ALWAYS spot on, and he can portray emotion constantly, just from his face. I am sure some of that is intentional, but it seems so seamless that I feel like he must be a bit like this as his normal self? I am dying to know! He blows me way seriously.
And Bo Gum... dang that boy is cute. And so sweet and nice to everyone.
Getting know Kyung Soo, someone a bit more unfamiliar to me, was fun. I need to look up more of his dramas. And the girls from Itaewon Class are freaking adorable... makes me want to actually watch this one once and for all! (This drama seems a bit ruthless for me, but these actors all really make me want to check it out now.)
Anyway, the are all so enjoyable and so funny and so... just... cool. I'm sure some of my love of this watching experience stems from my knowledge of their dramas and their normal acting selves, so I don't know what a person with no prior experience with them would think, but truly, you'd all probably die laughing too and then want to go catch up on everything they've done!
This was another book club read! The premise is quite intriguing... it takes place several years after a zombie virus outbreak, and the world has come to learn how to deal with the aftermath. Even though this book was written in 2010 (or published then I should say) it has so many similarities to our world now with the whole virus fear and constant testing and everyone staying in and social distancing... AND... the political fall out.
Yes, this book got a bit heavy on the politics for me. Our main characters end up on the campaign trail of a presidential candidate. They are bloggers and in this world, bloggers are the main news source. The ones brave enough to go out and face the zombie threat and bring people news. Another intriguing premise for sure.
But, I had a lot of issues with the delivery of this story. It's very info dumpy, a lot of telling about how this world works instead of just jumping into the story and showing us. It took a lot of time for something to actually happen. The writing style was a bit dry and just not my favorite. The characters also not so very much my favorite.
That being said, when the story actually started to get going, there were enough crazy things that happen to keep me going. A couple of unseen twists and turns. And I am just a touch curious about what might happen in the next books.
Another interesting thing is the relationship between our main characters. They are brother and sister but dang... they sure don't act like it! And we do learn they are adopted, but I still wondered about whether they are biological or not. That might come out in future books, or I missed it. I don't know. But that whole thing is intriguing to me too.
We did talk about some stuff that goes on in the next books during book club and it actually does make me want to read more. Even with all the issues I had. Go figure!
Once upon a time, I thought it would be fun to do a Booktube channel. Or any kind of channel. Something fun on YouTube. I knew I loved editing, but the talking, not so much.
Then kpop happened, and the talking fear went out the window because of the enthusiasm I had for this subject! So.. with my sister and daughter, I started the kpop channel. And learned A LOT about having a YouTube channel. Even though there is still SO MUCH to learn.
Now, I'm feeling the pull to do the Booktube thing again, and maybe lighten up on the kpop channel a bit. I don't know. I guess we'll see. And besides, so many YouTubers have two channels, or several channels, so I've been thinking for quite awhile now to just go ahead and start another channel for my other passion and see what happens!
I've been working on it this past week and am feeling ready-ish (ha, not even a little bit ready, I'm so nervous) to share. But I have to get over this fear, right? Because I need to share it to grow, so here you go.
All that above story (and more) you'll hear in this introduction post. In this video I also lay out my plans for the channel and things I hope to do with it. I've managed to uploaded a few other things so far and yeah, I hope you find something interesting, (or potentially interesting) and will subscribe and join me over there for bookish thoughts and discussions!
Of course I'll still post things here, but the two will be sort of companions and things will be mingled here and there.
I have been overwhelmed with amazing music this week. This happens often in kpopland, TONS of new music all at once. It's kind of the best. But what to share for the listening prompt? I don't even know where to start!
I guess the one that has caused the most uproar is this one from Stray Kids. They are seriously so much and take nothing too seriously.
And then there's a small little group called DKZ that's been through a lot and some pretty crazy ups and downs over the past year and they came out with this killer of song this past week. Such a great head banger!
There's so much more, like I said, but I'll leave it at that for now.
WATCHING:
Yep, so we started the new season of Survivor. I have no idea what is so engaging about this show after so long, but it still somehow captures my attention.
I've skipped some Amazing Race seasons, but we've decided to add that to the viewing party list again too this season. So fun to see them in places I've been to. It seriously makes me want to travel so much!
We also watched Enola Holmes and that was very cute and fun!
I haven't started another kdrama yet. I am overwhelmed with the choices.
I am watching a fun k-reality show called "Young Actors Retreat" where they grabbed the stars of three popular kdramas and are making them do fun games and compete against each other. I am absolutely loving seeing the personalities of some drama stars... we don't usually get this so much like we do with the kpop stars. Dang, some of them are SOOO shy and it's crazy how good they are at acting when they are so timid in "real life." LOL!
I'm also watching a reality, just- for-fun show that features a new kpop group that has yet to debut. They are ATEEZ's little brothers (in the same company) and they are going to be AMAZING when it's their turn to come out into the world. But in the meantime, we get to learn about them through these fun shows they are doing pre-debut. They are adorable.
READING:
I am currently halfway done with Feed by Mira Grant. This is our book club book for October. I was hoping for a creepy Halloween-y book, but it's not doing it for me. In fact, I'm having trouble focusing on it and just kind of want to get done so I can get on to something else.
The something else I actually started... Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I feel like this one is supposed to be creepy? Am I dreaming or am I right? Anyway, hopefully I get to that one soon!
WRITING:
I'm frustrated with my inability to get going on this again. I would love to do NANO but I can't start another story until I finish up this one. So, maybe I'll participate as one of those "rebels" who work on an old WIP? I don't know what it will take to get me moving again. But maybe that would help a bit.
We went to another author event at the library. This time it was Sarah Eden doing a quick reading on her soon to be released book and then a Q and A all about writing. She is lots of fun and it was great to go support her. In a week or so we have another author event, this time it's the authors of our December book club book, In a Holidaze.
BLOGGING:
I think I'm caught up on both books and dramas to review! And I even did Top Ten Tuesday on bookstores this past week! Go check it out!
YOUTUBING:
So I started the Booktube channel. But I'm scared to share it. LOL! I will in a different post. If I get brave enough. But dang I've put a lot of work into it so I HAVE to be brave enough! Besides, you'll all come and subscribe so I won't look so doofus-y out there in that community, right???
Over on the kpop channel I compiled very short snippets of my favorite songs from the past quarter, as is my tradition this year. Take a look/listen and see if you find something that pulls you in!
EATING/EXERCISING:
I am starting a thing from doTerra. It's called MetaPWR. It's a whole system of essential oil, and a supplement, and a collagen powder drink. I'll do it for 30 days and then see if I feel like a new person, or what. I'll let you know! (This is the "new me" part of this post's title!)
In the meantime I'll try to keep up on the exercising. And the eating. LOL! I can keep up on eating SO WELL! Anyway, we tried oatmeal this week. Not my favorite thing. But this wasn't bad. I'm still not convinced it's healthy though.
MISC:
* I have so much stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks I doubt I'll be around here much. But wish me luck on all the things! And I'll be back eventually!
Starring: Park Eun-bin, Kang Tae-oh, Kang Ki-young
Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤
So, it took me almost three months to watch this drama. That's not normal and tells you right there that it did not grab me like it did pretty much every single other kdrama watcher. It probably didn't help that I started it when lots of stuff was going on in life, trips and other things. But still, every episode took me sometimes 3 or 4 nights to get through. Sigh.
The story was great (an autistic girl gets a job as an attorney and starts making her way in the world), the characters were great (our attorney of course, and the friends she makes there, and the dude who was their boss, and her crazy fun friend, and her dad, they were all awesome), but my problem came when so many of the episodes were spent on the cases that were being tried.
Generally I have a harder time with any TV series that has a new and different story every episode, or at least the main story gets lost and buried in favor of the story that's new that episode. And then they'd go off in MAJOR detail about the case and the lawyer-speak surrounding that case and my eyes would LITERALLY glaze over and I would fall asleep several times an episode.
When we got back to our extraordinary attorney's story, and her friends, I was all in. There were a couple of interesting cases (the dude who stole the kids and went and played in the mountains with them) and when they went on a field trip to Jeju to figure out the people who were charging an entrance fee to the historic site, and even a little bit the one where the little town didn't want the road to go through their town. I nearly stayed awake for those stories!
Our main dude was absolutely ADORABLE though. But he was only in every episode for maybe ten minutes at the most. I am so ready for another drama with him as the lead where he has an actual bigger part. But alas, he just left for his military service, so that will be awhile. I just need to go back and watch him as the villain in A Tale of Nokdu.... because dang.
Our leading actress was amazing at playing an autistic person. And I totally didn't realize it was the same girl in Do You Like Brahms... which was sadly was another drama that fell flat for me. (Also in finding those links I see my embedded trailers are all gone... do the trailers disappear after awhile? I know I'm grabbing them from main sites... sigh.)
Anyway, so in the end, I enjoyed bits and pieces of this one. I wanted so much more interaction between the characters. The ending left me feeling wanting and sad-ish too. I'm really not sure why everyone loved it so much! But.. it happens. Believe it or not, there are some beloved dramas out there that I just don't vibe with us much as the rest of the world! WHO KNEW?!!
Here's a trailer (which I guess will disappear after a bit?):
This book is book 8 in the Idol in Love series, and the second book following the stories of the boy group Sky High. They continue to break all the rules by falling in love. And THIS time it's even crazier because it's with one of their stylists! (Seriously though, we always wonder how the stylists in real life keep from doing this. Especially if they are at all near the same age as the idols. Mostly we assume they are quite a bit older, so maybe that helps? LOL!)
Anyway, our girl is basically being stalked by a dude who has bothered her for years, wanting to date her. He shows up again in her life and our idol is having none of this. And he is struggling to know if it's just because he wants to make sure she is okay. Or does he really like her? Hmmm.....
This books are very short and very fast to read and are perfect to fit in when I want something fun and swoony. I love them.
So now I'm all caught up and ready to read the next one whenever Trish has it done!
Okay, I know it's hit and miss with me regarding Top Ten Tuesday (and yeah blogging in general) but I will keep trying!
Today's prompt is Favorite Bookstores OR Bookstores I’d Love to Visit .
Oh man there are so many! And I'd love to make it a feature on my new channel (yes I have a new channel, but I will reveal that in another post!) to visit bookstores all around the world!
Anyway, some of my favorites:
The King's English in my (mostly) local city. This is where we go for tons of author visits. Or at least we used to pre-covid. I hope the tradition starts up again.
Pioneer Bookstore (which is truly local). Tons and tons of used books!
Powel's Bookstore in Portland (I featured it in one of my unfinished stories). It's fun to have this refuge in a city that seems to be dying a slow and painful death. But inside here, things are still amazing. I always buy at least one book when I visit!
Shakespeare and Company in Paris is a must stop every (two) time(s) I've been there! All English books in the middle of Paris. And when you buy one, they stamp it on the inside cover so you won't forget where you got it. I make it a point to buy a souvenir type book here (The Hunchback of Notre Dam for instance.)
In Tokyo there's a whole street full of bookstores and I made everyone go there just to see it! There is not English here at all though, but the books are all so cool looking!
We also went to this high rise bookstore FILLED with manga! Every floor! Oh my word it's overwhelming!
I went to a HUGE bookstore in Korea too, but can't remember the name of it now. It was cool, but I didn't take pictures. It was like a Barnes and Noble type place. I bought a fan there, lol. But we also went to the library and that's a picture worth sharing:
The other day we went into a local "rare books" bookstore (Moon's Rare Books), and I was too scared to take any pictures. That place was POSH! The rare books they had were thousands of dollars. I was entranced! But it looks like this inside:
Yeah, it's also kind of a museum of this dude's collection. Really really cool stuff.
As far as where I want to go:
If I get to go back to England I want to go to the bookstores on The Strand. I think we walked along there, but didn't spend near enough time there. And I don't think I have any pictures or anything.
I want to investigate all the small town bookstores along the coast in Oregon. Any small town bookstore really.
And I'm sure there's a bunch I'm forgetting! I just want to see them all!
This was September's book club book. A bunch of the members of book club have been raving about this author and I've never even heard of her. So it was fun to see what all the fuss was about!
In this one we have two sisters, each telling their story, including what life was like growing up with their mom. Most of the story is from the point of view of the sister who seems a bit autistic (Fern.) And then we get journal entries from the other sister, the one who it seems feels a bit of responsibility for the other sister (Rose.)
Who is the "good" sister is anyone's guess at this point!
Rose is struggling with her husband and feels like having a baby would solve all the problems. But she can't seem to get pregnant. So Fern decides she is going to help her by getting pregnant FOR her. So she sets out to find a guy. And in the process, she actually falls in love with a pretty interesting dude. So things should be easy now, yes?
But not at all. This is when things get pretty interesting and we start getting the very strong feeling that all is not as it seems.
Most people say they can figure it out, but I can never do it, so I was pretty hooked until the end trying to figure out what was going on.
So, yeah. I really enjoyed it! It was quick to get into it and quite easily readable. I'm good to read more by this author should she come up again.
I've seen Jenni Elyse doing this meme for quite awhile now and we were talking about blogging last week and I said maybe I'd give this one a try. I've done my own newsy "Currently" post for several years, but it would be fun to try and connect to with others, so here we go!
LISTENING:
I've been all about this song by ONEUS this week/month. It's called Same Scent.
Here's another one from them from the same album, but a totally different feel. Just them standing and singing and not be too distracting with the dancing, lol! This one is called Gravitation.
WATCHING:
Still trying to finish up a kdrama called Extraordinary Attorney Woo. Everyone else has loved this one, but man I am SLOGGING through it! In the meantime we started a reality show called Young Actors Retreat with a bunch of kdrdama stars doing games and interacting and being funny. I'm loving it.
We watched the movie about the dude who wrote Rent... Jonathan Larson called tick tick BOOM. That was really good and fantastically acted, especially by Andrew Garfield.
I'm wondering if Survivor should be starting up soon! Isn't it about time? We can't miss that show after watching it for 23 years! WAH!
READING:
I read the book club book (The Good Sister) and another for fun kpop love story book. I started J. Scott Savage's latest one in the Lost Wonderland Diaries series. I acquired two fun romance books at the Rom Con I went to yesterday. More on that later.
WRITING:
UGH! Thinking about my story ALL THE TIME, but never actually sitting down and finishing it! I need to figure out how to get back in the groove of the voice. That is SO HARD for me!
BLOGGING:
I did a lot of catching up posts the past couple weeks. Pretty much reviewed my whole summer's reading and watching consumption. I think there's a few more to go still until I'm truly "caught up."
YOUTUBING:
I'm doing a ONEUS (see above) week on the kpop channel this week. I'm also working on my 25 favorite songs of the month video.
And I'm pondering starting a booktube/writing/life learning channel. What do you think? Am I crazy? Am I too late to the game? Is the booktube community already too saturated? If I do this then I really need to step up my reading game and get back in the loop. But I do want to do something else on YouTube in addition to the kpopping. I can't stop thinking about which is usually an indication I need to just jump in and don't look back. But I'm scared. Sigh.
EATING/EXCERSIING:
I walked once and did Supernatural once this past week. At this rate, I'm going to never make any goals in this category!! I also made a lot of cookies and treats this week. Baking is one of my biggest life joys and I wish SO BAD it wasn't something that was "bad" to do...
MISC:
* We have another kpop event in LA to go to this month. If only all the groups would stop coming! Anyway, this is a huge festival thing and we'll be seeing a ton of groups all at once including the one that starting this whole crazy thing... Super Junior! YES!!
* I spent a week with my daughter and granddaughter this past week. It was fun being a grandma for a bit again!
* I picked a couple of things in the garden. I think it's all we'll get! Seriously one of the most depressing things in my life!
Awhile back I made a pile of books for a Top Ten Tuesday with the theme of "books I've had for years but never read." That stack has been mocking me ever since. So I grabbed one off the top and read it! So there!
This particular one was interesting to me too because of the scifi theme, since that's the sort of book I'm currently trying to finish up writing myself. So I was kind of hoping that reading this would spur me on to finishing my own story. Ha.
Anyway, I remember this one getting a ton of buzz years ago and I'm assuming many of you have read it, yeah? What did you think? I should look up old reviews!
It's about a girl who decides to go on a mission with her parents, which involves them getting frozen for 300 plus years while the ship travels to the new planet they are going to settle and start civilization there. So the catch is, someone wakes her up WAY too early and now she is part of the crew of the ship that lives and dies there while they make their way to the new planet.
She makes friends with the dude who is up next to lead this crew and there are so many strange things going on and together they get to (or try to get to) the bottom of it all. Basically, this crew and this mission in general, is not a happy one. WAH, these people are messed up!
So of course this book is just the start and to finish the story, one must keep going! I have so many books where I've read the first one and then totally forget to keep going, even if I'm intrigued. Sigh. Has anyone read this whole series? Is it worth it? Should I keep going?
I randomly ended up getting my hands on this book and was curious about what this dude had to say, so I read it.
Let me first say I have seen/heard this guy at several conferences for Youtubing and while I can admit he is knowledgable and passionate, I just always get the impression that he struggles with how to actually TEACH his ideas. In these classes, I always get frustrated that he ends up talking about what great things he's done for other creators, but never really gets down to the nitty gritty of HOW he did it, or how things can apply to all creators, or a nice clear list of stuff to do. You know? It's so very frustrating.
Well, and of course, this book is the same way. I gathered a few intersting tidbits, but mostly it's just about experiences he's had in the youtubing world and how great it's all been. I could probably do a page or two of the bottom line tips he gives, whereas this book is like, 200 plus pages. WAH!
Anyway, it was fun to read and see how it's been done for all the popular people. Not much of it can I really use in my own experience and niche. But some. Yeah, some.
Youtubing is pretty much the weirdest thing. And all these experts can guess at how it happens, and what to do to make it better. But basically, people are going to click on whatever, and there's not a whole lot you can do to make them do anything different.
My channel grew really fast and strong for the first couple of years, but then we changed directions a bit and that is a pretty big no no because your audience doesn't change with. It's so very frustrating. So now I'm in a place where I have to decide, do I keep going and try to find the viewers who like what I'm doing? or do I change directions again? Do I start over with something different? or do I just give it all up!
So, yeah, much more than any of you wanted to know about my youtubing struggles, but there you go. I've also been watching a lot of channels that talk about how to get better at this game, and those are interseting too and sometimes even motivating, but mostly, I just keep wondering why I'm even trying.
It's because I love it I guess!
Anyone else out there reading this trying to do Youtube? Let's talk!
This was last month's book club book as part of our Utah Book Month. Does anyone remember when we used to have a whole month celebrating our Utah authors? And a bunch of us bloggers hosted it? Yeah, good times, those. Anyway, we like to give a nod to those memories and still read a Utah author in our book club. It's great!
One of our favorite Utah authors is Jennifer Nielsen. She's pretty awesome, both as an author AND a person. So she often ends up on our lists. There are so many books to choose from. Personally, I'm way behind in keeping up with her.
She has a line of historical fiction books so we ended up choosing one of those. This one tells the stories of five different kids during WWI, from all their points of view and ends up weaving their stories together in a really interseting way. We have the boy who witnessed the Archduke's asscination, the girl who is trying to become a nurse like her mom, the girl who is the son of German military leader, and the Russian boy fighting on the front lines. I found all their stories to be quite compelling and hopeful.
I mostly had a problem feeling like, could kids really do these things? It was hard for me to imagine. I know others in our book club had issues with how sweetly and neatly everything was wrapped up and how it all worked out so well. Granted, this is for a MG audience, but I do agree that everything seemed a bit too perfect.
That being said, I still enjoyed reading about all these kids and look forward to trying to catch up with all the other books of hers that I have yet to read! I do wish there were more like The False Prince though. That one still remains my favorite!
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