What are you up to this weekend? I have plans to watch this old movie with my daughter and bake this oft-recommended clementine cake.
My favorite finds from around the web:
- Amanda Gorman, Biden Inauguration Sensation, to Publish 1 Million Copies Each of Three Books. Such exciting news!
- We Have to Save Books from the Book People. Thought-provoking.
- 28 Films to Watch During Black History Month That Aren’t About Black Trauma. Because as the intro notes, “Black people deserve happy-go-lucky romances, cultural explorations, and cheesy coming-of-age movies, too!”
- The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship. This is so insightful, and sad.
- Apropos of yesterday’s journaling post: we gave my daughter one of these journals for Christmas; the thick pages are amazing. I’ve never seen them this inexpensive.
- Julie Murphy Is About To Take On 2021 One Book At A Time. Great interview!
- The 17 Best Pens for Writing, According to Pros. My kind of content.
- Meet the book club that’s helping to quickly vaccinate its town. More proof that book clubs are amazing.
- This air plant holder is bringing me joy. (Admittedly, we have a thing for pineapples at my house.)
- A Writer Lost His Singing Voice, Then Discovered The ‘Gymnastics’ Of Speech. “We’re actually performing a beautiful singing performance in everything we say, from answering the phone when we say “hello” and to longer sentences.”
- 19 Tips For Reading More This Year. What Should I Read Next? got a nice mention here! Plus, lots of great tips.
Don’t miss these posts:
- 101 powerful books to celebrate Black History all year long. February is Black History Month and I hope this list helps broaden your TBR throughout the year.
- 12 great books that celebrate the power of female friendship. In the wise words of Leslie Knope, Valentine’s Day is about celebrating romance—but Galentine’s Day is about celebrating lady friends and so is this list.
- 13 questions to ask yourself before buying anything for your wardrobe. Does your closet need an overhaul? Here’s where to start.
Have a great weekend!
18 comments
The clementine cake looks YUMMY. Have you made it before, Anne? I’m not familiar with “almond meal” – is that a British name for almond flour?
I haven’t made it but readers keep telling me I have to! I’ve never used almond flour, but regularly use almond meal I buy at Trader Joe’s. As far as I can tell it’s just ground-up almonds. 🙂
I posted the book club article on my book club’s FB page. One of our members works at a local non-profit, and we volunteered to be Santa for three people last December – a transgender woman, a gay teen, and his sister (And their eight dogs! I got the dogs ha ha.) The director was so thankful because not many people would want to sponsor them. But our member assured her we are awesome, and we went over the top. It just felt so good to love on some people who really need it. Also, I suggested Untamed as our next selection, so win-win.
I usually click on one or two of these links and open them in a new tab to read through. I clicked on almost every single one this week. It’s like having my own news curator! Thanks for the great content, always. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!
Me, too! I have a serious overload of open tabs from these weekly posts!
The Atlantic article, “The Pandemic is Resetting Casual Friendships” really hit a chord with me this morning. These thoughts have been knocking around in my brain for the last 6 months but I couldn’t really put it into words or express them; they were just there waiting for the right moment to be understood, clarified and actually written down. And WA-LA there it be!
Except they left out the best writing pens ever – the “Shaprpie Pen.” Not the regular Sharpies, but the fine point writing pens. Best Ever.
Yup, Cutzi – those are the best pens, I have three colors myself and I don’t usually indulge. Pens just “show up” most of the time.
Wow, did anyone else think that Jezebel writer (We Have to Save Books From the Book People) sounded like a total snob? I was an English major, so I’ve read Lolita, Gatsby, Ulysses, etc, and I have to admit that I’ve had a few cringe moments when I’ve seen gorgeous pics of full sets of Jane Austen with the caption “Aren’t these pretty? I should read them someday!”
But she should hang out with the #booknerds before she condemns them all. Their opinions and their reading lists vary as widely as any group of book lovers anywhere. There are plenty of conversations about Middlemarch buddy reads and reading the award winners. What’s wrong with having a TBR list? Can you truly be a booklover if you haven’t procrastinated mopping the kitchen to spend half an hour rearranging your bookshelves?
Sorry I guess I’m getting a little rant-y here but I have had quite enough of people telling me how to be a booklover. Do it however you want. If her students are as engaged by reading Ethan Frome as they are by reading The Hate U Give, they’re from a different universe than the teenagers I know. My opinion, for what it’s worth. (and p.s. Anne, thanks for the link, as you said, it was thought-provoking! ha!)
It was interesting to me to see the author of the article focus on book people, when in fact a good number of the behaviors she writes about can be found in people who pursue other hobbies including cooking, baking, working out, and more. The behavior of logging everything, of goal setting, and ticking boxes is something I do not understand. Will never understand. To me it seems like a good way to ruin a perfectly delightful hobby or pastime, whatever it may be. But then I realized the hobby really is tracking things. The hobby seems to be achievement, or self-improvement, not the activity itself. I am not a competitive person – even against myself. I guess I would much rather bake for the enjoyment of it, or make pasta to give to friends, or read another ten books with the time I’ve saved by not making a bullet journal entry documenting how much pasta I’ve made, or which new category of book I’ve determined that I must read, or ticking various boxes of accomplishment. I will thus remain unimproved, and my TBR a ‘wanna read, sounds good’ collection of random scraps of paper (often jotted while reading this blog). I am happy for all those who enjoy their hobby of tracking things they do as much as I enjoy not doing so. 🙂
Big smile!
I need to read The Curated Closet! (I just requested it from the library.) I retired a year and a half ago but I’ve been procrastinating going through my closet. It’s hard to know what I’ll still need, since I’ve hardly gone anywhere since the pandemic started.
Feeling the same, retired this past year and have never even opened my work clothes closet. No need to dress up to go nowhere!
I really enjoy the Devil Wears Prada movie, I’ve watched it every February for a few years now!
Wow thanks for making me feel ANCIENT clicking that movie link 🤣. “Old movie”— how dare you? 😉
Hahahaha!
About the “book people” thing…..I remember reading “Pride and prejudice” in school, and a couple of times afterwards. I thot she was a total snob! Who only likes the hero once she found out he was rich. Of course, I was only in 8th grade at the time, and likely still in high school when I reread it, so my reading may have been somewhat biased. I have been told that my understanding was not valid, and i keep thinking i need to reread it. i aLSo remember reading one of Sir Walter Scott’s books in high school, and thot he really needed a good editor. Seems he spent at least seven pages describing clouds in the sky. Or maybe it was 27…..it was a long time ago, and I don’t remember now! I do know I mentioned all that in a book report, and got an A+ on it!
And what colored pencils do you like? I find the ones I buy a bit unsatisfactory for writing, tho okay for drawing. I’d like some that we’re better for writing.
I’m planning to watch The Devil Wears Prada within the next few days. I just finished the book. The book was okay; I prefer the movie on this one. Hope y’all enjoy!