Worth A Read At Christmas Length 272 Quick Review Set in Nantucket at Christmas time; a young shop owner struggles between love, community, and career.
Reading Let It Snow by Nancy Thayer on my alma mater’s [Cornell College] campus. | Sweater | Jeans | Boots | Hat | Scarf |The reason I like Let It Snow by Nancy Thayer is because it’s not trying to be anything other than a love story. So many Christmas stories are love stories masquerading as female empowerment or something like that, and I hate the way they are done. They make the woman a strong independent woman in a city without an interest in love, but then she goes home/has to go to a small town/is stranded in the country when her life is turned upside down, realizing she has fallen in love with a man and small town life. Thayer doesn’t try to do that, she comes right out and says what it is. Christina is an independent business woman living in Nantucket and, “She had always wanted to marry and have children and it broke her heart to know that she hadn’t given her parents grandchildren before they died.”
Thayer writes a sweet story about finding love and fighting for what you believe in. She does make me want to visit Nantucket someday because it sounds lovely. Overall, it’s a nice story for Christmas, but it’s not a fabulous book. I don’t find the child, Wink, in the story very realistic. I have spent a lot of time around a lot of different children, and I don’t think Wink would act the way she does in the beginning of the book; she does get more believable later in the story. I also don’t love the fact Let It Snow makes an unmarried woman is old. As a woman very near thirty, this is bullshit. The romanticism is a bit much even for a love story.
Thayer has a very straightforward writing style, which makes the narrative quick and easy to read. There are a few grammatical errors. Pronouns should be used more often because Christina is used far too much, and it is incredibly repetitive.
Let It Snow would be a great book to curl up and read over Christmas break. It is very Christmassy and cute. An easy read for all ages.
Memorable Quotes “Sometimes you’re so depressed you’ll do anything to make yourself feel worse.”
Worth a Read Yes Length 256 Quick Review Tommy Tomlinson has “always been fat.” After living a full life, he decided to make a change and lose weight.
Tommy Tomlinson is a well known journalist. He had a brilliant career and the love of his life, but he was a fat man. His weight kept him from enjoying his life to the fullest. Over the course of a year, Tomlinson documented his weightloss journey in The Elephant in the Room.
The memoir delves into his year of weight loss but also his past. The past can rear its ugly head forever if it goes unconfronted. To deal with his issues with food he had to look into his past and why he loved food as much as he did. Each chapter documented one month of his weight loss journey. At the end of each chapter he document how much weight he had lost or gained. His honesty about the struggle is refreshing. It is a journey with ups and downs; all of which he experienced.
Tomlinson’s honesty is inspiring. His style of writing is funny and sad and deeply insightful. I really enjoyed reading The Elephant in the Room.
Buy on Amazon | Buy on Book Depository Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”3532945″]
Read No Length 256 Quick Review Alaskan Holiday is a really good example of what I don’t like in a book. Sappy romance, a pretend strong female character, bad grammar, terrible plot, and over all not put together well. Upside: there is a dog.
Happy first day of December!!! I’m starting off my holiday reading with a real low point. It’s not the worst book I’ve read all year, but it’s in the top three! Which means, in all hopefulness, that the reading quality can only go up the rest of the month!
I pretty much began reading Alaskan Holiday by Debbie Macomber feeling that it would be awful. It was. It was not good. It’s like a Hallmark movie in book form so a more painful time commitment.
The two main characters are Josie and Palmer. They’re in the middle of nowhere Alaska. A place so remote almost everyone leaves during the winter months and is only reachable by plane. Josie was the chef during the season, and Palmer lives there permanently. Palmer falls in love and asks her to marry him. The rest of the novel unfolds to the exact ending you know is going to happen.
Alaskan Holidayis incredibly sexist. There is the effort of having a strong, career oriented woman as the lead, but the whole novel falls into the trope of ‘need to calm this wild, career woman down to get her to settle into a small boring life.’ The woman gives up everything for the man. This is bolstered by the fact that there are several other women trying to convince Josie she can be happy in the middle of nowhere because love. Palmer is awful. I really hated his character. He oozes the quiet, toxic masculinity that is a total turn-off to any actual strong, career oriented woman I’ve ever met. His machismo was irritating after page 2. His jealousy is beyond aggravating. I couldn’t take it.
There is a lot of telling and very little showing, so the storytelling is Alaskan Holidayis as bad as the characters. The story spends 130 pages, out of 220, setting up a story that could have been easily summed up in 25 pages. The story reads like a teenager’s diary, but not an insightful, wise teenager. There are also a lot of grammar errors.
I was really unimpressed by Alaskan Holiday. It was pretty much a waist of my time. Luckily it was so bad and easy to read, I was able to read it in a less time than a Hallmark movie takes.
Read Yes Length 256 Quick Review Stephen Hawking isn’t an anti-social genius. He’s brilliant, no doubt. He’s also witty, sarcastic, charming, and completely relatable in his book Brief Answers for the Big Questions, published posthumously.
I had a wonderful time reading Brief Answers for the Big Questionsby Stephen Hawking. This is the first book I’ve read by Hawking. I read it on airplanes on Thanksgiving day, so the only break I took was walking between terminals. It’s a book that pulls you in and keeps you even if science isn’t your thing.
I was under the illusions Stephen Hawking was a one of those scientific geniuses who I’d be unable to have a conversation with because he’s that much smarter than me. Except that’s exactly what feels so wonderful about Brief Answers for the Big Questionsthe intimacy of it. It’s a conversation between Hawking and the reader. He doesn’t shove science and math down your throat; instead he is warm, funny, charming, and absolutely relatable.
His sense of humor is evident from the very beginning. The forward is by Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the movie The Theory of Everything. Hawking is funny, blunt, and very self-deprecating “Eddie Redmayne plays a particularly handsome version of me…” It makes him even more admirable in his humility. The word “surprised” was used far too often when Hawking discusses his successes. Even though he was brilliant and earned everything he had, he seems completely shocked looking back at the things he accomplished.
There are very few things non-sciency people will need to look up because Hawking does not drown the reader in things they probably are unfamiliar with or equations. He wants Brief Answers to the Big Questionsto be accessible to all. He talks about theories and equations with a sense of humor because he’s talking to people not scientists. M-theory – I did look that up- and Einstein and quantum mechanics and The Big Crunch “In Britain, people don’t seem too worried about a possible end twenty billion years in the future. You can do quite a lot of eating, drinking and being merry before that.” are all there but understandable. It’s not just science, though. He constantly references everything from history, science, philosophy, literature, and pop culture ie: Jurassic Park, Star Trek, etc.
Has funny little Q&A’s throughout the chapters. They usually sum up in a sentence or two his personal feelings about the overarching question being asked in the chapter. My favorite being the Q&A on page 141 when he mentions throwing a party in 2009 for legitimate time travelers. It culminated in him sitting alone in the college hall because he sent out invitations after the party was over to ensure there would be no phonies
I learned that Non-Euclidean geometry exists. Had I known this before, I could have been a total smart ass in formal geometry in high school. I found out triangles do not have to add up to 180° in flat three-dimensional space, but space would be curved and therefore non-euclidean. New information!
I highly enjoyed the small little jabs he made throughout including, “If there are beings alive on Alpha Centauri today, they remain blissfully ignorant of the rise of Donald Trump.” I don’t have to wonder too hard how he felt about the election.
Brief Answers to the Big Questions is highly entertaining. Hawking answers the questions, but really he’s just posing more. He is FULL of huge ideas. It’s absolutely amazing all the things he accomplished in spite of the obstacles he overcame. One of my favorite quotes is in the last pages of the book, “Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audiences possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.” I love his inclusivity and call to action while simultaneously empowering the young women and men of today.The last two paragraphs are inspiring and a call to action and empowering.
Lucy Hawking, his daughter, summed up the sentiment of who he seemed to be through his own words in her own afterword, “He was a surprisingly modest man who, while adoring the limelight, seemed baffled by his own fame.” Reading Brief Answers to the Big Questionswas an absolute pleasure. Professor Hawking will be greatly missed for generations to come.
Memorable Quotes “Although, if there were such a God, I would like to ask however did he think of anything as complicated as M-theory in eleven dimensions.” “We don’t expect the universe to end in a brick wall, although there’s no logical reason why it couldn’t.” “This is a pity because, if they had, I would have got a Nobel Prize.” “The producers of Star Trek even persuaded me to take part, not that it was difficult.” Particle Accelerators: “They would have to be larger than the solar system and they are not likely to be approved in the present financial climate.”
Read Yes Length 331 Quick Review Race is a complicated issue in the United States. The Color of Law goes a long way to explaining some of the intricacies. I have heard nothing but good things, and I can’t agree more.
American history is riddled with inequality. Laws have been made and changed and changed and changed. Laws made in the name of “equality” have been instituted, and, yet, inequality thrives even today. Richard Rothstein unravels some of the assbackward, sorry, I mean, laws about equality in The Color of Law.
We have come a long way… ish. There is still so far to go. Discrimination doesn’t necessarily look the way it did 100 years ago or even 50 years ago, but it is still rampant. Rothstein, obviously, in The Color of Law that discrimination is and has been de jure. It may not have begun in the legal system, but the discrimination has been bolstered in the policy decisions of the federal, state, and local governments. These policies have reverberated throughout history and are still felt today.
One example, which spans several chapters in The Color of Law, talks about the housing situation. Housing is a necessity similar to air, nourishment, clothing, and puppy cuddles – wait, that may just be me. Housing discrimination has been in the legal system for… ever. Even when there were fewer or no laws explicitly denying certain people access to housing, there were laws allowing discrimination to continue. I would explain more, but it is a complicated topic to explain in a paragraph.
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Basically, laws have kept people of color in particularly unpleasant and unequal circumstances through many routes.
If The Color of Law is your first read on the inequities of the American legal system and society in general towards people of color, you will definitely find many parts to be distressing. I do. Everytime, I delve into these topics, I am disturbed. I believe this is a good thing. Reading books about uncomfortable topics affects the way we see the world. As a white person, it’s very important to be aware of the difficulties people of other skin colors face.
I highly suggest reading The Color of Law. Today, Tuesday, November 6, 2018 is midterm elections. Our votes matter. Our votes matter to the country. Our votes matter to our friends and family. Our votes matter to people of color. When we vote, those votes allow people to make and decide on policies that will affect our lives, the country, and, in a way, the world. When we vote, we vote for people who will make this world a better or worse place. Books like The Color of Lawhelp inform and influence the way we vote.
Memorable Quotes: “De facto segregation, we tell ourselves, has various causes.” “Let bygones be bygones is not a legitimate approach if we wish to call ourselves a constitutional democracy.”
Title: The Color of Law
Author: Richard Rothstein
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9781631494536
I grew up going to the Iowa State Fair. It’s a tradition. When I moved out of state, it was difficult to make it back in August. I actually missed four fairs. Fortunately for me, my mom broke her ankle skydiving, and I had an excuse to hang out in Iowa for a month. She managed to wheel herself around the fairgrounds, and I got to be a kid again.
If you’ve never heard of the Iowa State Fair, I feel bad for you. It is actually really well known. It’s listed in a lot of “must see in America” lists or what have you. I can’t describe to you how much fun it is.
The state fair always happens in the middle of August at the Iowa State Fair grounds in Des Moines, Iowa. This year it is from August 9 – August 20.
This year was the first time I went on opening day. It was a Thursday and very hot. It may not be the most pleasant conditions, but it means the fair isn’t jam packed, which I greatly appreciate. There are several air conditioned buildings, so when you need some relief you can have it.
Ever since I was a little girl, my favorite thing to visit at the fair has always been the barns. I love seeing all the animals. Horses, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, all the animals. They’re usually there for shows and competitions. There are usually baby animals there with their mamas. There used to be an area where you could pet the calves, and they would suck on my fingers. Fun fact: cows don’t have upper teeth. Now there is a whole building for baby animals. Chicks hatch. Baby ducks swim in a tiny pond. Pregnant cows, does (goats) and sows (pigs) give birth to calves, kids, and piglets on site throughout the duration of the fair. They’re so cute!!! I would love to have goats someday.
The 4H building is very cool. Kids from all over the state enter their projects in competitions ranging from sewing to photography to cooking to woodwork and more. It’s really impressive, and the kids come up with some really ingenious ideas. Pioneer Hall, The Varied Industries Building, Agriculture Building, and Exhibition Center are other can’t misses.
Butter was a movie made in 2011 starring Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, and others. It is about carving butter in Iowa. Surprise, this is a real thing. The Butter Cow is a must see for most fair goers. What is it? It’s a cow carved out of butter. No joke. There are several other butter sculptures featured at the state fair in the Agriculture Building, but if butter art isn’t your speed, there are tons of flowers to look at.
The fair has a giant slide, which I have done every year, and it never gets old. There are tons of fair rides. Lots of stages for entertainment. The grandstand was redone this past year. Every night of the fair, a band or singer is featured.
Food. Fair food is its own kind of strange. At the Iowa State Fair, you can find literally anything on a stick. No longer is the corn dog king of stick foods. No. You can find cheesecake on a stick, salad on a stick, mac-and-cheese on a stick, butter on a stick, and so much more. I always get a pork tenderloin because it’s Iowa and I love them. I also have to get a funnel cake. Funnel cakes are disgusting, and it is important to just embrace the diabetes when eating it. I also always need to have fresh squeezed lemonade in hand. It’s the best at the fair.
Anyways, this is a basic rundown of the state fair. If you’re in Iowa, you need to go. If you’re not in Iowa, you should plan a trip to enjoy it.
Iowa State Fair
E. 30th Street & E. University Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50317
Instagram: @iowastatefair
