canadian catholic country heart
(my heart lies in alberta)
So apparently I read another 22 books this spring (which is exactly the same number of books I read in winter of 2018). I couldn’t have done better if I had planned.
Four, not five? Just because.
(Every book read this spring was a new read – except for Inferno – so they [almost] all are counted.)
Continue reading “Reads of Spring 2018”
Since our next federal election is coming up in a year, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at who could overtake Pretty Boy (But Useless) Trudeau – the leader of the Conservative party, Andrew Scheer. I mean, it’s not much to hope for since our Conservative party is basically just another Liberal party, but there’s hope, right?
Wrong.
Continue reading “Andrew Scheer is Just Another Politician With Pretty Words and Not Much Backbone”
I haven’t really felt like writing a full-length review yet, but I thought it would be good to do a post about the books I’ve read so far this year – and show y’all how I’m absolutely not on track with the challenges I was thinking of taking up this year (I really don’t know why I thought I would since once I announce I’m going to read a book, my brain just does not want to). What better time to stop and look over the books I’ve read than just at the beginning of spring!
First, I’ve read 22 out of the 60 books I wanted to. I’m absolutely ecstatic. I’m back on track with reading like I wanted to be – reading lots!!!
I’ve known for a while that there was something off about how so many children are being diagnosed with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). I’ve been in several situations where a parent warned me that his or her child had ADHD… only to find that this child seems to be perfectly normal. “But that’s because you see that child when he is on his medication,” you might argue. That’s what I used to think as well, but certain experiences have made me start to think differently. I recently delved into the ADHD issue after reading some interesting articles on the subject.
The first one that really got me interested in this issue is called “The Drugging of the American Boy” by Ryan D’Agostino, editor-in-chief of Esquire.com. The article begins:
By the time they reach high school, nearly 20 percent of all American boys will be diagnosed with ADHD. Millions of those boys will be prescribed a powerful stimulant to “normalize” them. A great many of those boys will suffer serious side effects from those drugs. The shocking truth is that many of those diagnoses are wrong, and that most of those boys are being drugged for no good reason—simply for being boys. It’s time we recognize this as a crisis.
Well, hello. It is I, Anna, the person who rarely posts on her blog.
I thought it was about time I post again. When trying to think of something to blog about to get back into the flow, I thought – why not something about reading that I’ve seen in a blog/vlog before?
So without further ado, I introduce to you my list of how to read more books.
Anna’s rating: 1 out of 5. Or 1000. Whatever the percentage as little as possible. Is there a 0 out of 5 option on Goodreads? We should make one.
Episode 1 of Anna Reviewing Trash That Shouldn’t Be Called Poetry
My friend has this thing where she reads John Green books even though she knows they’re terrible – just so that she can talk about how terrible they are. I decided to offer my services to the We Read Trashy Millennial “Literature” So That You Don’t Have To club.
One of my favourite reviews:
“hitting
enter
after
every
word
does
not
make
it
poetry.” [x]
I would add that neither does the addition of only one sentence to a page.
Continue reading “The Princess Saves Herself in this One {Book Review}”
This time I’ll actually list something that was released in 2017, since there were a couple albums that I quite enjoyed.
My favourites albums released last year, from least to most favourite (I provide links to the songs I just really really love).
Before anyone thinks that this is a list of books from 2017 that I liked – stop right there. I don’t read many new books. Ergo, the title is “My Favourite Reads of 2017” not “My Favourite Books of 2017.” See?? Alright, we can continue.
I definitely didn’t read as many books as I am usually prone to doing, but that means I can just move on up from here and read more next year!
Without further ado, here is my top ten list (the ordering could probably be shifted around a bit as always).
A Study in Charlotte is going to be one of the last books I manage to get in before the end of the year, and since I had enough things that I both loved and hated about it, I thought it was a good time to write a review. And post quotes I liked. Lots of them.
Description (taken from this review): A Study in Charlotte follows the descendants of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as they solve crimes on a modern-day college campus. In this story, both Sherlock and Watson were real people and Arthur Conan Doyle was Watson’s literary agent, who helped publish the tales of their cases. Many years later, Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson find themselves caught up in some copycat crimes that appear to be framing the two, using scenes directly out of the old stories.
I wanted the two of us to be complicated together, to be difficult and engrossing and blindingly brilliant.
And now on to my thoughts. Obviously, spoilers galore.
December’s only just started, and everyone is already getting excited about their TBR piles for next year, it seems. I usually wouldn’t post about this so soon (I mean, I haven’t even finished my pitiful Goodreads challenge of 40 books yet. I have no idea what happened – actually, I do, it’s school), but I wanted to save the challenges I like before I lose them, so I thought that I would just go ahead and post.
I came across this amazing list from one of the reading groups on facebook I’m on, and it sure gave me many ideas from which to choose. First of all, I’m going to try to read 60 books. I read quite a much wider variety of books this year – from teaching books like The Elements of Teaching to political books like Ann Coulter’s Adios, America to some Victorian YA (Libba Bray) with even a little poetry (John Keats) mixed in.
Along with the Goodreads challenge, I want to try and do the Books ‘N Tunes challenge because when I read a book I really enjoy, I usually associate certain songs with it. Why not try to do it with all, or most, of the books I read this upcoming year? I’m also going to keep the A-to-Z Challenge (because it would be interesting to try to cover each letter of the alphabet) as well as the POPSUGAR Challenge (I’ve already printed it out) in mind for some reading inspiration, but I won’t be too sad if I can’t complete them because I’d rather focus on reading the books on my shelf that I’ve wanted to read for a long time.
Another sort-of-related-to-reading goal:
