Two years later, many of those hobbies have fallen by the wayside, whether because circumstances have changed or you just got tired of them. After this long, most of us have had to cycle through multiple coping techniques. All that is to say: maybe you forgot about puzzles. Maybe you tried all the ones you bought in 2020 and haven’t refreshed your collection. Or, maybe you never hopped on the puzzle train to begin with....
That’s one reason I put together some books to help you get in the mood to celebrate the outdoors, encourage a love of the outdoors with your kids, and how to get started if you’re overwhelmed. The important thing to remember is that it’s not a competition to see who can be the best outdoorsy family. Even just a walk around the block with your kids, or a trip to the park or the local farmer’s market can help spark a love for nature....
Magical towns, on the other hand, crop up in unexpected places. They inject wonder into the humdrum world. They can give a broader range of people access to magic, and that’s what I like to see. Magical towns aren’t necessarily all quaint, though. Sometimes a town’s magic is keeping worse things at bay, or maybe the magic isn’t always benevolent. There’s a multitude of stories to tell about what’s hidden — or in plain sight — in these magical towns, so let’s take a look at a few....
I’ve written before about the best bullet journals, and now I’m back with bullet journal supplies to level up your practice. It’s important to note that all you need to bullet journal is something to write with, a notebook, and to watch this short introduction video, but notebook and journaling supplies have been a love of mine since the first time my mom took me back-to-school shopping. We weren’t even shopping for me, I was too young for school, but my older siblings needed pencils, spiral notebooks, and highlighters....
And reader, I married it. First, let me tell you this: Seconds is beautiful. It’s a beautifully designed shiny hardcover with a funky slip jacket. It looks and feel substantial in your hands. All 323 pages of this gorgeous tome are in full colour. It’s the kind of comic you want to put on your shelf just because it’s so damned pretty. But the best thing is that it’s also really, really, really good....
Even with the ones that we’ve read with winces and grimaces, the ones that have been published to mixed reviews, telling actors or media personalities to stick to what they know—we can’t help it when that star we love comes out with a book. It could be a memoir, an essay collection, a cookbook, a book of poetry, or a self-help book—it doesn’t matter. If we love the person who wrote it, chances are the bookworm probably won’t be far away....
So I got to researching. I wanted to find celebrities who read widely across many genres, and I also wanted to find a celebrities who search for diverse voices in their reading lives. Ultimately, these are the celebrities whose reading recommendations made the cut. Here’s a look at celebrities who read diversely and the books they recommend. Oh, and if you are interested to see this experiment through to the next stage, I will be doing a follow-up where I read the books that one of these celebrities recommended and I’ll officially judge their reading tastes....
Book lovers have plenty of options when it comes to awesome stickers. For readers who love their library, there are so many fabulous library stickers, ranging from reminders to visit the library for your bullet journal to big vinyls perfect for your water bottle. Find below a slick collection of library themed stickers to add a little library spice to your life. Bonus! An earlier post of library stickers has even more options for you, so if this is your jam, dig on in....
2019 New Releases In Translation Mouthful of Birds: Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell Samanta Schweblin, author of the literary sensation Fever Dream, returns with her first short story collection translated into English. Like Fever Dream, I was struck by the elusive, almost unsatisfactory nature of the stories. Some are strikingly short. Others are carefully crafted to confound. All leave you wanting more and thinking about them long after....
I’d discovered the original Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul in a Boca Raton Target, and reading the plethora of teen-penned stories felt like the first time people were writing about relatable experiences. Not only that, but when I discovered they were looking for stories for a second book, it felt attainable. I’d been writing short stories and poems for years and this book was filled with stories that mine could blend in with....
But there’s plenty more where that came from! Taking suggestions from commenters here and on social media, below are six more Sherlock Holmes adaptations with an international flavor. Russia: My Dearly Beloved Detective This adaptation dares to ask the question: what if Sherlock Holmes really didn’t exist? What if he was just a literary character that two women—Shirley Holmes and Jane Watson—exploit by running their own detective agency at 221B Baker Street?...
A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter’s fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born. Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia is a powerful novel from an incredible new talent. In the face of this hostility, bigotry, and misinformation, many trans people and trans-led or trans-friendly organisations have been fighting back with facts, creativity, and compassion, particularly in the fields of books and literature....
Stories are just words put together in a way that appeals to our emotions and creativity. Language is the story behind the words, the melody to the lyrics. A strong constructed and complete fictional language can tell us more about a character than a long backstory. From culture to heritage, from the environment to small things we hold dear, language is the backstory. For more information about constructed languages, you can find more information and like-minded people at conlangs....
So here we go. Our little murder child, Arya Stark, now grown into a full murder woman, has come through and killed the Night King. That should be enough? Maybe she can retire from being a murder woman? But many fans noticed that Melisandre had something very specific to say about Arya-as-assassin. M: “The Lord brought him back for a purpose. Now that purpose have been served.” There’s a lot to unpack there....
I got it into my head somehow that I needed to find the perfect chocolate cake for my birthday (which is tomorrow), so I spent a good portion of May and June trying out various recipes. And since I was already treating it as a competition, I decided to make this a cookbook showdown and share the results here. I set myself a couple of ground rules for the experiment....
Judd Books was founded in the early 1990s and is close to the British Library and Euston train station. It’s two levels of used book awesomeness. They are a traditional bookshop, and they don’t have their stuff online. They simply have great stuff. I’ve posted before on some of my favourite used bookshops around the UK and I’ve definitely found a new contender. When you enter Judd Books you are smacked in the face with a wall of books but it’s not in a way that appears overwhelming....
One unique spot is Sticky Institute. While the name might conjure up images of all sorts of unsavoriness, this is the only dedicated zine shop in Australia (and possibly the only one of its type in the world). Sticky is beloved among Melbourne’s DIY publishing fans. The nonprofit has been running for 18 years now, surviving on a mix of retail (taking a 20% cut of zines sold in the shop) and grants....
Jack Monroe is a British food writer, known for her campaigning on poverty issues, specifically around hunger. She rose to prominence with her blog, which focused on ‘austerity recipes’ and aimed to provide a family with meals on a £10 weekly budget. In July, Monroe’s son finished reading Walliams’ books, which have sold almost 40 million copies globally. She leafed through The World’s Worst Parents and learned of a character who was deemed boring because “she lives in a tower block and cleans toilets....
Find below a roundup of food bookmarks ranging from magnetic to corner savers, from the kind of a hook that hangs in your book’s gutter to a more traditional bookmark with a tassel. Besides style, these bookmarks will offer a little bit of everything food-wise, from sushi to fried eggs, bacon, and more. Once you’ve gone through these fun food bookmarks, never fret. You can also dig into these delicious fruit bookmarks, which are perfect for saving your page when you’re making the best pineapple upside down cake from your favorite cookbook....
I thought about the reading that I have done over the year, factoring in both the number and the specific books. And I had a thought that in the coming year I would rather focus on goals rather than challenges. I made my own challenge this year and managed, by juggling a bit at the end, to meet it. But, even though it was a challenge of my own design, I felt a pinch of fear that I would fall short....
