As of March 2025, I’ve visited a total of 41 states + Washington, DC, and have 9 states remaining.
(map generated at: https://www.maploco.com/visited-states/)
Continue readingStates I’ve Visited – Updated March 2025
Books I’ll (Probably) Never Read Book Tag!
The original book tag: Books I’ll (Probably) Never Read [Original Tag] by littlespider9, with some additional questions by me
Initial thoughts: I obviously don’t specifically avoid bad books—especially self-published bad books. Quality is not a requirement for me, haha. Similarly, I don’t usually care about the author’s life and controversies beyond buying it second-hand so as to not support the author. I’d probably avoid JKR at this point, because she keeps doubling-down in a way no other author is publicly doing, but I do have Piper CJ’s book for example.
Continue readingJudging Kindle’s Recommendations
I have wishy-washy opinions on Kindle’s recommendations inside of the app. It’s incredibly biased towards books I “own” (which were usually free downloads) and my most recent reads and I detest that I can’t tell it myself what I love and hate—we’ll get into that in a moment. I do appreciate that it’ll cycle books through that I’ve already got on a saved list on Amazon, though; I appreciate seeing those pop up as reminders.
On March 17, these were the recommendations:
Continue readingWhat I Like (and Dislike) in a Book Club
I’m no expert on book clubs, but I’ve been a part of a few and (as always) I have opinions.
Continue readingMarch Madness Book Tag
One of my goals this year is to post a little more on this silly blog that I have, so here’s a book tag that I did recently, just for fun. No one’s tagged me or anything, I just wanted to find something seasonally suited and interesting.
The original book tag: https://wordsaboutwords.com/2019/03/16/booktag-the-march-madness-booktag-original/
Not a TBR pile but a wine cellar
I found this referenced today and had to track down the original. I think this Twitter user originated it, but if I find out otherwise I’ll update this.
2023 Book & Publishing Predictions
Okay, let’s make some completely unfounded predictions for 2023 relating to books and publishing! Some of these are grounded in actual trends and some of them are just thoughts that crossed my mind.
Continue readingJanuary 2023 TBR
I think that this is less of an actual reading plan and more of a place to list out the books that I would like to keep at the front of my attention. (Because heaven knows my attention is approximately that of a toddler. For example, Alexandra Roselyn on YouTube said that Fence was her favorite book(s) of all of 2022, so I put them on hold at the library… and then binged the whole series in a single afternoon. That entire process took about three days, despite aaaaalllll of these other books sitting right here in front of me. That’s me, very focused.)
Continue readingEven More Places in China That I Want to Visit
I have been to China many times. I lived in Hong Kong twice, I lived in Shanghai briefly, and I have taken all of those opportunities to wander around China while I was there. Even so, it’s an insanely huge country with an incredibly rich and diverse geography and local cultures. The more I travel in China, the more I realize how much I don’t know.
In the interest of not provoking political arguments, I’m including all of China’s main disputed areas in this list.
(map generated at: https://www.mapchart.net/china.html)
Continue readingNov 26: A Thanksgiving Feast for Me
In addition to the general low-key anxiety of spreading COVID-19 to my aging family, I was actually in self-isolation due to hanging out with a confirmed COVID-positive friend. She had a false negative and then a positive, so even when I got my negative back I decided that it was better for all of my friends, my boyfriend, my family, and my sanity to just round out two weeks entirely.
Continue reading