Categories
Book Diversions Reading Review

Bookish – C & D

Though actually only about the digressions…

In the A & B post I mentioned the TPL 2025 Reading Challenge. So I’m going to try and do that.

There was also this thing on social media to read 12 books recommended by 12 friends. So I’m also going to try and do that.

Those are both “2025 goals.”

I also bought two “scratch off” posters: 100 Essential Novels and 100 Challenging Novels. There is no time limit on these ones!

I’m still trying to mostly read my shelves but occasionally, as I am sure to no one’s great surprise, I get sidetracked.

First: McFadden, Freida: The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Lie. When someone in the TPL fb group mentioned this one I giggled for a while. I had to read it. Listen actually because it’s an audiobook. It was ridiculous. Intentionally. It’s a satire full of all the usual whodunit tropes. McFadden has written dozens of books so it works for the TPL category: a book by an author who has written 25 or more books.

And then Rogers, Janet: Ego of a Nation. TPL category: a book of Canadian poetry. I’m not sure where I heard about her but she is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band here in Ontario. Poetry is not one of my usual genres and I think I just put it on hold as soon as I found it so I wouldn’t forget. I’m glad I did.

And then the big diversion: Lewis, Sinclair: It Can’t Happen Here. When I finished it I noted that it took me 38 days to read about 380 pages. It was written in 1935. The language has changed enough since then that it isn’t quite the same; large parts of it are the same. It’s all just a little bit different too. And I read slowly. Like really slowly.

And then, of course you have the fact that I had to take breaks while reading it. You know, a break after reading the part about the intellectuals fleeing the US to come to Canada. A break after the dissidents were all rounded up into “not concentration camps”. A break after the book burnings. And so on. And it broke my heart so much that when it was done I walked down to the library on a cold dark rainy night, so I could return it and get it out of my house.

And I couldn’t read anything else at the same time for fear I wouldn’t have the nerve to get back to it. So yea. That was a bit of a side-quest from the reading.

Maybe that’s enough for today and I’ll actually get to C & D in another post…. but I’m going to leave the title lol

Categories
Book Diversions Reading Review

Bookish – A & B

October 2024 to January 2025

Yea, I made it to N I think by May 2024. Then fell out of reading again. And clearly out of blog-posting too.

In October 2024 I started the alphabet again; Toby says he’d switch his surname to Allen or something to be sure I would read whatever he wrote lol

Anyway, just a list to catch up with a line or two if I remember anything:

Allan, Clare: Poppy Shakespeare – it centres on day patients at a mental health facility in the UK. It was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award in 2006. It was really well done I think. And it’s been made into a movie.

Adams, Douglas: The Salmon of Doubt – This was okay but not great. I mean, lovely to find out I was right to like the guy and made me sad he was gone so soon. But I love his fiction best of all. This was also Book 1 of 2025. My goal at the outset was 25 in 2025 just to be sure I got back into reading again. I don’t think I’ll have any difficulties with this goal.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi: We Should All Be Feminists – Yes, yes we should. An amazing short read. I borrowed it from the Toronto Public Library.

Barry, Kevin: Night Boat to Tangier – I bought this out of the “last chance” box at Book City ages ago I think. I’m going to use it for the TPL 2025 Reading Challenge in the “A book with an unethical main character” category lol. Dark and emotional.

Burton, Jessie: The Miniaturist – Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam, this is not my usual read at all. I quite liked it though. Also a good example of why I don’t like reading reviews by “regular people.” Half of them “so unrealistic, she would never be so worldly in 1690 Amsterdam” and the other half “how the heck did she not realise X before she was forced to? I mean, how stupid is she.” Sigh.

Bradbury, Ray: The Halloween Tree – I hadn’t read this before. It was pretty nifty. A sort of children’s horror story. No photo. I got this one from the Library too.

I’ll update C and D (Feb – May 2025 with a HUGE break while I read – and took forever reading – It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis) soon I swear.

Categories
Politics

Why I will always be anti-Conservative*

Sometimes I’m a little slow. It took me this long to figure out another reason why people who vote Conservative don’t give a shit about the privatisation of health care and other public services.

They figure they don’t need it.

So Conservative voters who don’t have children don’t care about public schools. They have the resources to take care of themselves and are therefore probably healthier than the average person, so they don’t need public health care. And they definitely don’t care about parks or bike lanes or public transit or community centres because they just don’t use them. They probably don’t even know much, if anything, about them.

And if they do need it they can afford to pay for it.

Also known as, so why subsidize others? Each for themselves only.

So the Conservative voters with kids put their kids in private schools. (and yes, I am well aware of this particular irony). Or they pay their own private health providers wherever they can anyway. So why pay for public health care?

So yea, while I knew it was all about greed before, I only ever thought of it as “I want to pay less taxes / I want to run my business without regulation.” I never thought about the day-to-day arrogance of the Conservative viewpoint. I guess I have PP to thank for that.

And I’m still amazed at the average person who votes Conservative. I mean, I get the CEOs and heads of banking divisions and stuff but seriously, the vast vast majority of us have far more in common with the people camping out in my local park than we do with millionaires. And many people are far closer to becoming the people camping out in the park than we are to becoming millionaires. And I like to think that even if I somehow became a millionaire, I’d still give a shit about other people, the environment, our descendants etc.

Bright green sticker on a black pole. Black writing on the sticker reads: Vote ABC Anything But Conservative A Bas Les Conservateurs
By Neal Jennings from Toronto, ON, Canada – Vote ABC, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5337191

For strategic voting assistance:

https://smartvoting.ca/

https://votewell.ca/

*For the non-Canadians, the Conservative Party (of Canada and each province will have their own variant as well) is the right-wing political party in Canada. They promote “traditional” values, institutions, and biases. Conservative platforms and politicians are often anti-immigration, pro-centralised authority, paternalistic, misogynistic, definitely anti-free press etc.

Categories
Diversions

Petty Gripes – TV ads edition

This is one of those posts that I write because something petty is annoying me and I just need to get it out.

This time it’s a TV ad. Mostly it comes on a lot during hockey so I am forced to watch it over and over again. Sigh. In fact, I couldn’t remember some of the details while I was writing this so I just waited. It was in the very next commercial break.

Okay, so – an ad for TD Financial Planning. It starts with a person in a green chair saying “Thanks for helping with my financial plan Sarah; Getting on track was so easy.” You definitely get the impression that the call is wrapping up, they’ve been talking all about the person’s finances and Sarah has been helping.

Sarah responds along the lines of “and someone’s always here to help if you need it.”

And the person in the green chair replies “sure beats my other plan of waiting for my inheritance.”

Sarah: “Oh you have family money?”

WHAT?!?!

The two of them have been talking about financial planning, there is a plan in place, the call is wrapping up. And Sarah, you didn’t think to ask about family money / inheritances at any point?

Oh yes, I feel very comfortable relying on TD financial planners now… nope nope nope.

I told you it was petty.

have a great week!

Categories
Diversions

reboot

It’s kind of amazing how things that people just sort of made up one day can carry so much meaning and influence.

Today is January 1. Today I will start to try to be a better me. Like I get to define better so that’s all well and good; and there really wasn’t anything wrong with “yesterday’s” me – she just didn’t always make the healthiest choices for example.

So time – something we made up to count; and even more so calendars. Why is January 1 the “starting point” for many? Why not Spring? That’s when everything blooms again after all. hmmm

Today’s aside (you had to know it was coming)

The US Astronomical Applications Department says there are six principal calendars in current use: Gregorian, Jewish, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Julian. And now I have a new book to watch for in the used bookshops!

Cambridge University Press

How are you approaching the new year?

Cross stitch pattern that says "New Year Same Mess:
https://dailycrossstitch.com/product/new-year-same-me-cross-stitch-pattern/

Some general ideas I have:

‣ stop buying stuff we don’t actually need

‣ stop wasting food – I think this really means we need to plan better

‣ schedule in the stuff I want to do (so I don’t forget and also so I don’t spend time on things that are easier but less fulfilling – social media and phone games, I’m looking at you lol)

More specifically I want to do some stuff every day so I don’t even have to think about it:

◉ move more; starting with a 30 minute walk every day

◉ stretch more; I think I’m going to try the Yoga with Adriene January focus on energy

◉ drink more water; starting with 2L a day (I think I do about this now but I want to be sure so next up…)

◉ tracking food and movement

◉ do something creative every day; practise piano or cross stitch; knit or colouring. Something.

Anyway, happy day!