Reading/Writing If Reading Brings You Joy, You May Be In Bad Company...I Think A Booker Prize judge says she hates when someone says they love to read. Is she onto something? Why I'm writing about Mary Beard and the joy of reading After hearing the Booker Prize judge say she can't stand people saying they love reading, I had to tune in and see for myself why this woman would dare say we cannot enjoy books! However, things took an interesting turn once I dug in more... Imagine you’re just...

'Yesteryear' Will Make You Blame Natalie For EVERYTHING Would this be accurate though? This review will also be published on my Substack and will include the audio version. This version is slightly different. Enjoy! It takes a Herculean effort to write a book review for Yesteryear, because there is so much to tell and one must be creative to not spoil the story, while explaining the genius of this work. Which means the author really had to do some heavy lifting with her pen in order to create...

What Anime Can Teach Us About Being Human Note: I originally wrote this because I kept noticing something interesting about anime: underneath the action, fantasy, and sometimes complete absurdity, there are often surprisingly thoughtful lessons about friendship, perseverance, grief, identity, and what it means to be human. People will tell you to read philosophy, gain a religion, volunteer, meditate and even travel to become a better person — but I’m going to offer something much simpler....