nomadreader

Here I am again, despite a strong January of reading and blogging, finding myself wondering how and when to come back to this space. Do I announce my return and hope it sticks? Do I pretend I haven't been gone? The half-way part of the year seemed like the perfect time to stop and write about my favorite books of 2019 and reflect on my year in reading so far. Because really, I don't have a good story. The truth is, I'm been doing other things. I work full-time. I have a very  talkative almost five-year-old. I'm working on a second master's degree. Many days, I find myself so terrified about the state of our world and my country, I can't let my mind rest long enough to sit and read or write. Some days I feel too guilty about not doing enough to let myself find joy in the things I love. Some days, everything I do feels futile, so I delight in playing board games with Hawthorne and hoping I'll feel better about the state of the world before he's too much ol...

I love living in Des Moines, but one of the things I miss most about Atlanta is the literary community. I absolutely adore the bookternet and the connections with readers and writers I've made through this blog, Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy, but I do miss that in-person bookish community. Authors don't come to Des Moines on book tours (some go to Iowa City, home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, but that's two hours away.) We do have an excellent public library, and they sponsor an annual series of events called AViD: Authors Visiting in Des Moines . There's usually one or two authors I'm interested in seeing, and it's wonderful. This week, the 2019 line-up was announced, and it's a great one. It's also the first year of the DSM Book Festival , which is really exciting. Without leaving Des Moines, these are the authors I plan to see this spring (in chronological order): Nnedi Okorafor and Susan Orlean , Saturday March 30  I r eviewed The Library ...

I  turned 38 in August. Since then I've been thinking about turning 40, a milestone I'm actually looking forward to. So far, each decade of my life has been better than the last. My 30's have been pretty transformational, and I'm excited to see what the next decade brings. Still, I'm not in a rush to leave my 30's, and I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish before 40. I know I want to get healthier. I want to be stronger. I want to be fit. I've been thinking about what makes sense for me. I'm a person who loves eating and drinking, and I don't want to lose those activities or feel guilty for indulging. I also don't want to spend a lot of money on exercise; there are lots of things I'd rather spend money on than a gym membership. I spent a few months thinking about how I could fit exercise into my routine. Really, I thought about what I could do to want  to fit exercise into my routine. The last time I went to a gym was before...

Good morning (again) from Thailand! It's my last morning waking up in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This afternoon, we fly to Krabi, where we relax at the beach for a few days before beginning the long, long journey home. Two of this week's highlights were our visit to the Elephant Nature Park and the night we spent in a rural village with beautiful mountain views: This trip has been wonderful but challenging in many ways. I try to focus on the positive, and one of the things I've most enjoyed is how well I've integrated my reading and blogging into this trip. It's helped me stay connected to reality, as life in Thailand sometimes feels like I'm temporarily living in a different world. I'm thrilled that I've managed to still post each day this year. Considering I only managed 45 blog posts all of 2017, I think I've finally found my rhythm again, and it feels really good. If you only read one thing I wrote last week... Read my letter to Caroline...

Good morning from Chiang Mai, Thailand! What a crazy, fun, exhausting week it's been. Last Monday at 3:30 a.m., I met my co-professor and the fourteen students taking our J-term travel course at the Des Moines airport. After delays in both Des Moines and Chicago (fuel pump issue requiring us to change planes), we arrived in Tokyo after our flight to Bangkok departed. The airline arranged a charter bus to take us from one Tokyo airport to the other, where we finally boarded a flight to Bangkok and arrived at 6 a.m. instead of midnight. We spent two days exploring Bangkok, then we took the overnight train to Chiang Mai, where we're settled in for another week before heading to Krabi. After so much travel, it's nice to be in the same place for awhile. It's also nice to be in Chiang Mai, a city I adore and have had the privilege of visiting three times in the last year and a half. It's my last time in Thailand for awhile, so I'm trying to soak up every minute of i...

Hello from hot and sunny Orlando! I'm here for the American Library Association's Annual Conference, which is once again proving to be an exciting and exhausting mix of work, fun, networking, book events and reading. My schedule calms down considerably tomorrow, so I hope to spend time drafting some of those reviews I keep meaning to write. What I Read Last Week The Last Two Weeks 1. Since my last week in review,  I finished Blood Defense  by Marcia Clark. I am impatiently awaiting the second book in this series, Moral Defense,  but I'm excited it's out in November. Two books a year? Yes, please! 2. I also finished The Assistants by Camille Perri on audio, which was entertaining and perceptive. It surprised me. I keep pondering it--in a good way. 3. I picked the new novel from one of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett, to read on the planes to Orlando, and I'm so glad I did. Commonwealth  isn't out until September, but it is a masterpiece. 4. I'm curre...

Hi, there! It's been awhile. I'm reading some, listening to audiobooks more, and writing reviews not at all. I've also been pondering some new ideas for this space I love. As I've shifted away from prize list reading to reading whatever strikes my fancy, I find I'm almost always reading books not yet out or books published in the last month. I love this impulsive reading, but when publishers ask you to hold reviews, there's been a disconnect between when I read the book and when the review posts. I don't want to stop doing reviews, but I do want to find a way to talk about things as I'm reading them. I do some of that on Twitter, but I want to find a way to carve out more of me in this space. Thus, today I'm launching The Week in Review, which is inspired by Maris Kreizman's The Maris Review (you should subscribe to this Tiny Letter. It's awesome.) I like the idea of keeping track of books, tv, movies (in theory), articles I've read, ...