Getting to Be That Time!

The Blogging A to Z home blog just began posting info about the 2025 challenge. I've already begun trying to come up with themes, and will start narrowing them down in time for next month's theme reveal. Be prepared for a month of alphabetical madness in April. I'm loving the graphics for this year! 

Here is the schedule:

The THEME REVEAL (optional bonus hop) : March 9- 15

Official Challenge Sign-ups : March 24 to April 5

Reflections (optional bonus hop) : May 2-9

Road-trip (sign up to keep visiting others all year _ optional bonus) : Opens May 10

The challenge, as you can see in the badges, has been around for more than a decade, but I have only been going at it since 2021. I'd viewed and commented on posts by those joining in the years prior, but was unsure if I'd ever be one of them. It was many years before I decided to take the plunge. Not ready to give up now! Here are my past themes. Click on the links to begin reading.

2021: Life During the Pandemic 

2022: Forgotten TV Shows

2023: Childhood Memories

2024: Barbie

I will begin drafting the posts once I pick the theme. Last year was the first time I ever scheduled my posts. It worked well with the A to Z posting schedule and with the medical procedure I had last year in mid-April. I will be scheduling them once again. The sooner I finish writing and publishing my posts, the more time I will have to read and comment on other participants' posts. It's always fun to see what others come up with and to see who comments on what. 

My blog for April will primarily be A to Z posts. I don't know how often I'll get on outside the challenge, even though we will be off on Sundays. As I did last year, I may try to squeeze in a Book Blogging Challenge post on one of the Sundays. I also made some bonus posts last year, both of which were planned after the main ones had been set up. I don't know how the Thursday 13 is going to play out then, but I may try to squeeze in one for the month. I didn't begin the Thursday 13 posting until June last year.

13 Things This Week

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂  

Just some stuff from around the Web this week :)

February Bookish Bingo

 Here is the card for February.

My Books:

1. Green is a Chili Pepper--Roseanne Greenfield Thong (1 square): Audiobook
2. The Quilts of Gee's Bend--Susan Goldman Rubin (1 square): E-Book
3. The Beach Club--Elin Hilderbrand (8 squares): Library Book, Physical Book, Not in a Series, Book Club Read, Lovers, Travel, Free Space, Chaos
4. Tweet Cute--Emma Lord (3 squares): Shelf Love, Red or Pink on Cover, Wings on the Cover
5. Spindle's End--Robin McKinley (5 squares): Free Book,  In a Series, Mythical Creatures, Prisoner, Rescue

Thursday 13: More New-to-Me Authors I Read in 2024

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂  

This is a book topic so I will also be posting to the Discussion Challenge at Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight.

One of the first Thursday 13 posts I did when I began participating last summer was on new-to-me authors I read in the first half of 2024. I had more then 13 to choose from at that point so narrowing it down as a little hard. I knew I'd find more during the rest of the year. Again, I found  more than 13 (per my Goodreads list for 2024), and it was once again hard to choose just that many. 

I've never done this weekly posting topic at this blog, though I have glanced at the blog. This weeks topic happens be "Top 10 new-to me authors I discovered in 2024." The topic at the blog above me think of my post and made me want to do a second one on the same topic. The blogging topic is for making Top 10 book lists, but I wanted to do them one better. Make that three better 😉 Will be linking to that one as well.

So here are some more of the new-to-me authors I read in 2024, mostly in the second half of the year, since the original post was at the end of last June. Once again, I will be listing  the book I read from the author and how I came across the books. These are not in any particular order.

1. Katherine Slee--The Book of Second Chances Needing a book for one of the prompts in this challenge, I looked up books in my library's database containing the word "second." This one came up and I had already seen it at the library. I'd wanted to read it when I first saw but had decided against it for the time being. When it came up in my search, I decided it was the one I'd choose.
2. Saleem Haddad--Guapa While searching for a book by an LGBTQ+ MENA author, I came across this one in my library database. I decided on it right then, but did not get around to reading it until December. 
3. Sabaa Tahir--All My Rage I picked this one for one of these prompts. It came up, and I was afraid of not finding it at my library, but I did.
4. Laila Lalami--The Other Americans As with the book Guapa, I decided on this when I first come across the title, but put off reading the book until the end of the year.  Needing a North African author, this one came up while searching. Again, it seemed like one by library would not have, but did.
5. Zadie Smith--Swing Time I'd known about this author for some time, and have been waiting to read her book White Teeth. But this was the only one at the library. I'll have to keep looking for the other book! 
6. Susan Crandall--Whistling Past the Graveyard  One of the books I picked up at a thrift store, most likely because I liked how it sounded when I first saw it. 
7. Clare Boylan--Emma Brown It seems to get harder and harder to find titles containing "brown", yet I just have to do this challenge every year, because I still enjoy it. When looking for a title in my library database, this one came up and it sounded good. I was particularly interested in this one after learning it was written from an unfinished manuscript left behind by Charlotte Bronte when she died. This author picked it up nearly 150 years later.
8. Zaraida Cordova--The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina This was one of those books I saw for sale when it first came out. It looked good, but didn't want to buy it. I nearly forgot about it, until I saw it at the library. I was not aware they have it until last December.
9. Eric Gansworth--Apple: Skin to the Core Having had the Indigenous culture prompt at least twice last year, this what I chose. It seems that a lot of the  books at my library that have to do with indigenous culture are in the reference section or our "California Collection" shelves, and not for loan. This makes it hard to find such book to read. But this one was in the YA section.
10. Susanna Clarke--Piranesi Unsure how exactly I found this one, though I seem to remember hearing about it somewhere, sometime earlier. I obviously was interested enough to seek it out.
11. Hannah Orenstein--Love at First Like When searching for a book with "like" in the title, this was one that came up in my library catalog. It just sounded good.
12. Plum Sykes--Bergdorf Blondes One of those books that I got at a thrift store but don't remember when or why I chose it. I have many books that fit this description.
13. Linda Holmes--Evvie Drake Starts Over  I'd heard so much about this book and kept meaning to read it, but did not get to it until November. 

Are you familiar with any of these authors? If not, do any of them sound interesting to you? Have you discovered any new authors this past year?

From the Blogosphere This Week

I came across these en some of the blogs I regularly read.  I just had to share them. 

These last two  I shared on Facebook as well, and many thought the Spacex one was funny.

Bluesky

So I decided to go onto Bluesky. Though I'm not certain about leaving Twitter/X yet.  Even though I hate Musk, I did not feel compelled to leave that platform when he took over. It was hard to want to leave after 15 years. 

My Bluesky username is jannghi. I've already followed some people and have only three followers as of yet. But I've only just begun today. I was not certain about joining, but decided to just this morning. 

Inauguration Day

These say everything about today. 

And it feels like we've stepped back in time:

The only good thing about today is this:

Today Google doodle celebrates MLK. 

Only once previously has MLK day coincided with Inauguration Day, since MLK has only been a federal holiday since 1986. The last such co-occurrence was in 1997. Also, Inauguration Day in 2013 was held a day later (since Jan.20 was on a Sunday then), thus coinciding with MLK Day.