Book Discussion: Reading Short Works

 

Each year, I find myself reading different short works for various reasons. Often for it's a reading prompt asking for a book of certain number of pages, such as under 250 pages, or any other number. Some short books I tend to read are nonfiction ones on various subjects.This comes in handy when I have nonfiction prompts on subjects I don't want to read a long book on. This year I read a book on gardening from food scraps, to fulfill two prompts on gardens. This I read quickly at the library, since it was short. I often read short works this way to reduce the number of books I take out each time. Same is often true of picture books, since they are fairly short. Picture books I tend to especially read when it comes to holidays. Though I have so far read at least two this year.

Some works that seem short, however, require taking out to read. Poetry collections and plays often fit this description for me.  Depending on the length, some poetry collections can be read in one setting. I more often check out poetry books rather than attempt to read through them quickly at the library. Since the Poetry challenge I used to do every year was discontinued about two years ago, my reading of poetry has gotten slim, but I have several I've already read this year.

When it comes to reading plays, these I definitely need to check out to read. Again, depending on the length, plays can take me one or two days to read. This is one genre I only seem to read once a year, as the summer challenge at Messy Middle tends to have plays as a prompts. 

When it comes to reading e-books and audiobooks, I try to find short ones, to spend as little time as possible on reading electronically. I still prefer physical books :)

Some middle grade books and graphic novels tend to be short, and depending on the number of the pages, I can take only one day on these. But these can also take two days, depending on what time of day I begin reading the books. If I start such a book late in the day, it most often will take two days.

How many short works to do tend to read a year? What formats mentioned do you read more of?

Thursday 13 for World Emoji Day

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. 🙂    

  

Today is World Emoji Day. Here are some things about these icons that have become popular in text messages, emails, posts, etc. Just picking out 13 posts was hard (as always), so here are the links from which I obtained those I listed, so you can click to see more. Do a search to find out even more.

1. Before emojis, there were emoticons. Emoticons are combinations of characters, punctuation marks, letters and numbers that are arranged in order to create a facial expression, while emojis are icons representing emotions, objects, people, situations. 
2. World Emoji Day is celebrated on July 17th because the “calendar” emoji on Apple devices shows this exact date! 
3. The birthday cake and pizza emoji are the most common food emoji used year-round.
4. If you are referring to more than one emoji, the pluralization is emoji not emojis (though as you can see from some of the links, many do not seem to know this).
5. In 2015, diverse skin tone options were made available for human emojis, making a big step towards inclusivity and representing a wider range of identities in emojis. (There are still a lot of talks when it comes to emoji diversity and the problem goes way beyond just race).
6. Emojis are more than 20 years old, having begin in 1999.
7. Only 7% of people use the peach emoji as a fruit.
8. Emoji keyboards were added to iOS by Apple in 2011 and in Androids in 2013. (I don't have a new Apple keyboard, BTW).
9. The Unicode Consortium approves all the new emojis that are added every year.
10. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries' "Word of the Year" was the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji. 
11. The first (extremely pixelated) emoji were created by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999 for cellphones and pagers. They are now housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
12. Dictionary.com was the first dictionary to add explanations to emojis in 2018, legitimizing even more the importance and influence emojis have as a linguistic tool.
13. Also in 2018, over 900 million emojis were sent daily without text on Facebook Messenger.

Book Discussion: Deciding What to Re-Read

It seems that every year I get a re-reading prompt. And every time, I immediately wonder what I'll re-read and when. This is a decision I'm still working on for this year.

From this link:

How to decide which book to reread

There’s no fixed formula for this, but there are some pointers that can illuminate the decision.

Sometimes, it’s obvious from the first pages of a book that we won’t be able to get as much out of it only in one go, other times we may only realize at the end of reading it that we’re compelled to revisit it in the future (either for pragmatic reasons: we need to study for an exam and haven’t yet grasped the material properly, or for personal ones: you want to deepen your understanding of the subject).

In my opinion, books that are worth re-reading meet at least one of the following criteria:

• you feel a calling to revisit passages or quotes from them
• it has stood the test of time
• it is the touchstone for an entire field of study
• you’re inspired by the ideas in it and want to apply them into your life
• you found the topic or delivery “out of your intellectual league” and would like to understand it better
• you would like to think more about that book’s subject

When to reread a book

So, to also touch on a practical matter: when should we decide to revisit a text?

For practical reasons, some texts need to be reread immediately. In other cases, it’s ideal to let some time pass, from 6 months to maybe one year, so let the ideas steep in your brain so you return to them with a more mature perspective. Or you could pick up a book you read ten years ago, one that you remember had an impact on you, so that you can enter a dialogue with the person you were before and observe how your outlook on the text and the world has changed.

I don't think I've considered many of these things. I know I tend to wait at least a year, though most often longer than that.  

Also when it says "re-read a favorite," I take a while to decide what I considered a favorite. Or else, I just re-read whatever I choose to. Sometimes I find my self checking put books I've already read, not remembering such. In most instances, I opt out of re-reading the book, if I don't feel interested in enough in reading it agin. For some books once is enough. And trying to remember what I read as a child gets harder each year, as I said in this post. 

How often do you re-read books and how do you decide what to read again?

Thursday 13

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. 🙂    

 

Some things from my world recently (in no particular order):

1. In addition to my writing class at work, I began another class in May on Trivia. My first topic was Fast Food. And at the end of June, I did some July 4th trivia, a week early since we're closed for the holiday. My next one is on the 18th and I'm still deciding on a topic.
2. Speaking of my writing class, I got a new writing kit. I'd been deciding for some time whether to get this one. I first saw it on Amazon several years ago, but I also saw it at a local cafe which also carries books. The cafe is only open on certain days of the week. I'd debated whether or not to get this one, having read some of the reviews on Amazon. But the kit remained at the cafe each time I went to look, and when I took some cans and bottles to be recycled last month, I decided to go and buy the kit with the money received. I have used it once for my class so far (No writing class this month because of the holiday last week). This is the kit.
3. And on the subject of Amazon, I have not bought a single thing on there this year so far. I was told to boycott the site as well as Target, but these are the only places I've been able to buy my printer ink without going out of town. I needed the ink so I got some at Target. The shelf where they keep printer ink was virtually empty, with only one of the kind for my printer. (I don't have Amazon Prime, BTW).
4. Our group at work is going on a beach trip next Wednesday. This should be fun. I'll let you know how it goes.
5. I stayed away from the Motorcycle Rally last weekend in my hometown. It returned after nearly a decade. I'd walked down to some of these in the past, but they always seem the same to me. 
6. No fireworks for me, but plenty of people on my street set them off. And in my town, people are often setting off fireworks before and after the holiday. That gets annoying!
7. The weather in my area hasn't been particularly hot, compared to a year ago around this time.  Though that's expected to change in a day or so.
8. It's been a year since I attempted writing something. I have not finished it or even gotten back. I really need to try or even begin something new.
9. As I posted out last Monday, we had a decades prom party at work on the last day of June. Out first such party in a while.
10. As I pointed out, I attend the "No Kings" protest held last month in front of our Safeway. I uploaded the video I took to Youtube and have received one comment so far.
11. Still trying to complete some of the reading challenges I'm doing this year. Some only have one or two books left, and I have already decided what to read for some of those categories. I just don't know when I'll get to them. And there is one I have not decided on.
12. The Rite Aid in my town closed last month. A day after the protest, I went in to see what was available and found a jar of Noxzema for half-off. On one of the days that followed, everything was 90% off, but the remaining merchandise was slim pickings, as things tend to be when a store like this closes. This was so the case when Kmart closed five years ago, just before the pandemic shutdown.
13. And on the subject of Kmart, the building is still empty, save for the Halloween store that was housed there last fall. I'm now hoping the store will return this year, now that there are two possible locations, two blocks apart. 

Happy July 4th!

Some old and new ones. 

July Bookish Bingo

The annual emoji-themed card for July is here.  

 

 

My Books:

1. Summer Island--Kristin Hannah (7 squares): Started Last Month But Did Not Finish (started on June 28 and finished on July 1), Library Book, Forbidden Love, Airplane, Shock/Fright, Book Club, Set in a Big City
2. Sonnets From the Portuguese--Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 square): Audiobook
3. Before I Let Go--Marieke Nijkamp (3 squares): E-Book, Not in a Series, Eyeroll
4. Don't Read the Comments--Eric Smith (4 squares): Physical Book, Free Space, Red/White/Blue on Cover, LOL
5. Sinister Sprinkles--Jessica Beck (3 squares): Shelf Love, Food on the Cover, In a Series
6. Ninth House--Leigh Bardugo (2 squares): Action/Thriller, Time Travel
7. Whiskers in the Dark--Rita Mae Brown (1 square): Pet/Animal
8. A Spark of Light--Jodi Picoult (1 square): Long--Over 500 pages
9. Cursed--Karol Ruth Silverstein (2 squares): Emoji on the Cover, Virus