Where did this month go?! Oh... right. I read/reviewed: My Goodreads tally leaves me with four books read this month, but I humbly request that the 24+ hours I sunk into IT by Stephen King are duly noted! The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway (read 8/31) — You guys! My first ever audio book! All of these words were promptly...
If you’ve followed me for a while (or, heck, a day), you know that I’m a big fan of horror. Now that the air is getting crisper and the daylight wanes that much sooner each evening, I want nothing more than to curl up with a big mug of something warm and all the creepy-crawly literature I can get my hands on. At...
Good morning, all! I'm checking in to say that I'm still kickin' (kind of), readin' (less), and grad school preppin' (very much). I could probably fill this whole post with my graduate school application woes, but I'm not quite committed to renaming this place Shaina Applies to Graduate School. After a brief but intense existential crisis ("Do I even want to apply to...
Life has gotten a little crazy, and for a while I'm going to have much less time to craft the original, well-thought-out content that you've all come to know and love (*cough*). Thankfully, the fantastic book bloggers I follow put up oodles of excellent posts every week. This feature will help keep my blog rolling and serve as inspiration to dive into my...
Happy Friday, y'all! Welcome to the second edition of my brand new Real Good Roundup (check out my first one—and the motivation behind it—here!). If you want the short version: Life has gotten a little crazy, and I'm going to have much less time for crafting the original, well-thought-out content that you've all come to know and love (*cough*). Thankfully, the fantastic book...
classics club
This is a Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey (Or: I Just Don't Know How to Feel)
Another Classics Club (and R.I.P. X!) pick bites the dust, and I'm feeling all kinds of ambivalent about it. Ken Kesey's iconic One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest tells the story of a group of male psychiatric patients living in a hospital ward in Oregon. Our narrator, "Chief" Bromden, is an enormous, half-Native American man who thinks of the hospital as "the combine" that...
Wait. Do we really have to work five days this week? I missed that memo. About where I'm at today. Anyway, Monday's here, and I hope y'all are coming off some excellent week(end)s to soften that blow. I can't complain about mine; I got a lot done on the Shaina Applies to Grad School* front and even managed to get some relaxation in....
As much as I love researching and writing my own posts here, I know it's going to get increasingly difficult to do so over the next couple of months. Not only will my writing time dwindle, but so will my chances to read, both book-wise and blog-wise. If the choice is between reading a book and reading a blog post, the book is going...
An event devoted entirely to creeptastic reading? Do you even need to ask? Sign me up! Hosted by the lovely ladies over at The Estella Society, the tenth year of R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril runs from September 1 to October 31 and encourages readers to dive in to the spookier side of reading. Got a thriller, mystery, short horror story, or Gothic novel you've been...
Happy Labor Day to my friends in the States! I hope you've gotten your fill of sunshine, barbecue and books over the long holiday weekend. My Monday off included GRE math prep (gross) and some of the last summer beer of the season (definitely not gross). I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I've busted my infernal reading slump. Over...
classics club
This is a Review: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway (+ A New Beginning with Audio Books)
I told y'all on Wednesday that I'm eating every word about my supposed aversion to audio books. I honestly thought I wouldn't be into them, but it turns out that all it took to get me going was to be completely incapable of picking up a book. It didn't matter that I was enjoying the two reads I was in the middle of last week;...
Remember that time I signed up for Books on the Nightstand summer bingo? Me too. Look at how much reading I've done! Although I'm sure you've been obsessively following my Twitter updates and don't need the refresher, here's what I have counting toward each of the completed squares: Published in 2015: The Beautiful Bureaucrat, by Helen Phillips Currently on the bestseller list: The...