Shaina Reads

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 Feedly reader every now and then, no matter how nutty the unread count gets.

Happy Friday, y'all! Welcome to the fourth edition of my Real Good Roundup.

After a three-day streak of content last week, I've come up empty yet again, and even my blog visiting and commenting has hit an all-time low. The good news? I'm finally seeing light at the end of this tunnel! By this time next week, I'll be just hours away from taking my GRE and, with luck, knocking it out of my life for good. Just gotta keep this nose to the grindstone for seven more days.

Without further ado, here's a sampling (in no particular order) of some of the best things I've read recently, both bookish and less so:

• Andi of Estella's Revenge offered up some concise looks at three tough-to-review reads. All three are on my TBR pile, but I've had Between the World and Me since its July release date and, despite its teeny-tiny size, still haven't read it. Maybe Readathon will fix that!


• Did you guys hear about the Suffragette t-shirt promotion fiasco? Alice of Reading Rambo had a short, sweet and spot-on response.


• If you don't know already that Shannon of River City Reading is a book recommendation guru, have I got the post for you! She put together a "starter pack" of her most frequently-recommended books.


• I read two excellent posts about a More Diverse Universe (AKA Diversiverse): Trish of Love, Laughter, Insanity wrote about why she thinks the event is important and a pile of books to get you started, and Memory of In The Forest of Stories spotlighted (spotlit?) four Canadian authors of color, all of whom are women and new to me.


• Rachel of Dashing Good Books shared why she makes an effort to re-read books and got me thinking about re-reading a few myself, especially ones I read when I was younger and thinking about life in a different way.

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 Feedly reader every now and then, no matter how nutty the unread count gets.

Happy Friday, y'all! Welcome to the third edition of my Real Good Roundup. If you hadn't noticed, my posting was a little sparse (read: nonexistent) this week, and I'm more grateful than ever for some built-in content to keep things from plummeting to absolute zero.

Without further ado, here's a sampling (in no particular order) of some of the best things I've read recently, both bookish and less so:

• The giveaway portion of this post might be over, but Shannon of River City Reading's list of books for new teachers still offers up some excellent-sounding primers for the structural and social issues inherent to the American education system. I don't plan to go into teaching, and I'm excited to check some of these out!


• Lauren of Malcolm Avenue Review recently had her golden retriever, Bird, trained as a therapy dog. The pair attended their first official therapy event last week, and adorable photos and heartwarming stories ensued.


• Michelle of Free (Read and) Write analyzed the heck out of Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, focusing on the relative dearth of interdisciplinary collaboration in academia and how careful one has to be when writing a research-heavy book intended for the layman. Her points are great, and I asked her if we can be research-nerd buddies. (She said yes.)


• Leah of Books Speak Volumes read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Despite some pause with the book overall, Leah shared five extra-tasty morsels for thought, ranging from how to balance fear and creativity to how acknowledging (and accepting) the possibility of failure can show you what you truly love.


• Jessica at Don't Mind the Mess asserted that there is no one right way to blog, and anyone who tells you so is wrong. After fretting all week about my lack of posting, this was exactly what I needed to read.

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 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 Feedly reader every now and then, no matter how nutty the unread count gets.

Without further ado, here's a small sampling (in no particular order) of some of the best things I've read recently, both bookish and less so:

• April of The Steadfast Reader fangirled over reverend and author Nadia Bolz-Weber and shared some of the best moments from the pastor's talk and their meet n' greet. The kicker? April is about as atheist as they come.


• The wonderful women over at The Socratic Salon got to talking about whether one can separate books from their authors. This is a subject I've hemmed and hawed over on my own, and I'm excited to see where the discussion in the comments goes.


• Alice of Reading Rambo reviewed Empire of Sin by Gary Krist and nerded out over the history of jazz and New Orleans. In typical Alice fashion, she packs excitement, intellectual geekery and snark into one neat package, complete with great GIFs.


• Arianna of Shelf Notes went on a whirlwind tour of the Pacific Northwest and squeezed in an impressive bunch of bookish sites along the way. I jotted down a few for the next time I head west.


• Amanda of The Zen Leaf is on a wellness journey and decided to blog about it. This week, she wrote about a time that she chose happiness for herself and how she can be her own worst enemy when it comes to doing the things that will bring her joy. It was a great reminder of the importance of making some decisions solely for our own fulfillment, without worrying about practicality or what others might think. 

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 to win 99.999% of the time. Because of this, I let my Feedly backlog pile up, and it can get a little scary in there. In an effort to go into the upcoming fray with a blank slate, I've whittled my feed reader down from more than 100 unread articles to 11 (as of writing this) in just a couple of days. That whole "mark all as read" thing? The rational side of me knows it's a good idea, but the perfectionist side doesn't often let the rational side make decisions.

Anyway, getting to the point: sifting quickly through such a huge number of posts really showed me the sheer volume of excellent content you wonderful bloggers generate each month. To kick off your Friday right, here's a small sampling (in no particular order) of some of the best things I've read recently, both bookish and less so:

• Lindsey of Literary Lindsey wants her son to grow up knowing that women have stories worth telling, too. She shared a list of some of her favorite children's books with female heroines.


• Lauren of Malcolm Avenue Review always puts up a fantastic "Strictly Positive" post on Fridays, but last Friday's really took the cake. It included a goose parade, lion hugs and a dancing dog. Go check it out, and then see what she's curated for you today!


• Michelle of That's What She Read got me thinking a lot about how we write about books, particularly in how we draw comparisons to other books in our reviews. There's tons of food for thought in the comments, too.


• Heather of The Bastard Title shared some of her anxiety triggers and how she prioritizes her own self-care. As an anxious person myself, this was a wonderfully honest read. 


• Erin at Manuscripts & Marginalia wrote about the value of discomfort when it comes to what we read. If you know me at all, you know I got whiplash from all the nodding I did while reading it.


• Rachelle of The Reading Wench is doing a Harry Potter read-a-thon, and she posed some thought-provoking questions about Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets that I'm still mulling over now.


• Emily of Books, The Universe and Everything wrote an excellent (spoiler-free!) review of Bill Clegg's Did You Ever Have a Family. It was touching and reflective and made me go put the book on hold immediately.