Decision, Results and… Bookclub?
Last week, I was trying to make a decision about something important and had the hardest time. The Boy and I was hashing it through, talking pros and cons, imagining different scenarios – well, I was hashing, he was asking gentle questions and probably enjoying watching me spin crazily like a hamster on speed. After…
Pick My Book
I have a lot of audio books. I’m not quite at the book version of SABLE – Stash Acquisition beyond Life Expectancy, for the non-knitters among you – but getting there and it’s time to do some stash diving. More specifically, it’s time to get a bit edified by choosing something nonfiction. But which one?…
Book Review: Full Dark, No Stars
Stephen King has another book out and naturally, I got my hands on it within hours of it being available. I waited until my vacation to dive into it, though – exactly until my vacation. One minute past midnight on December 17, I dropped the more serious, “literary” book I’d been reading and picked up…
In the News
There’s a reason I don’t pay too much attention to the news beyond scanning the headlines on a couple of articles a couple of times a day – wait, that actually sort of sounds as if I do pay attention to the news, but nevermind, the reason it doesn’t go much beyond that is that…
A Change of Pace
“It’s so %*&ing Scandinavian.” I was in the middle of reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and explaining to a friend why I was having such a good time. Aside from the story itself, there was so much about the way it’s written, the interpersonal dynamics, tiny little moments, as well as big ones that…
Thank You
Chuffed. Tickled pink. Over the moon. Validated. I feel like Sally Field. I won Best Chronic Illness Blog in the Canadian Blog Awards thanks to you and I want to let you know that it matters, just as it did two years ago. It matters that the CBA had a category for Chronic Illness, it…
Book Review: The Wave
Three years ago, I read a book called The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks by Susan Casey and I’ve just spent a good twenty minutes trying to find the post I wrote about it. Because it was an amazing book and I’m sure I would’ve posted a…
Book Review: Endurance
In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 28 set off on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition on the ship Endurance, intending to cross the continent of Antarctica via the pole. They reached the Weddell Sea and their ship became encased in pack ice and over the duration of the Antarctic winter, slowly crushed. At…
Book Review: The Poisoner’s Handbook
When I first saw The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum, I hadn’t read more than the few sentences in the summary before I made up my mind that I had to get it. Forensics? History? In one book?? It doesn’t get any better…
In Which Confusion Reigns
Two things have me confused this week. Thing the first is an article in the Wall Street Journal about President Obama ordering a change in regulations governing hospitals that participate in Medicaid/Medicare programs, requiring such hospitals to respect advanced directives and other legal documents designating people outside the immediate family for visitation rights. As well,…
Book Review: The Postmistress
Me and Audible have a routine. Every Tuesday, I place myself in front of my computer with a cup of tea and half an hour set aside for my weekly treat: perusing the new audio book releases. About a month or so ago, I saw a book called The Postmistress, checked the description, which sounded…
Two Steps Back
Me, two weeks ago: “it’s amazing how much you can get done when you’re trying not to think.” Me, 10 days ago: “I can’t move.” It’s been a bit of a year so far and the upshot of all the death, disease and disaster has been a rather intense level of activity on the work…