Friday | Substack Discussion, Reading Challenges, Weekly Reading Review

Thank you to Sarah for this opening picture! She sent me a link to the gorgeous Fisher Fine Arts Library at Penn, one of her favorite study places. That link is full of the most amazing pictures and I fell in love. And if you have a favorite library, will you let me know? I’m collecting pictures like this right now!

This week has been a good one. It’s had its difficult moments but this shift in weather makes all the difference to me. We’ve cooked and baked a lot, savored our school time, and spent plenty of time reading. I might be completely overwhelmed in most ways but I’m still doing my best to focus on the little things.

Today’s post includes a decision about Substack, a little bit about StoryGraph Challenges, and my weekly reading. So let’s catch up before the weekend takes over!

---

---

I mentioned on Wednesday that I made my first hot latte of the year and here it is alongside my notebook. And journaling in that notebook helped me work through something that I’ve been considering for a long time (about a year, really).

I’ve made a decision about Substack – as much as I want to write on that platform and shift my writing just a bit, I’m going to stay right where I am for now. My slow aim is to shift my writing to slightly more personal essays but that is tricky to do on the internet. I don’t think I’d be anymore successful with that transition on Substack and I have so much history here on WordPress that I wouldn’t want to lose. So I’m not deleting my substack but am probably not going to be using it anytime soon. Sorry for all the drama surrounding it these last few weeks!

---

Reading Challenges:

---

I’m enjoying the Challenges feature on StoryGraph. This is where you can create or join a reading challenge based on whatever you want. I’m in four challenges right now:

• The 2024 Booker Challenge: Currently lists all the titles as part of the challenge but will make the non-shortlisted books optional once that list is announced on 9/16.
• Women’s Prize for Fiction Winners
• Louise Erdrich Novels: a list of all her adult novels
• Female Booker Prize Winners: I created this one thanks to a list provided to me by a fellow Fiction Matters member.

I love how easy it is to access these lists and to have your progress calculated for you. I have all of these lists in my reading journal but it’s sort of cumbersome to flip around and look for it when I’m setting up my TBR for the month. And it’s so much fun to have books light up as completed once I’ve finished one. Clearly, I am easily excited.

But these challenges are part of the shift I’m hoping to make on this blog – to take prize winning books and find ways to apply them to our lives in a meaningful way. Like I said, this transition is a slow process for me!

---

Reading Update:

Since we discussed books last Friday, I’ve finished one book:

Orbital by Samantha Harvey
“Our lives here are inexpressively trivial and momentous at once […] Both repetitive and unprecedented. We matter greatly and not at all. To reach some pinnacle of human achievement only to discover that your achievements are next to nothing and that to understand this is the greatest achievement of any life, which itself is nothing, and also much more than everything. Some metal separates us from the void; death is so close. Life is everywhere, everywhere.” pg 184

This book follows six astronauts from around the world living on the space station. We see their mission, space, and Earth through their very different eyes. I loved how the point of view shifted in this book: at times we’d be looking at a storm brewing from space and wonder about the impact; at other times we were minutely focused on the day-to-day life of these people. Harvey explored themes about climate change, socio-political forces on Earth and its boundaries and resources, fate, and the impact of our lives and choices. There were moments in this book that I found extremely boring and others were so incredibly insightful. And isn’t that just our lives in a nutshell?

---

I have about 30 pages left in Enlightenment by Sarah Perry. I considered pushing through and finishing last night but want to savor the ending. I have adored this book and am moving slowly through it because I’m writing down so much. I can’t wait to talk more about it next week because I have a lot of thoughts!!

---

My weekend will be the same: working at the library, cooking and cleaning, keeping children busy. Hopefully some reading. Maybe some stitching? I hope your weekend is full of exactly what you need. Take good care!