Wednesday Check-In

Hello to Wednesday, friends. How has your week been going? Have you been taking care of yourself? Now is the time to focus on the little things keeping us alive and thriving.

Today I’m just doing a quick check-in and sharing some of the behind-the-scenes things I’m working on, including digitizing my book notes and an affiliate switch:

---

Well, it was bound to happen. I’ve spent the week desperately searching for my book notes from a book I read in September 2020. I’m wanting to write something that connects Unsheltered to The Message. I remember carefully copying down key quotes from the audio of Unsheltered… and I cannot find it. Anywhere!

This little source of frustration has strengthened my resolve to move all of my book notes to an electronic source. Do you remember my post on Zettelkasten? The system of keeping a second brain? All of my research for that post told me that I should write things down instead of typing, but I ended the post saying that I had still decided that a digital system was the best for me. And then somewhere along the line, I decided that paper/pen was a more lasting and aesthetically pleasing way to go.

Well — it’s not exactly the most functional for me right now! So I’m going through the book journals that I can find and slowly copying them over to Notion. I was thinking about returning to Evernote but their free version isn’t as robust as it used to be.

Do you have an electronic recommendation for me?

---

---

Another thing I’m working on behind the scenes is switching my affiliation from Amazon to Bookshop.org. I’m trying to use Amazon as little as possible in my personal life and I want this space to reflect that. Every purchase from Bookshop.org compensates the affiliate of your choice as well as a profit-sharing pool that’s used as a safety net for independent bookstores.

I am busy setting up my storefront and it’s kind of an overwhelming task! But exciting. Are there any specific lists you’d like to see?

---

---

One list I’m curating is “Books for This Moment.” I’m hoping to write something more thoughtful about comparing The Message with Unsheltered (as I said above), but I think they both have something to say about where we are right now.

Unsheltered is set after the 2016 election and grapples with the same issues as today- how in the world did this happen? It also helped me think about the foundation of the US and how the cracks were obvious from the very beginning, which Kingsolver illustrated with the crumbling foundation of a present-day home. This book did not get great reviews but I thought it was fabulous and I still think about it all the time.

The Message is an incredible composition of essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates that examines white supremacy around the world. It’s hard to know where to start, but this quote tied it and Unsheltered together for me:

““We are, Black people, here and there, victims of the West – a people held just outside its liberal declarations, but kept close enough to be enchanted with its promises. We know the beauty of this house — its limestone steps, its wainscoting, its marble baths. But more, we know that the house is haunted, that there is blood in the bricks and ghosts in the attic.” pg 59, The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates

On Tyranny was suggested to me by Kat and was also quotes in The Message. I haven’t read it yet but requested it from my own independent bookstore and will be picking it up today.

If you have any others books that I should read, please let me know!

---

And with that, dear friends, I must run. Please remember to drink some water today and try to take a walk. See you soon!