You may have noticed that June was a pretty busy month here around the blog. At the beginning of the month I privately challenged myself to post every day, and I’m really proud to say that I did it! Obviously, posting every day isn’t my normal routine; I’m more of a three to five times a week sort of blogger because that has worked for me. But May was a sort of a slump — I didn’t read or blog as much as I normally do, and I felt like I needed a challenge to get me back on track.

I’m really happy to say that I think the challenge worked. I’m feel more inspired about the blog, and I think I picked up a few good practices I can incorporate when I shift back to blogging slightly less frequently. I think I can sum up what I learned in six lessons:

1. It’s hard to write long posts all the time. I’m damn wordy, but if you’re going to blog every day sometimes you need to lighten up a little bit. I liked starting my Off the Stacks feature this month because it gave me consistent, interesting, and short content to post once a week. I hope other people thought it was interesting anyway!

2. Editing can suffer if you’re writing too much. I felt like many of the posts I wrote this month didn’t quite get the heavy editing and re-writing I like to do because I was busy coming up with other content or responding to comments. In the future, it will be nice to post a little less and have more time to focus on quality.

[continue reading…]

Ahh, picking vacation reads. Is there anything more awesome than that?

I’m heading up to my family’s cabin to celebrate the 4th of July this weekend, and so of course I spent a long time deciding what books to bring. I haven’t packed clothes or food or other necessities, but I have my books and booze already set aside. Responsibility, thy name is Kim.

I initially planned to bring only fiction, but after doing some palate cleansing I decided to mix things up and bring a little of everything. Here’s what I have in my bag so far (because you KNOW I’m going to add more before I leave):

1. The Help by Katharyn Stockett, which is one of the books my sister and I chose for our sister’s book club. We’re reading this one first
2. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perotta, because everyone has been so excited about his book that was being distributed at BEA, The Leftovers, and I’m curious about the hype. Election didn’t rock my socks, but this one might.
3. The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji, which I got as a review copy from Morrow Paperbacks. Now I can’t remember why I accepted it, but it looks like good beach reading.
4. How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson, which I picked up at one of my trips to our local Borders’ store closing sale.
5. The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry because who doesn’t want to read about Chicago and murder on vacation?
6. Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me about Love, Sex, and Starting Over by Cathy Alter because Meg (Write Meg!) recommended it as a great example of a “change your life in a year” memoir, which I am hopelessly addicted to. I need a better nickname for these books — any help?
7. The Accidental Adult by Colin Sokolowski because I wanted another nonfiction book for the list, and vacation seems like a good time to read about why being a grown up sucks 🙂

Seven books for a 3.5 day vacation? That’s not excessive at all… And I definitely won’t be adding any books to that list while I continue packing…

Any book I should get to first? Any favorites on the list you want me to read? Ideas for a catchy word or phrase so I can stop writing “change your life in a year” memoir every single time I read one… which is all the time?

Photo Credit: Wouter de Bruijn via Flickr

Title: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School
Author: Alexandra Robbins
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2011
Acquired: Library
Rating:

Two Sentence Summary: The high school cafeteria can be a scary place, especially for the kids who don’t fit the traditional definition of “normal.” Luckily, high school ends, and when you’re a grown up, quirky can be cool.

One Sentence Review: Robbins’ main thesis isn’t anything especially new, but her in-depth reporting and connections with her subjects make for an engaging read.

[continue reading…]

Monday Tally is a weekly link round-up of some of my favorite posts discovered over the week. If you have suggestions for Monday Tally, please e-mail sophisticated [dot] dorkiness [at] gmail [dot] com. Enjoy!

“Is Pottermore Good for Harry?” by Lev Grossman in TIME

Book critic and author Lev Grossman had an interesting piece in TIME about what Pottermore, the new “interactive thingy” that J.K. Rowling announced last week, might mean for book readers. I especially enjoyed these two paragraphs:

There are two things that separate reading from other media experiences. One is that reading is better: it’s richer and deeper and more complex and more beautiful. It’s more intellectually rewarding. And I say this as, among other things, a hard-core video gamer. All media have their strengths. I just think reading’s strengths are strongest.

But reading is also harder than other media. Your brain does more work when you’re reading. Movies and music and games and interactive thingies all supply your brain with a huge amount of information. Literally: there’s a reason why video and audio files are so much bigger than text files. They’re handing you a huge amount of data, which you can then sit back and enjoy.

(Thanks to The Book Lady for this one).

“Duty Calls” from xkcd

During various kerfuffles on the Internet this week, I found myself constantly returning to this particular xkcd comic, which is one of my favorites. It’s a gentle reminder about the futility of arguing with strangers online, especially those trolls who take perverse pleasure in ruffling feathers.

“All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup” by Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery in Mother Jones

While I’m not sure if I entirely agree with the conclusions in the second part of this article about changes in American working habits, I enjoyed the discussion about the implications of expecting Americans to continually do more with less. I’d summarize the argument, but I think it’s just better if you go read the story yourself.

For more of my favorite links from the week, check out my Tumblr, A Little Bit of Dorkiness.