This post contains affiliate links. I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

The Sunday Post

On The Blog Recently

In My Reading Life

Last week, I (finally) finished Every Living Thing: The Great And Deadly Race To Know All Life by Jason Roberts. I thought this was a "me" book because it blends two of my favorite things: nature and history. It's about the academic rivalry between Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon. Both men lived in Europe during the 1700s. Both attempted to create their own catalogue of every living thing on earth. They both failed, which isn't surprising. There are a lot of living things on earth. The men didn't finish their catalogues, but they did shape how we think about the plants, animals, and other humans around us.

I can see why this book won the Pulitzer Prize. An astounding amount of research went into it.

Unfortunately, I struggled to get through it. It took me a month to finish, and I considered giving up multiple times. I didn't give up because the information is fascinating. I always enjoy learning about nature. The writing style is where I struggled. It's a very dry, straightforward retelling of historical events. I guess I was hoping for more commentary. The historical events raise interesting questions: How does religion shape how we think about nature? Why are some historical figures remembered forever while others are forgotten? I was hoping for a book that explored those ideas.

The book didn't go far enough for me, but I understand why it gets so much award committee hype. Like cataloging all life, this book was an ambitious project.

In The Rest Of My Life

What's been happening recently? Honestly, not much.

My other website, About The Horses In The Room, got a giant makeover. There's still some placeholder text on the homepage that needs to be rewritten. I think everything is working now, except for the Contact Us form. I'm pretty sure I have to pay for something to make that work. It'll have to wait until after Christmas because I need a break from paying for stuff.

Oh, here's something. If you've read About The Horses, then you know that animal figurines can be worth a ton of money. It's because the artists who create them put months or years of work into sculping and painting them. Check out YouTube channels like Star Bat Craft if you're interested in how handcrafted animal figurines are made.

Anyway, a collection of tiny horses worth $10,000 was stolen in Portland, Oregon on November 8. I'm writing about it on a book blog because the horses and suspected thief were seen outside of Powell's Books. I know you guys love bookstores. If you were in the area and saw a herd of tiny horses, please contact Portland police. Here's an article about the theft. And here's one about the arrest of the suspected thief and the effort to recover the horsey loot.

Also, if you're curious, my collection on About The Horses is not worth $10,000. If it was, I'd sell it and pay for the freakin' Contact Us form to work.

In all seriousness, I'd feel destroyed if my collection was stolen. It really does take an entire human lifetime to curate a competition-winning collection. Some families have been collecting for multiple generations.

I did not mean to write a whole post about animal books and art. Since that's what happened, let's continue yapping! Here are the champion and reserve champion pieces from one of the more-prestigious art shows. I don't own these. I could never afford these. I'd be terrified of accidentally breaking these. I stole the photos from the internet so I could stay 1000 miles away from the art show. If anything broke in Kentucky, it wasn't my fault!

The live horse/dead horse is sculpted and painted by Darynn Bednarczyk. It's called Enigma, and it won grand champion. The elk is Michael Buglé, sculpted and painted by Morriah Voogd.