The Sunday Post #1

The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, and share news.

On My Blog Last Week

On Monday I reviewed The Waste Lands by Stephen King.

On Tuesday I listed the characters I’d like to check in with.

On Wednesday I confessed that high-school-me was too enthusiastic about homework.

On Thursday I threw down the discussion gauntlet.

On Friday my blog was featured on a bigger, more impressive blog (Parajunkee’s View).

On My Blog This Week

On Monday I review Not A Drop To Drink by Mindy McGinnis.

On Tuesday I list some not-so-inspiring quotes from books I’ve read recently.

On Wednesday I review Landline by Rainbow Rowell.

On Thursday I discuss auto-buy authors and never-buy authors (and my lack of both).

On Friday I pretend that I have money.

My Reading Life

I actually read a lot last week. I finished Not A Drop To Drink and Landline. Then I started Wizard And Glass (Dark Tower #4) by Stephen King. I like The Dark Tower series so far, but it’s reminding me why I quit reading epic fantasy and other genres that produce massive books. Wizard And Glass is 699 pages. No book needs to be 699 pages.

I’m also having a problem with books randomly accumulating. I swore that I wasn’t going to get any more books until I’ve reviewed the ones I already have, but then my school books came, and then I traded some books for other books, and then some people gave me some books. Seriously, it’s like my house is a black hole that only sucks in books and dust. Look for a book haul post in the near future.

The Rest Of My Life

Last week, I found out that I got the assistantship I wanted. I’m going to be editing The Louisville Review literary journal. I start in May, probably right after I finish the anthology that I’m editing now.

I’m trying to lose at least 10 pounds, but my diet hasn’t been going very well lately. I fell off the diet wagon. Then I ate the wagon. I need to start working out every day again. (And staying far away from the Easter candy.)

I’ve somehow managed to accumulate 59 Twitter followers. I really need to get better at Twitter. Also, is anyone else creeped out by the use of the word “followers” in social media? When I say, “I have 59 followers,” I feel like I’m being stalked by 59 people. Or like I started a cult. I am very grateful for my followers, though. Thanks for stalking me, and if you want to be stalker #60, I’m @ajsterkel.

Random Thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot about blog design. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how much I don’t like my blog’s design. I’ve tried so many free templates, but I don’t like any of them. I don’t have the skills to make my blog look good, and I’m not sure how much it costs to have somebody else do it for me. I’m trying to be happy with what I have now.

FF Friday: In Which My Blog Is Featured!

Feature & Follow is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. My blog is featured this week!

This week’s question: Have you ever read a book you thought you'd hate but loved? Or vice versa?

Answer: If I think I’ll hate a book, I won’t read it. That’s why I enjoy most of the books that I do read. I’ve become pretty talented at picking out books for myself.

I have been pleasantly surprised by a few of the books that schools have forced me to read. I really liked The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Stranger (Albert Camus), The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien), Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri), and most of Faulkner and Hemingway’s works.

Occasionally I’ll be disappointed with a book that I picked out for myself. Sometimes the story just isn’t as cool as the synopsis makes it sound. I think the last book that really, really disappointed me was Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. I expected to enjoy it, but I disliked the main characters so intensely that I struggled to finish it. Luckily, it’s pretty rare that I hate a book.

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The follow part: If you are a book blogger and you leave a link to your blog in the comments below, I will follow you on Bloglovin’. I’d love it if you also followed me. If you want to be friends on Goodreads, Twitter, or G+, that would be awesome, too. Click the links to go to my pages on those sites. I’m looking forward to “meeting” you.

Discussion: On Discussions

Discussion posts are one of my favorite things about book blogs, but I haven’t been writing any of them lately. I’ve just been focusing on memes and reviews. Memes are fun, and reviews are the point of this blog. (Well, reviews and amusing pictures that I find on the Internet.) I want to start writing discussions again, so I’m linking up with Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts At Midnight to do the 2015 Discussion Challenge. I’m going to attempt to write at least one discussion post per month for the rest of the year.

This is how I look when I discuss literature.

So, let’s discuss discussions. Do you write discussion posts on your blog? Do you read them on other blogs? What topics do you enjoy reading about? If you do write discussions, which posts have been your most successful/interesting/thought-provoking? I’d love links to your discussions if you want to share them.

Confessions Of A Bookworm: Homework Enthusiasm

I saw this awesome Confessions meme on Parajunkee, and I thought I’d play along this week. The goal is to write a post about your most eccentric bookworm confession. So, here is mine:

Confession of the week: When I was in high school, our reading assignments were ridiculously easy. We had to read one chapter of the assigned book every night. I don’t like reading one short chapter at a time. I’d rather sit down for a few hours and read a bunch of chapters (or a whole book) at once.

Since I didn’t want to read one chapter a night, I was always way ahead on my assigned reading. But, when my friends asked if I’d done the reading, I always lied and said I was way behind. I don’t know why I lied. They all knew that I read a lot of books. Maybe I was embarrassed about being too enthusiastic about our homework. Or maybe I thought my friends would take advantage of me because they never did the reading and always needed someone to tell them what happened in the book. I don’t know. I just always felt like I needed to keep my assigned reading a secret.

What about you? Do you have any bookish confessions?

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Question of the week: If you would only read one book in your whole life, which one would it be?

Answer: This is so hard. I’d probably pick The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. That book makes me think, so it would keep me busy.