Hey book nerds! I hope you’ve had a fantastic week!
My TBR pile has been spending the better part of this week silently judging me. I live with cervical headaches and occipital neuralgia as a result of a car accident ten years ago. This week they both showed up together and they were doozies. So rather than finishing all of the books I wanted to, most of my time was spent keeping my head as still as possible and not thinking because it hurt too much. Hopefully next week I’ll have more reading days.
Also related to the car accident and newly relevant this week is my love of concerts. I used to attend concerts all the time and even followed Tori Amos’ tour around Australia one time. The last concert I managed to attend was in Sydney over five years ago. I remember laying in the grass near the train station opposite the Opera House bawling my eyes out because I was in too much pain to move and I’d been looking forward to the concert so much. I did eventually make it but I had to take so many painkillers to be able to sit upright that the entire concert is a blur.
So, on to why this is relevant now. I never thought I’d be able to attend another concert but thanks to 2020 (I found one good thing about this year for me) there are now online concerts. I got an email this morning telling me about Vienna Teng’s upcoming concert and I can’t wait! While I was signing up for that one I also found out there’s a Patty Griffin one. So I’ll be able to attend two concerts, both for women I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see live, in the next week! If you’re interested in attending either concert with me, you can buy tickets here.
The beach has been amazing this week. I got to watching a storm out at sea and another day I investigated one of the tracks I’ve never been on before. I assumed that once you had made it through the sand dunes you would come to a car park but it was so much more interesting than that. It was like being in another world, one that led to a swamp. I was so impressed!
There were even a few places along the trail where people have left accommodations for faeries. My photos of those didn’t turn out that well so I will make sure to take a better camera with me next time I visit.
Word of the Week: Pyrrhic victory, “a victory or goal achieved at too great a cost” (from Dictionary.com). Okay, so this week’s word is actually two but I learned this phrase this week and it applies to a decision I need to make in the very near future. I really liked this article that explains where this term comes from.
Bookish Highlight of the Week: My signed bookplate for Alix Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches arrived in the mail! I was one of only 100 people worldwide that managed to snag one. On par with my excitement about actually receiving one was the realisation that Alix personally addressed the envelope it came in. There’s something slightly surreal and entirely wonderful about gettIng mail from one of your favourite authors.
Recent Reads:
Book Mail
Wolf Girl and her trusty dogs are back for another hackle-raising adventure.
On the run from sinister forces, Gwen rushes head-long into danger. With giant snakes, komodo dragons and a whole new wolf pack to contend with, Wolf Girl will need all her cunning … and all her friends.
Kindle Black Hole of Good Intentions
Tim and Abi have always been different from their peers. Precociously bright, they spend their evenings in their parents’ attic discussing the macabre and unexplained, zealously rereading books on folklore, hauntings and the supernatural. In particular, they are obsessed with photographs of ghostly apparitions and the mix of terror and delight they provoke in their otherwise boring and safe childhoods.
But when Tim and Abi decide to fake a photo of a ghost to frighten an unpopular school friend, they set in motion a deadly and terrifying chain of events that neither of them could have predicted, and are forced to confront the possibility that what began as a callous prank might well have taken on a malevolent life of its own.
Schizanthus Nerd 