It got busy this week! Lots going on at home, work, and otherwise as well. Life My daughter's school decided to close on Friday, along with several other schools in the area, with some being closed from Thursday. Not enough staff. The school had been on a mask mandate since the beginning of the pandemic, dropping it only for one week when the pandemic had appeared to have stabilized last year. And yet, they dropped the mandate completely at the beginning of this year, when cases were exponentially rising, only to bring it back again starting next week. I've gone from being very annoyed to angry to feeling fatigue in these first two weeks already. I won't lie - we all mask around here and try to avoid going where we don't have a need to be in, and still, we are not taking anything close to the extreme precaution we all took at the beginning of the pandemic. I cannot and don't want to keep my kids home - I have at least that much faith in the schools' precautions
Early Sunday morning, or as early as we could manage after a full day of driving on Saturday, the husband and I woke up to snow falling in Niagara. My phone's weather app had promised a day of sunshine and some clouds, but there wasn't any mention of any kind of precipitation. Somehow, we dragged ourselves out of the hotel into our car to see the Niagara falls from the Canadian side (photos coming later) and then cross over to the US.
Even though we woke up to 20 F degree weather, we reached home nine hours later to 62 F degree weather. The sun has been out ever since and I (someone who generally abhors summer) am super excited to see no more snow or fleece jackets. Two weeks in Canada was amazing but the weather wasn't the best. Toronto wasn't too cold, Quebec city could have easily left some frostbitten toes or fingers, while Niagara was more of a middle ground. I plan to post some highlights of my trip later this week (once I fully recover from the nasty cold I picked up at Quebec), and in the meantime, mention the books I purchased at Toronto's many amazing bookstores.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to a total of 8 bookstores in Toronto, and bought books at 6 of them. The only reason I walked out empty-handed from the other two stores was because one was more of an art store than a bookstore while the second store had more strange or theory books plus the books cost way more than I was willing to spend. Once we reached home, the husband stacked all the books up for me and did a count as well to book-shame me. (He knows well that book-shaming doesn't work on me at all.) Honestly though, when I found that I had purchased 25 books, I did feel a bit sheepish. Who buys that many books in a week? At least, I am done for the next two years, as far as book shopping is considered.
Books I bought because "I've been meaning to read them forever" (or maybe not for that long)
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away by Christie Watson
The Walking Dead, Vol 21 by Robert Kirkman
The Accident by Ismail Kadare
The Walking Dead, Vol 22 by Robert Kirkman
Books I bought because I want to read this author but know nothing about his/her works
The Joke by Milan Kundera
The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
I'll Steal You Away by Niccolò Ammaniti
Books for the husband
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Card
Gandhi by Kazuki Ebine
Phoenicia's Worlds by Ben Jeapes
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (not pictured)
Books I bought just because
NW by Zadie Smith
I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Yalo by Elias Khoury
A Woman in Jerusalem by Abraham B. Yehoshua
Happiness, like Water by Chinelo Okparanta
Even though we woke up to 20 F degree weather, we reached home nine hours later to 62 F degree weather. The sun has been out ever since and I (someone who generally abhors summer) am super excited to see no more snow or fleece jackets. Two weeks in Canada was amazing but the weather wasn't the best. Toronto wasn't too cold, Quebec city could have easily left some frostbitten toes or fingers, while Niagara was more of a middle ground. I plan to post some highlights of my trip later this week (once I fully recover from the nasty cold I picked up at Quebec), and in the meantime, mention the books I purchased at Toronto's many amazing bookstores.
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| The entire stack |
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to a total of 8 bookstores in Toronto, and bought books at 6 of them. The only reason I walked out empty-handed from the other two stores was because one was more of an art store than a bookstore while the second store had more strange or theory books plus the books cost way more than I was willing to spend. Once we reached home, the husband stacked all the books up for me and did a count as well to book-shame me. (He knows well that book-shaming doesn't work on me at all.) Honestly though, when I found that I had purchased 25 books, I did feel a bit sheepish. Who buys that many books in a week? At least, I am done for the next two years, as far as book shopping is considered.
Books I bought because "I've been meaning to read them forever" (or maybe not for that long)The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away by Christie Watson
The Walking Dead, Vol 21 by Robert Kirkman
The Accident by Ismail Kadare
The Walking Dead, Vol 22 by Robert Kirkman
Books I bought because I want to read this author but know nothing about his/her worksThe Joke by Milan Kundera
The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
I'll Steal You Away by Niccolò Ammaniti
Books I bought because I had vaguely heard something good about these titles (though now remember nothing about them)
People Park by Pasha Malla
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Books for the husbandPattern Recognition by William Gibson
Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Card
Gandhi by Kazuki Ebine
Phoenicia's Worlds by Ben Jeapes
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (not pictured)
Books I bought just because
NW by Zadie Smith
I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Yalo by Elias Khoury
A Woman in Jerusalem by Abraham B. Yehoshua
Happiness, like Water by Chinelo Okparanta
Comments
Nice haul! And hope you feel better soon.
I try not to read the TWD comics when the show is running. But now that the finale is over, I can't wait to get back to the books. Some really nasty stuff had just happened - something I hope never comes to TV or maybe comes after many seasons.
blog. Phew, so I am not going crazy, yet. I wonder too how the audio is.
Maybe too technical to listen to? Maybe not..