What’s On Your Nightstand: June 2016

What’s on Your Nightstand is a monthly meme hosted by 5 Minutes for Books that summarizes what you’ve read for the month, what you’re currently reading, and what you plan to read next. It’s basically a wrap-up, though not as detailed depending on how you structure your reading wrap-ups. The meme is held the fourth Tuesday of every month. (I assume that means the last Tuesday of a month that has 5 Tuesdays.)

I’m still trying to work out how to format this because I don’t want it be too similar to my quarterly wrap-ups. For this post, I’ll do as before and list what I recently read, but I’ll also give a sentence or two on how I reacted to the book.

Books read:

The Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief audio book was the first thing I completed this month. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy as much as I did when I first read the physical copy. I didn’t like how it was narrated or the voice used for Annabeth, which sounded kind of whiney to me. If I continue to reread the series, I will return to the physical books instead.

I then read Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb as part of the Hobb-Along Read-Along, which I am behind on and have technically dropped out of. I enjoyed the story and can’t wait to continue with the next in its series.

I completed the Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz next which I picked up because I was torn over the TV show, which aired on Lifetime. It was canceled. Sometimes I liked the show and other times I didn’t. I’d hoped the book would be better but it wasn’t. The characters were annoying and sometimes what they did didn’t make sense to me.

I chose to read Salt by Nayyirah Waheed next and was glad I did. I loved this collection of poems, which is odd of me because I’m not a fan of poetry. But Waheed’s words resonated with me and I could strongly relate to what she says.

I’d heard so many rave reviews about Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles that when I got my new library card, I decided to borrow Cinder. It was such a fun read and I was surprised to enjoy it. I can’t wait to read its sequel, Scarlet, which I’ve already borrowed from the library.

Continuing with my experiment with audio books, I decided to get You by Caroline Kepnes because I read the book last year and was told that the audio book is great. I agree: It is. The entire time I listened, it was as if it was indeed Joe speaking.

So it was a lot of rereading for me this month. I also reread The Templeton Twins Have an Idea by Ellis Weiner. It’s a fun illustrated children’s book about a pair of twins who are kidnapped by another set of twins. The narrator makes the story great. It made me laugh.

And the last book I’ve read thus far in June is Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater, which I flew through. The story regains its mystic atmosphere in this installment and is haunting as well. But though I enjoyed the story, they writing style threw me off.

Articles:

Between Eternity and Time (lareviewofbooks.org)

— a review of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Let Us Now Praise Famous Short Story Writers (And Demand They Write a Novel) (electricliterature.com)

Adam Dalva: The Third Rail (guernicamag.com)

— Dalva’s essay is about his time spent at an artists’ residency in Vermont.

My Writing Day: Anne Enright (theguardian.com)

Scholars Talk Writing: Jay Parini (chronicle.com)

The Romanovs (barnesandnoble.com)

— a review of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book on the Romanovs

Why the World is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants (nytimes.com)

Managing Your Feelings Is Not My Job (hecatedemeter.wordpress.com)

— on women celebrating Hillary Clinton’s win as the Democratic presumptive nominee for president

Period. Full Stop. Point. Whatever It’s Called, It’s Going Out of Style (nytimes.com)

— pretty self-explanatory but I don’t exactly agree with the point made. I don’t think it’s going out of style.

LinkedIn and the Modern Worker’s Wandering Eye (newyorker.com)

— on how LinkedIn is used. I just like how the article is written.

The Racism of Good Intentions (washingtonpost.com)

— a review of Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi and Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation by Nicholas Guyatt

Writing POC While White (torforgeblog.com)

Mindblowing Photographs of the Last Surviving Tribes on Earth (livelearnevolve.com)

How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into digital hell (fusion.net)

Podcasts

Jesse William’s Acceptance Speech at the BET Awards (bet.com)

— not a podcast. It’s a video but WATCH IT!!! I couldn’t find a video link to embed.

Tan Twan Eng — The Garden of Evening Mists (bbc.co.uk)

10-Minute Writer’s Workshop: Joe Hill (nhpr.org)

Hardcore Game of Thrones (soundcloud.com)

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