Pick-A-Day

March 2024
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Archives

Him / Us: My collection

Since I have not been travelling or planning travel, I’ve had some serious extra energy to devote to strange things.

Awhile back I discovered two romance novels: Him and Us – both are by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. Both are excellent and fun novels to read with well thought out plots and excellent […]

4709; Two too low.

Sometimes it is in random moments that things said to you years ago make sense.

For example, I recall once listening to my paternal grandmother complain about the address of her apartment in New York City.

“I’m so disappointed in whomever picked the house number. Why 4709? It could have been named after a cologne!”

[…]

Whatchamacallit 176: Ghost in a Four Room Apartment

This book is not the first copy of this book that I’ve owned.

The first copy of this book I got in either kindergarten or first grade – I would guess kindergarten, but logically it feels more like first grade.

It was free, a gift from RIF – Reading Is Fundamental – a program […]

Whatchamacallit 165: £10 (reverse side)

This copy of the 2017 UK £10 note is on display because it features a quote from Jane Austin:

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”

Although the line is spoken in great irony (and the Bank of England is mocked for choosing this line), out of context it is a […]

Whatchamacallit 159: house and home

This book, by Steve Gunderson and Rob Morris (with Bruce Bawer), was one of the few non-academic books that I kept in my dorm room at the University of Wyoming, the last year that I was a graduate student.

It was published in September 1996 – so just after I had graduated with my […]

Whatchamacallit 158: The Hockey Sweater

When I decided to write about the backside of the Canadian $5 bill, I knew that it had a bit about ice hockey engraved into the winter wonderland; I had not realized, until after I did research for that blog post, that the lines about hockey come from a book, The Hockey Sweater.

Once […]

Whatchamacallit 157: mini Book Light

This is a nightlight, as a book – with a white light option, then five other, more colorful, options.

This is a relatively recent addition to my collection of junk: a pure impulse purchase: 15€ at a local home improvement store that I happened to be wandering.

I saw something like it for sale […]

Whatchamacallit 148: Felix Ever After

I ran across this book somewhere and decided to order it: Felix Ever After

This is an amazing book about an FTM teenager attending high school in Brooklyn, exploring themes around love, friendship, transphobia, being rich, no longer being rich, being rejected, and more.

It is also one of the best written books that […]

Whatchamacallit 143: The Rainbow Troops

I acquired my copy of The Rainbow Troops back in March 2013; I liked the book so much that I convinced my book blub to read it as the book for September 2014.

This might be the first book about Indonesia that I’ve ever read – and it was a pleasure to read it. […]

Whatchamacallit 138: Alvin Fernald, Superweasel

Back in 2011, when my blog was busy, I asked if anybody remembered Alvin Fernald. Nobody responded.

So, a mere 9 years later, I finally decided to track down one of the books that I mentioned in that post, Alvin Fernald, Superweasel. The book is about a fourth or fifth grader who single handedly […]