Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for February 14, 2024

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Today’s topic is: What’s New in my Life Lately

Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes About Love


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

For today’s Love Freebie theme, I’ve decided to share ten bookish quotes about love.

Some of them are about romantic love, but others are about the many other types of love that exist: platonic, familial, universal, practical, and more.

I believe this holiday can be used to celebrate all of them if you wish.

 

 

1. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

 

2. “Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.”
Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember

 

3. “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
Mahatma Gandhi 

 

4. “Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.”
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

 

5. “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

 

6. “Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
Maya Angelou

 

7. “How do you spell ‘love’?” – Piglet
“You don’t spell it…you feel it.” – Pooh”
A.A. Milne

 

8. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

 

9. “Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. ”
Elinor Glyn

 

10. “There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
Vincent Van Gogh

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Thank you for visiting our post today.

 

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for February 7, 2024

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Today’s topic is: Things I Like to Do on Stormy Days

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Quick Reads/Books to Read When Time is Short

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

As much as I love to sit down with a chonker and really immerse myself in a book, there isn’t always the time for that.  Not to mention the fact that I don’t always have the attention span for it either.  So, when I’m low on time or mental focus, I grab a short book to indulge my reading need.

Manga is a favorite of mine when I need a quick read.  I can usually get through one in an hour or so.  Some of my favorites lately:

Spy x Family by Tatsuya Endo

Heartstopper by Alice Osman

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku by Fujita.

Yes, I’ll admit it, I tend to go for the goofy manga.

There are a ton of great novellas out there as well.

Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, that starts with Every Heart a Doorway, is a great series with fast, engaging stories.

The first four installments of Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, starting with All Systems Red, are short, fast reads as well.  This is a series I need to catch up on soon as I love it.

Another source of quick reads are cozy mysteries.  While they’re usually a full length novel, they tend to go faster for me since the plot is light and fun.  Some of my favorite cozy series:

Witchless in Seattle, which starts with Witch Slapped, is a fun paranormal cozy series by Dakota Cassidy.

Caroline Fardig’s Java Jive series is also a fun, quick read, set in a coffee shop in Nashville, TN.  The series starts with Death Before Decaf.

Mindy Quigley has an intense, but engaging series called Deep Dish Mysteries, set in a gourmet pizzeria in Geneva Bay, WI.  The first is Six Feet Deep Dish and is a great start to an excellent series.  My only complaint is I wind up craving pizza while reading these!

And to round it out, a couple of books I recently devoured in a short time.

Out of the Fog by Clarissa Ross is an engaging gothic romance with a bit of suspense thrown in.  It was published in 1970 and the writing is to the point, making the pages fly by.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.  This comes in at just under 300 pages or about seven hours in audio.  However, I will say that I was so taken in by this mystery – and Richard Armitage’s narration of the audiobook – that I found myself unable to stop listening.

 

Book of the Month Poll Winner ~ The Turnbull Murders by R.J. Koreto


The Turnbull Murders by R.J. Koreto
Publisher: Level Best Books
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Contemporary
Rated: 5 stars
Reviewed by Snapdragon

Voted BoM by LASR Readers 2013 copy

Movie star Nicky Tallon selects architect Wren Fontaine to renovate Turnbull House, where he’ll be filming his next movie. Even to Wren, used to old homes, this one is special: a 200-year-old federal-style home on a private island in New York harbor, designed by the most celebrated architect of the day. But Turnbull House hides many secrets, such as the disappearance of the sea captain who built it. That’s just a historical curiosity, until a studio executive no one likes is killed.

Wren just wants to keep her worksite safe, but then another murder occurs, and she starts noting eerie connections between the mysteries surrounding the Turnbull family and Nicky and his entourage. The handsome star seems to have two girlfriends, a childlike folk singer and a cynical fashion model. Meanwhile, renowned actress Veronica Selwyn renews a friendship with Wren’s father, which Wren finds more disturbing than she wants to admit. She concludes it’s time she and her girlfriend Hadley take the next step and find a place together, an exciting but stressful change.

As the attacks continue, Wren realizes she will have to solve the mysteries surrounding Captain Turnbull and Nicky Tallon. Turnbull House speaks of order and harmony, and Wren must dig deep to see how the house has affected its owners, old and new. Fortunately for her, the eminently practical Hadley is by her side, pepper spray at the ready—because a frighteningly clever killer is about to find that Wren is getting too close to the horrific truth.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE!

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for January 31, 2024

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Today’s topic is: Series I Wish Had Just One More Book in Them

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for January 24, 2024

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Today’s topic is: Languages I’m Learning or Want to Learn

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Meant to Read in 2023 but Didn’t Get To


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

There are a lot of them this week!

 

The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim

 

Organizing for the Rest of Us by Dana K. White

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holly by Stephen King

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldreee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Only One Left  by Riley Sager

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nigeria Jones  by Ibi Zoboi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

 

If you’ve read any of these books, would you recommend them?

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for January 17, 2024

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Today’s topic is: New Words I’ve Learned Recently and Their Meanings

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2024


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I’m going to be repeating a few of my goals from last year and then adding in some new ones.

1. Whittle down my TBR list. Sometimes I swear they grow by themselves overnight!

2. Visit nearby physical branches of my local library more often. I’ve read that being a librarian can be a stressful job at times, so I’d like to give them some friendly in-person experiences if I can. Also, not every book is available in digital form, so borrowing some of those paper books would help with my TBR list for sure.

3. Play more literary or bookish games on my phone.

4. Read short stories regularly. I need a break from the long (but good) novels I read last autumn and at the beginning of this winter.

5. Read more cozy mysteries. I tend go in spurts with this genre, and it’s been a while since I last visited it.

6. Take reading breaks. I am not always good at this, but it’s refreshing to step away for a little while and do something else. Maybe the spring will be a good time to do it if there aren’t too many forest fires and the weather is decent then?

7. Take a break from the fantasy genre. I’m a longtime fan of it, but I think I need to read other genres for a while. I’m finding it too repetitive, but I think it’s because I’m so well-versed in what typically happens in this genre.

8. Visit indie bookstores. I miss them so much.

9. Find cool people on Bookstagram who talk about science fiction, ghost stories, psychological horror, or other similar things.

10. Run away and go live in the woods. Or at least that’s what I’ve been threatening to do in order to have more quiet reading time. 😀 Fellow introverts, how do you carve out time to read?

Suggestions for how to accomplish any or all of these goals are quite welcomed!