Greetings!

After months of silence, I am back! Tomorrow—June 29, 2024—will be an update on what's been happening.

Meanwhile, I am scheduling some posts and overhauling the links on my Book Recommendations page. The link is always at the top beside "Home."

For many years, the links were for my reviews and Goodreads.com, but I have recently learned that Goodreads is becoming less popular, and even authors are shying away.

So, I am currently working my way through overhauling the links. They will now take you to retailers, not a social media site that is growing unpopular and not everyone used to begin with. The links that took you to my reviews will remain the same. I've removed all links that guide you to Goodreads, and I will be adding the new links. Most will take you to Amazon with the hope that international readers can find the books with a simple click, but a few will connect you to other US-based retailers.

Photo by Ylanite Koppens

I am currently working on a new project with my book selections. As someone with ADHD, I always have several books on my "currently reading" pile at the same time. One of them is always a classic novel, so those reviews will continue to trickle in. Reading a classic novel is much slower for me due to the language difference and often pausing to read annotations, footnotes, and endnotes—these notes are crucial to my enjoyment due to the ability to gain some context. I usually have two or three "anything goes" selections, sometimes part of a series and sometimes a stand-alone as I think of them.

There is another category I have been reading as part of a project involving a genre that has been a favorite of mine for many, many years: young adult speculative fiction. Speculative fiction includes anything not based in the real world, such as fantasy, horror, paranormal, science-fiction, and dystopian novels (though dystopian novels are a subgenre of sci-fi). 

There are many, many series I began and stopped or new books in the series have been released. There are others I adore or formerly adored and have not reviewed or reviewed the series as a whole. I figured why not reread them to provide reviews? I love them anyway, so it won't be a chore—more like a thinly veiled excuse. So many of these series I didn't finish are ones I loved but something or another halted my progress, such as Wind on Fire, The Last Apprentice, and The Inheritance Cycle.

I've been working on this for a while now. Some of my favorite series I've already re-read and reviewed, like The Selection and River of Time. I'm in the process of re-reading The Twilight Saga and The Tiger Saga. Others I reviewed as a whole and am hoping to re-read include the Old Kingdom series (formerly called Abhorsen and now expanded with books I haven't read), The Hunger Games, His Dark Materials, and The Books of Pellinor. There are others not reviewed that I plan to, some of them listed on my Book Recommendations page.

I'm excited about this project, and it's been slow-going for several years now. And as always, I will inch my way through the classics.