Meeting Mackenzi Lee and Brittany Cavallaro

I know I’ve said this before, but I’m very lucky to live near an amazing independent bookstore, Literati, in Ann Arbor. If you’re looking for a small store to support, please consider them! They ship nation wide. Anyway! I saw on their Instagram that they were going to have a Friday night event with Brittany Cavallaro and Mackenzi Lee. I wasn’t familiar with Cavallaro but I’d read the first two books of Lee’s Gentleman’s Guide series (The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy) as well as the accompanying novella (The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky). This tour is supporting the paperback release of the final book in the series, The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks. I hadn’t added this to my TBR, but it’s one I had planed to read. I conferred with my husband that he could watch the babe so off I went!

I got to the store a little early and was poking around the kids section before things got started. The event space was set up but no one was sitting down yet. I wanted to see if I could find a board book about managing emotions for toddlers (please give me recommendations) and I heard an employee talking with two women. I had to assume these were the presenters so I went and sat down. Another person followed soon after but by the time the event started, it was just the two of us! I was surprised, but maybe Friday night is not a popular time to go to a book signing? More people trickled in as it went out, about six in total.

Lee and Cavallaro decided to take a very conversational approach because of the small audience. Both read from their books, Cavallaro from Manifest and Lee from The Winter Soldier: Cold Front. The two seemed to have been on tour together for a few days at least and struck up a conversation easily about historical figures and writing historical fiction. We went down a wonderful tangent about Harry Houdini that I just adored, though I may have been the only one. (Granted, that’s about 17% of the audience, so still good!)

With the small audience, I didn’t want to take any ‘creeper’ photos during the event. Afterward, both signed copies of their backlog. I snagged a copy of Nobleman’s Guide and decided to try out the first in a series of mystery novels from Cavallaro. Both were wonderfully generous with their time and engaged with those of us who were able to make it out. It sounded like they had a few more stops to go together. Cavallaro mentioned living in norther Michigan and I suspect they were heading that way and had stopped by on their way. It was really fun to go to an in-person event again after so long! I think my last one was October 2019. I’m hoping I can go to more again soon!

Until next time, write on

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

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2022 in Books

I haven’t done this for a few years but thought I’d pick it up again. It’s a great way to reflect on my reading year.

I read 24 books in 2022. My goal was 15 so I’ve exceeded it by 9! After failing to meet it in 2021, I set a low bar so this is very welcome. I’m going to try to do meet 24 again in 2023 and see how that goes.

I read 7,744 pages. That’s fewer than 2021 by about 700, so not terribly far off. I read a lot of shorter books this year, so I’m not surprised by that. I’ve been making an effort the past month to read instead of scrolling social media and I’m hoping that will help me increase this for 2023.

The shortest book I read was the Shades of Magic: The Steel Prince graphic novels. Graphic novels tend to be shorter so I’m not surprised this 112 page story came in at the shortest. The longest was Troubled Blood at 944 pages. The funny thing is how fast I read this one! I was so absorbed I read it in 10 days. Both of these were ebook reads, which is funny with how much I have struggled with ebooks in the past. You get a lot of ebook time when you’re nursing an infant! My average book was 322 pages, which feels about right for the books I like to pick up.

My average rating was a 3.2. This doesn’t surprise me because I felt like I struggled with a lot of my books this year and let them languish because I wasn’t enjoying them.

5 Stars: 2
4 Stars: 5
3 Stars: 13
2 Stars: 4

This supports how I felt about reading this year. It was very middle-of-the-road in a lot of ways. I’m hoping I can find some books I enjoyed more in 2023!

Thanks for taking a look at stats with me! If you’ve been here a while, you know I love numbers and book-related numbers are the best.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Let’s go! The 2023 When Are You Reading? Challenge Starts Today!

Today is the first day for the 2023 When Are You Reading? Challenge! I hope you’ll consider taking on the challenge and joining me. This is the tenth year! Yes, the tenth! There’s not a lot of things I’ll do for ten years straight, but this is one.

The premise of the challenge is to read one book from each of twelve time periods. It’s up to the reader where a book lies. You can do it based on publication date or setting, whatever you want. Feel free to switch it up, too. I did make a small update this year. For those who have been doing the challenges multiple years, if there are time periods you find very challenging (like I do for the 1300-1499 time period), let me know and we can make changes moving forward.

The challenge is located here. If you’d like to participate, leave me a comment somewhere on the blog letting me know and giving me a link to your challenge page or post. I’ll add a link to my challenge page so other readers can visit you and see what you’ve been reading. 

The time periods are:

• Pre 1200 [UPDATED]
• 1300-1499 [UPDATED]
• 1500-1699
• 1700-1799
• 1800-1899
• 1900-1919
• 1920-1939
• 1940-1959
• 1960-1979
• 1980-1999
• 2000-Present
• The Future

I do hope you’ll consider joining me. I’ve had a lot of fun with this challenge over the past several years and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Announcing the 2023 When Are You Reading? Challenge!

It’s back again! I’ll be running the When Are You Reading? Challenge yet again in 2023. 2022 was a challenging year for me to read so much and I’m hoping things get a little easier in 2023. I think this is a good challenge for me to still aim to complete since it’s a relatively low number of books.

The premise of the challenge is to read one book from each of twelve time periods. It’s up to the reader where a book lies. You can do it based on publication date or setting, whatever you want. Feel free to switch it up, too. I did make a small update this year. For those who have been doing the challenges multiple years, if there are time periods you find very challenging (like I do for the 1300-1499 time period), let me know and we can make changes moving forward.

The challenge is located here. If you’d like to participate, leave me a comment somewhere on the blog letting me know and giving me a link to your challenge page or post. I’ll add a link to my challenge page so other readers can visit you and see what you’ve been reading. 

The time periods are:

• Pre 1200 [UPDATED]
• 1300-1499 [UPDATED]
• 1500-1699
• 1700-1799
• 1800-1899
• 1900-1919
• 1920-1939
• 1940-1959
• 1960-1979
• 1980-1999
• 2000-Present
• The Future

I do hope you’ll consider joining me. I’ve had a lot of fun with this challenge over the past several years and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Announcing the 2022 When Are You Reading? Challenge!

It’s back again! I’ll be running the When Are You Reading? Challenge yet again in 2022. I wasn’t able to finish in 2021 (more to come on that in a full post), but I’m planning to be more purposeful this year and I’m hoping it will happen! One can only hope.

The premise of the challenge is to read one book from each of twelve time periods. It’s up to the reader where a book lies. You can do it based on publication date or setting, whatever you want. Feel free to switch it up, too.

The challenge is located here. If you’d like to participate, leave me a comment somewhere on the blog letting me know and giving me a link to your challenge page or post. I’ll add a link to my challenge page so other readers can visit you and see what you’ve been reading. 

The time periods are:

• Pre 1300
• 1300-1499
• 1500-1699
• 1700-1799
• 1800-1899
• 1900-1919
• 1920-1939
• 1940-1959
• 1960-1979
• 1980-1999
• 2000-Present
• The Future

I do hope you’ll consider joining me. I’ve had a lot of fun with this challenge over the past several years and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

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Book Club Reflection: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

My book club met over Zoom to read Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. I’ll be honest and say my book club’s discussion on this book got a little off track really fast and I didn’t get a lot of notes about our meeting. There were a lot of comments I didn’t feel were based on fact and I didn’t feel comfortable recording to report here. There was a lot of discussion about cultural traditions in India surrounding widowhood and marriage but none of us have first-hand experience with this cultural tradition. One reader talked about a documentary she’d watched that she believed was called “The Invisible Widows” and thought it was from the National Geographic. I can’t find this so if anyone has a link, please share it in the comments below; I’d be interested to see what this reader was talking about.

Our moderator told us that this is Jaswal’s third book and that her fourth is out now. The newest is also about British-born Punjabi characters. When picking this book, our moderator was nervous for a moment that it would be considered too racy. She explained her logic by saying that often in our culture, we come across extreme violence and are numb to it. When we come across explicit sexual content, we’re affected. Of these two things, we hope to come across one in our lifetime and not the other, yet the one we hope to find is what affects us. As a society, we may want to reconsider that.

I do not have a sister but the readers who did felt that the relationship between Nikki and Mindy seemed right. It was fitting that they were so hard on each other and that they could be so different having come from the same family. The only other character we discussed was Kulwinder, who is the most dynamic character in the story aside from Nikki. She became more likeable as the book went on. You realized what was happening to her and what had happened to her family and started to pity her. You also see that she’s fighting for women and their independence as much as Nikki wants to. The two are actually very natural allies.

I’m not sure if I’ll be continuing with this book club. Our organizer is moving on to another job and we’re taking off June. I plan to attend in July but with Baby coming in early August, I might take a break and possibly pick up with the book club at new local library. It was going to get tricky when we started meeting in person again and I have a feeling that by the time things with Baby have calmed down, they’ll be back to the bar for meetings. But we shall see.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Off-Topic Thursday: Little Turtle

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. It feels like a good time to get back to it, though. Things have been a little crazy the last few months at work and with my personal life and it’s good to take a step back and share some good news with everyone.

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A post shared by Sam Bishop (@samannelizabeth)

My husband and I are thrilled to announce we’re welcoming a baby in early August! This is our first child and we’re very much looking forward to this. We told our parents at Christmas and started telling friends in late January and early February. Now the cat’s out of the bag.

We’re just starting to get the nursery ready. We had some friends help move some furniture around and my parents brought over the crib my dad made when I was a baby. My favorite reading chair is now going to be my favorite nursing chair. We’ll have to do some more shopping soon, but we’re just thrilled to be this far so quickly.

I’m in my second trimester and feeling a million times better than I did in December and January. I had bad nausea, digestion problems, and fatigue for three weeks that kept me very home-bound. I’ve started swimming again now and I’m almost back to eating spicy foods. My weirdest cravings have been fried chicken sandwiches. We’re not finding out the sex of the baby so we’re starting to think of names for whichever way this turns out.

I’m very lucky to have a number of close friends who have young babies or who are also pregnant that I’m sharing this with and learning from. One friend with a six-month-old has offered us use of some of her things if we don’t want to buy our own. We’ve had meaningful conversations with many people about cloth diapers. We’re really just excited and I have to say I’m also a bit anxious about the next five months.

So if I disappear for a bit in August, please forgive me. I’ll try to schedule some WWWs ahead in case I can’t get on here to post for a few weeks. I plan to keep the blog moving, though a few things might look a little different after the baby comes. I hope it loves books as much as I do.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

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Book Club Reflection: Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais

My book club got together a few weeks ago to discuss Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais. Be warned, spoilers ahead! I had enjoyed this book until the end and I was glad that most of my fellow readers liked it as well. One disliked the alternating narrators but enjoyed the story overall. A few did agree with me that the ending was a bit contrived and too many convenient things seemed to happen. After a book that had a relatively slow pace, the ending happened very fast and was a bit rushed. One reader felt that this book came off like a bit of a Nancy Drew story from Robin’s perspective and felt that was a disservice to apartheid and the horrible things that happened under the laws. With today’s political climate in America, many of us drew parallels to the Black Likes Matter movement and the push for rights and recognition that we’re still seeing today.

Robin and Beauty both craved a human connection throughout the story. After Robin lost her parents, she needed to connect to someone. Mable was the only person she thought was left in her life and she abandoned Robin. Beauty was missing her daughter and we felt Robin reminded her of a young Nomsa. Having Robin to care for gave her a second chance at motherhood and she felt she could fix any mistakes she might have made. Robin’s need to connect with Beauty was why he hit the note. She was being defensive of the love the two had formed and Robin wanted to keep it at all costs, even if it was denying Beauty of the one thing she wanted most.

Kat was a surprising element to the book. Many of us were surprised when she wasn’t real. Kat was a great sounding board for Robin. Kat let her cry and have emotions without showing them. Her mother discouraged her from showing her emotions and Kat was a coping mechanism for that. We saw a parallel between Jolene and Edith and Robin and Kat. The sisters were very different but that didn’t stop them from loving each other.

The title was such a short line in the book that we got talking about why Marais would choose it for her title. It spoke to figuring out how to keep going when you were lost. It was about blending in, faking it until you fit in, and getting through to the next thing. As one reader said, “Go along and get along.”

I’m not sure I’ll get a copy of our next book in time for the discussion so I might be missing a month of this group. Fingers crossed it comes in early and I can try. Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Announcing the 2021 When Are You Reading? Challenge

It’s back again! I’ll be running the When Are You Reading? Challenge yet again in 2021. Hopefully, I’m not scrambling to finish it on New Year’s Eve next year (less than two hours left in the final audiobook as I type this!). I think the set up worked well last year so I’m going to run with it again.

The premise of the challenge is to read one book from each of twelve time periods. It’s up to the reader where a book lies. You can do it based on publication date or setting, whatever you want. Feel free to switch it up, too.

The challenge page will be set up today. If you’d like to participate, leave me a comment somewhere on the blog letting me know and giving me a link to your challenge page or post. I’ll add a link to my challenge page so other readers can visit you and see what you’ve been reading. 

The time periods are:

• Pre 1300
• 1300-1499
• 1500-1699
• 1700-1799
• 1800-1899
• 1900-1919
• 1920-1939
• 1940-1959
• 1960-1979
• 1980-1999
• 2000-Present
• The Future

I do hope you’ll consider joining me. I’ve had a lot of fun with this challenge over the past several years and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Join my email list

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Off Topic Thursday: Moving

I’m sure almost everyone reading this already knows but, man, does moving suck!

It’s great to write about this in hindsight, meaning that the moving is over and my life is not in a box or half in one location and half gone anymore. We are unpacked. We are not organized. That comes later. But being unpacked is such a blessing.

My husband and I had three weeks where we owned both the house and the apartment. They’re about 30 minutes apart. We decided that every night we could, we’d take a SUV-load of stuff over to the house. This ended up being about four times per week. We moved a fair amount of stuff this way, including some small furniture. The most important thing for me was moving my china cabinet and my china. The set I have was purchased by my paternal great-grandmother and I have crystal from my maternal grandmother. If anyone breaks it, I might murder them. So I wanted to be responsible if it broke. Thankfully, it all made it safely and I had the cabinet set up before anything else major happened.

We rented a 20-foot moving truck for one day and did our best to get it all moved. We employed the help of four friends (limited because of COVID) and all four of our parents. It was a whirlwind, starting at 9am and taking us until 7pm to get all the things we needed moved to where we needed them. Getting a refrigerator into our basement was a task I never want to repeat again. Our friends are amazing and I’m so excited to say it all made it in.

Most of our belongings were packed in red plastic totes that my dad borrowed from his company. They’d used them to move a few months back and they were strong and stackable which made them ideal for moving. The issue was that a week after we moved in, the company needed them back! We frantically had to unpack all of them so we could take them to my dad. It really forced us to unpack faster than we probably would have otherwise, but it did help us feel moved in.

There’s still a lot to go. We want to re-arrange a lot of the shelves in the kitchen and move things around our storage room, but we’re in. Those can be tackled over the long, hard winter when I don’t want to go outside. For now, I have a house!

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Some of the links on this post may be affiliate links. Taking on a World of Words is a participant in affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products. If you purchase a product or service through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but Sam will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Join my email list

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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