Week-in-Review: Um...

 I missed last week....what with Russia invading Ukraine, inflation, Covid...plus regular life stuff...it just felt a bit too much to get this out last week... Um seems to be all I can say. 

G celebrated one last weekend of his birthday with his grandparents. We brought pizza and G picked out a strawberry torte cake. We played a couple of games. I helped my mom trim her nails and read to her for a bit. It was a fairly pleasant visit and G enjoys dragging out the birthday all month long!

One of my brothers on the left, Dad, G, DH's finger's, and of course the strawberry torte cake!

Currently Reading:

Immune: A Journey into the Immune System that Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer-- Our bodies are amazing! Dettmer's style is so easy breezy and his analogies and metaphors are pretty funny and his drawings are colorful and informative. I want him to write all the books like this.

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker-- I've been needing some optimism and hope and this book is doing just that. His optimism is infectious and it's much-needed. It's a very long book, though, so I know this one will take a while...

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff-- I've been working on this one since January. It's not very long but there are a lot of exercises over the course of the book and so I'm really trying to get all I can out of it. I should finish this month, though. Powerful book.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson-- I am loving the audiobook. I started reading it in paperback last year and got quite a ways but put it aside for a bit and I just got back to it with the audio and the narrator is so good. She even sings some songs!

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. du Bois-- This one will take me awhile too since they are essays and may I only get to one a week or so.

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Correy (The Expanse #5)

Serafina and the Seven Stars by Robert Beatty-- Reading with G aloud.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White-- Reading along with a fellow blogger. But wow, the racism is strong in this one😒

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton-- I put this one aside for a couple of weeks but once I'm done with Cibola Burn I'm hoping to get back to it and finish it up quickly. It's pretty short.

Books Read:

Donut the Destroyer by Sarah Graley / 2020 / 192 Pages / Paperback / Own / Graphic Novel / Sci-fi and Fantasy

Goodreads Summary:

Donut (middle name: The; last name: Destroyer) has a heart of gold and incredible strength. She lives in a world where everyone is born with a special ability and can choose whether to develop it for good or evil. Donut has just received the best news of her life -- she's been accepted to Lionheart School for Heroes! But her parents are the most infamous villains around, and her best friend, Ivy, can't understand why Donut would choose a life of boring heroism and ruin their plans to cause chaos. Donut is determined to prove that, despite her last name, she's meant to go her own way and be a hero. Meanwhile, Ivy cooks up a plan to get Donut kicked out of Lionheart -- and back on track to villainy!

My Thoughts:

G bought this at his school fair the other week and he really liked it. So I thought I'd give it a chance! Everyone's born with a superpower but you either use it for good or for evil. Donut's family has been on the evil side of things but Donut doesn't want that. She wants to use her powers for good so she enrolls at her local superhero high school. She must battle for new friends and for her fellow "good" students to take her seriously since her parents are so notoriously evil. And her "evil" best friend is out to sabotage her as well.

Loved the illustrations and the overall moral about being true to yourself and how love for friends and family come first.

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes / 2022 / 352 Pages / Hardcover / Library / Sci-fi and Horror

Goodreads Summary:

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

My Thoughts:

This was just what I needed to get through a bit of a reading slump. Not as scary as I was hoping but it will be horrific if they make a movie out of it! Please make a movie out of this horrificly awesome sci-fi thriller!! She couldn't quite get the dread of what was actually happening but the storyline and the imagery and yikes. It's all very terrifying. Read if you love it like I do!😁

Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4) by James S.A Corey / 2014 / 581 Pages / Paperback / Sci-fi

Goodreads Summary:

The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule.

But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.

My Thoughts:

The books are always a bit slow to start, expect for the first one, but once it gets going it's hopping! A couple of characters were only there to provide perspective on what was happening at a given point but overall, I enjoyed the story and the character and world-building.

The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy by Anthony Gottlieb / 2016 / 320 Pages / Hardcover / Philosophy

Goodreads Summary:

In a short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark on Western thought. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity - and what is government actually for? Their questions remain our questions, and it is tempting to think these philosophers speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy. Gottlieb creates a sweeping account of what they amounted to, and why we are still in their debt.

My Thoughts:

This is the second book in Gottlieb's series on a history of Western philosophy. His first The Dream of Reason was excellent. He's got quite a snarky style of writing and it made the whole thing more enjoyable.

He provide a nice summary of some Enlightenment philosophers like Hobbes, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Rosseau. A lot of ideas were quite new to me and I felt he parsed them nicely. I could never be a direct-text reader so I'm very grateful for these kinds of books to give me the gist so I don't actually need to read their writings! Maybe Hume and Spinoza would be OK...

I recommend his series if you want a quick history into Western philosophers and their ideas.

Movies Watched:

Tagline: She's not the only one listening.

Kimi (2022) (HBO Max) Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp. Starring Zoe Kravitz

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this one! Tight Covid-19 pandemic thriller set in Seattle. Zoe was spot on. 

Tagline: Our memories make us.

Belfast (2021) (rented). Directed and written by Kenneth Branagh. Starring James Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, Judi Dench, and Caitriona Balfe

My Thoughts: Another Oscar contender loosely based off of Branagh's childhood in Ireland at the start of the Troubles. I really enjoyed the little boy Buddy. It touches on sectarianism, family, loyalty, and love. A really feel-good movie.

Tagline: Uncover the past. Protect the future.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) (Own). Directed and written by Jason Reitman. Starring Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard and Paul Rudd.

My Thoughts: This was a fun one. We watched it together as a family and G really enjoyed it. They did a great job. Funny, kid-friendly, with plenty of nostalgia for the originals.

Tagline: Who will survive the dead of winter?

No Exit (2022) (Hulu). Directed by Damien Power. Written by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari and Taylor Adams. Starring Havana Rose Liu, Danny Ramirez, Dennis Haysbert (Allstate guy), and Dale Dickey.

My Thoughts: This was a fun little winter horror movie from Hulu. A few twists and turns along the way and a "how in the world are they going to get out of this?" 

Tagline: Every fairytale ends.

Spencer (2021) (Hulu) Directed by Pablo Larrain. Written by Steven Knight. Starring Kristen Stewart, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, and Sean Harris.

My Thoughts: This was good! Way better than I was expecting. The way this is filmed is sort of a metaphor for how Diana felt about the royal family and her place in it...not great. Kristen Stewart is phenomenal in this. 

Drive My Car (2021) (HBO Max). Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Written by Haruki Murakami (original story) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi (screenplay)

My Thoughts: This is Japanese film at its finest. Beautiful scenery and long philosophical dialog on the meaning of grief and trauma and how to keep moving. This better win all the things at the Oscars. 

I also loved that some of it's set in Hiroshima where I lived for a year. It was fun to revisit a few places.

TV:

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+) So much fun. Lots of nostalgia and old Star Trek references. Must-see if you are a Trekkie.

The Girl Before (HBO Max). I watched the first episode and haven't been back yet...I want to finish it but when? Take that for what it's worth...

Star Trek: Picard (Paramount+) Season two just started and I'm very excited.

Star Trek: Discovery (Paramount+) This is a train wreck of a show that I can't not look away from. It is the opposite of everything I love about Star Trek but I keep hoping it'll change...There is also a giant fluffy cat and Tig Notaro from time to time.

The Afterparty (Apple TV): This is such a funny show/mystery. Tiffany Haddish nails it.

Joining up with Deb from Readerbuzz and her Sunday Salon.