5 on a Friday

November 22, 2024

Happy Friday! Today kicks off a week of vacation for me. My parents are in town for Thanksgiving, so I’m looking forward to some down-time and really good food.

Today I’m sharing how my friend convinced me to sign-up for StoryGraph, highlighting a local bookstore, launching Swiftie School, exploring words from 1989, and recapping another reading year.

PS: I am so excited to share a new series coming soon called “Sunday Spotlight” where bookish friends tell us all about their reading life. More to come!

When your friend moves….to StoryGraph

Last Thursday I woke up to texts from my friend saying that she was thinking about leaving Goodreads. I cackled at 6:15am because I love being the friend who receives these confessions.

She and I are both long time users of Goodreads, so I was very intrigued by her decision to move to StoryGraph. You can read all about StoryGraph and the creator here! I asked her to send me all the things she likes about it:

You can mark books as “owner” if they’re in your library.
You can track re-reads.
You can give half star ratings.
It creates monthly wrap ups.
You can create an “up next” to prioritize your TBR pile.

She also told me that it only took her five minutes to import her Goodreads list. Within 24 hours all her books were in StoryGraph!

Below are pictures she sent to me, it looks very user-friendly. Her 2024 Reading Challenge also imported correctly.

Below she’s prioritizing her books to read next:

I think this is my absolute favorite feature and makes me want to try out StoryGraph. (She was right to tell me I would love the data!) You can track audio, digital, or print reads and look at the genre chart!

You can see she’s read this book twice.

By the time I finished writing this section, I decided to sign up for StoryGraph too. Search for me @eastbaybookshelf in the app!

Rakestraw Books

My family has moved around quite a bit and each time I find myself in a new town, I always make it a priority to check out the local libraries and bookstores.

I’ve been going to Rakestraw Books in Danville for several months now and I absolutely love it. I know what it’s like to live far from an independent bookstore, so I definitely appreciate the sense of community it provides!

At Rakestraw, you can find the book club that’s right for you and they host some amazing authors – I’ve been to a few events! The booksellers are the best and I love reading their recommendation cards throughout the store.

Check out this article on why supporting indie bookstores is so important.

Swiftie School

I love diving deep into lyrics, specifically anything that Taylor Swift writes. I thought it was so cool when universities around the country announced they were offering classes about her writing. At the time, I told my husband I wanted to take one, but then he reminded me I would have to like…apply to college. Been there, done that, so I decided to teach myself!

We will kick things off with “Swiftie 101.” These are a few of my favorite classic literary references in her music:

The Great Gatsby – From “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” on reputation

“And there are no rules when you show up here
Bass beat rattling the chandelier
Feelin’ so Gatsby for that whole year”

Romeo and Juliet – From “Love Story” on Fearless

“Romeo, save me, I’ve been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you, but you never come
Is this in my head? I don’t know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring
And said, “Marry me, Juliet
You’ll never have to be alone
I love you and that’s all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It’s a love story, baby, just say, “Yes”

The Scarlet Letter – From “Love Story” on Fearless

‘Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter
And my daddy said, “Stay away from Juliet”
But you were everything to me
I was beggin’ you, “Please don’t go, ” and I said

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – From “Wonderland” on 1989

I reached for you
But you were gone
I knew I had to go back home
You search the world for something else
To make you feel like what we had
And in the end, in Wonderland, we both went mad

There are plenty more, stay tuned for Swiftie School!

Time Travel with Words

Bookstagram is the best place on the internet. I learn so much from readers, authors, and people who just love words. Last week, I ran across a post explaining how to use the Merriam-Webster Time Travel tool. Basically, it shows you what year certain words were first recorded in print.

Of course I started with 1989 (my birth year!). Honestly, I had to do some research to understand these words: bombogenesis, extremophile, and overclock. I’m very aware of “caffeinate,” but I’m surprised it wasn’t considered official until 1989. Lots of technology words are also included like “right-click” and “HTML.”

You can look up your birth year, too! (2020 is also like a time capsule!)

2018 Reading Recap

This week, I’m continuing to look back at my previous reading years. Check out 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019.

In 2018, I was newly post-partum and just back to work. As I look back at that year, I realize that I read a lot of non-fiction, notably from Gretchen Rubin, Laura Vanderkam, Brené Brown, and Anne Bogel.