It’s not really a secret that I wanted to be a cheerleader. But one major factor was not attending public school. My school didn’t even have a dance team. So, I’ll pass and probably be that mother who tries to live vicariously through her daughter! The title, Cheer! Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders, was…
Tag: books
Terry Fallis’ unorthodox journey to getting published
A few months ago, I was searching for direction and for about 48 hours, I thought I would complete an Editing Certificate from Simon Fraser University and registered to attend a session to obtain more information about the certificate. I saw amongst the other sessions one featuring Terry Fallis, author of Canada Reads 2011 winner…
Currently reading Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story
I first heard about Gary Shteyngart’s 2010 novel Super Sad True Love Story (SSTLS) through Spark, the CBC technology podcast (abbreviated interview in Episode 120, full 20-minute interview) and hopped onto the library website to place a hold on it. My interest waned and I didn’t pick it up until I recently saw it again at…
Currently reading a graphic novel! Marvel adaptation of Sense & Sensibility
Although Sense & Sensibility as a Marvel comic came out on November 17, 2010, I do not darken the doorways of comic book stores and only learned about it in April 2011 from an LJC blog entry. I tremulously entered a comic book store one day and saw there were Female Force comics of Hillary…
Currently Reading Angela Tung’s Black Fish: Memoir of a Bad Luck Girl
I started reading Angela Tung’s blog many years ago, drawn in by stories of her single life in New York City with a good communications job at a big pharma company. Searching back through GMail, I learned she commented on my blog for the first time in October 2006–I hadn’t realized it has been that…
Currently Reading: Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley Confidential
Are you a Jessica or Elizabeth? Although I just tested Elizabeth*, I’m quite sure I’m Jade Wu who, Wikipedia informs me, turns trampy and nasty a year after we meet her as a sophomore in Out of Reach, but I digress. I was just the right age to read Sweet Valley High, that I shall…
Currently Reading: Cathy Erway’s The Art of Eating In
I have been reading Cathy Erway’s memoir, The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love The Stove, in the strangest places. I read about two-thirds of the memoir over several elliptical sessions at the gym and some of the rest while, fittingly, eating out. And since it was the kind…
Currently Reading: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Series
I like tracing the route by which I find myself reading a certain novel. In the case of embarking this year on reading all nine Little House books, a couple of years ago: NPY and I were visiting a friend and–true to my form–I read the titles off the spines of the volumes on her…
But would I actually buy (Racy) J.C. Davies’ I Got the Fever?
A Smart Canucks post, “Do we take multiculturalism for granted here in Canada?” (warning: a NSFW image is first thing in that post) alerted me to this seemingly surreal book, a recently published exposé by former Wall Street money manager J.C. Davies, I Got the Fever. Her credentials to write this book include, according to…
Currently Reading: Bethanny Frankel’s Naturally Thin
My one-time personal trainer–two sessions came with my gym membership–told me that losing weight is 80% diet changes. That 20% from lifestyle change sounds so minimal it was quite a disincentive for me to go hardcore and hit the gym often. (Yes, I know, physical activity confers bountiful benefits beyond shedding pounds.) I know that…