Transitive Verve

  The downside of keeping a book journal instead of writing reviews on a book blog is that sharing those thoughts online isn't quite the same. The upside, though, is that writing a journal entry by hand, instead of typing a review , shifts the gears in my head a little bit about how I want to frame my thoughts. I initially struggled REALLY hard about how I was going to review this book, and then I ended up deleting my draft altogether. And then I thought about deleting this entire blog altogether, because I wasn't sure if I still wanted to review books so much as just ruminate on them, which is why I started a book journal for myself. I don't know if I still want to offer my opinions on books for other people anymore; I want to explore my opinions on books for myself. For now, though, I will just share what I wrote about this book, by posting the pictures of the pages from my book journal. I don't know if I will keep blogging, keep journaling, keep posting my journal o...

The Anthropocene Reviewed began its life as a podcast . Perhaps I should just share the podcast's description, because I really can't explain it better in my own words: The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. On The Anthropocene Reviewed, #1 New York Times bestselling author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down) reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale. I'm not sure where along the way I started listening to the podcast, but while I liked it a lot, I also found myself putting off listening to the episodes because usually, when I listen to podcasts, it's because I'm doing something else and I just want some audio to fill the space while I'm doing what I'm doing. I knew after a couple of episodes that TAR  is NOT a space-filler type of podcast; it deserves attention, and consideration, and reflection. Thus, I have no...

Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) Summary:  SO many of us want to be more organized and more productive. We all have goals we want to accomplish, but we also need to take care of ourselves mentally and emotionally. We want to do more, but we want to stress less. Bullet journalling has become wildly popular in the last few years, because it offers both of those things: it's a system for planning and organization, but it's also a way to journal and reflect. Bullet journals can range from extremely simple and minimalist, to ornately decorated and complex, and the beauty of the system is that it's completely customizable for your life. You can pretty much learn everything you need to about bullet journalling from the internet these days, so Ryder Carroll, creator of the system , offers a little something extra in this book, along with instructions on the basics, so that no matter where you are in your bullet journal journey, there's something you can get out of...

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Summary:  This is a large, photo-filled, coffee-table book about the musical Hamilton , which (in case you have no exposure to pop culture whatsoever [in which case, how'd you find my obscure little blog???]) is a hip hop musical about Alexander Hamilton. Thoughts:  While I do actually own a physical copy of this book (which is awesome, by the way), I chose to listen to this as an audiobook. The book itself consists mainly of the full libretto of the musical (with annotations from LMM himself about the various lyrics and musical lines, etc.), with short "behind the scenes" chapters interspersed throughout, lining up chronologically with the songs at times, and discussing the history of the musical itself from all different angles: the writing, the development, the choreography, everything. The audiobook gives you all the chapters first, with an introduction from co-writer Jeremy McCarter (as in, he wrote the chapter p...