March was incredibly busy, mostly thanks to a week-long cruise to the Caribbean. So it was relaxing busy—that’s a thing right?
The best part though, was when we got on our plane to Florida it was snowing and then we were in the Caribbean for a week. FANTASTIC. In addition the annual video game exposition, PAX East, came to Boston and we went this past Sunday.
I finally feel like I’m settling into work again, so that’s a plus…hopefully this time I’ll be able to stay for a lot longer than my previous two jobs! Now on to the books.
Books and Bookish Things
This month started out hella fast. I wrapped up my nonfiction book for the month earlier with the first openly gay politician seeking the presidency’s memoir. Followed that up with a few illustrated works, including more yaoi, and then ended in an LGBT (emphasis on the G) love fest of rom-coms and trashy romance novels and a modern gay classic. Most of this reading was due to the cruise and having no internet access and leaving my knitting at home. I did blog on the cruise, or at least draft and then post when we got back.
- Shortest Way Home – Pete Buttigieg
- My Boyfriend is a Bear – Pamela Ribon and Cat Farris
- Don’t Be Cruel (#1 & #2) – Yonezou Nekota
- Don’t Be Cruel (#3 & #4) – Yonezou Nekota
- Spoiler Alert – Michael Ausiello
- Almost Like Being in Love – Steve Kluger
- Call Me By Your Name – André Aciman
- Worth Searching For (Heart of the South #2) – Wendy Qualls
- Worth Fighting For (Heart of the South #3) – Wendy Qualls
The only books I picked up this month were library books with the exception of a new-to-me, but released last year galley from MIT Press: The Cost-Benefit Revolution by Cass Sunstein (MIT Press website). I saw an advertisement on the T for it and it sounded interesting: “Why policies should be based on careful consideration of their costs and benefits rather than on intuition, popular opinion, interest groups, and anecdotes.”
The bookish things I found this month were this beautiful bookstore, once again on Colossal. If you’re not following them you should. The second one was an eye-opening look into the seedy underbelly of ghost writing, Amazon Kindle Unlimited, and those who play the money game. It’s long but well worth the read.
A cascading metal rainbow fills a bookstore in Suzhou, China with layers of transparent hues https://t.co/rOxVQr80Ea pic.twitter.com/QHeYh8PGNy
— Colossal (@Colossal) March 9, 2019
Plagiarism, ‘book-stuffing’, clickfarms … the rotten side of self-publishing https://t.co/xcKJmzBvls
— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) March 28, 2019
Culture Corner
It’s not super cultural, but I wanted to include some photos from our trip to the Caribbean. It was postcard beautiful. We spent time on Orient Beach in Sint Maarten and it legit felt like a postcard, a took a few photos and was like I can’t even post these they look like stock photos. In addition, we stopped by San Juan, Puerto Rico which was disappointing more-so because we got there late and our tour was super rushed and put me in a bad mood. I would go back though not on a tour. After that evening we stopped in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, for a day, and Sint Maarten for a day. I would ABSOLUTELY move to Sint Maarten—those beaches wow.
PAX East was just as overwhelming and fun as always. So many people, so many games and so much noise! We always seem to find a great new card game, this year’s is Unstable Unicorns, so I can’t really complain.
And last but not least I decided to knit something for me after knitting for everyone else for months. I’m going to try to make a sweater. If it works out I’ll live in it, if it doesn’t, I’ll still probably live in it 😀 Plus here are two bonus photos of Boston (the bench) and the Quechee Gorge in Vermont from March to show you I did have to come back after our gorgeous cruise:
What’s Next?
The priority is to finish reading the book I’ve been dragging along since I got back from vacation, Get It Done, which is hilarious because it’s a time management/project management/starter book. After that I’ve got some fun books and two more ARC/Galleys. If only I could go on a cruise every month, then I’d definitely get my reading done.
I am glad to hear you had a (mostly) wonderful time on your cruise! 🙂