LEXLINGUA

Ten Talisman Quotes

This week’s Top 10 Tuesday prompt is to recall profound/ witty/ [insert your chosen adjective] things that book characters have said. It made me think of quotes that have seemed miraculous to me, full of insight and capable of bringing great healing. I call them “talisman” quotes.

1 / Your Sacred Friend

“When someone who I have given a great deal to
And who has been a source of great hope
Betrays and insults me,
May I regard him as a great sacred friend.”

~ Shantideva (as quoted in The Anger Diet by Brenda Shoshanna)

2 / Perfect as you are

“These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, We Are the Builders of Our Fortunes: Success through Self-Reliance

Tags favorites, listmania, quotes, top10tuesday

Index Recommendations

Monthly Recap (Feb-25)

A clock to perhaps remind me that it’s time to get back to the blogging time capsule, cough up at least one post a month. So here I am, with a monthly recap :: some reviews of the hits and misses for February 2025.

Only the Winds

First, music share — I am totally obsessed with this song. If anyone has any listen-alikes, please do share!

Twilight of the Gods

Animation retelling of Norse mythology, and how the Norse gods came to an end. Only Season 1 is out so far, so fair warning for cliffhanger. (Warning also that this is NOT family friendly.)

This show is absolutely brilliant in plot and execution, the dialogue is tight and spell-binding. Thor is this hammer-wielding, jealous, spoilt, cruel, self-destructive, hateful THING. But his grand time is coming to an end (hopefully) when Sigrid decides to take revenge for the murder of her clan at Thor’s hands. On her wedding, no less.

Can a mortal defeat Thor, especially when all the other gods are rallying behind Thor? The real lynchpin of the show is Loki, Thor’s underestimated, reviled brother, in whose hands rests the fate of the Norse gods. Watch for episode 5, where a bitter Loki describes himself as the ultimate scapegoat for everybody else. This show is so good!

Tags 10-rated, favorites, monthly wrap-up

Memes To Be Read Books

Bookish Goals for Year ‘25

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date January 14, 2025
28 Comments on Bookish Goals for Year ‘25

Ten Bookish Goals? Hmm, that’s a lot. I cannot think of a list of 10 bookish goals for Year ’25, for this week’s Top 10 Tuesday prompt. At most, here are 6 goals and I’d be very surprised if I can manage 2 or more of these:

1) Read at least 12 books, one for each month.

The challenge, of course, remains in shortlisting 12 out of the TBR Pile…

2) Read more diversely across genres.

That means, not just sticking to SFF or historicals – but to also try out more horror (incl. the new “cozy horror” niche), more philosophy, more humor, perhaps a thriller here and there.

3) Complete the backlist books from at least 1 favorite author.

The aim is to see how the author has grown over the years, and of course, enjoy the books and the process along the way. Perhaps: Lois McMaster Bujold or Patricia A. McKillip. Any other suggestions (in any genre) are welcome 🙂

4) Continue to read the classics, slow though it may be.

I signed up for the Classics Club challenge last year and sometimes, when you are overwhelmed by the busy pace of things, an old classic seems the right solution.

5) Be more active on the blog.

There was a reason I set it up in 2020 (to create! to stay connected!), and I do need to water the bookish garden now and then.

6) … Speaking of which, perhaps just move to a free plan of WordPress for the blog?

In which case, I need to figure out how to move content from Bluehost to the new unpaid version. If anyone has solutions for this, please share!

How about you? Did you manage to work up a plan for reading and blogging this year? What are your top bookish goals for Year ‘25? Do any of our goals align?

Tags reading-challenges, top10tuesday

Best of List Books Index Memes Starred Recommendations

Ten Changes in Reading Habits

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date October 22, 2024
10 Comments on Ten Changes in Reading Habits

This week’s Top 10 Tuesday has an interesting theme – how our reading habits have changed over time. This actually proved to be a fun walk down memory lane. Let me count the ways, then!

Tags book-tropes, listmania, reading-challenges, top10tuesday

Books Recommendations

Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date October 8, 2024
4 Comments on Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot

I count George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss as one of my all-time favorites, so I was eager to start Scenes of Clerical Life as my Spin #38 pick for Classics Club Challenge. I was also fortunate to find the Librivox Recording by Bruce Pirie (available in Podcast formats too) and it was so good — highly recommended!

Scenes of a Clerical Life by George Eliot

Scenes of Clerical Life has 3 stories, each one progressively longer and more impactful.

Tags #ccspin, #ccwhatimreading, #Classics Club, classics, historical, reading-challenges

Books Memes

Ten Lesser Known Books

This week’s Top 10 Tuesday is about listing books that you have picked up – or avoided – because of the hype around them. I fall in neither group — I’m a little wary of Hyped Books, so while I add them to my TBR, but save them for a later day. Instead, it’s the lesser known books which catch my eye… hoping to find some hidden gem perhaps?

So — here’s a list of some obscure books that I really think deserve a lot more love! Er, you may have seen these recommended around these parts before…

Tags listmania, throwback-thursday, top10tuesday

Memes To Be Read Books

Classics Club Challenge: CC Spin #38

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date July 21, 2024
2 Comments on Classics Club Challenge: CC Spin #38

Several months ago, I had decided to participate in the Classics Club Challenge and signed up with a bucket list of 100 classic literature books that I wanted to read. Occasionally, a random number is also generated by by the hosts at The Classics Club, and you can play along by reading that entry number from your chosen list. Rules are here.

This is my first CC Spin, and the Lucky Spin Number this time around is …

…. Number 17

On my list, entry #17 is Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot (1857). If I remember correctly, I chose this book because Eliot seems to have had a difficult relationship with her father and she has reflected some of that tension in this book. Plus, Eliot is one of my favorite all-time authors.

Not a very promising book cover, that. But let’s see…

Are you participating in CC Spin #38, or generally in the Classics Club Challenge this year?

Tags #ccspin, #Classics Club, classics, historical, reading-challenges

Best of List Books Watchlist

Mid-Year Check In: Best of 2024 So Far

Post author By Lexlingua
Post date June 30, 2024
3 Comments on Mid-Year Check In: Best of 2024 So Far

I am ready to write bad angsty poetry on my never-ending reading/ blogging slump! Still, somehow, pushing myself to do this mid-year 2024 blogpost on stuff I have liked till now.

Let’s all pledge to move out of Slump Valley! And just in case these recs reach you, hope you’ll like some of these.

1 / The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Tags 10-rated, B&Wmovies, fantasy-fiction, favorites, kdramas, listmania, mysteries, new adult, non-fiction, old films, science-fiction

Memes To Be Read Books

Spring ’24 TBR

This week’s Top 10 Tuesday has us looking at our Spring ’24 TBR. I don’t know about you, but I’d be lucky to finish these off for the whole year! Still – subject to change and all that – here’s my set:

Folks, how have you been? Anybody else feeling the reading blues lately? Or, er, since last year? What are your solutions — and of course, your own Spring ’24 TBR lists?

Tags reading-challenges, top10tuesday