Books

5 Mother’s Day Bookish Gifts

 in Books / Interesting by

Mother’s Day is right around the corner on 12 May and if you have a mom who loves to read, then getting them some book-ish gifts is sure to bring a smile to their face! Check out these 5 options to get you started with ideas!

Reading Light for Bed

I prefer this one more than the one that clips to the book because if you read fast, you constantly have to un-clip and re-clip. This goes around your neck and points at the book!

Fuzzy Blanket

You can never go wrong with a fuzzy blanket to be honest. Perfect to cuddle up and read with!

Mug Warmer

Most readers have a warm drink, and the amount of times I get engrossed in a book, forget about my drink and find it cold is obnoxious. This is perfect to have that drink warm and ready whenever you pull yourself out of the world you’re in!

Annotation Kit

If your mom is an annotation person, you can never have too many kinds of things to annotate on or with! There’s lots of great options out there so you can find a bundle with colors your mom likes!

Book Open Page Holder

I’ve personally never used one but I know the struggle of sometimes needing two hands to have a book open and it’s annoying. So this way you can use one hand to read a book which is such a game changer!

My Life In France by Julia Child [Book Review]

 in Books by

Summary

“Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself.

But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story—struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year long marriage that took the Childs across the globe—unfolds with the spirit so key to Julia’s success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of America’s most endearing personalities.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

I am a serious sucker for books about food. I adored Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (one of my favorite books) and Save Me The Plums by Ruth Riechl. There’s something so wonderful being able to look through the eyes of someone who lives in that world, see how crazy it is, experience all their travel and also learn a thing or three. My Life In France absolutely did not disappoint with wonderful scenes recounted from France, the hustle and bustle of Julia making her cookbook(s) and just her general life.

To say she had a very busy and, what I would call, fulfilling life is so amazing to see. She traveled, she integrated into the community, had a few cool jobs and she worked her rear end off! I know that a lot of work goes into making books but to see the level of work that went into making her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking, although understandable due to the sheer size, was almost stressful! The testing, the trial, the error, the time it takes to make a single recipe – her dedication is incredible!

I always liked her as a cook and have used so many of her recipes over the years but my respect for her massively went up from this. I had no idea the levels that she went to to make some of these cookbooks and it is a feat of raw cooking strength.

This is an autobiography, something which I don’t usually read, but it was for my book club and every cooking book I’ve read has been for that. But I have absolutely adored every single one that I read. While it is non-fiction, I feel like I am transported each time into someone else’s life. And it also continually shocks me just how much some people really achieve in their life.

This book primarily followed her origin story for cooking – how she found out about it, where she started and how she got to where she is. But then the second half was following her want to make the Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook and the time and energy it took. It then followed her into her cooking shows a bit and the level of work that it took to create those.

Honestly, this is one of those books that is such a joy to read! It was packed with information and travels and every time I picked it up I truly did feel transported – between her descriptions, use of the French language (don’t worry, you don’t need to speak French as she translates it all) and the inclusion of photographs!

I adore a book that has photographs included to further illustrate what someone is describing. Sometimes I wish more books for adults had illustrations or photographs. This one had quite a few dotted throughout the book and it was wonderful to really see her spaces, the places she was at and the people she was talking about.

Overall, this was an excellent read and I am so glad my book club chose it, because otherwise I’d probably not have naturally picked this one up. I absolutely recommend this and give it a solid 4/5 stars!

Happy Reading.

 

McGowan Mafia Series: Books 1-5 by Effie Campbell

 in Books / Romance / Series by

The McGowan Mafia series by Effie Campbell is such a spicy and amazing series. When I tell you I read 4 books in like 2-3 days, I am not joking! I would have read all 5 but I actually didn’t know the 5th book was released until I started writing the review for book 1-4.

The series is:

  1. Dark Escapes
  2. Dark Enemies
  3. Dark Obsessions
  4. Dark Desires
  5. Dark Corruption

Each book is a standalone technically, so you can just read one if it draws you in. But I read it one after the other, and it was kind of nice because you got to see a little bit of character development and how each character got to have their own story. I enjoyed that certainly and I pretty much inhaled the entire series. But if you just want to dive in because one stands out to you, you definitely can!

I felt book 1-3 were really like the dark romance, morally grey, attitude woman kind of story. They were 1000% my cup of tea and I loved the story. While the books were dark of course, overall they weren’t dark dark and if you got to some of the darker themes, you could kind of fast read by them. But, I wasn’t as much of a fan of book 4 – mostly because there was a wider age gap, the FMC used “daddy” which I’m not personally a huge fan of, and it was more about hedonism kind of themes which didn’t really interest me. It was a good book and kept me engaged, but wasn’t what I was expecting based on the first few books. But the last one, Dark Corruption, which had a similar vibe to book 4 I loved – that one worked for me!

These books are SPICY. I’m talking like 5 out of 5 on the spice scale. These are absolutely not books for under 18 by any means due to the language and the themes that are in the book. But good god did I keep wanting to come back for more! I will note that a lot of the words used for certain actions were quite vulgar as well. I know not everyone likes certain words being used so if that’s not your cup of tea, a bit of a warning there.

If you are looking for a deep story with your romance then this isn’t it. This really is primarily focused on the smut and spice side with a hint of a mafia story – the traditional mafia vibe that you would expect.

Going into it, honestly, I had no clue that they were based up in Scotland which I felt was a bit of a struggle. I felt they were in New York the whole time and then when they’d mention going between Glasgow and Edinburgh, that was really the only reminder that this wasn’t based in the USA. Maybe a bit more of the local dialect could have added a bit more to really make you feel immersed. But if you are reading this kind of series, you aren’t going to be really focusing on that. That’s just me being nit picky to be honest.

Once again, this isn’t a book that with a review you can say too much about. Each MMC was hawttttt, each female had that spunk and the spice was perfectly spicy. This is most likely going to be a book series that I will want to add into my comfort rotation, along with The Predator by Runyx.

All I can really say is it was a page turner and really hit the spot nicely for me. Exactly what I wanted. I initially fell into the book from some reel I saw on Instagram related to Book 3 and I am glad that I did because gosh, was it good! I’d give this a solid 4/5 as it was enjoyable, decently written for what it was and kept me wanting to come back for more. I was engaged and it was an absolute page turner!

Happy Reading!

 

AI and Books: The Dangerous Future

 in Books / Opinion by
This post contains some information as well as my opinion on the matter.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something that isn’t going to be going away. The pandora’s box is open and no one is closing it. AI will be with us forever and we unfortunately have to accept that – as much as we may not want to.

While AI does bring a lot of wonderful things to certain sectors, in the literature field it is beginning to raise a lot of concerns and create a lot of issues.

Before we dive in a little bit, as a reminder of what AI actually is.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities.

–IBM

From Canva.com

I want to specifically call out that human intelligence part.

Artificial intelligence, through things like language learning models (LLMs) have the ability to create conversations and simulate what a human would say or write. Based off of a massive data set, and the data that people put into it and feedback you can give on responses, AI’s are constantly learning and developing to get better and better.

I’ve personally seen AI’s online that you can roleplay with that respond in an incredibly realistic way. It’s almost like two people are live roleplaying – except one of them is actually a computer.

Now you may be asking – okay what are you getting at?

The future of stories and literature writing.

When I read a book, and when most people read a book, they want to read what was written by the author. Not what was written by an AI or by an author that prompted an AI and spliced it together.

I am not here to read a book published by a computer.

There are programs out there, for now, that can pick up on when an AI was used to create something. But publishers have to actively vet for that. And in a world where self-publishing is becoming easier and easier, there’s not always a way to know who wrote the book. Some indicators could be a more robotic writing style or it just not flowing organically. However, with AI’s getting better and better, it may become increasingly challenging.

But to be honest, in my opinion, with the amount of self-published crap out there (yeah, I said it), is it AI or is it just a bad writer who didn’t have the rigor of a good editing process? Sometimes it really is hard to know.

AI allows anyone with no talent whatsoever to go to an AI, paste in an idea, and turn it into a story. If you have a little more creative talent, utilizing a roleplay AI allows the story to progress even faster as the AI pushes and generates part of the story idea.

From Canva.com

Now I have no clue the answer to fix this because the future is AI and the future is machine learning.

Although, I would highly recommend that those who want to go into the writing field, don’t take the easy way out. Writing is such a beautifully creative skill where you, with your brain and your hands or fingers craft people and worlds! Technology shouldn’t replace humans in this creative journey.

So while you may want to write a book fast and try to earn money by making the next best book, take a moment to stop and ask yourself if you use an AI to write it will you be proud of your work if you didn’t really write it? Would you want someone else to do that and to read a book like that?

As a reader, I read to read something created by someone, not something. I read for the human creation and I know so many others do out there.

If you want to write with AI, which honestly can have some cool aspects, being clear that this is an AI assisted created or something along those lines is better than publishing an AI creation under your own name.

Because really, it’s not your work then.

What Does ‘Age Appropriate Books’ Mean?

 in Books / Interesting / Opinion by

Reading books, and letting your kids read books, is a very personal choice. Children develop at different speeds and have different experiences which influence them.

A lot of books for younger readers are classified for certain ages and then up to certain books being ‘adult’ books.

But what does it mean to read an age appropriate book?

First off, you have the writing style and word choices. There is certain vocabulary that certain ages just do not know. That’s part of schooling and development. I don’t think you’re going to see many 7 years olds reading Jane Austen – but you may!

Next, you have the topics and themes that are in the books. I’ve touched on this with other posts in the past, but certain themes shouldn’t be in certain books. Children’s books shouldn’t be over violent, over graphic with their topics or over sexualized. The kind of violence you see in kids books may be bullying versus an adult book which could be murder! Romance in kids books is holding hands, maybe kissing for younger adults and then adult books having the horizontal tango.

But you, or others, may say “well, I don’t mind my child reading adult books with adult themes.”

I want to be clear, you are welcome to that opinion as as a parent you have every right to parent your child. However, one thing to consider is what is considered safely understanding something as well.

Children are developing. They are learning right from wrong. They are learning what being a ‘good’ person is.

I heard from a fellow Bookstagrammer that younger boys were reading Haunting Adeline, you know the book about stalking and some very dark things, and there was a concern that it would color them. Color them as in make them think that these things were okay because the book was so popular.

You sometimes see adults on the Biker side of Instagram reading some of our darker books and being like “You guys like this?” Liking something in a book and wanting that actually in real life is different. Knowing what is okay and what is not is the important line.

Younger readers may not have those skills yet. To be honest, there’s plenty of adults who don’t either. But when you are young, you are impressionable and so being a bit more careful is useful.

Books for younger people address topics in different ways and use different language. It’s not always because they can’t know about things, but because it’s presented in a way that they can understand.

So absolutely, if your child reads above their level that is fine! But certainly have them read books with themes that are appropriate for their ages. Or at least consider the impact of what they are reading. Some children’s life experience have them exposed to certain things before others. That’s okay! But doing it in a healthy way, with healthy conversations, is important.

Make sure that if your children do read those kind of books, especially if they have access to Amazon Kindle Unlimited (where a lot of these books can be easily access), that they know that they can come to you with questions to understand what they are reading.

Kids are naturally curious. I know that I was and we have to do our best to protect them. Books are one unrestricted way that they can access information – I know I used to sneak adult books in the library because no one would know! So creating a safe space and letting them know that they can ask questions about anything they read creates a healthy reading environment in a world full of potentially ‘unhealthy’ books.

What do you think about all of this?