The 52 Book Club Reading Challenge

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I mentioned in a previous post that I was doing the 2022 PopSugar reading challenge, one that I typically do every year. While I was impatiently waiting for the prompt list to be released, I came across another similar challenge entitled “The 52 Book Club Reading Challenge.” This one has 52 prompts and like PopSugar, runs from January 1 to December 31st; that is to say, you read 52 books in 52 weeks. I found a few books that meet both the PopSugar and the 52 Book Club challenges but I’m mostly going to try to read unique books for each challenge. I tend to read about 140 books a year so I should be able to pull it off (though I do read a lot of ARCs and New Releases).

There is also a Goodreads Group for the challenge so you can find ideas for books to fit the prompts as well as discuss books and share your progress with others. There is also a Facebook Group as well, if that’s your bag.

I’ll post the prompts below and if you like what you see, then feel free to join in on the fun!

Reading Challenge Prompts:

  1. A Second-Person Narrative
  2. Featuring A Library Or Bookstore
  3. Title Starting With The Letter “E”
  4. Title Starting With The Letter “F”
  5. Chapters Have Titles
  6. Household Object On The Cover
  7. A Non-Fiction Best Seller
  8. Involving The Art World
  9. A Book That Sparks Joy
  10. A Book Based On A Real Person
  11. A Book With Less Than 2022 Goodreads Ratings
  12. Set On At Least Two Continents
  13. Includes A Club
  14. A Character With Superhuman Ability
  15. A Five-Syllable Title
  16. A Book You’ve Seen Someone Reading In A Public Place
  17. A Book Picked Based On Its Spine
  18. Jane Austen-Inspired
  19. A Book That Has An Alternate Title
  20. Related To The Word “Gold”
  21. Published By Simon & Schuster
  22. An Unlikely Detective
  23. Author With An X, Y, Or Z In Their Name
  24. Addresses A Specific Topic
  25. A Wealthy Character
  26. Has An “Author’s Note”
  27. Includes A Map
  28. Award-Winning Book From Your Country
  29. Over 500 Pages Long
  30. Audiobook Is Narrated By The Author
  31. Technology Themed
  32. A Book That Intimidates You
  33. A Bilingual Character
  34. Author’s Photo On The Back Cover
  35. From The Villain’s Perspective
  36. Recommended By A Favorite Author
  37. Set In A Rural Area
  38. Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover!
  39. A Middle-Grade Novel
  40. A Book With Photographs Inside
  41. Involves A Second Chance
  42. An Indie Read
  43. Author Who’s Published In More Than One Genre
  44. An Anthology
  45. A Book With Illustrated People On Cover
  46. Job Title In The Title
  47. Read During The Month Of November
  48. Redo One Of This Year’s Prompts But With A Different Genre
  49. Book Title Starts With The Same Letter As Your First Name
  50. A Person Of Color As The Main Character
  51. The Word “Game” In The Title
  52. Published In 2022

In case you missed it, here’s a link to my post on the PopSugar Challenge.

The 52 Book Club Reading Challenge Read Post »

Back to Dropbox

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Woman looking through files

I mentioned in a previous post that I was reevaluating all of my monthly subscriptions, including my cloud services. I’ve been meaning to combine my cloud accounts for some time now, as it was becoming challenging finding my files as I often could not remember on which cloud drive they were located. It was getting to the point where I was spending way too much time trying to find my stuff. It was time to make some changes.

The Dilemma

Once I sat down and took a look at my infrastructure, I realized how out of control it had gotten. For example, I had files scattered over the following services:

  • iCloud Drive – This is Apple’s cloud service which I used for those apps which sync with iCloud such as Ulysses. I also use this for files I create using Apple’s work apps (Numbers, Pages, and Keynote. Cost: $1.99/month
  • OneDrive – I receive 1 TB of free space on OneDrive because I’m a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber. On here, I only store files that I access with the iOS versions of Microsoft Office. This has proven the most unreliable (and most annoying) of all services. Cost: Free with Office 365
  • Google Drive – I have a family account on which I share space with my spouse. This is used to sync our Google Photos. I also stored files that I didn’t need to access all that often. Cost: $99/year
  • Sync.com – I used this as my main cloud service, on which I stored the majority of my files. I loved how secure they are and the fact that they’re located in Canada. Unfortunately, some of my favorite iOS apps were unable to sync with them. Cost: $129/year (for 3TB).
  • Dropbox: I had the free account, which I only used to sync those apps which didn’t work with other services. For instance, Scrivener only syncs with Dropbox — well, to be truthful, it does sync with others, but the author of Scrivener strongly advises against it). Likewise, the iOS version of Scrivener only syncs with Dropbox (and does it quite clunkily, I might add). I left Dropbox several years back because I wasn’t too happy about certain privacy-averse members of their board of directors. I wasn’t sure if I trusted their privacy policies.

The Result

With all that being said, you might be surprised that I decided to go with Dropbox at the end of the day. I was kind of surprised too. One of the main reasons for this was that I use the iOS Scrivener app almost daily (it’s my main long-form writing app that I use to write my novels), and the only service that Scrivener safely syncs with is Dropbox. Additionally, I have some other iOS apps that will only sync properly with Dropbox, so there’s that as well. Thus, Dropbox seems to be the service that most apps use as their preferential syncing service.

As for my other services, I downsized my Google Drive subscription to 200 gigs for $29 per year, which is more than enough space for my and my spouse’s photos. Any other non-photo files were moved to Dropbox. Then, I completely got rid of Sync.com and moved all those cloud files to Dropbox. Even though I was paying for 3 TB of space on Sync.com, I was using way less than 1 TB, which worked perfectly with a Dropbox subscription. I kept the iCloud Drive service active, given that I use it to sync all of my Apple photos, and it’s relatively inexpensive. Given that OneDrive is free with my Microsoft 365 account, I didn’t make any changes there — I don’t really use that account for much anyway.

But…what about security?

I mentioned that I wasn’t too keen on Dropbox’s privacy record, which is still true. I’m not sure that I completely trust them with my data. However, most people I’ve talked to seem happy with them and trust them. But I took the extra step in encrypting most of the files I’ve stored on Dropbox — the sensitive ones anyway. While I have a wickedly long and difficult password as well as two-factor authentication enabled, I feel confident that with the extra step of encrypting my files, my data is as safe as it can be. That’s not to say that I won’t reevaluate down the road, but I’m content with my decisions for now.

Back to Dropbox Read Post »

Weekly Roundup – December 4, 2021

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Weekly Roundup

Welcome to my Weekly Roundup where on Saturday, I post links to things I shared on social media throughout the week that I thought were interesting. I’ll also include book news, cover reveals, and more goodies.

Speaking of book news, I released a new book last week! It’s an M/M Christmas Romance novel entitled Christmas Cookies That Sparkle. It’s free if you have Kindle Unlimited. If not, it’s $2.99 on Amazon. Here’s a link to a post that I wrote about it.

By the way, I also send out this weekly round-up list each week to my newsletter. So if you wish to receive my weekly roundup in your email inbox each week, you can subscribe HERE.

So on to the roundup.

15 Things I Thought Were Worth Sharing

  1. Fascinating article on Indigenous Authors: How Indigenous Authors Use Horror Rooted in Tribal Traditions
  2. Someone Unearthed A 1997 Wired Article Predicting ’10 Things That Could Go Wrong In The 21st Century’ And Nearly All Of Them Came True
  3. I love these stories about entitled people: This Online Group Shames People Who Deserve A Special Place In Hell For Being Annoyingly Entitled
  4. After you’re gone, your files, photos, emails, and more stay behind. You can choose who can access them: How to Decide What Happens to Your Data When You Die
  5. New Google search features make it easier to find the right doctor: Making healthcare options more accessible on Search
  6. The year is winding down quickly: Here are 10 Fantasies to Let Go of Before the New Year
  7. Life balance for writers: Seven writers talk about balancing their creative lives with their day jobs, from bartending to construction
  8. Some interesting food for thought: 30 Americans Who Left The US Share How Their Lives Have Changed After Moving To Europe
  9. The Ironic Twist of Age: What It’s Like to Keep Writing at 91
  10. Just for fun: Some Photos Of Funny And Strange Things Spotted On The Subway
  11. A new crime fiction anthology looks at police oppression: S.A. Cosby on the Conversation Around Policing in America – And Why It Needs to Change
  12. It’s the holiday season meaning many of us will be taking a lot of photos. Here are Five tips for photographing during the holidays
  13. Looking to diversify your reading life? Here are 50 Notable African Books of 2021
  14. Eye-Candy: The Winning Photos from the Hasselblad Masters 2021 Competition
  15. “First you must believe you’re a writer: “How to Say “I’m a Writer” and Mean It

Oh, and in case you missed it: This looks amazing! “A Surreal New Bookstore Has Just Opened in China”

Christmas Cookies Cover jpg

Weekly Roundup – December 4, 2021 Read Post »

No More Phone Calls

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Stressed Man hanging up phone

Recently, a friend wanted to use my phone to call their spouse (they’d forgotten their phone at home). So I handed them my phone, and a moment later, they asked, “Where’s your phone app?”

“Oh,” I replied. “It’s on the last screen.”

“Huh. I take it you don’t use your phone very often?”

“Never.”

It’s been quite a while since my phone app was on my Home screen. These days, I only answer calls from people in my “Whitelist” because any other call is bound to be a 1) spammer, 2) scammer, or 3) a Robocall. For a while there, I was getting upwards of 20 of these types of intrusive calls per day — calls that would cause me to put down whatever I was doing to answer them. Calls that would completely derail my train of thought. Calls that I found more and more irritating.

They finally got so bad that I permanently put my phone on Do Not Disturb mode. That means that any caller who is not in my approved caller list goes directly to voicemail. Doing this certainly has helped my peace of mind as well as my productivity.

While talking to others about this issue, I learned that I’m not the only one to have taken this step. Apparently, many other people are no longer answering their phones because of telemarketers and robocalls. In fact, most of my friends and family use text messages or email to contact me those days — though I do still receive the occasional phone call from a non-techy family member. I can’t help but wonder if the concept of calling someone on the phone will eventually disappear, especially given that fewer and fewer people are using their phones as a….phone.

When I was growing up, everyone had a landline because no other options were available. Now there’s a myriad of ways to contact people, such as text messaging, social media, and email. It is a shame that the telemarketers, spammers, and scammers have ruined the phone for many people, but truth be told, I’m not overly heartbroken about it. I’ve never been a phone person myself and generally dislike talking on the phone. So when text messaging came along, it was a no-brainer of a transition for me.

I wonder, however, if the annoying and unwanted calls ever came to a stop because of technology or legislation, would people flock back to using their phones? I’m guessing not, but then again, there are plenty of people who enjoy talking on the phone. I’m definitely not one of them.

How about you? Do you think phone calling is dead?

No More Phone Calls Read Post »

The PopSugar 2022 Reading Challenge

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Man reading a book

Yesterday, the PopSugar people dropped the list for their annual reading challenge, which I try to do every year. What is is, is 40 prompts (with 10 optional “Advanced” prompts”) for which you choose appropriate books. The goal is to help you broaden your reading horizons and perhaps read books you normally wouldn’t. It’s a fantastic way to diversify your reading. An example of this year’s prompts include “Read a book that takes place in the 1980s” and “Read a Hugo Award Winner.” You may consider me strange, but I get super excited every year when the challenge is announced. I then run to my bookshelves and begin choosing the books that I plan on reading for it.

Many people choose their books as they go but I always like to do mine ahead of time. I derive enjoyment from planning out my reading for the coming year so I know in which direction I’m heading. Now this isn’t necessarily restricting my reading as I read a lot of Advance Reader Copies that come my way during the year as well. I also can’t resist reading new LGBTQ books that come to my attention.

You can get involved as much or as little as you like. If you’d like to reach out to others who are also doing the challenge, there is a Goodreads group where people post their reading lists, track their progress and chat about the books they’re reading. If you’re stuck on ideas for a particular prompt, there are also lists of ideas for each prompt, which I often find incredibly helpful. There’s also a quite popular PopSugar Book Club on Facebook which is a fantastic place to hang out. You’ll find me in both places, chatting about the prompts and posting my progress. If you’re more of a Twitter user, you can follow the progress of others by using the hashtag #popsugarreadingchallenge.

This year, I made the challenge especially challenging for myself by limiting it to books that I already own. I really want to work through my physical TBR in the coming year so this is the perfect excuse to do so. I was able to find books for almost all of the prompts so that made me quite happy. Additionally, I’m doing a second reading challenge, which I’ll mention in another post.

I’ll post all of the prompts below for those of you might be interested in doing it this year. Check out the Goodreads group for a lot more information on the challenge. Good luck!

PopSugar Book Challenge Prompts

  1. Book published in 2022
  2. A book set on a plane, train or cruise ship
  3. A book about or set in a non-patriarchal society
  4. A book with a tiger on the cover or “tiger” in the title
  5. A sapphic book
  6. A book by a Latinx author
  7. A book with an onomatopoeia in its title
  8. A book with a protagonist who uses a mobility aid
  9. A book about “found family”
  10. An Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winnder
  11. A #BookTok recommendation
  12. A book about the afterlife
  13. A book set in the 1980s
  14. A book with cutlery on the cover or in the title
  15. A book by a pacific Islander author
  16. A book about witches
  17. A book becoming a TV series or movie in 2022
  18. A romance novel by a BIPOC author
  19. A book that takes place during your favorite season
  20. A book whose title begins with the last letter of our previous read
  21. A book about a band or musical group
  22. A book with a character on the ACE spectrum
  23. A book with a recipe in it
  24. A book you can read in one sitting
  25. A book about a secret
  26. A book with a misleading title
  27. A Hugo Award winner
  28. A book set during a holiday
  29. A different book by an author you read in 2021
  30. A book with the name of a board game in the title
  31. A book featuring a man-made disaster
  32. A book with a quote from your favorite author on the cover or Amazon page
  33. A social-horror book
  34. A book set in Victorian times
  35. A book with a constellation on the cover or in the title
  36. A book you know nothing about
  37. A book about gender identity
  38. A book featuring a party
  39. An #OwnVoices SFF book
  40. A book that fulfills your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR challenge

Advanced

  1. A book with a reflected image on the cover or “mirror” in the title
  2. A book that features two languages
  3. A book with a palindromic title
  4. A duology (1)
  5. A duology (2)
  6. A book about someone leading a double life
  7. A book featuring a parallel reality
  8. A book with two POVs
  9. Two books set in twin towns, aka “sister cities” (1)
  10. Two books set in twin towns, aka “sister cities” (1)

The PopSugar 2022 Reading Challenge Read Post »

Shaving with the Dollar Shave Club

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handsome man shaving

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with razors. Well, mostly hate, actually. I’ve never been able to find a razor that worked properly with my skin. I tried every manner of disposable razors imaginable. I tried safety razors. I tried straight-edged razors with replaceable razor blades. But always, the result was the same: a face full of razor cuts, looking like I was on the losing end of a fight with an alley cat.

I used to shave at least an hour before leaving the house to ensure that the bleeding would be stopped in time (sometimes, it wasn’t). Unfortunately, shaving nearly always ended up being a highly frustrating endeavor.

Then, a few years ago, I came across a subscription box called “Dollar Shave Club.” How this works is that they send you a free razor, followed by a monthly shipment of razor blades. People who left reviews claimed that this was the first razor that didn’t cut their face to ribbons. The more I read about them, the more intrigued I became, so I finally caved and joined them.

The first time I shaved, I was amazed. No cuts! The second time I was even more shocked. I couldn’t believe that I’d finally found a razor that worked for me. I’ve been a faithful customer of theirs for several years now, and I couldn’t be happier. In the past few years, I think I’ve only nicked my face once, and that was through sheer clumsiness. There is another popular monthly shave subscription box that I tried once, but they didn’t work out for me: I nearly bled to death.

Dollar Shave Club also offers a plethora of other hygiene products, everything from moisturizers to sunscreen. I personally always use their Shave Butter (it’s way better than shaving cream, in my humble opinion) and their post-shave cream. Since I joined, they’ve changed their shipment schedule to every two months, which works out fine. I just make sure to stock up on products when it’s time to update my box.

It’s interesting to note that though their marketing is aimed toward men, I noticed there were plenty of positive comments and recommendations by women as well, who use their razors to shave their legs. So female readers as well may wish to give them a try. I just wanted to share this product with others who may have had the same difficulty in finding a razor that doesn’t cut them with each shave. So if you have sensitive skin, they might be worth checking out.

Here’s a link to their site: Dollar Shave Club

Shaving with the Dollar Shave Club Read Post »

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