Tag: reading

The 49 Books I Read in 2017

Categories BooksLeave a Comment on The 49 Books I Read in 2017

I thought I’d be able to keep up with reading at least a book a week, like I had in 2016, but 2017 was full of a lot of twists and turns that kept me busy.

The books I read this year tended to be much longer as well. Here are all 49 ordered from most recently read:

  1. The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero
  2. Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman
  3. Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson
  4. Sex Object: A Memoir by Jessica Valenti
  5. Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race by Naban Ruthnum
  6. Mirror Mirror by Cara Delevigne
  7. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
  8. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
  9. Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
  10. Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America by Samhita Mukopadhyay
  11. Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self by Alex Tizon
  12. Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter
  13. Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
  14. The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas
  15. All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers by Alana Massey
  16. American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
  17. The Only Pirate at the Party by Linsey Sterling
  18. The Canadaland Guide to Canada by Jesse Brown
  19. This is Where It Ends by Marieke Jijkamp
  20. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
  21. Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev
  22. Careergasm: Find Your Way to Feel-Good Work by Sarah Vermunt
  23. Almost Adulting: All You Need to Know to Get It Together by Ardent Rose
  24. Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness by Shawn Micallef
  25. You Don’t Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding Feminism by Alida Nugent
  26. Bowie by Simon Critchley
  27. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  28. The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall
  29. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis
  30. The Girls by Emma Cline
  31. Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World by Don Tapscott
  32. The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake
  33. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
  34. Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple
  35. So Sad Today by Melissa Broder
  36. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
  37. You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice by Tom Vanderbilt
  38. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
  39. The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
  40. How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell
  41. Mister Monkey by Francise Prose
  42. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Ariana Huffington
  43. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
  44. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal
  45. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
  46. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil
  47. The Promise of Canada: 150 Years–Building a Great Country One Idea at a Time by Charlotte Gray
  48. Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty by Ben Ratliff
  49. Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace by Jessica Bennett

You can find what I thought of all these books on Goodreads. I’m already well on my way to reading through 2018, with a lot of books on hold at the library.

Let me know what books you’ve enjoyed in 2017! I’m always open to suggestions on what to read next.

The 53 Books I have Read This Year

Categories Books1 Comment on The 53 Books I have Read This Year

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This year, with the help of a eBook Reader and a Library Card, I’ve surpassed my goal to read 52 books (that’s one a week) in 2016.

I read everything cover to cover. Some of them weren’t so great but I always finish a book. In doing so, my mind was opened and I learned a lot about the lives of different people (I have a huge fascination with North Korea now), different ways of viewing the world, laughed and cried.

I love reading and I’ll continue to do so in 2017 (with probably the same goal because it is a realistic gauge of books). Follow my reading adventure on Goodreads @tianafeng

Here is a list of all the books I read starting from the most recent.

  1. This is Happy by Camilla Gibb.
  2. I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro
  3. Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson
  4. The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
  5. The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee
  6. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
  7. China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
  8. Porcelain: A Memoir by Moby
  9. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
  10. Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Hidden Child Survivors of the Holocaust by R.D. Rosen
  11. Bloom: navigating life and style by Estée Lalonde
  12. Now I Know More: The Revealing Stories Behind Even More of the World’s Most Interesting Facts by Dan Lewis
  13. Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay
  14. Something to food about: Exploring Creativity with Innovative Chefs by Questlove
  15. Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow
  16. A Kim Jong Il Production by Paul Fischer
  17. The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper
  18. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  19. On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz
  20. Oh Myyy! by George Takei
  21. Open City by Teju Cole
  22. Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad
  23. The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
  24. QR Codes Kill Kittens by Scott Stratten
  25. The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah
  26. The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety by Alan W Watts
  27. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan
  28. The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook
  29. The Dogs I Have Kissed by Trista Mateer
  30. Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect by Matthew D Lieberman
  31. The Good Girl by Mary Kubica
  32. I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam
  33. Nowhere With You: The East Coast Anthems of Joel Plaskett, The Emergency and Thrush Hermit by Josh O’Kane
  34. The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight
  35. Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by H. Edgar Schein
  36. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
  37. The Crossing by Michael Connelly
  38. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nicholas Nassim Taleb
  39. This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
  40. Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
  41. Mo’ Meta Blues by Questlove
  42. Between the World and Me by Ta-neshi Coates
  43. Thinking in Numbers: On Life, Love Meaning and Math by Daniel Tammet
  44. The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
  45. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
  46. The Ravenous Brain by Daniel Bor
  47. Don’t Go Back to School: A Handbook for Learning Anything by Kio Stark
  48. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  49. Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
  50. The Door by Magda Szabo
  51. Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers by Nick Offerman
  52. People I Want to Punch in the Throat by Jenn Mann
  53. Do Cool Sh*t by Miki Agrawal

Let me know what books I should check out in 2017. I’m up for anything!

More Simpsons Books

Categories LifeLeave a Comment on More Simpsons Books

My Simpsons Books tumblr is still very alive and well. I never seem to run out of books to post! The show is a gold mine of books in every episode.

Here are a few more favourites:

https://simpsonsbooks.tumblr.com/post/153093487856

https://simpsonsbooks.tumblr.com/post/152919756843

https://simpsonsbooks.tumblr.com/post/151300279572

How Do You Unwind?

Categories Inspiration, Lego/Building, Life3 Comments on How Do You Unwind?
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Beautiful colouring book set I got for Christmas

When you need to unwind after a stressful day, how do you do it? Some run to Netflix, which works sometimes. Other times I have to feel like I am doing something productive so I like to colour (though depending on the complexity of the thing it can cause anxiety), or build things with instructions like lego. My favourite is reading fiction. It takes my mind away to an imaginary place, someone else’s story. I’m now 7 books into my 2016 Reading Challenge, which is 2 books ahead of schedule to read 52 books!

Taking the Goodreads Challenge!

Categories 30 Day Challenge, Life, Social MediaLeave a Comment on Taking the Goodreads Challenge!

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I’m taking the Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge. I set myself at 52 books which sounds insane but I’ve already read 4 and apparently that is two ahead of schedule! I’ve generally been reading a lot of autobiographies of famous people. Not seen on this list is Aziz’s Modern Romance and Mindy Kaling’s first book which I read in the last week of 2015 and am not counting.

Reading on my commutes (with my sadly broken Kobo) has taught me that I can get a lot of words in while sitting on the train. I haven’t let technological setbacks stop me from reading (I immediately bought an iPad mini). What are some of your favourite books? I’ll add them to my list of to-reads!

Quoteskine Volume 1 by Lee Crutchley

Categories Art, Books, DesignLeave a Comment on Quoteskine Volume 1 by Lee Crutchley

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I forgot how exactly I stumbled across Lee Crutchley’s Quoteskine project but I loved the idea and bought the book.

IMG_3122Crutchley started the Quoteskine project on Tumblr as a creative way to visualize thoughts and quotes. Some were completely random and others were from songs, TV shows and movies.

IMG_3123The book is collection of his best works (at the time of publishing). The Tumblr is still going so maybe there will be a Volume 2.

Caught an Arcade Fire reference!
Caught an Arcade Fire reference!

The drawings in the book retain their original hand-drawn quality. You can see marker and pencil crayon lines and I adore that he left them unpolished like that. It has convinced me to start my own quote drawing. I have already written down a few ideas. Maybe I’ll share them with you in a later post!

The $100 Startup

Categories Books, Entertainment3 Comments on The $100 Startup

20130124-103139.jpgI recently read Chris Guillebeau’s book The $100 Startup. It had a lot of stories and anecdotes of entrepreneurs which make a decent living (50k or more) doing what they love. What I enjoyed about the book is that it didn’t just focus on multi-million dollar startups like Facebook, but ones from regular people.

The book also has a short exercises for people interested in starting their own business. I emphasize short because the main message of the book is not to ponder forever on if you should do something, but to just do it.
Guillebeau mentions this quote by Karl Marx:

“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity”

I thought this was an interesting way to think of things. Consumers will buy things because they are easy and convenient. People don’t go to a restaurant because they want to be taught how to make the dish. Regardless of whether you currently have a business idea or not, the book is an inspiring read and makes you re-think what it means to be happy in life. Is it money or thought of doing something you love?

I know somewhere down the line I will probably have my own business and I will definitely give this book another read.