Recent Book Activity
Fifty Words for Rain
The Birth House
The Pig and I
Hello Beautiful
Angela''s Ashes : A Memoir
Mother-Daughter Murder Night
Should We Stay Or Should We Go
A Season for Second Chances
Thomas Hardy: Selected Works
The Martian
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
The Hidden Thread
The Time Has Come
The Martian
Clouds of Witness
The Tea Rose: A Novel
Brooklyn
The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Wanderers: A history of women walking
Statistics |
4 weeks | all time |
---|---|---|
books registered | 8 | 2,155 |
released in the wild | 9 | 1,911 |
controlled releases | 0 | 72 |
releases caught | 0 | 195 |
controlled releases caught | 0 | 11 |
books found | 1 | 240 |
tell-a-friend referrals | 0 | 68 |
new member referrals | 0 | 51 |
forum posts | 0 | 2,403 |
Extended Profile
I'm a cisgender (she/her), heteroromatic, asexual, childfree, happily unmarried white woman. I live in Calgary, Canada, and I enjoy hiking and snowshoeing in the nearby Rocky Mountains.
After a satisfying career in health care, I'm retired. In addition to reading, I enjoy taking ridiculously long walks (most often with an audiobook or a friend), making and eating good food, travelling (especially by long-distance rail), cycling, playing pinball (badly), shooting hoops, snorkeling, crocheting, and canning fruit. I thrive on learning; these days I'm learning to ice skate and speak Spanish- albeit not simultaneously!
I'm an introvert- definitely not shy nor anxious, but I quickly get bored in small-talk situations, and I like to have time by myself every day. I have a terrific partner, but I don't live with him. I love living alone in the inner city. My little home is exactly the way I want it- minimalist, tidy, quiet- but whenever I'm in the mood to go out, the people, energy and fun of the city are right at my doorstep.
One of the greatest gifts of growing older is that if we've been listening to our feelings, we will have learned what we actually value, which is often different from what society tells us we're *supposed* to want. As long as we're brave enough to ignore what others think, we can embrace what we love, and discard much of the rest. Doing this has brought me to the happiest time in my life so far. No life is perfect, but thanks to years of little adjustments, mine is pretty close to being perfect for me. There are many possible ways to live well, and I believe I've found one of mine.
Books are a big part of that. I'm a pretty indiscriminate reader, because I often surprise myself by liking a book more than I expect to, or by looking forward to one with eager anticipation, only to find it disappointing. So, I'll start reading almost anything- but I'll also give up on it pretty quickly if it doesn't hold my attention. Life's too short to read bad books!
My preferred genre is short stories, but I also enjoy literary fiction, humour, essays, many types of nonfiction (especially travelogues, science, behavioural economics, and food writing) and even some poetry.
My favourite writers include:
Douglas Adams
Russell Banks
Dave Barry
Bill Bryson
Willa Cather
Timothy Caulfield
Ted Chiang
Michael Cunningham
Annie Dillard
Jean-Henri Fabre
Atul Gawande
Thomas Hardy
Kent Haruf
Katherine Heiny
James Herriott
John Irving
Jerome K. Jerome
Adam Kay
Stephen King
Ann Leary
Jhumpa Lahiri
Anne Lamott
Ring Lardner
Stephen Leacock
Sinclair Lewis
W. Somerset Maugham
Peter Mayle
Stuart McLean
Sue Miller
Ottessa Moshfegh
Alice Munro
Sigrid Nunez
Mary Oliver
Dorothy Parker
Ann Patchett
Daniel H. Pink
Annie Proulx
Ron Rash
Simon Rich
Paul Rudnick
Richard Russo
Richard Selzer
Lionel Shriver
Jane Smiley
Wallace Stegner
John Steinbeck
Elizabeth Strout
Lewis Thomas
Henry David Thoreau
Mark Twain
Anne Tyler
Peter Wohlleben
Tobias Wolff
Meg Wolitzer
After a satisfying career in health care, I'm retired. In addition to reading, I enjoy taking ridiculously long walks (most often with an audiobook or a friend), making and eating good food, travelling (especially by long-distance rail), cycling, playing pinball (badly), shooting hoops, snorkeling, crocheting, and canning fruit. I thrive on learning; these days I'm learning to ice skate and speak Spanish- albeit not simultaneously!
I'm an introvert- definitely not shy nor anxious, but I quickly get bored in small-talk situations, and I like to have time by myself every day. I have a terrific partner, but I don't live with him. I love living alone in the inner city. My little home is exactly the way I want it- minimalist, tidy, quiet- but whenever I'm in the mood to go out, the people, energy and fun of the city are right at my doorstep.
One of the greatest gifts of growing older is that if we've been listening to our feelings, we will have learned what we actually value, which is often different from what society tells us we're *supposed* to want. As long as we're brave enough to ignore what others think, we can embrace what we love, and discard much of the rest. Doing this has brought me to the happiest time in my life so far. No life is perfect, but thanks to years of little adjustments, mine is pretty close to being perfect for me. There are many possible ways to live well, and I believe I've found one of mine.
Books are a big part of that. I'm a pretty indiscriminate reader, because I often surprise myself by liking a book more than I expect to, or by looking forward to one with eager anticipation, only to find it disappointing. So, I'll start reading almost anything- but I'll also give up on it pretty quickly if it doesn't hold my attention. Life's too short to read bad books!
My preferred genre is short stories, but I also enjoy literary fiction, humour, essays, many types of nonfiction (especially travelogues, science, behavioural economics, and food writing) and even some poetry.
My favourite writers include:
Douglas Adams
Russell Banks
Dave Barry
Bill Bryson
Willa Cather
Timothy Caulfield
Ted Chiang
Michael Cunningham
Annie Dillard
Jean-Henri Fabre
Atul Gawande
Thomas Hardy
Kent Haruf
Katherine Heiny
James Herriott
John Irving
Jerome K. Jerome
Adam Kay
Stephen King
Ann Leary
Jhumpa Lahiri
Anne Lamott
Ring Lardner
Stephen Leacock
Sinclair Lewis
W. Somerset Maugham
Peter Mayle
Stuart McLean
Sue Miller
Ottessa Moshfegh
Alice Munro
Sigrid Nunez
Mary Oliver
Dorothy Parker
Ann Patchett
Daniel H. Pink
Annie Proulx
Ron Rash
Simon Rich
Paul Rudnick
Richard Russo
Richard Selzer
Lionel Shriver
Jane Smiley
Wallace Stegner
John Steinbeck
Elizabeth Strout
Lewis Thomas
Henry David Thoreau
Mark Twain
Anne Tyler
Peter Wohlleben
Tobias Wolff
Meg Wolitzer