Two thousand twenty. Twenty-twenty. 2020 I'm sitting here on the cusp of the New Year, looking back over the last 12 months. And what a year was 2020. And in looking back, I decided to list my Top 20 of 2020 broken down into Top 5s in 4 categories. 1-5 — Top 5 Books I …
Author: LAL

I’m a Winner!
w00t! I am dancing up a storm on this cloudy Sunday afternoon because I won NaNoWriMo! That's right. I wrote 50,000 words in 22 days. FIFTY THOUSAND words in TWENTY-TWO days. I've participated in NaNoWriMo every year for the last 12 years. And this is only my 3rd win. So I'm celebrating! I swear it …
Yomitan Day Trip
I haven’t been venturing out much. Like many places, COVID has been on the rise out in town. Okinawa is a tourist destination for mainland Japan, much like Hawaii. So even though Japanese do wear masks, I have opted on the side of caution and have just stayed home. Staying home has never been a …

And It’s November
October whizzed by and now it's nearly mid-November. And I haven't written a blog post in nearly a month. Where has the fall gone? I spent October tied up in reading challenges. I participated in a record number of reading challenges and readathons across three platforms—Litsy, Instagram, and Facebook (although I post the majority of …
How Is It October 15?!
OMG. Today is October 15. The Ides of October. I just got over that it was October 1 and now here it is mid-month already. Seriously, I'm about 7 weeks behind. I couldn't believe when the calendar flipped over to October. At the beginning of the month, I started writing a completely different post. I …
Read A Banned Book
Banned Books Week started yesterday. To celebrate, I like to read at least one banned book during this annual celebration of reading. Banned Books Week, which the American Library Association started in 1982, celebrates the freedom to read. As a lifelong reader and booknerd, I support the free and open access to information and the …
Thoughts on a Weird Year
This has been the weirdest of years. If tomorrow the news reported that aliens were invading, I'd probably shrug and keep going about my day. Alien invasion? That's a slow news day after a year filled with as much emotion as 2020. I've been thinking about the weirdness of 2020 quite a bit because I've …
My Review of The StoryGraph (Beta)
As a book nerd who's on numerous bookish email newsletters and in numerous bookish groups, I often hear the buzz about some new app or a new website, and usually not too long after whatever it was has launched. Most recently, people have been buzzing about the The StoryGraph. I don't always immediately check out …
Countdown To NaNoWriMo
Preparing for November and NaNoWriMo!
Diversifying My Reading
9 books by POC authors that I have read in 2020