5 Bites Friday (#34)

 

Hello December, the last month of a very weird 2020. Let’s take a moment to reflect how difficult a year it has been individually and collectively; but also to really go against the surface-evidence and dig out the few precious things that too happened during this awful year. For me, it’s been an incredible and great year of reading and of growth. I believe we all, always, have something to be grateful for. With that said, here’s this week’s 5 Bites Friday: Book-Hauls, Nolan’s magic, Optimism and more.

 

1: Book Haul for December and November Wrap-Up:

-          November’s Books Wrap-Up (Genre: Classic Literature)


-          December’s Book-Haul (Genre: Contemporary Fiction)

Normal People (*read)
Autumn (*reading)
In Other Room Other Wonders
The Loney
Burnt Sugar
The Sense of an Ending
The Years
Dept. of Speculation
Such Small Hands
The Red-Haired Woman
Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone
Girl, Woman, Other
The Argonauts
The Sea
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free

 

2: What I Read:

Normal People by Sally Rooney – "Rooney’s ‘Normal People’ isn’t only an enjoyable YA novel, but also a great conversation starter on today’s dynamic and incomprehensible relationships and what to make out of it. Her prose, although simple both figuratively and literally with no quotation marks, is nuanced and representative of the YA world in its simple style and honest dialogues."

 

3: What I Watched:

The Queens’s Gambit @netflix – a mini series mid twentieth century female chess player Elizabeth Harmon, who learns to play chess with the janitor of orphan’s house where she lives, and then goes on to beat world’s grandmaster in chess in that time Borgov the Russian.

Tenet by Christopher Nolan – I just watched it yesterday, and I was so happy to finally watch a great movie released in 2020. This movie is highly confusing and awe-inspiring! One cannot imagine how Nolan pulls off such original, complex, and incredible, truly cinematic movies.

 

4: This Week’s Articles:

Don’t Think Too Positive @aeon – this articulate and practical article brilliantly highlights the inverse relation between positive thinking and performance. Instead of positive thinking, which is advertised on a mass level today, author … suggest ‘mental contrasting’ and the mental-exercise of WOOP (wish, outcome, obstacles, plan) to achieve actual better performance.

 

5: This Week’s Quote:

"smile, despite yourself."