Hey everyone! I’ve always wanted to do a weekly column on my blog. Since starting a blog though, I’ve never been able to stick to a regular posting schedule when it comes to publishing my articles. And so, that’s why after all this time of having a blog I’ve never had a weekly column on my blog thus far. I’m still not sure I’ll be able to stick to a schedule of publishing a new article every week, but I thought I would give it a try anyway.
In this weekly column series, I wanted to talk about pop culture. Every week, I will be talking about anything in pop culture from television to books to movies to theater, and any exciting new projects coming up in any of those fields. I know theater isn’t happening right now, but theater is something that has always been able to help me through tough times and so I wanted to include theater in this weekly column series, even if for now I only get to talk about it in the past tense.
This week I will be talking about: Books / Book Adaptations
When it comes to me and reading books in 2020, I didn’t do very well. It was a weird year and I found myself not being able to sit down and concentrate on reading words from page to page in a book. As of now, I have read only two books completely this year. The first book being “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng. It was a really great and well written novel by an amazing writer. I am such a fan of her first novel “Everything I Never Told You”, and Little Fires Everywhere just instilled in me how amazing of a writer to the human condition Ng is. If you haven’t read either one of her books yet, do. Both novels get a recommendation of books that are worth reading from this gal!
Little Fires Everywhere took me about two months to read exactly. I finished the book on the very day that the television adaptation of the novel began airing episodes on Hulu. The book was very well adapted. The show did a great job of keeping the essence of the book alive in the show. Fun Fact! The author, Celeste Ng, makes a cameo on the show! How very cool! Like with the novel, the television adaptation is a must watch!
Now on to my second book read of the year. I just finished reading the novel “All The Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven. I had this book for a few years, and with the film adaptation out I decided it was finally time to get around to reading this book.
I actually began reading this book after I finished reading Little Fires Everywhere in March, but after a few months of only reading here and there I decided to put the book to the side for the moment since I wasn’t reading in a matter in which I could remember what I read from the time before the last time I read. This was in no way because this isn’t a good book, I just wasn’t in a place at that time where I could concentrate on reading and delving into a story.
Then this past September, I picked up the book again and made the goal for myself to start to read again on a more daily basis. I finished reading the book in December. Yes, I know that’s a lot of time to read one book, but I’ve always gone on a “read a few pages here, read a few pages there” kind of schedule when reading a book. I’d probably finish books way faster if it wasn’t for TV.
I never read a book by Jennifer Niven before, but through reading All The Bright Places she’s definitely become one of my favorite authors. Niven is an amazing writer. It’s not every book I read where a sentence will jump out at me and those words will stay with me. There’s sadness in this book, but there’s also incredible heart and hope in it as well. To say the least, All The Bright Places is a book worth reading. On a side note, I haven’t watched the film adaptation yet, as I prefer to read the book and then watch the adaptation after. So no opinion yet on whether the film adaptation is good or not as of now.
There are so many books I hope to read in the new year. I usually read around five books every year, and in 2019 I actually read six books. This past year, I very much was a bookworm who failed to read as many books as I have read in years past. Oh wells, I guess.
I hope you enjoyed my first weekly column about all things in pop culture.
Thanks so much for reading!
Just Simply Me... 