trace all my books [2022]

 Well, we made it through another year of reading. I did join Storygraph and you can see more stats of the books I read here on my stats page.

For an in-depth list of all 118 books I read, you can click here: profile.

However, I will be showing a visual representation or two here on the blog, and there's always my video where I ramble about some stand-outs worth mentioning. 

Here is the video!

I read 118 books. 22 of them (not listed here, since I was using the app for the first time) were rereads. Here is the picture representation of all of those books. I am happy to answer questions about any of them if you don't want to click on my profile.

I forgot to mention this in my video but my reading goal for this year is to move this needle a little bit:

I bet I could read more than one nonfiction.

If I had to pick one book from the year that I really liked, it'd be Love from Scratch by Kaitlyn Hill.

If I had to pick two, the other one would be The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen.

If I had to pick a nonfiction, well, I only read one. But Proclaim Peace by Patrick Mason was really good actually.

I talked more about fanfiction in the video but I don't feel like writing it down here besides saying the total of novel-length works was 56, so here's another link to the video: you can just watch it at 2x speed

Here's to another great year of reading!

space to breathe

 I have two new-ish videos to share. I am a bit remiss at sharing one, but I have vowed never to view it myself so I forgot it existed.

The other one is more recent.

My voice recital August 2022

Halloween song

Honeydukes

trace all my books [2021]

 I feel like I'm reading all the time but don't feel like a reader anymore. It's all either fanfiction or fluffy romance books and that's life. 2021, babeyy!

Link to Video - Literary Nunnery Roundup 2021

Comforting Rereads mentioned in this video:

Sammy Keyes by Wendelin van Draanen

Chronicles of Elantra by Michelle Sagara

Sharon Shinn

Courtney Milan

Jasmine Guillory

Terry Pratchett (not mentioned)

Janette Rallison (also not mentioned)

Shannon Hale (not mentioned, to my shame)

New Romance Novels mentioned in this video:

If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle (forgot to mention, but pretty sure it was a double check-out as well)

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

Battle Royal by Lucy Parker

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

New (to me) YA Standout Novels that I said I'd put in the blog post, but I'm realizing there were enough "fine" ones that this list will be long

Better than the Movies by Lynn S Painter

Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

You Have a Match by Emma Lord

Where the Rhythm Takes You by Sarah Dass (modern Persuasion retelling)

What's Not To Love by Emily Wibberley and the other guy

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

10 Things I Hate About Pinky by Sandhya Menon

Between You, Me, and the Honeybees by Amelia Diane Coombs

More Than Just a Pretty Face by Syed Masood (this one stands out because it was the first modern arranged marriage YA I've read -- they're Muslim)

Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous by Suzanne Park

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Solomon

How to Speak Boy by Tiana Smith 

10 Truths and a Dare by Ashley Elston (sequel to 10 Blind Dates, which I reread since it's a Christmas book)

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant

A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey (this one might be the favorite)

Fanfictions mentioned in the video...available on request.

Also, note! I joined Storygraph for 2022. I've never used a book thinger before (and I already burned out of reviewing the one book I've read so far this year) so who knows what will happen. But it could change this game a bit.

feel the echo

 I had a whole concert last month. I didn't do a great job recording but there is a recording. It was a fun time. The crowd was very rowdy.

Funky Friday

You can see the setlist in the video description on that link.

I also sang a solo in church last month. My sister Kyra Moon Music arranged the song on my request.

Come Unto Him

I think I'm ready for No-Performance November.

summer move forward and stitch

 I am remiss in publishing Windervision performances! So here's some of them.

In July I called the rain by performing Drought by Vienna Teng.

Drought

Did some other things too, including drums on Endless Love.

Endless Love

Then came another performance opportunity. I finally performed the song I'd been working on in voice lessons for a while, One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man.

One Hundred Easy Ways

I also performed a BTS song, Dynamite. (Mashed up with another summer smash.) As I am always telling people, the lyrics are "a little funk and soul"

Dynamite

Oh also I have this very terrible quality recording of the other song I did with the band. You can probably get the gist.

Snow (Hey Oh)

fun times!

a part is to be

 Well hi hello. Turns out I have been remiss about putting some recent performances on the blog, despite having published them to YouTube a while ago.

Oh wait. I just remembered that I'm embarrassed by them.

Carrying on.

I did a couple of little ditties for an open mic last month, based on songs I was into in childhood. The first was "Since I was Two" which is from the computer game Math for the Real World, an educational game whose premise is that I'm a band manager and helping a band go on tour around the country, and using ~math for the real world~ by correctly counting out change and navigating pay phones and post offices. And you also perform the songs.

This particular song was a girl bragging about how good she is at math.

Next I sang one that regular readers of the blog may recognize from last year -- "One Little Star" from Follow That Bird. Once again not including the trio harmonies in the last verse even though it's my favorite part.

So here's those.

Since I Was Two / One Little Star

That's not all that happened at that open mic, actually. I also decided to hop on with City of Stars (that's a band) and give a little, uh, color to their performance of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Boy were there some mic issues though, right?

Total Eclipse

Speaking of City of Stars, I guess I'm kinda in it? Here's a link to a Latin Night concert we did a couple weeks later.

Noche Latino

Let's see what else the summer brings, shall we?

bright with stars

 Link to my newest video!

What Dreams Are Made Of

Short and sweet! If you've ever wondered what life is about, etc., you'd need to ask for it separately.

gotta let it all die, let me go

 Where has my old friend gone, lost in a February song?

Here's a song for February. It's not a love song, just a breakup one. I'm not happy with my performance but I do not care enough to improve it more.

Chosen because the original has ukulele chords and it has Carly Rae Jepsen in it. It also, of course, happens to parallel life things, but less than you might think.

ok on your own

trace all my books [2020]

 Hello!

Here's the link to a video where I talk about these books:

Literary Nunnery 2020

And here's the books! With pictures, when I have them.

Love a la Mode by Stephanie K. Strohm

What I like about You by Marisa Kanter

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

Thorn by Intisar Khanani

(and Bloodleaf Crystal Smith)

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Series I'd Like to Talk about:

Twelve Houses Sharon Shinn

Sunshield/Creatures of Light by Emily B. Martin

The Spy series by Mercedes Lackey

Court of Fives by Kate Elliott

I also forgot to mention that the Dealing with Dragons series by Patricia C. Wrede holds up! Other books that hold up are For Darkness Shows the Stars / Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund, What Goes Up by Katie Kennedy, Hunted by Meagan Spooner, The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You by Lily Anderson, and just about any Terry Pratchett. (Books that I loved in the past that I wanted to see if I'd still like.)

I also reread some books that I already knew I liked but wanted the comfort anyway. And some new ones that were okay but not worth mentioning. You know, just a regular year.

songs [Christmas 2020]

 I prepared three Christmas songs this year that I will now share with you in the spirit of the season.

None of them are perfect, but they don't need to be. It's all right to showcase that I am a work in progress and celebrate the small successes. Also, I had to do three because I haven't posted anything since September, so I gotta catch up.

I was asked to provide an organ solo version of O Come, All Ye Faithful for our ward Christmas program. I knew about it for weeks but when the time came to show the music chair what I'd come up with I still only had the intro in mind. We pulled something together and I got my sister Kyra (a professional arranger -- check out Kyra Moon Music) to help me with the third verse. And so it was.

w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51NpWXGlM28

I worked on two Christmas songs for voice lessons this year. Neither of them truly got performance-ready, but I'm glad I recorded them when I did (because now I have covid and I am scared of singing).

I selected I Wonder As I Wander as a classical piece because I've always thought it was lovely. The lyrics aren't super meaningful to me, but I do like the pensiveness of pondering the condescension of Christ. What love that showed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGyXMb9uudU

And finally, I have loved this song for 15 years but it's pretty uncommon. I was looking for a jazzy number and decided to try to learn this one. I mean, I learned it. I just didn't perfect it. (The copious laughing is because I didn't know I was gonna do hand gestures until I was doing them, and they were so cheesy!) I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRyKi57DgLc

And if you're somehow still looking for more Christmas music content from me, check out last year's post! A compilation up to that point.

Christmas 2019