Book Rants: July 2025

Not much blogging this month. I just didn't have the motivation for it. But I celebrated four years staying at this blog. (You can read about it here. ) And I had a giveaway which I think was a bad idea but sticking to it but I have extended the date to enter. (Check it out here.)
    In between, I read some murder mysteries. Here are the books I read this month.

01 - New leash on death by Olivia Blacke
What's it about: ghosts, murder, roommates
The back and forth between two perspectives kind of delay the story but this was a decent read.

4th Blog Anniversary

In one of my anniversary posts, I had said I had actively blogged with 33 blogs (not at the same time of course) and that is true. But if you do the math, which I hate doing, it's like I had two blogs per year. I have no idea why I keep changing blogs. There is the usual need for newness but I could have stayed at my first blog and keep renaming it but it wouldn't be the same as getting a new url. Maybe it's foolish to want to match url with the name of your blog but it makes sense to do that right?
    Blogging is not my life but it's part of my life. It's always joyful (and occasionally stressful) for me to keep blogging because I find no other platform that suits me. Social medias such as twitter or facebook is just not my cup of tea. I think I'm at the slow lane when it comes to being social. I'm slow to keep up with trends, slow to find anything out, slow to process my thoughts on anything and when I do settle on something, the moment would have passed and there would be no need to post about that something. It's not terrible to be on the slow lane because I have company (other bloggers) and I enjoy their company.
    I started this blog you're reading on July 17, 2021 and this year makes it 4 years old today. I like to make a note of this phenomenon of staying in the same url for a bit longer than some of my other blogs but that's due to my laziness because setting up a new blog takes work and I can be lazy about such things.
    Postcards from the Bookstore is exactly what it states as I do buy postcards from bookstores. Reading and scribbling or scribbling and reading remains what I do on this blog – reading books and scribbling stories or artworks and maybe a new thought now and then.  I wish I can say I added something new idea or new kind of posts to this blog but I didn't. I guess I have not changed my blogging ways even after all these years. I suppose what keeps me blogging is all the challenges (like the a-z challenge in April) or the memes or prompts (like Words for Wednesday) because my blog is dull without them.
    But blogging, yes, I believe I'll keep doing it because what else I'm going to do with my pitiful thoughts and ideas and stories? Can't store them in my computer forever. Can't eat them either. Let's hope I don't quit this blog and start a new one. Happy 4th blog anniversary! May we all stick together in this slow lane for a long while.

How long have you been blogging? And what keeps you blogging?

To celebrate this milestone, here's a giveaway – go here to check it out.

Do you sign out?

I know it's not just me who have dozens of online accounts (with some I even forgot I had opened) because for some reason you have to sign up for an account for every little thing. Even online news sites, browsers (such as firefox, chrome) and almost every website you go to, you can sign up for an account and some you have to sign up or else you can't use their service.
    Signing up for an account means you have to make up a password which I never seem to follow the rule about having a number, a capital letter, a symbol in the password to make it harder for other people to guess and get into your account. But with all the ways a hacker can get into your accounts through the websites/web services you use, does complicated passwords do anything? Still, with so many accounts, there would be so many passwords to remember. I don't remember most passwords to most of my online accounts. I put some of them on paper which is foolish but I can't remember them so what else to do?
   For safety, when you use other people's computer or whatever gadget to get into any of your online accounts, it's a good idea to sign out but with your own computer, most people don't bother. I usually stay signed out of all my online accounts because I don't use them often. For email, I sort of keep signed in but once in a while, I sign out so I can use the password so I wouldn't forget it because I forget easily. But overall, I think it's better to sign out after every use. But it really is so much easier to just stay signed in.

How about you? Do you stay signed in into your online accounts or do you sign out after every use?

Blogging from A-Z - Road Trip 2025 Wrapup

May was a busy month at work and then June somehow just slipped by and now it's July but at least I have done a bit of road tripping for the Road Trip challenge. I went through the Road Trip list and the Master List but didn't find any particular new-to-me blogs and I had looked through the lists more than once. I think now the Road Trip challenge should just be a month or two months, like in May and June because without a deadline, I seem to keep putting it off. More about the Road Trip challenge at the A-Z blog over here.

Here are the two blogs that I enjoyed on my Road Trip:

01 - Ruth Blogs Here > link
Ruth posted a photo a day for the a-z challenge, some photographs and some of her artworks.

02 - A Slice of Life > link
Lady posted a photo a day and thought of them as digital postcards and kind of like a look into what is she is thinking that day.

Have you done the Road Trip Challenge? Have you discovered any new blogs lately?

IWSG July 2025: Do you like pen names?

One reason to use pen names (aka pseudonyms) is to write under someone else but I guess these days, even if someone uses pen names, they just reveal their real name so it's no secret who is who so what's the point of using a pen name if everyone know who you are?
    I like pen names as they are way more creative, unique and easier to pronounce. Recently I read a short story collection titled, Bodies from the Library: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection, and in the author bios, tons of authors used pen names. These authors probably didn't go about telling people their real names but then again, social media hadn't been invented so it was probably easier to keep your name a secret.
    I think every person, whether you are a writer or not, deserve to have a name they want or like even if is not legalized. We're in a society where names are sometimes ridiculed which is just rude of people. But I don't think people have to stick to the name they are given. At least, not completely. Also, I side with female authors who altered their names to a more masculine or androgynous name because of how unequal gender is. This is why you get all these authors with initials for first names and yes, I got my pen name from that idea because why not?
    Names, whether real or not, is makeup because no one have a name tattooed to their butt when they are born. It's because our names are legalized, we accept them as truth which is true but a person's name is still makeup or else how to explain people being able to change their name (legally or otherwise)?

Do you like pen names? What do you think of pen names?
  
[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]