Julia > Recent Status Updates

I've been listening to this while I do computer work, on and off for a couple of weeks. It's a loooong ass book but so engrossing! Espionage thriller type thing. The beginning of it felt a bit tacky but I'm glad I persevered. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Nelson DeMille's "The Lion's Game" which I really enjoyed back in the day.

Fascinating.

I had pre-ordered this book months ago, that's how much I was looking forward to reading it. And it's been kind of blah so far. I'm missing the quirky humour of the earlier books and just... More stuff happening. So far, it feels like very little has actually happened, it's mostly just people complaining to each other over and over, and a few tired cliches. I don't know, maybe it's me. Just not loving it.

This book was highly recommended by multiple people but so far it's not delivered any earth shattering revelations. I'm enjoying it, mostly, but when I ask myself what I've learned or what my takeaways are so far, I'm coming up empty.

Re-reading this as part of my 2025 re-read project. The last few books in the Agnes Carmichael series, including this one, are not available on Kindle, so I expect I will keep the physical copy for now.

This is one of the two (that I know of) non-fiction books written by Anthea Cohen, the creator of my favourite anti-heroine, Agnes Carmichael. I have long wanted to read everything she has written because I'm curious about the mind that created Agnes.

Flying through this one, unlike the Unfinished Portrait.

Continuing my quest to (re)read my collection of physical books so I can declutter and donate as much as possible.

What a melodrama...

Apparently this story was vaguely autobiographical - in which case, it's remarkably self-indulgent.

Honestly, I'm kind of bored. We meet Celia at the start, and then we go back to her childhood to learn about her entire life. I have little patience for children's stories so this is tedious. And Celia herself is annoying. I may not make it through the book.

Reading it after I saw a recommendation online and really enjoying it. Upon adding it to Goodreads, I was stunned to discover that I had previously DNFed it with a 1* rating. Hmmmm. Interesting.

Uh... Well, this is a bit weird. I'm hesitant to even write this, but I feel like I recognize a lot of ChatGPT/AI phraseology in this book. 😳 And I've spent a lot of time with ChatGPT over the last 6 months. Maybe it's just in my head. Maybe I should run some of the text through ChatGPT and see if it identifies it as AI-generated or AI-inspired. Curious to see if any other readers pick up on anything...

A third (?) reading. The main character remains one of my favorites for being so very resourceful and intelligent. I find her oddly motivating (oddly because of the actions she takes in the book!).

This is the last unread Christie I own, other than the two Westmacotts. It's time to tackle it.

Had a realization last night. I am keeping other people's favorite books - this is one of them. I like it but don't love it, and I already know I won't keep the hard copy, but this is a favorite of a book blogger I like and follow, so I kept it all these years, and in reality, I liked the movie more (gasp!). And I also kept a copy of Lolly Willowes for the exact same reason (different blogger's favorite book). Hmmm.

I completely forgot the laugh out loud moments in this book. It's pretty fun to reread, since I seem to have retained the details of the movie (I did watch it... Quite a few times) but not the book so I keep rediscovering the differences between the two. But I also feel like I'm in a too serious a mood to lean into the levity fully. I keep seeing the serious issues behind the jokes. Is it me? Probably.

Very short, punchy chapters. Being already familiar with Dana's work and strategies through her YouTube channel, I'm not necessarily learning a lot of new stuff but it's a good motivator. I'm still trying to work out the whole "cleaning routine" thing (I hate routines!) and learning about what works for other people is part of that process.

Mind. Blown. Apparently the first time I read this book was in 2017! EIGHT years ago!! Which means I moved this book with me once in Australia, then moved it to the US, and then moved it 3 more times within the US!! This is craziness. Right off the bat I know I don't love this specific physical book enough to justify all that hauling it from place to place, at a significant cost. What the actual fuck.

Starting a post house move (Re)reading Project to figure out if the physical books I still own are worth keeping, and this is the first one.

I'm still enjoying it but unsure whether I need to hold onto a physical copy...

This is turning out to be much more interesting than I expected! It's changed twice from what I thought it was and now there's a hint of changing again and going in a different and unexpected direction. Going into this one as blind as possible was good advice.