Letter #20: Vaguely Bookish Things

Or, What I've Been Crazy About Recently Pt. 2

Post last updated November 19th, 2023.

Dear readers,

I hope you’re having a gorgeous week!

As usual, I’m just here to nerd out about some bookish, wordy stuff at you.

Wordle (and a Smattering of Other New York Times Games)

I’m fairly sure you’ve probably heard of Wordle by now, but if not, it’s an online game in which you have six tries to puzzle out a five-letter word. There are similar games out there, but this one is unique in that you only get one word per day.

The concept makes it very easy to incorporate as a quick part of your day. I do try to play every day as part of my morning routine, but sometimes it gets relegated to the end of the evening, or I just forget. Hence the only fortnight-long max streak.

Photo Credit: These were my stats after my (almost) daily Wordle game, as

of today. I love having data.

I specifically play Wordle, then shift over into the Spelling and Mini crossword of the day. I discovered that the New York Times owns Wordle, meaning that the Wordle site links to the NYT’s other online games. If I have time or am feeling adventurous, I’ll try one of the others, but I haven’t really liked the others much after giving them multiple tries.

*This was actually a rare, actually unintentional pun! I meant “data” as in “stats,” but it can also mean “data” in terms of phone plans using data for using the Internet and such. (Wow… that was delightfully lame.)

Poetry Magnets

I loved making phrases and poems with our poetry fridge magnets as a kid and teenager, but I hadn’t really considered that they may have made these an online thing as well. Welp, they are!

You can also buy the physical set on their website, but the free online option is what I’ve been playing around with since I found it. There’s a few different themed word sets, so I’d probably check out the “nature” set if you were going for a pastoral poem, like I did.

My quick, kind of lame, definitely not structured poem that is decidedly cottagecore:

I added my own punctuation in Krita (the drawing program I use for to draw my artwork) and apparently forgot to title this baby, which we shall call… “The Vines.”

Poetry has never been my strong suit, but I’ve always found these magnets to be fun, so it was lovely cobbling this together with the bits I got after *many* reloadings.

Here’s a view of the site when you’re composing a poem, but it gives you a plain PNG when you choose the save option at the bottom of the page:

Photo credit: My screenshot of my poem progress.

Literary Road Trip!

Or ideas for places to visit! The list features book shops and libraries along the Pacific Coast of the continental U.S.

YouTube Creators

Jack Edwards

All of Jack Edwards’ content, but try these couple videos in particular! (Puns! Wholesomeness! Book recs!)

Take this one about romance books.

His puns are absolutely *off the charts* in this one! His message at the start of the video is also particularly sweet.

Or this one about the Bridgerton books.

The pun in the thumbnail says it all.

fictionalfates

Always lovely! (They also theme all their outfits to the books they’re reviewing, which is precious and complete #goals.)

Here’s a video for all the books Isaac reads in Heartstopper season 1.

And another ranking Alice Oseman’s books.

I realize these two videos involve Heartstopper. Their videos aren’t at all *only* about the books/series, but these are two videos I’ve been particularly excited about recently, given that the TV series just released at the end of April. (Also, oh goodness, that series is so sweet and did my little bookish heart proud. Good soup, good soup!)

with cindy

I recently discovered Cindy’s channel, which is a very fun but complete tonal shift from the sweet Jack Edwards and cozy Fictional Fates.

Cindy has more of an acerbic, wise-cracking wit that induced several cackles from me. I also literally hit “subscribe” when I heard her outro of “okay, unsubscribe from my channel” because that’s just unique and perfect for the whole vibe of the channel. Currently binge-ing a lot of her videos!

Here’s a wrap-up of some recent reads and a discussion of books with the friends-to-lovers trope.

Okay, honestly, I could write an entire post about just bookish YouTubers (sometimes called “booktubers”), and I probably will have to at some point to catalogue some of my favorites creators.

Further Reading:

• Other word games similar to Wordle

• About the readable books in video games

• A few bookish, word-ish newsletters I enjoy: SoNovelicious, Books & Reading & More Books; Letters of Note; PopPoetry; and many more! (You can always check my newsletter recommendations on my profile page. Also, Substack has rolled out a feature so you get to see some of my recommendations when you subscribe as well!)

• I recently subbed to Lists of Note (the sister letter of Letters of Note) and their new subscriber message is just so charming!) Subscribe to Lists of Note to get the full subscriber message! (I just thought it was a cute way to keep in with their theme!)

  

Photo credit: My screenshot of part of my screen after subscribing to Lists of Note.

Thanks for stopping by! If you like my content, please consider subscribing or sharing. I really appreciate it! :)

Hope you have a beautifully bookish or weirdly wordy day!

Yo, no works cited today? What gives?

Sorry, nothing to cite this time ‘round! But I’ve got plenty of links above! :)

Quote of the Week:

“Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable.” -Pat Conroy