Missouri in Mazury

It's pretty apparent from the books I've read in the past that I'm a fan of the Daily Show . I was a huge fan of it when Jon Stewart hosted and, like most, I was a bit wary of the change - I had never heard of Trevor Noah before. His first show was awkward, but I kept watching and now am an even bigger fan of Trevor Noah as the host. If you quit watching after Jon Stewart left or if you're not so sure about watching: just go watch. I've read a lot of books-from-television this year. And this is another one of those. It's a completely different book from what I had expected, but Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is so very much worth the read. This book is a-ma-zing. I had expected (again, not really fully reading the book's summary before reading) a book similar to the memoirs that other comedians have written - a book that touches on the comedian's childhood, but moves quickly onto their career and experiences at work. Not this book, and that'...

My mom and I have this tradition: when we're together, we binge-watch episodes of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. The most memorable season we watched together was, of course, Juan Pablo's. This time around, we watched Nick's season.  When we finished this season, we decided to also read this book, which had also been talked about a lot on Bachelor in Paradise . This book,  It's Not Okay was written by Andi Dorfman, who was one of the contestants on Juan Pablo's season, and was also later a Bachelorette. In all honesty, I have a hard time remembering which Bachelor/Bachelorette contestants are who, as they all seem about the same to me (think: Saturday Night Live 's parody). I had the hardest time remembering the difference between Andi and Caitlin, for example, but both struck me as being normal enough ladies, who were smart and successful (Andi's a lawyer) and interesting (Caitlin was hilarious).  I was so wrong about Andi. After reading this...

Continuing my vow to read as many Polish books as possible this year, I chose Sekundy do szczęścia  as my next adventure. I picked this one out because the reviews indicated that the book is written very straightforward - meaning, it'd be very easy for a non-native speaker to understand. It certainly was easy to understand in terms of processing the language, but not in the sense of understanding what the heck the main character was thinking. The premise of the story is that one single decision can change your life. The introduction has a quote that three seconds (the time it'd take to make a decision) can make or break you. For the main character, Katarzyna, it wasn't only that one decision that changed her life, though, it was also subsequent decisions she made afterwards, such as sticking with an abuser. I agree that one decision can change your life, but the decisions afterwards, once you realize the initial decision was a mistake, also have an impact. The story ...

We are raising our kids bilingual. That means they're a bit behind in speaking in each separate language, but they've got two languages more or less under their belt by three, so that's okay. It also leads to interesting conversations. We had been talking about playing "got your nose," except with butts. P: Złapałeś taty pupę? [Did you get Tata's butt? "Pupa" (poo-pa) means butt.] B was really confused, so she asked again. B: [stops to examine his shoes] No poop!

I made a goal to read most, of not all, books in Polish for the rest of the year. No matter how slow it goes. This was my first one finished. The author is also known as Kali, a Polish rapper. I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I mostly hated it, because I think it could've been so much better - the description sounded interesting - but it really let me down. Here's the description, roughly translated: "An intricate criminal plot, set in the dark atmosphere of the Silesian City of Sin's dirty streets as a thorough sociological novel of manners on existence of young people in Poland. How thin is the line that divides the good from the bad? When does a man turn into a beast? Is there is still such a thing as unconditional love? Told from the point of view of the main character, nicknamed Krime, in a daring, brutally real novel". No, that's not what it is at all and none of those questions were answered. This is a story about a gan...