Edward has left, leaving Bella to pine for him and find new ways to fill the hours. She takes new risks to feel alive, including getting closer to Jacob.
What I Liked
While it is obvious to the reader from the beginning that Jacob is a werewolf, the slow “build” that all the young guys that he hangs out with are a pack is fun. While it is commonplace for so many books now, it was great to re-read the twist that Meyer put on the franchise back in ’06. It’s fun to see the family worry about the connections, and even her dad and mom chiming in.
What I Didn’t Like
The trip to Italy is a bit over the top in places, while fascinating. The Discovery of Witches series does something similar, and is better handled than the excess shown here.
I feel like I don’t prioritize reading as much as I should. Reading gives me great joy, and yet I default to TV watching, doom scrolling, and silly things like work, eating, chores, etc. My wife gave me the book, BR00283 Everyone in my family has killed someone by Benjamin Stevenson, for Christmas and I went deep down the enjoyment rabbit hole. It was unique, it was unusual, it was delightful.
I have also been reading Elizabeth Wheatley’s Tears of the Wolf and Oath of the Wolf. They have also been excellent. I haven’t reviewed them yet, and therein lies a source of consternation for me.
Book reviews. I could have said B was for the book reviews as they go hand in hand, do they not? If you’re anal-retentive like me, yes, they do. I read it, I review it.
Except I am way behind on book reviews. I’ve done 283, which is amazing to me. I remember when I was back at 25 and 50. Now, how many are in the backlog, let’s see…there are 27 books on my Kindle in the “READ” collection, but I won’t review all of those, probably 22 or so (others were DNF’s or just reference materials I was looking at). Then I have another 31 that are relatively “recent reads” in the last year or so. Still fresh in my mind. Then another 63 from the previous year or two, and then another 186 that are sitting there. Taunting me from years gone by. So, that makes, lemme see, carry the one, and ummm…302 pending review. More than I have accomplished in the last ten years combined.
But I digress. I’ll make progress on that “backlog” this year, but it is a digression. The real question is…
What will I read this year?
I fear that I do not read enough non-fiction. I have about 150 books on my Kindle that are non-fiction, although some are more for browsing than complete reading. I put them there so I would remember I had them, like a Chair Yoga book. It isn’t the type of book you “read” so much as open on the desktop perhaps and apply part of it to a routine. But I threw it on the Kindle so I can flip through and see what’s there. My biggest challenge for NF reads is that I often feel like I want to highlight as I go. Except the Kindle is designed to save those highlights in a separate file (MyClippings). Which means even if I synch the book back over to the PC, the highlights are still ONLY on the Kindle in a separate file.
I’ve been experimenting and I came up with a couple of options. If I read it on my PC, and make highlights there, they stay with the file. Alternatively, if I do it on my Kindle, I can run a plugin to Calibre that will lift “annotations” from the MyClippings file and put them in an extra field in Calibre. Either or both would work. It’s “easier” if they’re just in the file itself, if I go back later, but harder to find perhaps; alternatively, the annotation highlights in a separate file make it really easy to write a review and lift stuff out, but often out of context.
I’m leaning toward setting aside 30 minutes every day to just read non-fiction. I’m currently working my way through a Harvard Business Review collection about toxic workplaces (I know, riveting, right? I like it, though, seeing how academics and other experts approach issues that I myself face as a manager, and how they explain their views) and highlighting as I go on the Kindle. If it works, I’ll stick with that method as the Kindle is portable; if it doesn’t work for my subsequent review and blogging, I’ll likely open the file directly on my desktop. I tried to get it to an old iPad 2 that we have, but alas, not quite the tool I wanted.
But I think I can at least categorize the main areas of Non-fiction that I’ll delve into this year, and I’ll push myself to do 14 books. I should have a biography in there somewhere but maybe I’ll count that instead in the fiction category (there’s a few options below where a person could show up in rebel, for example).
PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge for 2026: Non-Fiction
R
E
A
D
I
N
G
Writing
Astronomy
Exercise
Mental Health
Retirement
Finances
Career
Goals
Business
Women
Recipes
AI
Creativity
Software / Tools
I’ll come back to the non-fiction side of things again when I get to my L is for Learning post. 🙂
Let’s talk fiction
My goal is 50 fiction books a year, although if I was totally honest with myself, 300 would be my real goal if I thought it was attainable. 🙂 I am struggling with how to read established series, to be honest. So many different books out there by different authors, all of which interest me, and yet I also want to read series. The only series I feel “finished” on probably is Sue Grafton — all 25 of her Kinsey Milhone alphabet series (A is for Alibi, …) plus two of her older books that nobody ever mentions, both of which were quite good and I’m glad I chased them down.
But I would love to read all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, plus a full-on deep dive into a year of Sherlock Holmes and all the new books — they may not be canon, but they are often fun. Or I could go “legal” (Grisham, Berhnardt, O’Shaugnessy, Gardner), sagas (Archer), fantasy (P.C. Cast, Jordan, Wheatley), action (Child, DeMille, MacDonald), forensics (Cornwell, Reichs), light (Evanovich), British sleuth (Francis), procedurals (Jennings, ), westerns (Butcher, L’Amour), etc. And I’m not even talking hundreds of sci-fi books in the Star Wars and Star Trek universe, cozies, other types of detectives and sleuths, etc. It’s a lot.
Huh, I just realized that my latest review isn’t even complete — I forgot to code it properly in the HTML file, so that it will show up in the indexed pages. Sigh.
But where was I? Oh, yeah, deciding what to read this year between established series and new authors or standalone books. Obviously, duh, the answer is both! 🙂
PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge for 2026: Fiction
R
E
A
D
I
N
G
Banned book
Childhood favourite
New release (2026)
Best of 2025
Infrequent genre
Canadian author
Canadian setting
Award winner: 1950s
Award winner: 1960s
Award winner: 1970s
Award winner: 1980s
Award winner: 1990s
Award winner: 2000s
Award winner: 2010s
Classic
Bestseller list
Legal
Police
Amateur sleuth
P.I.
Vampires
Fantasy creatures
Romance
Science fiction
Star Wars
Star Trek
Time travel
Fantasy adventure
Personal discovery
Rebel
Serialized novel
Western
Edith Wharton
Writing under an alias
Brothers
Sisters
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Humour
History
Women
Mystery
Geography
Indigenous
Series
Gift / Loan / Recommended
Holiday themed
Some resources that I’ll draw upon from earlier Reading Challenges:
I’ve fallen down on the astronomy front ever since the pandemic started. Once the Public Star Parties for RASC Ottawa “ended” temporarily in 2020, I’ve done almost nothing. I think I’ve only done seven things astro-related since then:
Set up my scope for 15 minutes at the cottage to observe some sun-spots;
Checked out the solar eclipse;
Attended a RASC dinner;
Continued to be involved in AstroPontiac, including attending the pop-up event in Gatineau two summers ago;
Went to a star party to wander around a bit and talk to people;
Did the auditor role for RASC Ottawa for the end of year finances; and,
Outlined what I might do for a “PolyWogg Guide” for “astronomy 101”.
Oh, wait. Wait, wait, wait. We might have gone to the edge of the river to look at a comet with binos during that time. Or with COVID time involved, that could have been last century. I don’t know.
The really terrible part of all this is that just before COVID hit, there were some REALLY great sales on for the previous Black Friday where I picked up two small telescopes that I wanted to use and make videos about using. And then at that RASC dinner? I won a telescope. That means I have my son’s 4SE, my 8SE, and…wait for it…three more telescopes I’ve never even opened or set up yet. Yet I pretend I’m “into” astronomy.
Just like book buying and book reading may be two separate hobbies at times.
Anyway.
*cough*
Where was I? Oh, yeah, thinking about what I want to do for the year in the way of astronomy.
1. USE MY SCOPES! Obviously, duh, I want to set up my scopes and use all of them! No, not at once. But over time. Hopefully at Star Parties this year.
2. DECIDE IF I’M BUILDING AN OBSERVATORY. Yeah, yeah, I know, this is that old chestnut again. Except Jacob designed me a format/layout/blueprint of a workable design, and we might actually have room to do it this year. Although, if I put off retirement to next year, it could wait. The point is to make the decision, not the build. I’d like to lay the pad and install the pier this summer if we can.
3. EXPAND MY LEARNING. I’ve looked into a bunch of academic courses to pursue in my retirement, and considered even doing a formal degree in astronomy / astrophysics. However, there aren’t many online options that are ideal for what I want to do. Instead, I’ll cobble some together from Coursera and The Great Courses, plus potentially a bunch of astro podcasts and YouTube sites.
4. START WRITING MY GUIDE. There are two aspects of my guide that I can do sooner rather than later, even without the above efforts. I can write the intro part for the history of astronomy, and I can write the intro to telescopes, their design, and their pros/cons.
5. PHOTOGRAPH THE MOON. I want to see if I can do a bunch of nights in a row at a time to try and snag the moon across all 28 days of its cycle. Maybe I get it done this year, maybe I don’t.
6. ENGAGE WITH THE ASTRO COMMUNITY. I’m a member of both RASC Ottawa and the Peterborough Astronomical Association, and while they have their meetings on the same night each month, I don’t attend either. Sigh. I need to do SOMETHING more “social”.
If I get into it heavier, I have another 20 ideas of things to do. 🙂 But I’ll aim to do at least the first one above — use the actual telescopes I have!
There are some potential things to plan around visible from my location:
January 10th — Jupiter will be at opposition
April 19th — Conjunction of the Moon, Pleiades and Venus
June 9th — Conjunction of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury **
August 15th — Venus as the “Evening Star”
August 27-28th — Potential partial lunar eclipse (closing shadow)
October 4th — Saturn at opposition
October 5th — Conjunction of Moon and Mars
November 14-15th — Conjunction of Jupiter and Mars
December 24th — Christmas Supermoon
I love the plan for June 9th (**) because I’ve never seen Mercury. It’s usually so faint and low, I’ve never been able to see it. Maybe I’ll get lucky this year, with a bit of planning to help it. It’s a Tuesday night, so I’ll have to find a good locale with a low horizon.
I’m excited, and hopeful. But also really freaking lazy. Hence, my goal is to set up a few times, and the rest is just potential gravy.
Ernest Cunningham, a writer who specializes in books on how to write, joins his family at a snowy retreat to welcome his brother home from jail. After he turned him into the police and sent him there.
What I Liked
The main character, Ernest aka Ern, breaks the fourth wall every page or two. Sometimes it’s foreshadowing, sometimes it’s narration, sometimes its commentary on himself, his life, the rest of the family, past events, future events, etc. It should be ANNOYING but is somehow delightful. Each section of the book is devoted to one family member, combining the current timeline with the past timeline where they killed someone (no, not all murders — car accident, patient dying on an operating table, etc.). And yes, even the narrator. When the first body shows up in the current timeline, things start to unravel in the family too.
What I Didn’t Like
There is a plot hole in the story, and not the one the narrator mentions (he mentions there is a giant plot hole big enough to drive a truck through, kind of as a literary joke), but it IS still there. Potential spoiler, but someone needs to be identified and conveniently, two people in particular who COULD identify him never see the picture. Normally, that would negate a star or even two, but the pieces hang together so well otherwise, I had to let it pass.
As I mentioned yesterday, I am doing a bit of a mental reboot, and I decided to start with my website journaling. I generally know what I have on the sites currently:
I might do some additional topics this year, but that’s the basic premise at least.
From the previous post, I also mentioned that I’m updating/upgrading/tweaking my journaling approach based on some resources about journaling. I went back and reviewed the “journal styles” that Scott Green wrote about in his book, “397 Journal Writing Prompts & Ideas” (2015).
I’m definitely in the personal journal side of things for ThePolyBlog.ca although there are elements that include a travel-journal-style.
For the PolyWogg.ca site, I said it was about professional writing, and maybe that wasn’t really the right nuance (although it captures some of the form and style). More pointedly, it is all about creative writing in whatever form…the only difference is that for the items on that site, I’ll likely collect and curate them into something more formal than a blog. Some of the elements even fit the “scientific / academic” journal style, but that could be for either site at times.
However, I don’t really do “gratitude” elements, and nothing on a friendship journal or prayer journal. I’ve tried, but they didn’t really resonate with me.
The journaling advice included the idea of stepping out of my normal comfort zone and writing about topics that are atypical, or working through a range of familiar topics.
