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Continue reading →: Letters from an autumn island 🍂Well, hello. Just like that, it’s November, and 2025 is almost in the books. This year has been a significant one so far. I’ve made impactful decisions such as serializing my memoir on Substack and, you know, reinventing my life. Both of which, I’m still in the process of crafting…
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Continue reading →: Happy 2025! Big announcement.Welcome to the new year, everyone! I hope its been a pleasant holiday season. While I can’t say I’m looking forward to getting back to work, I am looking forward to 2025’s gifts and adventures. In fact, my words for the year are PLAY and WONDER. But on NYE I…
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Continue reading →: Autumn updatesMy words for 2024 were JOY and EXPANSION, and I’m feeling all of it. I started the beginning of the year returning to a previous teaching job, and after adjusting to the big changes that had occurred, I feel like I’ve hit my stride. I wouldn’t go so far as…
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Continue reading →: On our first year back in Siem ReapIt’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since we relocated from Lampang, Thailand back to Siem Reap, Cambodia. In many ways, it’s like catching up with an old friend to discover how much the both of you have changed. The first three months were the hardest, from…
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Continue reading →: Summer reads and newsletteringHappy Summer! 🌞 June was all about Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, all 1243 pages of it, and taking a break from writing. The Pillars of the Earth was an absolute saga published in 1989, set in 12th century England. It became a mini-series and even a video…
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Continue reading →: Spring Reading Roundup + updatesThe Three Body Problem is an award winning sci-fi novel written by Chinese computer engineer and writer Liu Cixin. I was in the middle of reading it when I came across comments around the internet from folks who confessed that they couldn’t finish the book. As a result, I feel…
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Continue reading →: Substack vs WordPressI’ve been blogging since 2009 and Substacking since January 2024, so I’m not sure if this is a fair comparison. But ever since MailerLite and TinyLetter closed its doors, I needed to find a new newsletter platform, and Substack has been on my radar for some time. My newsletter, No…
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Continue reading →: March 2024 Reading Roundup + UpdatesAfter such a great reading start to the year, I just couldn’t find THE NEXT ONE — but I got there, eventually. As I mentioned last month, I started Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries with low expectations, and try as I might, I couldn’t get into it. I’m not sure…
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Continue reading →: Feb 2024 Reading Roundup + Updates“Don’t try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough.” – Arthur Freed I’ve got two fantastic historical fiction novel recommendations for you this month. First up, Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. I absolutely love these retellings of Greek myths. And since I’m a big fan of…
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Continue reading →: Jan 2024 Reading Roundup + UpdatesI’ve got books for you, and a review of how my Substack is doing so far… I’ve decided I like nonfiction adventure stories, and I say this because even though I have been reading this genre, it hasn’t been something that I’ve consciously recognized — or appreciated. Some notables that…
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Continue reading →: 2023 Reading Roundup + Life UpdatesLooking back at your reading year is the same as looking back at photos. It captures the lifetimes you lived through books! Plus, bellyflops under the guise of “life updates”! Apparently, I read the same amount of books as last year – 19, but about a thousand pages less. Boooo.…
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Continue reading →: Shit life syndrome and other things I’m not okay withDid you know there’s a phenomenon called shit life syndrome or SLS? You didn’t, but you did, right? It’s rather remarkable that in 2023, with all the technological advancements, that we still have wars, worldwide serfdom, and an elite ruling class. As a child of the 80s, it felt like…
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Continue reading →: Reading and Eating Vegan in Siem Reap: The Muffin Man ReviewThe Covenant of Water is the best book! And The Muffin Man is a must-eat in Siem Reap. But first, to the reads! The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is an incredible epic that centers around a family in Kerela, India from 1900 to 1977. All the characters and…
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Continue reading →: Reading and Eating Vegan in Siem Reap: Poké Me Siem Reap ReviewSiem Reap is a haven for vegans. Who knew? But if you’re here for the books, and not those annoying healthy people, then rest assured, the reading roundup is first! Many moons ago, I mentioned this beauty, The Seven (or 7½) Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. It’s, by…
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Continue reading →: Starting over in Siem ReapMy life has completely changed, so why not switch up the blog, too? // Reading Roundup posts were my solution to keeping the blog active during those years where my free time was limited. // I also felt burnt out in Thailand, so I wasn’t inspired to post often. //…
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Continue reading →: July + Aug 2023 Reading RoundupIt’s been a while, hasn’t it? But I am back, and with lots of news. But first — the reads! While traveling, I continued with Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief series, specifically, The King of Attolia. I thought this would be a great travel read since I was well into…
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Continue reading →: June 2023 Reading RoundupWhew. I can’t believe we’re halfway through the year! It was a good month for books, too. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield is a mystery that starts with a young girl being “saved” from drowning in the Thames River. But the peculiar thing is she appears to be…
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Continue reading →: May 2023 Reading Roundup + moreWe’re midway through 2023, yo! And what a month it’s been. But first up, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, a popular book that I remember seeing everywhere from my youth. The story centers around Dinah from the book of Genesis. She’s the daughter of Leah and Jacob, and sister…
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Continue reading →: April 2023 Reading RoundupThis month I read three bestsellers with three very different female protagonists. Discovered Bionic Reading®, The Last of England, and more. I clock in so much time searching and reading that I can’t remember how I first heard of this unique novel. Perhaps from one of you, dear readers. Yes,…
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Continue reading →: What are your internet habits?How has the internet changed our brains? There’s been plenty of finger pointing and talk about the adverse effects of social media, but how have we become rewired since the internet sat us down? Are we addicted? Or is that an utterly absurd statement since we need the internet like…
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Continue reading →: March 2023 Reading RoundupThis month let’s give thanks to our reading brain! I needed a nonfiction fix, so I perused my Kindle library and found Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryann Wolf. “WE WERE NEVER BORN TO READ. Human beings invented reading only a few…
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Continue reading →: The weird thing about being veganThe weird thing about being vegan is everyone else’s reaction. After three years of veganism in Thailand, it’s been an interesting journey into a subculture that I’d otherwise be pretty ignorant about. Prior to our decision, we considered ourselves fairly balanced and healthy, but afterwards, we see ourselves as lifelong…
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Continue reading →: February 2023 Reading RoundupApparently, I’m the only person who didn’t read Station Eleven during the pandemic… Published in 2014, Emily St. John Mandel’s post-pandemic world was ahead of its time. And it was rediscovered during Covid-19 as not only brilliant, but thank-god-ours-isn’t-as-bad-as-this-one. Yeahhh, I don’t think I’d have read it exactly that way.…
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Continue reading →: January 2023 Reading RoundupThis year I’m going to try something different. Besides books, I’d like to share essays I’ve read from around the web, as well as any novels I stopped reading. When I joined StoryGraph, I found that to be an interesting option, so why not include them as well? The Rook…
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Continue reading →: December & Yearly 2022 Reading RoundupI read 19 books in 2022, my least amount in years, but that’s okay, I was busy teaching third graders. Ha! But before we look back at this reading year, I wanted to share my December read, The Waxing Moon: Volume 1 of The Areekyan Chronicles Trilogy by my friend…
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Continue reading →: 22 things I’m grateful for in 20221 // MUSIC This year I returned to bluegrass, a genre that I fell in love with post-undergrad years while living in the American Southwest. It’s been a beautiful reunion, and I happily discovered what my old favorites were up to now: Chris Thile in Punch Brothers and Sara Watkins…
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Continue reading →: November 2022 Reading RoundupDo you consider yourself a slow or fast reader? I’m a slow one, and I used to use it as an excuse whenever I borrowed books from friends, or whenever they’d ask me what I was reading. But now I’ve decided, it’s not an excuse, it’s how I read, and…
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Continue reading →: October 2022 Reading RoundupA Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is a one-of-a-kind science fiction story that had my intense attention as soon as I started it. It’s possible I needed to be more sober, but I think it’s because the protagonist houses a working memory (that talks back!) of another ambassador inside…
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Continue reading →: Aug & Sept 2022 Reading RoundupHello again and thank you for allowing me to cheat by combining two months into one. August got away from me with frequent trips to Chiang Mai and starting the new school year. I already wrote about it here. Years ago, I got turned on to micro-memoirs through a short…
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Continue reading →: July 2022 Reading RoundupThis month I finished two fiction and one non-fiction book. Woohoo! Let’s go! The Night Tiger has all the delicious elements that I enjoy and seek in historical fiction. Written by Malaysian Yangsze Choo, The Night Tiger is set in 1930s Malaysia and is essentially about a missing finger. The…
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Continue reading →: The point is to keep going (self-help is a journey)For about a year, I received Mark Manson’s newsletter. What I liked about him was he seemed to be an independent and well-read thinker. I may not have agreed with it all, but he was interesting enough for me to stick around. But when I read “The Point Is To…
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Continue reading →: June 2022 Reading RoundupFact: When I get away from the internet washing machine, I get more reading done. Generally speaking. Although, I have been known to just pass out at nine or look at on my phone before bed. Bad, Lani, bad! Anyway, after reading a Western, I needed something different. In the…
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Continue reading →: How I’m trying to protect my mental healthAs some of you know, this past year has been a real struggle for me. So, I’m writing this not from a place of expertise, but as a reminder to myself and as a way to gain better perspective. Become Antifragile In 2020, when the world went into lockdown, it…
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Continue reading →: May 2022 Reading RoundupDo you like Westerns? John Larison’s Whiskey When We’re Dry is a riveting read that had me turning the pages, but I would have enjoyed it more if my waking life wasn’t so stressful! As a result, the story made me feel anxious about what would happen next to Jessilynn…
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Continue reading →: April 2022 Reading RoundupI loved Project Hail Mary! How can I talk about this without giving anything away? And that ending! I didn’t even know that Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian had written another book. Wait, what? He wrote ANOTHER book between The Martian and Project Hail Mary? And it was voted…
Hello,
I’m Lani
Welcome to Life, the Universe, and Lani. I’ve been blogging about my experiences living abroad since 2009.
At this point, this site serves as an archive as I’m mostly active at No Girl is an Island 👉https://lanivcox.substack.com/ 🏝️where I have been both newslettering and continuing to craft personal essays on finding freedom in the fringes.
Thanks for stopping by, have a look around, and hope to see you over at No Girl is an Island.
Life, the Universe, and Lani 
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