![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
F-f-f-friday books!
Oct. 4th, 2024 05:46 pmIt's been over a month! Maybe I should do some medialogging? But of course, it's also been the first five weeks of school and heyo, big surprise, my reading has gone waaaaay down. I'd like to get back into the swing of walking to work and reading while I do, but it's enough faster to bike that I've been doing that instead.
Finished Reading Recently
For the first time since probably college, I read the other books in Mercedes Lackey's gryphon trilogy. (For context, I read The Silver Gryphon approximately once a year or more). The White Gryphon was about what I remembered --like all Lackey books that lean hard on sexual trauma, it sure was that. I _adore_ the parts about Skan and dancing, obviously, and Iike the murder-mystery-detective-work bits of it. Not gonna enter my regular rotation, but unlike the last time I read the Mage Winds, I don't feel like I never need to touch it again. The Black Gryphon was surprisingly enjoyable, despite being such a bleak book about war. Amberdrake is kinda the good sort of exhausting, and it is enjoyable to watch Skan in action. Same verdict as White, but glad to have additional context for Tad and Blade whenever I reread Silver Gryphon next.
My general interest in murder mysteries and Taskmaster brought me Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club which is _adorable_. Anarchist labour organizers!!! Charming little old ladies who bake cakes!!! Definitely a former spy!!! I enjoyed the heck out of this, and of course, since it has recently been made into a Netflix series or something, the wait list for the sequel is ages and ages.
When last we checked, I was working my way through some Daniel Pinkwater, and I got two more of his books done that I'd never read before. Once Upon a Blue Moose is a trifecta of Blue Moose volumes under one cover. It is very silly, in a way that is extremely charming. Lizard Music is also extremely charming, although I found myself faintly disappointed by the ending. Maybe because it has strong portal fantasy vibes, without actually being a portal? I always feel sorry for those who return from the fantastical and have to put up with whatever remains.
Everybody and *everybody* was reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevon last summer. I remember seeing it on the school library board as a "books set locally!" and having my brain go "oh cool" about it. That might've even what made me take out the hold, meaning it would've been percolating from June until early September until it got to me. The hold arrived, I was busy, it was the last day before expiring and I had a flight to Maryland. Sure, reading a book on a plane is a fine use of a plane.
I could hardly put it down, desperate to finish before midnight and expiration. *Luckily* I learned that as long as I do not exit the book on my kobo, try to go back to the home screen for ANY REASON, it will not kick me out of the book while I'm in the middle. Thank god, because I was legitimately trying to work out with my mother borrowing her kindle while I was in town so I could finish and luckily I did not need to. It was a wham-bam ride of a book, and I'm not positive I loved it, but I am positive that I _devoured_ it. Parts of it hurt sublimely, other parts felt like everything I've ever known, like all the stories my father has ever told me of college and just after. Delicious, fascinating, beautiful. I guess if this is what LitFic can be like, maybe I will stray out of genre more often.
The entire reading month of September feels like it can be summed up in weekends, with barely a page turned the rest of the week. I don't like it, and I'm trying to see if I can rebalance that as October turns, maybe partly by drowning myself in check-outs. So after the wedding weekend, I had a very quiet weekend at home, and chats with SamSam led me to revisit some favourite fanfics. The Paladin Protocol by SpaceAnJel is a Big Bang Theory fix-it-fic shipping Penny and Sheldon, and before you say ugh, recall that I hardly ever bother reading fanfic for properties I adore. It's still solid as hell, there's a lot for me to relate to. Unpretty's Christmas in Kansas is still one of the best works by the best author. What *would* happen if Clark Kent had his work buddies Bruce and Diana come home with him for the holiday?
And then our final September weekend, and as I'm headed out the door for whatever it was I managed to do on Saturday (a grocery run, I think?) I grabbed my extremely well-worn copy of Squire by Tamora Pierce. This is not the first book to be put twice on my booksheet1, but it is probably the least surprising one. Reading it as I walked to the grocery store felt like all the best reasons to read, it is a marvelous slice of home. Keladry is my favourite of Pierce's girls, and the one I most want to be like when I grow up. I finished the book early on Sunday, and Lady Knight followed over the few days after.
Currently Reading
When SamSam was visiting most recently, they read me a chapter and a half2 of A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck. I asked after if I should find a copy to finish on my own or if they'd keep reading it to me, and they said the latter, so I suspect this will be in the "currently reading" category for quite some time.
Back in...oh god, December of last year probably? One of my favourite coworkers spied me reading something keen, and was eager to pass on a recent favourite of hers...which happened to be my buddy Moniquill's first novel! To Shape a Dragon's Breath has been getting all the acclaim lately, and from the first dozen chapters or so, it feels deserved. Unfortunately, this book is Srs Bsns enough that it's been a struggle to keep reading --too much anxiety not knowing what'll happen! Aforementioned coworker is retiring at the end of the semester though, so that's my deadline for getting it back to her.
On Facebook, my friend Beth does a lot of recommendations of Hugo candidates, which is the first place I really heard of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I dropped it onto the hold list, waited for my name to churn to the top, and have been giving it a go --it's good! I continue to really like me a murder mystery, it turns out, and mad genius is a trope my heart flutters for. I'm about 20% through, according to Talia3.
Reading Soon
All of my holds are popping at once! I am trying to prioritize ebooks, because then they expire, so Tainted Cup first, then Uglies by Scott Westerfield, and [All Systems RedThe Past Is Red, really, no one in two weeks noticed that?] by Catherynne Valente all of which have shown up in the last week. My brain gave a nudge about Cat Valente in general --I adore the Girl Who books, and I remember really enjoying Palimpsest-- so I've also got physical copies of Space Opera (which I've heard some good things about and I *love* the premise for) and the two Orphan's Tales books.
It is...frankly absurd that I've never read the Orphan's Tales, I could probably tell you a number of relevant plot points...or more accurately, sing those plots, because my dearly beloved SJ Tucker has written a couple of companion albums for these books. So that'll be fun, and it'll be fascinating to hear parts of it as I read.
And then I happened to be standing in the library in a moment of BrainWeird and I happened to check the catalog, and into my bag goes the three Scholomance novels again. Someone in my discord server just read them and was talking about them a bit and I now have a passionate urge to see what El is like when I know the whole of her story laid out. It might not be as good but it might be *better* instead.
Oh yeah, and I'm also holding a copy of Novik's Uprooted from the NESFA library, my very first checked out book with that card. I hear a lot more about Spinning Silver, but my brain understands them as a series (of retold fairytales, perhaps?) and so that means going through them in order.
So like I said, October is going to need to get back into the habit of reading on my way to and from work again, or else I'm pretty doomed. There are worse fates, I suppose.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I *think* that All Systems Red gets that honor, having read in both February and July of this year, and then of course the rest of the diaries.
2: ...less than that. I was awake and eager for the first chapter, and then later we tried the second and I fell asleep almost immediately. I think Sam is okay with that.
3: I feel complicated when I use names for my electronics without clarifying, so as a reminder, Talia is my kobo ereader, because my electronics are almost always named for Excellent Fictional Women, and if you want one of those who is also a Reader, well, the Arrows trilogy has a lot of flaws but Talia as a character is not one of them.
Finished Reading Recently
For the first time since probably college, I read the other books in Mercedes Lackey's gryphon trilogy. (For context, I read The Silver Gryphon approximately once a year or more). The White Gryphon was about what I remembered --like all Lackey books that lean hard on sexual trauma, it sure was that. I _adore_ the parts about Skan and dancing, obviously, and Iike the murder-mystery-detective-work bits of it. Not gonna enter my regular rotation, but unlike the last time I read the Mage Winds, I don't feel like I never need to touch it again. The Black Gryphon was surprisingly enjoyable, despite being such a bleak book about war. Amberdrake is kinda the good sort of exhausting, and it is enjoyable to watch Skan in action. Same verdict as White, but glad to have additional context for Tad and Blade whenever I reread Silver Gryphon next.
My general interest in murder mysteries and Taskmaster brought me Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club which is _adorable_. Anarchist labour organizers!!! Charming little old ladies who bake cakes!!! Definitely a former spy!!! I enjoyed the heck out of this, and of course, since it has recently been made into a Netflix series or something, the wait list for the sequel is ages and ages.
When last we checked, I was working my way through some Daniel Pinkwater, and I got two more of his books done that I'd never read before. Once Upon a Blue Moose is a trifecta of Blue Moose volumes under one cover. It is very silly, in a way that is extremely charming. Lizard Music is also extremely charming, although I found myself faintly disappointed by the ending. Maybe because it has strong portal fantasy vibes, without actually being a portal? I always feel sorry for those who return from the fantastical and have to put up with whatever remains.
Everybody and *everybody* was reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevon last summer. I remember seeing it on the school library board as a "books set locally!" and having my brain go "oh cool" about it. That might've even what made me take out the hold, meaning it would've been percolating from June until early September until it got to me. The hold arrived, I was busy, it was the last day before expiring and I had a flight to Maryland. Sure, reading a book on a plane is a fine use of a plane.
I could hardly put it down, desperate to finish before midnight and expiration. *Luckily* I learned that as long as I do not exit the book on my kobo, try to go back to the home screen for ANY REASON, it will not kick me out of the book while I'm in the middle. Thank god, because I was legitimately trying to work out with my mother borrowing her kindle while I was in town so I could finish and luckily I did not need to. It was a wham-bam ride of a book, and I'm not positive I loved it, but I am positive that I _devoured_ it. Parts of it hurt sublimely, other parts felt like everything I've ever known, like all the stories my father has ever told me of college and just after. Delicious, fascinating, beautiful. I guess if this is what LitFic can be like, maybe I will stray out of genre more often.
The entire reading month of September feels like it can be summed up in weekends, with barely a page turned the rest of the week. I don't like it, and I'm trying to see if I can rebalance that as October turns, maybe partly by drowning myself in check-outs. So after the wedding weekend, I had a very quiet weekend at home, and chats with SamSam led me to revisit some favourite fanfics. The Paladin Protocol by SpaceAnJel is a Big Bang Theory fix-it-fic shipping Penny and Sheldon, and before you say ugh, recall that I hardly ever bother reading fanfic for properties I adore. It's still solid as hell, there's a lot for me to relate to. Unpretty's Christmas in Kansas is still one of the best works by the best author. What *would* happen if Clark Kent had his work buddies Bruce and Diana come home with him for the holiday?
And then our final September weekend, and as I'm headed out the door for whatever it was I managed to do on Saturday (a grocery run, I think?) I grabbed my extremely well-worn copy of Squire by Tamora Pierce. This is not the first book to be put twice on my booksheet1, but it is probably the least surprising one. Reading it as I walked to the grocery store felt like all the best reasons to read, it is a marvelous slice of home. Keladry is my favourite of Pierce's girls, and the one I most want to be like when I grow up. I finished the book early on Sunday, and Lady Knight followed over the few days after.
Currently Reading
When SamSam was visiting most recently, they read me a chapter and a half2 of A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck. I asked after if I should find a copy to finish on my own or if they'd keep reading it to me, and they said the latter, so I suspect this will be in the "currently reading" category for quite some time.
Back in...oh god, December of last year probably? One of my favourite coworkers spied me reading something keen, and was eager to pass on a recent favourite of hers...which happened to be my buddy Moniquill's first novel! To Shape a Dragon's Breath has been getting all the acclaim lately, and from the first dozen chapters or so, it feels deserved. Unfortunately, this book is Srs Bsns enough that it's been a struggle to keep reading --too much anxiety not knowing what'll happen! Aforementioned coworker is retiring at the end of the semester though, so that's my deadline for getting it back to her.
On Facebook, my friend Beth does a lot of recommendations of Hugo candidates, which is the first place I really heard of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I dropped it onto the hold list, waited for my name to churn to the top, and have been giving it a go --it's good! I continue to really like me a murder mystery, it turns out, and mad genius is a trope my heart flutters for. I'm about 20% through, according to Talia3.
Reading Soon
All of my holds are popping at once! I am trying to prioritize ebooks, because then they expire, so Tainted Cup first, then Uglies by Scott Westerfield, and [
It is...frankly absurd that I've never read the Orphan's Tales, I could probably tell you a number of relevant plot points...or more accurately, sing those plots, because my dearly beloved SJ Tucker has written a couple of companion albums for these books. So that'll be fun, and it'll be fascinating to hear parts of it as I read.
And then I happened to be standing in the library in a moment of BrainWeird and I happened to check the catalog, and into my bag goes the three Scholomance novels again. Someone in my discord server just read them and was talking about them a bit and I now have a passionate urge to see what El is like when I know the whole of her story laid out. It might not be as good but it might be *better* instead.
Oh yeah, and I'm also holding a copy of Novik's Uprooted from the NESFA library, my very first checked out book with that card. I hear a lot more about Spinning Silver, but my brain understands them as a series (of retold fairytales, perhaps?) and so that means going through them in order.
So like I said, October is going to need to get back into the habit of reading on my way to and from work again, or else I'm pretty doomed. There are worse fates, I suppose.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I *think* that All Systems Red gets that honor, having read in both February and July of this year, and then of course the rest of the diaries.
2: ...less than that. I was awake and eager for the first chapter, and then later we tried the second and I fell asleep almost immediately. I think Sam is okay with that.
3: I feel complicated when I use names for my electronics without clarifying, so as a reminder, Talia is my kobo ereader, because my electronics are almost always named for Excellent Fictional Women, and if you want one of those who is also a Reader, well, the Arrows trilogy has a lot of flaws but Talia as a character is not one of them.