I finished reading Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, which was really fantastic! It's a lovely exploration of complexities, particularly inequalities, in relationships between colonizer and colonized.
I have nothing else on loan from the library right now, so I'm going to dig around what I own and catch up.
Still working on The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. I'm enjoying it, but it's long! Or at least long by my standards. I guess I read a lot of shorter books, so 500+ pages has thrown my usual pace for finishing books way off.
I'm reading Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk for book club, which is not enjoyable for me - not a good breakfast or bedtime read, so I need to see how far I'll get through it. I also dislike first person narrative (and found a fatal flaw to the story setup in the first chapter already soooooo...yeah).
So for breakfast and bedtime I'm reading Red, White & Royal Blue, which I bought ages ago when it first came out but never got around to (and had/have an orific with a remarkable similar although not verbatim setup, but that's from 2015 or 2016, so not a fanfic, and it was weird for me to read it until now).
I'm struggling with reading a bit right now, I want to, but sort of nothing really speaks to me, no book and also not fanfic. Which is a very weird limbo state.
Just finished Daughter of the Bright Moon. It was okay. A very long and rambly book for its era, but it did eventually get the job done.
I'm not interested in reading the direct sequel, but apparently there's a third book which the author wrote almost 30 years later, and I think I would be interested in seeing what the author did in revisiting the main character and setting.
In the meantime, though, next up is Warhorn, the Crossroads Adventures entry in this setting.
Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis - Fun! A very entertaining heroine and an interesting sci-fi novella about a kinda heist with slight mystery "hmm, what's really going on here?" tone. I immediately went and borrowed the next in the series.
Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work by Alison Green - Super useful. Probably gonna buy a copy of this to give my niece who'll be entering the workforce sometime soonish.
The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton - I liked well enough, though I'm beginning to think that I'm never going to like any of Ashton's books as much as I liked Mickey7. The story itself is a typical Ashton kind of "loser gets drawn into increasingly terrible situation partly of his own making, has to claw his way back out". It was a good enough story, though like the last few books from this author, I felt like it needed some more fleshing out in the description and worldbuilding department to feel actually finished. Still...entertaining.
Still reading:
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg - a book which has probably suffered from my tendency to buy books and then take 10 years or so to read them: they get dated. I'm pretty sure that some of the things in this book were groundbreaking 10 years ago, but now they just seem same-old.
How to Steal a Galaxy by Beth Revis - Ada so far has made people buy her food and a fancy dress, flirted with an incredibly flustered Rian, thought uncharitable things about rich and entitled people, and is poised to steal some stuff at a fancy gala. I'm here for this.
Also have Clockwork Boys and What Moves The Dead from T. Kingfisher queued up.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp Born to be Posthumous: the Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery
and I can recommend to mystery lovers, the Joseph Spector series by Tom Mead. I am reading the third (Cabaret Macabre) and there's a fourth due out this summer. It's 1930's/1940's London locked room mysteries with amateur sleuth retired magician Joseph Spector and his police counterpart Inspector Flint. Draws you in! And I've read a lot of mysteries.
I read a couple of romance novels, one very popular miserablist rom-com from 2024 which I found dull, and one very popular comedy romance from 1957 which I enjoyed and had some fun vocabulary.
Word I've never heard in the wild but understand: frowsiness. Word I've heard and used but not for a long time: cadge.
Now reading Dispersals by Jessica J Lee, 2024, which is an anthology of non-fiction essays on the history of natural history especially botany. Her writing style is pleasing me so far, even when my interest temporarily drifts from the subject.
My copy of Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green came and so far I really like it. I've actually never read Green's novels, only his other non-fiction book, so that's how I tend to think of him. He has a great voice for non-fiction: clear and concise but also lyrical and evocative.
The Friendship Factor by Alan Loy McGinnis, which is full of sensible advice about why and how to build better relationships with people that I'm probably never going to follow.
I just burned through Circe in audio book format and now I'm cruising through The Song of Achilles. These are great entertainment but also I'm a hater and reading two star reviews to validate my disappointment in how lauded these are. The narrators are really knocking it out of the park though.
Non-fiction wise I'm reading The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars and it's been brilliant. I'm cheering for them, but their story doesn't end on a happy note.
Finished Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year by Eleanor Parker at last, and my reread of The Devil's Mixtape by Mary Borsellino.
I've spent most of this past week rereading Jane Eyre for the first time since 2019, and I got a lot more out of it now that I'm older. This edition had an introduction which was helpful in contextualising public reaction to the story, which only furthered my appreciation of Jane's self-willed character. I'd wanted to read Wide Sargasso Sea in dialogue with it, but I can't pick that up from the library until Friday, when I'll be neck-deep in Trans Rights Readathon, so I'll have to put that off until April.
Speaking of the Trans Rights Readathon, I've started slightly early, with A Natural History of Transition by Callum Angus, a short collection of stories that will tide me over well from now until I visit an LGBT+ bookshop on Saturday. I've only read the first story so far, but I liked it; Angus has a good style.
I'm also slogging through Queer Data by Kevin Guyan. It's a good and valuable book, for sure, but it's been very theory-based so far, and very academic in a "using a lot of words to very precisely make one (1) point", and both of those things give me a headache.
Cruising past the new books sectionsection at the library I picked up The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke. It's a beautifully illustrated short story.
Also at the library I picked up A House With Good Bones, a T. Kingfisher that I hadn't read yet. I used to always say I didn't like horror, but her version of horror does not dwell on gore, instead focusing on the characters. I liked this a lot.
Read and loved The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, after hearing it recced for years. Devastated that she only wrote one other novel, instead of having a huge backlist for me to dive into.
I finished Georgia Summers' The City of Stardust (the best way I can describe it, beyond what the blurb says, is "vibes like Erin Morgenstern") and am now into Jennifer L. Armentrout's From Blood and Ash, because I wanted a thing that required a little less of my brain.
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I have nothing else on loan from the library right now, so I'm going to dig around what I own and catch up.
no subject
no subject
So for breakfast and bedtime I'm reading Red, White & Royal Blue, which I bought ages ago when it first came out but never got around to (and had/have an orific with a remarkable similar although not verbatim setup, but that's from 2015 or 2016, so not a fanfic, and it was weird for me to read it until now).
I'm struggling with reading a bit right now, I want to, but sort of nothing really speaks to me, no book and also not fanfic. Which is a very weird limbo state.
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I'm not interested in reading the direct sequel, but apparently there's a third book which the author wrote almost 30 years later, and I think I would be interested in seeing what the author did in revisiting the main character and setting.
In the meantime, though, next up is Warhorn, the Crossroads Adventures entry in this setting.
no subject
Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis - Fun! A very entertaining heroine and an interesting sci-fi novella about a kinda heist with slight mystery "hmm, what's really going on here?" tone. I immediately went and borrowed the next in the series.
Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work by Alison Green - Super useful. Probably gonna buy a copy of this to give my niece who'll be entering the workforce sometime soonish.
The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton - I liked well enough, though I'm beginning to think that I'm never going to like any of Ashton's books as much as I liked Mickey7. The story itself is a typical Ashton kind of "loser gets drawn into increasingly terrible situation partly of his own making, has to claw his way back out". It was a good enough story, though like the last few books from this author, I felt like it needed some more fleshing out in the description and worldbuilding department to feel actually finished. Still...entertaining.
Still reading:
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg - a book which has probably suffered from my tendency to buy books and then take 10 years or so to read them: they get dated. I'm pretty sure that some of the things in this book were groundbreaking 10 years ago, but now they just seem same-old.
How to Steal a Galaxy by Beth Revis - Ada so far has made people buy her food and a fancy dress, flirted with an incredibly flustered Rian, thought uncharitable things about rich and entitled people, and is poised to steal some stuff at a fancy gala. I'm here for this.
Also have Clockwork Boys and What Moves The Dead from T. Kingfisher queued up.
no subject
Born to be Posthumous: the Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery
and I can recommend to mystery lovers, the Joseph Spector series by Tom Mead. I am reading the third (Cabaret Macabre) and there's a fourth due out this summer. It's 1930's/1940's London locked room mysteries with amateur sleuth retired magician Joseph Spector and his police counterpart Inspector Flint. Draws you in! And I've read a lot of mysteries.
no subject
Word I've never heard in the wild but understand: frowsiness.
Word I've heard and used but not for a long time: cadge.
Now reading Dispersals by Jessica J Lee, 2024, which is an anthology of non-fiction essays on the history of natural history especially botany. Her writing style is pleasing me so far, even when my interest temporarily drifts from the subject.
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Non-fiction wise I'm reading The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars and it's been brilliant. I'm cheering for them, but their story doesn't end on a happy note.
(no subject)
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I've spent most of this past week rereading Jane Eyre for the first time since 2019, and I got a lot more out of it now that I'm older. This edition had an introduction which was helpful in contextualising public reaction to the story, which only furthered my appreciation of Jane's self-willed character. I'd wanted to read Wide Sargasso Sea in dialogue with it, but I can't pick that up from the library until Friday, when I'll be neck-deep in Trans Rights Readathon, so I'll have to put that off until April.
Speaking of the Trans Rights Readathon, I've started slightly early, with A Natural History of Transition by Callum Angus, a short collection of stories that will tide me over well from now until I visit an LGBT+ bookshop on Saturday. I've only read the first story so far, but I liked it; Angus has a good style.
I'm also slogging through Queer Data by Kevin Guyan. It's a good and valuable book, for sure, but it's been very theory-based so far, and very academic in a "using a lot of words to very precisely make one (1) point", and both of those things give me a headache.
no subject
Also at the library I picked up A House With Good Bones, a T. Kingfisher that I hadn't read yet. I used to always say I didn't like horror, but her version of horror does not dwell on gore, instead focusing on the characters. I liked this a lot.
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