Winter Break

The local school was off for Winter Break, which means my nephew was available to come over and pester me a bit, which I mostly enjoy. In the final weekend his parents headed out to celebrate my sister's birthday and their 25 Years of Marriage. Their son got to batch it by himself. I kept offering to take him out or buy him food but he said he had it covered. He did permit me to take him out to the movies once.

It does mean that my sister and I are twins for the next few weeks, until my birthday comes and I edge ahead again. We are celebrating being old by joining a gym together, and have been pretty good about going and walking along on a treadmill for a few minutes. I assume that is all I need to regain my youthful form.

I turned in my taxes to an accountant along with at least 90% of the appropriate files. Go me! I shouldn't really need an accountant but it's probably a good idea because I turn into a raging moron when confronted with forms and details and proof of the inherent corruption of our government. Also, some stuff last year was a little complicated.

Only one book club this week (well, plus the regular Tuesday one). We enjoyed discussing The Pearl -- there's always a feeling of being smart when your book is officially a "classic" even if that doesn't mean it was hard to read or anything.

My currently reading hovers around 20. I still have three audio books on the go. I've misplaced one book somewhere around here. And I'm combining my younger Cybils books with my rewatch of some Star Trek series (Deep Space 9 and Voyager) so that I have a little refresher between them.

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called https://thebookdate.wordpress.com/2020/02/24/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-212/ so I'll sign up there. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. I qualify this week with Cybils books, fun reads, and some picture books!

Started: 




Hidden Witch, Molly Ostertag. Sequel.

Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything, Martin W. Sandler.  2018 Cybils nonfiction.

Heaven's Queen, Rachel Bach. Sequel.

Uncompromising Honor, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial.

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar. For Cloudy With a Chance of Clit Lit. It's audio, so I'm not sure I'll finish on time.

Prince's Fate, Caroline Gibson. From my kindle.

Frenemies In the Family, Kathleen Krull. Cybils 2018 Nonfiction finalist.


Completed:





Hidden Witch, Molly Ostertag. Sequel. I like how the kids (and adults) in this are basically decent; they make mistakes but they want to be good people. Even the baddie from the last book comes around as he is purged of his evil backwash. The kid sending out demons is lonely and afraid, and the other kids immediate figure out she needs to helped rather than condemned. The illustrations are good (even I could mostly tell people apart) and I like the dichromatic eyes on Astor's cousin. I have the next on hold from the library.

Honor's Knight, Rachel Bach.  It's fun reading these right after each other. It makes some things more stark, but Devi is always fun to read about. This was a good book to read while on the treadmill as it was easy to pick up the pace while reading about Devi's zooming around the galaxy.

Dreams From Many Rivers, Margarita Engle. Cybils 2019 poetry. Audio CD. This didn't really work for me, perhaps because of the audio. The performers sounded dispassionate, almost bored. I liked the vignettes of history but didn't really respond to the poems as poetry.

The Pearl, John Steinbeck. For the River Runs Under It library book club. I'm pretty sure I read this as a youth, but I must say that as an adult the death of the baby hits me much harder. I loved the language and this this would make a great audio or family read-aloud, although my modern sensibilities thought his portrayal of "simple" Indian folk rather condescending. The book club meeting was fun -- we talked about details, about themes, about symbols, and about what the pearl would mean to us.

Heaven's Queen, Rachel Bach. And Devi manages to save the universe and meet the King. The world building of Devi's enthusiastic Paradoxian nature amused me throughout. And I hope Rupert is a good house-husband. He's got the cooking skills already.


Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:





Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 4/10 discs. This has been bumped by a book club book I had to get on audio CD.

Book Lust, Nancy Pearl. I've lost it! I hope it's in the last bags from Foolscap...

Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan. The library called this home.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke. Also been bumped by the Audio CD.

Kill the Farm Boy, Delilah Dawson and Kevin Hearne. My next RML book. I made good progress.



Picture Books / Short Stories:




Death Eaters: Nature's Decomposers and Scavengers, Kelly Milner Halls. 2018 Cybils Elementary Nonfiction. Vivid pictures and fun text taught me stuff about how dead stuff gets cleaned up. It's all a cycle.

The Hyena Scientist, Sy Montgomery. 2018 Cybils Elementary Nonfiction. Great pictures and narrative -- the author and her photographer were clearly delighted to document the hyena research camp and get to help out. She was good sport about the near flood and having a tranked hyena start waking up in her lap. The mini-biographies of the various members of the team show many different paths to science.

Dog Days of History, Sarah Albee. 2018 Cybils Elementary Nonfiction. Short bursts of text, lively photos and illustrations of a variety of dogs make this an easy read and very appealing to young dog lovers.

Think Triangles! Karen S. Robins. I should make a list of board books for people who dislike silliness but want to read with their babies. This would appeal to both the baby and the stodgy adult.

The Boy and the Bear, Peter Stein. A stern lesson on the dangers of consumerism.

Hide 'n Sheep, Jennifer Sattler. Some acceptance of silliness required but this is a fun book for babies and adults with a chance for some counting.


Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.



A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George. They finally arrested someone. Anyone. At this point I don't really care -- all the people in this book are repellent to me.

The Educated Child, William Bennett.

Cookie, Jacqueline Wilson.

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home, Carol Rifka Brunt.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. Started Armstrong and Charlie.
2. Cybils 2018. Read some elementary nonfiction. Lined up the poetry (and listened to one).
3. Cybils 2019.  I'd better get started. Hey, Hidden Witch was on the list! I'm on a roll.
4. Reading My Library. I am reading one.
5. Ten to Try. I've got 4/10 already! And The Clone Code was a journey, but I want a better one.
6. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. 8/24. I'm ahead!  Picked up two -- rural setting and audio book of poetry. .
7. Where Am I Reading: Seven states, seven countries.

Foolscap! Skipped a Week

Last weekend was my Foolscap Convention, which is a time to celebrate books and making things and authors. But it meant I was away from home and forgot about my little blog. So this is two weeks worth of reading.

Right after Foolscap I had a week of book clubs, including my elementary book club at the local school (split into two this year because of strange lunch schedules), the Romance Series run by a local librarian, and my oldest bookclub where I hang out with friends. I skipped a movie last week because there was absolutely nothing I wanted to see. Well, I wouldn't mind seeing Birds of Prey, but I didn't think my friend would like it. I should go see two this week to make up for it!

My family has started the birthday season -- my nephew and my mom share a birthday, so there were presents and phone calls to make. Later this month comes my sister, and then me, and then my son, then my niece. It would be a cake a month until summer but some of these people don't like cake! Astonishing, I know. I have gifts ready to go because there were good selections at my convention this year.

My currently reading shelf snuck back up to 21, mainly because I've got three audio books on the go. And I've misplaced one book somewhere around here.

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called It's Monday! What Are You Reading so I'll sign up there. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. My book club reading qualifies me there.

Started: 




Dreams From Many Rivers, Margarita Engle. Cybils 2019 poetry. Audio CD.

The Matchmaker's List, Sonya Lalli. For Renton Library Romance Series.

--

The Clone Codes, Patricia McKissack. And also John McKissack. For the Talbot Hill Elementary Book Club.

Little Wolf's Book of Badness, Ian Whybrow. For the other Talbot Hill Elementary Book Club.

Fortune's Pawn, Rachel Bach. For my Friday book club.

Honor's Knight, Rachel Bach. The sequel because I liked Fortune's Pawn.

The Pearl, John Steinbeck. For the River Runs Under It library book club.

Giant Spider and Me Vol 2, Kikori Morino. A delightful and delightfully bizarre manga.


Completed:




The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang. Wow, made it! It's tough for me to read about such young people having such horrific experiences, and making such horrific choices in response. I'm glad I read it but I'm not sure I'm up for the sequel.

Masques, Patricia Briggs. I liked this even more on the reread, although I'm sad that I squished my copy a bit. I like the fantasy world and the characters and I want to spend a bit more time there. Lucky for me there's a sequel!

--

The Clone Codes, Patricia McKissack. And also John McKissack. The kids are getting lazy -- almost no one read this! On the plus side, three of them checked out it on the way out of the library so I think they regretted it. We picked a short book for next time.

The Matchmaker's List, Sonya Lalli. For Renton Library Romance Series. I'm not sure whether to count this as read -- I skipped all over to finish in time for book club (I tend to take a break at embarrassing moments and this was full of them so I'd skip ahead and then come back and then zip all over. So I probably read most of it? But I could show up at book club, where we had some new people who seemed happy with the book and the group. Anyway, it was a fun peek at Canadian life.

Little Wolf's Book of Badness, Ian Whybrow. For the other Talbot Hill Elementary Book Club. Another bunch of slackers! I gave them a long book for next month to see if that is more interesting. I found the mix of wolf cub and boy very British and amusing, although the story was fairly predictable.

Fortune's Pawn, Rachel Bach. For my Friday book club. I have forgotten every last bit of the plot, but I remember enjoying the character and the story. So rereading it is fun. I picked it for that, and was glad to see that everyone else seemed to like it as well, and a few people even read the sequels. We liked the different protagonist -- Devi was brash, career oriented, and hyper good at her job, and the guy who loved her was overwhelmed by his emotions, which was a fun reversal on the trope.

Giant Spider and Me Vol 2, Kikori Morino. Rachel Manija recommended this manga, and apart from some of the text being awfully small for my aged eyes, I find it as delightful as she told me. There's good cooking advice, a child managing by herself in a vaguely post-apocalypse world, the friends she makes, and of course, a giant spider helpfully befriending her. In this book we get the guess that the spider is young and sorta imprinting on people so probably unlikely to go on a killing spree, no matter what the silly villagers moaning about "monsters" fret about.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:





Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 4/10 discs. The bear seems quite pleasant, which is why I was so confused when I thought he was also the dwarf.

Book Lust, Nancy Pearl. Forgot to read this.

Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan. The library called this home.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke. It is not a good sign when I seek out the sleepy poetry readers rather than this book. I'm still at 29%.

Kill the Farm Boy, Delilah Dawson and Kevin Hearne. My next RML book. This isn't really plot driven, so I am happy when I pick it up but not driven to seek it out.



Picture Books / Short Stories:

None this week.


Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.



A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George.

The Educated Child, William Bennett.

Cookie, Jacqueline Wilson.

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home, Carol Rifka Brunt.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. Have some middle grade fiction out from the library. Haven't read it yet.
2. Cybils 2018. Got some more out from the library.
3. Cybils 2019. Woot -- the winners came out! I'd better get started.
4. Reading My Library. I am reading one.
5. Ten to Try. I've got 4/10 already!
6. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. 6/24. I'm ahead!  No progress.
7. Where Am I Reading: Seven states, six countries so far.