Apparently Exercise Can Make You Sore

The big news of the week is that I'm getting some library books! Pick-up is now a thing, not at my home library but at my main back-up library. So I put a zillion books on hold and raced over to pick up the first one (Ordinary Harads) . Even better, I asked them about helping with my Library Quest. I've been reading a book off each shelf of the library, so I wondered if a librarian could amble over to the next shelf and grab something for me and put it on my hold shelf. They were cautiously optimistic; probably not for a few weeks as right now they are scrambling to become remote action libraries, but definitely before the building would open to the public. KCLS is awesome.

I turned in my ballot for the Hugo Awards, and am gearing up to attend WorldCon in New Zealand (CoNZealand). Of course, New Zealand is barred from outsiders and I'm following stay-at-home advice, but the convention has gone virtual so that shouldn't slow me down. On Monday night I plan to set all the clocks in my house to New Zealand time and leap into Wednesday, bypassing Tuesday all together. Of course, I'll have to come back to Washington for incidentals like the farmer's market and such, but the commute will be much better from Virtual New Zealand than from the real one. The views won't be as nice, though.

I had my book club with my mom friends for Stamped. I had foolishly started out doing chapter summaries, and then stubbornness kept me doing it all the way through. So the audio went very slowly, and I was listening on Spotify so I couldn't crank up the speed. I managed to finish 20 minutes before go-time (it was remote, but it would have been even without Covid, since we are scattered all over the US and beyond). 

I have successfully finished week 8 of the Couch-5K plan. Which I thought was 8 weeks but turns out is 9. So now I have one more week. I've noticed that my knee is sore after running so I'm spreading out the runs to be 2.5 days apart instead of two days, and that seems to give me aged and appalled legs time to recover. This is a HUGE deal for me -- never in my life have I been able to fun for even 20 minutes straight, and now I've gone 28. And am planning on going 30. I'm incredibly slow, so I still haven't gone 5K, but that now seems like a realistic goal. After next week I will switch my training program from the NHS podcast (I like the British voice telling me I'm doing great) to Zombies Run. 

A sad side effect of all this exercise is that I'm sore! Sleeping is hard because when I roll over I wake myself up. The only day I managed to sleep deeply was the day I was supposed to meet up with a friend for a socially-distant park walk -- that day I slept like a log until an hour after the meeting time. Oops. And then, to mock myself, I woke up the next day at 6:30 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. So I went for my last Week 8 run. 

Dinners were Thai Shrimp and then Lentil Stew, for which I contributed homemade bread. And I just made a blueberry banana bread from fresh blueberries that I shall bring over to my sister's for dinner tonight. (It turned out very nice.)

My currently reading has calmed down to 20, including the three I'm just pretending to read. 

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 new books are 3/5 kidlit this week.
Started

All Thirteen, Christina Soontornvat. ARC from Candlepress. Also fits my Goodreads team challenge.

Operatic, Kyo Maclear. Cybils graphic book finalist.

Cleaning the Gold, Karin Slaughter & Lee Child. Two action adventure series characters meet. I know Jack Reacher but the other guy was new to me.

Ordinary Hazards, Nikki Grimes. Cybils finalist. 

Fences, August Wilson. For the 21 Day Anti-Racist challenge. I think I'm on day 27.

Completed

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire. Novel finalist for 2020 Hugos. Looking back, I'm very impressed by the structure, which was complex but also integral to advancing the plot and the themes. The title will resonate most with chess players, and I'm only a retired chess spectator, so I felt it fairly dimly. The best parts are the relationship between Roger and Dodge in all the time lines, and the echo of that in Erin, and then the imagery of alchemy and the dreams of alchemists.

Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram X Kendi. (Audio) Whew -- I finished 20 minutes before the club meeting. I can quibble about the structure, which I thought was strained, and some of the organization, which sometimes made it hard to follow on audio, but overall I felt it was really informative, comprehensive, and comprehensible. Some stuff echoed what I already knew, but there was a lot of new information that I had forgotten, never been taught, or never learned. Most interestingly, there was a lot of context that I knew pieces of but that Kendi showed in a new and very persuasive light. I think this is a worthy prize-winner and now I want to go read the YA version.

A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge. Cybils 2017 MG book. Hardinge is always amazing, and her command of character is brilliant. This book felt almost overstuffed -- a distinctive character who is going through a lot of changes, a fascinating setting stuffed with interesting ideas and technologies and ideas, and several mysteries nestled inside and alongside each other. But kids aren't as lazy as me and don't quibble about having too much fun. I like how the characters inspire each other to do great things.

Operatic, Kyo Maclear. Cybils 2019 YA graphic book finalist. This was quietly insightful; it follows a junior year of a girl with a great music class and teacher. The different shades of panels clearly showed flashbacks and themes, and I like how the girl was Asian and had queer friends, which affected her story but the story wasn't about these "issues". It felt like a powerful short story.

All Thirteen, Christina Soontornvat. ARC from Candlepress. I found this interesting and suspenseful. Soontornvat takes time to set things up, so as the chapters follow the soccer team from their decision to enter the cave all the way to the aftermath of the rescue she includes boxes that detail concepts needed along the way, from Thai customs to cave geology to drug interactions. The pictures were good and the diagrams clear. I also liked the personal touch in the back material as she explains her interest started when she was in Thailand visiting relatives when the story broke, and how she used her family as translators and for insights into Thai society. Speaking of back matter, the sources are well documented and the index and bibliography stood up to all my questions.

Cleaning the Gold, Karin Slaughter & Lee Child. I'm a Jack Reacher fan. It was fun to watch him amaze the other guy with his muscles. And his brain. Reacher is apparently much more of a superhero; Slaughter's guy is a mere mortal. They cleaned the gold and then uncovered a new mystery, just in case the authors want to get back together. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 8/10 discs. An expert is on the scene.

Uncompromising Honor, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial, part 19-20. OK, I can listen to podcasts again. There is a battle. 

Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton. Enjoying reading this alongside The Warden. 

Braiding Sweetgrass (audio), Robin Wall Kimmerer. Still find it life-affirming.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler. Reread. Yikes. I like how the first-person text is trying to be calm but you can see the emotion leaking through. 

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Stephen Fry is up, but I have almost no time to listen.

The Warden, Anthony Trollope. For my Tuesday Minecraft club. Supposed to finish this by Tuesday. Hmm...

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. This has a very strong flavor; I'm not sure I'm going to like it.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

Αλφαβητάρι με γλωσσοδέτες, Eugene Trivizas. Only did one letter.

Palate Cleansers

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

The Educated Child, William Bennett. Math is hard guys. Also, Bennett seems to think that multiplying large numbers involves algebra. Have I been doing it wrong?

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. Bad guys think more than the good guys. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. 

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. 

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. More ways to ready students to read nonfiction.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. Finished A Face Like Glass.
2. Cybils 2018. None.
3. Cybils 2019. Read Operatic. Have holds traveling to my library.
4. Reading My Library. The librarians are considering my request. 
5. Ten to Try. At 9/10. Haven't read it yet, but I've got #10 on my tablet.
6. Where Am I Reading: 22/51 states. Gold was in Kentucky. 19 Countries. Added Thailand.
7. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. 21/24. Three left:  6 (play by PoC or queer author), 13 (food book about a new to me cuisine),  and 24 (Indigenous author). (Had to read several literary magazines to vote in the Hugos Awards.) I'm currently reading the play and listening to something by an Indigenous author. And I'm reconsidering counting a romance as a food book.

Big Books of Summer

I've been meaning to sign up all summer, and I've been noticing which books I read seem particularly hefty, but this is my official sign up post. Book By Book hosts this challenge every summer, a celebration of summer and getting a chance to sit down and sink into a deep book. This year of course we find these times a bit differently; maybe we're trapped at home and need a distraction, or maybe our jobs have completely upended themselves and we can't afford a vacation. I'm lucky enough to be in the former category. 

I'm going to retroactively give myself credit for all the big tomes (bigger than 400 pages) I've read since Memorial Day:

• Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram Kendi. 592 pages. I listened to this on audio, a lot of it twice.
• A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge. 496 pp. A Cybils 2017 middle grade book that was amazing.
• Middlegame, Seanan MCGuire. 528pp. A Hugo nominated book with a complex narrative.
• Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow, Jessica Townsend. 525. A middle grade fantasy.
• Spinning Silver, Naomi Novak. 430 pp. Reread -- highly recommended.
• The Aeronaut's Windlass, Jim Butcher. 751 pp. I'm cheating -- I read half of this several summers ago, picked it up again and finished it this summer. 
• A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine. 562. Hugo nominated book about a space empire.
• The City of Brass, S.A. Chakraborty. 533 pg. Fantasy set in old Cairo with djinn.
• The Orphan Band of Springdale, Anne Nesbit 448. Cybils nominated middle grade book.
• Redemption, David Baldacci. Nice fat action book.
• The Fix, David Baldacci. 480 pages. I wanted to spend even more time with Decker.
• Into the Fire, Elizabeth Moon. 462 pages. Science fiction but really about an evil bureacracy.
• Polaris Rising, Jessie Mihalik. 431 pp I didn't even notice this qualified until I was shelving it!

Planned:

• I've started reading Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James. It's for Sword and Laser so I need to finish it by next week.
• Children of Time looks great and it's 600+ pages.

Times Up!

OK, I finished 13 big books (well 12.5, since I had started Aeronaut's Windlass before. By the way, I was super smug because my book club just picked that one and I'm all done already!). and left two dangling. But I got my toe into them so I hope to finish them this fall. Thanks for the inspiration to pick up the fat books I've been hesitating over, or even to rejoice when I realized that a book that I just finished was HUGE. This was especially good for me as I tried to read all the Hugo finalists by August.

Thanks again to Book By Book for hosting.

Whoa There Virus! And It's Hugo Time

Another quiet week in pandemic time. In Washington the virus is making another surge, so we are urged to be careful and the reopening has slowed a bit. So I'm staying home as much as possible. 

It's also almost time for the WorldCon convention, which this year is in New Zealand. I'm going, although because of COVID-19 I'm only going virtually since New Zealand is closed to foreigners. But it also means that I get to vote on all the Hugo Awards, from writing (short stories to series) to movies to podcasts. So I have a lot of material to plow through so I can vote responsibly. Just as well I'm supposed to stay home!

I'm now running for 25 minutes at a time, three days a week. Which doesn't sound like much, but is more than I've ever managed before -- I've always been a five minute run, ten minute walk kind of person. And it's also given me a chance to get through some of those Hugo podcasts.

My kids did their income taxes this week, and I think are getting small refunds. I did mine way back before the extension, so I've been enjoying my refund for months. Oh, I signed up for another Goodreads Team challenge, to make sure I keep finishing things. 

Dinner was nice this week. Wednesday was Pasta Primavera, made with fresh veggies from the farmers market. And Friday was Steak and Goat Cheese quesadillas, again with good material. Both had tasty salads on the side, and I feel I will my Paulos a lot when he goes back to college and I have to start cooking again instead of just planning the meals and having it show up on my table.

My currently reading has calmed down to 21. I'm still listening to too many audios, but I can't really help that. And three books are really more vague intentions rather than things I hope to make progress on this week. The Hugo voting is in a few weeks, so I have to read a lot of stuff, and I'm including things like the Harry Potter read-aloud and the Greek picture book I'm working my way through. 

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 CYBILs reading keeps me eligible this week.

Started

Exhaulations, Ted Chiang. I read this for my book team, and it had two Hugo nominated stories in it.

The Deep, River Solomons. A Hugo Awards novella finalist. 

To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers. A Hugo Awards novella finalist.

In An Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire. A Hugo Awards novella finalist. 

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P Clark.  A Hugo Awards novella finalist. 

Completed

The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders. Another Hugo book. That was a very strong landing. At times while reading the book I wanted to wrestle it to give me more of what I wanted -- more aliens, more clarity on what is going on with the girlfriend, but Anders made me wait until the book was ready. At the end, it was emotionally and thematically absolutely complete, which is a great ending. 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alex E. Harrow. This Hugo nominee had a great premise and setting, but I ached for more agency from the protagonist, who mostly reacted to events until the very end. And the framing bothered me a lot -- it didn't fit with its own conceit. The parents' love story felt real; they lived and sacrificed for each other so that I'd believe the efforts they'd go to to reunite, even from the beginning (which was a stretch, so Harrow did a lot to earn that). But the love of the kids was just a reflection -- they were two kids who knew each other as they grew up, and then he had a crush that she wasn't sure she reciprocated, and then they had a timeless love that mirrored that of her mom and dad? Wait, what was that last step? The love hook that was the excuse for the book (apparently that's why she's writing it, for her True Love) doesn't fit the book's tone or events or even its purpose, which weakened the effect a lot.

The Deep, River Solomons. A Hugo Awards novella finalist. As I expect from Solomons, this is lovely and beautifully written, with a sense of emotional truth reflected through the plot. Plot itself is sometimes a weakness; there was too much time spent in the lagoon waiting for the next step. Probably I'm just too shallow to appreciate patience.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers. A Hugo Awards novella finalist. This was an intellectual and curiosity delight. The four astronauts visit four wonderfully diverse planets and do science, helped by the great science-fictional technology their version of NASA set them up with. I was so busy enjoying this that I ignored almost all the moral foreshadowing Chambers scattered about, so when she pulled up at the end to ask her big question I was left just wanting to play with all the nifty ideas some more.

In An Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire. A Hugo Awards novella finalist. This would work as an excellent introduction to this series, as good as the actual first book. Since I've read them all, I kept pulling back from the story because I knew how it would end. This meant that I partially ducked the emotional punch at the end, but not completely, because McGuire sets up the sister's relationship so well in a fairly short time. 

Exhalations, Ted Chiang. Hugos and book team. I loved all these stories. My favorites were "Exhalations" and "Omphalos" but the novella "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" was also excellent. I love how his stories contain both character and emotion but also a deep philosophical question.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P Clark.  A Hugo Awards novella finalist. A fun puzzle story, with interesting characters and a great setting that combined women's suffrage with bureaucratic genie problems. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 7-8/10 discs. I'm hoping to see the sisters reunite.

Uncompromising Honor, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial, part 19. Falling behind on my podcasts as I frantically try to finish Stamped and all the Hugo podcasts.

Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton. The mean brother-in-law has a tantrum. The sisters settle in.

Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram X Kendi. (Audio) For an online book club. Into part IV! OK, time to stop the slow pace and try to get through before book club on Thursday. History is almost to my birthday.

Braiding Sweetgrass (audio), Robin Wall Kimmerer. I don't get to this much because of all the other listening but I really like it. I tend to listen to it while exercising since it helps me appreciate my body and the physical world.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler. Reread. OK, show time for her preparation!

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Stephen Fry is up, but I have almost no time to listen.

The Warden, Anthony Trollope. For my Tuesday Minecraft club. Heading for chapter 15 now. I hope if I ever have son-in-laws that they don't harass me like that!

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire. Novel finalist for 2020 Hugos. In the homestretch where all the pieces start flying together.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. This has a very strong flavor; I'm not sure I'm going to like it.

A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge. Cybils book. I really like the technology of the city.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

"The Archronology of Love," Caroline M. Yoachim. Hugo Novelette finalist.  Time travel love story with an actual adult couple. 

"Away With the Wolves," Sarah Gailey. Hugo Novelette finalist. Grim look at chronic pain but inspiring look at friendship. 

"Emergency Skin," N.K. Jemison story. Hugo Novelette finalist. A fable but a good one. 

"For He Can Creep," Siobhan Carroll. Hugo Novelette finalist. Cat story!

"The Blur In the Corner of Your Eye, Sarah Pinsker. Hugo Novelette finalist. I laughed out loud at the final line. This one really worked and the assistant is an inspiration to us all.

(If you are wondering where the Ted Chiang "Omphalos" is, it was included in the Exhalation book.)

Αλφαβητάρι με γλωσσοδέτες, Eugene Trivizas. I haven't actually finished this yet, but I'm working my way through. Alphabets are long, folks, even Greek ones.

Palate Cleansers

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

The Educated Child, William Bennett. 

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. The bad guys seem to be several steps ahead of everyone else.

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. From my shelves. Since I'm trying to read more books with black protagonists this is a lucky pick.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. Techniques for encouraging understanding before and during reading a nonfiction text.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. Continued A Face Like Glass.
2. Cybils 2018. None.
3. Cybils 2019. Checked out some stuff. Went a bit wild with my new ability to get holds from the library and put a bunch of stuff on hold. 
4. Reading My Library. I wonder if a librarian would be willing to walk to my next shelf and pick something for me. 
5. Ten to Try. At 9/10. Got my recommendation!
6. Where Am I Reading: 21/51 states. Picked up Vermont. 18 Countries. Plus an unnamed island of the west coast of Africa. 
7. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. 21/24. Three left:  6 (play by PoC or queer author), 13 (food book about a new to me cuisine),  and 24 (Indigenous author). (Had to read several literary magazines to vote in the Hugos Awards.)