Time For Some NonFiction

Time to get serious about reading all the Cybils nonfiction books. Public nomination has ended and now we are waiting for publisher nominations.  

It's also definitely time to get my plumbing issues dealt with -- the garbage disposal leak is now a torrent. Oops. 

My oldest son came home for a weekend -- apparently what upperclassman do for Parents Weekend is leave campus and visit their parents. He went over to visit his grandmother and moved a lot of heavy things to where she wants them. He's a nice kid. I think he's planning to mow my lawn too. 

He also inspired me to watch the new seasons of Lucifer. I had to tap out after five, but he finished it off before heading back to school. 

I am currently reading 25 books, which amazingly enough is less than last week. And, I accidentally posted this on Sunday, before I finished reading things, so I'm sneaking in to update my lists. 

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" and I'm going to go sign up. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. 

Started

Nos4A2, Joe Hill. Actually I think I started this last week. Maybe before that.

Firelight (Amulet #7), Kazu Kibuishi. Continuing the series. 

Can We Talk About Consent, Justin Hancock. Possible Cybils nominee.

Race Against Time, Sandra Neil Wallace & Rich Wallace. Cybils nominee.

Singled Out, Andrew Maraniss. Cybils nominee. Hey, I remember his earlier book. 

A Bride's Story 12, Kaoru Mori. I like this series.

Completed

Can We Talk About Consent, Justin Hancock. 2021 Cybils nominee. This is a lovely and illustrated discussion of consent, which loudly practices what it preaches both as demonstration and because the author sincerely believes in the importance of consent. So he always warns before talking about sex, and often stops to remind the reader that they can stop, or skip, or otherwise be in control. I found my hackles raised a bit because of the assumption that this is the right way to handle consent -- explicitly, and that the highest ethical priority is to stop encroachments. Although he does go on to talk about nonverbal forms of consent, there is still the issue that some societies do rely on the responsibility of people to do or hear things, and those societies aren't inherently inferier. I work at this notion because I personally find the consent-first ones more comfortable, so it's a bias of mine I work against. But overall I found the examples and discussion well done and worthwhile, and I'm nominating this.

Race Against Time, Sandra Neil Wallace & Rich Wallace. 2021 Cybils nominee. This is something that I felt I should have known about and actually knew zero about. Scipio Jones was a Black lawyer who managed to save twelve victims of a racist massacre from being executed. Arkansaw law officers and farmers descended on a group of Black labor organizers and their families who were meeting to discuss trying to get better prices for their crops. The white men shot up the building, burned it to destroy the evidence, then went on a week long murder spree and claimed it an effort to put down a "race riot." Hundreds of Black people (men, women, children, babies) were killed, and also a handful of white men, mostly by friendly fire from Klansmen shooting in a circle. Twelve black men were captured and charged with those deaths in a sham trial that lasted a few minutes.

Scipio Jones devoted his life and fortune to saving those men, and this book tells that story and his astonishing success. I'm now left wanting more -- I want more details of his legal maneuvers, more details of the effects of the precedents set, more details on why the NAACP kept hiring white lawyers over him. Do I blame the book for not being longer, or do I applaud it for leaving me with this desire?

Paladin's Hope, T. Kingfisher. Another fun adventure romance, although not my favorite of the series. The paladins' main reason for avoiding romance is situational (they tend to fall into berserker rages and kill everyone around them), which is fair but I also want a particular issue -- fear of commitment or something. This one was shorter and so leaned more on the local dangers. So, it was fun being inside both men's heads, and the banter was great and so was the final bureaucracy-busting scene, but I won't use this one to lure people to the series. Which is fair, since it's the third book!

Firelight (Amulet #7), Kazu Kibuishi. Continuing the series. Although I'm still charmed by the artwork, I found the plot a bit harder to swallow. Usually I'm too busy looking at the art and trying to follow the action (I'm a very bad graphic reader) to pay attention, but this time even I saw the giant signs about where the story was going, and I didn't like that direction. I don't like when characters loudly say what they won't let happen in order to foreshadow what is about to happen. Blah. And even the waiter plot with the brother was underdone. But I'm still moving on with the story!

Nos4A2, Joe Hill. October Sword & Laser Pick. Too horror-y for me by far! Lots of child danger, child harm, and circling of events for tension. I finally read it by skipping to the end and reading it backwards so I would know which kids survived. That is the literary equivalent of watching a movie with your eyes closed, I guess. Very readable text, interesting ideas (in-scape! children bicycles as magic, moving onto a cool motorcycle for the adult). I did agree with some goodreads comments that the final relationship was a bit odd, since having an accessory to the murder of your grandfather as a stepparent is a bit fraught, but I'll see what the in-person book club says.

A Bride's Story 12, Kaoru Mori. This was great -- there was not much plot movement, just pretty scenery. So my inability to remember what is going on or what people look like didn't matter at all! Lots of great scenes, in the garden or back with old friends (whom I barely remembered) or all the partial nudity in the bathhouse. I like the effect of the panel edges getting obscured with details of flowers to show the friendship (Harold, I need to tell you something) between the women. 

Neogenesis, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. I really like this series and I plan to keep going, but I'm going to complain about this book because the stuff I like is old (interesting characters, detailed culture that affects the character's and their relationships, good mix of long plot arcs and shorter ones) but the stuff I'm cranky about seems to be growing. The books try to handle too many characters -- I keep losing momentum when the plot skips around more than ten different story lines, many of them taking place in vastly separated locations (I mean, there are in-story reasons why that sometimes doesn't matter, but still). And second -- I'll accept one miraculous save-from-death, maybe. I feel a bit cheated but OK. But this card has now been played several times and I'm salty about it. If you want me to care about your characters, you should trust me to mourn them, not pretend they have made a tough choice but then pull back. Humph.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Ancient Sword and Laser pick. Didn't touch it. 

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. Didn't touch it.

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. Didn't touch it.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien. Didn't touch it. 

Seven Sisters, Lucinda Riley. The library brought it back, but I pushed for another week.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Kawai Strong Washburn. Didn't touch it. 

Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo. Didn't touch it.

Vampire Trinity, Joey W. Hill. Didn't touch it. 

Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. Hugo novel finalist. Made progress!

Conductors, Nicole Glover. My eating companion. I made a bit of progress, now that I'm home and eating at my table. But I think I will be too late -- the library wants it back.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha. Cloudy book club pick. Didn't touch it. 

The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal. Hugo novel finalist. Made progress. 

Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys. From my (digital) shelves. Didn't touch it.

Terra Nullius, Claire G. Coleman. Didn't touch it. 

The Mountains Sing, Nguyen Phan Que Mai. Didn't touch it.

Beowulf: A New Translation, Maria Dahvana Headley. Well, she's the translator. Hugo finalist. I'm enjoying this.

Even If We Break, Marieke Nijkamp. Older Cybils finalist. Reading during laundry.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

None.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; lately I use them bribes to get me to deal with the mail. Hmm. I should get back to that. 

The Educated Child, William Bennett. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. I think the good guys are making their move. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. 

 

Dates From Hell, Kim Harrison & others.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. 

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2020. Working on Even If We Break.
2. Early Cybils: Picked up the next one.
3. Hugos 2021: Made minimal progress on last two novels. Finished all the Fancast recommended episodes! Enjoying Beowulf. 
4. KCLS 10 To Try: 10/10. Complete!
5. Tacoma Extreme Reading Challenge. 51/55. No change.
6. Reading My Library. Haven't started the next one. 
7. Where Am I Reading 2021: 34/51 states. Arkansaw! 19 Countries.

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: So many partially read books! I have no idea. 
• Library Book:  Next: Notes From Underground
• Ebook I own:   Luminaries. Next: Winter's Tide
• Library Ebook: Cybils pick.  Next: Cybils pick. 
• Book Club Book:   Up Next: The Twisted One
• Tuesday Book Club Book: I forget. Next: I need to finish that sailing book.
• Review Book: The Queer Principles of Kit Webb  Next: Back Home
• Hugo Book: Harrow the Ninth. Next: The Relentless Moon.
• Rereading: Steerswoman
• Meal Companion: Conductors
• Audio: None  Next: I have a book on CD I'll start listening to if I ever catch up on my podcasts.