Tulip Trip

 

My mom has a bad spot on her back that her doctor wanted to take out, but then her insurance couldn't figure out where they wanted that done. After three weeks we set the family bureaucracy expert on them and they figured things out so she has an appointment on Monday. 

That also inspired us to make our trip to Mount Vernon, Washington to see the Tulips. April is the month but we kept having to postpone. Mom and I had a nice time and really appreciated the tulip garden we saw, but I didn't see the acres and acres of fields I remembered. I was chalking it up to how late in the month it was when we actually talked to a tulip person and learned that there had been terrible flooding late last year and most of the crop was destroyed! So we were glad we found the place with the nice garden for walking and now we look forward to next year when we will also see the tulips stretching towards the horizon. Also we had a great lunch at an Irish pub; I was very happy with my Shepard's pie and also grabbing the bacon from mom's Irish mac'n'cheese. The hints of whiskey in that and in our dessert bread pudding were wonderful.

This Saturday was the Dewey Readathon, which I did very lightly. I didn't track pages, just the books I picked up, but I did manage to get some reading in. In particular I plowed through the book club book that was struggling with and also fell deeply into Patricia Brigg's MercyVerse again by listening to an audio.

One reason I didn't go hard for the Readathon was I knew I'd be spending the evening at the Woodland Park Zoo, where we got a special after-hours tour with a local donor. We learned about the reproduction programs for the orangutan, the penguins, and the spotted wing butterfly, and even got to see the stud book for the vertebrates. Ask me about orangutan hybrids! Or how to decide whether to steal the penguin eggs (or hand one over to a better penguin couple). Probably don't ask me about what the penguin nest room smells like, although I would have a lot to say about that!

I'm still plugging through Deep Space Nine. Heartstopper is on but I don't want to get ahead of the books so I haven't finished it. 

I am still second on my list of all the Cybils finalists. But I'm still working on the categories (as you see, middle grade nonfiction is showing up), so I have hopes of regaining the top spot. Look out, Shaye! I only need like thirty thirty-five forty more books to catch up! (Shaye continues to read the rest faster than me. I'm doomed but happy about it.)

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 think I'm in time this week! Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers.

Started

Raise the Titanic, Clive Cussler. For my friends book club. 

Night Broken, Patricia Briggs. Audio re-read so I could read while driving.

Completed

A Master of Djinn, P. Djeli Clark. Sword and Laser pick. A fun and interesting story -- I liked the characters, from the dapper detective and her new sidekick, and also the love interest with her slightly shady background. The mystery was fun, although the twist was a bit obvious as well as foreshadowed, so that I wished the middle had been shorter so that the detective could have seemed smarter. The world building was a lot of fun, especially reading it along with the Tutankhamun nonfiction book, with a nifty Egypt and also the fun with the supernatural blossoming. The world building was the best bit -- if it sounds fun then I recommend this book. 

The World's Most Pointless Animals, Peter Bunting. 2021 Cybils Middle Grade Nonfiction finalist. I enjoyed this encyclopedia, which I read a few animals at a time. The conceit of a snarky editor making snide comments and jokes over the more straightforward pictures and text worked well for me.

Being Seen, Elsa Sjunneson. A Hugo Related Works finalist. As a memoir, this was a personal and specific chronicle of living as a Deafblind woman, from a childhood that was spent in denial to an adulthood embracing her status and working to get society to stop putting barriers in her way. I don't agree with all of the politics -- pretending that making accomodations is free muddles the argument for making them, but understanding how many limitations are unnecessary and cruel was devastating. I'm not sure it's a Hugo book though; very little of the book connected with my experience of fandom as fandom. I guess the author is a writer and fan, but that still is a fairly weak connection. 

Raise the Titanic, Clive Cussler. For my friends book club. At first I thought this book was written in 2004, and I was appalled at the casual sexism and frequent misogyny. Then I realized that it was copyright 1976, so the attitudes made more sense although were still annoying. It's a Dirk Pitt book, and his casual competence was really fun (except in the sex scene), but far too much time was spent on a series of unpleasant characters -- the jerks heading the secret project, the embezzling president (we were supposed to be rooting for him, and view those pesky liberal senators who might notice the theft with suspicion), and the federal agents off fighting the cold war. I started hoping to see the Russians kick puppies or something, just so I wouldn't root for them. Then it turned out that the worst Russian was actually (spoiler) an American spy, so hmm. At least the wife of one of the jerks managed to leave him, and I can only hope that her friend who is marrying the other one is just going to messily divorce him and live off the alimony. But it was an interesting peek into the past, when women were assumed to be some sort of alien lifeform. It really illuminates the Marie Shear quote: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."

The Curse of the Mummy, Candace Fleming. 2021 Cybils Middle Grade Nonfiction finalist. As a history of the discovery and excavation of King Tut's grave I liked it a lot -- it had a strong narrative, carefully maintained its timelines, and gave me a vivid description of the characters involved, mostly British but with attention to the Egyptian players as well, with explanations of the cultural biases involved as well as the class divisions. I hadn't read a book that explained Egyptian history and liberation as important players in the politics around the permitting and privileges. Fleming also had fun describing the fascination with curses and mystical events, which are clearly set apart from the factual bits but I thought a bit too pandering. The last chapter does spend some time debunking them, which I appreciated.

-----------------Book From Blogging Hiatus -----------------

The Conductors, Nicole Glover. I grabbed this because of the historical context -- it's set right after the civil war, in Philadelphia, among a Black community that includes many former Freedom Train conductors. It's a fantasy and mystery -- there's magic, and it's different depending on your culture, but the rest of the world is pretty much the same. There's an interesting romance but the emphasis is on solving the murder of a community member, which leads into various complications stretching forward and backward across economic, racial, and temporal lines. I think there's another one out now; I should go hunt it up. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Ok, I'm only going to put a book in here when I actually try to read it. Or at least actually pick it up and think about reading it. This week I made some progress in:

Red Hood, Elana K. Arnold. Cybils finalist. Go Gramma!

Heat, Mike Lupica. Cybils finalist. This kid is not catching a break. But he's making efforts to fix some mistakes.

Forging a Nightmare, Patricia A. Jackson. The problem is I don't understand the possibilities, so I can't tell if the main characters is making good choices.

Medicus, Ruth Downie. Book to keep at the table so I can read while eating. Downie makes Roman Britain feel very real; I hope she is accurate as my imagination is now completely set.

Vampire Trinity, Joey Hill. The peril of the mysterious bad blood vampire disease is a bit confusing.

Ikenga, Nnedi Okorafor. This poor kid is having a bad year. 

Ancestral Night, Elizabeth Bear. Let's just say we ordered out last Friday because the kitchen was too messy to cook in...

Three Keys, Kelly Yang. As an adult, this kid is given far too much responsibility. As a lover of kidlit, take charge, kid!

Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys. Cool scene.

Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Disaster, Serhii Plokhy. Read-a-thon gave me an excuse to sit and read; this is not a good book to dip in and out of.

Pandora's Star, Peter F. Hamilton. March Sword & Laser pick. It's funny how my instinct to side with the cops has been broken by the whole 2020 thing.

Sweep of the Heart, Ilona Andrews. Another Innkeeper story! I forgot to check for the next chapter.

Risk, Dick Francis. Kidnappings are much less stressful than infidelity.

Phoenix Extravagant, Yoon Ha Lee. For local Sword and Laser group.

Coyote Dreams, C.E. Murphy. These are getting shaky in terms of whether they should stay on the list. 

Terra Nullius, Clare G. Colman. These are getting shaky in terms of whether they should stay on the list. 

Forfeit, Dick Francis. These are getting shaky in terms of whether they should stay on the list. 

Picture Books / Short Stories:

Standing On Her Shoulders, Monica Clark-Robinson. Shelved under STORIES in my library, so that's where I grabbed it as I continue my quest to read a book from each shelf. The fun part in this book was identifying all the women; the text itself is mostly a vehicle to showcase the women who made history. I definitely needed the help in the back -- I had a better percentage at recognizing the names than the faces.

In Plain Sight, Richard Jackson. Jerry Pinkney's illustrations are clearly the star here, but the story of a girl and her grandfather's close relationship and his willingness to share his history with her is touching. Another STORIES shelf. I really don't get how they pick what goes where. 

Peanut Butter and Cupcake, Terry Border. Final STORIES book. In this one, the pictures are 90% of the book as the photographs are whimsical and technically amazing. The story is fairly lame; I was hoping from some twists because of the title but no, Peanut Butter only finds friendship with Jelly, and then everyone joins in as one big happy group.

Rosie Revere, Engineer, Andrea Beatty. Since I read about her later chapter book adventures I grabbed the picture book on display and was not disappointed. Her contraptions are fun both to visualize and to diagram, even when I question their structural integrity. And the lesson about not fearing smiles is a good one. 

Exclamation Mark, Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I love a good grammar or punctuation book, and this one was fine, but did not do much with the conceit. 

"The Thing About Ghost Stories," Naomi Kritzer. I like the story itself, both the closure to the relationship between mother and daughter, and the idea that the only way to tell this ghost story would be in fiction, although the short story is about someone who writes nonfiction about ghost stories. So it's a story about what can be told and what stories are accepted. Which I guess I should have known from the title.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; lately I use them as bribes to get me to deal with the mail. I've been ignoring my mail.

The Educated Child, William Bennett.

 

Dates From Hell, Kim Harrison & others. Moving into the last story.

50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane. 

Stinger, Nancy Kress. I have rescued this from the bottom of my "no, really, I'm reading this" and moved it in here to make progress on it. 

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. OK, I'm doing the day's song, and then jumping back to where I fell behind. So I'm catching some of April and working my way through December.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2021: Finished Weird Animals and Mummies. Just got Amari and the Night Brothers from the library, and then I ordered all the middle grade books up.
2. Early Cybils: Working on Red Hood again. I'm not liking it much, so I also have Heat on hand. 
3. Reading My Library. The library reopened! I got the next book. But maybe I'll keep working at the back-up library, because picture books are fun.
4. Where Am I Reading 2022. Double Egypt!
5. Libraries: 34/55 for the Tacoma Extreme Challenge. I'm booking! 
   Also got a librarian to recommend a book to me for KCLS 10 to Try.

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: Chernobyl Next: Forging a Nightmare
• Library Book: The Girls I've Been Next: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
• Ebook I own:  Winter's Tale. Next: ???
• Library Ebook:  Across the Green Grass Fields Next: Breathless
• Book Club Book: Song of Blood and Stone
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Strange Love
• Hugo Book: Across the Green Grass Fields
• Review Book: Back Home  Next: 
• Rereading: Risk. Or Maybe Heidi.
• Meal Companion: Medicus
• Audio:  Ancestral Night