Last week was my birthday! I took the family out to eat at The Whistle Stop Cafe because they were celebrating their 25 anniversary by bringing back my favorite dish. (Chicken gorgonzola pasta, if you were wondering). Afterward I drove to a booze store to pick up some whiskey -- Writer's Tears.

My sister and her family gave me many great presents, including a Murderbot T-shirt, pencils, and bookmarks. My kids were super nice all day. Also they saved me the last slice of my cake.

It was also the one-year anniversary of my mom's death. We went out to a new restaurant in her honor, and then came home to drink my new whiskey. I was glad my brother came out to spend the evening with us. I miss my mom, but I'm glad to have the family she left behind. With all these emotions, good and bad, I never really settled down to read. I started some books but didn't make progress in anything.

Lots of book clubs, most of which I hadn't read the books for. But I'm in better shape for next week's clubs.

I'm still at 3 pages of currently-reading on goodreads. I'm back up to 37 physical books checked out, including music CDs. And it doesn't count the digital books.

I will be posting at The Bookdate's It's Monday, What Are You Reading headquarters as well as the kidlit version at Unleashing Readers.

Completed

乙嫁語り 14 [Otoyomegatari 14] (A Bride's Story, #14)

Cobra, Timothy Zahn. It's finally over! This is not to disparage a book -- listening to a few minutes a week on the weekly Baen podcast means any book will take about a year. But it's an odd feeling not knowing how many pages or percentage is left in a book, especially as this one was modular; each section had an arc and when it finished I'd expect the book to end. Although this is apparently the start of a trilogy, which made me even more off. Oh well, the next book is Tinker, which I know really well so that should be fun.

Bride's Story, Vol 14, Kaoru Mori. I read this because I wanted to finish something! Lots of lovely pictures, and a fun story of a courtship done as literally as a horse race. I think I'm caught up with the the library for this manga, so I'll have to wait a while.

Started

A River of Golden Bones (The Golden Court, #1)

What's Your Grief?: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss

This is actually a lot of books to start during a low-reading week.

A River of Golden Bones, A.K. Mulford. Cloudy pick for February. I didn't finish this in time for book club, but I made enough progress that I guessed how things would go. We agreed that it was a book that stuck fairly closely to genre expectations, but that kids reading these things for the first time would have a good time. Also we liked some of the choices made around how to resolve the not-like-other-girls thing. I picked it up on Chirp as an ebook so I'll finish it while doing the dishes.

What's Your Grief, Eleanor Haley. A book of lists around the topic of grief. I love lists, and this was the year anniversary of my mom's death, so this seems perfect for me.

Knight Moves, Walter Jon Williams. For Scintillation book club.

Sir Callie and the Knights of Helston, Esme Symes-Smith. Cybils nominee.

Mad Honey, Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan. For my River Runs Under It Renton Library book club.

Bride's Story 14, Kaoru Mori. I really like this exquisitely drawn manga.

Picture Books & Short Stories

I picked up some children's Graphic Novels on a library run, but I'm not sure if I'll count them as picture books or short kidlit. Hmm.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 3 Volume 1

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 8

The Shadow of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #1)

Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher, #11)

The Outskirter's Secret (The Steerswoman, #2)

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Miya Kazuki. Abandoning my reread of Part 3 now since the new one just dropped. I'll get back to it, don't worry!

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 5 Volume 8, Miya Kazuki. I've slowed back down to one tiny section a day. There's a long final chapter so we can see all the battles.

The Shadow of the Gods, John Gwynne. This is the Sword & Laser pick, which I ended up not finishing. But I got far enough to take part in the discussion. It wasn't really our cup of tea, but this was a good chance to dip into something outside our usual fare. The librarian member was glad to get a peek into a different reading community, and the Norse stuff was fun. One person is planning to read on so they promised to tell us what happens.

Devil's Cub, Georgette Heyer. For Torches and Pitchforks club, free topic: Red Flags in Relationships. I cheated and read all the best bits for Red Flags so I could have something to discuss.

No Place Like Home, James Bird. Cybils finalist. This is kinda grim! Homeless, and a wild big brother. But the hope and gumption of the boy and his mom are really powerful.

Bad Luck and Trouble, Lee Child. This is the one Season 2 of the Amazon series is based on. I'm really enjoying seeing the differences between the screen and page version. (The book is on the West Coast, while the show took place on the East Coast, for example.)

Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. I turned in the overdue paper version and got out the ebook. But then I saw the paper version at the library and grabbed it. I'm liking it but not seeking out excuses to read it.

Outskirter's Secret, Rosemary Kirstein. Didn't touch it.

Palate Cleansers

I'm slowly marching through these books.

Dragon's Breath (The Tales of the Frog Princess, #2)

The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Postmillennial Pop, 13)

YEAR OF WONDER: Classical Music for Every Day

50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane (no picture).

Dragon's Breath, E.D. Baker.

The Writer's Stance: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, Dorothy U. Seyler. (no picture). More poetry.

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle.

The Dark Fantastic, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. Now looking at how fanfiction and other transformative works allow people to insert their own images into media.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Well, I'm in March.

Reading Challenges

Cybils 2023: Working on middle grade fiction. Didn't finish anything.
Early Cybils: Nothing.
Reading My Library. I got a new one from Renton; working on music and children's graphic novels at Renton Highlands.
Looking at Tacoma's Monster challenge for this year.

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure. Actually, I've started listing all the bookclubs I'm in, so I hope some actually happens.

I am reading: