Not the Beginning of the End But the End of the Beginning

We opened up the storage unit that’s been full since we emptied out mom and Linda’s apartments and took took out two car loads worth. One went straight to goodwill, the other to enhance our various lives. There’s some big furniture there, so one weekend soon we’ll rent a truck and really deal with it.

I miss my mom.

 

Books Completed Jan 10-17

The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt. I couldn’t actually listen to the book club but I followed along with some of the text chatter. This is one of Schmidt’s best, capturing both the feel of the era and the sense of growing into adult understanding and possibility while still being a kid.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds Vol 6-7 , Hayao Miyazaki. Very powerful ending, with many Campbellian echoes and also paths and morally gray choices made. I am very much looking forward to the movie.

Heroes of Havensong: the Last Ice Phoenix, Megan Reyes. I definitely felt the disconnect from skipping the first books; it would have helped me sympathize with the kid who joined up with the evil wizard more. I mean, okay, he has a nice goal, but going from “this is I think I want to do” to signing up with the guy you’ve just seen murder and torture strangers and friends because bad guy says “I have thought of a really sketchy way to vaguely move in that direction” is not really the stuff of decency. And apparently he’s one of the four Heroes in the series title. Hmmmm…. Blue is cool though.

The House In The Pines, Ana Reyes. This billed itself as a psychological suspense thriller, but I thought the thriller part detracted from what could have been a more interesting book about memory and how trauma can warp it. The stuff with the bad guy with the dubious methods was kind of silly, but her questioning her memories of her friend’s death, her addiction to the medicine she was proscribed because her mom questioned her memories of her friend’s death, her translation of her father’s book giving her actual memories of him, those all kept trying to build to something before getting distracted by the implausible bad guy stuff.

Renegade Love, Ann Aguirre. Another satisfying conclusion, with found family, literal found family (she found her mom), true love, and strangely hot alien sex.

Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch. Audio. This was a very fun audio, with a variety of British accents and a good modulation of voice among the different characters. The story also had a good sense of pacing and tone, with true horror moments but also light comedy.

Books Started

The House In The Pines, Ana Reyes. River Runs Under It Book Club.

Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch. Audio. For Foolscap book club (great audio books).

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds Vol 7, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club.

Marry Me By Midnight, Felicia Grossmann. For Romance Book Club (fairy tale retelling).

Prince For Sale, Caroline Gibson. Reread. 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell. For Scintillation book club. 

A Field Guide to the Apocalypse, Athena Aktipis. For Torches and Pitchforks book club.

Rescue, Jennifer Nielsen. I like the author and WWII kidlit.

The Marine’s E-mail Order Bride, Cora Seton. Romance book club (wills).

Bookmarks Moved

Poems, R. Hawley Truax. 

Notes From the Air, John Ashbery. Poetry.

Devil’s Cub, Georgette Heyer.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha.

Airs Above the Ground, Mary Stewart. 

Bookmarks Languished

Since several of these books are the ones I tend to read while doing laundry or cleaning the kitchen, the lack of progress is concerning.

 

       Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler. 

        Serpent Rider, Yxavel Magno Diño. Cybils nominee.

        True Colors, Abby Cooper. Cybils nominee.

    Wow, No Thank You, Samantha Irby. The library called it home.

    Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor. Sword and Laser club pick. (Audio)

Lamplighters, D. M. Cornish.

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan. From my shelves.

Samantha Smee: A Pirate’s Life, M.C. Dingman.

Into the Broken Lands, Tanya Huff

Picture Books and Short Stories  

“The Desecrator,” Steven Brust. An interlude with Vlad’s Hawk friend.

“Halcyon Afternoon,” Michael Swanwick. These are fun.

Books on Slow Mode

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section a day. More coffee stuff.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Serafi, Shannon Chakraborty. Promoted to morning read.

At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. The protagonist is on the move!

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

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

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. Mail bribe. 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon. Mail bribe. 

War Cross, Marie Lu. Mail bribe. 

Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe. Neither of my kids learned to read with these methods, but it would have helped the, understand story structure.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe. I’m so far behind that I might catch up to myself.

Future Plans

This is for the actual future, so two weeks from the books in this post.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Long Live Evil
• Library Book: Rescue
• Ebook I own: The Down Deep
• Foolscap Book Club Book: Ismael
• Sword and Laser Club Book: The Will of the Mant
• Scintillation Book Club: A Scatter of Light (Not sure if I’ll attempt this)
• Cloudy Book Club: 
• River Runs Under It Book Club: Trail of the Lost
• Talbot Hill Book Clubs: Babysitters Club and Amulet
• Friday Book Club: Spirit Level
• Romance Book Club: (done)

January Hasn't Brought Snow

So, this was supposed to go out a week ago yesterday, reminding me what I did and read the previous week. I had a nice brunch at my favorite brunch place, did my Talbot Hill Book Club which was a bit of a struggle as we are wildly oversubscribed and I am not used to having that problem, and had an excellent Road Trip Book Club where we watched Firefly (first some episodes, then the movie).

I’m still picking up a book from my shelves every day, but then I ignore it and read my book club books.

 

Books Completed Jan 10-17

Making Book, Teresa Niesen Hayden (with Patrick Nielsen Hayden). From my shelves. Nifty bunch of essays I got when the famous SF bookstore Uncle Hugo’s was destroyed in the 2020 riots and there was a benefit to help. It was gossipy about fandom in Seattle before I got here and a peek into the world of two of my favorite SF editors. The essay for copy editors who may not have worked with science fiction authors is apparently a classic but it was new and delightful for me.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds Vol 4-5, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club. So, there are whole swaths of characters I can’t tell apart, names of empires I keep forgetting, but the narrative drive and awesome bug pictures keep me deeply invested. And anyway, after a few panels I parse out whether the character is commanding armies or saving the little guy or laying an egg or whatever I need to distinguish them. Also only a few of the characters get spirit journeys, so during those I’m confident.

In Too Deep, Lee Child & Andrew Child. The pacing was a big odd, with an unexamined mistake by Reacher and the lady of the book giving the baddies another round. It’s funny that giving Reacher a light concussion and a broken wrist is a way to vary the fight scenes as he thinks “normally I’d headbutt this guy into oblivion but I guess I’d better use one of my dozen backup moves instead”.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 18: No Brainer, Jeff Kinney. Like, did Kinney forget to have a plot? Or do kids not want those? This was a series of jokes about school performance anxiety and budget cuts, which were amusing but also kind of oddly aimed above the kids. Maybe it works better if you read the previous ones. At book club we discussed whether these were aimed at kids who never got in trouble but wanted to experience it vicariously or for kids who were low performing like the wimpy kid himself.

Grimspace, Ann Aguirre. I’ve read this series before but I wanted to see how that changed the start. I remember thinking the romance was kind of jerky, in that it proceeded by unexpected jumps at unexpected times, and that impression still stands. There’s telepathy and science fiction shared mind stuff that drives the space travel, and that complicates the romance plot in ways that I think the author intended but maybe just accidentally hit me in ways I appreciate. But my favorite alien showed up, and some things are set up that get deal in later books so I know the author at least knows what bugged me the first time. I like it.

Talk to the Hand, Lynne Truss. A short book filled with well written griping about the poor manners of other people, perfect for reading while munching on chocolate and ignoring all my respo.

Books Started

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan. From my shelves.

In Limbo, Deb J.J. Lee. 2023 Cybils finalist.

An Immense World, Ed Yong. from my shelves.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 18: No Brainer, Jeff Kinney. Talbot hill book club.

Talk to the Hand, Lynne Truss. From my shelves.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds Vol 5, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club.

The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt. Scintillation book club.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds Vol 6, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club.

Bookmarks Moved

Notes From the Air, John Ashbery. Poetry.

Lamplighters, D. M. Cornish.

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

Heroes of Havensong: the Last Ice Phoenix, Megan Reyes. Cybils nominee.

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan. From my shelves.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha.

Devil’s Cub, Georgette Heyer. Reread.

Samantha Smee: A Pirate’s Life, M.C. Dingman.

Airs Above the Ground, Mary Stewart. 

Into the Broken Lands, Tanya Huff

Bookmarks Languished

    Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler. 

    Serpent Rider, Yxavel Magno Diño. Cybils nominee.

    True Colors, Abby Cooper. Cybils nominee.

    Poems, R. Hawley Truax. 

Wow, No Thank You, Samantha Irby. The library called it home.

Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor. Sword and Laser club pick. (Audio)

Picture Books and Short Stories  

None.

Books on Slow Mode

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section a day. All about coffee, which nobody in this house drinks. We used to keep a machine for my mom, but she’s dead now. Other guests can go for Starbucks. (just kidding, they can go across the street)

Renegade Love, Ann Aguirre. Another section a day book. There is alien sex in this book. Also a heist. Commencing here!

At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. The protagonist is considering doing something, but he has a concussion so I think he should take his time.

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

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

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. Mail bribe. 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon. Mail bribe. The misogyny is lampshaded! Character, not author.

War Cross, Marie Lu. Another unfinished book club book I’m sliding in as a mail bribe.

Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe. It’s interesting to see whole language in action versus the idea of it in the podcast about failing schools.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe. I like jamming a bit of classical music into my day.

Future Plans

This is for the actual future, so two weeks from the books in this post.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Devil’s Cub

• Library Book: Rescue
• Ebook I own: Airs Above the Ground
• Foolscap Book Club Book: Ismael, 
• Sword and Laser Club Book: Ministry of Time
• Scintillation Book Club: A Scatter of Light (Not sure if I’ll attempt this)
• Renton Book Club: Trail of the Lost
• Talbot Hill Book Clubs: Babysitters Club and Amulet
• Friday Book Club: Spirit Level
• Romance Book Club: something with a will trope

Little Christmas Happened!

I meant to post this last week, about things I did and read the week before that. But I didn’t.

I had some fun book clubs: the triple one for Sword and Laser (Akata Witch)), Cloudy With a Chance of Clit Lit (Embodied] and Torches and Pitchforks (Jane). I also woke up in time to discuss Liberty’s Daughter with a Montreal based club. I was still fighting my New Years cold, so I ignored all opportunities to exercise but did manage to visit some libraries. I should track that somewhere.

I’m doing well at reading books from my shelves although I’m better at starting them than finishing them. Oops.

 

Books Completed

Revenge (Blood and Honor 1), Dana Delmar. From my shelves. This was a gift from the author at a Seattle Romance convention. It’s a mafia romance (with the Northern Italian baddies, not the actual mafia) and I wasn’t really buying either of the characters when the book abruptly ended. Turns out it was only a starter teaser! But since I wasn’t liking it I’m not going looking for the rest, and I’m still counting it as a book gone from my shelves.

More Booklust, Nancy Pearl. From my shelves. This was her second collection of themed book lists. Now my TBR list on goodreads is even longer. I enjoy books about books a lot. Turns out I borrowed this from the library when it came out, but I didn’t recognize anything. I should probably reread them all.

Puzzleheart, Jenn Reese. Cybils nominee. Fun adventure with a (magical?) house trying to live its live of puzzles and tricks while its creator prefers to mope ever since her partner and co-creator died. Her grandchild is hoping that she will reconcile with her son and thereby pull them both out of depression, but the house is young and sentient and sorta dangerous, and kids aren’t actually that great at solving their parent’s emotional problems. I really liked the friendship between kids and how the kids worked together to solve puzzles; I sincerely felt for the loneliness of the house, and the emotional growth stuff was well paced but a bit too explicit for my taste.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol 1, Hayao Miyazaki. Okay, I’m ready to go in! Graphic novels and manga are hard for me to decipher so I have the roadmap from the illustrations and the picture book to guide me. So far I’m on team Nausicaä and I think I know who the other characters are.

ADHD Is Awesome, Penn and Kim Holderness. Cheerful but realistic guide to how ADHD can affect people and the ones around them, and how to address the strengths and represents. I’ve never been diagnosed but somehow reading this book made me manifest many of the symptoms to a greater degree. It does reinforce that the crazy systems I have in place to keep me functioning are probably a good idea.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol 2, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club. Ok there are several empires, easily distinguishable by their very different uniforms and major characters. I of course cannot tell them apart. I’m here for this! Even if it sometimes takes a few pages for me to figure out which princess is talking.

Baseball: Our Game, John Thorn. From my shelves. Tiny little book expressing Thorn’s love of the game and its role as a uniquely American pastime but in ways that try to skate over the ways that it rejected many Americans who weren’t like him.

Brooms, Jasmine Walls. 2023 Cybils finalist. Cool historical fiction with magic racing inserted as part of the southern experience. But I struggled to keep up with the very different characters and what the stakes were.

Jeep, Keith Robertson. From my shelves. Aka The Year of the Jeep. Written the year I was born, this book has kids living in a golden time, wandering around on their own, hitchhiking across the county, being clever, and having fun. Also getting a jeep, I guess.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol 3, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club. Ok, the boundaries are getting bigger and the problems humanity is causing are growing even faster. Nausicaä is setting high ethical standards.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin, Erin Hunter. Talbot book club. Although I disagree that pet cats are a lesser breed, it is fun to watch this one stretch his wild self. The different tribes and their politics, the ambitions and the betrayals of the baddie, and the naïveté slowly falling away.

The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee, Tom Angleberger. From my shelves. I vaguely remember the first one, and I skipped the second. But I like the idea of the girls working to make things better and the guys believing in the idea enough to help make it happen. 

Books Started

Revenge (Blood and Honor 1), Dana Delmar. From my shelves. 

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol 2, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club.

More Booklust, Nancy Pearl. From my shelves.

Notes From the Air, John Ashbery. Poetry.

Baseball: Our Game, John Thorn. From my shelves.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin, Erin Hunter. Talbot book club.

Jeep, Keith Robertson. From my shelves.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol 3, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club.

Making Book, Teresa Niesen Hayden (with Patrick Nielsen Hayden). From my shelves.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds Vol 4, Hayao Miyazaki. Foolscap book club.

In Too Deep, Lee Child & Andrew Child. I like Reacher.

The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee, Tom Angleberger. From my shelves.

Bookmarks Moved

Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor. Sword and Laser club pick. (Audio)

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha.

Lamplighters, D. M. Cornish.

Grimspace, Ann Aguirre. Reread.

Devil’s Cub, Georgette Heyer. Reread.

Wow, No Thank You, Samantha Irby.

Bookmarks Languished

Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler. 

Heroes of Havensong: the Last Ice Phoenix, Megan Reyes. Cybils nominee.

Serpent Rider, Yxavel Magno Diño. Cybils nominee.

True Colors, Abby Cooper. Cybils nominee.

Poems, R. Hawley Truax. I switched to a library book of poems.

Picture Books and Short Stories  

“Become of Me” by Veronica Roth. This description of a robot mom bears no relationship to my experience of being a mother either to my own kids or to the other children who have been part of my village. Bit it was interesting in its differences.

Books on Slow Mode

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section a day. Silverware! China! Dining rooms. 

Renegade Love, Ann Aguirre. Another section a day book. There is alien sex in this book. Also a heist.

At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. I love the pacing.

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

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

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. Mail bribe. 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon. Mail bribe. The misogyny is lampshaded! Character, not author.

Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe. It’s interesting to see whole language in action versus the idea of it in the podcast about failing schools.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe. I like jamming a bit of classical music into my day.

Future Plans

This is for the actual future, so two weeks from the books in this post.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Long Live Evil
• Library Book: Rescue
• Ebook I own: The Down Deep,
• Foolscap Book Club Book: Rivers of London
• Sword and Laser Club Book: Ministry of Time
• Scintillation Book Club: Thousand Islands of Jacob de Zoet
• Renton Book Club: The House in The Pines
• Talbot Hill Book Clubs: ?
• Friday Book Club: ?

Happy New Year!

Hi again! The next post isn’t due until tomorrow, so I’m officially caught up!

Before last year ended, I drove home from California, and I even got to drive a bit! The weather was pleasant, by which I mean above freezing and snowless. We finished two audio books so I felt very accomplished. My cats were delighted to see me, which was pleasant. Especially when I got sick the next day and lay about languishing with cats. Not very sick, not covid, but a light fever and a cough and feeling the opposite of energetic, so I didn’t go to my New Year Party which was sad since I had read the book and got an exchange book and everything.

Luckily this was after the final meetings of my Cybils Committee, so I was there as we passed on our excellent choices to the finals judges. Go check them all out!

I made two New Years Resolutions: to read books from my shelves and to visit all the King County Libraries. These goals may be in opposition as library books with their due dates are a big reason I have so many unread books at home, but I am large enough to contain contradictions.  

 

Books Completed

Rock of Ages, Stephen J Gould. (Audio) Gaming Book Club. I think of Gould as a good writer about natural history, but in this book he was trying to set out boundaries between religious inquiries and scientific ones. The narrator was good and the vocabulary impressive (we were listening as we drove up California), but I think he never really wrestled with the goal on inquiry. He assumes, as a scientist, that questions are there to be answered, and that figuring out the nature of a question is the first step of deciding which tool (religion or science) to use to answer it. But for many people, especially religious people, answering questions is not the point. So they don’t need science to answer the questions religious thought are bad at, they can just leave them unanswered and use the question for other things: determining hierarchies and teaching humility or whatever. 

Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein. Audio reread. We had actually started this together on our last road trip, and then I got distracted by many library audio books. So we jumped back in and even the back seat enjoyed Thorby’s military career and life on Earth. Fun for all.

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall, Jasmine Warga. Cybils nominee. This is a good mystery with a shy kid gaining a friend as he works on the theft at the small museum where his mom works in an attempt to save her job. There’s a ghost helping them but she doesn’t know who she is. It’s about the kids learning to trust each other and the boy both working towards more independence but also when he can ask for help, and that works well with the fantasy stuff. There is also a turtle there to amuse the narrative voice. It’s very readable but the ending was a bit too easy and I wanted more depth to the fantasy bits.

Impossible Creatures, Katherine Rundell. Cybils nominee. This is a lovely book, both as a physical object and a reading experience. The warm writing gives us two endearing and dedicated characters who are willing to push past fear to do what they think needs to be done. The adults around them respect them and accept them as active agents, and the baddies definitely see them as threats to be eliminated. There is real danger and loss, and real sacrifices and fear as well as adventures and interesting characters and creatures. 

Nomad, William Alexander. Sequel to a book I liked. This was more complex and thought provoking although it lost a bit of the snazzy newness. I wanted one of his family but liked the way that empathy and compassion worked for the ambassadors, and the realistic way that different cultures ignored the ambassadors. 

Pokémon Adventures X*Y, Vol 4, Hidenori Kusaka. Jumping in with volume 4 was a mistake as I wasn’t convinced to care for the people, especially since as usual the action scenes baffled me, as they do in almost all graphic novels.

The Magic Treehouse 1-4, Mary Pope Osborne. At the elementary book club I mentioned that I thought you could read the Tree House Books in any order, but a kid strenuously disagreed and said there was continuity. So I went back to read the first 4 and I think we were both right and also some questions left after the first one were answered.

The Vanishing Friend, Christine Evans. Cybils nominee. Again I’m jumping into the middle of a series but in this case I’m not missing as much. As an adult reading I found the jeopardy of the friend actually quite concerning, but I knew from genre conventions he’d be okay. The camp was gentle and fun and the children mostly kind and apologetic when they were not, and I liked the magic librarian and the dire penalties for overdue books. 

The Four Star Challenge, Howard Dewin. Pokémon. Or did I start this before? I restarted it.

Adventure on Treasure Island, Jeanette Lane. Pokémon. These two Pokémon books are Ash wandering around, being delighted by and helping out new Pokémon, and battling any gym leaders he can find. For kids enjoying the show, they are good ways to practice reading in an enjoyable and familiar setting, For me it was a bit of nostalgia, as my son picked some of these when we took turns choosing the chapter book to read at bedtime. 

A Strange and Terrible Endurance, Fox Meadows. I enjoyed this very much as a story of two men in an arranged marriage who have to solve a mystery while learning to live together. I wish the sex had been less explicit as I found it distracting and not enhancing the story, and it limits who I can recommend the book to. This is not me being prudish; I mean I read fanfic for heavens sake. But in this case I’d be enjoying the world building or the relationship banter improving and suddenly dicks would spring out and abort the stuff I was enjoying without adding anything to them. I want to read the next but I kinda hope they quarrel at the start so the story can stick with the good parts.

70 Maxims of Highly Effective Mercenaries, Howard Taylor. My shelves. This is based on the Schlock Company franchise, which is a comic or a anime or something but I haven’t seen it. So it was amusing but probably better if you started with a sense of who was writing the comments.

The Art of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Watercolor Impressions, Hayao Miyazaki. My last warm up before starting the Nausicaä manga! Which I have to do now because this is when my library books arrived, oops. I liked reading Miyazakis’s thoughts on some of these pictures, especially when they were things like “I was so mad when they made me draw this” or “bird beasts because they have fewer feet”.

Liberty’s Daughter, Naomi Kritzer. Scintillation Book Club. A fun YA about a teen living on a libertarian enclave floating in the ocean off California a bit after tomorrow (although it’s been there for fifty years). Beck starts treating the community as the water she swims in, but as she first stumbles across some of the ugly realities and the gaps in the propaganda she starts to question some of her society. And then some events keep cascading that put her personal issues into perspective and keep the reader turning pages. At the end we see why Beck loves her home, and the possibilities for her and the sea based community are open ended. The group talked about the society, the parenting, how Beck developed the way she did, and lots of other stuff.

Kingdom of Dust, Lisa Stringfellow. Cybils nominee. This started as a Chosen One Story based on West Africa legends but then did some very interesting things. Some disturbed me and some delighted me. I felt the maturity level of the protagonist fluctuated a bit (twelve going on eight) but I liked the complexity of the adult characters and how sometimes the bad guys had a point (but then they would kick some puppies so we knew who to root for). I’ll look out for more by this author.

Ash and Splinter, Marieke Nijkamp. Cybils nominee. A Princess and her squire team up as friends against the world! The author acknowledges her love of Tamara Pierce’s Alana stories but goes in a different direction; this princess walks with canes and isn’t sure court life works for her and her older brother the prince is turning into a bully, also starring as the squire’s main nemesis. The court sees this as a weakness to exploit and the kids navigate both friendships and political stuff like kidnapping, assassins and complicated brothers. Just what I like!

Books Started

Rock of Ages, Stephen J Gould. (Audio) Gaming Book Club.

A Strange and Terrible Endurance, Fox Meadows. 

The Magic Treehouse 1-4, Mary Pope Osborne.

The Vanishing Friend, Christine Evans. Cybils nominee.

The Four Star Challenge, Howard Dewin. Pokémon. Or did I start this before? I restarted it.

Adventure on Treasure Island, Jeanette Lane. Pokémon. 

The Art of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Watercolor Impressions, Hayao Miyazaki.

70 Maxims of Highly Effective Mercenaries, Howard Taylor.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol 1, Hayao Miyazaki.

ADHD Is Awesome, Penn and Kim Holderness.

Liberty’s Daughter, Naomi Kratzer. Scintillation Book Club.

Poems, R. Hawley Truax. 

Bookmarks Moved

Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor. Sword and Laser club pick. (Audio)

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha.

Lamplighters, D. M. Cornish.

Bookmarks Languished

Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler. 

Puzzleheart, Jenn Reese. Cybils nominee.

Heroes of Havensong: the Last Ice Phoenix, Megan Reyes. Cybils nominee.

Serpent Rider, Yxavel Magno Diño. Cybils nominee.

Grimspace, Ann Aguirre. Reread.

True Colors, Abby Cooper. Cybils nominee.

Picture Books and Short Stories  

None.

Books on Slow Mode

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section a day. Currently she is talking about what meals are and why your family should have them. 

Renegade Love, Ann Aguirre. Another section a day book. There is alien sex in this book. 

At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. I read the next bit every morning before starting my day. It reminds me why I love books. 

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

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

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. Mail bribe. I’m near the end. 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Promoted from languishing to mail book. 

Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe.

Future Plans

This is for the actual future, so two weeks from the books in this post.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Long Live Evil
• Library Book: Service Model
• Ebook I own: The Down Deep,
• Foolscap Book Club Book: Rivers of London
• Sword and Laser Club Book: Akata Witch
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Impulse
• Scintillation Book Club: The Wednesday Wars
• Renton Book Club: The House in The Pines
• Talbot Hill Book Clubs: Warriors & Diary of a Wimpy Kid
• Friday Book Club: Road Trip!

Christmas With the Family

Hi again! At this rate I’ll be in the year 2025 before the end of January!

This was the week my brother, my sons and I drove to California, taking it easy and resting in a hotel overnight, and then spent the night with my uncle (who had just finished building a table) and my aunt (who was about to finish cooking a delicious dinner - I love tetrazzini). Then we woke up and headed over to the big house we had rented so we would have a head start wrangling with the other siblings and cousins for the best beds.

Just kidding! I had made a spreadsheet assigning all that stuff. Everyone else arrived via their preferred combination of cars and planes and we spread out. Kevin and I went out for an emergency run of supplies before the cooks told us what was needed and were viciously mocked for our choices for the rest of the holiday. There was a party at the cousins, Christmas Eve at the big house, a game from Aunt Ellen that I finagled even the second cousins into playing, Christmas Day, a few prezzies, a few axes thrown, a lovely wine bar visited, and then the exciting people went dancing and got to see new cousin Matt on the drums. I got the best aunt and her guy to drive me home early. 

It was a good Christmas with family, lots of love and laughter.

.

 

Books Completed

Kwame Crashes the Underworld, Craig Kofi Farmer. Cybils nominee. This is definitely a Rick Riordan genre book, although I don’t think he’s involved at all. But it’s a good example of that; Kwame has his own problems before getting caught up in an adventure with his cultural myths made real. His companions  are well chosen; his best friend is prickly and strong and brings her own skills, and the twist of having the grandmother he is grieving be their third is a great addition. The details of the Ghanaian afterlife are fresh to me, and Kwame’s mixed appreciation rings true. Also the humor really worked for me.

Soma and the Golden Beasts, Rajanni LaRocca. Cybils nominee. This one shone for its language and themes, yet still provided approachable characters and relationships. The two kids had a lot of conflict to work out, each having secrets amd agendas they were unwilling to share. I liked how the gems made the adventure more fun but also worked (for me, an adult) as symbols of the price of colonialism. And the complexity of the characters meant that things weren’t black and white and the kids had to navigate physical, emotional and moral hazards on their quest to save their grandmother. It’s a great example of layers of story that let the reader engage wherever they chose.

Books Started

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall, Jasmine Warga. Cybils nominee.

Kingdom of Dust, Lisa Stringfellow. Cybils nominee.

Impossible Creatures, Katherine Rundell. Cybils nominee.

Bookmarks Moved

Puzzleheart, Jenn Reese. Cybils nominee.

Heroes of Havensong: the Last Ice Phoenix, Megan Reyes. Cybils nominee.

Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein. Audio reread.

Serpent Rider, Yxavel Magno Diño. Cybils nominee.

Ash and Splinter, Marieke Nijkamp. Cybils nominee.

Bookmarks Languished

Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler. 

Lamplighters, D. M. Cornish.

Nomad, William Alexander. Sequel to a book I liked.

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha.

Grimspace, Ann Aguirre. Reread.

True Colors, Abby Cooper. Cybils nominee.

Picture Books and Short Stories  

None.

Books on Slow Mode

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section a day. Currently she is talking about what meals are and why your family should have them. 

Renegade Love, Ann Aguirre. Another section a day book. There is alien sex in this book. 

At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. I read the next bit every morning before starting my day. It reminds me why I love books. 

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

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

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. Mail bribe. I’m near the end.

Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe.

Pre-Christmas

Hi again! 

So, I’m still behind. This is the week I had my Renton library book club party, which I brought oatmeal lace cookies to. Paulos helped make them so they turned out well. He has a good sense of timing. I also talked to my lawyer about my will, and then talked to everyone in the will about my will. And then I packed for our Christmas trip. Spoiler, I had a great Christmas, but that post should follow shortly. I hope. 

Books Completed

Love Bites, Sienna Mercer. 6th Sister the Vampire book. If you want a cheerful, low tension, predictable middle grade series, this one is great! Here the kids are off to visit their aristocratic vampire relations, and their boyfriends are sweet, the misunderstandings amusing, and their sisterly devotion stronger. Add in some vampire princes and cross-class romance and everything is awesome! Except that the sequels seem to have fallen off my Libby so I can’t keep going in this decades old series.

Rocky Start, Jennifer Cruise and Bob Meyer. I liked the dialogue and the interior thoughts and found the whole town of retired wet workers interesting, but I didn’t really buy the insta-love between the two leads. re was enough of the good character work going on that I didn’t really care.

The Last Rhee Witch, Jenna Lee-Yun. Great story of a girl at camp, struggling to hold onto her best friend and worried that her dad is getting frustrated with her issues, including an unnerving habit of uncontrollable rhyming. But it soon appears that the rhyming, the camp, and some of her new friends are all related the the dangerous forces that killed her mom, and unless she uncovers the secrets of her past she will be next. Lots of cool Korean mythology and different ways of being biracial and also what it takes to have and be a friend.

Embodied: an Intersectional Comics Poetry Anthology.Wendy Chin-Tanner (Ed). I enjoyed this, especially seeing how the artists interpreted the poems and how that deepened my understanding of them as well.

Books Started

Embodied: an Intersectional Comics Poetry Anthology.Wendy Chin-Tanner (Ed). For Cloudy book clubs.

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendelsohn. A book on housekeeping that will go in the Slow Reads section.

Love Bites, Sienna Mercer. 6th Sister the Vampire book.

Kwame Crashes the Underworld, Craig Kofi Farmer. Cybils nominee.

Nomad, William Alexander. Sequel to a book I liked.

Serpent Rider, Yxavel Magno Diño. Cybils nominee.

Ash and Splinter, Marieke Nijkamp. Cybils nominee.

True Colors, Abby Cooper. Cybils nominee.

Bookmarks Moved

Soma and the Golden Beasts, Rajanni LaRocca.

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

Deal With the Devil, Kit Rocha.

Grimspace, Ann Aguirre. Reread.

Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein. Audio reread.

Bookmarks Languished

Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler. 

Lamplighters, D. M. Cornish.

Picture Books and Short Stories  

I was preparing for the Foolscap Hugo Short Stories December meeting.📆 

 “Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer. Reread, but I still like it. Hopeful, sf-nal, and with good people.

“Answerless Journey”, Han Song / 没有答案的航程, 韩松, translated by Alex Woodend. I’m not sure if I misunderstood the point or if I just found the point pointless.

“The Sound of Children Screaming” by Rachael K. Jones. Grim, current, and twisty enough to be powerful.

美食三品 (“Tasting the Future Delicacy Three Times”), 宝树 / Baoshu. This one was fun! Sf-nal andughtful.

“On the Water Its Crystal Teeth,” Marissa Lingen. Quiet look at the urge towards parenthood.

Books on Slow Mode

Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section, report on it to the family discord, and so improve our understanding of our home and its routine.

Renegade Love, Ann Aguirre. Another section a day book. There is alien sex in this book. 

At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. I read the next bit every morning before starting my day. 

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

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

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. Mail bribe. I’m near the end.

Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe.