Leap years are always fun -- the extend my twinhood. My sister and I are the same age until my birthday later this month. And now my older brother is SOOOO much older -- he's two years ahead of me! We're all over fifty now, so I guess I'm comfortable that this will still be fun until we're at least eighty when I tell him that eighty-two is obviously when senility sets in.
I had my triple book club night, where I drive up to meet a great crowd of people for the local Sword & Laser meet up followed by Torches and Pitchforks (books about society) and finally our local Vaginal Fantasy that is now just Cloudy With a Chance of Clit Lit -- romance books of all flavors. Sadly I had just gotten the S&L book so I had to listen to everyone rave about it but now maybe I'll actually read it, and I could contribute to the discussion of The Best We Could Do as I read that earlier, and I had finished most of This Is How You Lose the Time War (I did finish it on the drive home) so I was there for that.
We also had the obligatory discussion of the Corona! virus. We're in Seattle, so we're the hot news as of last weekend. Now things have moved on. Several people live in the same neighborhood as the senior care place where the deaths came from, and my local school was closing for a day, so we all had stories to swap. Obviously none of us are panicking as we all showed up for book club, but I did notice a bit of extra hand washing.
I met up with my wonderful sister-in-law and she undertook to mail off some packages for me as she humors my fear of post-offices and my inability to actually complete projects. So my nieces got my fashion accessories, poor things, my sons got their voting ballots for the Washington primary, and a friend got a book that reminded me of him. So did my brother, for that matter.
My New Years (well, February) resolution to make an appearance at a gym at least four times a week is still working out -- my lovely sister is my gym buddy so we head out most nights. I have have moved from ambling along on the treadmill for a little while to walking along. Soon I will try striding. And I noticed the "random" feature, which I am a sucker for, so now I have a few gentle slopes for my walk.
My currently reading has dipped to 19! I still have three audio books on the go, but one is an everlasting serial and the other one has been recalled by the library. I finished the lost book, so my count is one down.
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. I qualify this week with Cybils books.
Started:
Armstrong and Charlie, Stephen B. Frank. 2017 Cybils middle grade fiction.
Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh. Regency romance.
Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. For Sword and Laser, but I'm not going to finish in time!
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora, Pablo Cartaya. 2017 Cybils middle grade fiction.
Completed:
Prince's Fate, Caroline Gibson. Gibson is an author I discovered from fanfiction, and she's been filing off some of her stories to try as original fiction. I thought this actually worked better as an original story, although the ending was not as final. The weakest part of the original story was the ending, so lopping off most of it worked for me. I hope she continues writing in her own name!
Kill the Farm Boy, Delilah Dawson and Kevin Hearne. My Reading-My-Library Quest book. As you can see, I'm in the D's. This was fun (and very punny) and played a lot with fantasy tropes but wasn't mean about it. Using Tom Merritt's metric, I enjoyed it while I read it but I didn't seek out reasons to be reading it.
Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything, Martin W. Sandler. 2018 Cybils nonfiction. Lovely pictures and a strong narration tell the story of the first trip around the moon, and what it meant to the astronauts, the space program, the country and the world. It's hard to go wrong with a space book.
Armstrong and Charlie, Stephen B. Frank. 2017 Cybils middle grade fiction. A black boy from the projects and a Jewish boy from a white neighborhood clash and then makes friends. That's the synapsis, but the story makes sure it is about these individual boys and their families. Armstrong is a bit too good to be true, but then the story seems to be told from Charlie's memories and he'd believe that of him. I think it got the period of the mid seventies right as well.
Book Lust, Nancy Pearl. I found it! And in celebration zipped through the rest of the alphabet of lists. Books about books are delicious, especially when curated by a discerning reader.
Frenemies In the Family, Kathleen Krull. Cybils 2018 Nonfiction finalist. Chapters about siblings in history, which text of biography followed by cartoons highlighting interesting bits. Fun to read -- my favorites were the larger families like the Kennedys.
Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh. Regency romance. I have no confidence at all than any of the historical sense or facts were accurate, beyond the existence of Napoleon. But I enjoyed this very quiet romance between two people who let their heads rule their emotions, but allowed their emotions room. And of course I always like large annoyingly supportive families, which this has in abundance.
This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar. For Cloudy With a Chance of Clit Lit. I was so close to finishing! Only a few tracks left when the club started, but I knew how it would end. More of a painting than a story -- it was all about the words and the tone. Someone said it had a very Romeo and Juliet vibe and that's right.
Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 4/10 discs. Backing up a bit to where I remember things now that I finished the book club CD.
Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan. The library called this home. I will try to get it back, probably after I finish Jonathan Strange. They are a bit too close together to read simultaneously.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke. The library called home the audio, so I'm trying to make some distance with the print version. The print is very small.
Uncompromising Honor, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. I started part 3 as I drove back from book club. I'm a little concerned that I will be listening to this for the next four years -- it's 773 pages. The previous book was only 400 and change and it took two years.
Picture Books / Short Stories:
"February Thaw," Tanya Huff. Mama Demeter has to kindly push Persephone back out of the nest before her winter vacation is ruined.
Maya Lin: Thinking With Her Hands, Susan Goldman Rubin. 2018 Cybils nonfiction. Lovely photos show the structures and buildings Lin designed while the accompanying chapters describe her process. It's a good introduction both to architecture and this architect.
Mr. Wolf's Class, Aron Nels Steinke. 2018 Cybils graphic story. The first day of school for a brand new teacher and a class of young kids -- maybe second grade? Cute and fun and an enjoyable read for wobbly readers.
Palate Cleansers
These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.
A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George. I am so glad this is almost finished.
The Educated Child, William Bennett.
Cookie, Jacqueline Wilson.
Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. Ah, but who gets to love? The men and women seem to have different opinions on this.
Tell the Wolves I'm Home, Carol Rifka Brunt.
Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca.
Reading Challenges
- Cybils 2017. Finished Armstrong and Charlie. Started Epic Fail.
- Cybils 2018. Finished middle grade nonfiction, read some elementary nonfiction. Also finished elementary graphic books!
- Cybils 2019. Lined up some poetry.
- Reading My Library. Finished one, checked out the next.
- Ten to Try. I've got 5/10 already! Apollo 8 makes a much better journey book!
- Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. 10/24. I'm ahead! Knocked off YA nonfiction (Apollo 8) and historical book not set in WWII (Someone to Honor, although it's a terrible book as a historical).
- Where Am I Reading: Eight states (Armstrong & Charlie is firmly in California), seven countries.
1 comment:
Oh right, you're in Seattle. We have family in Seattle and I sorta imagined that a ton of people would suddenly be on lock down. There was mention of someone being tested about two hours from our little town in Nebraska and suddenly the local stores were swarmed for anti-bacterial wipes and zinc lozenges. I already had most of was on the "doomsday prep" list -- minus masks (but I think we have a few painter's masks in the basement). LOL Anyway, it's great to hear that your group isn't in full blown panic. A little extra hand washing shouldn't hurt anyone too much. How have I overlooked Armstrong and Charlie the last couple years?? I'm adding this one to my list and I'm off to see if we have a local copy. Thanks for sharing, Beth!
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