Apparently Exercise Can Make You Sore

The big news of the week is that I'm getting some library books! Pick-up is now a thing, not at my home library but at my main back-up library. So I put a zillion books on hold and raced over to pick up the first one (Ordinary Harads) . Even better, I asked them about helping with my Library Quest. I've been reading a book off each shelf of the library, so I wondered if a librarian could amble over to the next shelf and grab something for me and put it on my hold shelf. They were cautiously optimistic; probably not for a few weeks as right now they are scrambling to become remote action libraries, but definitely before the building would open to the public. KCLS is awesome.

I turned in my ballot for the Hugo Awards, and am gearing up to attend WorldCon in New Zealand (CoNZealand). Of course, New Zealand is barred from outsiders and I'm following stay-at-home advice, but the convention has gone virtual so that shouldn't slow me down. On Monday night I plan to set all the clocks in my house to New Zealand time and leap into Wednesday, bypassing Tuesday all together. Of course, I'll have to come back to Washington for incidentals like the farmer's market and such, but the commute will be much better from Virtual New Zealand than from the real one. The views won't be as nice, though.

I had my book club with my mom friends for Stamped. I had foolishly started out doing chapter summaries, and then stubbornness kept me doing it all the way through. So the audio went very slowly, and I was listening on Spotify so I couldn't crank up the speed. I managed to finish 20 minutes before go-time (it was remote, but it would have been even without Covid, since we are scattered all over the US and beyond). 

I have successfully finished week 8 of the Couch-5K plan. Which I thought was 8 weeks but turns out is 9. So now I have one more week. I've noticed that my knee is sore after running so I'm spreading out the runs to be 2.5 days apart instead of two days, and that seems to give me aged and appalled legs time to recover. This is a HUGE deal for me -- never in my life have I been able to fun for even 20 minutes straight, and now I've gone 28. And am planning on going 30. I'm incredibly slow, so I still haven't gone 5K, but that now seems like a realistic goal. After next week I will switch my training program from the NHS podcast (I like the British voice telling me I'm doing great) to Zombies Run. 

A sad side effect of all this exercise is that I'm sore! Sleeping is hard because when I roll over I wake myself up. The only day I managed to sleep deeply was the day I was supposed to meet up with a friend for a socially-distant park walk -- that day I slept like a log until an hour after the meeting time. Oops. And then, to mock myself, I woke up the next day at 6:30 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. So I went for my last Week 8 run. 

Dinners were Thai Shrimp and then Lentil Stew, for which I contributed homemade bread. And I just made a blueberry banana bread from fresh blueberries that I shall bring over to my sister's for dinner tonight. (It turned out very nice.)

My currently reading has calmed down to 20, including the three I'm just pretending to read. 

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. My new books are 3/5 kidlit this week.
Started

All Thirteen, Christina Soontornvat. ARC from Candlepress. Also fits my Goodreads team challenge.

Operatic, Kyo Maclear. Cybils graphic book finalist.

Cleaning the Gold, Karin Slaughter & Lee Child. Two action adventure series characters meet. I know Jack Reacher but the other guy was new to me.

Ordinary Hazards, Nikki Grimes. Cybils finalist. 

Fences, August Wilson. For the 21 Day Anti-Racist challenge. I think I'm on day 27.

Completed

Middlegame, Seanan McGuire. Novel finalist for 2020 Hugos. Looking back, I'm very impressed by the structure, which was complex but also integral to advancing the plot and the themes. The title will resonate most with chess players, and I'm only a retired chess spectator, so I felt it fairly dimly. The best parts are the relationship between Roger and Dodge in all the time lines, and the echo of that in Erin, and then the imagery of alchemy and the dreams of alchemists.

Stamped From the Beginning, Ibram X Kendi. (Audio) Whew -- I finished 20 minutes before the club meeting. I can quibble about the structure, which I thought was strained, and some of the organization, which sometimes made it hard to follow on audio, but overall I felt it was really informative, comprehensive, and comprehensible. Some stuff echoed what I already knew, but there was a lot of new information that I had forgotten, never been taught, or never learned. Most interestingly, there was a lot of context that I knew pieces of but that Kendi showed in a new and very persuasive light. I think this is a worthy prize-winner and now I want to go read the YA version.

A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge. Cybils 2017 MG book. Hardinge is always amazing, and her command of character is brilliant. This book felt almost overstuffed -- a distinctive character who is going through a lot of changes, a fascinating setting stuffed with interesting ideas and technologies and ideas, and several mysteries nestled inside and alongside each other. But kids aren't as lazy as me and don't quibble about having too much fun. I like how the characters inspire each other to do great things.

Operatic, Kyo Maclear. Cybils 2019 YA graphic book finalist. This was quietly insightful; it follows a junior year of a girl with a great music class and teacher. The different shades of panels clearly showed flashbacks and themes, and I like how the girl was Asian and had queer friends, which affected her story but the story wasn't about these "issues". It felt like a powerful short story.

All Thirteen, Christina Soontornvat. ARC from Candlepress. I found this interesting and suspenseful. Soontornvat takes time to set things up, so as the chapters follow the soccer team from their decision to enter the cave all the way to the aftermath of the rescue she includes boxes that detail concepts needed along the way, from Thai customs to cave geology to drug interactions. The pictures were good and the diagrams clear. I also liked the personal touch in the back material as she explains her interest started when she was in Thailand visiting relatives when the story broke, and how she used her family as translators and for insights into Thai society. Speaking of back matter, the sources are well documented and the index and bibliography stood up to all my questions.

Cleaning the Gold, Karin Slaughter & Lee Child. I'm a Jack Reacher fan. It was fun to watch him amaze the other guy with his muscles. And his brain. Reacher is apparently much more of a superhero; Slaughter's guy is a mere mortal. They cleaned the gold and then uncovered a new mystery, just in case the authors want to get back together. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 8/10 discs. An expert is on the scene.

Uncompromising Honor, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial, part 19-20. OK, I can listen to podcasts again. There is a battle. 

Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton. Enjoying reading this alongside The Warden. 

Braiding Sweetgrass (audio), Robin Wall Kimmerer. Still find it life-affirming.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler. Reread. Yikes. I like how the first-person text is trying to be calm but you can see the emotion leaking through. 

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Stephen Fry is up, but I have almost no time to listen.

The Warden, Anthony Trollope. For my Tuesday Minecraft club. Supposed to finish this by Tuesday. Hmm...

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. This has a very strong flavor; I'm not sure I'm going to like it.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

Αλφαβητάρι με γλωσσοδέτες, Eugene Trivizas. Only did one letter.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.

The Educated Child, William Bennett. Math is hard guys. Also, Bennett seems to think that multiplying large numbers involves algebra. Have I been doing it wrong?

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. Bad guys think more than the good guys. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. 

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. 

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. More ways to ready students to read nonfiction.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. Finished A Face Like Glass.
2. Cybils 2018. None.
3. Cybils 2019. Read Operatic. Have holds traveling to my library.
4. Reading My Library. The librarians are considering my request. 
5. Ten to Try. At 9/10. Haven't read it yet, but I've got #10 on my tablet.
6. Where Am I Reading: 22/51 states. Gold was in Kentucky. 19 Countries. Added Thailand.
7. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. 21/24. Three left:  6 (play by PoC or queer author), 13 (food book about a new to me cuisine),  and 24 (Indigenous author). (Had to read several literary magazines to vote in the Hugos Awards.) I'm currently reading the play and listening to something by an Indigenous author. And I'm reconsidering counting a romance as a food book.