So Proud!

This was a week to be proud of my niblings -- first my nephew's team at his work study place finished up a big project and presented the results to upper management. He got dressed up in suit and tie to make the best impression and really knocked it out of the park. 

And then there was a gathering of the clan in New Hampshire to cheer on my niece as she graduated from Dartmouth College. Woot! We started with an early dawn flight that was slowly delayed until late morning (I weep for my lost snoozes!), but Alaska Airline felt really bad about it and gave us a lot of treats and some compensation, and we managed to have a good time even though I couldn't accept the free beers as I was driving from Boston to Hanover after we landed. My brother had found a great house to share and I enjoyed seeing Vermont with my brothers and sisters and also a few extra niblings as we celebrated the graduate. 

Before we left my son and I went to see the new Spiderverse movie and enjoyed it a lot. The artwork is amazing and the story really strong. But it's Part I so be prepared to wait for the resolution! 

I finished a lot of books and only started a handful, so I can now view my currently reading on two pages in GoodReads. I'm up to 36 books checked out but a lot of those are ebooks I checked out so I wouldn't bring too many paper books on my trip to the East Coast. More worryingly that missing picture book hasn't surfaced yet.

I'm off to check out the other books at The Bookdate's It's Monday, What Are You Reading headquarters. And since I read some graphic novels and a picture book, I'll also sign up at the Children's Book central version, held at both Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers. And then I will dive around to see what everyone else has been reading.

Started

Purple Hearts, Tess Wakefield. If I had been able to go to the Romance Book Club back in January, this is the book I would have read. I don't even remember the topic.

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Vol 5 Part 4, Miya Kazuki. The new one is out! Let's see if I can stretch it out through the end of July, when Part 5 arrives.

Across a Field of Starlight, Blue Delliquanti. Cybils finalist. 

The Shuddering City, Sharon Shinn. I like this author.

Magic Tides, Ilona Andrews. I like this author. And this series.

Numb to This, Kindra Neely. Cybils finalist. 

Completed

The Red Scholar's Wake, Aliette de Bodard. For Cloudy book club. This did not work for me on many several levels. The characters never felt real, mainly because of their their rapid transit from kidnap victim and their captor to deeply committed loving spouses. That kept me at enough of a remove to find the vivid images of the mix of virtual and physical realities vaguely interesting rather than engrossing. The politics also seemed rather naive, and the ending appeared to involve basically a deus machina, or rather a NICE BUREAUCRAT machina. The book club was small but mostly felt the same way.

Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer. Once you realize that the packaging and back matter is a lie, and there is NO ROMANCE at all in this book, it's quite fun. You see the young King Charles II running around hiding from the people who want to cut off his head, and the many royalists who want to help him, from farmers to lords, and the many other people who want to cash in the reward. And it's all coated in the warm feeling of actual history so now I feel smarter. 

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, K. Eason. Library Quest book. This was a lucky pull from the shelves -- fun fairy tales motifs on a space faring story, with a narrator jumping in to comment every now again. I liked the kid as she grew up and had to start making her own way; there was some good twists to make her more independent while still making her believably young and miss some important points. I think there's a sequel so I'll look out for that. 

M Is For Monster, Talia Dutton. 2022 Cybils YA Graphic Novel finalist. I liked the homage to Frankenstein and the blinked view of the scientist that so scares the creation. The other side characters were also good (the husband, the dressmaker), but my usual face blindness had me getting confused among the characters (don't ask me how).

Magic Tides, Ilona Andrews. I got what I expected and I was happy. 

Ascendance of a Bookworm (manga), Part 2 Volume 4, Miya Kazuki. Seeing Myne's reactions are almost as much fun as reading about them. I am as happy as a clam. 

Murder While You Work, Susan Scarlett (Noel Streatfeild). This is just up my alley. I like WWII stories, especially with competent career girls. I like mysteries. I like lonely old houses. The romance is a bit thin but the friendship is good fun.

Across a Field of Starlight, Blue Delliquanti. 2022 Cybils YA Graphic Novel finalist. This is a cool space story with two kids on different sides of a triangular conflict. They become friends in defiance of the rules and end up helping each other in various ways as the readers learns all about their situation and their issues. I struggled a bit because I am so bad at reading pictures; the characters looked nothing alike and I still couldn't tell them apart. 

Axiom's End, Lindsay Ellis. For my Reading My Library Quest. This was an interesting read -- a great alien, and a main character I started out disliking a bit but who impressed me with her strength over the course of the book. I liked the things it had to say about government secrets and power, the likely effects of meeting aliens, and how cool technology would work. 

Children of the Stone City, Beverley Naidoo. For my Reading My Library Quest (Renton Highlands edition). This is a great and touching portrayal of the barriers faced by kids in a system stacked against them, very clearly based on the lives of Palestinian kids in an Israeli city. It's also a very discouraging example of how little each side understand of each other; the only history the kids know is highly slanted and guaranteed to produce no dialogue. And the people they meet in the book conform to this stereotype. 

The Alto Wore Tweed, Mark Schweitzer. This is a fun and lighthearted book with a slight mystery but mostly there to enjoy the main character, who gets to be right a lot and be smugly modest about it. An easy and uncomplicated read.

Picture Books

 

The Good Little Book, Kyo Maclear. I saw this recommended on a blog and grabbed it. It's a great representation of how books work with people, along with fun illustrations at the action point, especially when the boy loses the books. It's a great story to show both the boy moving on to experience different parts of what he loved with this book in many different books, and also to see the book making a difference in a whole swath of different lives. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Miya Kazuki. Pausing my reread of Part 3 while I read the new book.

Cobra, Timothy Zahn. Part 48. Johnny is in higher management now, so he has different problems.

A Longer Fall, Charlaine Harris. I like the Audio Dramatizations. I should volunteer to clean my friend's kitchen so I can keep listening. 

Warcross, Marie Lu. Not using my car much this week, so not making progress on the book I keep in my car.

Flood Circle, Harry Connolly. Made it to this one! (I reward myself with this after I read enough of the library books I've checked out)

Your Perfect Year, Charlotte Lucas. Time for the last minute obstacle!

Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon. I think we can expect to see this here for a while.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brian. Not gonna finish this week.

A Half-Built Garden, Ruthanna Emyrs. For my Reading My Library Quest. I like that I accidentally grabbed two different (very different!) first-contact stories from two adjacent shelves.

Ship Without Sails, Sherwood Smith. OK, some characters are in not quite as much peril as they were a while ago.

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.

 

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

Stinger, Nancy Kress. 

Dragon's Breath, E.D. Baker. 

The Writer's Stance: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, Dorothy U. Seyler.  (no picture) This chapter was on the personal essay as an art form, so I had the fun of reading a bunch of personal essays.

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. 

The Dark Fantastic, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. I will have to up my nerd credentials as I don't know all her examples!

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Hmm. I am falling behind during my vacation.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2022: Working on YA Graphic Novels. Finished two, working on another. 
2. Early Cybils:  Not done.
3. Reading My Library. Working on fiction from main library: Finished How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse and Axiom's End. Working on Half-Built Garden. Finished audio from backup library. 
4. Libraries: Working on the 10 to Try for 2023. Went to a library (I do a different one each year) and got a staff member to recommend something.

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: Blood Vow
• Library Book: I'm Glad My Mom Died
• Ebook I own: Flood Circle
• Library Ebook: Purple Hearts
• Book Club Book: The Fourth Wing
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Network Effect
• Review Book: Back Home 
• Rereading: 
• Audio: A Longer Fall