This was a nice week. I finished some library books that were due, checked out the farmers market, made some fresh bread, and generally enjoyed myself before flying off to Montreal for Scintillation, a small SF literary convention filled with good topics, good conversations, good people, and surrounded by good food.
Goodreads thinks I am reading 63 books. There are a few more I haven’t marked as complete, so I should dip under 60 soon. Maybe I can hit 50 by the end of the year!.
Books Completed May 30 - June 5
Little Miss Stoneybrook… and Dawn, Ann M. Martin. This was was very silly and utterly charming. It starts with an out of character spat about who is the best baby-sitter, which is an excuse for everyone to enter random kids in a beauty contest. Luckily we spend the most time with the ones whose idea of a talent is peeling a banana with your foot.
Mickey7, Edward Ashton. Sword and Laser pick. This was an odd reading experience because I saw the movie first. Usually I’m firmly in the “read the book first” camp but I wasn’t hreally planning on reading it so I watched the movie on my trip to Texas last April, and then S&L picked it to read. I thought the movie had more interesting questions about capitalism and aliens and personhood, and the book had more interesting aliens and tried harder to grapple with the whole identity thing. The in person book club thought the movie was obviously playing up to Trump, but I thought it was more playing to a rather stock evil rich dude but since Trump also leans hard into that trope there are a lot of similarities. And the book club did wish they had gotten the Ship of Theseus stuff right.
A Dark and Drowning Tide, Allison Saft. For Cloudy book club. I liked the grumpiness of the protagonist and the setting in a magical not-1800s-German-unification country, but I thought the romance would have worked more as a friendship thing; as it was the romance dragged down the book first because I didn’t believe in it and second because there were so many problems, which the characters even discussed in their third act “we can never be together” speech but then at the end they remembered they were in a romance so they got together anyway and I have no idea how they will deal with the problems. I liked the roll the fake Jewish fantasy religion played in the protagonist’s life, even if that was one of the ignores issues at the end.
Hello, Mallory, Ann M. Martin. It was nice seeing the club be idiots from an outside point of view, with the dumb test. Jessi and Mallory’s friendship seemed real and the reconciliation with the club proceeded on track. The race stuff was handled in a very matter of fact way; people are racist, Jessi’s family is disappointed but not really surprised, and good guys like our club members reach out without thinking about it and we know they are good guys.
The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett. Hugo finalist. This was a fun mystery with a master detective who rarely leaves her room and her Watson who gathers the clues and is not an idiot but has his own limitations. They have biological science that is pretty much magic and the world is under attack so maybe the empire is needed. This should be an entertaining series.
Cracker!, Cynthia Kadohata. 2007 Cybils finalist. An old fashioned kind of book bu tin a good way. We get a dog-eyes view of the Vietnam War, along with the perspective of the boy who loses the dog and the older boy who inherits her when he joins the army. The boys are not much more sophisticated than the dog, so it’s a very sensory based history but that makes for a great reading experience.
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot. Poetry book. I haven’t read this for some decades so I grabbed it off the library shelf, it’s got the fun stuff I remember, and also the racist bits and the occasional dip into twee. I’m still croggled by the musical.
Exadelic, Jon Evans. This will be my present to my brother on his birthday. He occasionally reads this blog, so don’t tell him!
Books Started
Hello, Mallory, Ann M. Martin. It will be a long time before I run out of Baby-sitters Club books.
I Survived the Battle of D-Day 1944 Graphic Novel, Lauren Tarshis, Georgia Ball, Brian Churilla. Brian is a new name to me but I guess the art does look a bit different.
The Road to Roswell, Connie Willis. For my friends book club. The one that is my friends.
The Sun Also Rises, Earnest Hemingway. For the library’s The River Runs Under It Bookclub.
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot. Poetry book.
Baby-sitter’s Winter Vacation, Ann M. Martin. One of the supers-specials, which apparently means alternating narrators.
Tusks of Extinction, Ray Naylor. Hugo finalist novella.
Bookmarks Moved
Alibi, Sharon Shinn
Hannelore’s Fifth Year at the Royal Academy, Miya Kazuki.
Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement, Steven K. Kapp (editor)
System Collapse, Martha Wells.
Beauty Like the Night, Joanna Bourne
Watership Down:the Graphic Novek, James Sturm.
Threads That Bind, Kika Hatzopoulo
The City, Christian McKay Heidicker
Eva Evergreen and the Cursed Witch, Julie Abe
I’m Nobody, Who Are You?, Emily Dickinson
Lyorn, Steven Brust
The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, Yu Chen (editor)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell
Tomb of Dragons, Katherine Addison
Tales From Watership Down, Richard Adams
One Jump Ahead, Mark L Von Name
Bookmarks Languished
I have not given up on these! Ignore all evidence.
Poppy and Marigold, Meg Welch Dendler.
Wow, No Thank You, Samantha Irby.
Samantha Smee: A Pirate’s Life, M.C. Dingman.
Into the Vast Nothing, J. Bruno.
Marry Me By Midnight, Felicia Grossmann.
Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan.
True Colors, Abby Cooper.
South Riding, Winifred Holtby.
Lepunia: Kingdom of the Gallopers, Kevin Ford
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver. River Runs Under It pick
Picture Books and Short Stories
“The Green Glass Paperweight,” by Sarah Monette. Great depiction of internal anger.
Books on Slow Mode
Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendleson. I read one section a day. Except when I’m reading a Bookworm novel.
At the Feet of the Sun, Victoria Goddard. Kip having an adventure in a castle at the top of the ocean..
50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane (no picture). Mail bribe. Robert Browning slaps hard.
The Writer's Stance: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, Dorothy U. Seyler. (no picture). Mail bribe. I like essays.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon. Mail bribe.
War Cross, Marie Lu. Mail bribe.
Teaching With Caldecott Books, Scholastic books. Mail bribe
Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Mail bribe. Made it to December!
Books Acquired
I’m too far behind to do this.
Future Plans
This is for the actual future, so weeks beyond the books in this post. It is also probably wrong.
I am reading:
- Book I own: Downeast Genius
- Library Book: I Escaped the Salem Witch Trials
- Ebook I own: Alibi
- Foolscap Book Club Book: The Jewels of Aptor
- Sword and Laser Club Book: (finished)
- Scintillation Book Club: Camp Concentration (I won’t get this in time), Wolf Hall
- Cloudy Book Club: Honey Witch
- Torches and Pitchfork Book Club: Hell Followed With Us
- River Runs Under It Book Club: None of This Is True
- Talbot Hill Book Summer Reading! Baby-sitter Little Sister
- Friday Book Club: Sorceress Comes to Call (finished!)
- Romance Book Club: A vacation romance
