Posts Tagged ‘reading’
Never in a million years did I ever think I was going to say I was proud of Kim Kardashian. Scroll to the bottom for that bombshell!
What have I been reading?
Finished Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s novella And Shall Machines Surrender, and freakin’ loved it. My brain still doesn’t want to write long reviews, so I put a short review on Amazon. If you like some, any, or all of these things, this novella is for you: Beautiful writing, tight plotting, show don’t tell, cyberpunk, when AIs don’t need humans anymore, AI run cities, AI and human melds, and super hot sex scenes.
Finally finished Death’s End by Cixin Liu. Those last few chapters, HOLY SHIT! but man it was a lot of boring to get there . Had a great conversation with my dad about the series. I love how this series has become our family reading club book!
Also finished The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang. It was. . . meh? I’m really happy it was a novella. I will say that the further I got into it, the more I liked it, but I won’t be continuing with this series.
Started reading The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust. What a blast! It’s Brust’s take on The Three Musketeers, except more banter, more humor, and everyone is offended by literally everything, so there are duels like every 3 pages. There is also this parody thing going on with the narrator. And, um, Sethra Lavode is . . . young-ish? It is super fun. Luckily, there is like 5 books in this series, so that should keep me busy for a little while.
Went on a little bookstore adventure today, picked up:
Hild by Nicola Griffith – this has come highly recommended! I was surprised to find it in general fiction, i thought this was a spec fic book?
Ismail Merchant’s Indian Cuisine – lots of easy recipes, nothing intimidating.
How Language Began by Daniel Everett – I’ve been hooked on the Lexicon Valley podcast, so I’m all about the history of languages right now!
This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper – I have no idea if this is good or not, but I liked the cover art. And it looks super different than everything I’ve been reading lately, that alone is a big plus.
Speaking of podcasts, I discovered “This Podcast will Kill You”, I think they talk about poisons? I’ve only listened to the episode about Aspirin and holy shit it was fascinating! Now i kinda wish my commute was longer, so i could listen to more of this? no, really, NO I do not want a longer commute! Goal in life is a shorter commute!
oh, what did we cook this weekend? Made the world’s most delicious shrimp and noodle stirfry, it was one of those stirfry’s where you throw a bunch of deliciousness into a wok, and then throw noodles and some sweet chili sauce in, and surprising no one you end up with a delicious stirfry. Made a quinoa sorghum salad with mint lemon dressing for something healthy to snack on at work, Tonight we are making Curry Rice, which is one of my fave autumn dishes. I’ve blogged about this dish before, but imagine a beef stew, but it’s made with curry gravy. Buckets of spices, buckets of ginger and garlic and hot peppers and onions, and you serve it with rice and yogurt. my mouth is watering!!!
Apropos of nothing, I am annoying that one of my fave kitchen / small home decorating sites, thekitchn, is now like 80% advertising posts for Costco, Trader Joe, and Aldi. Like, i like those stores? but I also prefer content that is cooking, kitchen techniques, and small home decorating. I actually do not give a shit about how the different pumpkin spice things at Aldi compare to those at Trader Joe.
Same as The Kitchn is being taken over by thinly veiled advertising for Costco, Aldi, and Trader Joe, Buzzfeed is being taken over by less thinly veiled advertising for everything Kardashian. three cheers for click bait?
I never in a million years thought I’d say I’m proud of Kim, but I’m proud of her. Ten years ago, if anyone had told her what her child could or could not, or should, or should not do, she’d have stretched it out over a season of her stupid TV show, and then divorced the guy. She must have learned how to #adult, since now she’s willing to have a conversation about it, willing to hear the other person out, willing to not turn it into huge drama.
Yes, it is super sad that I’m proud of her for the teeny tiny act of hearing her husband out, not making money off the drama, and making her relationship more important than them disagreeing over something. But still, I’m proud of her. She’s solving problems through discussing things, and trying to understand the why behind why people feel the way they do. Kim, you’re all grown up!
Recent Reads!
Posted on: December 16, 2018
I was hoping to write full length reviews of these books, but well, life (and Netflix) happens, so I didn’t. Here are some ultra quick reviews of some recent reads!
Vicious by V.E. Schwab – I am finally on the Schwab bandwagon, and I can see why she has the following she has. Vicious was hella fun! I described it to a friend as “gleefully violent”. Think Flatliners meets X-Men, But twice as snarky and three times as smart. Tight writing, fast paced, not a wasted sentence. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book! I will def be reading the sequel, Vengeful.
Noumenon Infinity by Marina J. Lostetter – I really loved the first book, Noumenon, and my Dad did too. So we read the 2nd book together. I had a hard time getting into this book, very little of the characters I’d enjoyed so much from the first book. Had I not been reading it along with my Dad I would have DNF’d it. Too much felt like a plot device – too much of “ok, so this plot thing needs to happen for the story to go in this particular direction because that direction makes sense”, and then exactly that happened. The big reveal at the end wasn’t a surprise at all. I wish C had been a bigger part of this book. Lots of great science and an intriguing first contact plot line, but execution was flawed.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal – very fast paced, Kowal has a ton of story to cram into a not very long novel. I loved the alternate history extinction level event – a meteor lands off the Atlantic coast, taking Washington DC with it. Within a few decades we may not be able to survive on Earth, so it’s to the stars we go! Elma is a “computer”, that is, she is a math savant who can do complicated calculations in her head faster than a 1950s computer can. She’s also a pilot. Who says women can’t be astronauts? Umm… all the male astronauts, and the government, that’s who. So Elma and all her female pilot friends will just have to prove them wrong. This book teetered right on the line of Punching You In The Face Every Other Page with all the isms. You might not even notice that aspect, you might love it, you might hate it. This is a prequel to Kowal’s novellette The Lady Astronaut of Mars, which you can still read over at Tor.com.
Bride’s Story vol 10 by Kaoru Mori – Finally the story is back to Amir and Karlak! Karlak has decided to spend a few seasons with Amir’s family, so that he can learn how to hunt with a bow and understand more about her family’s nomadic culture. Amir’s brothers and cousins quickly adopt Karlak, and even though he has a lot to learn, they treat him with respect. Karlak is even gifted with a hunting eagle. I think Karlak went into this expecting Amir’s brother and cousins to treat him like a child, like a “city boy”, like a joke. And they treat him with hospitality and respect. The artwork in the scenes with the eagles were incredible! I love this series for the artwork alone! The last third of the volume goes back to Smith. He gets the surprise of his life, and he’s going to decide what to do with her. And she no longer has a home to return to. Volumes 7 – 9 were all over the place and didn’t have much focus, so I’m happy that this volume has more focus and features more of my favorite characters.
Watching!
I’ve gotten hooked on The Final Table on Netflix – Think Iron Chef mixed with the drama of Chopped, but the dial cranked up to twelve. It’s over produced and more than a little ridiculous. Lol, maybe it’s Total. Drama. Cooking show! My favorite part has become the “final plate” portion. The judges for the final plate portion of each episode give supportive and positive feedback. There is a contestant I wish had more screen time, he is slender, wears round glasses, and wears his brown hair in a ponytail. I want to know how long his hair is. He looks like an anime guy!
And speaking of anime, I’ve also gotten hooked on Castlevania, also on Netflix. An American version of the Japanese anime, this is paced and designed more to western tastes and expectations. I nearly cried in the first episode. The characters are snarky, sweary, fighty, and the dialog is fantastic. I’m only 4 or 5 episodes in, and we just met Alucard, who is most certainly not the sleeping savior soldier. (I knew he had to show up eventually). Oh boy, my female gaze is strong with this one! How are those pants staying on? I know (i hope at least) he’s not there just for fan service, but DAMN. Anyway, great characters who are snarky, sweary, smart, and sexy? And an excellent Dracula story? Um, yes please!
So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. How about you? what have you read, watched, and enjoyed?
Reviews I’d like to write
Posted on: November 24, 2018
I’ve been reading plenty lately! Have I written any reviews? Nope. hmmm… guess I better get on that.
Here are some teasers on what I’ve read lately:
Not sure that I enjoyed Noumenon Infinity enough to write a full length review of it, it might get a quickie one paragraph write up or something. My favorite character hardly makes an appearance, I found the plot to be clunky and too much jumping around, and the ending was not a surprise at all. There – done.
The Monster Baru Cormorant – damn did I love this book! this book has a much, much wider range than the first one, I want to read it again, cover to cover, before writing the review. I feel like on the first read through I wasn’t focusing on the right things.
The Calculating Stars is my local book club’s book for this month. What a fun, fast, read! This book isn’t dense, but there is a LOT jammed into it, and it’s just the beginning of the story. I can see why Kowal did a duology.
I just finished this forthcoming Tim Powers novella this morning, quite a fun read! Would make an excellent novel if he wanted to expand it. Has the Power’s treats of parallel worlds, raising the dead, body switching, and people who are convinced that they know how all this stuff works.
How about you?
What have you read lately? Was it good?
When you’ve read a bunch of stuff, but you’re behind on actually writing the reviews, what do you do?
Sometimes I just never write the reviews, sometimes i reread the book to get excited about the story again, sometimes i read all the reviews on Amazon to get some inspiration, sometimes I bribe myself “No more episodes of Great British Baking Show until you write a review!”
Us book reviewers love to joke about our out of control ToBeRead piles. We post photos of our TBRs online, we have the “priority” stack, the “read later” stack, the “these are the books I want to read when I have time” stack, which we never get to, because ARCs keep the first two stacks a few feet high. We enjoy discussing how many books we want to read, need to read, hope to find time to read. In the blogosphere, this is a thing.
I think we joke about it so much, because deciding what book to read next can be paralyzing. And what better way to deal with that stress than to laugh about it? There are so many choices, so many obligations, it’s easy to get analysis paralysis. Will you pick up the book you promised the publicist you’d review? Will you pick up the book from your favorite author? Will you pick up the book that your best friend said “hey, I think you’d like this, read it so we can talk about it”. Will you pick up a comfort read that you’ve read a million times but it’s the only thing you feel like reading right now?
Fellow Book Bloggers, how do you decide what book to read next? How do you get past the analysis paralysis? Do you choose your next book based on what you want to read, what you should be reading, what you think other people want you to read?
To tell the truth, I’m jealous of organized book bloggers. They are organized. they have a system. they have spreadsheets, and a review publishing schedule. They read books in a particular order, and if they deviate from that order, they don’t tell anyone.
Organization is like broccoli, or getting up at the same time every day. I know it’s good for me, I know i should make it part of my life, and sometimes I do for a few weeks at a time. And then I realize that shit is not for me.
Don’t get me wrong, i love the excitement of all the TBR photos online, the Mailbox Monday posts, i’m just not organized enough, or committed enough to actually follow through on it. All those posts I’ve done where I say “Look at all these books I’m going to review soon!” Yep, I’m lucky if I review a third of them in the next few months.
I am not organized when it comes to deciding what book to read next. Nope. But I am organic.
My To Be Read pile is the living room coffee table, and the stacks of book that are underneath it. The corner of the kitchen table, too.
Next to the bed, is what I call the “book graveyard”. Books I picked up, started reading before bed, put down, and didn’t care enough about to ever pick up again.
But how do I decide what to read next?
I read next whatever strikes my fancy. Maybe it’s something that caught my eye at a used bookstore. Maybe it’s something a friend lent or gave me, maybe I got talking to the author at a book event, maybe a bookseller friend or librarian friend recommended the book to me, maybe the cover art got my attention. Maybe it’s the newest book from my favorite author, maybe it’s an ARC that just arrived, maybe it’s an ARC that’s been sitting under the table for 6 months and hit bookstore shelves 3 months ago, maybe it’s a random older title I’m finally getting around to, maybe it’s something a friend recommended. Maybe it’s a comfort read I’m re-reading for the 2nd or 10th time. There is no logic to any of this.
My decisions about what to read next are completely random, organic, and unorganized. If I really liked the book I just finished, I will often look for something similar to read next. If I DNF’d a book, I will often look for something completely different as a palette cleanser. Except for the ARCs that are floating around, I choose what to read next with not a care in the world that I have a book review blog.
Your turn. How do you decide what to read next?
A bunch of Not New books.
Posted on: October 30, 2017
I’ve been bouncing around a lot of books lately. I’ll pick something up, read a hundred pages, put it down. In one case, I got 200 pages through a book, got annoyed by it, got so annoyed that I didn’t care that i was only a hundred pages from the end, and put it down.
Oh October, month of my DNF’ing.
Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe I’m picking up books that I’m just not in the mood for. Maybe i’m picking up books that aren’t as awesome as they could be. Who knows.
I did finish two books recently. Both are book 3’s in ongoing series, both were let downs. They weren’t terrible, they just weren’t as good as the first or second books in those series, and the first two books were so good that my expectations were pretty high for book 3. I was disappointed in both books, but I did finish both of them, so that must mean something.
When I fall into this funk of DNF’ing, of nothing meeting my expectations, of getting frustrated, I lean on some old classics. Something that will either be a popcorn adventure, something that will transport me to another world, maybe something with language that borders on the poetic. You can’t go wrong with Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.
I’ve read a handful of Gene Wolfe, some of it amazing, some of it annoying. I’ve only read the first two books (bound together in the volume Shadow and Claw) of The Book of the New Sun, so this is my chance to read all four books and actually complete the series. Or, I’ll get through Shadow and Claw and that book alone will cure my funk of DNF’ing. Or, I’ll get through Shadow and Claw, realize how many clues I missed, and read the entire thing all over again. Any one of these results will make me a happy person.
In the category of books I can’t remember if I own or not, I bought these the other day:
please, please, ignore the huge “Blade Runner” words on the cover of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep! This is NOT a novelization of the movie, or at least it better not be. I read DADoES years ago, and quite enjoyed it. I grew up watching Bladerunner, and very much enjoyed the new Bladerunner2049. I thought I had a crumbly paperback somewhere of DADoES? But maybe not? And there’s a chance I already have a copy of the Wasp Factory, but maybe not? and if i remember correctly, The Wasp Factory predates The Culture? Banks peeps, help me out! this “maybe not” problem was easily solved for less than $20.
Have you read any Gene Wolfe?
Have you read any Philip K. Dick?
Have you read any Iain Banks / Iain M. Banks?
Just a few new things
Posted on: August 26, 2017
Let’s see, what new book goodies have come into my collection lately? So much good stuff I don’t even know where to start! What looks good to you?
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin is the last book in her Broken Earth trilogy. Oh, I should probably mention that both book 1 and book 2 of this series won Hugo awards. I’m kinda waiting for the right time to read this one, because I expect it will break my brain (in a good way!) more than a little bit. I don’t know too much about Noumenon by Marina Lostetter, but I know I’ve got till Sept 20th to read it because that’s when Book Club meets to discuss it.
To Guard Against the Dark by Julie Czerneda doesn’t come out until October, but expect the internet to collectively lose its shit when we are finally allowed to talk about this book. Yes, I know, the cover says “Reunification #3”, and yes, this is the final book in the Reunification trilogy. However, that trilogy is the final trilogy in Czerneda’s long running Clan Chronicles. You know how Robin Hobb does interconnected trilogies? Clan Chronicles is a little bit like that. But in outer space, and with aliens. The end of this story has been 20 years in the making, and this long reaching series coming to a close is truly the end of an era. I can’t tell you much except I’m about 1/4 way through To Guard Against the Dark and that my spoiler-y (#sorrynotsorry) review of The Gate to Futures Past (Reunification #2) will be posting soon. We can of course, talk about Gate to Futures Past as much as we want, since that book came out last year.
Current reads and new stuff
Posted on: July 16, 2017
It’s been a good week for reading! A little too good, actually, as I keep wanting to start new books even though I’m enjoying what I’m currently reading.
I finished Pilot X by Tom Merritt, and need to write a review of it. If you like Doctor Who, you’ll like Pilot X.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been on and off reading The Physician, by Noah Gordon, and can you believe I’m reading a book that is not a scifi or fantasy book!! Straight up historical fiction, it’s like an Edward Rutherford only way more focused and far more enjoyable to read. My mom lent me the paperback, and it sat unread until I saw the movie version on Netflix. The movie of The Physician is very good, and they completely smashed up the plot and characters to jam what is a ten year story into a 3 hour movie. Also? the movie got me interested in reading the book, so mission accomplished. I’m about halfway through the book, and while I am enjoying myself and the book is very readable, I am losing steam.
Peter Watts’ Blindsight is one of my favorite hard scifi novels, and I’ve had a copy of Echopraxia for at least 2 years and I haven’t picked it up until now. What is wrong with me? Anyways, Echopraxia is a sort of companion novel to Blindsight. Same universe, same time period, but one is not the sequel or prequel of the other. Now that I’m about 2/3 of the way through Echopraxia, wow the paranoia and visceral terror is just ramped all the way up!! If like me, you are still trying to get the terrible taste of the movie Prometheus out of your mouth, read some Watts.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, this unassuming volume came into the house by way of loan:
A Requiem for Astounding is part history of the magazine, part love letter to the golden age, and part pure nostalgia. I come across all these “classic” short stories all over the place, in raggedy “best of” volumes, as reprints, but I have no context for any of it. Here’s hoping this book of essays will give me some much needed context. I enjoy non-fiction scifi related stuff like this, these older ones are getting near impossible to find!
And in the department of new ARCs that have arrived, we have these:
Emerald Circus is a collection of re-imagined fairy tales and includes Yolen’s famous short story “Sister Emily’s Lightship”. I’m excited for this one, and as it is all short stories that means I can read it a little at a time and not be asking myself “who are these characters again? What were these people doing?”
Like Yolen, Ann Leckie needs no introduction. Provenance is Leckie’s new novel, out in September. I was not a fan of her famous awards sweeping Ancillary trilogy, but I like what she says on twitter, I respect her editing philosophy, and I’m interested to try Provenance, if only to see how much range her writing has.
New goodies!
Posted on: May 24, 2017
I am out of bookshelves, and there are now stacks of books next to the shelves, stacks that grow taller by the week and are threatening to fall over. I may have to start hiding books under the bed. There is a book cull in my future, that is for sure.
So of course I couldn’t help myself, and bought some more books!
At book club last week, instead of having the whole group read the same book, the club’s organizer put a stack of Hugo award winning authors on the table and told us each to pick something that looked interesting. I grabbed The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin. I may have read this when I was a kid? But if I did I was too young to understand it.
Over the weekend, I went to one of Michigan’s largest used bookstores (not the largest, but it’s pretty big!!) with a friend, and although I wanted to buy everything, I came home with just a few items. And yes, I got lost in the bookstore.
from the non-fiction rooms
Maximum City is about Mumbai, and the Carl Sagan book is, I’m not 100% sure what it covers but it is sure to be enlightening. I hope that while I read it I hear Sagan’s comforting voice.
And now for the scifi!
Connie Willis is one of those authors I keep meaning to read more from, as I recommend her Doomsday Book novel to anyone who will listen. I’ve been meaning to read Blackout forever. As for Venus on the Halfshell, I’ve been a Vonnegut since high school. If the book is as entertaining as the opening biographical sketch of Trout, you’ll be hearing me laughing from miles away. For those of you not familiar with Kilgore Trout, I’ll just leave this here.
Happy Reading!
the time for Acceptance has come
Posted on: May 15, 2017
The three volumes of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy are strewn about my house, like a path of breadcrumbs. Annihilation, the shortest of the three, sits on the coffee table in the living room, positioned in such a way that if you sit on the smushy sofa, you can easily pick it up. There is a still a ring on the coffee table where my coffee mug sat this morning, dark liquid cooling as I slowly read the last few pages of the book. Everyone talks about the tower, the crawler, the border, the colonization. I do too, as those are the physical stars of the book, the things everyone talks about, the things you can point a finger at and be relatively sure that you experienced them in a similar fashion as others. For me, the star of this show is the Biologist. How her relationship with society is the same as her relationship with her tide pools and environs – to observe but not to interfere. That she doesn’t really care what other people do. She is aggressively self sufficient. That she and her husband loved each other, but that their struggles to understand each and meet each other half way was damaging to their relationship. His extrovertedness versus her introverted self sufficiency. Through the lens of his gregariousness, he saw her as walled off and uninterested in sharing her inner self. His experience in Area X allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of her, and she of him. I like that she found something that she was looking for. And maybe her husband did too. The entire story is tense but comforting at the same time. It’s like a giant tide pool or terrarium, where every rock you turn over shows you more you don’t know, which is why you came to explore in the first place. To realize how much you don’t know.
Authority sits on the kitchen table, where I was reading it over coffee this morning. I’ve read this novel before, and I’m only a few pages into it now. What a different feel from Annihilation! The first novel is soft moss, swaying ferns, chirping birds, clouds that come and go in the breeze. Like the biologist, I wonder why everyone is so afraid of what happens in Annihilation. Authority, on the other hand, feels all sharp angles, florescent lights, clicky shoes clattering on metal staircases, knowing everyone is biting their nails. There is plenty of the unknown here too, but no quiet contemplation, no comfort. The tenseness feels like staring at a phone, willing it to ring, but not wanting it to ring. Authority feels like Finch, like you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. From what I recall from my first read, Ghost Bird makes an appearance. Maybe her calmness will comfort me, maybe not.
Acceptance sits on the other end of the kitchen table, opened, but unread. What a terrible fan I am, that I have not yet read Acceptance! I think it because I am not ready, mentally, for this story to end. I do not want Area X to cease being. I want to continue to pick up rocks, turn over starfish, find new tadpoles and thistles. I want there to always be things I don’t know. The idea that every question answered means I have ten more questions is comforting to me, not annoying or frustrating.
It sure is nice to have all three books here, that I can just binge read them right through. The weather is perfect for reading outside.
We opened that bottle of champagne last week. After an anxiety filled three months of unemployment, I am scheduled to start a new full time job next week. It’s been eight years since I had a traditional office job, it’ll be nice to have an office gig again. I’m even looking forward to dealing with rush hour traffic.
It’s time to read Acceptance. Let’s see where the breadcrumb path leads.
We have a bottle of champagne still sitting around from New Years, and we’re waiting for a particular special occasion to open it.
Do you ever do that with a book? Save reading it for a special occasion or a certain time, maybe when you’re on vacation, or early Sunday morning when the house is quiet, or maybe you’re waiting until the author announces the release date for the next book in the series, or you want to see the movie or the tv show first.
I’m curious – if you wait for a certain occasion or event to read a book, what is the book and why are you waiting for that particular event before you read it?
I have a third book in a trilogy that I haven’t read yet. It is a completed trilogy, and I’ve been a fan of this author for many years. At first, I told myself I was waiting for the author to announce the release date for their next stand alone novel before I finished the trilogy. Well, that has come and gone, and the new book is getting rave reviews. I still haven’t picked up that third book. Now my excuse is that I want to find time to read books 1 and 2 back to back so I can binge read all three over the course of a week or two. Well, I have the time, and I haven’t done it.
I think the real reason I haven’t read the third book is because once I finish the trilogy it will be over. All the lines will have been drawn on the map, the character’s story arcs will come to an end, there won’t be any more exploring to do. If I stay at the end of the 2nd book, I feel like I’m still on the frontier. I can see the end, but it’s a long way off in the distance yet.
Next weekend I should really just binge read all three, shouldn’t I?
the Little Red Reviewer 
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