February 2016 Update

February Books:

1. Wonder Woman: Blood ()
2. Between the World and Me ()
3. Death Note, Vol. 7 ()
4. Nervous Conditions ()
5. The Interestings ()
6. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency ()

February Movies:

N/A

February Posts:

1. Monday Morning Music Video: “History”
2. Link: Infomagical
3. Monday Morning Music Video: “Formation”
4. Monday Morning Music Video: “When I Get Older”
5. Monday Morning Music Video: “Love is a Battlefield”
6. February 2016 Links
7. February 2016 Favorites
8. Monday Morning Music Video: “Ride On”

This feels like it has been the longest February of my life. Obviously I haven’t been around here much, but I hope to change that in March. At the very least, I hope to read more (let’s go, Spring Break) and watch at least one movie. Really, how is that so hard?

January 2016 Update

January Books:

1. Step Aside, Pops ()
2. Saga, Vol. 5 ()
3. Spinster ()
4. Alex + Ada, Vol. 1 ()
5. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up ()
6. House of Prayer No. 2 ()
7. Giant Days, Vol. 1 ()
8. 3-D Printers for Libraries (no rating—it’s for work)
9. #GIRLBOSS ()
10. The Shadow of the Wind ()
11. Did You Ever Have a Family ()

January Movies:

1. The Big Short (0 STARS. THE WORST.)
2. Carol ()

January Posts:

1. 2015 Update
2. Monday Morning Music Video: “Anything Could Happen”
3. 2016 TBR
4. Getting Started with: Embroidery
5. Monday Morning Music Video: “Life on Mars”
6. Monday Morning Music Video: “Emperor’s New Clothes”
7. Monday Morning Music Video: “20/20”
8. January 2016 Links
9. January 2016 Favorites

 

November 2015 Update

I hope everyone had a nice November. Mine felt exceptionally long, but it was a good month. I’m not sure if my relaxed TBD list is responsible, but it does help take the pressure off a little. These are the three things I wanted to do in November:

• Finish Bioshock Infinite—I’ll give this another shot over the winter break. The fighting sections are not my strong point—I still haven’t fully mastered the XBox controller—but I have to be getting close to defeating the Vox Populi. Then the game’s nearly over, right? I actually don’t know. There may be another five hours of game after this.
• KonMari my apartment—Getting there! I did clothes first, and it was a surprisingly emotional experience. Then it was time for books, and well… I think I need to write a post soon about how that went. Spoiler alert: it was surprisingly easy in the end, but it required a real reevaluation of priorities.
• Attend a family wedding—Yes! It was so much fun.

I did so much fun stuff this month (thanks to my long-overdue trip back to the U.K.) that it was hard to narrow down my favorites of the month. Read on to see how much I managed to read on the plane (not that much, really) and the best new things of the month.

October 2015 Update

It’s the end of Spooptober, and a happy Halloween to you all. This month I committed to only reading spooky books. I used to read a lot of really scary horror novels and didn’t blink an eye, but I learned this month that there are certain subjects that are too scary for me to read now I live alone and read mostly before I go to sleep—basically any subject except zombies. It’s weird because I used to be most afraid of zombies, but now, who cares?

Anyway, before we get to the reading wrap-up, here’s my October TBD. Did the new, vaguer format yield results? LET’S FIND OUT:

• Find a new podcast that earns top priority on my Downcast app.—Not quite, but I’ll count it. I tried several new podcasts that I really enjoyed, but none of them made the Priority playlist. Two of my favorites: The Read (I rediscovered this one, to be fair) and Thinking Sideways.
• Organize recipes in Evernote.—I did a few, but not all.
• Complete one work-related MOOC.—I’m partway through an Intro to Chemistry one but it’s too haaaaarrrrrd. Or I’m too lazy. One of those things.
• Get an oil change.—Heck yes I took my car to a place and had someone else do work on it. Nailed it.

So all in all, not much better than with the old format. It’s still a work in progress, so we’ll see tomorrow how I plan for November. But now, on to the wrap-up…

September 2015 Update

I’m beginning to wonder if making a TBR list is even worthwhile if I never get anything done. I hope you like red because there’s a lot of it in this list below:

• Annihilation, Couch to 5K, Watch four movies, At least watch those last two episodes of the second season of Hannibal, Start a knitting project—Nope, none of these things.
• The Fallen and The Hunted—Not yet, but I did start on my re-read of the whole series.
• The Heart Goes Last—Yes and no because I didn’t finish it.

So what did I even do in September? Click through for some favorites and my reading wrap-up.

If/Then: The Library at Mount Char

If you like this book…

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

From the publisher: “Carolyn’s not so different from the other human beings around her. She’s sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for.

After all, she was a normal American herself, once.

That was a long time ago, of course—before the time she calls ‘adoption day,’ when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father.

Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible.”

I was absolutely blown away by this book. Dark, morbid, scary, and funny—pretty much everything I want in a book. Unlike some other reviews I read, I was fully engaged immediately. I didn’t mind being teased with explanations, and I found the flashback interludes well timed. The world and lore felt so complete that it was a real disappointment to come to the end. I would read another book of short stories about these characters—there were 12 children, so there’s an immense amount of backstory to explore. The last 25% of the book dragged a little for me, which is why I’m giving 4 instead of 5 stars, but overall I really enjoyed it.

 

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 Then you might also like these…

• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski—While Scott Hawkins didn’t attempt anything like the ambitious structure and formatting of House of Leaves, I was often reminded of this book while reading The Library at Mount Char. In particular, they share a dark, eerie tone, and both portray breathtaking other-wordly horror in familiar domestic settings.
• Lisey’s Story by Stephen King—The publisher touts Mount Char as a mix between Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill, but it’s this book by Hill’s father that kept coming to my mind. Both books are fully immersive with impressive imagery, and they are quick reads, even in the less action-heavy scenes. I also saw some parallels between Lisey and Steve, two ordinary people who must navigate fantastical worlds.
• Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá—A group of children, each with a unique power, adopted by a mysterious benefactor for an extraordinary purpose. I could probably read a million books with that premise and never get bored. This graphic novel series also has a dark sense of humor and—if you can believe it—may be even more fantastical than Mount Char.
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke—This may seem an odd choice—Mount Char is certainly not a historical novel—but both books feature a dark supernatural presence residing just beyond our reality, as well as a richly detailed and inhabited world. I was a little disappointed by the ending because it felt like there were so many stories left to tell about Strange and Norrell, and that is also true of Carolyn and Erwin.

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of The Library at Mount Char from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Big Read: Guards! Guards!

Guards! Guards! (1990)
Finished: 3/21/15

There have not been noble dragons in Ankh Morpork for as long as anyone can remember, and the general consensus is that they are extinct. Witnesses are surprised, then, to see something flying over the city and a group of people turned to ash. The City Guard, including Captain Vimes and new dwarf recruit Carrot, must find the dragon and help save the city.

From about the third book on, each Discworld volume has been better than the last, and this one takes another leap forward. I’ve heard many times that the City Guard books are the best of the series, and now I’m looking forward to reading more. What I particularly liked here is that there has been enough groundwork set by the previous books that the Discworld now feels lived-in and real. That foundation is essential to building a strong plot because now we can look at both character details and larger interactions and consequences instead of having to constantly stop and say “oh I forgot to mention, the librarian is an orangutan.”

BBC Big Read Ranking: 69/200

As there are at least another 10 Discworld books on the list, I’ll talk about the ranking of this book and the series as a whole here, then compare within the series in the future.

Terry Pratchett is the most represented author on the Big Read list, with 15 books in the top 100. None of them crack the top 50, though—this one falls just below Mort (#65) and immediately below Good Omens (#68). This feels kind of odd to me. If he’s such a popular author, how come none of the books rank higher? I wonder if it’s because it’s hard to pick a favorite. If participants had been allowed to select the Discworld series as one title, I’m sure it would have ended up much higher in the list. Maybe, like Good Omens, it’s a matter of time—if the vote were repeated today, would Discworld books be higher? In the end, I think this ranking is about right for this book, but the rankings as a whole don’t seem to show how beloved the series is.

Big Read: Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh (1926)
Finished: 3/27/15

You all know what Winnie the Pooh is about. The book is a series of stories told by a father to his son, Christopher Robin, about the adventures of the boy’s favorite toys. You’ll recognize most of these stories in this collection if you’ve seen the Disney films and quite a bit of the actual text, if you have a good memory—the words that appeared on screen during the movies were taken from here.

Basically, this book is CHARMING AS HELL. I really enjoyed the intrusion of the narrator (and Christopher Robin), and there was a quaint fussiness to the language that I found really appealing. The illustrations are lovely, too.

Late last year, I read A.A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery, and I really enjoyed it. As a mystery, it wasn’t perfect—I figured out the ending pretty early on—but it was so witty and, again, charming. I wish he had written more for adults (and so did he, from what I’ve read), but I will try to find as many of his other novels as I can.

BBC Big Read Ranking: 7/200

I don’t think you can argue with this ranking for such a universally beloved children’s book. It was published nearly 90 years ago (~80 years before the poll took place), so there are probably three generations of voters who grew up with these stories. Not only that, but many of these readers also shared the book with their own children. That’s what I think this list is really about—the most beloved books are the ones that weave throughout our entire lives and feel like a fundamental part of who we are.

They Said, She Said: Bellweather Rhapsody

They said:

A high school music festival goes awry when a young prodigy disappears from a hotel room that was the site of a famous murder/suicide fifteen years earlier, in a whip-smart novel sparkling with the dark and giddy pop culture pleasures of The Shining, Agatha Christie, and Glee.

She said:

Tell me that description doesn’t pique your interest.

Really, it’s a rare book that could hope to live up to that kind of promise. Let’s break that blurb down and see how the real book compares.