I learned a new word this week: tsundoku. It's a Japanese word that translates as the practice of buying more books than you can read, purely for the joy of never running out of things to read. Have you ever heard a word that specifically names the core of your being? Because my 200+ title …
Category: Books
Books, September 2018
I listened to a delightful episode of a delightful podcast today about the positive mental health effects of regular reading. I had sort of subconsciously known this but it really brought to the forefront how when I'm most stressed or tightly wound or overextended, I tend to read much less, but that's precisely the time …
Books, August 2018
It's another month of series! Joe Turner's Come and Gone, King Hedley II, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, August Wilson * The logical order for approaching Wilson's ten Century (or Pittsburgh) plays would be chronologically through either publication time or setting time. That said, I'm reading them in the order I happen to find them, …
Books, July 2018
Six out of my seven titles this month were installments in a series. (Two pairs came from the same series!) I will sing to you the praises of a series: long-term investment in characters and story stakes, themes that emerge only over the course of telling multiple discrete but linked stories, and most of all, …
Books, June 2018 + halfway through the year
Somehow, the first half of 2018 simultaneously lasted 3 days and 12 years. In six months, I brought to you 7357 pages of 24 books, for an average of about a book a week. Periodic Tales, Hugh Aldersey-Williams While the conceit of brief essays each delving into the history and practical uses of different elements …
Continue reading Books, June 2018 + halfway through the year
Books, May 2018
I didn't get a whole lot of reading in this month but I had the BEST excuse. A Darker Shade of Magic, VE Schwab I read a heck of a lot of novels in fantasy settings, so I don't often have the pleasure of encountering a plot/world element that's genuinely new to me. The structure …
Books, April 2018
It's a bumper crop this month. Amazing what handing in your dissertation draft does for your reading time! Henchgirl, Kristen Gudsnuk For our annual Book Exchange party, my friends give each other books we pick specifically for them, based on requests or just what we think they'd like. This year I asked for villain protagonists, …
Books, March 2018
Theme of the month: books by authors I read when I was young, who all held up. Spook and Bonk, Mary Roach I've finally caught up on the Mary Roach backlist of books! She is truly my idol of nonfiction writing, and I don't just open with that because I'm about to knock on Spook, which …
Books, February 2018
I would have gotten credit for the second book of the classic Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell trilogy this month, but nooooo. It had to be one giant book. Vicious, VE Schwab. A few chapters into this, I thought it was going to be basically Nimona from the perspective of Blackheart, but I was so wrong. …
Books, January 2018
I have been reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell since NOVEMBER. An 850 page trade paperback (that is, a sturdier paperback as large as a hardback, instead of the little pocket size/pulpy paper mass market paperbacks) is a crime against bookbinding. The Stone Sky, NK Jemisin I finished this in January but before I'd written …
