I wrote a 35 page academic paper not in my field, a 15 page thing also not in my field, and finished a 25 page academic paper in my field this month. Because you know what I do when I have free time? Find things to use up my free time. Scene of the Climb …
Category: Books
Books, April 2017
The end of the quarter is ramping up which means I don't get to read for fun as much. Mostly worth it. Mostly. Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer Our characters are an expedition investigating a mysterious supernatural/environmental event. They think they're in a mystery, or maybe an adventure. They're not. They're in horror. (Because I'm slow this …
Books, March 2017
Hi world. I have a million things going on this month, so ACTUAL short reviews for once. Proof, David Auburn * Automatic bonus points for making me cry, plus every bonus point there ever was for media featuring realistic, humanistic, flawed but in a "you succeeded at character development" way, motivated characters. (The Pulitzer and …
Books, March 2017
This is shaping up to be the year of anything-but-novels. 13 books so far this year and just 4 have been novels - last year, they were half of what I read. And the one I did read this month was not a typical novel either... The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Colbert I am constantly delighted by …
Books of the Month, January 2017
I accidentally read only books by ladies this month, and I am quite pleased. Also this month: the introduction of the new genre system. As I have perpetually complained, I have not yet hit upon a genre categorization system that I am totally happy with. I'm going to experiment this year with the Writing Excuses …
Best Books of 2016
The time has come.... statistics, and best of 2016! If you're looking for recommendations, this is just the hard-fought best-of list - anything rated a 3 on any of the monthly reviews is worth reading. And I will be the first to admit that these winners are anything but objective and suffer from a very serious …
Books in Review, December 2016
The last one of the year! Check out the other post for the full year review. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot. It's no secret that I love science. But loving something means recognizing all of it, and not paving over its flaws. For science, especially the medical sciences, in my opinion its …
Books in Review, November 2016
It's November. You know what that means? Overly enthusiastic statistics on my reading habits are just ONE MONTH AWAY! This year featuring the inaugural year-on-year reading report! (And my sample sizes are large enough that my statistics will be reasonable!) I'm also pleased to report a monthly milestone: in November, I passed my 2015 page …
Books in Review, October 2016
My current status: Surely this means you have fewer books to talk about this month, you say. To which I respond, AHAHAHAHA have you met me?? In my defense, 3 of these were really short. But I will be, possibly fruitlessly, trying to keep it brief. Grunt, Mary Roach It is legitimately one of my life …
Books in Review, September 2016
It's all sequels or things that will eventually have sequels this month. The genres I tend to read - fantasy/scifi/specfic (the boundaries are increasingly blurry), mysteries - seem to have a higher proportion of series than literary fiction does. On a related side note, I really do not like the term "genre fiction," which means basically …
