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, …
Category: Books
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 …
A year in books, 2017
I had quite a year in books, and quite a year overall. Reading accomplishment that I'm most proud of: a net decrease in the number of books that I already own but haven't read yet to 23. Only half of an average year's worth of reads... By the numbers Books: 55 Total pages: 15922 (so …
Books, December 2017
Fun fact: every book this month was part of a series! In Cave Danger, Kate Dyer-Seeley And the series comes to end with a surprising twist! And the best, if most obvious, baddie of the series. I'm never going to like this series as much as the author's other two, but I'm pleased Meg's adventures …
Books, November 2017
In my defense, it is still December. Barely. You'll notice I've added a setting tag for fiction - I'm finding it very helpful to separate the plot of the book (genre) from its world-building (setting), which are often conflated. Are Harry Potter and Annihilation both teeeeeechnically in fantasy settings? Yes, but that misses the fundamental …
