Recommendation accepted!
I finished Snake-Eater, a five-star read and a great way to kick off the year! I particularly liked DJ Raven’s radio station, and the seemingly small action by Selena that earned her a friend at a crucial time.
Currently reading Persephone’s Curse by Katrina Leno. Good so far, it would be even better if I knew more of New York City. This is a story about a family who lives with a friendly ghost.
Recommendation accepted.
I’m going to try to be better at posting in here - I got through about 35 books last year, and I’m not sure I mentioned a one of them.
I finished up Fredrick Backman’s Beartown trilogy with “The Winners”. Like most of his books, it was excellent. I’m a sucker for his type of endless humanistic optimism, and it was here in all its glory. Highly recommend (but a trigger warning for anyone sensitive to SA).
My wife and I gift each other a book to share on New Years, and I got us “Piranesi” by Suzanna Collins. The first half was tough to get through, as it’s told through the perspective of someone in a vague labyrinthine architectural world, and details are hard to come by until well after the halfway point. I still don’t know what I think of it.
She got us “Theo of Golden” by Allen Levi, which I just finished with a big solid “meh”. It’s an unsubtle ode to virtuous behavior with a lot of religious undertones I don’t really care for. There are some very sweet moments, but so many other contrived coincidences took me out of it.
Oh gosh, I loved Piranesi. I had a wonderful dream while reading it about living in the House.
My husband got me two collections of Ursula K. LeGuin. I read the first part of Roccanon’s World and I feel bad that I haven’t finished it yet. It feels like science fiction if science fiction were high fantasy, and I’m not really into high fantasy. But it’s not bad.
Ms LeGuin wass great at blurring the lines between genres, no fairies elves or hobbitses but much of her stuff feels very fantasy.
I started Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher today. If Snake-eater eats Walter, you will hear the cheer all the way down there in Florida, Dung_Beetle!
I am also reading Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and enjoying it a lot. (Grateful also for Google Translate since I don’t speak Spanish)
Finished Persephone’s Curse, another five star book. My only complaint is that it was too cozy at times. I wanted to thump the characters and say, “Quit taking long walks in the snow and drinking peppermint tea! Talk about the thing!” On the other hand, I could use some more soothing books this year.
Finished The Cold Dish, a mystery by Craig Johnson, which I mostly enjoyed although I didn’t think it was as good as later books in the series (it’s the first Longmire); and Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, by Malcolm Gladwell, which I thought was quite interesting, although I’d read quite a bit of the material he covers in other places, which of course isn’t the fault of the book.
Next up: The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, by A. J. Jacobs; and Crimes of the Heart, by Beth Henley.
My Episcopal Church book club read The Year of Living Biblically a few years back. We all really liked it.
Just finished It’s Only Drowning by David Litt, nonfiction about a former Obama speechwriter who takes up surfing as a quasi-midlife-crisis way of dealing with his anxiety over Trump and COVID. Through his new hobby, he kinda sorta bonds with his libertarian but mostly apolitical brother-in-law, a much more skilled surfer. The book had its moments but was overall meh.
Next up: Time Probe, a 1966 collection of sf short stories edited by Arthur C. Clarke, and One of Us, Dan Chaon’s latest novel.
I finished Snake-eater by T. Kingfisher and is cozy horror a thing and if not, I nominate T. Kingfisher to make it a thing. I really liked the characters, DJ Raven especially, he reminded me of college radio back in the 80’s before everything became corporate.
Kinda sorry no one ate Walter though…
Yeah, but I’m thinking of moving to the desert someday. 
I’m already there…bit more trees and less cactus in my area, but if I get a hankerin, it’s only a few hours drive away.
Started today on The Once and Future Queen by Paula Lafferty, a novel about a woman of our time who is brought back to the past by Merlin, to take her true place as Guinevere. A very pretty book, with “stenciled edges”, by which they mean a painting on the outside of the pages that shows when the book is closed. The writing isn’t top-drawer, but I’m rooting for it.
I’m reading the Tyrant Philosophers fantasy series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and it’s fantastic. I can’t recommend it enough. A bit like a cross between Discworld and The Black Company.
I started The Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern and oh my, is it delightful so far. I liked the movie well enough but I’m not exactly a superfan. This book, however, is great fun.
Free on Kindle unlimited!
Finished The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, by A. J. Jacobs, which I thought was okay, and Crimes of the Heart, by Beth Henley, which really hasn’t aged well and I didn’t like it at all even allowing for the problematical content.
Next up: The Passenger: How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship, by Chaney Kwak; and Flashes of Brilliance: The Genius of Early Photography and How It Transformed Art, Science, and History, by Anika Burgess.
Indonesia Etc. Elizabeth Pisani
A travelogue through the island nation. Pretty good all in all
The Monster’s Bones David Randall
The history behind the discovery of the first Tyrannosurus Rex fossils in the late 1800s, a part of the Bone Wars, when rival teams of paleontologists strove to find big dinosaurs.
Well-written and interesting book
I love these books so much! Haven’t read the third one yet, but it’s definitely on my to-read list. If you like these, consider also Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky–it was one of my favorite books from last year.
His Children of Time series is also really intriguing, but it’s much less character-driven and much more idea-driven. The ideas are bonkers, and it’s worth reading, but more purely cerebral than some of his other stuff.
I already read Alien Clay and really liked it. I read one or two of the Children of Time series and liked it too. But these are even better, IMO.
Buddy Levy, Realm of Ice and Sky. About the use of airships to explore the Arctic in the late 19th century into the 1920s. I’ve read a lot about polar exploration, but very little about the air voyages. An American named Wellman, an Italian named Nobile, and Amundsen the Norwegian are the three main figures. Informative, well written, gripping, and exhaustively reserached.
I also read The Vanishing Kind by Alice Henderson, a thriller/suspense novel which had its moments but not nearly enough of them. The book was unfortunately heavy with clunky writing and had many too many completely unbelievable scenes. I think my favorite: the heroine and the hero are being pursued by many many bad guys in a Southwestern wilderness, jump into an unattended helicopter (the hero can fly it, of course–he’s one of these heroes who can do anything, plus which he does good for the world despite living on the outskirts of the law, you know the type), and as they jump in and take off and the bad guys start shooting at them the heroine, Alex, finds a satchel filled with hundred dollar bills. She “does a quick calculation” and discovers that the total comes to $355,000. There is SO MUCH wrong with that scene….
Well, one out of two ain’t bad. Now I’m reading Julia Spencer Fleming’s mystery novel At Midnight Comes the Cry, which I’m enjoying so far and have high hopes for.