We’ll see how much of these I continue to do on time in the coming months because I’m moving back east, and these next two months are going to be so hectic with everything to do with moving! I did read much more than I thought I did in March for a total finished book page number being 4,446!
CURRENTLY READING
I am still reading A People’s History of the United States and The Big Book of Science Fiction, but I have been making some progress!! I am also rereading The Lord of the Rings series for all the nostalgic reasons, and I’m about a third of the way through. I had been saving it for reading at work, but I get too distracted on breaks to focus sometimes, so it’s getting moved to rotate into my bedside stack. I’m also reading two review copies, TheAgitators and I’m Waiting For You and Other Stories.
I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories Kim Bo-Young
📚 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien (15%)
📓 The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought For Abolition and Women’s Rights – Dorothy Wickenden (6%; thank you, Scribner Books!) 📓 I’m Waiting For You and Other Stories – Kim Bo-Young (18%; thank you, Harper Voyager!)
📚 A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (60%)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (32%)
FINISHED READING
I read twelve books in March! I for sure thought I was around the seven or eight mark, so I made a point to finish reading Simmer Down before the month ended. When I went to round up everything, I was pleasantly surprised! I’ve been making an effort to focus on reading, and I read a lot from my library this month too! But I’ve also realized I need to focus on the books I actually bought, because most of the books I read this month were library books or review copies…
📚 A Court of Silver Flames – Sarah J. Maas (5/5 stars)
📓 In Five Years – Rebecca Serle (4/5 stars, thank you Atria!)
⌛️ The Curious History of Sex – Kate Lister (4/5 stars)
📚 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins (3.5/5 stars)
⌛️ The Ex Talk – Rachel Lynn Solomon (3.5/5 stars)
📓 Eleanor in the Village – Jan Jarboe Russell (4/5 stars, thank you Scribner!)
📓 The Paris Library – Janet Skeslien Charles (4/5 stars, thank you Atria!)
⌛️ The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides (4/5 stars)
📓 Amelia Unabridged – Ashley Schumacher (4.5/5 stars, thank you Wednesday Books!)
📱 Siri, Who Am I? – Sam Tschida (2.75/5 stars, thank you Quirk Books!)
📓 Your Time to Thrive – Marina Khidekel (3.5/5 stars, thank you Hachette Books!)
📚 Simmer Down – Sarah Smith (3.5/5 stars)
ON THE HORIZON
I only read one of my March TBR books, and that’s okay! I like the process of it, and once I get settled in my new place, I’m going to be utilizing it a little bit more and probably in a less structured way, but these are things I want to read in the very near future because I want to actually read the things I buy and try to stay on top of the review copies I’ve been sent in the last couple of months! I’ve been doing pretty okay with that in 2021, but I definitely have room for improvement.
The Ladies of the Secret Circus – Constance Sayers
📚 Walk the Wild With Me – Rachel Atwood
📚 Yellow Jessamine – Caitlin Starling
📚 Cherry – Nico Walker
📱 The Ladies of the Secret Circus – Constance Sayers
📚 The Wolf of Oren-Yaro – K.S. Villoso
WHAT I ACQUIRED
I am FOR REAL purchasing less from here on out!If I do not, please feel free to admonish me gently.
📚 The Unbroken – C.L. Clark
📚 A Desolation Called Peace – Arkady Martine
📚 A Rogue to Remember – Emily Sullivan
💾 Bone Crier’s Moon – Kathryn Purdie
💾 Entreat Me – Grace Draven
📚 Legendborn – Tracy Deonn
📚 Rogue Warrior – Margaret Mallory
📚 Rule of Wolves – Leigh Bardugo
💾 Seven Ways to Kill a King – Melissa Wright
📚 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back – From a Certain Point of View 📓 The Alien Stars and Other Novellas – Tim Pratt (Thank you, Angry Robot!)
📚 The Black Coast – Mike Brooks
📚 The Bone Shard Daughter – Andrea Stewart
📚 The Conductors – Nicole Glover
💾 The Devil All the Time – Donald Ray Pollock
📚 The Mask of Mirrors – M.A. Carrick
💾 The Unconquerable Sun – Kate Elliott
📚 Waiting for a Scot Like You – Eva Leigh
📓 The Other Black Girl – Zakiya Dalila Harris (Thank you, Atria!)
📓 Composite Creatures – Caroline Hardaker (Thank you, Angry Robot!)
ON SCREEN
GAMING: I got back into Pokemon cards and have been playing the TCG online, and I also finally bought Mario 3D All-Stars!
TV: So, I loved Wandavision, and I’m really excited so far by Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
MOVIES: Godzilla vs Kong is a visual kaiju treat, The Courier is a great cold war spy thriller, Chaos Walking was exactly what I expected it to be, and The Mauritanian is great and infuriating at the same time.
PERSONAL
I am so ready to move, and this week starts the official beginning to clean and sort and pack so I’m not feeling rushed when the time comes. I also had some work done on my car because the steering was acting up, and I’m glad it feels so much safer to drive across country.
I have realized since creating the feature “Bookends” that I do not have the mental capacity or energy to do a post every weekend, so my monthly/yearly wrap ups have been renamed to Bookends! I’m not going to change/adjust any of my previous posts, but from here on out, my end of the month/year posts will be filed under this!
CURRENTLY READING
I knew I wasn’t going to finish The Big Book of Science Fiction, but I was hoping to finish A People’s History of the United States and The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem. I am making an effort in January to finish both of those (as well as The Rush’s Edge) so that I at least finish out this month with finishing up the books I read in 2020. It’s a new year, so I need a new start! But the SF one is HUGE and it is kind of fun to pick through and read stories from it every now and then. I do want to read the fantasy ones, so I need to finish this! At this point, I’m not really reading anything new as I just finished my first two books of 2021, so I think I’ll leave this as is until the January post!
The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem – ed. Jeremy Noel-Tod
📚 A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (29%)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (15%)
📚 The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem: From Baudelaire to Anne Carson – edited by Jeremy Noel-Tod (8%)
📓 The Rush’s Edge – Ginger Smith (17%)
FINISHED READING
I read twelve books in December! I really enjoyed the books I read this month, and I think that’s because I leaned into my whims and read what I wanted to read. I did manage two arcs and one published review copy, so I’m pleased with that! I’m trying to use my library more, and three of these were library titles too. I am pleased to be completely caught up (until February) with the ACOTAR series as I’ve had A Court of Wings and Ruin and A Court of Frost and Starlight unread on my shelves for far too long. TBH I think I was just tired of Rhys and Feyre by the middle of book three that I didn’t particularly care (or see a true need) for the novella. I am very excited about Nesta’s continuation, though! 2021 is going to be bringing changes with me, and I am ready for my own ‘tidying festival’ and letting go of a lot of things in my life, including so many of my possessions.
📚 Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and LA – Eve Babitz (4.5/5 stars)
⌛️ Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies – Tara Schuster (4/5 stars)
📓 One Writer’s Beginnings – Eudora Welty (4.5/5 stars; thank you, Scribner!)
⌛️ Mortal Arts – Anna Lee Huber (4/5 stars)
📱 Ruinsong – Julia Ember (4/5 stars; thank you, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR))
📚 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab (5/5 stars)
📓 A Princess for Christmas – Jenny Holiday (4/5 stars)
📚 The Little Bookshop on the Seine – Rebecca Raisin (3/5 stars)
📚 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying-Up – Marie Kondo (4.5/5 stars)
⌛️ Spark Joy – Marie Kondo (4.5/5 stars)
📚 A Court of Frost and Starlight – Sarah J. Maas (3/5 stars)
📚 Ex-Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread – Michiko Kakutani (4/5 stars)
ON THE HORIZON
All of these are physical copies because I ended up buying Persephone Station with a gift card I had! I had an e-arc, but the more I read about the book, the more I wanted a physical copy for my shelves. Last year, I enjoyed Mike Chen’s A Beginning at the End, so I’m curious to see how this new one stacks up! Doors of Sleep was sent to me by Angry Robot, and I’ve been enjoying their newest titles! Laziness Does Not Exist appealed to me on several different levels, and one of my unofficial 2021 goals is to read more nonfiction of all different sorts. Everyone and their mothers is reading and rereading the Bridgerton series, and I ended up buying the whole series on Thriftbooks before the series was released on Netflix. I’m glad I did now, because it’s impossible to find! The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh sounds like something right up my alley because I always love some further explorations of Pride & Prejudice, especially some of the background characters.
Persephone Station – Stina Leicht
We Could Be Heroes – Mike Chen
Doors of Sleep – Tim Pratt
Laziness Does Not Exist – Devon Price, PhD
The Duke and I – Julia Quinn
The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh – Molly Greeley
📚 Persephone Station – Stina Leicht
📓 We Could Be Heroes – Mike Chen (Thank you, Mira!)
📓 Doors of Sleep – Tim Pratt (Thank you, Angry Robot!)
📓 Laziness Does Not Exist – Devon Price, Ph.D. (Thank you, Atria!)
📚 The Duke and I – Julia Quinn
📓 The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh – Molly Greeley (Thank you William Morrow!)
WHAT I ACQUIRED
Me, trying to be on a book buying ban: LOL
I bought too many second-hand romance and fantasy at thrift stores because romance basically got me through some tough times in 2020, but I also need to read the many books I bought last year before I really start doing this thing again… but there’s that meme floating around that book buying and book reading are two completely different hobbies… In addition to the books above in the On the Horizon section, I also bought/received the following. Some were on sale 50% at work, some (like Mrs. Dalloway and The Great Gatsby) were released in editions I collect, some were monthly picks for the store, etc, etc. I really enjoyed the e-arc I read of The Guinevere Deception, so I had to order it in hardcover to match The Camelot Betrayal!
📚 Becoming Duchess Goldblatt – Anonymous
📓 Craft in the Real World – Matthew Salesses (Thank you, Catapult!)
📚 Eva Evergreen: Semi-Magical Witch – Julia Abe
📚 Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
📚 Pretty as a Picture – Elizabeth Little
📓 Single and Forced to Mingle – Melissa Croce (Thank you, Atria!)
📚 Star Wars The High Republic: Light of the Jedi – Charles Soule
📚 The Guinevere Deception – Kiersten White
📚 The Camelot Betrayal – Kiersten White
📚 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
📓 The Mission – David W. Brown (Thank you, Custom House!)
📚 Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor – Ally Carter
ON SCREEN
GAMING: I played Animal Crossing for a bit, but I haven’t had the mental space for a lot of video games this past month. I’ve even been sporadically logging into World of Warcraft, so I don’t have many updates there except for I think I burnt myself out leading up to Shadowlands.
TV: I still have two episodes of The Mandalorian to watch, and then I’m going to finish out Dark and start Bridgerton.
MOVIES: WW84 was disappointing, but I’m seeing it next week in theaters now that they’re open again and maybe that will change it for me..
PERSONAL
I read 118 books in 2020, didn’t finish or even nearly complete any of my challenges, so I decided to go easier on myself in 2021. I’ll have a post coming soon with some goals I want to try to do by the end of the year, but I’m still working on figuring out what those are!
Bookends is a weekly feature on my blog that is a little reflection on what I’ve read/watched/enjoyed (or not) over the past week!
I took an unannounced break from the blog and from a lot of Instagram posting because my cat Broccoli’s death affected me a lot more than I anticipated. I thought I’d be able to focus on a few more reads in the month of October, but near the end of last month, I started feeling motivated to read again and come back to the blog. I only read six books in October, which is less than average, but I’m okay with that number all things considering!
CURRENTLY READING
The top four I’ve been struggling with for various reasons, or just not interested enough in to read long chunks at a time. I’m most surprised about ACOWAR because I devoured the first two in a matter of days each. American history is a struggle because we’re in the midst of so much now. The Big Book of Science Fiction is HUGE, and I have to remind myself I don’t have to read all the stories in it if they’re not connecting with me at the time. I picked up some romance to try to get out of my reading funk, and it’s sort of working? Nooks & Crannies is part of my 20 in 20 tbr, and it’s very dark for a middle grade book but I’m enjoying it! I’m also reading a little bit of poetry here and there because it’s short, it makes me contemplate things, and I’m still trying to broaden my reading horizons.
The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem – ed. Jeremy Noel-Tod
📚 A Court of Mists and Fury – Sarah J. Maas (36%)
📚 A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (29%)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (15%)
📚 Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (20%)
📚 A Duke of Her Own – Eloisa James (41%)
📚 Lady Bridget’s Diary – Maya Rodale (14%)
📚 Nooks & Crannies – Jessica Lawson (39%)
📚 The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem: From Baudelaire to Anne Carson – edited by Jeremy Noel-Tod (2%)
FINISHED READING
I read eleven books in September and six books in October! I started quite a few in October, but I couldn’t focus on some of them very well to finish them in a timely manner. Overall, both months were good reading months with only one legitimately terrible-to-me read.
⌛️ Madeleine L’Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life – Madeleine L’Engle (3/5 stars)
📱 Fable (Fable #1) – Adrienne Young (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell (3/5 stars)
📓 Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire – Dan Hanks (4/5 stars)
📓 The Phlebotomist – Chris Panatier (4/5 stars)
📱 Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir (5/5 stars)
📚 Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant (5/5 stars)
📚 Deathless – Catherynne M. Valente (5/5 stars)
📓 She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs – Sarah Smarsh (4/5 stars)
📓 A Place Called Zamora – L.B. Gschwandtner (1/5 stars, DNF)
📱 Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky #1) – Rebecca Roanhorse (5/5 stars)
⌛️ The Anatomist’s Wife (Lady Darby Mystery #1) – Anna Lee Huber (4/5 stars)
📚 The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1) – Roshani Chokshi (4/5 stars)
📓 They Wish They Were Us – Jessica Goodman (3/5 stars)
📚 Nightbooks – J.A. White (4/5 stars)
⌛️ The Woman in the Mirror – Rebecca James (4/5 stars)
📚 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories – Washington Irving (4/5)
ON THE HORIZON
I’m keeping the same books from the last Bookends post, with the addition of Enchantress from the Stars. This is another of my 20 in 20 books, and I’m reading it in an end of the year readathon!
📚 Beowulf – trans. Maria Dahvana Headley
📚 Real Life – Brandon Taylor
📓 Red Noise – John P. Murphy (thank you, Angry Robot!)
📓 Stranger in the Shogun’s City – Amy Stanley (thank you, Scribner!)
📱 The Orphan of Cemetery Hill – Hester Fox (thank you, HQN/Graydon House!)
📚 Enchantress from the Stars – Sylvia Louise Engdahl
WHAT I ACQUIRED
I did a lot of retail therapy in October, and these are some of the books I bought! I have been wanting to get my hands on a copy of Babitz’s Slow Days, Fast Company ever since reading Eve’s Hollywood, and I’m so pleased to finally have a copy to go on the shelf. Sarah Smith’s Simmer Down is a food truck romance that looks so cute and I couldn’t pass it up. I have an e-ARC of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Vol.1 but I wanted a physical copy to peruse through, and it’s big and floppy, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the stories. Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky finally came out in paperback! I have seen Kushiel’s Dart on a few friends’ instagrams over the last few months, and I remember reading this forever ago? But I didn’t have a copy because I think it was long enough ago that I just secretly borrowed things from the library. Scribner sent me a copy of Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings and it was a surprise to me because I don’t recall requesting it! I bought The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Once and Future Witches on release day as they’re some of my most anticipated new releases of the year! I didn’t know about Ex-Libris until it came into the store on its release week, and it’s so beautiful in person. I wish the illustrated covers included in the book were actual books to own!
📚 The Tethered Mage – Melissa Caruso
📚 Stalking Jack the Ripper – Kerri Maniscalco
📓 They Wish They Were Us – Jessica Goodman (thank you, BookSparks!)
📓 The Endangereds – Philippe Cousteau and Austin Aslan (thank you, BookSparks!)
📓 A Place Called Zamora – LB Gschwandtner (thank you, BookSparks!)
📓 Caley Cross and the Hadeon Drop – Jeff Rosen (thank you, BookSparks!)
ON SCREEN
GAMING: I caught up on reputations in World of Warcraft with the boost before the patch; after the Shadowlands patch, I’ve been focusing on leveling!
TV: I’ve continued watching The Golden Girls, and I just finished watching the first episode of The Mandalorian‘s second season.
MOVIES: Netflix’s Rebecca had potential, but I thought it lost its way with some of the casting and the very last scene. Adam Brody in The KidDetective is fantastic, making for a very enjoyable film about what it means to be a kid prodigy coming to terms with normal people adulthood.
There are a few movies and shows on Netflix I want to watch, and I need to make a list so I stop forgetting what they are. If you have any recommendations, let me know!
PERSONAL
I adopted a black kitten who I named Wednesday! She’s been so cute and she loves snuggling with and being with people, so she has been a comfort these last few weeks.
📚 A Court of Mists and Fury – Sarah J. Maas (4%)
📚 A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (29%)
📱 Black Sun – Rebecca Roanhorse (71%)
📱 She Come By It Natural – Sarah Smarsh (17%)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (15%)
📚 Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (9%)
FINISHED READING
I finished reading three of the books I was halfway through, and I was pretty pleased about that!
Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary reminded me a lot of the humor and style of The Martian, and I was thoroughly entertained.
Into the Drowning Deep has left me never wanting to step foot into an ocean again.
Deathless was a masterful fairy tale with Russian influence.
I have had a stack of books on my desk since the beginning of the pandemic, and the other night I sat down and read a little bit of them and did some further research on them to decide what to keep and what to unhaul. I decided to keep a little less than half and started reading Shanghai Girls. While I really liked the beginning, there is a sexually violent scene that completely turned me off from wanting to read the rest. I’m not in the mood to read anything like that right now, and I wish I would have read into this book a little bit more before I started reading it. I’ve liked other books by See, but this one wasn’t it for me.
📚 Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant (5/5 stars, review to come)
📚 Deathless – Catherynne M. Valente (5/5 stars, review to come)
📱 Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir (5/5 stars, review to come)
📚 Shanghai Girls – Lisa See (DNF)
ON THE HORIZON
I’ve only added one new book to my current upcoming “tbr” and that’s The Gilded Wolves. I’ve had an e-arc of the sequel for a bit, but I never read the first one even though I had good intentions!
📚 Beowulf – trans. Maria Dahvana Headley
📚 Real Life – Brandon Taylor
📓 Red Noise – John P. Murphy (thank you, Angry Robot!)
📓 Stranger in the Shogun’s City – Amy Stanley (thank you, Scribner!)
📱 The Orphan of Cemetery Hill – Hester Fox (thank you, HQN/Graydon House!)
📚 The Gilded Wolves – Roshani Chokshi
WHAT I ACQUIRED
I bought a lot of romance off of eBay due to some serious stress-related retail therapy, and I’m happy with the known medieval historical romances that I got and decently surprised by the mystery box (I knew it was a mystery box and it wasn’t guaranteed to be a 100% success). I also bought a lot of romance and other books from thrift stores that I don’t really remember, but I did get a copy of The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso because even though I’ve had a digital review copy for a long time, I thought trying to read it as a physical book (for $1!) would be a good way to help get my Netgalley percentages down. I also found a copy of Kerri Maniscalco’s Stalking Jack the Ripper for also like… $1.50, and since I’ve heard so much about it, I thought I’d give it a try!
I also decided to try my hand at some popup opportunities through BookSparks and received a few books that way! I’ve been so behind on Instagram posting that I really need to at least get those photos posted by the end of the month, and I might end up posting several in a day just to be sure I’m getting them in on time.
📚 The Tethered Mage – Melissa Caruso
📚 Stalking Jack the Ripper – Kerri Maniscalco
📓 They Wish They Were Us – Jessica Goodman (thank you, BookSparks!)
📓 The Endangereds – Philippe Cousteau and Austin Aslan (thank you, BookSparks!)
📓 A Place Called Zamora – LB Gschwandtner (thank you, BookSparks!)
📓 Caley Cross and the Hadeon Drop – Jeff Rosen (thank you, BookSparks!)
ON SCREEN
GAMING: I did a few achievements and dungeons in World of Warcraft, but I’ve not had much time for anything else.
TV: Still, I have only really been watching The Golden Girls while I play video games or before I fall asleep.
MOVIES: I watched the last half of BlackPanther on TV the other night, and some of the scenes hit a lot harder after Chadwick Boseman’s death.
There are a few movies and shows on Netflix I want to watch, and I need to make a list so I stop forgetting what they are. If you have any recommendations, let me know!
PERSONAL
Broccoli took a severe turn for the worse this week, and she died on the morning of the 27th. I won’t go into too much detail because it’s so heartbreaking, but I miss her a lot already. She’s not in pain anymore, and I knew this was the right step to take. Having looked back on so many months of pictures, I can see how quickly her physical and mental state deteriorated due to the effects of her kidneys failing her, and even though I wish I could have done more, I know there was not much else that could be done.
I’m starting a new weekly feature on my blog called Bookends! It’ll be a little reflection on what I’ve read/watched/enjoyed (or not) over the past week, and I’ve seen a few other bloggers do something like this, either as a Wednesday post or a weekend post, and I thought “bookends” was a fitting title! As this is the first one, I’m mostly going to be playing catch up with what I’m currently reading and watching (and buying) and hopefully this will help keep me motivated to read a little bit more instead of just doomscrolling Twitter. Eventually, I want this to morph into a recollection of what I’ve been doing over the past week and eventually look back on it. I really just miss blogging and writing, and this ultimately is brought on by some livejournal-esque nostalgia.
CURRENTLY READING
I have a problem, but I constantly misplace books around my room/the house, usually by stacking other books on top until I forget I started them and then when I find them again, I dive right back in and pick up where I left off usually by rereading the last few pages.
During quarantine, my friend binge read the whole ACOTAR series and raved about it so much that I wanted to do it too, even though I’d never read the third and the novella, and now’s the perfect chance! I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but I am finding more and more that I like romance in a lot of flavors to help with this current climate.
I also want to read more history, so I’m reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States because I feel like I was sheltered from a lot of realities in the history I was taught as a homeschooled kid.
I don’t know how I managed to get approved for Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun, but I am loving it so far, and it has reached the point where it’s picking up and I need to know how everything converges.
I love science fiction stories, and Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s anthology work is incredible. This is a chonk, so I read a few stories out of it here and there.
I don’t know why I keep putting Into the Drowning Deep aside, but it’s one of the twenty books I set out to read this year for my 20in20 challenge that I’m not adhering very well to. The narrative is picking up where I’ve left off, and I’m excited to see how the mermaids are done.
Deathless has been on my TBR for far too long and is also part of my 20in20 challenge, and I’m really enjoying it so far. Valente’s writing is some of my favorite.
Requesting Andy Weir’s latest was a COMPLETE long shot that I was like 80% sure I’d get denied for, but when I got the email for the arc approval, I squeaked and immediately dropped everything else I was reading to get started on this. I didn’t like Artemis as much as I liked The Martian, and it’s safe to say that Project Hail Mary evokes a similar kind of enjoyment I had with The Martian!
I… am a bad classics reader and I have only read three of Jane Austen’s works, so I’m fixing that this year by starting Mansfield Park. I was in the mood to read something classic, and this one was in easy reach.
📚 A Court of Mists and Fury – Sarah J. Maas (4%)
📚 A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (29%)
📱 Black Sun – Rebecca Roanhorse (66%)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (15%)
📚 Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant (28%)
📚 Deathless – Catherynne M. Valente (63%)
📱 Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir (61%)
📚 Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (9%)
FINISHED READING
For as many books as I’m currently reading, I definitely need to pick up the pace a little bit more. These are the books I’ve finished in the last two weeks, and hopefully I will get my current reads under control and have a better list next week!
I didn’t like Hamnet as much as I wanted to. I liked the prose itself, but the story seemed too vague?? I still need to think about it before I write a review.
Chris Panatier’s The Phlebotomist hit my radar earlier this year when I saw the cover, and it lived up to my expectations and surprised me! A review for this is coming this week.
Dan Hanks’s Captain Moxley was a fun Indiana Jones-esque, pulpy romp! A review is linked below!
Fable is the latest release from Adrienne Young, and I enjoyed it a lot! I wrote a review about it that’s linked below.
I have a few review copies to write posts about, and a few more review copies to read. This is what I’m looking forward to reading in the very near future.This translation of Beowulf is one I’ve been waiting to read ever since it was announced (I loved The Mere Wife), and this took a while to arrive to my store. I’m glad to have it now, and I’m going to take one of my days off this week and really sit down with it and enjoy it. Brandon Taylor’s Real Life has been on my radar ever since it was announced (and he’s a delight on Twitter), so I put the preorder in for the UK edition because this cover speaks to me so much more. I’m so excited to be working with Angry Robot, so I want to read these and get my thoughts up about them as soon as possible! I was also delighted to have the opportunity to read She Come By It Natural and Stranger in the Shogun’s City sent by Scribner as both seem incredibly interesting! Both of Hester Fox’s previous books have been delightfully atmospheric, and I was so happy to be approved for her third novel! Between this release and Mexican Gothic‘s stunning success, I hope that gothic fiction in these veins make a big comeback as that genre is one of my absolute favorites.
📚 Beowulf – trans. Maria Dahvana Headley
📚 Real Life – Brandon Taylor
📓 Red Noise – John P. Murphy (thank you, Angry Robot!)
📓 She Come By It Natural – Sarah Smarsh (thank you, Scribner!)
📓 Stranger in the Shogun’s City – Amy Stanley (thank you, Scribner!)
📱 The Orphan of Cemetery Hill – Hester Fox (thank you, HQN/Graydon House!)
WHAT I ACQUIRED
Let me just preface this by the fact that I work in a bookstore, so I am privileged enough to have access to physical arcs this way and through direct working relationships with publishers, and I have the employee discount perk so I do tend to buy a lot of books that catch my eye. I need to spend less on books, overall, but I enjoy supporting my store and the authors. I also find it entirely too easy to buy ebooks during those daily deals, I also went thrift shopping, and bought some romance lots off of eBay… Since this is the first week, I won’t list off everything, but here’s a list of ten that I brought into my place this week!
The Cadfael series has been on my radar for a bit, and when this was a daily deal, I grabbed it! They were all on Kindle Unlimited at some point, but I obviously missed that.
Craven Manor, and other Darcy Coates titles, popped up on KU when I last checked, so I downloaded this one to give this author a shot!
Eva Evergreen‘s cover gives me Studio Ghibli vibes, and I was happy to find this on the shelves at the library!
I haven’t liked the first two titles in this Twisted Tales series, but with this being a different author and only 99c, I thought I’d give this series another chance.
Such a Fun Age popped up as a decent deal, and I’ve heard lots of good things about it! I’ve read a lot of the Reese’s Book Club picks, and this was one I hadn’t yet started.
The Duke I Tempted was going around on romance Twitter a few days ago, so… I got curious and had to download it.
I go through phases of wanting to read nothing but nonfiction, and my main interests in science reads are physics, space, nature, and dinosaurs. I’ve been eyeballing this one by Brusatte ever since it came out, and I’m excited to read it!
The Sea Around Us is also on KU, and it looked interesting while I was browsing through the available titles.
I found The Tethered Mage half off at the thrift store the other day (a dangerous venture for me), and since I’ve had the e-arc of this for too long, I’m going to read the physical copy!
James Gleick’s Time Travel has also been on my radar since it popped up on store shelves, and I was happy to find it at the library as well!
💾 A Morbid Taste for Bones – Ellis Peters
💾 Craven Manor – Darcy Coates (KU)
⌛️ Eva Evergreen: Semi-Magical Witch – Julie Abe
💾 Reflection – Elizabeth Lim
💾 Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid
💾 The Duke I Tempted – Scarlett Peckham
⌛️ The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs – Steve Brusatte
💾 The Sea Around Us – Rachel Carson
📚 The Tethered Mage – Melissa Caruso
⌛️ Time Travel – James Gleick
ON SCREEN
GAMING: I have not played Animal Crossing in about a month and a half, and I don’t have any explanation for it except that I probably burnt myself out on it. I am pumped for World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion, Shadowlands, so I have been catching up on some achievements and things to wrap up before Battle for Azeroth ends.
TV: I have only really been watching The Golden Girls while I play video games or before I fall asleep.
MOVIES: I saw The New Mutants (3/10) and The Personal History of David Copperfield (7.5/10).
There are a few movies and shows on Netflix I want to watch, and I need to make a list so I stop forgetting what they are. If you have any recommendations, let me know!
PERSONAL
I found a cat food my cat Broccoli will eat without feeling like I have to sit there and encourage her to eat. Her teeth need to be removed and she has bad kidneys, so I want her to gain some weight and show the vet that she’s doing all right even with the current pain medication to moderate the pain her teeth are causing her. It’s only a few more weeks until I have saved enough money for her procedure, but there’s a lot of anxiety I have surrounding that as well. With my other cat, I really didn’t have the money to afford the care I wanted to give her, so I’m making sure I do whatever I possibly can to feel like I’ve done everything, but I am hopeful and optimistic about this procedure as I think it will really help with Broccoli’s long-term care. I am about halfway to my goal, and I’m glad I get paid weekly because that really helps with budgeting. I’m also listing things for sale on eBay this week to also help offset the cost (and get rid of the HP merch and other various things I no longer want in my life).
I am also working on a few personal writing projects that are slow going, but a little progress is better than none at all. It’s just difficult having ideas for three different novel-length projects and barely having the energy to write a full blog post. This current one has been a week in the works. But now that I have a format that I like, it’ll be easy to copy and paste and fill in the new stuff!
