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What I read -- November 2016



“The Essence of Budo” by Dave Lowry. A friend lent this to me back in maybe February, and it was time I gave it back. And also why leave stuff around the house if I don’t need to? Probably I shouldn’t read more than one of his books in a year because this seemed… the same as the previous one. They’re interesting and well-written, but I felt like I’d read some of the essays before.

“The Grace of Kings” by Ken Liu. It was the oldest thing in my library queue, so I set it to active and… well, it’s really fat. By the time I was 200 pages in I was engaged in the story, but I had a hard time keeping track of the characters. I was having a hard time with the style, and then I realized he’s turned something I’m always trying to purge from my writing into a strength. 

“Voyage of the Basilisk” by Marie Brennan. I will be completely honest: I did not finish this book in November. It just feels kind of lame to have only read two books, so I waited until I finished this one. Ed got it for his birthday, and asked me if I’d read this yet, so I figured I’d better. I liked it better than book II, I don’t know why. I hope December goes better than November did, or 2017 is going to be grim.

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