Skip to main content

What I read -- March 2020

LHC #67: "The Falconer" by Elizabeth May. I might have put this on my list because the author shares a name with the current leader of Canada's Green Party. I wasn't fond of the main character. It's written in first person present, and my lack of connection with Aileana made that rough. It was a quick read.

LHC #68: "We Will All Go Down Together" by Gemma Files. This must be the fifth or sixth book I've read by her? It really helped me focus my main witch character in WWS, and also I learned from the pronunciation guide that I've been saying one of the characters' names wrong for about 10 years. Oh well.

LHC #69: "The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories" by Joan Aiken. Strange is so true. I'd just received this book when the library closed for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. On the day I started reading it, I took it with me to visit my mechanic, because the check engine light was on, then walked over to the grocery store, where panic buying was rampant, then the bookstore, where they had removed all the tables and chairs, and then to Starbucks, where I wasn't going to buy anything if I couldn't sit down. The adventure started just before 10, and my car wouldn't be finished until 2pm.
I guess the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
But I needed somewhere to sit down, and my mechanic's shop was not that place. So I walked over to the Chinese mall and bought a tuna melt and read about 80 pages of very strange short stories. Since I'm stuck with this book for the foreseeable future (the library is not accepting returns at this time) I may reopen it and try to figure out how she made a couple of those things work. And then try it myself, though I may not be clever enough.

LHC #70: "The Last Days of Cafe Leila" by Donia Bijan. This is the first book I read from Overdrive on my computer because of COVID-19. It was a tough read because I hated the main character. When I was ranting about it to Ed, he suggested that was because my mother dragged me to Mount Albert, and Noor dragged Lily to Iran. Not the same at all. Or maybe it is. I bet the author is an amazing cook, though. The food descriptions made me want to buy a cookbook (Bottom of the Pot to be specific).

LHC #71: "Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard" by Lawrence M. Schoen. It would be so cool if I had a clue why I'd put this on my list. It might give me some context. It's very good though. Better than a book about planets full of talking animals has any right to be.

Popular posts from this blog

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

What I read: January 2024

"Morgan is my name" by Sophie Keech. Office book club selection. It gets exhausting to read about plucky young heroines who are terrible at needlework all the time. I should probably read some Jo Walton. I mean, you can be good at needlework and other things too! I didn't find this book very surprising. The first half was kind of boring, but it got better towards the end.  LHC #233: "The Shifter" by Janice Hardy. I read her writing advice website regularly, so I thought I should maybe read an actual book to find out if she was worth it. Oh my, the voice of this book grabbed me immediately. The worldbuilding seemed shady but the voice was solid. It wasn't very subtle, but I might not be the target audience.  LHC #234: "Ragnarok: The End of the Gods" by A. S. Byatt. At this point with my library account, I'm just guessing. I know there was something by Byatt there? I suspect there was. I did not know what to make of this book. Strange, but it w

What I read: March 2024

  LHC #240: "Vita Nostra" by  Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko. Translated by Julia Meitov Hersey. All I knew going in was dark academia. This was a neat thing to read after A Deadly Education last month. The students can leave this school at summer and winter break, but maybe they shouldn't. Also, interesting education method, providing Sasha with a CD player and punishing her if she leaves it in the mode where it plays all the tracks in sequence.  "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman. When I finished Ragnarok by AS Byatt (last month? January?) I was thinking it might have made more sense if I had any knowledge of the subject matter. The boy had left this lying around, and it was not a tough read.  LHC #241: "Science on a mission: How Military funding shaped what we do and don't know about the ocean" by Naomi Oreskes.  I deferred this once because it was so long. History of science is challenging for me to read, because of the need to get a grasp on dispr