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What I read: August 2021

doing superman on pole while reading a karate manual

LHC #131: "Cloud and Ashes: three winter's tales" by Greer Ilene Gilman. Hard copy. A bit of work, but worth the effort. I can imagine wanting to have a hard copy of this that you just leave by your bed and flip through sometimes and read a few pages and see connections. It connected to so much stuff, really cool. I started this before #128 actually, and indeed finished it last. 

I found myself doing sort of the same thing I do when I read something in French: read along for a little while, then do a sort of summary of what's going on. Much like reading poetry perhaps. 

LHC #132: "This is how you lose the time war" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Went by very fast! This deserves all the accolades it's gotten, I loved the way it wrapped around on itself by the end. 

"Karate Canada Technical Manual Level 1". Lent to me by my sensei. Really interesting, if you're into this sort of thing. 

LHC #133: "The Prey of Gods" by Nicky Drayden. eBook. I had no expectations going in because as usual I didn't really remember why I requested it. It was fantastic. 

LHC #134: "Drive your plow over the bones of the dead" by Olga Tokarczuk. I put this on my list when she won a nobel prize, and it took me this long to get around to it. I think I was expecting something of an unending slog so maybe avoided it as something that might be "good for me" but instead it was a delight. So funny! I kept reading Ed bits, like the part about how there's a weather channel, so how come there isn't an astrology channel? It's just as important! 

Much-beloved classics that had to make several attempts at before I got through: Wind in the Willows, LotR. I wonder why. There are others I started and never finished. "Stranger in a strange land" is one that comes to mind. I might have read 60 pages. 

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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