What I read -- July 2025

LHC #287: "Walking to Aldebaran" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Hard copy. As usual I had no idea why I'd chosen this for myself, and little idea what it was about, so the whole Grendel thing caught me by surprise.

LHC #288: "The Librarianist" by Patrick DeWitt. eBook. I found the writing style a little simple. Also my idea of librarians is maybe different than the author's--I feel like they get out and connect with people, and Bill doesn't do that. I had the sense that maybe it was all meant to be funny?

LHC #289: "Spear" by Nicola Griffith. Hard copy. Maybe if I knew the legend of Percival better I would have felt like it was going somewhere.

LHC #289: Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem. Audio book. Really glad I listened to this one, the reader was excellent.

LHC #290: "The Creative Lives of Animals" by Carol Gigliotti. Audio Book. I guess I have a sort of humanist idea of creativity, but this was a good read.

"Foul Days" by Genoveva Dimova. Hard copy. Loved it. Put the sequel on my list.

Moraine

So a couple of days I thought I was done with this short story, and I wrote the last line of the story. I even dated it (that's how I can tell it's over). It was a little long, at 6600 words (I was aiming for 5000). But then I was walking to work, and I thought, "My, that was a lame ending. My endings are all crap." So yesterday morning, I scribbled out the date and wrote a bit more. And this morning I wrote a bit more again, and I dated it and called it done. And still, that ending seemed lame. So a few minutes later, in the last paragraph, I scratched out "the Oak Ridges Moraine" and wrote in "that stupid moraine". Much better. Now I can move on. But in the meantime, I was doing a little research about the Moraine, and I discovered that EGTourGuide lives on it. Only by one or two hundred feet, but I thought it was funny. Good for you, EGTourGuide, with all those excellent plants growing on that substandard soil, where in the olden days (you kno...

In progress: August 2024

Wind/Water/Salt Chapters 39-51: Still n eed to take up comments and revise. Persephone (probably not its real name): Continued to think thoughts. Short Stories: After posting that short story from last month onto the workshop, I picked one of those short stories I'd started and forced a plot onto it. Critted 5 Got back 4 Submissions 0 Out there 0 Rejects 0 Knitting Cathar (self). Started month with two inches done above the armholes. Listening to audiobooks, I finished the fair isle portion, cut the steeks, and set up and knit the neckline. Just the endless finishing now. Blushing Cloud (Knitty S/S24). Started the month with (still) three inches of back done. Socks take priority. Elbrus socks (Knitty first fall 2024). Finished. Elbrus socks II . Started the first. Pole shorts (Joan McGowan-Michael). I knitted these several years ago, but the...

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.

Robynettely

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