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What I read: December 2024

LHC #279: "Infomocracy" by Malka Older. I'd been waiting for this one on Overdrive, and then it popped available just as I'd started "No Gods for Drowning", but I accepted it and didn't start it. Then I had a several-hours drive and the audio book was available so I took that too. So I started with the audio book and listened to about 4 hours. I was somewhat confused. I started with hearing the word sentinel, when actually they were saying centenal and didn't realize for a couple of hours. Sometimes I couldn't really tell when it was the character speaking and when it was narration or exposition or whatever. The head-hopping didn't really help either. When I got home from the drive I listened and watched the words a little bit at the same time and things started making more sense. 

One of the characters has "Narrative disorder" which I was pretty sure was made up, so I googled. Unfortunately the google AI gave me a fine description of the disorder, but the first real hit was to the character's origin story (written by Malka Older) and nowhere in the top 10 was a link to DSM-5. Very sad, google AI. You should have said "Narrative disorder is a fictional disorder" etc.  

"The Future" by Naomi Alderman. Hard copy. I received this as a gift last Christmas, and it's good to read all last year's books before you get more? I needed something to read on the bus one day on the way to pole class, and hard copies are nicer for that (to me), so I picked this up and read 75 pages or so. Then I did the above-mentioned drive and started Infomocracy, and boy that was not a good idea. I spent some time getting these confused before I finished that first one (since it was a library book). This was very fun and I was totally not surprised by the Margaret Atwood influence shout-out at the end. 

LHC #280: "Feminist City: A field guide" by Leslie Kern. eBook. Not quite what I wanted it to be. The eBook was nicely produced, though.

"What moves the dead" by T. Kingfisher. Hard copy. The boy asked for it for Christmas, and of course I had to read it before giving it away. Just to make sure it was okay. It indeed was. I wonder if the boy has read Mexican Gothic? I could see that in here, as well as the Poe of course. 

"The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig. Hard copy. My sister asked for it for Christmas. Not the book for me. It just made no sense to send someone to a different timeline and give them no Ghost of Christmas Past to tell them what the heck is going on and who everyone is then expect that person to not be disappointed in the experience. Also, the timeline that she ditched because of bad sex? I actually googled "Does Matt Haig hate women?" 

LHC #281. "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver. eBook. I was looking at my holds list the way I do (which is I look at it and see what's available on Overdrive and how long the wait is etc.) and the wait for this one was "more than six months" but my hold was expiring at the end of February, so I thought I'd better activate the hold so I didn't forget it completely. But apparently time has no meaning and four days later Overdrive offered it to me. So I guess the 271 people ahead of me all declined it? Maybe I don't understand how overdrive works. It was kind of melodramatic in a modern sort of way. 

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