Book reviews, news, and a healthy obsession with the written word.
Jeff
In the first week of December, we went to Hawaii for a week.
I was so tired on the plane that I mostly watched movies and TV shows, but I had plenty of downtime during the week to sit outside on a balcony and read.
I also finished a Laini Taylor novella collection while visiting my family for Christmas.
I didn’t read anything too heavy this month, and it was a nice way to wrap up the year.
We moved to a new apartment at the start of November, and that meant a longer commute for me and of course a whole lot more time for listening to audiobooks while I drive. Almost all of my reading in November was done via audiobook.
My October reading was bookended with a few really great horror stories, which is as it should be. I also read the newest standalone novel by Kate Atkinson and finally finished a disappointing sci-fi novel by Amber Royer.
In September, I read three more InCryptid books by Seanan McGuire, and finished out the series so far. Other than that, I read a few graphic novels and listened to a short sci-fi novella.
Seanan McGuire’s Incryptid series dominated my audiobook listening in the month of August. Every time I finished one book in the series, I bought the next! I also read more Karen Russell, a few comics, and a disappointing young adult novel about witchy babysitters.
After a slow June, I got back in the swing of things for July. I finished several audiobooks and a few graphic novels along with the final book in the His Dark Materials trilogy.
I’ve never read any of the classic Nancy comics, but her look is iconic. I feel like I could identify a Nancy comic from across the room by the shape of Nancy’s head alone. The fact that those comics were ubiquitous enough to become iconic but passé enough that I’d never read any of them is a fascinating contradiction.
I wanted to like The Babysitters Coven. It has a fantastic, eye-catching cover with an illustration of a badass girl facing down some presumably nefarious multicolored clouds. I am always a sucker for a good cover design, so it breaks my heart when the book doesn’t live up to the cover.
Cryptofauna is an entertaining book that runs on pure momentum. The sheer volume of absurdity paired with the author’s constant digressions and convoluted wordplay keeps things humming along while the mysterious nature of the game at the center of the book keeps you hooked until the end.
For whatever reason, I had a bit of a slow month in June. I was still working on the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, and although I loved every minute of it, it still took me a while to read. I also listened to two fairly long audiobooks this month. The Nix clocked in at almost 22 hours, and Foundryside was nearly 20 hours. Both were excellent in different ways, however.
Golems from Jewish folklore have always fascinated me, with their heads full of instructions written on a life-giving scroll. A golem is both the creation myth in miniature and a way to codify magic, a sort of early computer programming where the processors are clay giants. It’s strangely comforting to imagine that human beings could control the world in such a fashion, while also terrifying to imagine the many ways it could go wrong.
I thoroughly enjoy reading Jason Kottke’s monthly media diet posts, so I decided to try something similar with my monthly reading for this year. I thought it would be a good writing challenge and help keep me fresh between longer reviews. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman I originally read this back in the 90s, …
In Reincarnation Blues, Milo is the ultimate slacker. He’s lived thousands of lives, but he still hasn’t reached perfection. Instead, he just wants to spend his time in the afterlife with his girlfriend, Susie, who also happens to be one of the incarnations of death. They’ve been together for more than eight thousand years, give or take, and Milo’s primary goal in the afterlife is avoiding transcending to the oversoul so that he can spend eternity watching TV on a couch with Susie.
