RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

Somehow time keeps on going. I call foul.

What are you reading? 👀

Comments

[quillpunk]

Still on Skeletons in the Closet by Nicky James; I'm greatly enjoying it, I just got distracted by other books for a moment. Also just started Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett, and it's very fun. Carrot is still my favorite :D

[honigfrosch]

Started a new book, Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman which is medieval horror set during the plague in 1348 France. A disgraced knight, an alcoholic priest, and a girl who believes to have angelic visitations are trying to get to Avignon. The start was rocky (female character getting threatened with rape *insert sighing emoji*), but it got better, switching to a kind of found family dynamic as soon as the three main characters had found each other - I'm currently at page 105 and invested. It's very bleak and creepy, not only do people already suffer from famine, war and disease, but demonic forces are spilling into the land and Buehlman has a way with words when it comes to portraying these horrors. It's a sparse style, but it works quite well for creeping dread and malice. I'd also say that this book reads aggressively cinematic, at times like a movie script begging to be filmed. I've heard that the story gets really weird and lost a lot of people at the halfway point, but so far I'm willing to go where it takes me. Will definitely write a review when done.

[pauraque]

Still deciding what to read out of the current haul of library books. I should probably get started on Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler since it's an interlibrary loan and I'm sure they'd appreciate getting that back.

[yhlee]

- Julie Dean Smith. Call of Madness. You know, I think one thing that attracted me to this book in HS, probably, is the fairly nuanced take on medievaloid diplomacy, politics, religion. Even when Princess Athaya seems not to be able to figure out "why is my father's third wife this SHREW when all the SHREW has going for her is LOTS OF MONEY" (I'm under the impression this is Eleanor of Aquitaine levels of territory/moolah) and I'm all, Aha, the third wife has LOTS OF MONEY.

Look, I've been a stupid teenager WITHOUT having "I am cursed with magic that will literally drive me crazy AND get me burned at the stake" lol so I have some sympathy to Athaya, but it's genuinely well-handled that the reader can see some of what's going on around her with the older characters even when she can't, yet. That said, while I can see why Athaya doesn't get on with her dad, her dad seems like a genuinely conscientious/good king if maybe not all that as a parent. :p

Also, now that I'm no longer in HS, I wonder if one of the reasons why the king is so blasé about being married to the SHREW (as Athaya sees her) is that he and the COURT WIZARD are gay for each other. I'm not sure that's what's going on, but it hadn't even occurred to me in HS. :p Anyway, so far this is holding up surprisingly well.

- Elva Birch. Stallion's Instinct. I continue reading this in tiny bits while having FEELS in the best way. Shifter romance between a con artist horse shifter and the woman whose "horse" he "stole," complicated by the horse shifter winding up as guardian of a relative's four-year-old girl.

- Layla Lawlor. Freebird. This slice of life comic about a middle-aged woman rebooting her life by moving to Alaska continues to be a balm. The quirky characters and art are especially endearing. I pick it up and read a page when I need an oasis in my heart.

- Ho Bin Ihm et al. Korean Grammar for International Language Learners. I picked up the English-language edition and workbook, for which the main text of explanations is in English. Examples and terminology are given both in English and in Hangeul. For Korean especially, I cannot even with wading through fucking transliteration (none is given), especially if transliteration is ALL that's given; it's easier for me to suss out the Hangeul.

HOWEVER, this is super interesting in that the grammar framework presented is the Korean one that Koreans use for describing the language, rather than an external Western linguistics one, so of course some of the categories differ! I do find it interesting that Korean analysis also breaks out "regular" vs. stative verbs, the latter being how Hangeul handles what we'd call adjectives in English. This means, for instance, that Korean adjectives can inflect for tense. I'm really looking forward to working through this - I do have Talk to Me in Korean's series 1-5 textbooks/workbooks and am partway through level 1; that one is MUCH more basic (starts you from zero, theoretically) and also comes with downloadable sound files for drill. But I like linguistics and grammar, so this is congenial. My usual reference grammar for Korean has been Iksop Lee & S. Robert Ramsey's The Korean Language (from 2000, dated to be sure), but the Lee & Ramsey isn't intended for learning from.

- Dirk Lessemer, Phantom Islands. Continues to be weirdly beautiful and poetic.

- Ray Robinson, compiled by. Famous Last Words. What it says on the tin. Fun to dip into.

Also, for a M.A. in film/TV/game scoring I'm starting in the fall, I started reading and taking notes on

- K. Kalinak's Film Music: A Very Short Introduction. I prioritized this as a reading because (a) short (b) I like getting an overview before going into the more detailed or specialized texts (c) honestly, I own and have read other books in the "Very Short Introduction" series (military justice, ethnomusicology, military strategy, that kind of thing) and I've generally been pretty impressed with them as bite-sized survey introductions. (I have one on aerial warfare I'm dying to read too, in my copious free time!)

- Aldwell, E. and C. Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading. I own the 2nd ed. rather than the reading list's recommended 5th edition, but I highly doubt traditional functional harmony and voice leading has changed THAT much in an analysis of ca. 18th century Western music practice. :p I love functional harmony; my usage of voice leading has largely been 70% of "standard" via vibes, but it will be good to knuckle down and study it formally even if I'm not going to use it formally. I expect people doing the orchestration degree from that institution would get a lot more rigorous grounding in this and other theory topics, although I actually do love music theory!

[suncani]

I have just decided to throw a whole bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks in terms of reading. Currently its:

The Saint of Bright Doors - This is a buddy read with a couple of friends, who have both finished and who's non-spoilery comments are making me want to continue with it. I like it so far and the language has fallen on the side of amusingly bizarre rather than so purple it might get mistaken for an emperor.

Dragon Kings Of Oklahoma by Ferrett Steinmetz. This was due to a friend being relatively enthusiastic about it and me liking the sound of something that wasn't teen saves the world. I'm enjoying it as it's very easy going semi-rural urban fantasy but I'm also conflicted as after I'd requested the arc and got about 1/3 of the way through, other friends pointed out some of Steinmetz's chequered history and I'm now not entirely sure how/whether to review it.

Completed

Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard. My very short review was "like a cross between Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within movie and the ducklings from The Untamed" I stand by that. It's a fun novella by de Bodard and also is proof that sometimes things I normally dislike, like insta-love, are perfectly acceptable when I'm on board with everything else the story is doing. 4 juniors from different clans are tasked with rounding up a dangerous monster, but its mostly about their characters and how different elements manage to wind each other up, as well as when and when not to do the "right thing". I enjoyed it.

Evocation by S.T Gibson. My brain is in two halves about this book. The reviewer is going holy crap that's a mess, and this is frustrating and this. For example, Moira is not really allowed to be her own character that has wishes and desires of her own rather than just being the emotional bridge between the other two male characters and comes quite close to being a bit of a stereotype. The story and the relationship aren't really well integrated, and the plot definitely plays second fiddle to the relationship drama. The reader is just like yep, that's exactly what I wanted today, thanks.

[wearing_tearing]

Ghostsmith by Nicki Pau Preto: ready to be awed! I loved the first book, Bonesmith, and have high expectations for this one. I’m about 1/4 of the way through and am pretty satisfied so far with the plot progression and what the plot has given me so far.

The Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors: a dip into the Literary genre! I’ve read 2-3 chapters so far and find everyone unbearable :) I expect that to change once the conflict that was introduced a few pages ago gets developed. Please.

[trainerlyra]

I'm now about halfway through Case File Compendium volume 2, I think it's definitely found it's stride now. I still have some mixed feelings but overall I'm enjoying it a lot more than I was!

I'm also almost finished with the audio book I've been listening to, Perversion of Justice. Only about two hours of listening left. It's been a great write up on the case as a whole, though I think what's interested me the most has been learning about the behind the scenes journalism side of things and why the journalist was successful where others had failed.

[petrea_mitchell]

I finished 1177 BC and After 1177 BC. Interesting but frustrating in their limited scope. Part of that is just due to the limitations of the archaeological record, but part of it is the tight focus on one region with no sense of how any of its neighbors were affected by events. (But to the author, in the contet of archaelogical writing, it's a broad book; he notes in the afterword that even Bronze Age Near East and Bronze Age Mediterranean specialists hardly talk to each other, let alone Bronze Age and Iron Age specialists.)

Now I've picked up another old Cherryh novel, Well of Shiuan. Like Gate of Ivrel, it's working much better for me than it did 30-ish years ago.

[rabbit_stew]

Currently reading:
The Cold Dish (Longmire #1) by Craig Johnson - I'm looking for a nice, long detective series that will be easy on me for months.
Homesick For Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh - I'm working my way through her catalog. She's a stunning writer.

In the last week, I finished:
A Book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carol Oates - I've loved JCO's books and stories since college. I'll never get to her whole catalog, but I'll read as many as I can. Martyrs was an emotional read.
The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman - Another favorite author. I have two books left to read in his catalog. Necromancer was tough to get into, but the clever ending was worth it.

[yhlee]

Oh gosh - I read Joyce Carol Oates' Bellefleur twice in HS (it was a chonker! I had classes to pass!) and loved it so much. I've always wondered what else of hers to try, but there's so much!

[rabbit_stew]

She's got such a huge catalog in a ton of genres. She writes everything from cosmic horror to YA. She even wrote a book on boxing. My favorite is We Are the Mulvaneys, but there are so many to pick from that it's tough to know where to start.

Edit: There are other books that follow Bellefleur. It's the first book in a series.

[yhlee]

Oh, I had no idea! My high school was in S Korea so, uh, the selection tended to lag by a few years to say the least. I'll see what my library has - thank you so much!!

[rabbit_stew]

Have fun!

[dark_phoenix54]

I read the sequels, and didn't care for them nearly as much as Bellefleur. There as a little supernatural aspects to them, but not much. The weird level is just too low for my tastes, after reading Bellefleur.

[rabbit_stew]

I haven't gotten to the Gothic series yet. I have read Zombie and Babysitter. Zombie was bizarre and super creepy. Babysitter was weird and disturbing.

[white_aster]

What have you finished reading?

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes - Disappointing. The "what weird scary/gory thing is causing these issues In Space" plot is basic but fine, but the characters came off as touchy and petty and snippy and unprofessional. The main character was particularly bad, and we're locked in her head, so every time she gets angry that someone is treating her unfairly (and she does that a lot, in a "how do you manage in an adult world where people don't always give you what you want and also aren't you supposed to be a therapist?" way) she goes off an emotional tangent when I just wanted to get to the mystery. Then the plot itself had plot holes and "but why would X do Y?" and several just utterly boneheaded decisions were made just seemingly to ramp up tension. I liked Barnes' last book, but this one was disappointing.


What are you reading now?
- The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger. The author is taking a long while to get through her somewhat breathless description of how she fell in love with this topic, but we've gotten to Hawaii and are learning about endangered plants, so I am hoping it picks up.

- The Absolute at Large by Karel Čapek - gotta get back to this. It's a slow-moving thing, where each chapter is mostly another situation where the karburators are turned on and people magically get religious. It's starting to get repetitive.

- The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience by Aditi Nerurkar - Random book on stress/self-help. These books hardly ever have anything I haven't heard before in them, but like always, I'm finding something that reminds me of how I really SHOULD do X or Y....

- Worn: A People's History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser. Someone else read this book and said, "I would have liked a book about CLOTHING more than about FABRIC." And I thought "...I'd be bored by a book about clothing, but a book on the history of different fabrics might be cool!" I have a lot to read, though, so hopefully I can get through this before the loan expires.

[althea_valara]

So I read two books for the Summer Reading Program at the library, right? One of those books was "Lock In" by John Scalzi, so when I went to its book discussion, I checked out its sequel, "Head On", and also checked out "Red Shirts" while I was at it.

Reading can be difficult for me these days--often more in the mood to play video games which, given I play RPGs, does satisfy the "feed me a good story" itch--so I'm pleased to say that I did find time this week to read a bit of "Head On"! I did two reading sessions of about 40 minutes each. Yay!

[valoise]

I just started Food Will Win the War: Minnesota Crops, Cooks, and Conservation During World War I as part of an ongoing research project on food and WWI.

Other than that I've catching up on short fiction for the past few weeks, mainly on Clarkesworld, Apex, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Uncanny, and Azimov's. I have an old-fashioned subscription to Azimov's, the rest I read online. I know all of these magazines need support, so I do try to support at least two of these every year on a kind of rotating basis.

[zenigotchas]

Oh that's really interesting. What are you studying food and WWI for?

[valoise]

I've been researching culinary history, off and on, for a long time. When I studied history in grad school my Master's thesis focused on early modern food history. When I retired I started writing Cooking from the Past looking at Food and World War I occasionally among many other food-related things.

[vriddy]

Just started Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater. Ended up rooting for some unexpected characters in the last book and hoping I'll enjoy this one as much :)

[zenigotchas]

Finished reading Penguins and Other Seabirds by Matt Sewell it was very cute.

I'm slowly chipping away at the short stories in this collection generically titled Adventures in Space. It's way less generic than that, however, because it's a collection of sci fi stories written by authors from America and China. The one I'm currently on is Shine by the writer Chen Zijun. It's a lotta pages.

On the other hand, I miss comics and super robots and want to finish Getter Robo Go EVENTUALLY I'm just not having fun with that one right now. ;__;

[matsushima]

I'm rereading Strange Creatures by Phoebe North and The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness. The first week of school is always so busy that it's easier to reread right now than dive into something new.

[dark_phoenix54]

Starling House, by Alix E. Harrow.

It's getting off to a slow start, but holds great promise. It concerns a sentient house, and a mysterious book. And a dweller in the house with zero social skills.

[zenigotchas]

Is that horror?

[dark_phoenix54]

Yes, it is. I don't think it'll be a slasher (lord, I hope not!) but it's got a strong teen heroine, who has a teen brother she's raising, and the house has a strange dweller in the house. Like I said, it has promise.

[zenigotchas]

That's VERY cool, I like the idea of a living house, lotta creepy ideas there! And I hope it isn't a slasher either, nothing wrong with them but I prefer other subgenres for horror tbh and I wouldn't anything to happen to the kids, they sound p likable (I always root for the kids in horror stories to come out on top and okay at the end)

[silversea]

Finished reading
Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew: Lovely introduction to various disability studies concepts and issues through technology and its complicated relationships with disability. It's a brief and easy book, so I'd recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about disability issues.
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark: Fun characters, fun worldbuilding, fun action, and fun story. The ending was weak (I'm starting to notice a pattern in Clark's works), but the story was fairly enjoyable. I'm surprised there's an assassin protagonist who actually assassinate people. Who knew?
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan: I read this for a reading challenge but I just did not like this book at all. I hated the book early on, and it never got any better. Where do I even start with my complaints.... Very frustrating characters, romance lacking chemistry, me shaking a character for not seeing the red flags despite being warned repeatedly, etc.
Mort by Terry Pratchett: After much nagging by my friend, I finally started the Discworld! I really enjoyed reading about Mort's misadventures and Death trying to learn the pleasures of humanity. This book was a lovely introduction to Pratchett, and I'm definitely going to read the rest of the Death series soon.

Currently Reading
Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay: I placed it on library hold, and it just arrived, but I have no memories why I chose this book. May as well as read it anyway. This will be my first book by him, so I'm looking forward to it.

Not sure what to read next.