Friday, August 2, 2024

July Reading Wrap-Up+

What started as a slow month (I didn't start reading anything until the 8th) really picked up near the end. Which is surprising considering July felt like a very busy month. I mean, I didn't move or anything so I guess there's that but the monster turned 6 (what is time, even?) and we had our 10 year wedding anniversary (again, time, what?) so there were Things happening.


Hey look, I have actually kept up with my book bullet journal, even if I keep forgetting to post it here.

Anyway, let's get to those stats, shall we?

Number of books read
5
You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffian & Lacey Lamar
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell
Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz
Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffian & Lacey Lamar
This book is so much fun. I’ve read it at least 3 times now and it’s just as funny each time. And yes, it’s a book about racism and what is funny about that? Well, when recounted by comedian Amber Ruffian & her sister Lacey Lamar about mostly the everyday nonsense Lacey runs into being a Black woman in very white Omaha. While the audiobook lacks some of the visuals Amber describes, the fact that it is read by Ruffian herself (with some interjections from Lacey) more than makes up for it. Very funny and a quick read
Rating: 5 stars
 
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
Gilda is anxious. She’s constantly worried about death, can’t hold a job, can’t keep her apartment clean, ignores her sort of girlfriend and can’t talk to her family, who seem to rather hide problems rather than confront them. She finds herself at the local Catholic church and is mistaken for someone applying for the new receptionist job, she’s too embarrassed to correct the priest and instead pretends to be straight and Catholic to accept the job (that she admittedly needs). She even pretends to be the previous receptionist, Grace, when she starts seeing emails from Grace’s old friend start turning up in the church inbox and can’t bear to break the news. But when suspicions arise around Grace’s death, Gilda finds herself in a tricky position. See how interesting that premise sounds? There are moments here and there, but it felt like at least 80% of the novel was Gilda being anxious. Anxious in different locations but as a character, she was one-dimensional, hardly changing throughout the book. The set up and even the outline of the characters felt like there was so much potential that never really materialized.
Rating: 2.75 stars
 
The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell
Murder mystery around a Great British Bake Off-esque show? Yes, please! Or at least "yes, please" in theory. In execution, well. Six amateur bakers make their way to a Vermont estate for a 5-day Bake Week challenge, hosted and judged by estate owner and celebrity baker Betsy Martin. The book opens a few days into the contest with a body being found before we jump back to day one and meet the contestants who each narrate their own chapters, along with chapters from Betsy. Things seem to be going wrong from the start, odd things happening to the ingredients, and what is up with that wing of the house no one is allowed in? Lots of interesting things being set up, but, as I mentioned, the whole book takes place over a couple days so from the start, things felt rushed. Still a mostly fun book (I still wanted to know what happened) but fell a bit flat.
Rating: 3.25 stars
Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz
Oh look, another entry in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series. This time Anthony is telling the story of a past Hawthorne investigation, one that he is not directly part of because, let's face it, there are only so many intriguing murder mysteries that can happen "in real life" before belief has been suspended a bit too far. A grisly murder happens in what seems to be an idyllic cluster of homes in Riverside Close, when the new neighbor (who didn't really fit in with this tight-knit community) is found dead. Everyone had motive. Everyone had secrets. Who could have done it? And how can Anthony help tell the story of a case that's already closed? There's less of the dynamic between Hawthorne & Horowitz than in the other books, which is a shame because that is fun to see, but it's still an entertaining murder mystery and yes, I'll probably continue on should Horowitz keep writing them.
Rating: 4 stars
Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
My first Stevenson book, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, was one of my favorite books of last year. But I was surprised to see it listed as the first in a series because it didn't seem to be the kind of story to lend itself to a sequel. But apparently it did and we once again join Ernest Cunningham as he writes about solving a murder complete with clues, both hidden and those called out to the reader, lots of twists, humor and in general a good time. I mean, it's five crime writers trying to solve a crime. That's a good time, isn't it? 
Rating: 4.25 stars

Total pages read
1,523

Fiction
80%

Female authors
60%

BIPOC authors
20%

US authors
40%

Rereads
20%

Format
audiobook - 100%

Where'd I get the book
Library - 80%
Gift - 20%

Decade published
2020s - 100%

Resolution books
80%

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey is by a Black author (or pair of them, really)
Everyone in This Room Will Be Dead Someday is by a Canadian author
Close to Death is by a UK author
Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect is by an Australian author

Monday, July 8, 2024

June Reading Wrap-Up+


We’re in the middle summer now. Which means vacations, maybe some that involve some travel time. Maybe some time relaxing by the pool or sitting on the beach. You know, prime time to get some reading done? Well, I have done a trip! It involved a cross-country plane ride.* And there was time by the pool and on the beach. How much reading did I get done on said vacation? Nothing. Zilch. Oh, I had books. I had a library book I had been on the waitlist for I think 100 years waiting on. I had a physical book I threw into my bag as backup. But it turns out that children can be a bit of a distraction. Oh the plane, because I was interrupted every few minutes, I couldn’t get into the flow of a book without just re-reading the same couple sentences over and over, so I ended up relistening to some old podcasts because who cares if I miss big chunks? And the pool and beach, well there is no sitting down time there. Not that this wasn’t a fun vacation. I have just accepted that, for now, vacations are a gap in my reading time instead of my time to read. Which is really too bad because that library book I mentioned? I had to send it back to the library only about 25% of the way through because my time was up and there was a long line of others waiting for it. Rouge, I will come back for you.

Let’s get to those stats! 
 
Number of books read
4

Joyful Recollections of Trauma by Paul Scheer
The List by Yomi Adegoke
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka
The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo
 
Joyful Recollections of Trauma by Paul Scheer
I am a big fan of the podcast How Did This Get Mad, where 3 comedians (plus guests) talk about bad movies. Paul Scheer is the ringleader of this and a number of times throughout the 10+ years’ worth of episodes little tidbits about his life growing up have come out. They’re usually awkward and hilarious. So, as he’s been talking about this book he wrote, of course I was going to check it out. I actually think I was the first person to get it when my library got a copy (love that “notify me” feature in Libby, btw). And first thing I want to say is the book is funny. There are a lot of funny anecdotes about growing up and getting into comedy and all of that. But the “Trauma” in the title isn’t metaphorical and things were a lot rougher and sadder for parts of his life than I would have thought from the personality he puts out in his work. If you’re a fan of his work in general (and seriously, check out HDTGM), then definitely give this a listen. And I recommend listen since he reads it which really sells some of the humor. Plus, the audiobook includes clips from the podcast when he’s telling various childhood stories so you get the bonus of reactions from his co-hosts Jason and June.
Rating: 4 stars
 
The List by Yomi Adegoke
Ola and Michael seem like the perfect couple, the best example of #BlackLove. But only a few weeks before their wedding, Michael finds himself on “The List”, a #MeToo inspired anonymous list of men in media who have committed some sort of assault on women. Michael is accused of sexual harassment, certainly not as bad as some of the multiple rape accusations others on the list get, but still not good. The book is then alternating chapters from Ola’s and Michael’s POV. Ola as she grapples with believing all women (she is a feminist writer for the publication Womxxxn) and if this wasn’t Michael on the list, she would be on the front line in calling for these men to be held accountable while also lambasting women who stood by them. Michael meanwhile is trying to understand who put him on the list and while he vehemently denies the claim, he has an idea who is behind it. While an interesting premise, this book didn’t really work for me. First, it jumps into the list almost immediately, to the point where I hadn’t really connected with the couple yet, so any shock that this character was on the list is…muted to say the least. Then there is the “mystery” of if Michael belonged on the list or not which could have made the book more interesting except it didn’t work here. There were interesting ideas here, especially the idea of being tried in the court of Twitter, but the execution was repetitive and fell flat.
Rating: 2.75 stars
 
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka
Algorithmic recommendations say they’re going to give everyone personalized recommendations, but in reality these algorithms have the affect of making everything the same and no matter where you go or what you look for, you see similar trends be it in coffee shops or TV shows or music or even places to visit. Can you really make a free choice when algorithms determine so much of what you see? I think they’re interesting questions and there were good points made about how much affect the algorithms on social media, in Netflix, in Spotify, in TikTok affect what trends in culture. But there were multiple times when it seemed like the author just kinda wanted to talk about the cool music they liked and how it’s way better than the pop music Spotify will recommend, or how they did vacations better because they focused on “being there” instead of taking pictures to ostensibly post on social media later. And while I get this was not the main point, it seemed missing to not address at all the YouTube algorithm sending people down crazy right-wing, conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
Rating: 3 stars
 
The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo
Really wish I could remember where I heard of this book. I think it was some list of diversify your reading or maybe just about mysteries and thrillers. Who knows. I should probably write this down when I add a book to my TBR. Anyway, in continuing with a theme of geriatric killers, this book is about an aging contract killer who goes by Hornclaw. She seems like any other 65-year-old grandma, never standing out, but you wouldn’t guess her coat is lined with knives and she has enough kills under her belt she can’t remember them all. But what does she do as she ages? Can she retire or is that not really an option when this has been your world for the last 45 years? Like with a lot of this month, I liked the idea of the book but was surprised with some of the directions it took. I thought it would be a bit more humorous as Hornclaw figures out what is retirement like for someone like her? There is a bit of a line about her connecting with a doctor and his family but that played a much smaller role through most of the book than I would have guessed based on the summary. We got a bit about her past and how she came to this line of work but overall the story seemed disjointed and the ending a bit rushed.
Rating: 3 stars
 
Total pages read
1,170
 
Fiction
50%
 
Female authors
50%
 
BIPOC authors
50%
 
US authors
50%
 
Book club reads
25%
 
Translations
25%
 
Format
Audiobook – 100%
 
Where’d I get the book
Library – 75%
Gift – 25%
 
Decade published
2010s – 25%
2020s – 75%
 
Resolution books
50%
The List is by a Nigerian-British author
The Old Woman with the Knife is by a Korean author and a translation 
 
*If you’re curious, the trip was to San Diego, where we’ve actually gone the last few years because there are lots of fun things to do and also we have friends out there so it’s nice to be able to see people as well as like, go to Disneyland and Legoland. Two places that also do not lend themselves to much reading time.

Monday, June 3, 2024

May Reading Wrap-Up+

Man. May. I'm so tired.

I mentioned in the April post that we bought a house. Yay! Finally! Well in May, we moved into the house. Which is great! But also a lot of work. We moved just before Memorial weekend. And then we had plans for the weekend. And then I had to travel for work. So we're still living out of boxes but we're slowly getting things unpacked and soon enough (I hope!) we'll even begin decorating and have pictures up on the walls and things like that. Stuff to make it feel like it's really our house. Of course we had drama on move in day involved a hot water heater pouring water on the basement floor. (It's funny now because nothing was really damaged and my father-in-law is GREAT and fixed everything the next day). 

Let's get into the stats and also see if I can get images to upload or not. (Hey look, I did it! Now to go back and update the past ones)

Total books read
4
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr
A cozy little mystery story. Clayton was found on the steps of a home for The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers when he was a baby. It's a bit of a commune for people who make puzzles. Mazes and jigsaws and crosswords and trivia. He's raised by all the members of the house, but primarily by Pippa, the founder of the fellowship. When she passes away, she leaves Clayton a series of clues to help him discover his past and where he came from. The story jumps between present day, as Clayton tries to figure out Pippa's clues, and the past, when Pippa was first forming the fellowship. It's a sweet story, with apparently some puzzles you can solve as you go but which I did not because I mostly listened to it but that sounds like it could have been a good time if that's your thing.
Rating: 3.75 stars

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
I loved Reid's earlier book, Such a Fun Age, so when library hold timing finally lined up with my real-world timing, I was excited to check this out. It's a story with multiple narrators: RA Millie, visiting professor Agatha and student Kennedy. The story is more about characters than any plot, because it takes a long time for any sort of plot to happen. On the one hand, this could be fine depending on the character. On the other hand, there was a lot about RAs and RA life and honestly, it wasn't all that interesting. There are also character reactions that seem entirely overblown. But once I did get over an initial hump, plot or no, I was interested enough to keep listening. That said, maybe check out Such a Fun Age
Rating: 3.5 stars

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz
The library always seems to have a copy of these Hawthorne and Horowitz books available and it is pretty great that Horowitz makes his literary counterpart kind of a dumb dumb, so I am all in on this series. This time Hawthorne has to solve a murder of a critic and Horowitz is the lead suspect. I mean, this critic did give a pretty scathing review of Horowitz's play, putting much of the blame on Horowitz's writing. But could he really have done it? Hawthorne agrees to help or rather, agrees to solve the case, wherever the truth may take him. Very fun murder mystery series with a protagonist who is just a little bit pathetic. 
Rating 3.6 stars

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
After multiple attempts to get this book (including downloading a library copy to my Kindle and promptly losing my Kindle in the move) I managed to read this book for my book club. Fantasy from Clarke and while fantasy isn't my favorite genre, I loved Strange & Norrell so Clarke gets the benefit of the doubt. Which is good because this book throws you right into a world / labyrinthine of marble rooms filled with statues and you have to just kind of go with it. We meet the narrator, who is called Piranesi by The Other, the only other living person (there are a few skeletons Piranesi attends to). Piranesi sees himself as a scientist, filling journals with what he is doing, observes, as he survives in this House. Some rooms regularly flood (providing him the opportunity to fish), some rooms that are filled with clouds that bring rain, and some middle rooms that birds have made home. But slowly there seems to be another world and we're learning about everything alongside Piranesi. The book grabbed me and I finished all but 30 pages in one sitting (having a flight helped).
Rating: 4 stars

Total pages read
1,413

Fiction
100%

Female authors
50%

BIPOC authors
25%

US authors
25% (the others were all UK)

Book club reads
25%

Format
audiobook: 75%
ebook: 25%

Where'd I get the book?
library: 100%

Decade published
2020s: 100%

Resolution books
100%
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, The Twist of the Knife, and Piranesi are all by UK authors
Come and Get It is by a Black author

Monday, May 6, 2024

April Reading Wrap Up+

Look at that, another month done. This one was less eventful than last month (no ER visits for me this time around!) but it's still been busy. Mostly because of the whole "we bought a house" thing. The people we bought it from were staying there for a bit after we closed, but they ended up moving out way sooner than we thought so we've been getting some stuff ready for when we can actually move in, as well as working to show the current rental we're in and hopefully get it rented out before our lease is up. That's in between general work stuff. 
I didn't get quite the reading done that I wanted to, mostly because library hold timing was not working out in my favor. They either all come in at the same time or I have this window where I don't want to start something cos a library hold is going to come in any second and then I realize a week has gone by and don't get me wrong, love my podcasts, but still.

Let's get right into it. What did I read in April?

(Oh also, it turns out for whatever reason I still can't get images to upload and I will spend some time trying to figure it out cos WTF man but I'm sorry right now we are image less. Again.)

Total books read
5
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwa
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollen
Cut and Run by Ben Acker & Ben Blacker

The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwa
What if you wanted to taste a very specific dish, a dish you couldn't just get yourself, one more time? And what if you liked Great British Bake-Off but thought it was just a bit too suspenseful and high-stakes for you? Well then, you are in luck because this book has you covered on both sides. The father-daughter-duo of Nagare and Koishi run a diner that is in a run down area with no sign out front, but they seem to do fine business, not only selling food but recreating specific meals for their clients. Lots of tasty meal descriptions, very little wondering if they're going to accomplish their goals. If you want to curl up with something nice, you could do worse. (That said, I have thoughts on their "Italian" dish which involved way more hot dogs and Tobasco than I think Italians would have considered, but what do I know?)
Rating: 3.75 stars

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
Backman gets me every time, with his prickly characters that seem so unlikeable at first and manage to completely win me over without them having to do some dramatic 180 in behavior. It worked with Ove and it worked here with Britt-Marie. She starts out so persnickity and particular, aghast that she would be served tea in a plastic cup, not a mug and where is the coaster? She's awkward, she's a nag, she's very critical (even when trying to compliment someone) and when she finds herself at 60 with no home and no work, she doesn't have much choice but to take a job as a caretaker to a rec center in a small faraway town. And of course then she worms her way into my heart and was a bawling at points as Britt-Marie tries to find a place for herself and confirm that someone can see her and that she matters? Yes of course I was.
Rating: 4.75 stars

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
I didn't read 2 Backman's back-to-back on purpose. And I certainly didn't consider the order I read them in, but it turns out that Britt-Marie Was Here is sort of a spinoff/sequel to this one and I probably should have read them in the other order, if I gave any thought to this at all. But I didn't. Anyway. This time the main character isn't so unlikeable, probably cos she's a 7 year old girl with no friends except for her grandmother. Her grandmother who was a trailblazer as a doctor at a time when women didn't do that and now is mostly a chaos-causer and story-teller to her granddaughter. And then, her grandmother dies and leaves Elsa with a series of letters to deliver to various people in the house they live in (which has been divided into a bunch of apartments, including one for the previously-mentioned Britt-Marie). She learns about her neighbors, about her grandmother, about where the make believe stories from the Land of Almost Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas come from. This was harder for me to get into, but once again, I was won over in the end.
Rating: 4.75 stars

Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollen
It's fine. It's a short-story-really-more-of-a-magazine-article history of caffeine, mostly from coffee and Pollen's attempts to briefly go off the stuff. It's fine. I read it because of the whole library hold timing thing and I wanted to read something and this was sitting in my Audible library and was short so there you go.
Rating: 3 stars

Cut and Run by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker
This was another Audible Original I had sitting in my library but one I had never listened to before. This was more of a radio play wit ha full cast including D'Arcy Carden, Sam Richardson, Rachel Bloom, Ed Begly Jr and Meg Ryan, which is probably why I downloaded it in the first place (that and it was free). It's a tale of 2 lovable con artists who steal people's kidneys and it's less dark than that makes it sound (but it's not NOT dark cos still...kidney stealing). It's mostly funny and who doesn't love Sam Richardson? Anyone who says they don't is lying or hasn't seen him in anything and also lying. It was fun and short as a good in between waiting on those library holds to come in.
Rating: 4 stars

Total Pages Read
1,046

Fiction
80%

Female authors
0% - what the wha? I had to double check that, but alas, appears to be true

BIPOC authors
20%

US authors
40%

Reread
20%

Translation
60%

Format
audiobook - 100%

Where'd I get the book
library - 60%
Audible - 40%

Decade published
2010s - 60%
2020s - 40%

Resolution
60%

Backman is from Sweden and his stuff is translated
Kashiwa is Japanese and his stuff is translated (and I have feelings about the translation being heavily British inspired and maybe that's how the original was written but I dunno...)

Monday, April 8, 2024

March Reading Wrap Up+

March. Typically one of my fav months. It is my birthday month after all. But this month has been something else. And by something else, I mean I got a kidney stone and I very much recommend you do not get a kidney stone because it has not been fun and has involved so far a trip to the ER and overnight hospital stay and 3 separate procedures to remove the thing cos it was too big to pass on its own. Every doctor and nurse who heard the size made the same shocked face, which is fun. 

But there has also been good stuff! I mean my birthday, obv. Also Tom's birthday. We closed on our house! After over a year and a half of searching for something. I mean we haven't moved into it yet (and won't for another month or so) but still! We got a house and where we want it, so I'm pretty excited. And I was co-maid-of-honor in a wedding with a bride that was v chill and I got to see lots of friends, many of whom I don't see that often, so that was also good! Real rollercoaster these last few weeks.

Also, I can't get any images to upload. It's been a week of trying (and by that I mean I wrote this a week ago, couldn't get the images to upload, forgot about this for a week and then tried again and it didn't work and here we are). I'll try to update this later

But let's focus on what's important here, which is the books

Total Books Read
5
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Watership Down by Richard Adams
A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Momma Cusses: A Field Guide to Responsive Parenting & Trying Not to Be the Reason Your Kid Needs Therapy by Gwenna Laithland
The Body: An Occupant's Guide by Bill Bryson

I can't remember exactly what I saw but there was a tweet or something talking about Bourdain and I realized I wanted to hear something from him. In his voice. And while I've read Kitchen Confidential a number of times (though not since 2013, per my tracking) so figured why not give it another go. It's still great (especially being read by Bourdain). Sure there are some pieces that perhaps made me cringe a bit, but given the book is over 20 years old I suppose that's not too much of a surprise. 
Rating: 5 stars

Watership Down by Richard Adams
I read a description of this that called it "Game of Bunnies" and before reading this I would have thought it was an exaggeration. Now though. Pretty accurate. Danger and fighting and adventure and peril. And bunnies. And made up bunny language that in an audiobook just sounds like muffled coughing. This feels like a book that, had I read it as a young child would have been amazing. As an adult it was more "oh ok. Bunnies do live rich and detailed lives. But also they're bunnies and the drama juxtaposed with an image of bunnies munching on clover in a field is pretty funny. 
Rating: 3.25 stars

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Southern gothic and haunted houses and family secrets. Yes, yes, yes these are all great. Sam has some time to kill after her anthropological / entomological dig is postponed, so why not spend some time with mom in her rural southern town? But something seems off with mom. The house isn't filled with the normal cluttered warmth she expects but instead replaced with everything her hated Granmay loved (plain walls, a confederate wedding picture). Even her mom's personality seems different, almost like she's being watched. Beyond just being watched by a flock of vultures that have been convening around the house. The book has more humor with it than I anticipated but at times the humor was a real shift in the tension that was building, and not in a great way. I also couldn't help but compare it to Grady Hendrix's How To Sell A Haunted House that dealt with some similar themes but in a very different (and IMO better) way. But to be fair to the book, some of my hesitation to the story could have come from the audiobook narrator and overall I wanted to find out what would happen next.
Rating: 3.6 stars

Momma Cusses: A Field Guide to Responsive Parenting & Trying Not to Be the Reason Your Kid Needs Therapy by Gwenna Laithland
I've been following Mama Cusses TikTok (or really, IG Reels) account for a while since the algorithm decided I would be interested and sometimes it gets it right. I was laying around in the hospital waiting to see if I would get on the OR schedule when I got an alert from my library that the book just became available and immediately borrowed it. I would like to do what the subtitle of the book says and not be the reason my kid needs therapy, and in general I like her strategies she shares in her videos. She provides strategies for responsive (as opposed to reactive) parenting, helping children learn to identify and manage their emotions, which also involves a lot of parents learning how to identify and manage their own emotions and triggers. There was a lot here I liked and would like to try and I may even buy a copy of this book to have as reference
Rating: 4 stars

The Body: An Occupant's Guide by Bill Bryson
I started this book because I finished A House with Good Bones while I was at the hospital and couldn't get the TV to work so figured I'd put on an audiobook I already had and this seemed like a good option for when my body was BETRAYING ME. Then I got the alert about the Momma Cusses book and since that has a time limit I switched to that. But still, this is always a fun read if you want to learn more about the body and some of the history of how we know the things we know. Or maybe how Samuel Pepys (the English diarist) had a kidney stone the size of a tennis ball, because that was something that I had read before (having read this book multiple times) but the severity wasn't really brought home until I was dealing with my own significantly smaller stone. He would keep it in a box to show people at an annual dinner party and you know what, I would do the same if I dealt with that, so well-played.
Rating: 5 stars

Pages read
1,789

Fiction
40%

Female authors
40%

BIPOC authors
0% - again. siiiigh

US authors
80%

Reread
40%

Format
audiobook - 100%

Where'd I get the book
Kindle/Audible - 20%
Library - 80%

Book club reads
20%

Decade published
1970s - 20%
2000s - 20%
2010s - 20%
2020s - 40%

Resolution books
20%
Just Watership Down which is both not a US author (he's British) and published before 2000

Monday, March 4, 2024

February Reading Wrap-Up+

We've made it through another month and I'm in a pretty good mood because the weather was very nice today and it's amazing how that can make all the difference, especially after heavy rain the day before. The little monster and I spent time doing a "nature walk" (i.e., did our normal walk around the neighborhood but this time he brought his digital camera to take pictures of robins and squirrels) and it's really the little things.
Let's see what February looked like in terms of reading
Reading journal from both Jan and Feb since I already forgot to include in my Jan wrap up

Total books read
4
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and a Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford
Off The Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture and Why People Will Believe Anything by Kelly Weill
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

I also started Doppleganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein that, while an interesting was a bit dry and also long and I was not feeling it at the time. 
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and a Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford
There was a period in the late '90s/early '00s when Comedy Central regularly aired stand up comedy specials (crazy, I know) and I still quote a number of these today. Maria Bamford was among those so of course I was excited to listen to her book. She talks about, as the subtitle says, her mental illness and the various Anonymous groups she joins because who doesn't love belonging to a group? The book meandered a few times and while I love Bamford's voice and delivery, this probably works better as a physical book, given the audiobook often said to refer to some PDF that I did not have
Rating: 3.5 stars

Off The Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture and Why People Will Believe Anything by Kelly Weill
OK well I picked up this book because I thought it was about conspiracy theories in general and I still think that title suggests that but instead it was focused on flat earthers. Which is fine and it is a group I do not quite understand because of the mounds and mounds of evidence of, you know, not being round. But it is interesting to see how in general this conspiracy started back in the 1800s and how it has grown. Ultimately, I would have preferred this be about conspiracy theories more generally (and looking through a few other reviews, I wasn't alone in that assumption) and this got a little repetitive for me but it was interesting nevertheless.
Rating: 3.5 stars

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Man, I love this book. A friend (hi friend!) was reading the fourth in the series so naturally I had to go back and listen to this again. Was it just as good the second time around? Yes, of course it was. Were there moments that meant nothing the first time around but then as I got to know the characters I realized the significance of things on a second read? Yes, a bunch of those. Will I read it again? Absolutely.
Rating: 5 stars

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
Here's another re-read. I had been listening to Doppelganger for I can't remember how many hours but I was on day 4 of listening when I decided I was not enjoying myself and since I am reading for enjoyment, perhaps my time could be better spent elsewhere. But when none of the other books on my TBR list were available from the library, I decided to dig into my archives and check this one out again because I remembered it being silly and fun and funny. And guess what, it was all of that again. Is it little silly at times? Sure, of course. But it's all in good fun and I enjoyed myself just as much the second time around.
Rating: 4 stars

Pages read
1,280

Fiction
50%

Female authors
75%

BIPOC authors
0%

US authors
75%

Reread
50%

Format
audiobook - 100%

Where'd I get the book
library - 50%
gift - 50%

Decade published
2010s: 25%
2020s: 75%

Resolution books
25%
Only Thursday Murder Club as it is by a UK author.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

January Reading Wrap-Up+

Look at that. Another January is behind us. I didn't really make any resolutions for the new year. I rarely do. Usually because I don't know what to aim for. I am trying to keep in mind that resolutions can be fun. They don't have to be stuff about losing weight or...what are other stereotypical resolutions? Anyway, not that. Maybe I'll aim to make new recipes this year. Keep on reading. Maybe try to make something, though honestly trying to make something is less appealing while we're still in between where we will be staying long term (because making something means acquiring things for the making which means I will need to pack up and move those things and right now, I have a room in my house just full of boxes and I don't need to add to that more than necessary). Maybe I'll make some March resolutions. Who knows? What I do know is January is over which means I have some reading stats to share.

Total books read
5
How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Shur
How To Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena
A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Shur
This is a pretty good book to start the year with, right? This is a good goal. I also read this book last January, so who knows, maybe this is a good New Year / Be Good reminder. A primer to moral philosophy, told in a very accessible way by the guy that created (among other things) The Good Place which is one of my fav TV shows.
Rating: 5 stars

How To Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Hendrix has really become a go-to author for me. I have learned not to get lulled into a false sense of security when the premise sounds ridiculous because I know that even with a silly sounding plot, the story will be truly scary and touching. This time Louise has to travel home after both her parents die suddenly to deal with the family home. She and her estranged brother will need to work together the clean the house of all of their mom's puppets and dolls. But something is off with the house and is Louise sure those dolls aren't moving? Very creepy story about sibling relationships and family secrets.
Rating: 4 stars

Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena
A nine-year old girl goes missing in an otherwise safe suburb and what could have happened to the girl. True the father came home early the afternoon the girl went missing, after the affair he was having ended badly and lost his temper when he saw her there after getting in trouble in school again. But what really happened? The story is told through multiple points of view and it seems that no one is really being totally truthful about what happened, what they know, what they suspect. The first half of the story was much stronger for me but as more and more of the mystery got answered, honestly, the less and less interested I was in the story, which really feels like the opposite of how that should go. 
Rating: 3 stars

A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz
Another book in the Hawthorne/Horowitz series. This time there's a murder on a remote island at a literary festival (a small literary festival). The island is on lockdown as they (and by they, really Hawthorne though it's fun that Horowitz tries) to solve the murder. These books are fun. Hawthorne has a lot of tropes you'd expect from a super smart detective and watching all of the new ways he exasperates Horowitz is a good time. Bonus is that my library seems to have the books with little to no wait so also a key reason I've already finished 3 in the series.
Rating: 3.5 stars

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
The story of Medusa. The story of Perseus. The story of Athena. Their stories are all intertwined, so of course you can't have one without the other. The story about who is a monster and who is a hero. A story about wrongs done to young women and the young women who are punished for having been wronged. Haynes has multiple narrators (Medusa sure, and Athena but other gods and demigods and titans and a crow and an olive tree and many more) but she manages to keep everyone straight, the narrators serve their purpose (yes, even the olive tree). The story has humor and cruelty and even when you know where the story is going, you hope that this time maybe things will turn out differently. 
Rating: 4.25 stars

Pages read
1,830

Fiction
80%

Female authors
40%

BIPOC authors
0%

US authors
40%

Reread
20%

Book club
20%

Book format
audiobook - 100%

Where'd I get the book
Library: 60%
Gift: 40%

Decade published
2020s: 100%

Resolution books
60%
Everyone Here is Lying is by a Canadian author
A Line to Kill and Stone Blind are both by UK authors

Friday, January 5, 2024

My Favorite Reads of 2023


Another year gone by, another post to reflect on my favorite books for the year. Some were new. Some were rereads. A lot of rereads. Considering I'm also starting 2024 with a reread (one of the ones below!) seems like I'm starting the year off right.

Top New (to me) Reads

 

The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley
How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Shur


Top Rereads

 




Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
World War Z by Max Brooks
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman 
https://whatredread.blogspot.com/2024/
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