Recommended Reads, March 2016

I know I've been neglecting my planned weekly recipe and making-me-happy posts--currently the issue is I've caught yet another Doom Cold, one that's had me laid up since last Saturday night.

I am, however, starting to improve, at least enough to sit up at the computer for a few minutes to pass along my recommended reads from March, in the order I read them:

Revisionary by Jim C. Hines

The final entry in Hines's Magic Ex Libris series. If you haven't read any of it yet, you'll want to go back to the beginning and start with Libriomancer. And if you're a fan of the series but hadn't realized this book was out, now you know.

It's hard to say much about a book deep in a series without giving too much away, but the general concept is our contemporary world, but with magic fueled by the shared belief of readers in fictional worlds--i.e. a magic wielder could pull Lucy's healing cordial from the Chronicles of Narnia, the invisibility cloak from the Harry Potter series, and so on. If that sounds intriguing to you, you'll most likely love these books.


The Horse by Wendy Williams

If, like me, you were the kind of kid who read all the Black Stallion books and all your hometown library's Marguerite Henry (my favorites were King of the Wind and Black Gold because RACEHORSES), you'll love this book. Especially if, also like me, you have a lifelong interest in evolutionary biology and like to keep up with its latest developments. Maybe a narrow target market after all? But if you're in it, read this book.






Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire

Like Revisionary, I only recommend this book if you've read what's gone before--it's Book 5 in a series about a family from a society of monster hunters gone rogue after they realized that not all, nor even most, of said "monsters" were actually deserving of slaughter. Instead, they're cryptozoologists, who study and protect the cryptids of the world, but with plenty of action fighting their old monster-hunting colleagues and such cryptids as really do pose a threat. The books are funny, playful, fast-paced and exuberantly inventive. If you're a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sleepy Hollow (especially in its crazy-good Season 1 incarnation), you need to read these books. Start with Discount Armageddon.

This latest entry returns to Verity, protagonist of the first two books, after spending Books 3 & 4 with her brother Alex, and IMHO it's the strongest story yet. 

Making Me Happy, 2/19/16

Happiness Friday!

First of all, I know I raved about Hamilton just last week, but this week it won Best Musical Theater Album at the Grammys and performed the opening number live from the Richard Rodgers theater, so you can see what the staging and actors look like.



This isn't my favorite song from the bunch, but it certainly does an impressive job of summing up the first two decades of Alexander Hamilton's life and foreshadowing the rest of it in four minutes...and it just confirms my belief that men's clothing has been going downhill since at least 1815. I would totally love to walk around in a world filled with men dressed like Hamilton and Burr in that clip...especially if I still got to keep my jeans, at least for everyday. (The big sweeping skirts and corsets might be fun for grand occasions.)

Moving along, I've been on an organizing fit lately, based partly on Marie Kondo's Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and partly on Fay Wolf's New Order. Right now I've my dresser, the pantry shelves, and the closet and bookshelves in my office the neatest they've EVER been, and it gives me such a feeling of relaxation to look at those neat, well-organized, uncluttered spaces. Hopefully by the end of the year the whole house will be the same way.

Last but far from least, I read my first Jim Butcher book this week (The Aeronaut's Windlass) and enjoyed it. There's always a special pleasure to discovering a new-to-you author with a nice long backlist to delve into.

Recommended Reads, January 2016

Jumping right back into the blogosphere with my recommended reads from this month, in the order I read them. (Note that only one is actually a January 2016 release--I'm rarely quite that timely in my reading. But in a world of ebooks and libraries, all of these should still be readily available for your reading pleasure.)

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu.

Recommended for: Anyone who enjoys epic fantasy about the fall and rise of kingdoms, especially if they like settings outside the standard medieval European-ish swords & sorcery. (Which, thankfully, is becoming less standard. Though I enjoy a good faux-Western medieval fantasy as much as the next reader, I also enjoy variety in the genre.)

While this isn't an all-time favorite for me--I tend to prefer a somewhat tighter POV approach, either first-person narration or a limited third person with an intimate focus on just a few characters (think Jacqueline Carey, Lois McMaster Bujold, or Naomi Novik), I loved the world-building and setting, which is based on the rise of the Han dynasty and China with elements of other cultures, including Japan and Polynesia, and I plan to read more in the series as it comes out.

A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston

Recommended for: Readers of YA and fantasy who like strong world-building, strong women and girls, and fairytale and legend retellings. (And also beautiful covers. Isn't that just gorgeous?)

I noticed a couple chapters in that I didn't know the first person narrator's name, nor that of most of the other characters--it was all my sister, my mother, my great-grandmother, etc. You'd think that would make it hard to keep track of characters or feel connected to them, but it didn't at all.

I enjoyed the heroine and her sister's resilience and determination. And the part of the world-building that stood out most to me was the character's form of ancestor worship where notable ancestors were set up as "smallgods," who both answered their family's prayers and drew power from being worshipped.

Katrina: After the Flood by Gary Rivlin

Because of the subject matter, I wouldn't say I enjoyed this book, exactly, but I found it readable and engrossing, and alternately encouraging and infuriating.

I followed Hurricane Katrina and its immediate aftermath as closely as anyone living far away from New Orleans, and I thought I knew a decent amount about the recovery and the current state of the city. This book showed me how much I didn't know, and made me think long and hard about how we as a nation handle disaster and recovery--and how our culture's biases with respect to race and class come out all the more strongly in the face of disaster. Have we learned anything that will make us better prepared the next time a major hurricane or big earthquake hits the US? I'd like to think so, but I have my doubts.

New Order: A Decluttering Handbook for Creative Folks (And Everyone Else) by Fay Wolf

I heard about this book on a recent DBSA podcast. Since I am eternally looking to improve my level of organization and time management, I decided to give it a try, especially given that bringing my house's chaos level down to something more manageable is one of my chief goals for 2016. (So far my clothes, bookshelves, and pantry have been decluttered, and it really does make me feel better about life.) This book gave me some great new ideas as I start to tackle some of the tougher projects, like kitchen tools, all the stuff we've shoved into our closets, the piles and boxes of papers, most of which are probably past their retention periods, etc.

2015 Reading, Books 37-42

37. An Invitation to Sin by Sarah Morgan

Harlequin Presents aren't my usual thing, but I do love Sarah Morgan's because she's so good at writing heroines who can stand up to the powerful, rich, sexy alpha heroes required by the line. In this one I enjoyed how the heroine's toughness and confidence upended all the hero's stereotypes and expectations about women without ever crossing the line (IMHO) into the dreaded "I love you because you're nothing like other women" trope.

38. What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan

A recommended read for anyone with at least moderately high familiarity with the Austen canon. (If you haven't read the books or maybe read Pride & Prejudice once 20 year ago, you'll be lost and bored.) Over 20 chapters, Mullan looks at how Austen handles topics such as marriage proposals, money, and characters' reading habits across her novels, along with aspects of her literary technique in point of view, dialogue, etc.

39. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When the South Dakota Historical Society Press decided to put out an annotated version of the autobiography that became the root of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, apparently they expected it to be of interest to a few historians and scholars, and then had to rush to print copies for all the people like me who read their Little House books into tatters as children!

And if you were also such a child, you should read this book. It's interesting to see how Wilder streamlined her real life into the fictional account. The real Ingalls family was less iconic--e.g. De Smet in the novels seems a lot more isolated than it really was. (Except during the Long Winter. The trains really couldn't get through the snow for months, the settlement really was that unprepared due to the early onset of that year's snows and the fact it was newly settled and therefore no one had managed a large crop that year or had much livestock, and you get the impression people did come damn close to starving. I even wonder if Laura was so very short as an adult, 4'11", partly because of enduring such an experience during her prime growth spurt period in early adolescence, though she probably would've been petite regardless.) But in some ways the real Ingalls family struggled more, since in the novels Wilder left out the worst of the poverty they occasionally fell into, the death of her baby brother, and sundry other incidents that wouldn't seem right for a kids' book.

40. Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

A YA novel set in the early 80's at the height of the Cold War (and HOW weird is it to see my own youth become an era that gets the retro treatment) about a teenager depressed over her childhood best friend's betrayal who goes out adventuring one night with the Russian girl next door (the daughter of Soviet diplomats). A quick, engaging read.

41. Promise of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst

First in a fantasy trilogy about a young wolf 14,000 years ago destined to become a bridge between wolfkind and humankind, and by extension between humanity and the natural world. While I wasn't absolutely blown away by it, I did enjoy it and was sufficiently intrigued to put the second book on hold at my library.

Incidentally, I thought of buying this book as a birthday present for my 11-year-old daughter. It's not YA per se, but it's a coming-of-age story, the reading level is well within her above-grade-level capacity, and she loves animal fantasies.

However, the Kindle edition is $13.99. I'm not normally one to whine about ebook pricing--to me, it's about the content, not the format, and I'm happy to pay the same price I would for a print edition, or very slightly lower because I can't give the ebook away or donate it to the library when I'm done, which lowers the value somewhat. But for a book that's been out since 2008, I don't want to pay more than a normal MMPB price, say $5.99 or $6.99 or so. Maybe I'm somewhat biased by the fact that before I was an ebook reader I was a MMPB reader for almost anything that wasn't a new release by an absolute favorite author--and even then I was willing to wait for the paperback or wait out the hold list for the library hardcover unless the prior book had ended on a cliffhanger. But that still seems high to me.

42. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers

This was a re-read of a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery I'd only read once, so many years ago that at first I barely remembered any of the plot, though it came back to me as I went along, enough so to give me the pleasant sensation of being ahead of the sleuth for a change. :-) Not my favorite Lord Peter book by a long shot--the story gets bogged down in the minutia of fen drainage and bell-ringing, IMHO--but a lesser Lord Peter book is still better than most of what's out there.

2015 Reading, Books 28-33

Wow, I hadn't realized it had been THIS long since I'd updated. Life has been a little crazy of late, especially the past week after a misstep on uneven pavement led to a faceplant, three hours in the ER, five stitches holding my lip together, and a face full of scabs.

But I'm now mostly recovered and trying to get caught up on everything that took a back seat to napping between doses of the good Tylenol. I'll have more to blog about later, but for now here's six books instead of three:

28. Rita book #8

This one came out in a near-tie with #4 as my favorite of this year's slate--and, as it happens, both are from the same imprint of the same publisher. Neither was necessarily the kind of book I rush to read in terms of setting, character type, etc., but both were strong enough that I think I'll be looking to the imprint in question for change-of-pace/palate cleanser reads in the future.

And that's it for Rita reads for the year, though I expect to be back in 2016 with more vaguely worded and cryptic contest commentary.

29. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Well, that took forever, but I finally completed my first book for March. (It wasn't this book that bogged me down--I spent too long on a book that just wasn't working for me because it's one enough other people have raved about that I kept plugging along thinking I'd eventually appreciate it. Didn't happen.)

But this book proved fascinating. It's a complex and intriguing debut SF novel, a bit more cerebral than my ideal for leisure reading, but compelling and impossible to put down for all that.

30. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

A book that manages the neat trick of being a compelling page turner despite its depressing subject matter--how we as humans are driving an extinction event that's beginning to rival that of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

31. The Nile by Toby Wilkinson

A sort of historical travelogue traversing the Nile from Aswan to Cairo. The book assumes a certain familiarity with the basic outline of Egyptian history, but as long as you have that I recommend it as a way to better tie that history to the geography. And it will never not blow my mind to reflect on the fact that the pyramids are more distant and time from Jesus and Julius Caesar than we are from them.

32. The Oldest Living Things in the World by Rachel Sussman

This is more of a coffee table book than the kind you'd ordinarily read straight through. I did read it quickly, but only because A) I got it from the library, and B) in my current wounded state, a book like this hits just the right spot. It's a photography book, with each set of pictures accompanied by a short essay on the ancient subjects and Sussman's experiences visiting and photographing them. Most of the life forms--trees, along with some lichens, mosses, corals, and the like--aren't all that impressive to gaze upon, though there are some striking exceptions, like the sequoia and baobab trees. And it's striking how many of the long-lived organisms are in bleak environments like deserts or the Arctic/Antarctic. Overall, the book is a testament to both the endurance and fragility of life, since many of the ancient lives recorded here are threatened by climate change.

33. Unbound by Jim C. Hines

Third in the Magic Ex Libris series, which continues to be one of my favorite current fantasy series. Hines continues to expand his world and bring added nuance to his core characters even while the plot races along at breakneck speed. And he's finally convinced me to wish I had a fire spider like Smudge even though I hate hate HATE spiders.

2015 Reading, Books 25-27

25. An Age of License by Lucy Knisley

The Year of the Memoir continues with a graphic memoir of a month Knisley spent in Europe in 2011. It's something of a coming-of-age travel diary, and one that I liked but didn't love. I got it to see if it might be a good read for my daughter as we're preparing for our month in Europe this summer and ended up concluding it wouldn't work for her. I'm fine with her reading above her age level--best and safest way to try on adulthood IMHO--but I don't think she'd connect with Knisley's writings the way she does with, say, Liz Prince.


26. Rita book #7

Not the best nor the worst of my slate this year. I only have one left, which I'm saving for next weekend--it's one that was already on my wish list by an author I've never read before but have heard nothing but good things about, so I'm hopeful.

27. The Just City by Jo Walton

Jo Walton writes thinky, idea-driven books, and this fantasy novel about a time-travel attempt to build Plato's ideal city of philosopher-kings (with the backing and participation of Athena and Apollo) is no exception. But unlike many idea-driven writers, she creates characters who are believable and human, not just mouthpieces for her Big Idea, and I enjoyed this very much, with two caveats:

1) It ends abruptly, though I've been told a sequel is in the works.

2) Much is made out of a robot spelling out the word "No"--whether it really happened, or was a prank by one of the teenaged "children" being raised according to Platonic ideals. There's talk of it being the English word, which none of the children should know, as they were brought from around the Mediterranean from no later than the Renaissance...only the kid everyone suspects most is Italian, and from late enough that he considers himself and his native language Italian rather than Roman/Latin. And the word for "no" in Italian? Is "no." Just like Spanish, another Mediterranean language. I'm stunned to think someone as well-educated as Walton wouldn't know that. Maybe there's some detail I'm missing, and she's right and I'm wrong. I'd be glad to hear it, if so.

Closing the book on 2014 reading and starting my 2015 reading

I spent last week visiting Mr. Fraser's family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between travel time and the odd quiet moment, I was able to finish 6 books--3 in 2014 and 3 in the new year:

The last of the 2014 reading:

140) Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell


A Hanukkah romance set at a Jewish summer camp trying to make a go of a winter break camp to build enthusiasm between terms. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood, but almost exclusively as campers and then counselors. They're now in their twenties, just stepping into their careers and feeling out a newfound attraction and what it means in their outside-of-camp worlds. Definitely the first book I've read where the hero is a mortician, and by the end of the book I found his career awesome rather than off-putting.

141) Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

A fun, quick romance about an aspiring politician who wants to keep family scandals going back generations buried and a history professor who needs his family records to keep her faculty position.

142) Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco

The simple summary: People have constantly been migrating, as DNA increasingly reveals. A little on the dry side, but worth a read if the topic is of interest to you.

And the first of 2015:

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler


A generally entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny memoir (though it gets a bit rambly at times). The chapters on focusing on creativity above career had a lot of resonance for me.

2. The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

The latest in Walker's endearing, food-porny mystery series. I pretty much guessed the murderer--at least, I suspected him before the sleuth did, which left me feeling clever.

3. Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin

A really excellent steampunk alternative history set in 1840's China. Plenty of adventure and a nice thread of romance.

It's already feeling a bit late to do a "best reads of 2014" list, but I might do one anyway sometime in the next week for the sake of reviewing the year and in case anyone is looking for some recommendations and, like me, doesn't have any particular compulsion to read new books the instant they appear. (Unless they're sequels to books that ended on cliffhangers, in which case GIVE GIVE GIVE NOW NOW NOW.)

For 2015, my reading goals are the same as always--read a lot, and read a good variety of genres and topics.

2013 Reading, Books 130-135

130) The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

A beautifully written fantasy novel with a mythic, fairytale feel. It's more literary in feel than my usual reading, but a pleasure to read for variety. I came away from it thinking that while I don't envy Gaiman's talent in the sense of wishing I wrote like him, I wish I was as good a writer like me as Neil Gaiman is a writer like Neil Gaiman.

131) An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America by Nick Bunker

A history of the years immediately preceding the American Revolution told mostly from the point of view of the British, and one that places the Revolution in the larger context of worldwide economic and political events--e.g. you can make a case that the Revolution occurred when and how it did because in the midst of an economic crisis the British East India Company was deemed Too Big to Fail. :-/ A worthwhile read if you're interested in this corner of history, and one that makes clear that far from being a tyrannical power, if anything Britain lost the initiative and arguably the war by being too cautious and divided to take decisive action before it was too late.

132) The Lucky Coin by Barbara Metzger

An agreeable Christmas story with a fairytale feel--you have to accept the notions of lucky coins and love at first sight, something I'm not always willing to do, but found enjoyable for a lunch hour read at the end of a busy week.

133) Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

A writing craft book, and a pretty good one IMHO. I consider it worth the purchase price just for the advice in the chapter on editing to create a timeline for your story and to include what each character knows and DOESN'T know in every scene.

134) The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

An unusual historical fantasy about the unlikely friendship between a golem and a jinni in turn-of-the-20th-century New York as both of them struggle to make sense of their new surroundings (Chava the golem is recently created, while Ahmad the jinni is recently released from a long imprisonment in a flask). It's well-written, with an intricate if slow-paced plot, and somewhat in the Star Trek tradition of exploring what it means to be human through the eyes of those who aren't quite.

(Incidentally, its current Kindle price is just $2.99, way lower than its print price and a good deal for a book of its length and quality IMHO.)

135) My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas

A fast-paced, sweeping adventure romance set in China and England, and so compelling I read it in a single afternoon.

2014 Reading, Books 127-129

127) Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton

A quick, fun read that debunks almost everything you've ever read on Facebook about the origins of words and phrases. E.g. "Ring Around the Rosie" is not based on folk memory of the bubonic plague, a word which I will politely leave untyped (on Twitter I'm wont to use "rhymes with yuck!" when things go poorly for my chosen sportsball teams) is not an acronym of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, etc. Little of it was new to me, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.

128) Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

The first book in Kowal's Glamourist Histories fantasy series is very much a Austen pastiche--down to using old-fashioned spellings like "chuse" for "choose" and "shewed" for "showed." The characters and situations feel very similar, too. The heroine's parents are very Bennet-like, the villain reminds me of both Willoughby and Wickham, etc. I found myself wishing it was less Austenian in spots, since the voice made the occasional small anachronisms stand out more. That said, I enjoyed this book and plan to continue with the series.

129) Bruno and the Carol Singers by Martin Walker

A Christmas short story in the Bruno Courreges mystery series set in the French countryside. As a story it's quick, slight, and straightforward, but it was a pleasant visit with the characters and setting (these things are straight-up food and rural French living porn--reading them made me add the Dordogne to the itinerary for our Europe trip next summer). It also reminded me to search for any new full-length entries since I last read the series. There are two, and I'll be reading them soon.

2014 Reading, Books 118-120

118) The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by Sasha Abramsky

The second book I've read this month about growing poverty and income inequality in America, over the course of my entire 40-something year lifetime and especially in the wake of the Great Recession, and it draws much the same conclusions as Bob Herbert's Losing Our Way. Basically, it's not that we lack the resources as a nation to combat poverty, decaying infrastructure, persistent unemployment and the like--we lack the political will, empathy, compassion, and general sense that we're all in it together as a nation. And I wish I felt optimism that we could regain all those fine qualities, but I don't.

119) The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer

A fun look at what everyday life was like in Elizabethan England, more broad than deep in its scope.

120) Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

An engaging, unusual fantasy novel that I recommend highly, with the caveat that this is a book that engrossed my head rather than my heart. I found myself thinking, "This is fantasy, but it feels like science fiction." When I asked myself what I meant by that (yeah, I know that sounds weird), I realized that I think of science fiction as technologically driven, while fantasy is more about sociology and/or spirituality. Which also explains why I think of the Vorkosigan Saga as being science fiction that reads like fantasy--sure, it's 1000 years into the future and humanity has colonized a bunch of planets linked by a "wormhole nexus," but the books are about people, their cultures, and where they find meaning. Whereas this book is gods and magic--as a technology. It's very well-done with intricate world-building and plotting. As such I expect to read more, but since I was reading with the head and not the heart, I doubt I'll ever turn into the kind of one-woman street team for these books that I am for the Vorkosigan series.

2014 Reading, Books 115-117

115) Dust and Light by Carol Berg

An interesting, intense first-person fantasy novel about a young mage trying to make sense of personal tragedies and his own falling out of favor with the magical authorities against a backdrop of war, famine, and murder. I didn't quite love the book, but I liked it a whole lot.

116) A Home for Hannah by Patricia Davids

I wouldn't want a steady diet of Davids' Amish inspirational romances (though if you've followed my reading log for long you may have noticed I wouldn't want a steady diet of anything). But I do find them to be exceptionally fine palate cleansers, and reading them always makes me think of my mom, who loved gentle, sweet stories (and couldn't quite comprehend my pleasure in the grittier side of fiction--e.g. she found Buffy the Vampire Slayer appalling, and I just know she wouldn't have cared for Game of Thrones or the Kushiel series). This one wasn't as tightly plotted as previous books I've read by Davids, but it was still an enjoyable way to pass a lunch hour yesterday and a chunk of a holiday morning today.

117) Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar by Adam Nicolson

Rather than a standard battle history, this book is more of a series of meditations on the English national character (with thoughts on France and Spain as well) during the turbulent transitional era that was the turn of the 19th century. I didn't necessarily agree with every word, but it was a fascinating read.

2014 Reading, Books 103-105

My pace of reading has slowed considerably of late because for the past two weeks or so much of my spare time has gone to first watching the TV series Sleepy Hollow in its entirety from the premiere up to this Monday's episode, then reading Sleepy Hollow fanfic and watching the first few episodes again with Miss Fraser. It's an addiction, but a fun one. I should really do a post on how Tom Mison's Ichabod Crane is a perfect historical romance hero (all the charm, gentility, and ability to work boots and a long coat of the past with none of the bigotry and misogyny!), but for now here's some eye candy:

So. I've been behind on my reading. But I haven't stopped, to wit:

103) The Shelf by Phyllis Rose

Another entry in a memoir genre I tend to find enjoyable--author takes on a quirky project, anything from cooking her way through a cookbook to living out a literal interpretation of some sacred text, and writes about her experiences. Rose takes a library shelf--fiction, with a mix of classics, modern literary fiction, and mysteries--and reads her way through it. Along the way she describes her reactions, researches the authors (even meeting two of the living ones), and digresses interestingly about issues ranging from the continued bias against women's writing to how library collections are weeded. Even though my reading tastes and Rose's don't match much beyond Harry Potter and Jane Austen, I still enjoyed her voice. I definitely recommend this for anyone who likes books about books and reading.

104) Unraveled by Courtney Milan

The final book in Milan's Turner family series--I'd read the other two brothers' stories, but awhile back, so my memory needed some jogging on their backstories. As is always the case, I enjoyed Milan's strong writing, gift for characterization, and ability to make standard romance tropes entirely her own. I tend to buy her books and hoard them on my Kindle against the point I'll be, say, stuck on an airplane or in a waiting room, because I know I'll get an excellent reading experience.

105) Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

This book, while engaging, is structured almost like a series of linked short stories, so it was easy to put down after a chapter or two and take up later, at least until the last third or so when the overall narrative picks up pace. The protagonist, Rose, is the "Phantom Prom Date," a girl killed in a car accident on the way to her prom in 1952 who's been a ghost ever since, a ghost of the road who helps travelers when she can--even if it's only easing them into the world of the dead--and who's looking for revenge against...well, the man who killed her, only it's a bit more complex than that and he's not exactly a man.

2014 Reading, Books 88-90

88) What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

My husband recommended this book to me. It's about both distance running--a new obsession of his--and writing--my own obsession and vocation. As such it's something of a meditation on the focus and perseverance it takes to finish a marathon (or a novel) and then keep doing it again and again, and it's also a book about finding a way to keep pursuing such grueling and challenging passions as one ages--something of increasing interest to me now that I'm having to acknowledge that whether I like it or not, I am getting to be middle-aged, and I have to listen to my body's limits.

89) A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren


So, I read this book. To say what I thought of it would be to get more political than I like to do on my author blog, especially because I wouldn't be able to resist talking about the 2016 election...so let's just not go there.

90) The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is one of Bujold's earliest works, and probably her least-known book. I've had sitting on my TBR shelf for ages but just never quite got around to reading it, because no one was telling me, "OMG you must read this!" the way they did with the Vorkosigan Saga or her more recent fantasy novels.

While it's not her best work--she's definitely an author whose work improved over time--I'm very glad I read it. My favorite kind of fantasy reads like historical fiction, but with a few twists to keep it from being tethered to what actually happened, whether it's something like Naomi Novik where it's our world, but with dragons, or more like Jacqueline Carey or Guy Gavriel Kay where the map is the same but the names are changed. This is the first time--the story is set in a recognizable Renaissance Italy, only one with magic, in its more benign forms sanctioned by the Catholic church and society as a whole. But of course magic isn't always benign...

Definitely an enjoyable read, and one with a nice romantic subplot for its young protagonists.

2014 Reading, Books 70-72

Life is starting to calm down a little, so hopefully I'll be returning to a regular blogging schedule soon. In the meantime, here's what I've been reading.

70) Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World by Dan Koeppel

A worthwhile read on the history of the banana, especially over the last century as it became the world's most popular fruit, focusing on the political havoc wreaked by the big banana companies in the 20th century and the disease threats imperiling today's banana crops--both the monoculture Cavendish variety (i.e. what an American or European thinks of as "a banana") and the handful of varieties that are major food staples in parts of Africa. A bit dry and meandering compared to some food history books, but I'm glad I read it.

71) Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

While I tend to agree with the readers who say this isn't Allende's best work, it's still a gorgeously lyrical story of the Haitian Revolution and of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century.

72) Codex Born by Jim Hines

While not quite as exuberantly fun as Libriomancer, the first book in the series, this is an enjoyable and fast-paced adventure set in a world where libriomancers have the power to pull objects into the world from books.

2014 Reading, Books 55-57

FYI, I've at long last turned in the manuscript for my January 2015 historical romance (title and exact release date TBD), so I hope to resume a more regular blogging schedule from here.

55) Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times by Lucy Lethbridge

I'd hoped based on the title that there would be a lot more of the 19th century in this book. Since I write the Regency, that's my primary area of interest, after all. But this book is basically about how the role of domestic servants in British society declined from its Edwardian peak, with special attention to how the wars of the 20th century shook up the British class system. Fascinating, but not quite what I was hoping for. If you're a big Downton Abbey fan, you'd probably love this.

56) The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson

A YA novel about a 15-year-old girl living with her mother and little brother as refugees near Washington DC after her father is overthrown in a coup in her unnamed Middle Eastern native country. We watch her deal with PTSD and culture shock and try to navigate her mother's ongoing political scheming. Above all, she has to come to terms with the fact her beloved, doting father was in fact an oppressive tyrant. Very well-written and compelling, though those who hate first person and/or present tense narration should stay away.

57) What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton.

This book is a compilation of author Jo Walton's blog posts at tor.com, mostly on her experiences re-reading classic science fiction and fantasy. (Though "classic" is a relative term--many of the books she discusses are from the 90's or the first decade of this century, so they haven't stood the test of much time yet.)

I read the book because I greatly enjoy Walton's posts about Lois McMaster Bujold and the Vorkosigan Saga--i.e. my favorite books by my current favorite author--even if we don't read them in quite the same way. E.g. I found the Miles-Ekaterin romance entirely convincing and moving, but I couldn't connect as well to Mark and Kareen. We're not total Vorkosigan-opposites, though. Like me, she's most interested in the Barrayar-focused parts of the series. I once ran across a reviewer whose rankings for the series was almost exactly the opposite of mine--he preferred the more space-operatic entries, while I prefer the Barrayar books.

Anyway. Walton's discussions of Bujold made her someone whose opinions on books I take notice of, even knowing her tastes don't entirely overlap mine. I saw a recent thread on tor.com where she was asking for recommendations, but very politely asked people to stop suggesting she read Naomi Novik's Temeraire books or Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy, because they're just not her thing. I adore both of those series, and for me that adoration inhabits a similar region of my reader-brain as my love for Bujold, or for Walton's own Tooth and Claw. So color me baffled. It's not like I'd expect someone who shares my taste in, say, historical romance, to also like the same nonfiction popular science I'm into, but I'm used to a bit more within-genre overlap. OTOH, there are authors out there you'd think I adore who leave me cold--I can think of one whose characters spend too much time feeling sorry for themselves and wallowing in self-abasement, and another whose heroines are too passive, and WHY ARE THOSE BOOKS SO POPULAR?! and WHY CAN'T ANYONE ELSE *SEE*?!...so Walton is allowed to have a similar reaction to authors I love.

All that said, I think the best way I can review this book is to list all the "book bullets" that got added to my TBR as I read along:

Random Acts of Senseless Violence - Jack Womack
Biting the Sun - Tanith Lee
Janissaries - Jerry Pournelle
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean (this one I've read before, but it's been years)
Kalpa Imperial - Angélica Gorodischer
A Shadow in Summer - Daniel Abraham
Kindred - Octavia Butler
Fire on the Mountain - Terry Bisson
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula LeGuin
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Midshipman's Hope - David Feintuch
The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
Jhereg - Steven Brust
The Interior Life - Katherine Blake
The Discovery of France - Graham Robb (nonfiction, but sounds fascinating and relevant to some of my research interests)
Planet of Exile - Ursula LeGuin
The Chronoliths - Robert Charles Wilson

The good news is that most of these seem to be available either as reasonably-priced ebooks or at my local library. Unfortunately, I couldn't find The Dragon Waiting or The Interior Life at either place, and Planet of Exile seems to be only available as an audiobook. I don't do audiobooks, at least not for fiction. I listen to nonfiction podcasts all the time, but for fiction I want to dive in, and I can't do that just listening to something. That said, it looks like I could get all three as used mass market paperbacks. Back when Amazon, eBay, and the like were newer things, I used to order used paperbacks all the time, but I've gotten out of the habit since so many authors started putting their backlists out as ebooks.

2014 Reading, Books 49-54

49. Secrets of a Bollywood Marriage by Susanna Carr.

A quick, relaxing read that hit the spot during a stressful, busy time. That said, it's definitely a "fight-fight-kiss" romance, and the last fight came so close to the end of the book I wasn't sure I believed they'd learned how to communicate well enough for the kissing to be more frequent than the fighting in their future.

50) Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception by Claudia Hammond

If you like popular science or psychology books, I recommend this exploration of how we experience time. It's fun and readable without feeling dumbed down, and it closes with a practical chapter on how to better manage your experience of time, if not time itself.

51) Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear.

Epic fantasy (which I love) with a twist (something I also generally love). The setting is recognizably similar to our world--something like Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series in that the map will look really familiar, though the fantastical elements are more forward. However, rather than being set in an alternate Europe, this story centers on an alternate central Asia. It ranges across a large chunk of its globe through the eyes of multiple characters, but its focus is a young man named Temur, grandson of a Genghis Khan-like figure, though he's surrounded by a cast of strong women. I enjoyed it very much and plan to read the sequels.

52) Only Human by Gareth Roberts.

A Doctor Who novel, and one that felt like reading an average episode of the show...in a good way. Another fun, relaxing read as I fight my way through my current writing deadline.

53) Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood by Nathan Hale.

The fourth in this series of graphic novels about American history manages, at least in my opinion, to make WWI palatable and understandable for its middle grade audience without dumbing down the material or treating the war lightly. FWIW, my 10-year-old pronounced it good, though not as funny as the previous three. If you've got a child in the right age group, get them these books. Schools don't teach enough history these days, in my not at all humble opinion, and this series strikes the perfect balance of informative and fun.

54) The Marathon Conspiracy by Gary Corby.

This must be my week for just-released Books 4. I enjoyed this latest entry in Corby's series about Nicolaos, a fictional elder brother of Socrates solving crime in Periclean Athens. Especially recommended for fans of Lindsey Davis's Falco series, since it has a similar combination of humor and modern tone with rich historical detail.

2014 Reading, Books 46-48

46) Katie's Redemption by Patricia Davids.

Amish romance fiction is one of those things I thought I'd never be interested in, but I happened across one of this author's other books earlier and enjoyed it enough to want to try her again. And while I don't know if it's an accurate portrayal of Amish life, I found it worked surprisingly well for me. For one thing, it reminds me of my mother. She passed away four years ago, and she loved gentle, sweet inspirational romances. Our reading tastes diverged more than they converged as I grew up, but I miss her, and reading something she would love feels good, you know?

Also, I don't read a lot of inspirational romance for the same reason I'm not a big fan of small-town contemporary romance--I'm a city-dwelling Episcopalian who grew up a rural Southern Baptist. I don't necessarily want to read books set in a world I chose to walk away from because they so often condemn people who've made such choices, whether overtly or covertly. But I was never anything close to Amish. It's not my world, so when, as in this book, a heroine chooses to return to the Amish church after some time in the "English" world, I don't react to it personally.

And finally, it's nice every once in awhile to read a gentle, quiet story where the stakes and characters aren't so over-the-top. Don't get me wrong. I like the big, the epic, the superlative. But sometimes I enjoy a story like this where the hero and heroine are just striving for a happy ordinary life. It's relaxing, and that's exactly what I needed this weekend.

47) His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik.

I read this book when it first came out--in fact, my reaction upon hearing someone had written a book reminiscent of the Aubrey-Maturin series, but with dragons, was, "Someone wrote a book just for ME?!?" I love it, and I've given it to someone almost every year in SantaThing, but this is the first time I've re-read it from cover to cover, and it's even better than I remembered. Reading it from the vantage of having read all its sequels, I can see how well Novik set up Temeraire's intelligence and independence and hinted at all the change and disruption he'll cause just by being himself. Wonderful, wonderful book.

48) On the Map by Simon Garfield.

A history of maps, mapmaking, and exploration. Interesting, but episodic, with brief chapters that almost stand alone--it would be the perfect book to have around in the bathroom, of if you want to read for 15-20 minutes at bedtime, without the fear of getting so hooked you'll be up at 3 AM before you know it.

2014 Reading, Books 37-42

Still plugging away at the manuscript that's due April 30, but forcing myself to make time to read so I get the occasional brain break:

37) Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire.

This book was just plain fun. At first I missed Verity, the protagonist of the two previous InCryptid novels, but once I got used to her more serious science geek brother Alex, I enjoyed this story of paranormal murders at an Ohio zoo.

38) An Heir of Uncertainty by Alyssa Everett.

Alyssa is one of my critique partners and Carina one of my publishers, so I can't be totally objective about her books. With that caveat, this book shows Alyssa's deep understanding of the Regency era and her elegant voice. It's a well-paced, romantic story with relatable characters. My one caveat is I wish there had been a little more space in the denouement to show the hero and heroine coming to terms with the identity of the murderer.

39) The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief by George M. Marsden.

Marsden looks at the subtle fault lines in American culture in the 1950s--ways the consensus worldview, a mix of Protestant faith and Enlightenment philosophy, was starting to break down, ultimately creating the culture war of the past three decades. I don't usually delve so deeply into philosophy, theology, or psychology, but I'm glad I read this book. I feel like it gave me a deeper insight into the events and ideas that created the world I was born into.

40) The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas.

A beautifully written historical romance set in late Victorian England. The hero is that staple of romance fiction, the man who won't let himself love because his parents' terrible relationship made him afraid to trust love in general or women in particular, but Thomas made the resulting conflict feel more human and believable than this trope usually is for me. That said, the heroine forgives him a lot quicker than I would've done...

41) Newton's Football: The Science Behind America's Game by Allen St. John & Ainissa Ramirez.

A quick, interesting read on some of the science behind football--everything from the West Coast offense to how improved tackling technique and better helmets could reduce concussion risk.

42) The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold.

I've read this novella once before, but I'd forgotten what a strong punch it packs. It's such a perfect encapsulation of everything important about the world of the Vorkosigan series and beautifully written and constructed to boot. I...I just wish I could write like that.

2013 Reading, Books 109-111

109) Through the Evil Days, by Julia Spencer-Fleming.

After two and a half years, finally another entry in one of my favorite mystery series. I loved it, and was especially impressed how Spencer-Fleming switched POVs among five or six characters without ever tempting me to skip ahead to the next section featuring my favorites. (I tend to do that with George RR Martin, and with Herman Wouk's Winds of War and War and Remembrance it was years before I went back and read all the stuff about the Pacific theater of the war, I was so much more interested in Natalie Jastrow and whether she survived than any of that submarine and battleship stuff.) That said, she ended on ANOTHER cliffhanger, and how many more years will I have to wait before I know if Clare's, um, how to say this without being spoilery, health situation works out OK?

110) Od Magic, by Patricia McKillip.

This is a lushly lyrical fantasy--really MORE lush and lyrical than my usual reading taste that follows several characters through a crisis in how their kingdom manages magic. It's not a big, epic war and/or quest fantasy (which I confess to a certain partiality for), nor does it focus tightly enough on any one character that I connected to the story as much as I like, but I'm glad I read it nonetheless, variety being good for the brain and imagination IMHO.


111) Oh Myyy! There Goes the Internet, by George Takei.

A light, fun look at George Takei's current life as an unlikely septuagenarian internet celebrity. It was the perfect relaxing read for a day when I was home with a bad shoulder and feeling sorry for myself, but it's not pure fluff. Takei doesn't hide his activist side WRT gay rights or building awareness of Japanese-American internment during WWII, and he also has some good thoughts on Facebook and Twitter for those of us who use social media for publicity.

2013 Reading, Books 100-102

My reading pace has slowed down with the fall, but I'm finally past the century mark!

100) Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search, Part 3, by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante, Bryan Konietzko, Dave Marshall (Editor).

The biggest mystery left open at the end of the original Avatar: the Last Airbender series was the fate of Zuko's mother. It was SUCH a mystery, and speculated about SO much by fans of the show, that its ultimate resolution in this graphic novel series was all but doomed to disappointment. And...I was a little disappointed. I'm glad her story wasn't as dark as it could be, but the resolution felt almost too easy--except for the part where there was no sign of resolution for Azula's character. But maybe there will be another series that redeems her, or at least reveals her eventual fate.

Non-Avatar viewers, I'm sorry for all the random babble, but this is the kind of story you'd only be into if you know the series backwards and forwards.

Incidentally, when I went to Amazon for the link, I saw that the book has an average rating of 2 stars. At first I thought, "Wow, people must've been SERIOUSLY disappointed with the ending," but it turned out lots of people who preordered the Kindle version got an entirely different book delivered. Which...that's extremely annoying, but is the star system really the right way to deliver that message? It seems to me the rating is about the quality of the product, and that it's not fair to the creators to have their rating dragged down because Amazon bollixed its delivery. That said, as an author I'm not without bias in how I evaluate rating systems, their purpose, and their effects.

101) Blood of Tyrants, by Naomi Novik.

Eighth in what apparently will be a nine-book series. I raced through it breathlessly in two days. It's always good to see Temeraire again, and I was fascinated to see how Novik kept the general outline of Napoleon's Russian campaign while working in both sides' dragon armies. It was also cool to finally meet American dragons, though I did question her world-building a bit. We've seen all along that dragons in the non-European world are better treated than the Aerial Corps of the European powers (at least before Temeraire and Lien came along), and I can sort of buy that even by the early 19th century the British wouldn't have a clear understanding of how the draconic and human communities coexisted in, say, Africa or East Asia. But since it's clear America's colonial history played out at least somewhat similar to that of the real world (albeit clearly with Native Americans maintaining more power and autonomy because of their alliance with American dragons), I can't see why Britain and France couldn't have learned to treat dragons better from their experiences here.

But that's nitpicking, and I do love this series. I'm only annoyed at Novik for ending on such a cliffhanger! I hope Book 9 won't be too long in coming.

Incidentally, isn't that a beautiful cover?

102) French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792-1815, by Paddy Griffith.

I realized early on upon starting to draft my current work-in-progress, which is set during the French invasion of Russia in 1812, that due to my relative lack of knowledge about the French army compared to the British army of the same era, I'm floundering for humanizing details of my French military characters' lives. So I've set my manuscript aside for the time being and am giving myself a crash course on all things French and Napoleonic. This particular book is as basic a survey as you could find, but it busts some of the myths about the French army (they did not inevitably attack in column rather than line!), and gives me a sense of what my French hero would've experienced serving during the heights of the Grande Armee's glory 1805-07 and how much it had gone downhill by 1812.