2013 Reading, Books 28-30

28) Sidelines, by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Last week was an exhausting week in a stressful month--and, in probably not unrelated news, a week of both writer's block and reading drought. Reading this collection of essays, talks, blog posts, etc. by one of my favorite authors helped me break out of both problems. The short pieces on already-familiar works held my attention, and Bujold's thoughts on writing helped me look at my WIP with a new eye.


29) Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey.

I don't consider myself a fan of Westerns, and I've read very little in the genre. But some readers whose taste I trust mentioned this as an interesting book, so I gave it a try. And...it's interesting. It has a lush, old-fashioned style that kept me at something of a distance from the characters and their story. Though I'm not sure "old-fashioned" is the best way to describe it--I mean, Jane Austen wrote a good century earlier, and I never feel distanced from HER characters, nor do I from LM Montgomery's, who was a contemporary of Grey's. Anyway, Riders of the Purple Sage was interesting as an artifact of its time and a classic of its genre, but I'm not champing at the bit to read more like it.


30) Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search, Part 1, by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, Gurihiru, Dave Marshall.

First volume in a new series of graphic novels set between Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, and promising to solve the biggest mystery in the series--the fate of Zuko's mother. I enjoyed it and can hardly wait for the next volume in July...but mainly I'm dying to find other readers who've finished it so I can talk about the big wham reveal/cliffhanger on the last page and what it means for Zuko and the Fire Nation. (I'm torn between, "Wow, that explains so much," and "Wow, what a cop-out," and I can't decide whether I like the message of the story and Zuko's Hero's Journey better or worse with the new information in hand.)