I read:

Thoughts:

Dreamsongs by George R. R. Martin: I didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me, before beginning to rub me the wrong way again. There were a few tortuously mediocre stories to drag down the ones that were so much better. Overall, the earlier stories especially, they were all built up with no real ending, just us being treated again and again to a hit-my-word-count-wrap-it-up sort of ending; I get it, many stories in outer space, easy out is Let’s leave the planet, but what’s the point of building up a world to just toss it aside. Perhaps all you GoT fans should take his inability to write a satisfying ending as a warning.

Also, while not as bad as Haruki Murakami, he writes too much talk about breasts. I don’t care about breasts. Let it go breast-loving-writers-of-the-world, let it go.

You Can’t Bury Them All by Patrick Woodcock: Reviewed earlier this month.

Girl At War by Sara Nović: I wish there’d been an ending, instead of nothing, instead of just staring up at the stars. This was not a good month for books with good endings.

The Little Black Fish by Bizhan Khodabandeh: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Thickety: The Well of Witches by J.A. White: How did I not know this was a tetrology? I’m getting to the end of the this third book and thinking to myself Wow, he has a lot to wrap up here and then the book ends and Tesfa is like “What? Is that it?” so we had to go online to find out there is going to be a forth book. Phew.

You by Caroline Kepnes: So if the purpose of a book is to make sure that the reader is hooked until the end, I guess You satisfied that criterion. But there’s something pornographic about how the book revels in the narrator’s violence. It made me queasy (not the violence, the almost celebration of it). I don’t know if Kepnes was doing it on purpose or it was unintentional.

There’s a sequel I’ll likely forego. I’m not that interested in POVs from the inside of psychopaths’ heads right now. Since they have no empathy, it always ends up being sort of dull in the end anyway.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: Not being American, I never read this in school. Not a big fan of the opened ending.

Shielding the Flame by Hanna Krall: I think I may be reading too many books about the Holocaust.

The Russian and Ukrainian Notebooks by Igort: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin: Why do books not have endings? Why why why why why? There’s a difference between an ending which opens up a world and one that is just annoying. Am I the only writer/reader who is currently enamored with closure or something?

Secondhand Memories by Takatsu: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Witch Who Came in From the Cold by Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone, Ian Tregillis, Cassandra Rose Clarke, and Michael Swanwick: Review forthcoming, probably by the end of the weekend.

Favourite book:

My queasiness continues. What does it say about me that my “favourite” book of the month was about the Holocaust? Maybe I’m a sociopath and don’t know it yet.

Most promising book on my wishlist:

Not out for awhile yet. Maybe Netgalley will give me a free copy, since they seem to give me lots of famous authors when I ask for them.

I watched:

I complain about violence and then watch Luther, so I guess I’m pretty inconsistent, aren’t I.

I wrote:

Faeries. My goal for end of summer completion seems more and more unlikely with each day. I’m pretty sure no sentence that was in the first draft is still intact at this point. It would probably be easier just to scrap it and rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

I read:

Thoughts:

Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis: This is what I get when I read a book knowing nothing about it other than it won the Giller so I felt I should read it the same way I should eat kale more often and floss my teeth: a book about fifteen dogs. I’m not quite sure why, given the title, this surprised me. But it did. Dogs. Inside their heads. At least it was better than that book I read about cats with the resurrected souls of those interned in Père Lachaise.

Tears in the Grass by Lynda A. Archer: Reviewed earlier this month.

Inside by Alix Ohlin: One of those throw-in-a-genocide books that I frequently complain about to Geoff (see here and here for some bloggy examples). If you’re going to put a genocide in your story, you really have to have something (a depth? a deftness? a skill?) that isn’t available in Inside. The book didn’t bother me as much as it did, say, William Giraldi, and I’d already forgotten I read it until I went to write this post, so I guess that’s a review in and of itself.

Veins by Drew: Hee hee hee. I liked it.

The Good Earth by Pearl Luke: Being a woman in China at the time of this book sucked, which I suppose I already knew if I’d bothered to think about it for more than half a second.

Bandit by Molly Brodak: A review will be posted closer to the book’s publication date.

PS, I Still Love You by Jenny Han: Teenage schmaltz that I devoured in one sitting.

Favourite book:

It might be sinful how much I love this book. I read it to Tesfa again, but really, I was reading it for me, not her. Why was I born me and not born Claudia Kincaid?

(Because she is a fiction, yes, I know.)

Most promising book on my wishlist:

I watched:

I wrote:

Faerie story proof-read. Nothing new written. Mystery story published.

I read:

Thoughts:

Hyperspace by Michio Kaku: I liked this quote Mathematics … is the set off all possible self-consistent structures.

Movie Game by Michael Ebner: ARC. Review will be published on the book’s publication date of May 5, 2016. Spoiler: I do not recommend this book.

Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota: Somehow this book seemed detached from now, like it was set in the 1970s instead of 2012 or whenever. The ending was a warm glow, but unrealistic.

Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman: So there’s a puzzle that’s supposed to be super-difficult to solve, except it isn’t and so the whole book seems ridiculous. I get it’s a kids’ book, so the puzzle can’t be on the level of understanding quantum physics, but no one could really believe that an adult was expecting other adults to solve a puzzle so trivial. So after this book, you’ll notice we went back to Lemony Snicket.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: Yes, I have finally started the Neapolitan novels. I have also corrected where I thought Naples was on my mental map of Italy as well.

Life from Elsewhere by Various: Journeys Through World Literature: ARC. Review will be published on the book’s publication date of June 21, 2016.

Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, a new translation by A.D.P. Briggs: ARC. Review will be be published on the book’s publication date of July 12, 2016.

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman: Be bone audacious but mally unsatisfies in parts. Ya post book Internet done tell me ain’t end of story for my Ice Cream Star. There likely be another book to fix how this one end just stop. And Ice Cream Star, she be a classic character paradigm: the Heroic Epic leading child. Is why she be too good to be the truth: how smart she be, how beauty, how all other children love her and how all men they crave her touch. I think this mally sort of character. I no really want to read bout no girl larger-than-life-unreal. I did though. Might read next book too if it appear.

Recorder and Randsall by Meme Higashiya: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips: Meh. I need to stop thinking I’m going to like books before I read them.

Middle-Aged Boys & Girls by Diane Bracuk: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli: I’d forgotten about the existence of tobacco readers, which the book talks about. Sometimes I think I’m like a tobacco reader for Tesfa — reading her stories while she plays or colours on the floor next to me. As for the book itself, almost the right level of quirk. Almost.

Charlotte by David Foenkinos: ARC. Review will be published on the book’s publication date of May 3, 2016.

Favourite book:

It’s my blog, so I can choose the same favourite book again and again and again and again.

Or, I suppose if I have to not just re-read Lemony Snicket for the rest of my life:

The ending’s warm glow. So warm and sweet.

Most promising book on my wishlist:

Krall had some pieces in Life from Elsewhere and I want to read more.

I watched:

I wrote:

So much proofreading. Faerie faerie faerie faerie faerie faerie proofreading.

I also wrote a story based on a dream. Geoff liked it (the story).

I read:

Thoughts:

Ghost Summer Stories by Tananarive Due: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Templeton Twins Have An Idea by Ellis Weiner: Similar, but not nearly as wonderful as A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Horror Library+: The Best of Volumes 1-5 edited by R.J. Cavender: Reviewed earlier this month.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: Oh, teen romance novels.

Slow Boat to China by Kim Chew Ng: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Whispering Trees by J.A. White: Not as awesome the previous book.

Purity by Jonathan Franzen: I liked it more than The Corrections, but as I read the last sentence, the thought meaningless came to mind.

The People in the Castle by Joan Aiken: Reviewed earlier this month.

Yuki Chan in Brontë Country by Mick Jackson: Reviewed earlier this month.

Favourite book:

I didn’t really have a book that I really loved this month. I didn’t have a very I-like-things sort of month. Lice were involved.

Most promising book on my wishlist:

I watched:

I wrote:

I worked on this.

I read:

Thoughts:

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood: Why does the cover have a picture of a woman with long dark hair? Charmaine is described about a million times as being blonde, and the only woman discussed who has dark hair has it cut short. The cover does not match the inside! Details, people! Details!

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: Like everything you hoped The Goldfinch would be. Also, though, unrelenting. I would recommend this to everyone I know who reads, but I can’t imagine people pushing through the bleakness of it all, even though I did.

I will never write as well as Yanagihara does in this book. It makes me want to quit writing.

The Evolution of Alice by David Alexander Robertson: Reviewed at length earlier this month.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin: Ah, such teenage snark and melodrama. Big throbbing heart from me.

The Violin of Auschwitz by Maria Angels Anglada: I wish it wasn’t so sloppily written or translated. Reads at times like a high school student writing her serious novel.

The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig by Stefan Zweig: Reviewed at length earlier this month.

Nimona by: Why did they make the font so small? So teeny and hard to read. After I read it, Tesfa insisted she read it too, so I let her.

Favourite book:

I read less this month because I had a book hangover from A Little Life and didn’t want anything else to read but this again, except I had to take it back to the library the day after I finished it so I couldn’t read it again immediately.

Most promising book on my wishlist:

This Is Not My Life by Diane Diane Schoemperlen.

I’d put a cover up but the cover is TBA.

I watched:

I wrote:

Proofreading faerie story. Finishing up story about Larkspur, who’s a demon, but didn’t type it up and will likely forget to forever. Not much else.

I read:

Thoughts:

I read and reviewed a lot of my Netgalley books this month.

The Cruel Country by Judith Ortiz Cofer: Reviewed here.

A Place for Margaret by Bernice Thurman Hunter: When I was seven, my father bought me this book from a business trip. Now Tesfa is seven, I read it to her, another copy that I found at the Salvation Army store in town. I’d forgotten how earnest a book it is. Everyone is just so plum nice. And many of the side characters have ridiculously alliterative names (Archie Arbuckle, Matilda Maggotty, etc.). I can’t decide whether the book holds up or not. Tesfa liked bits and pieces of it, but didn’t seem eager for me to read the next two books in the series to her. I might anyway, because I can’t rightly recall what happens in the third book.

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert: Reviewed here.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari: I wasn’t going to read this, but then I watched Master of None last month on Netflix and the book was $10 at Chapters so I picked it up. It’s actually quite amusing.

The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary: Reviewed here.

The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt: Reviewed here.

Skeptic by Michael Shermer: Reviewed here.

A Cure for Madness by Jodi McIsaac: Reviewed here.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: Perfect level of spooky. Much better than the spookiness and eventual mess that this month’s earlier spooky attempt The Children’s Home made.

Unnatural Selection by Emily Monosson: Reviewed here. You would have thought though that the publisher would have picked a different name since Mara Hvistendahl’s Unnatural Selection was all over the feminist-blogosphere not so long ago.

The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen: I really wanted to adore this book. Instead, I feel like yelling Make up your mind — be supernatural or not! Almost worth it though for the ending (non-supernatural) Gotcha!

Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso by Kali Nicole Gross: Reviewed here.

Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt: Awwwwww. Such a sweet story. Like eating cotton candy without feeling sick afterwards.

Favourite book:

I cried. The whole way through this book. Like pretty much non stop for the hour it took me to read it.

Most promising book on my wishlist:

I watched:

I wrote:

Fixed up some short stories and sent them out, again. Worked on a story about a demon or a devil or something. His name is Larkspur because it is and I cannot change it now.

I read:

Thoughts:

The Last Days of MankindThe Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus: Reviewed here. There are sudden surprise aliens at the end, so beware.

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby: Much like the aliens of The Last Days of Mankind, sudden surprise magic! Sigh.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: Not much happens in this book. Or at lot happens. It’s one of those.

A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa: Reviewed .

Submission by Michel Houellebecq: See that, right there: I think this is the first time I’ve ever spelled Houellebecq correctly on my first try!

Geoff: Would I like this?

Me: What, Houellebecq? No.

Geoff: Why not?

Me: Take all the nastiness and not nice parts of me, then stretch it out and multiply it enough until it’s one person. That person writes a book. That book is Houellebecq.

Ruby Redfort blah blah blah by Lauren Child: So, this book takes pretty much all the non-misogynistic stuff I hate in kids’ books and puts it all there: genius kid who doesn’t have to try and is a smart-alecky smart-ass to all the adults around her. Don’t listen to her kids — you have to work hard and not just coast along on your brilliance! You’re not just good at stuff, you work to get good at stuff.

I really liked Child’s Clarice Bean books, so I feel put-out that this book was so almost-everything-I-hate.

The Best American Magazine Writing 2015 edited by Sid Holt: Reviewed here.

Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville: Reviewed here. Plus, my review prompted Geoff to pick up The City and The City, so now he can tell me whether to read longer-form Miéville or not. Super! He is like my reading guinea pig.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman: I liked it more than I remembered. Didn’t make me a Neil Gaiman drooler-over though. I’m still skeptical.

The Vatican Cellars by André Gide: Reviewed here.

Crackpot by Adele Wiseman: In the 1970s, the Can-lit industry, to stretch out those government grants as far as they could, printed everything in tiny font to ensure that they could make as many copies of the books as possible, flood the market, and have their books purchased by sheer-wearing-down of the populace since no matter where they looked, Can-con books abounded. At least, I assume this is why my library copy of Crackpot from 1974 is printed in nine point font. Why would you take such a good book and put it in such a small font? This is the Can-lit they should make you read in high school (in a larger font though), but they never will, because of all the sex. On the off-chance that you are a Canadian high school student, go find yourself a copy!

Favourite book:

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion: I don’t know why I waited so long to read this book. I really liked it. I want my own copy, but I want my own copy as a beat up, second hand one, with creased pages and suspicious stains (but no writing in the margins; I don’t care what other people thought enough to write down). If you find one at a yard sale or a skeezy used bookstore, get it for me so it can be mine.

Most promising book put on wishlist:

People, in terms of strangers on the internet writing articles at large, not, you know, actually talking to me, keep telling me to read this book.

I watched:

Thoughts:

The Mindy Project: Oh I am sad. I am so sad. I know it is only a sitcom, but everything, oh, the truth, it makes me sad.

Inside Out: Also sad. I cried, pretty much nonstop, through the whole movie, until I gave myself a migraine.

I wrote: Not much. But I decided that much like how a middle third Cantor set has measure zero, but if you add two middle third Cantor sets together, one gets a set of measure two, I will just start randomly squishing some of my story ideas together so that they become not a set of measure zero, but a set of measure two.

So this is what I’ll do.

I read:

Thoughts:

Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordechai Richler: I still and will always love this book and I love my 1970s copy with its Removed from the Surrey Library stamp on the cover.

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 edited by Laura Furman: Reviewed here.

The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran: I took this book out from the library solely because of the neon yellow and purple cover, which doesn’t really come through in its tiny thumbnail above, but the cover is quite quite quite quite quite quite loud. An all-right story inside too.

Past Habitual by Alf Machlochlainn: Reviewed here.

A Royal Pain by Ellen Conford: I’d totally forgotten the lovesick teenager subplot of this story. If I’d remembered, I don’t think I would have read it to Tesfa. It doesn’t add anything to the overall plot, Abby falling in love with the reporter. Boo!

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton: Tonnes of people, most notably Reading in Bed, have told me to try Edith Wharton. Finally I did. And she’s good — she’s really good! She doesn’t feel dated at all and I was super interested in the story, even though one can see what’s going to happen from a mile off. Okay, so take away from this month: will read more Edith Wharton.

Birdie by Tracey Lindberg: I thought I would like this more.

The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien: reviewed here.

Troublemaker by Leah Remini: I have a fascination with Scientology. It has science in the title — why is it so wacky? I used to walk by a Dianetics office all the time. I always wanted to go inside, but figured that with my very suggestible personality, doing so would be a horrible idea.

The Search for Vulcan … and too much extra junk after the ellipses title: Reviewed here.

Gutshot by Amelia Gray: Lots of little, short, grotesque, pieces that I couldn’t connect with even a tiny bit. The first page of the collection, I was blown away, but obviously too far away like an over-dry leaf in a hurricane, because I couldn’t get back into it (figuratively, since I did read the whole book) after page number 2.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams: We listened to an audio-recording of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the car driving around for the past while, and when that finished, I took The Restaurant at the End of the Universe off the shelf and read it to Tesfa. I have a feeling that this is a parenting decision that other parents are going to think badly of me for doing. I think all the sex stuff was mild enough and over-her-head enough that there probably wasn’t any lasting damage to Tesfa, except for the fact that in my copy of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it still says six times nine is forty-two.

Favourite book:

So, we all know that in a creative writing course I took, one of the little, cute and puny, undergrads said reading my stories was like doing a hard sudoku (which I still, perversely, take as the greatest compliment I’ve ever received regarding my writing) and no one wants to do a hard sudoku (which is just incorrect because if I were to do a sudoku, I would totally only do hard ones and last I checked I fall into the category of one).

But Kate Atkinson is like a hard sudoku. She never molly-coddles her reader. I love her for it.

And of course, I also love her because she’s one of the smartest, most engaging, brilliant writers around and I wish I could even write one one hundredth as well as she does. She is on my list of people I am friends with that don’t know it yet (along with Vin Diesel, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling).

Most promising book put on wishlist:

Creepy Japanese Manga!

I watched:

I wrote:

Wolf Children is done. I wrote a story about Magda building a tower. I thought about some stories about old people. I came up with an ending for faerie story and wrote it down. The End.

Like Billy Pilgrim, I have become unstuck in time as I have noticed that this month, I often forget the ed‘s on the end of words, putting what happened in the past into the present in both my fiction and my real life. Is that strange? Why won’t my cold fingers (it is now winter here and alternates between damp and cold as appropriate) type those two letters?

I read:

Thoughts:

The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee by Barry Jonsberg: Reviewed here.

If I Fall, I Die by Michael Christie: A testosterone-fueled punch-up with a ridiculous plot (which likely means a bunch of it actually happened; doesn’t mean that the verity of the situation comes across). Fails the Bechdel test in every way possible with super-unsympathetic portrayals of every women within the pages. Possibly should have been toned down and edited to a YA. If you have a skateboarder in your life, this might be the book for them.

Make Something Up by Chuck Palahaniuk: Reviewed here.

Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann: Remember earlier this month when I was talking about a mystery solved by sheep. It was this book. Again, points go out to my commenter Lydia as it made me think of her.

Why Not Me by Mindy Kaling: Do you think Mindy Kaling and Amy Poehler are going to surprise me at my house to tell me we’re going to be friends? No? Why not me? Sad face.

The Turnip Princess by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth: Reviewed here.

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier: I didn’t love it the way I thought I would.

Saltwater Cowboys by Dayle Furlong: Reviewed here.

The Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow by Katy Towell: Did not like at all.

Slade House by David Mitchell: Reviewed here.

This Is Happy by Camilla Gibb: I’m surprised I read this since I have a complicated relationship with Camilla Gibb (don’t worry, she has like no real relationship with me other than my failure at being mentored in a correspondence writing course). But I put aside personal feelings to read a book by someone who lived in the UK as a child, with a PhD, who worked in Ethiopia, who has a daughter, and who struggles with the chemicals in her brain. See how all those things are basically me as well. Thus, I read a book by a more successful me about being sad. Sad like me but also different. I wish I had a nanny.

Favourite book:

I still love this book as much as I did when I was a kid.

Most promising book put on wishlist:

I watched:

I wrote

Faerie story rewrites and reworks, Magda builds a tower, rewrites and proofreading of a story about yelling at people idling their cars, worked on my story collection (basically removing stories), proofread 1/4 of Wolf Children (yeah yeah yeah).

And my Dellarae story from the summer should be in an upcoming issue of Rusty Toque.

I feel like writing lumple bumps here, which is just some nonsense words Tesfa and I sometimes say to each other. It’s my blog, so I will. Besides, who reads all the way to the end anyway 😉

I read:

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Thoughts:

The Night Stages by Jane Urquhart: Reviewed here.

The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid: Reviewed here.

The Art Fair by David Lipsky: Reviewed here.

Boo by Neil Smith: Reviewed here.

The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto: Reviewed here.

Favourite book:

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It has all the wonder I thought would be in A Wrinkle in Time and wasn’t.

Most promising book put on my wishlist:

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I watched:

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I wrote: Faerie story rewrites and a story about German tourists and the women who offer them lifts. I did very little rewriting/editing and am falling behind on that front.