I read:
Thoughts:
- Come Barbarians: A lot of people really liked this book. I just thought it was too schlocky, which I think was the point, like an homage to action movie schlock, but I don’t like action movies anyway so it was not the book for me.
- Acts of God: A simple and plain collection of short stories, where neither simple nor plain is meant in a disparaging way. The stories are written and presented without ironic detachment. They just are. It was a nice break from clever and winding and difficult stories.
- Howl’s Moving Castle: Here is fantasy that I enjoyed.
- The Last Unicorn/Two Hearts: Here is fantasy I did not enjoy, although I thought Two Hearts was loads better than The Last Unicorn.
- Beezus and Ramona, Ramona The Brave: It’s funny how both dated and relevant Ramona books are, and also how much of the plots I remember, especially in Beezus and Ramona. Tesfa enjoys the two we’ve read so far. We bought the box set from Scholastic for the summer, so look for more Ramona books in my Read column over the next few months.
- You Are One Of Them: This is so a first novel. It is a great first novel, but so much unnecessary backstory and explanation. Not that I’m great at cutting either myself, but sometimes it’s easier to see our own faults in someone else’s work.
- Hyperbole and a Half: The God of Cake cracks me up every time.
- Shards of Honor: A surprisingly engaging sci-fi, especially considering the characters have no depth and act in ways that I don’t think anyone would ever act ever in past, present, or future.
- Magic Treehouse #29: Christmas in Camelot: Tesfa loves these books. Personally, I find them tedious, but this one wasn’t as tedious as it could be.
- 7 Ways To Sunday: Look, look everyone! I read the book I put as my most promising wishlist book last month! This was a difficult collection, almost the polar opposite to Acts of God. The stories here are immovable. They don’t give an inch. They’re brave and unapologetic. I guess it’s like kale. Kale is good for you, but hard to be enthused about. I wish I’d had more of an emotional connection with these stories, but maybe they’ll grow on me over time. I think I’ll likely remember individual stories from this collection more than from Acts of God.
Best book:
Most promising book I put on my wishlist:
I was cleaning out my bookshelves (I have five Ikea Billy bookcases and they were full and I need more space for more books) and found two Christopher Pike novels. One I think is my sister’s. Actually, both are probably my sister’s. So that got me thinking about Christopher Pike. See You Later was my favourite Christopher Pike book way back when I was twelve. It’s probably awful now. I put it on hold at the library, so I’ll let everyone know next month how deliciously awful the book turned out to be.
I watched:
I watched:
- Mad Men: I’m a season behind in Mad Men (watching Season Six on Netflix) and this is the first season I was really interested in watching. I would set up my day so that I’d have time to watch an episode. Don failing gives me too much schadenfreude for words.
- Portlandia: I was watching Season Three on Netflix and I just sort of stopped one episode from the end. I don’t even know why.
- Les Revenants: I enjoy exercising my French (although I have subtitles on too since my French has decayed spectacularly over the past ten years) and I think I enjoy the show. It’s the right level of spooky for me. But I keep thinking Maybe I should just go read the episode synopses, which would take a lot less time. I seem to have lost patience for television (see previous point at simply abandoning Portlandia). I can still read books, even long books (The Heart Broke In was over five hundred pages and I didn’t even enjoy it that much and I finished), but television I can walk away from without a backwards glance. I do hope to finish Les Revenants though. I’m going to try to get my television patience back.
I wrote: Worked on faerie story. Wrote a story about Schnitzel Haus. Wrote a story inspired by Jean McConville. No new publishing acceptances. Lots of no’s.