Two Hectobooks

In Which I Finally Wrap This Thing Up

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Hello, faithful reader.

Over a year after posting my final review of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and about a dozen years after my first post on this blog, I'm finally here to post some thoughts on my whole Two Hectobooks Experience.

First, we need to go all the way back to the spring of 2009. I'd just finished my engineering degree, and I didn't have a job. Now, engineering school, for me, was a long slog of lots of homework and very little else, including reading and writing for pleasure. At the end of university I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands, a ton of self-discipline and time management skills, and no idea what to do with any of those things. I was reading a lot of blogs and online comics, and I naively decided that I, too, could play the online content game.

I have no memory of my initial discovery of the Modern Library Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century List (aka The List). In retrospect I could've picked some other list, one that included books in translation, or books from other centuries, or books from the genre I'd gravitated to most throughout my life up to that point, i.e. science fiction. But I think the narrow focus of The List had its own appeal, plus it allowed me my hook, which is to say that I wanted to explore classic literary fiction as not just a layperson, but someone trained in STEM.

Somehow I thought I'd be able to read a book and post a review every single week, with the added twist of snarkily reviewing 100 Harlequin category romance novels in the mix. This was a bold, ambitious project to take on, and I had no idea what I was signing up for.

My romance snark soon got me in hot water, and I did some soul-searching and rejigged that half of the project. It also wasn't long before I encountered some Top 100 books that I didn't like, and/or that I simply couldn't finish within a week. Because the most important thing happened, which is that I found a full time job. My mission became a sort of homework project once I started working. I hadn't expected this, for whatever reason, and I admit I'd hoped that I'd have an audience following and encouraging me after some time had gone by.

Anyway, I'm not going to cover the entire blog experience exhaustively. I read books from The List, and I wrote reviews for about 11 years. When I started, I was an early-20s unemployed engineering graduate, upon today's posting I'm a mid-30s non-practising engineer with an uncertain career trajectory. I had zero inkling, back when I started, that the project would take so much time, or that things would end up as they have. I had no doubt that I'd eventually have a dedicated following for this blog and my writing. I had no doubt that I'd get my P. Eng. as soon as I had enough work experience.

And let me also say that I had no idea what kinds of books I'd end up reading, and how my feelings about them would evolve, and the kinds of tastes and preferences that I'd discover for myself. Wallace Stegner! E.M. Forster! Edith Wharton! Willa Cather! W.S. Maugham! There were some high highs, that I'm certain I never would've come across if not for The List. There were also some low lows, the lowest of which being of course Finnegans Wake.

The List has a lot of flaws that I've written about more or less extensively over the years. The most obvious is its heavy favouring of male authors, with 112 books being written by men (including some trilogies and series) and nine books being written by women. Another thing that I don't think I ever complained about quite as much, but which has nevertheless always bugged me, is how heavily The List favours books written in the first half of the 20th century. The average publication year is approximately 1939, with only two books being published in the 1980s, and none in the 1990s. And finally, at least for today, there is the English and American dominance of The List. I can think of at least a couple of Canadian novels that could easily hold their own against some of the duller American ones. Or, like, Nostromo.

I'll also admit that it's not possible to create a list of only 100 great 20th century novels without any gaps at all.

So all that being said, was my decade plus long self-imposed homework assignment worth it?

The answer, with about a year's worth of perspective later, is a qualified yes. I'm glad I started it, and I'm glad I saw it all the way through to the end. I'm glad that I didn't abandon a commitment I made to myself, even when it occasionally felt annoying or too time consuming or useless. There is, however, a small but, which is that I wish I hadn't committed to finishing every book.

However, in taking a closer look at that "but," I think the fact is that learning the lesson of quitting a book is something that wouldn't've happened without doing the project exactly the way I did, and so that's valuable, too.

Reading all of the books (including the altered romance novel half of the project) has turned me into a different kind of reader. I'm more critical (which one could argue is both a blessing and a curse) but I'm also more conscious of theme, of character, of prose, and of the kinds of stories that I value, in comparison with what may or may not be part of the so-called canon. I've also learned how to recognize the difference between a high effort, high reward reading experience (a la Studs Lonigan or even, dare I say, Ulysses) versus a high effort, low reward reading experience (I'm looking at you, V.S. Naipaul). There's no reason to be afraid of the former, whereas the latter should be avoided at all costs.

I think the project also really emphasized that reading is the thing for me, the activity that I love most above all others, and that I need to always protect and value my reading time.

To wrap up, I have some stats. I started reading for this project on December 27, 2009, with The Magnificent Ambersons. I finished on September 20, 2020, with Pride and Prejudice. I read 76,003 pages specifically dedicated to this project, spanning over 2.08 hectobooks (not including the old reviews that I pulled out of my archives while I contemplated how to handle the romance novel side of things. This is the 677th blog post published.

And now, at last, what's going to happen next?

Well, this may be the last post.

Over the past year, my life has obviously been a lot different, and not just because of running out of List books and living through a global pandemic. I've been feeling a major need to simplify, to focus on spending more of my time on things that I really enjoy and less on things that I feel obligated to do. And blogging has felt mostly like an obligation and very little like a joy. It's been an extra step that I have on top of other things. I don't think I want to do it anymore.

I'm planning to take a one year hiatus of no posts at all. If I miss it, I'll consider coming back. If I don't, I won't.

Prior to deciding to put things on ice, sometime last year, I'd wanted to at least tie up some loose ends (my Classics Club efforts, Saskatchewan is A Thing, Board Member Bios, some other promised posts that never materialized, ...) but all that is extra, and I don't feel the need to finish it right now. Again, if I find myself longing, halfway through 2022, to wrap all that up after all, maybe I'll come back and do it.

But this is all part of what I learned from the project. Reading through The List and writing my reviews was high effort and high (personal) reward. Forcing myself to continue adding extra work to my life simply to say I left nothing undone, extraneous to the original mission? That's high effort, low reward.

If you did, somehow, start reading this 12 years ago and are still reading it today: hello, goodbye. If you're discovering it at the end, I hope you enjoy whatever else you may browse through. And to anyone and everyone who's ever taken the time to read my words in this tiny spec of internet, thank you so much for whatever time you gave me.

What I Read Last Year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 06:00:00 +0000

My shortest ever stack of finished books! I forgot to hang on to some of my library books for this photo, oops!

I have to start by saying that 2021 was my first completely unobstructed reading year since I decided to embark on reading The List waaay back in 2009.

This summary is going to be different than it has been over the past few years. Basically I already wrote about these books in my What I'm Reading posts throughout 2021, and I'll leave you to find the individual titles if anything sounds interesting.

I picked up an entirely respectable number of 54 books in 2021, leaving seven of them unfinished, for a total of 47 books read, or almost four books per month. (For comparison, I started 69 books in 2020, and finished 65 of them!) My pages per day were down quite a bit from last year, at about 33 per day for prose alone, and 40 per day for prose and comics combined. This is also nothing to sniff at! 2021 was a major transition year for me both on the blog and off, and so I'm not surprised or disappointed that I read less than I might've otherwise.

Here are the usual charts no one asked for:

My pages read per day chart shows the average pages I read in a book per day, over the number of days that I read it, and plots the total pages per day, because I almost always have at least two books on the go. There's a downward trend over the course of the year, but I'm not sure if that's just because I read a ton in January and then quite a bit in the summer as well, and not as much as usual over Christmas.

As usual, the majority of the books that I read in 2021 were free ones! Hard copies from the library made up a full 3 out of every 4 pages that I read. The red piece of the pie below is for the "Borrowed" category. I only read one borrowed book in 2021, accounting for 2% of my reading total.

Author gender was the most equally split it's ever been, with the "B" category below representing "Both" as in books where there were co-authors or short story collections. To my knowledge, none of the authors I read last year would be considered gender non-binary.

And a new chart that I've never included before, here's a breakdown of the different categories of things I read, split up roughly along the lines of the categories below. Novels usually make up a much larger percentage!

Novels

Novels dominated my 2021 reading just like they usually do. I finished 23 of them, so almost two per month. In addition to that, 12 of them were by women and 11 were by men, and I swear I didn't do that on purpose. Standouts for the year include the unexpected fun I had with the first four books of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, Forster's gay love story in Maurice, revisiting my old favourite Dune, continuing with the Temeraire, Aubrey-Maturin, and Discworld series, starting the Trickster series, and so on. I've been enjoying being able to read any novel I want!

The Outlander by Gil Adamson, 389 pages

The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander, 175 pages

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink, 276 pages

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, 247 pages

Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary, 155 pages

Maurice by E.M. Forster, 232 pages

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, 293 pages

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, 390 pages

Dune by Frank Herbert, 535 page

Dubliners by James Joyce, 242 pages (yes, this would ordinarily fall into my "flotsam and jetsam" category but it's the only one for the year so I'm sneaking it in here)

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, 325 pages

The House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill, 375 pages

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik, 405 pages

The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian, 332 pages

The Black Jersey by Jorge Zepeda Patterson, 313 pages

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett, 210 pages

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn, 402 pages

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, 422 pages

An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn, 358 pages

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn, 370 pages

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson, 444 pages

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson, 319 pages

All-of-a-kind Family by Sydney Taylor, 189 pages

Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson, 360 pages

Graphic Thingies

I got back to comics in a big way this year, because they're quick to read and sometimes I wasn't reading very quick and just wanted to finish something. Uzumaki was pleasantly creepy and reminded me of the Southern Reach trilogy. Castle Waiting was sweet and heartwarming and just the right amount of odd. The Shadow Hero proves Yang is just as good when he's working with an artist vs illustrating his own comics.

Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror by Ito Junji

Volume 1, 205 pages
Volume 2, 197 pages
Volume 3, 255 pages

The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire, 224 pages

Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

Volume 1, 457 pages
Volume 2, 375 pages

I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider, 128 pages

This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, 317 pages

Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause

Volume 1, 104 pages
Volume 2, 112 pages

The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew, 169 pages

Non-Fiction

There's a nice symmetry to my non-fiction reading in 2021, similar to the novels, which is to say that I finished 12 non-fiction books, i.e. one per month. Nothing exactly blew my mind: there's a not insubstantial amount of "self-help" type stuff here and nothing really "hard-hitting" if you will, with the exception of Regretting Motherhood, which is absolutely harrowing. Six of the books were written by women, five were written by men, and one was written by a heterosexual couple. Again, I didn't shoot for this balance, it just happened!

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly, 120 pages

Subtitle: Nellie Bly's Experience on Blackwell's Island

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian, 275 pages

Subtitle: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Aliv

Patient H.M. by Luke Dittrich, 417 pages

Subtitle: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets

Regretting Motherhood by Orna Donath, 224 pages

This Word Now by Owen and Jodi Egerton, 283 pages

Debt by David Graeber, 391 pages

Subtitle: The First 5000 Years

Downsizing the Family Home by Marni Jameson, 227 pages

Subtitle: What to Save, What to Let Go

The Joy of Less by Francine Jay, 287 pages

Subtitle: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify

Wabi Sabi by Beth Kempton, 202 pages

Subtitle: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life

The Art of Fiction by David Lodge, 230 pages

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom, 230 pages

Subtitle: A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin

You Bet Your Life by Paul A. Offit, 221 pages

Subtitle: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovations

Unfinished

There were seven books that I didn't finish in 2021, and I feel like I'm really honing my instincts for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, several of these were simply books that I was just attempting to read at the wrong time, and may revisit later. Ada Palmer's The Will to Battle just needs to be read closer to the preceding entries in the series. I attempted some non-fiction that needed more concentration than I had to devote this year as well, specifically The Sabres of Paradise and Capital in the Twenty-First Century. But there are so many books and so little time, and I'm done with finishing anything that I feel lukewarm about.

The Sabres of Paradise by Lesley Blanch, after 248 pages

Subtitle: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus

The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith, after 64 pages

Whispering Rails by Gilbert A. Lathrop, after 91 pages

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, after 367 pages

The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer, after 51 pages

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, after 216 pages

Why Good Sex Matters by Nan Wise, after 46 pages

Subtitle: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

Number of books read: 47 (plus seven unfinished)

Total pages in 2021: 14,491

Total pages per day: 40 (33 excluding graphic thingies)

Total audiobook time in 2021: 0!

What I'm Reading: December 12-27, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 19:12:00 +0000

Well, it's certainly been a year. I'd hoped to finish Villette before the end of the year so that I could include it in this post, but no such luck. At some point I decided that it was more important for my mental health to get my house tidied up before heading back to work.

I'll make more comments on this when I post about the full year of reading, but there are relatively few standouts this year, and that's disappointing.

Here are the last four books I read in 2021, between December 12 and 27, in the order that I completed them:

The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander

175 pages

My return to the Chronicles of Prydain, which I started last Decemberish. This is the third entry in the series, and we get some more insight into Eilonwy, where she comes from, and what her destiny might be. Our hero, still assistant pig keeper Taran, is still a dumb hothead, but he's learning, and he's also still brave and ready for adventure. I wish I'd encountered these books as a kid.

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly

120 pages

Mid-month, I found myself waiting to pick up a library book that I knew I'd have to return without any renewals, so I wanted to be able to start it right away after picking it up. However, between library visits, I finished whatever else I was reading, so I needed something short. Enter Ten Days in a Mad-House, which I've had on my radar for a long time for some reason. I read Project Gutenberg's free ebook version on my phone (reading on phone: not ideal but will do in a pinch).

So, in 1887, Nellie Bly, girl reporter for the New York World pretended to be crazy in order to gain admittance into the public insane asylum for women. Her expose wasn't quite as shocking as I'd been led to believe, but she does describe pretty miserable conditions for the inmates. Her language is far from what would be considered politically correct when she's referring to the patients she shares the space with, but this is one of those cases where beggars can't be choosers: her writing did result in actual reforms at the institution in question.

Not essential reading but an interesting peek into a different time.

You Bet Your Life by Paul A. Offit

221 pages

The book I mentioned needing to return to the library without renewing. This book just came out this year, and it's about medical innovation, the costs, the missteps, the rewards (it's subtitled "From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovations"). Offit doesn't really explore coronavirus specifically all that much in this book. He's concentrating on actual medical risks that have been and gone. The points he's making are that in order to make progress, risks are taken and that these risks are usually calculated ones.

The book is interesting on its own for sure, and I'll be reading more of Offit's work. But I'd hoped that this book would provide more insight into exactly how doctors, medical researchers, etc. do the risk calculation.

Regretting Motherhood by Orna Donath

224 pages

Not exactly ending the year on a happy note, I realize! Due to some developments in my family and personal life this year, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to have children (to keep things sufficiently vague). There is a huge social resistance to the concept that a mother could possibly regret being a mother, and I wanted to find some books exploring that. Donath did a study involving interviews with a couple of dozen Israeli women (the author herself is also Israeli) who regret becoming mothers. The women range from young to old, including a few who are grandmothers, and fall on various parts of the social, economic, etc. spectrum. In this book, Donath summarizes and comments on the phenomenon of regret and motherhood. It's a bit academic but really interesting. The interview excerpts included are really touching and occasionally harrowing. Recommended for non-parents, fencesitters, and regretful parents, but probably not anyone who is about to become a parent for the first time.

Current Distractions, December 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 06:00:00 +0000

It will surprise precisely no one to learn that my chief distraction for December has been The Holidays. I've had a fair amount of Christmas shopping to do despite my efforts to simplify this year and just eliminate buying Christmas presents entirely. Although Christmas 2021 wasn't as irregular as Christmas 2020, it wasn't normal either. I guess things are maybe trending in the right direction.

Reading

As per usual, check out the What I'm Reading tag instead of this.

Watching

More MCU movies

The French Dispatch

Big Trouble in Little China

The latest Grey's Anatomy season on Netflix (it's gotten pretty painful though)

What I'm Reading: January 4-10 and October 29-December 12, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 06:00:00 +0000

While I do think that my ongoing posting about my reading throughout the year has eased some of the pressure during the holidays to write about everything, I do still have a lot of catching up to do. Time to post about as many books as I can once again. I do promise that there'll be one final "What I Read Last Year" post as usual, but the format will be a bit different.

Here are five books that I read between January 4 to 10 and October 29 to December 12, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

210 pages

I read Sourcery back in January and I'd intended to write a full review post for it but month after month crept by without that happening, and then I finally decided that it was time to simplify and abandon that plan.

This book is the fifth one of the Discworld series, and has Pratchett returning to Rincewind and the other wizards already, which is a bit of a disappointment. Frankly, this book about a young sourcerer (eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son--i.e. son of a wizard who broke his vows of celibacy) is probably the weakest Discworld book I've (re)encountered so far. It's just a little too silly, a bit muddled, and overall just meh.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the Witches in the next entry in the series.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

after 367 pages

This is one of those family saga types of novels in which there are multiple timelines and scandalous information is hidden from the reader until the last possible second. I got to the end of I think the second part of the book, had a bad feeling about some of the upcoming content, and decided that I didn't need bad feelings in my life right now for various reasons, so I'd stop reading. Up till then, I certainly didn't mind it. I think Morton, who is Australian, does a good job handling her Australian and English characters and settings, as well as handling the different time periods that she's juggling (at least as far as I read).

I've since read some spoilers about what happens in the novel and discovered that my fears were possibly unfounded, but haven't had the urge to pick the book back up again. This is especially a shame because it was a book club selection.

The Sabres of Paradise by Lesley Blanch

after 248 pages

A case, I think, of right book, wrong time. Blanch's book about Russia vs. the Caucasus (and a fascinating figure called Imam Shamyl) started with a bang but I just didn't have enough time to read this as fast as I think it deserves/needs. Blanch jumps all over the place in her timeline, which is really hard to follow if you're only reading a few pages per day like I was (due to having other stuff to do).

Blanch is extremely good at setting the scene for the action of the book, and her descriptions make me want to visit the Caucasus someday, if the political situation ever calms down (based on the description of the region in the book, this is somewhat doubtful).

I heard of this book as being one of the major inspirations for Frank Herbert's Dune, which is obvious from the first page and honestly the first sentence. The Fremen are clearly very much modelled after the Caucasians of this period. It's possible that someday I'll pick this one up again or try another one of Blanch's works, because I'm disappointed I didn't make it to the end of this one.

Wabi Sabi by Beth Kempton

202 pages

I continue to read self-help-flavoured books regarding simplification and downsizing/decluttering. This one describes the Japanese concept of wabi sabi, which is something like embracing impermanence and the beauty of imperfection. It's kind of complex. This book is less about decluttering your house and embracing its imperfections as it is about just learning how to simplify and live in the moment. I think? It was fine but not terribly memorable.

Irredeemable Vol. 2 by Mark Waid and Peter Krause

112 pages

The second volume of this "Superman, but evil" series. The Plutonian's former team of heroes tries to figure out how they can possibly beat him, and he continues to kill more people. We found out what may have finally driven him over the edge from good to evil, and about some other shenanigans that were going on behind the scenes of the good old days.

Will I get to Vol. 3 before the end of this year!? Stay tuned.

What I'm Reading: January 5-November 23, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Once again, it's time for me to write as quickly as possible about as many of the books I've read (or attempted to read) lately as possible. The rushed nature of these updates is not ideal, but hopefully there'll be less rush over the next couple of weeks between now and the end of December. I'm also fairly certain that there'll be a lot more active on the blog between now and then as well, so stay tuned. I'm behind this year when it comes to basically everything, and urgently need to get caught up.

Here are three books that I read between January 5 and November 23, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

370 pages

Again I have to beg for indulgence that I'm just reading my way through this series at a faster pace than several others that I arguably prefer (albeit a few of those are... more difficult reads and these are quick and easy and generally cheerful, but oh well). This is the fourth book in the series, featuring brother Colin Bridgerton, and Penelope Featherington. The two of them have both gotten kind of old without finding a partner and Penelope has literally been in love with Colin since she was a teenager. He's a jerk though! I didn't like him, specifically because of one incident that happens at their engagement ball during which he deliberately causes her physical harm. Penelope is a good character, I just wish she'd ended up with someone better!

I'm totally going to keep reading these, though.

Irredeemable Vol. 1 by Mark Waid and Peter Krause

104 pages

I can't remember where I initially heard about this comic, which is basically about: what if Superman turned evil? The character in this case isn't Superman, it's a rip-off called The Plutonian. He's got very similar powers to Superman, though. He can fly, he has lazer eyes, X-ray vision, super strength, etc. etc. So what if someone that powerful turned on the world? Well, many millions of people would die. The comic opens with him killing an entire family, one of whom is another superhero who's on his team! At this point I've read the second volume of trade paperbacks so I know a bit more, and I'll get to that when I post about Vol. 2. I also have Vol. 3 out from the library already, and might even get to that one before the end of this year as well.

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

444 pages

I started this book on January 5, intending to read it over my lunch breaks at work. I finished it on November 23, having long since abandoned the reading at lunch project for a ton of reasons.

Initially I really enjoyed this book. Pamela is full of spirit and sass ("saucy" as Mr. B would call her) and I also suspected that there was no way she could possibly be a reliable narrator. In the book, she's writing to her parents about the efforts of her master, Mr. B, to seduce her. She's his mother's former companion, but the older woman has passed away at the beginning of the novel, putting Pamela in harm's way.

However much I enjoyed the beginning, the book could be about half as long and would be two times as good. It's extremely repetitive and the back half, when Pamela's virtue is rewarded, is almost unbearable.

Still, I don't think it was a complete waste of time to read this by any means. It's a great peek into life in the 18th century, along with being an early example of an epistolary novel, which I have to admit I'm a sucker for. Don't read it, it's boring, but as usual I like a jaunt through the past now and then. And still think maybe one day I'll read Clarissa, of all things!

Five Years Ago This Month: December 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed On the Road. I didn't like it very much but it's one of the books from The List that I'm happy I experienced for myself. I was much too old to read it for the first time.

...I looked back at December 2011. I'd had pneumonia (and a break up I didn't mention) and reviewed The Parasites, and possibly planned to attend the Calgary Expo for the first time the following year. Ah, youth.

...I reviewed The Stone Angel. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this book in the future, and I should give Margaret Laurence a few more shots as well, because it was great, and has a lot to say about aging and regret, or lack thereof.

...I did my 3rd Annual 12hppofxmas readathon. Here are all of the posts:

Announcement
Day 0
Day 2
Day 5

...I was distracted. It was the Christmas season! I am always distracted and/or reading a ton during that time, and 2016 was no different.

I guess I made at least one Christmas present, too!

Current Distractions, November 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 06:00:00 +0000

This is going to be another short update, and then I'll try to post a long one at the end of December. But for the moment: what have I been up to in November? A lot of things that I'm not really interested in posting about here. Basically I've been doing my usual reading and swimming and working and all that sort of thing.

Reading

As per usual, check out the What I'm Reading tag instead of this.

Watching

More MCU movies

Jodorowsky's Dune

Getting started with Get Back

What I'm Reading: August 28-October 25, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 06:00:00 +0000

I continue to read and not write about the books I'm reading, although I assure you that I plan to catch up by the end of this year.

Here are six books that I read between August 28 and October 25, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer

after 51 pages

Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series is one that I want to love because it's so full of interesting ideas. Unfortunately it's not really a series that you can leave for a couple of years between books, because it's pretty dense. I started this one (the third entry of a quartet, the last book of which was released this year), had no idea what was going on, and promptly decided that if I'm going to do this thing justice, I need to read all four books in a row. So that's a project for a different year.

The Joy of Less by Francine Jay

287 pages

I continue to accumulate inspiration to get rid of stuff and maybe even downsize sometime in the not too distant future. This book is basically an introduction to minimalism. It's pretty accessible and not too judgemental and has some good ideas in it. I think I still like Marie Kondo's method best. This fall I went through my clothes and books again, and papers are next. I think I'm already sort of a minimalist in a lot of ways, I just really need to work on not keeping every little scrap of paper anyone I know has ever written on. Ugh.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

230 pages

This book is subtitled "A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin." Yes, it's a bit macabre.

So there are only a few books that are known (via scientific means) to have been bound in human skin, and there are a few more that are rumoured to be. Megan Rosenbloom is a person who is fascinated by death in general and so-called "anthropodermic books" in particular. She's a little to present in this book for my "just the facts" non-fiction preferences, but I still really enjoyed her exploration of the practice of binding books in human skin. This appears to have mostly been a thing in the mid-19th century, during the bizarre evolution of the medical profession at the time. Hence there are some good ruminations here on medical ethics as well.

The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian

332 pages

O'Brian's fourth book in the Aubrey-Maturin series is yet another reminder that nobody writes historical adventure like him. We find Jack Aubrey ashore at the beginning of this book, still not making enough money, married and supporting his wife, their twin daughters, and his mother in law. Stephen Maturin visits and gets a tour of an observatory that Jack is working on (and a longitude fixing project), his dismal garden, and the house. This is all hilarious, and then the adventure begins, because Stephen is also bringing Jack his next command. I'm in love with this series and very much looking forward to the next book.

Dune by Frank Herbert

535 pages

I've seen others whose editions of this novel are a lot longer than mine and I'm not sure what's going on it. Also, without further ado: I loved this again.

This is the story of Paul Atreides, who is a young man thrust into a tough situation on a desert planet. It's a science fiction novel with a real sense of scale, in a universe that seems plausibly remote from our own, many thousands of years in our future.

So I first read Dune when I was in grade nine, after hearing about it from my dad, who I suspect read it sometime in the early to mid 70s. I really liked it, and went on to read all of Herbert's sequels over several more years. I decided to reread it in advance of the new movie adaptation, in hopes of cementing my own impressions prior to having them supplanted by a visual medium. (Honestly I've been meaning to reread the book for the past three years or more, possibly even before I knew that there was going to be a new adaptation? It was just that I finally had to get my act together this year.) And I was honestly so worried that I would hate it as an adult.

But the themes of the book are still relevant in my opinion. It's especially interesting to contemplate the Kynes/Fremen project of bringing moisture to Arrakis, in light of present-day concerns about just maintaining habitat here on Earth.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

325 pages

A good palate cleanser after Dune, The Silent Patient is a dumb fun psychological thriller about a therapist and his patient, a woman who hasn't spoken for about half a dozen years, since murdering her husband. I do give credit where it's due: the book read extremely quickly and was pretty hard to put down. Other than that I don't have much else to say. This was a book club pick but it had also been on my Goodreads list for a while.

Five Years Ago This Month: November 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed The Maltese Falcon. This book hasn't stuck with me as much as I would've expected, and I need to read more of this genre and possibly more Dashiell Hammett.

...I looked back at November 2011. I didn't post a single thing! I might've done NaNoWriMo, I might've had pneumonia, but other than that I don't have much in the way of memories about that month.

...I reviewed The Outsiders. This book also hasn't stuck with me as much as I would've expected it to. I feel like maybe I could stand to read it again, but like I mentioned in my review, I think maybe I just missed the boat on it and read it at the wrong time for it to have the maximum impact on me.

...I posted my first impressions of Jane Eyre. Yes, from my original reading of the book in grade five.

...I was distracted. I didn't mention it in the post but I was unemployed and working on some house projects.

Current Distractions, Belated October 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 00:17:00 +0000

Well I'm in a better mood than I was when I wrote my last Current Distractions post, but I'm also posting this nearly a third of the way into the month of November, sooo...

This evening I have a long list of things on my to do list, and four of them involve the blog. We'll see if I get to them all, but I've crossed off one already, and this is the second.

What happened in October? Not much honestly. More evidence of climate change, plus low key Thanksgiving, plus another skipped Halloween, plus the items I've listed below.

Reading

As per usual, check out the What I'm Reading tag instead of this.

Watching

More MCU movies

Dune

Let the Right One In

Bed and Board

What I'm Reading: May 18-August 29, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Let me tell you: writing about books takes time that I don't have much of these days. I continue to read them, and to prioritize the time I spend doing that over the time I spend writing about them. Here are three books that I read between May 18 and August 29, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

Debt by David Graeber

391 pages

This book, subtitled "The First 5000 Years" took me a ton of time to read, mainly because I had to return it from the library partway through and then get it back. It's about debt, of course, and the other kinds of relationships of obligation, and different ways that human cultures have handled debt over thousands of years. However, this book is really hard to grasp in the sense that I was never quite sure exactly what the author was getting at in terms of his thesis. He throws a lot of facts at you in an order that isn't always sensible, and so nothing sticks quite the way it should. I'm sad, because I've had this book on my reading list for multiple years and had really high hopes for it.

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

293 pages

A book club selection, which ended up being basically just Baby's First Residential School Book. The characters featured are archetypal, five young people who attended the same residential school of the coast of British Columbia eventually convene in Vancouver and elsewhere. I thought it was decent and appreciated that it didn't get gratuitous in its depiction of abuse. I also appreciated the book's optimistic tone, as I feel that sometimes things can get very grim when it comes to this topic, but that healing has to come with hope and not just sorrow. Says this white settler.

I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider

128 pages

A collection of very short comics about reading and writing. I often don't really get into stuff like this because it romanticizes reading in ways that annoy me, but on the other hand sometimes you find gold and so I keep trying. This one wasn't gold but I think I'll check out Snider's other collection, The Shape of Ideas, which is about ideas and creativity.

Five Years Ago This Month: October 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed Some Do Not.... I've barely thought about it since, other than to marvel at how much better The Good Soldier was, and be a little sad at how little I liked it compared to how much I hoped I would. Ah well.

...I looked back at October 2011. Let me just say, I miss having such a new car, and also I don't miss October 2011.

...I reviewed No More Parades. To be lame, I also decided that there would be no more Parade's End for me.

...I reviewed Housekeeping. I didn't really like it, but it was beautiful and I've been wanting to try reading something else by Marilynne Robinson in hopes I might like it better. I disposed of the book in one of those dumb chain letter book exchanges that led to no books at all for me, unsurprisingly.

...I was distracted. Although I assure you I had less going on in 2016 than I do in 2021.

Current Distractions, September 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 06:00:00 +0000

To say that I'm not in the mood to write about the distractions of September would be such a colossal understatement that I won't bother. It's been a month, and I've been distracted.

I hope October is better but at this rate I have serious doubts.

Reading

As per usual, check out the What I'm Reading tag instead of this.

Watching

Iron Man 2

Thor

Captain America

The Avengers

In Bruges

What I'm Reading: July 18-August 7, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 06:00:00 +0000

I'm once again not attempting to get caught up on all the books I've been reading recently, but I'm going to do my best to get through as many as I can. Time for blogging is very limited these days, I must say, now that swimming time has gone back up again.

Here are three books that I read between July 18 and August 7, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

405 pages

This series about dragons and the Napoleonic Wars is so dumb and smart and charming and readable. In this volume (and I swear I didn't plan it out this way), the English dragons are dealing with a deadly disease, and Temeraire and Lawrence have to travel to Africa to try to find a cure. This is kind of a halt to the action although it all comes crashing back at the end of the novel. Looking forward to the next one, which I hope to get to next year sometime.

This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki

317 pages

This is a graphic novel about a young girl who goes to the beach with her family during the summer every year, and this happens to be the summer that she's at that awkward border between childhood and young girlhood. She's an only child and kind of a jerk to her parents sometimes, and they're kind of jerks to each other sometimes, and she's got a sweet somewhat younger friend named Windy who is being raised by hippies and it's just pretty sweet and also occasionally harrowing. As usual with graphic novels I just felt like it went by too fast for me to really connect with the material like I should've. Definitely worth checking out if you're a bigger/better fan of the format.

All-of-a-kind Family by Sydney Taylor

189 pages

This book was part of my ongoing quest to find some of the more memorable books that I read in childhood. I wasn't sure initially if this was one of them, but there are many scenes that actually came back to me as I read the book, so I'm certain I've encountered this one before. The all-of-a-kind family in question is a poor Jewish family of five girls that live in New York around the turn of the century. The book describes several episodes of their lives from library visits to religious observance. I'm curious how I came across a book about Jewish children as a young Catholic, but here we are. Another very worthy old children's book that would may warrant some additional adult context and information for a young reader of today. God do I ever love old children's books.

Five Years Ago This Month: September 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed The Age of Innocence. I've left The List behind with the impression of Edith Wharton as One Of The Greats but this novel wasn't my favourite. It's good but lacking a certain je ne sais quoi that's present in The House of Mirth. I'll certainly be reading more of her work.

...I looked back at September 2011. It was a big month, both in my memory and in terms of the blog, in that I abandoned the project of reviewing romance novels. I still reviewed some though, such as...

...I reviewed The Boss. Still a recommendation that I pass along to people as an alternative to 50SoG. The author has finished the series, if you're interested.

...I profiled Board Member Shelby Foote. Seemed like a cool dude. Will I ever finish these profiles now? I guess we'll see.

...I was distracted. There was a fair bit going on, it seems.

Current Distractions, Belated August 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 19:14:00 +0000

Well, summer in my part of the world is officially over now that it's after Labour Day, although it's likely we'll have a little bit more nice weather over the coming weeks. I had a good summer, although the past month wasn't really full of much reading. I did everything from attending a funeral and a wedding, travelling out of my home province for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, and just general socializing. Sadly, my home province looks like it's about to implode with new coronavirus cases. Please keep Saskatchewan in your thoughts and/or prayers.

Reading

As per usual, check out the What I'm Reading tag instead of this.

Watching

The Green Knight

Sleeping Beauty

Lethal Weapon

Iron Man

The Incredible Hulk

Swimming

Hoping to be back in the pool three times per week throughout the fall, but we'll see what the virus has to say about that.

What I'm Reading: June 26-July 23, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Turns out I'm way behind on posting about what I've been reading, but tonight isn't the night that I'm going to get caught up.

Here are four books that I read between June 26 and July 23, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

389 pages

Well this was a book that I really almost loved, but instead just liked, for a couple of reasons, starting with the fact that I can't comprehend why Adamson would choose to title the book almost the same thing as a rather more famous historical novel.

This one starts off strong: Mary Boulton is 19, a "widow by her own hand," on the run from her late husband's brothers. The book is hyper conscious of the natural world of southern Alberta that she flees through, and it's pretty often beautiful, though occasionally a bit too self-conscious (something I always take off points for).

I was entirely on board until (spoiler coming up) Mary ends up surviving the Frank slide. This isn't a problem by itself (there were quite a few survivors of that event, contrary to popular belief). Instead, my problem was up to that point, the book very significantly misrepresents the level of development in Frank prior to the slide. Mary is depicted basically living in a mining camp, the only woman for miles, when in fact the town of Frank at the time of the slide included not just women, but children too, attending a two-storey schoolhouse.

This is usually way too pedantic for me, but for some reason I just couldn't forgive the liberties that this book took with history. Alas!

Downsizing the Family Home by Marni Jameson

227 pages

Over the coming posts, there may be quite a few books like this, but this is the first one, so I'll get into things a bit more: I've been thinking a lot about downsizing. I love my home for the most part, but over the course of a lot of stress thanks to the pandemic and a bunch of other stuff, it's been feeling way too big and like way too much work, and I'm hoping to simplify things a lot in the not too distant future.

I'm a huge pack rat, so I need a lot of inspiration to make this happen.

The book in question is more about clearing out your parents' home after they've either moved into smaller place or passed away, which I hope my parents will do preemptively for me but who knows. It was a fine read but nothing earth shattering. I think I'm generally pretty good at not bringing too much stuff into my home, it's moreso the things that I have been hanging onto for way longer than I should've at this point. Last summer and early fall I managed to do a bit of a purge of some old stuff and I'm hoping that this fall I can do something similar.

An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn

358 pages

There are quite a few moments in this book where Benedict Bridgerton (yes I know) laments that he basically is only ever thought of as second fiddle to his older brother Anthony. Unfortunately for Benedict, he appears to be the sole Bridgerton, so far, that Julia Quinn forgot to give a personality. He's just a dude. He can sketch things.

This is basically Cinderella in Regency romance trappings. Sophie Beckett is the bastard daughter of a lord or earl or something, and her stepmother is evil, so she works as a servant in her stepmother's house, except for one charmed night when she goes to a masquerade ball at the Bridgerton house. Benedict sees her and sort of falls in love instantly. When they eventually meet again years later, she recognizes him but he doesn't recognize her.

Honestly out of three this is my least favourite of the Bridgerton books so far and I decided to brake gently moving into the fourth book, which is about third eldest brother, Colin. I already know who he's going to fall in love with (and I think she has a secret) but I'm kinda looking forward to it anyway.

The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang, illustrated by Sonny Liew

169 pages

As usual, Gene Luen Yang knocks it out of the park (and I've never seen Sonny Liew's work before but he does great illustrations).

This is a comic about the Green Turtle, a superhero created for a minor press way back when, who never got more than a few issues. Yang and Liew give the Green Turtle a backstory as a Chinese-American, and explain how he comes to get his powers and mission. It's funny and I really appreciated the commentary from Yang provided at the end, along with the first issue of The Green Turtle (including its very cringy depiction of Japanese people).

Just seriously you can't go wrong with anything of Gene Luen Yang's and I'll keep saying that until proven wrong.

Five Years Ago This Month: August 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed Zuleika Dobson. I feel like maybe Max Beerbohm is like a "novelist's novelist" or something. I do still think of this book from time to time in terms of its absurdity and its handful of good jokes. But that's about it. No one I mention it to has ever heard of it.

...I looked back at August 2011. I didn't post anything for the entire month, so it was a pretty quick look

...I reviewed Flowers in the Attic. It's as delicious trash as you've been led to expect. This book comes up all the time and I'm glad that I have personal experience with it to draw from in terms of being able to tell people what it's actually about and what the content is like.

...I was reading This Changes Everything. I've since had cause for some further doubt about Naomi Klein, largely to do with her stance on GMOs which may be the key to feeding the growing population in a climate changed world. However, I think this is also the book that first made me skeptical about the overall capitalist project to the point that I decided to start reading more about that, so overall it's a win. RIP Lytton, BC.

...I completed my Year of Reading Women. I read fifteen books by women whose work I'd never read before over the course of the year. This year so far I've read a higher proportion of women writers than I ever have since I started keeping track of that particular metric.

...I was distracted. Apparently I was mainly watching a lot of tv.

Current Distractions, July 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Now that I've sort of finished this project and have found myself entirely distracted from the work to really wrap things up in the way I want to, I've been thinking a lot about what is going to become of this blog moving forward a year or two from now. I really like having a reading record for myself and whoever else might stumble upon it, but I've been thinking lately that I have other records that I might rather focus on more, personal ones that I had before this blog existed, and that will be around after it as well. This isn't me saying I'm throwing in the towel (I'll do a proper announcement post before that happens, if it does), only that it's on my mind, along with a lot of other things and life evaluation. This past month I started a new job, and so I'm really looking at a lot of potential areas of renewal elsewhere.

Reading

As per some other recent posts, instead of commenting on books, I'd like to draw your attention to my What I'm Reading posts.

Watching

His Girl Friday

The Last Unicorn

An Autumn Afternoon

Trying to finish up season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation prior to cancelling my Netflix subscription

What I'm Reading: April 19-June 28, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 02:28:00 +0000

Here are six books that I read between April 19 and June 28, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

Maurice by E. M. Forster

232 pages

Unfortunately it's now been a while and I don't quite remember where my hankering to read some E. M. Forster came from this year. Was I mentioning him to someone? Did I see the cover of the movie version of Maurice? Was I just reading about Forster for some reason on Wikipedia? I know that all of those things happened this year, but I'm not sure whether they happened before or after I decided to finally pick up this book.

Maurice is E. M. Forster's novel in which he tackles the subject of gay love. He was gay, but he didn't write about it in the novels that were published during his lifetime. This one was written around 1913-4, and published after his death in 1971.

I don't know if I'd call it Forster at his finest. He writes about Maurice, who is a young man who is kind of an ass, but strong and good looking, who just happens to be gay, from his days as a schoolboy until after he takes a degree and becomes something boring like a stockbroker. What this does have is Forster's characteristic surprisingly vivid depictions of feelings between people, and not just romantic relationships. I found the book really interesting and really good.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty

after 216 pages

I did seriously try to read this dense economic text, and I was also finding it fascinating. However, after spending over a month crawling through it at a rate of less than six pages per day, I finally admitted to myself that spring 2021 was just not the right time for me to tackle a book like this. Will there ever be such a time? We'll see.

Unfortunately I didn't really get far enough into the book to really tell you what Piketty had to say, because he was still explaining the basic economic principles that he was going to be basing his analysis on. Yes after over 200 pages.

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

276 pages

Many, many, many years ago, I'm pretty sure that my mom recommended this book to me. I'm also pretty sure that I read it back then. What I remember is that my mom recommended a book to me, and the book ended with a character visiting a family on a farm and letting them know that (spoiler alert) Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. At the time, I'd heard of Abraham Lincoln but was unaware that any such thing had happened to him, and thus this was a huge surprise.

So, this is an old children's book, which of course I love. Caddie Woodlawn is one of a large number of Woodlawn children, and she's a tomboy who runs wild with two of her brothers. This has been arranged as a scheme of her father's to try to keep her healthy instead of frail like a sister of hers who died. Caddie's family is more well-off and her world more developed than that of the Little House books, and she's a great character. The book itself, like most old children's books, is what I can only call "problematic." The treatment of indigenous people is cringy (although Caddie is friendly toward them) and so is the eventual resolution of the issue of Caddie being too much of a tomboy.

I got this book from the library and it still had its library checkout card, revealing that that particular copy of the book circulated like gangbusters all through its acquisition in the 1970s until the mid '90s. However, I don't think it's well-known in Canada anymore.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn

422 pages

What can I say? These Bridgerton books are tickling me in just the right way. I don't find them particularly smart but I guess they're a comfort, and certainly go down easier than big economics texts. This second book in the series tells the story of oldest brother and holder of the Viscount title, Anthony Bridgerton, and his love Kate. Anthony has anxiety about dying young like his father (who died of an anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting, which is, to my shock, depicted accurately). Kate is afraid of thunderstorms, which I didn't realize were so common in England.

Castle Waiting, Vol. 2 by Linda Medley

375 pages

Turns out there is indeed a second volume of Castle Waiting, although Linda Medley must've made someone mad because her name is barely on it for some reason. I think the first book featuring Sister Peace's story is better, but honestly this second volume is really good as well. It's mostly just about people spending time together having a good time, being really loving and welcoming and agreeable. I dunno how much of this sort of thing can be found in comics generally but I really enjoyed it. It's too bad there isn't more.

Why Good Sex Matters by Nan Wise

after 46 pages

The subtitle of this book is "Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life." I had to abandon it in the early going because I was getting a complex about it. Wise's proposal that seeking and feeling pleasure are good things that can help with regulating mood and stress and allowing a person to just feel anything about anything is a strong one, but a book about functional and dysfunctional sex is just not something I need in my life right now for various reasons.

Five Years Ago This Month: July 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed The Moviegoer. I liked the title of this book more than I liked the content, which I've since largely forgotten.

...I looked back at July 2011. As with the month prior, nothing much was going on on the blog. I did go to Montreal, which I still remember just being hot and not very enjoyable. We'll see if I ever go back.

...I reviewed Lonesome Dove. I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. I think about it every time I encounter the Western genre, but my feelings are a bit ambiguous at this point.

...I posted a Saskatchereference. It wasn't a great one - just a Reductress article.

...I was distracted. The formatting of the post was all over the place and I've tried to fix it. What I wasn't able to fix was the link to the initial Star Trek Discovery teaser. I don't know how much I've actually written about Discovery over the past few years but I've largely found it disappointing. On the other hand, it's getting better!

What I'm Reading: March 31-May 14, 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 06:00:00 +0000

When I decided to periodically write about the books I'm reading this year, instead of doing it all at one go in December/January, I didn't imagine how hard it would be to actually sit down and write something everything month or so. But let's just say I didn't imagine a lot of things at the beginning of 2021 that have since transpired.

Here are five books that I read between March 31 and May 14, 2021, in the order that I completed them:

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

402 pages

My book club watched Netflix's Bridgerton around the time it was released. I couldn't finish the show (I think I made it about halfway, to the duel episode) because I found the depiction of race to be too confounding and also I just wasn't that interested in most of the characters. However, we decided to read The Duke and I as part of our ongoing project to find a romance novel that we can all enjoy.

The story is about Daphne Bridgerton, eldest sister but fourth sibling of the Bridgerton family, who is looking for a husband in Regency England. Everyone is rich and gorgeous and there is also a gossip columnist called Lady Whistledown. Daphne gets involved with an old friend of her brother's, who has recently inherited the title of Duke from his asshole father.

To my very extreme astonishment, I enjoyed this book a lot. It is absolutely not a perfect book: everyone is too quippy and also everyone is constantly threatening to murder other people (in a non-serious, but sort of serious way) which is... odd? And yet it has this core of fun in it that I found really hard to resist. There is an issue of consent in the book that I think could have been avoided altogether by the reality of fertility, and also Daphne suffers from not-like-other-girlsitis, but other than that it was just so relaxing to read this book. I've since read the second in the series, which I'll be addressing in a future post, and have the third on hold at the library. I can barely believe it either.

The House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill

375 pages

A horror novel that started off strong and then descended into absolute incomprehensible chaos, but not in a good way. The main character here is a woman in her thirties who clearly has a pretty loose grasp on reality and sanity after some extreme bullying and other incidents in her youth and some more recent workplace and relationship struggles. She is an antique appraiser or something of the sort, and she gets called in to catalogue a collection of various items for sale by the descendent of a well-known but reclusive taxidermist.

I dunno exactly what was going on here and where it went so wrong. The protagonist, whose name I unfortunately can't recall at the moment, is really well-developed and interesting. She's an excellent unreliable narrator. But then I think Nevill just had too many ideas that he tried to pack into one novel: taxidermy, incest (?!), religion (!?), marionettes, an old creepy house, "cruelty plays," etc. etc. With a main character as fragile as the one in this novel, I feel like the author at least needs to have a firm grasp on what is going on, and I just didn't feel that here.

Still, this had a lot of potential, and I'm inclined to give Nevill another try or two, we'll see if I get along better with one or more of his other novels.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

247 pages

Note: this book was formerly published under a much more problematic title, for no clear reason except that ole Aggie must've been kind of racist?

My second ever book by Agatha Christie was another one of her more famous ones, and I feel as if I liked and disliked the same things as I did with Murder on the Orient Express. Basically the characters are all very broadly drawn and the mystery isn't really possible to figure out with the clues we're given. On the other hand, I'm probably a bit bitter because I accidentally spoiled the whole thing for myself by flipping to the back to see how many pages were left and glimpsing something I shouldn't've seen.

I couldn't put it down for the whole last half.

Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 3 by Ito Junji

255 pages

The third and final volume of the Uzumaki horror manga finds our main characters in a town they can't escape, full of whirlwinds, gradually transforming into a spiral itself. I do find myself wondering whether Jeff VanderMeer took any inspiration from this manga for his Southern Reach Trilogy, because there are some similarities in the two works for sure.

Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary

155 pages

Looking at Beverly Cleary's bibliography after her death in late March, I realized that I had never read any of her books, and decided to remedy this by reading the very first one, Henry Huggins, published in 1950. The book is about Henry, eight years old or so, and his dog Ribsy. Each chapter is a different adventure of Henry's, with Ribsy being more or less involved. Over the course of the book, Henry does all sorts of things like losing a friend's football and therefore having to figure out how to earn enough money to buy a new one, breeding guppies, and taking Ribsy to a dog show in the park. Henry is a really charming little boy and overall I enjoyed the book.

The book is definitely aimed at an audience of children, but of course as a budding connoisseur of old children's books, I found it fascinating. So much about childhood has changed in the 71 years since this book was published. At the beginning of the book, Henry is eight years old, alone in downtown Portland with something like ten cents in his pocket, navigating his way home on a city bus.

Current Distractions, June 2021 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 06:00:00 +0000

It's the end of June, meaning that 2021 is officially half over. While it's certainly not been a productive half-year here on the blog, rest assured that I've been taking advantage of my freedom from The List to enjoy the late winter, spring, and early summer, spending far more time outside than I did last year, among other worthy pursuits.

Upcoming distractions include some work on my outdoor space at home and of course trying to continue enjoying the summer to the best of my ability.

Reading

I know it's a copout, but I'll shortly be posting What I'm Reading with at least another five books

Watching

The Squid and the Whale

Twin Peaks season 2

Swimming

I'm back in the water, though of course not as much as I'd like, because it's still difficult to get lane swimming spots in my city. I've swum a little over 37km so far this year, which lags behind every year since I started keeping track at the beginning of 2018.

Five Years Ago This Month: June 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Five years ago this month...

...I reviewed Death Comes for the Archbishop. I didn't mind this book, but it didn't make as much of an impression as some other priests-in-the-wilderness type books that I read around the same time. I'd still say that I prefer Cather's other book I've read, My Ántonia.

...I looked back at June 2011. Nothing much was going on on the blog. I was enjoying wandering around the city on my weeks home from working up north.

...I reviewed Hotel. This was such a fascinating time capsule of a book. I'm surprised I didn't really make much note in my review of the television series inspired by the book, which was on the air for five years.

...I wrote my fourth retrospective post. While the previous retrospective post had been something of a low point for the blog, an entire three years prior to this one, I think this retrospective marks a bit of an upswing. What I'm saying in a roundabout way is that the second half of the project took a lot less time than the first.

...I was distracted. Nothing much happened, although I guess I started using Litsy around that time. I'm currently a sometime user of the app, which has failed to really launch.

A hosta that simply couldn't survive the conditions in my backyard.