#aprill is in my mistris face | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ofliterarynature · 1 year ago

Text

JULY 2023 WRAP UP

[ loved liked okay no thanks DNF (reread) bookclub* ]

Another month!

The unintended KJ Charles marathon continues, though it has finally slowed down. I reread Any Old Diamonds to start and it did hold up two months in a row (yay!). Next I hit the Occult England/Green Men series, and The Secret Casebook was so close to perfect, I wish it was twice as long (I really ought to just read Sherlock Holmes at this point, hadn't I?). Spectred Isle I was less into, but still enjoyed.

Now is probably also the time to mention Jordan Hawk's Wyborne & Griffin series, which crosses over with The Secret Casebook. I read 5 of them and I still don't know why - if you're only in it for the plot and like Lovecraftian stuff, they're pretty good, but the character development is an absolute travesty and I was incredibly irritated with myself for still reading them (I did stop reading the sex scenes by book 3 though). I was so close to marking these as "no thanks," but that felt a little unfair.

I also revisited The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, which was my very first KJ Charles book several years ago! It's still very good, and while a second time around makes it easier for me to see the parts I don't like, its also very clear why I did like it! I really enjoy the way Charles does plots and drama, but something that specifically irritates me in a lot of romance is contrived miscommunication - and these characters don't do that! They realize when they've fucked up, think it over, apologize, and try again. It's a balm to my heart. The sequel, A Thief in the Night, was also very nice.

A Guide to Midwestern Conversation was a fun little book to page through - I felt very called out at times lol (this *can't* be midwest specific, can it? Can it????), but I also have zero social skills and some things didn't quite hit me the way the author probably intended.

Witch King was my first non-Murderbot book from Martha Wells and it was a good solid fantasy read! It probably won't make my year end favorite list, but I'll definitely put more effort into reading the rest of her back list.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing was another reread, and I forgot how incredibly smart it is. Even a second time around my stomach was a knot of anxiety the whole time because this is such a perfect picture of one of my worst personal nightmares, you couldn't pay me to take April's place. Waiting so long to read the sequel, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor was bound to let me down a bit, but it was still very very good. My one complaint is that while it was still grounded in real world issues, it felt much more fantastical (and spread out between the different characters), and it lost a little of the sharpness of the first book. I would still absolutely recommend.

I feel a little bad that it's taken me this long to actually write something about the Perveen Mistry/Mysteries of 1920's India series, because they are very good, but I think it's taken three books to figure out what it is about them I don't like. The Bombay Prince, like the books before it, feels grounded in the many, many real world injustices that the characters face. It can lead to a very unsettling reading experience that doesn't automatically feel like the good guys will win in the end - it can be a tough read, but it feels like I *have* to read them. Definitely look at the content warnings.

This next book definitely had me a bit nervous going in - I distrust titles that have brushed too close to BookTok - but Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries won out in the end, even if I did almost dnf it in the first quarter. I think things worked better once Emily had another character to really play off of, and then it was fun! Think Spinning Silver crossed with Olivia Atewater's Regency Faerie Tales, with a dash of A Natural History of Dragons. I'll definitely look out for the sequel.

You Just need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People is, as it repeats, an intro and starting point to the topic. It was very well written, but as someone who does keep half an eye on the topic, nothing particularly surprised me. I should probably take some of the author's recs for further reading.

It's fitting that A Beautiful Crime is last, because I did genuinely dislike it. Maybe I went in with too high of expectations, but really, boyfriends doing antique fraud in Italy should be fun! The level of drama going on in the backstory honestly would not be out of place in a KJ Charles novel (I say with love), but this was so incredibly depressing and sad. It claims to be a literary thriller, but I was not feeling thrilled or getting any kind of suspense. Would not recommend, I definitely wouldn't have finished it if it hadn't been for book club.

Some books I actually did not finish: The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart was a real blow, I loved the Mysterious Benedict Society, but either this was genuinely worse or I'm just too old, the main character was a little too immature for me to want to deal with. Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson I also had hopes for after reading one of his other books a few years ago, but I just could not click with it despite the interesting premise. I decided to cut myself off before I got truly irritated with it. The Secret History of Food was another non-fic pick, and it was interesting! But it felt like it wandered a lot, and I wasn't vibing with how irreverent the tone was.

#book log #2023 #wrap up 2023 #bec posts #kj charles #and absolutely remarkable thing #witch king #a guide to midwestern conversation #perveen mistry #emily wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries #a beautifully foolish endeavour #a beautiful crime #books #booklr

11 notes · View notes

all-my-books · 7 years ago

Text

2017 Reading

262 books read. 60% of new reads Non-fiction, authors from 55 unique countries, 35% of authors read from countries other than USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. Asterisks denote re-reads, bolds are favorites. January: The Deeds of the Disturber – Elizabeth Peters The Wiregrass – Pam Webber Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi It Didn't Start With You – Mark Wolynn Facing the Lion – Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton Before We Visit the Goddess – Chitra Divakaruni Colored People – Henry Louis Gates Jr. My Khyber Marriage – Morag Murray Abdullah Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines – Margery Sharp Farewell to the East End – Jennifer Worth Fire and Air – Erik Vlaminck My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me – Jennifer Teege Catherine the Great – Robert K Massie My Mother's Sabbath Days – Chaim Grade Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me – Harvey Pekar, JT Waldman The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend – Katarina Bivald Stammered Songbook – Erwin Mortier Savushun – Simin Daneshvar The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran Beyond the Walls – Nazim Hikmet The Dressmaker of Khair Khana – Gayle Tzemach Lemmon A Day No Pigs Would Die – Robert Newton Peck *

February: Bone Black – bell hooks Special Exits – Joyce Farmer Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose Bright Dead Things – Ada Limon Middlemarch – George Eliot Confessions of an English Opium Eater – Thomas de Quincey Medusa's Gaze – Marina Belozerskaya Child of the Prophecy – Juliet Marillier * The File on H – Ismail Kadare The Motorcycle Diaries – Ernesto Che Guevara Passing – Nella Larsen Whose Body? - Dorothy L. Sayers The Spiral Staircase – Karen Armstrong Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi Defiance – Nechama Tec

March: Yes, Chef – Marcus Samuelsson Discontent and its Civilizations – Mohsin Hamid The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 1 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Patience and Sarah – Isabel Miller Dying Light in Corduba – Lindsey Davis * Five Days at Memorial – Sheri Fink A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman * The Shia Revival – Vali Nasr Girt – David Hunt Half Magic – Edward Eager * Dreams of Joy – Lisa See * Too Pretty to Live – Dennis Brooks West with the Night – Beryl Markham Little Fuzzy – H. Beam Piper *

April: Defying Hitler – Sebastian Haffner Monsters in Appalachia – Sheryl Monks Sorcerer to the Crown – Zen Cho The Man Without a Face – Masha Gessen Peace is Every Step – Thich Nhat Hanh Flory – Flory van Beek Why Soccer Matters – Pele The Zhivago Affair – Peter Finn, Petra Couvee The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake – Breece Pancake The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson Chasing Utopia – Nikki Giovanni The Invisible Bridge – Julie Orringer * Young Adults – Daniel Pinkwater Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel – John Stubbs Black Gun, Silver Star – Art T. Burton The Arab of the Future 2 – Riad Sattouf Hole in the Heart – Henny Beaumont MASH – Richard Hooker Forgotten Ally – Rana Mitter Zorro – Isabel Allende Flying Couch – Amy Kurzweil

May: The Bite of the Mango – Mariatu Kamara Mystic and Rider – Sharon Shinn * Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Angela Davis Capture – David A. Kessler Poor Cow – Nell Dunn My Father's Dragon – Ruth Stiles Gannett * Elmer and the Dragon – Ruth Stiles Gannett * The Dragons of Blueland – Ruth Stiles Gannett * Hetty Feather – Jacqueline Wilson In the Shadow of the Banyan – Vaddey Ratner The Last Camel Died at Noon – Elizabeth Peters Cannibalism – Bill Schutt The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry The Food of a Younger Land – Mark Kurlansky Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue Words on the Move – John McWhorter John Ransom's Diary: Andersonville – John Ransom Such a Lovely Little War – Marcelino Truong Child of All Nations – Irmgard Keun One Child – Mei Fong Country of Red Azaleas – Domnica Radulescu Between Two Worlds – Zainab Salbi Malinche – Julia Esquivel A Lucky Child – Thomas Buergenthal The Drackenberg Adventure – Lloyd Alexander Say You're One of Them – Uwem Akpan William Wells Brown – Ezra Greenspan

June: Partners In Crime – Agatha Christie The Chinese in America – Iris Chang The Great Escape – Kati Marton As Texas Goes... – Gail Collins Pavilion of Women – Pearl S. Buck Classic Chinese Stories – Lu Xun The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West The Slave Across the Street – Theresa Flores Miss Bianca in the Orient – Margery Sharp Boy Erased – Garrard Conley How to Be a Dictator – Mikal Hem A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini Tears of the Desert – Halima Bashir The Death and Life of Great American Cities – Jane Jacobs The First Salute – Barbara Tuchman Come as You Are – Emily Nagoski The Want-Ad Killer – Ann Rule The Gulag Archipelago Vol 2 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

July: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz – L. Frank Baum * The Blazing World – Margaret Cavendish Madonna in a Fur Coat – Sabahattin Ali Duende – tracy k. smith The ACB With Honora Lee – Kate de Goldi Mountains of the Pharaohs – Zahi Hawass Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy Chronicle of a Last Summer – Yasmine el Rashidi Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann Mister Monday – Garth Nix * Leaving Yuba City – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The Silk Roads – Peter Frankopan The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams A Corner of White – Jaclyn Moriarty * Circling the Sun – Paula McLain Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – Al Franken Believe Me – Eddie Izzard The Cracks in the Kingdom – Jaclyn Moriarty * Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe – Fannie Flagg * One Hundred and One Days – Asne Seierstad Grim Tuesday – Garth Nix * The Vanishing Velasquez – Laura Cumming Four Against the Arctic – David Roberts The Marriage Bureau – Penrose Halson The Jesuit and the Skull – Amir D Aczel Drowned Wednesday – Garth Nix * Roots, Radicals, and Rockers – Billy Bragg A Tangle of Gold – Jaclyn Moriarty * Lydia, Queen of Palestine – Uri Orlev *

August: Sir Thursday – Garth Nix * The Hoboken Chicken Emergency – Daniel Pinkwater * Lady Friday – Garth Nix * Freddy and the Perilous Adventure – Walter R. Brooks * Venice – Jan Morris China's Long March – Jean Fritz Trials of the Earth – Mary Mann Hamilton The Bully Pulpit – Doris Kearns Goodwin Final Exit – Derek Humphry The Book of Emma Reyes – Emma Reyes Freddy the Politician – Walter R. Brooks * Dragonflight – Anne McCaffrey * What the Witch Left – Ruth Chew All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville-West The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde The Curse of the Blue Figurine – John Bellairs * When They Severed Earth From Sky – Elizabeth Wayland Barber Superior Saturday – Garth Nix * The Boston Girl – Anita Diamant The Mummy, The Will, and the Crypt – John Bellairs * Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? - Frans de Waal The Philadelphia Adventure – Lloyd Alexander * Lord Sunday – Garth Nix * The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull – John Bellairs * Five Little Pigs – Agatha Christie * Love in Vain – JM Dupont, Mezzo A Little History of the World – EH Gombrich Last Things – Marissa Moss Imagine Wanting Only This – Kristen Radtke Dinosaur Empire – Abby Howard The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents – Terry Pratchett *

September: First Bite by Bee Wilson The Xanadu Adventure by Lloyd Alexander Orientalism – Edward Said The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan – Carl Barks The Island on Bird Street – Uri Orlev * The Indifferent Stars Above – Daniel James Brown Beneath the Lion's Gaze – Maaza Mengiste The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde * The Book of Five Rings – Miyamoto Musashi The Drunken Botanist – Amy Stewart The Turtle of Oman – Naomi Shahib Nye The Alleluia Files – Sharon Shinn * Gut Feelings – Gerd Gigerenzer The Secret of Hondorica – Carl Barks Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller The Abominable Mr. Seabrook – Joe Ollmann Black Flags – Joby Warrick

October: Fear – Thich Nhat Hanh Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 – Naoki Higashida To the Bright Edge of the World – Eowyn Ivey Why? - Mario Livio Just One Damned Thing After Another – Jodi Taylor The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Blindness – Jose Saramago The Book Thieves – Anders Rydell Reality is not What it Seems – Carlo Rovelli Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell * The Witch Family – Eleanor Estes * Sister Mine – Nalo Hopkinson La Vagabonde – Colette Becoming Nicole – Amy Ellis Nutt

November: The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing The Children's Book – A.S. Byatt The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin Under the Udala Trees – Chinelo Okparanta Who Killed These Girls? – Beverly Lowry Running for my Life – Lopez Lmong Radium Girls – Kate Moore News of the World – Paulette Jiles The Red Pony – John Steinbeck The Edible History of Humanity – Tom Standage A Woman in Arabia – Gertrude Bell and Georgina Howell Founding Gardeners – Andrea Wulf Anatomy of a Disapperance – Hisham Matar The Book of Night Women – Marlon James Ground Zero – Kevin J. Anderson * Acorna – Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball * A Girl Named Zippy – Haven Kimmel * The Age of the Vikings – Anders Winroth The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction – Helen Graham A General History of the Pyrates – Captain Charles Johnson (suspected Nathaniel Mist) Clouds of Witness – Dorothy L. Sayers * The Lonely City – Olivia Laing No Time for Tears – Judy Heath

December: The Unwomanly Face of War – Svetlana Alexievich Gay-Neck - Dhan Gopal Mukerji The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See Get Well Soon – Jennifer Wright The Testament of Mary – Colm Toibin The Roman Way – Edith Hamilton Understood Betsy – Dorothy Canfield Fisher * The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Vicente Blasco Ibanez Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert C. O'Brien SPQR – Mary Beard Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild * Hogfather – Terry Pratchett * The Sorrow of War – Bao Ninh Drowned Hopes – Donald E. Westlake * Selected Essays – Michel de Montaigne Vietnam – Stanley Karnow The Snake, The Crocodile, and the Dog – Elizabeth Peters Guests of the Sheik – Elizabetha Warnok Fernea Stone Butch Blues – Leslie Feinberg Wicked Plants – Amy Stewart Life in a Medieval City – Joseph and Frances Gies Under the Sea Wind – Rachel Carson The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia – Mary and Brian Talbot Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey * The Treasure of the Ten Avatars – Don Rosa Escape From Forbidden Valley – Don Rosa Nightwood – Djuna Barnes Here Comes the Sun – Nicole Dennis-Benn Over My Dead Body – Rex Stout *

#books #reading #2017

9 notes · View notes