Amber's (scaifea) 2021 Category Challenge

Hey, everybody!

I'm Amber, a one-time Classics professor, turned stay-at-home parent/lady of leisure, turned part-time library assistant, turned back into Classics professor. When I'm not teaching Latin, I spend my time sewing, writing, knitting, baking, and, of course, reading.

I'm 45 going on 12 and live in Ohio with my husband, Tomm; our son, Charlie; and our dog, Mario the Golden Retriever.

This is my fourth year in the Category Challenge. I won't set any particular goals for my categories again this year, but instead just list the books I read in each one and see how many I get through.

For my theme this year I'm going with favorite characters from the big and small screens.

Currently Reading:
-Uncle Silas (CAT#11: Book-A-Year Challenge)
-What Katy Did (CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up)
-Red, White, & Royal Blue (CAT#14: Romance Genre List)
-Do You Dream of Terra-Two? (CAT#17: Audiobooks)
-The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie at Bedtime)
-Three Men in a Boat (CAT#19: Everything Else)
-Mister Impossible (CAT#19: Everything Else)
-Driftless 9CAT#19: Everything Else)

BingoDOG



1. One-word title: Stories
2. By or about a marginalized group: Manchild in the Promised Land
3. Dark or light in the title: The Daylight Gate
4. Book with a character you think you'd like to have as a friend: Thick as Thieves
5. Arts and Recreation: My Friend the Painter
6. Book with a title that describes you:
7. Book you heartily recommend: Spinning Silver
8. A book about nature or the environment:
9. Classical element in title (earth, air, wind, fire, aether/void, wood, metal): Gates of Fire
10. Book by two or more authors:
11. Impulse read: Steeple
12. Book with a love story in it: Camp
13. Read a CAT or KIT: Swamp Thing: Twin Branches
14. Set in or author from the Southern Hemisphere: My Sweet Orange Tree
15. A book that made you laugh:
16. Suggested by a person from another generation: The Ruins of Gorlan
17. Author you haven't read before:
18. Set somewhere you'd like to visit:
19. Book about history or alternate history:
20. Book you share with 20 or fewer members on LT: Max and Sally and the Phenomenal Phone
21. Book less than 200 pages: Beyond Religion
22. Senior Citizen as protagonist: A Likely Story
23. Book with the name of a building in the title: High School
24. Time word in title or time is the subject:
25. Book with or about magic: Drowned Country

CATs

RandomCAT
January: LOL: Lumberjanes Vol 16
February: Fruits & Veggies: Gardens of the Moon
March: Surprise!: Ready Player Two
April: Let's Go to the Library!: BUtterfield 8
May: Let's Play Monopoly!: The Girl on the Train
June: Everything Old Is New Again: Drowned Country
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

GenreCAT
January - Non Fiction: Beyond Religion
February - Memoirs/biography: Upon the Head of a Goat
March - Action & Adventure (Military/spy/war/Westerns/thrillers etc.): The Club Dumas
April - Literary Fiction: Sense and Sensibility
May - Short stories/essays: Stories
June - Historical fiction: Gates of Fire
July - Romance:
August - Poetry/drama/graphic novels:
September- YA/children:
October - Horror: (I'll probably skip this one, because I can't do horror anymore)
November - SFF:
December - Mysteries:

KITs

AlphaKIT
January - P&M: Pilgrimage & Manchild in the Promised Land
February - T&K: Till We Have Faces & The King of Elfland's Daughter
March - U&R: The Ugly American & Ready Player Two
April - A&W: Another Country & The Worm Ouroboros
May - I&N: Nine Princes in Amber
June - C&D: Children of the Alley & Dao de Jing
July - S&O:
August - V&J:
September - F&L
October - H&E:
November - B&Y:
December - G&Q:

CAT#1: Banned Books
This list comes from 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature.
Sam and Dean Winchester are nothing if not rebels, so I think they would approve of reading anything The Man doesn't want you to read.

1. Manchild in the Promised Land
2. The Ugly American
3. Another Country
4. Children of the Alley

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books
I'm officially (sort of) a Newbery Nut - I've read all of the Newbery Medal winners, and now I'm working through the Honor books. I started this project, oh, gosh, 13 years ago, when I was pregnant with my son, and I've loved working through these kids' books. There are some stinkers, but I've also met up with some pretty amazing books along the way, too, many that I really wish I'd read when I was little!
You just *know* that Willow sought out the Newbery winners in the grade school library (she's too busy being a Scooby in the high school library to check out actual books, though).

1. The Wish Giver
2. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun
3. Upon the Head of a Goat
4. Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens
5. After the Rain
6. In the Beginning: Creation Stories from around the World
7. Scorpions
8. The Dark-Thirty

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
List from the book of the same name. I've been working on this one for as long as the Newbery project has been going on. I'm getting there.
Willy Wonka: both an entry on the list and the embodiment of childhood manic glee. Love.

1. The Story of Tracy Beaker
2. Far Away Across the Sea
3. The Stone Book Quartet
4. The Goalkeeper's Revenge
5. Conrad: The Factory-Made Boy
6. My Sweet Orange Tree
7. Manolito Four Eyes
8. Tales of the Rue Broca
9. Good Night Mr. Tom
10. The Liverpool Cats
11. The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler
12. The Haunting
13. Max and Sally and the Phenomenal Phone
14. Storm
15. The Rose and the Ring
16. Sunday's Child
17. Journey to Jo'burg
18. My Friend the Painter
19. Captain Fracasse

CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
This one comes from the list curated in The Green Dragon group a few years ago and captained by Morphidae.
Jake Peralta totally reads fantasy novels and you won't convince me otherwise.

1. Pilgrimage
2. The House on the Borderland
3. Gardens of the Moon
4. The King of Elfland's Daughter
5. Till We Have Faces
6. The Worm Ouroboros
7. Nine Princes in Amber

CAT#5: Hugo, Nebula, and other SF and Fantasy Award Winners
My best friend and I are working through a *very* long list of sci-fi and fantasy award winners. He's the Keeper of Keys and Grounds with this one, so I couldn't even tell you all of the different awards he's included. I just know that it's LONG.
The Doctor needs no explanation here, but if you insist, just ask to see his psychic paper - that will explain it all. (Charlie is a big fan of the 10th Doctor, so much so that it was his choice for this year's Halloween costume. I'm quite proud of the suit I made...):



1. Lord Foul's Bane

CAT#6: Favorite Author Bibliographies
There are a handful of authors whom I love so much that I want to read All. The. Things. So this is where I'll catalog those. Right now the list is John Boyne, Agatha Christie, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Christopher Moore, and Maggie Stiefvater.
I feel like Liz Lemon would be someone who would make sure she read everything her favorite authors write, yeah? At any rate, I love her and wanted her on the list somewhere.

1. Swamp Thing: Twin Branches by Maggie Stiefvater
2. Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

CAT#7: National Endowment for the Humanities Timeless Classics
This may well be the first book list I ever acquired. I don't remember where it came from, but I know that I got it at some point in high school, in the form of a tri-fold pamphlet. I didn't start working through it, though, until around the same time as I started the Newbery winners and the 1001 Children's Books list.
Spike *is* a timeless classic.

CAT#8: National Book Award for Fiction
This one seems clear on its own, I guess.
Felicity Smoak keeps up with the NBA winners, I just know it.

CAT#9: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Another awards list.
I know this is the list for fiction, but if any character here could win a Pulitzer in Drama, it would be Cam. My son tells me I *am* Cam, so I'll just take that as a compliment and move on...

1. Guard of Honor

CAT#10: Books on Buddhism
I've put together a list of recommended books on buddhism from various sources. Working on that being a good buddhist thing.
Sweet, goofy Jason is buddhist mindset goals.

1. Beyond Religion

CAT#11: Book-A-Year Challenge
A couple of years ago, I made a list of books by year, just to see both how far back my reading goes and where/when there are gaps. I'm now working on filling in the gaps, so that I'll have read a book from every year for as far back I can go.
I feel like Leslie Knope would totally do this, and have a binder for each year somehow.

CAT#12: Shakespeare
I'm doing a full-on reread.
Tom Hiddleston as Henry V. Excuse me while I stare at that photo for ten thousand years...

CAT#13: Cozy Mysteries
I love a good cozy. Brain candy.
Sherlock would *hate* them, no? What a little snot. I love him anyway.

1. A Likely Story

CAT#14: Romance
This is one of the few genres from which I have read virtually nothing and I want better to familiarize myself with it.
I couldn't decide between MacFadyen's Darcy and Fassbender's Rochester, so, well, why not both?

1. Outlander
2. Camp
3. The Henna Wars
4. Chaotic Good
5. Captive Prince

CAT#15: Unread Books from my Shelves
I have books on my shelves that have been there, unread, for YEARS. I need to work on that.
Like Inigo, I'm fairly certain that my books hate waiting (for me to read them).

1. The Club Dumas
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. BUtterfield 8
4. Gates of Fire

CAT#16: Books from my Read Soon! Shelves
I have a couple of shelves full of books that I really want to get to soon.
Lorelai would applaud the impulsiveness of reading what you want vs what you think you should.

1. The Daylight Gate
2. Stories: All-New Tales
3. The Girl on the Train
4. Drowned Country

CAT#17: Audiobooks
I listen to books while vacuuming, sewing, and driving, so I get through a fair amount in a year, generally.
My little Slytherin heart would let Professor Snape read to me all day long, folks.

1. Silas Marner
2. A Promised Land
3. The Moonstone
4. Middlemarch
5. Ordinary Hazards
6. Where the World Ends
7. Dig.
8. High School
9. The Swallows
10. The Ruins of Gorlan
11. Cards on the Table

CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie
I'll list here the books my 12-year-old and I read out loud together at night.
I let Charlie pick his own character for this category. We're both *huge* fans of Good Omens, so I approve his choice. He loves it so much, he was Crowley for Halloween last year:



1. The Queen of Attolia
2. Farmer Boy
3. Far Away Across the Sea
4. The Whistle, the Grave, and the Ghost
5. On the Banks of Plum Creek

CAT#19: Everything Else
I'll list here the books that don't fit any of the above categories.
Loki and Cap'n Jack are two of my favorite tricksters, masters of controlled chaos, which seems appropriate here.

1. Spinning Silver
2. Thick as Thieves
3. Each Tiny Spark
4. Works and Days, Theogony
5. The Book Thief
6. The Bacchants
7. Song for a Whale
8. Oedipus Rex
9. Antigone
10. Agamemnon
11. The Libation Bearers
12. Eumenides
13. Electra
14. Medea
15. The Frogs
16. Metamorphoses
17. Iliad
18. Odyssey
19. Aeneid
20. The Histories
21. Cursed
22. Heroides
23. The Apocolocyntosis
23. Sandman: The Kindly Ones
24. Ready Player Two
25. Memoirs of a Geisha
26. The Beast Player
27. Lumberjanes vol. 17
28. Visitors from London
29. The Crossover
30. Mrs. Dalloway
31. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me
32. Steeple
33. Dao de Jing

extra just in case

maybe just one more...juuuuust in case...

The pop culture references in this thread make me so happy! And I totally agree about Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock -- a little snot, but I love him anyway!

>26 christina_reads: Aw, yay! I'm so glad you like them! And yes, honestly, I sort of love Sherlock *because* he's a little snot...

Lovely set up. I'm not much of an expert on pop culture (I don't watch tv) so I'll be following along for tips. Charlie's costume is terrific.

I can see you had lots of fun setting this up! Love the Willow and Spike pics.

>28 VivienneR: Thanks! I'll post a photo of his costume this year, if I can remember; he's going as another David Tennant character...

>29 NinieB: I did have fun! And yay for another Buffy fan!

I love the nod to Jason for you Buddhism category. He was so sweetly clueless in the show. My husband grew up near Jacksonville so we got a huge kick out of all the Jacksonville references.

Ooh, Hiddles and Benedict! And Alan! *bookmarks these posts to look at the photos again*

Looking forward to seeing Charlie's costume! He made an excellent Crowley :)

Hi Amber, I've mostly been lurking on your threads but I had to tell you how much I love your set up - any thread that uses David Tennant mutiple times gets my approval!

>31 LittleTaiko: Jason is my favorite character on that show, although it's a close call because I love them all. So funny about the Jacksonville connection! Part of the reason I love Parks & Rec so much is because I grew up in a small town in Indiana and their representation of that kind of place is spot on.

>32 rabbitprincess: Happy to provide for your viewing pleasure! Those boys are fairly easy on the eyes, no?
I love that Charlie still lets me make his costumes for him - I have so much fun doing it!

>33 DeltaQueen50: Hi, Judy! I've been terrible about visiting other threads this year and I really want to do better next year. Thanks for the set-up love! David is welcome multiple times on any of my threads.

So much eye candy! Wow! Love the Shakespeare pic, even if it reminds that I still haven't watched that...

>35 MissWatson: Oooh, you really should! He is so, so good in it (and that's not just because he's gorgeous).

My gosh! I just love your categories! And your pictures! I'd love to do some of those lists, but am afraid I'd get bogged down and discouraged ( you know..so many books, so many lists...) But I'll follow you and look for BBs along the way.

>37 dudes22: Thanks!! The key is I'm not trying to get through a certain amount in a certain time frame. These are just the lists I'm slowly working my way through, and I like keeping track of how many of each I *do* read in a year, but I don't apply any pressure (that's obvious from my 2020 thread, where some categories *still* lay empty and I'm okay with that). I know lists are for everyone, but I love 'em.

Fun categories! Wishing you a good year of reading.

What a cute set up! I love it!

>38 scaifea: I love lists too.

Hello, Friend-from-Another-Group! Sadly, I don't know all the photo/pop culture references, but I heartily approve of Jake, Leslie, Liz, and Darcy/Rochester 😉

>39 This-n-That: Thank you! Happy reading to you, too!

>40 Jackie_K: Aw, thanks!

>41 NinieB: Right?! There's nothing quite like the feeling of crossing a read book off a list.

>42 katiekrug: Hey, Katie! Nope, no "sadly" here; it's totally fine that you don't get them all, and I'm happy to have your approval of the ones you *do* know!

>13 scaifea: I love that you are Cam - hilarious!

>16 scaifea: Ooooh yes!

>22 scaifea: Crowley is just so awesome! I just finished watching Good Omens - now I want to watch it all over again!

As always, adding my huge star here as I read in lots of the same categories as you and I always get great BBs here. Looking forward to another great reading year!

>44 JayneCM: Ha! Yeah, I admit to being a *little* dramatic sometimes, so the Cam correlation is probably fair.
And YES to Good Omens! We've watched it through, oh, probably 6 or 7 times already? It's just so good.
And yay to BBs! Here's hoping we both have good reading years!

Great cats!

>46 Tess_W: Thanks!

Love a list! Interested to see what you read from the Banned Books list.

>48 pamelad: Yeah, I'm hoping to get through a few of those this next year. We'll see how it goes. I've had a rubbish reading year this year, so I hope I can get back to normal again.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who left a space for something they might have forgotten! Look forward to seeing what you read in 2021.

>50 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori!

Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch and Matthew Macfadyen? This can't get any better!!! ;-)

I absolutely love your categories and I'm excited to see what you will read in 2021!
Especially the books on Buddhism! I have done some research myself and read a few of them (mostly in German), but I am looking for other ones because I found them all a bit wanting (that is, rather repetitive).

>52 MissBrangwen: Thanks, Mirjam! And, right?! I think those lovely boys will be perfect to keep us company this year. *sigh*

I *is* hard to find good books on Buddhism, I agree. Hopefully I'll read some good ones this year.

Nice to see a familiar and much admired face over here, Amber. xx

>54 PaulCranswick: *grins* Good to see you, too, Paul!

There is a lot of eye candy on this thread! Nicely done, Amber!

>56 Crazymamie: Ha! Thanks, Mamie!

That's a lot of categories and a lot of interesting pictures. Good luck with your reading in 2021.

>58 hailelib: Thank you - wishing you the same reading luck!

Happy New Year, Amber. Wishing you a 2021 filled with wonderful books!

I read The Name of this Book is Secret, which your son recommended for me, and enjoyed it very much. If you're interested then my review is up on the book page and my personal thread. Thank you again for the rec!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/326880#7367697

https://www.librarything.com/work/3120835/details/194076124

>61 spiralsheep: Aw, I'm so glad you liked it! I'll have to tell Charlie - he'll be excited! He loves the whole series tons.

My first read of the year is a winner!



1. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
CAT#19: Everything Else
This is the story of three young women and how they find the strength to change their world. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, a hated profession of a hated race. But she's very good at the family business; so good, in fact, that she draws unwanted attention from the powerful king of a much-feared race. Irene is the unwanted and unloved daughter of a duke, who fears the sudden attentions she unwittingly garners from the handsome young tsar (who happens to be possessed by a fire-breathing demon). And Wanda is the poor daughter of a brutish, drink-loving, child-beating father. All three lives and stories become interwoven in this gorgeous retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. And all the elements of the original are here, but reorganized, reimagined, and reinvented in such a delightfully clever way. Add to this Novik's incredible talent with words, and you've got one of the best folktale retellings out there. She's nearly Gaiman level, folks, and that is saying something.

I love your theme and the pics for the categories. I may sneak in a couple of times to drool over Captain Jack and the Winchester boys. Good luck with your reading this year.

>65 lowelibrary: Hi, April! Feel free to come and oogle anytime you like; drooling handkerchiefs are provided at the door.

2. Swamp Thing: Twin Branches by Maggie Stiefvater
CAT#6: Author Bibliographies
BingoDOG #13: Read a CAT or KIT
Twin teenage brothers: one is outgoing and always the life of the party, the other is only comfortable around the plants with which he surrounds himself in his lab. Both feel that they've lost each other somewhere along the way. But when Alec's plant experiment goes weirdly sideways and Walker's attempt to reconnect with Alec lands him in the middle of a bully beat-down, the power of brotherly love will probably win out.
I liked this one okay, but I didn't *love* it as I've loved everything else of Stiefvater's that I've read. That's not to say it isn't excellent in its own right; it's just not as gloriously amazing - for me - as her novels. Part of that may be the format. I generally enjoy graphic novels and comics, but this one didn't wow me (I think I'm not fond of the artist's style). I also think that where Stiefvater absolutely shines is in her drawing of characters *with her words,* and that was, of course, missing here.

>63 scaifea: I absolutely loved Spinning Silver too! I want to reread it this winter if I get the chance.

>68 christina_reads: Isn't it just so, so good?! It would be a great March-ish read, when winter is nearly over.

3. Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown
CAT#1: Banned Books
January AlphaKIT: M
BingoDOG #2: By or About a Marginalized Group
An autobiographical account of the life of a young black man growing up in Harlem in the 1940s, the book chronicles his shockingly early introduction into a crime-filled life (by the age of nine (!) he was a seasoned thief and gang member), through his stints in institutions such as Eleanor Roosevelt's Wiltwyck, and his amazing efforts to leave behind that life to make a better one for himself. I can't say that I liked it - this isn't a book that you enjoy reading. It's hard and harsh and bleak. But it's also incredibly well-written and inspiring, and still an important read today; I learned so much about what life was like for kids growing up in Harlem at that time, a world that, as a white farm-raised girl from the Midwest in the 80's, I knew nothing about. So I'm grateful for this narrative and humbled by Brown's ability to rise up out of his beginnings and become the impressive scholar and writer he was. Be warned, though: Brown pulls no punches in his no-nonsense way of detailing scenes of violence, drug use, and even gang rape. (I nearly put it down several times, but decided to push on because I thought it overall an important story to finish.)

4. The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain
CAT#2: Newbery Honor Books
A strange man comes to town for the annual fair, claiming to be able to grant wishes for fifty cents apiece. He sells four wishes, one each to four townspeople, then promptly disappears. The story of each person and their wish is told separately, but by the end they're all nicely entwined.
A fun version of the Foolish Wish trope, but nothing earth-shattering here.

5. Silas Marner by George Eliot
CAT#17: Audiobooks
Exiled from his hometown after being wrongfully accused of stealing, Silas Marner settles in a new community as a hermit-like weaver, a social outsider, who grows increasingly obsessed with his small and hard-earned stash of gold. When this treasure is stolen from him, Silas sinks into an utter despair, until one day, when the small child of an opium addict toddles into his life and transforms him with her love into a Real Boy, essentially, I suppose. Running parallel to Marner's tale is the story of the local squire, a wholly unlikeable rich kid type, whose own relationship to the child eventually threatens a third kind of ruin to Marner's life.
While I am generally all for a nice Family Don't End with Blood, feel-good story, this one fell pretty flat for me. The characters weren't very fleshed out and the writing didn't wow me, either. *shrug*

>72 scaifea: - It's a no for me, bro.

>73 katiekrug: Katie: *snork!*

I can't believe I said "bro" instead of "dawg." :headdesk:

>75 katiekrug: HAhahaha! I love it anyway!

>70 scaifea: - I was going to ask why you thought it was banned until I read the last couple of sentences of your review. That explains it all.

>77 dudes22: Apparently it has been banned for various reasons throughout the years, but mostly for explicit language and sexual content, but really, mostly for being an honest account written by a black man.

>72 scaifea: I read Silas Marner about ten years ago and just checked - I gave it a four star rating and I still know that I liked it well enough. But I cannot remember at all why I did, and I think that also tells you something?!

>79 MissBrangwen: Ha! Right? It's a good enough story, but I doubt it'll stick with me for very long, either.

I'm pretty sure all I know about Silas Marner was that it was adapted for the children's television series "Wishbone"... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0749540/

>81 rabbitprincess: Wishbone! How I loved that show.

>82 christina_reads: I had an official plush Wishbone! One of my favourite childhood toys :)

>81 rabbitprincess: >82 christina_reads: >83 rabbitprincess: Ha! I am just slightly too old to have been a Wishbone watcher, but I know he was a big part of a lot of childhoods!

6. The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
Tracy Beaker lives in a group home for foster children. She's been in and out of foster family homes, none of them sticking because of her tendencies toward violence and lying, but also because of the unfair actions of her foster parents. Told from her point of view, this is Tracy's story of how unfair life has treated her, of her heartbreaking hope that her mother will still come for her, and her slow-to-grow trust in others.
The idea is a really good one, but the execution was not great. I think it must be pretty difficult for adult writers to take on the voice of a child and make it believable, and I'm always amazed at authors who pull it off and do it well. It didn't work for Wilson here, though; she makes Tracy into a caricature of the Hurt Child Who's Acting Out, which, I think, does a disservice to the importance of the story. Maybe it works for the target audience better, though? *shrug*

>85 scaifea: I was too old for Tracy Beaker but I can confirm that an entire generation of Brits are absolutely positively obsessed with her, books and tv. She's even been used to try making political points, despite being a fictional character.

>86 spiralsheep: Interesting! That's one that didn't make it across the pond, I think; I'd never heard of her before picking this one up.

7. Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner
BingoDOG #4: Book with a Character You Think You'd Like to Have as a Friend
CAT#19: Everything Else
Part of a series reread to prepare for the last entry in the series.
My second time reading this one and it's just as riveting as the first time. All the cleverness and twists you expect from this series. So good. *happy sigh*

I have never heard of this series, but that is a beautiful cover! I really like it!

>89 MissBrangwen: Oh Mirjam, it's my absolute favorite series. So, so good. I highly recommend it!

>88 scaifea: I'm really getting excited about Megan Whalen Turner. I'm not sure if I'm seeing so many posts of swooning all from you (heh heh heh), but regardless, that series is really floating to the surface in my mind....

>91 pammab: Oh, it is *so* good! I hope you get to it soon. Gen is one of the best fictional characters of all time, and Turner is so very good at plot twists that seem to come out of nowhere, but once you understand what's happening, suddenly all the many hints she's carefully laid out along the way just click into place. It's so satisfying.

As excellent as The Queen's Thief series is, it is another one that I have let slip through the cracks and hopefully I will get back to it this year. I have read the first four books and have Thick as Thieves on my Kindle patiently waiting.

>93 DeltaQueen50: You're in for another treat with that one, Judy; it's not my favorite in the series (there's not enough Gen in it to top The King of Attolia), but I still love it to bits.

8. Lumberjanes 16 by Shannon Watters et al.
January RandomCAT: LOL
CAT#19: Everything Else
Another fantastic volume in the series. The celebration of inclusion and empathy and friendship and support, plus the clever quips and crazy-fun adventures, make this comic absolutely outstanding.

>95 scaifea: I love Lumberjanes. I hope Boom find something equally good to replace this (and Giant Days).

>96 spiralsheep: I need to get back to Giant Days! I've only read the first couple of volumes, but I love it, too.

>97 scaifea: I was already a long-term John Allison fan but Max Sarin's art (and the Boom editorial staff) made Giant Days his best series so far. I'm sad it had to end but I think Allison paced the series perfectly.

>98 spiralsheep: It's definitely a great series, and I love the art, too. Do you have recommendations for some of Allison's other work?

>99 scaifea: Well, Esther began her life as a schoolgirl in the webcomic Scary Go Round and there are years of archives still online for any reader who wants proto-Esther. And I personally enjoyed his three book series By Night, but it's notably different from Giant Days in both tone and execution and didn't attract the same audience. My friend, who has impeccable taste, loves the Bobbins webcomics and Bad Machinery webcomics / books but I never enjoyed either. His more recent work such as Steeple, book and separate webcomic, doesn't seem to have attracted his usual audience and hasn't grabbed me yet. I haven't read Wicked Things, which is a sequel to the Bad Machinery series.

Have you read Bandette? I think that's the closest to a Boom house style comic that isn't published by Boom.

>100 spiralsheep: Thanks for that! I may have to keep an eye out for some of those, and no, I haven't read Bandette, but I'll add it to my list now. Thanks again!

9. Pilgrimage by Zenna Henderson
CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
January AlphaKIT: P
The People are aliens who fled their home planet and crash landed in various spots on Earth. They're living amongst humans, trying to blend in and also to find each other, all while feeling like outsiders and missing their home. The book is set out as a series of short stories about various members of The People, and it's very Escape to Witch Mountain both in story and in style. Except that I kind of love Escape to Witch Mountain, but I really couldn't get into this one at all. Partly I think it's the dated scifi style, partly it's that I always have trouble with the short-story collection format, and partly because the writing just didn't click for me.

>81 rabbitprincess: I loved the handful of Wishbone episodes I caught on PBS.

Amber, so many tempting books as presented by you!

>63 scaifea: I definitely appreciated the storytelling in Spinning Silver. I haven't gotten a copy for myself yet. I think I read a library book. Or maybe borrowed it from a friend.

>102 scaifea: I haven't read Pilgrimage, but I have encountered one of Zenna Henderson's People stories in an anthology I read last year: The Future Is Female!

>103 justchris: I bought both Uprooted and Spinning Silver sight unseen, which is rare for me these days, but I'd heard so many amazing things from trusted sources about the former, and I bought the latter after reading Uprooted and just knew I'd love it, too. Novik is a can-do-no-wrong author for me.

Henderson, not so much, I think, at least not after this book. But I think I'm in the minority here, since I've read quite a few rave reviews of her stuff. I think it's just that for me to love something in the scifi genre, it has to be absolutely outstanding, since it's not my favorite area.

And yay for tempting books! I hope I can keep it up!

10. Each Tiny Spark by Pablo Cartaya
CAT#19: Everything Else
Emilia Torres has ADHD, which causes attention issues for her at school. The struggle gets more challenging when her mother leaves for a week-long business trip and at the same time her father returns from an 8-month deployment with the Marines and she finds her relationship with him awkward and strained. Throw in a well-meaning but overbearing grandmother, and things get stressful. Also, Emilia and her best friend, Gus, deal with the rippling repercussions of their town's plan to rezone the school districts and the racial issues this dredges up.
While I am a *huge* fan of the recent trend for more #ownvoices and broader diversity and representation in MG and YA books, this one doesn't work for me. There are *so* many Big Issues crammed in here (Emilia's ethnicity, her ADHD, her father's mental health post-deployment, the town redistricting, issues of class and race and acceptance at school,...) and all of them are battling for attention, that the book seems to be 10,000 After-School Specials all at once. Add to this the forced and clunky dialogue, which is just a half-step from "Oh. Look. A. Poor. Old. Hispanic. Man. Living. On. The. Poor. Side. Of. Town." "Yes. That's. Sad. And. Unfair." and you have a bit of an unfortunate mess. There are so many books out there now that are getting it right - representation across all the spectra, but well-written and not forced, and the best of them make that representation NBD - but I'm afraid this one misses the mark.

11. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
If Edgar Allan Poe and George Romero had a child in whom they were both slightly disappointed because he had fallen in with Stanley Kubrick and lots of psychedelic substances, it would be this book. A fever dream populated with possibly time-travelling pig men, a house that seems to be a portal through time and space, and the sad death of not one but TWO dogs. Weird in a definitely not good way. So yeah, that's a big NOPE from me.

>106 scaifea: Oh dear, always sad to meet a NOPE. Better luck with the next candidate!

>107 spiralsheep: Thanks!

>105 scaifea: and >106 scaifea: Sorry the last 2 reads were a bit of a disappointment. Better luck with the next one. And you're really cruising along!

>109 justchris: Thanks. I don't mind not-great reads occasionally, since they still help me move through my lists, and that's a good feeling no matter how good or bad the book was. Every book is a new experience and as cheesy as it sounds, I'm grateful for all of them.

My reading pace will slow some starting this week, since my courses start back up on Wednesday and at least some of my reading time will be filled with lecture prep rereads. I still count them, though, so maybe it won't slow down *that* much...

12. Beyond Religion by H. H. the Dalai Lama
CAT#10: Books on Buddhism
January GenreCAT: nonfiction
BingoDOG #21: Book Less Than 200 Pages
I breezed right through this lovely little book on how we need to adjust our thinking about ethics and separate them from our notions of religion, teach them more substantially in our schools, and cultivate them more vigorously in ourselves as individuals. In the first half, he sets out his reasonings for these claims, and then proceeds in the second half to instruct the reader on how to go about the personal cultivation of secular ethics with practical suggestions. I enjoyed this one a good deal, even though it was mostly a case of preaching to an already-devout member of his choir (there wasn't much here that was new to me or that went in any way against my already-held beliefs on the subject). Definitely recommended.

13. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
CAT#14: Romance Genre List
This is a DNF for me, but since I read half of it, which is 400+ pages, I'm counting it anyway. I ran up against a dealbreaker for me and after consulting with trusted sources on how that particular moment plays out and what's yet to come in the book, I've decided that I'm out. Done. It's not for me. I enjoyed the Hot Historical Guy in a Kilt aspects, and the plot was mildly entertaining, but I'm not in any way nearly close enough to being in the mood right now for the female main character suffering corporal punishment as a matter of course (just nope) and then seemingly coming to terms with it with the "well, he's sort of right I kind of deserved it" logic (NOPENOPENOPE). Maybe some other year when I might be in a more tolerant state of mind for such things? But probably not.

14. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg
CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books
A fairly dry and more-than-fairly racially dated account of Perry's interactions with the Japanese. For kids. Really not sure how this won a Newbery Honor. Yoicks.

>112 scaifea: Sorry you could not finish it, but I do understand. I can't read a book that has violence towards children (in general) or rape. I've read the entire Outlander series, and sadly, I don't remember that scene at all!

>114 Tess_W: It's funny how tolerances change over time, isn't it? I used to love reading Stephen King, but I can't handle it anymore. I'm with you on violence to children, and I'll add harm to animals - particularly dogs - to that as well.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



15. Far Away Across the Sea by Toon Tellegen
I absolutely loved this charming book about a forest full of friends quietly living out their sweet, strange little lives. It's comprised of a collection of vignettes, each one focusing on one or two of the forest inhabitants, each one not about anything in particular and utterly lacking in a progressing plot of any kind, but full of quiet intent and peaceful nuggets of comfy wisdom and tacit joy. It brought a happy handful of sunshine to my heart, and I am grateful for that. Tellegen first created these tales for his young daughter as bedtime stories, but I highly, *highly* recommend them for all ages. An absolute gem.

>111 scaifea: Beyond Religion is calling to me...

>112 scaifea: Too bad you've had a couple books that didn't work for you! I was willing look past a lot of the problematic interpersonal politics of Outlander but completely agree they are there and uncomfortable. I suspect it must be hard to write a character that is both relatable for a modern audience and not perceived as being anachronistic to that audience (though I'm also wondering more and more how accurate a layperson's perceptions of anachronism are).

>117 pammab: Oh, I hope you enjoy Beyond Religion if you get to it!

And yeah, anachronisms are interesting things. It depends on the context, but if it's something within my field (classical studies), then I can't abide it. If it's something I don't know much about, then I'm completely fine with it. Ha! So hypocritical. And you know, I don't really mind 'bad' reads, honestly, especially now that I've convinced myself it's okay to abandon ship. I used to feel obligated to finish every book I started, but no more! And even if I dislike a book enough not to finish it, I generally feel pretty satisfied with the experience: at least now I know what that particular book is about, and that feels like knowledge gained.

Beyond Religion is one of the books I keep meaning to read. Maybe this year...

>119 hailelib: Oh, yay! I highly recommend bumping it up the list.

CAT#16: Books from My Read Soon! Shelves
BingoDOG #3: Book with Dark or Light in the Title



16. The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson
A fictionalized retelling of the post-Gunpowder Plot Pendle Witch Trials, featuring Alice Nutter, and with a cameo by Shakespeare.
I'm all for fictional versions of historical events, and I'm also absolutely here for stories about witches and familiars and Shakespeare, but this one was just on the other side of too dark for me. I get that to say these women were ill-treated is a massive understatement, but I don't necessarily want to be bludgeoned with it, repeatedly. And maybe that was the point of Winterson's narrative, and if so, well done, mission accomplished, but I would rather have seen her flesh out the story of Nutter more, spend those words used on bleak and gratuitous violence on spinning more web for Alice's mysteries. She's such a promising character, but she doesn't get much more than the nod of that promise. The writing is good; the sentences are clipped and abrupt and stark, which seems right for the content, although in a few spots I think Winterson takes it a bit too far and it crosses over into clunky for brief moments. Anyway. Maybe I just wanted the book to be a different kind of book than it is. I see its merits, but I may stay clear of Winterson in future.

CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie at Bedtime



17. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
Charlie is *loving* this series, which makes me happy because I love love LOVE it.

CAT#19: Everything Else



18. Works and Days & Theogony by Hesiod
I'm teaching a Classical Mythology course this semester, and it's been a few years since I did so, which means I need a good reread of the texts. This one is not my favorite ancient Greek text, but still pretty fun in parts, and absolutely necessary to any classical myth course.

>123 scaifea: Remember: don't accept gifts from the gods! We have enough problems already. :D

>124 spiralsheep: Ha! Poor Epimetheus. Didn't know what hit him. Most men don't, to be honest.

>125 scaifea: English language: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

Me: Greeks?! The g-word you decided to go with here is Greeks?!

English language: *horse memes*

>126 spiralsheep:

CAT#19: Everything Else



19. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Narrated by Death, this is the story of Liesel, a German foster child in the town of Molching during WWII. She is one of the few humans whose stories Death follows until they come to an end, and Death retells her tale of love and bravery and book thievery and loss, oh so much loss. Gorgeously written, I loved the rare perspective of a German child during the war and the views and sufferings of Germans who hated what their countrymen were doing. Highly recommended, but fair warning: this story doesn't hold much happiness, although it makes up for it with little moments of beauty throughout.

>128 scaifea: I have had this one on the TBR for ages. I started it once and didn't continue. I think it's time to resurrect it. Thanks for the great review!

>129 Tess_W: Hi, Tess! I think you're the third person to say that they started it and couldn't get into it! I would suggest trying to persevere through the slow start because once it gets going it's pretty wonderful. And thanks for the review love!

>128 scaifea: This has been on my shelf for ages, but I never feel like starting it. I think the reason is that it was hyped so, so much on Instagram when I was a part of the bookish community there (I left two years ago). Sometimes I don't feel like reading a book when the hype has been so much.
But your review motivates me to pick it up when I have the courage and feel up to it.

>131 MissBrangwen: Hi, Mirjam! Well, not to add to the hype, but...*whispers*it's sooooo worth it. But it's also not a happy read, so maybe keep that in mind, too.

>132 scaifea: Yes, definitely, I don't think I could stomach it right now.
And I trust your judgement much more than any "bookish influencers", so if you're adding to the hype, it's a good thing :-)

>133 MissBrangwen: Aw, thanks for the confidence! So yeah, just keep it on the Someday Shelf, maybe. It'll keep.

CAT#19: Everything Else



20. Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (series read) - 10/10 = A+
I admit that I was both excited and...worried about this one. Turner's The Queen's Thief series is my all-time absolute very most favorite series. Ever. And this is the long-anticipated finale to that series. I eagerly wanted to meet up with Gen again and learn more about what happened next in his story, but there's so much pressure to finish a series strong and with an ending that lives up to the quality of the rest; Gen's are big shoes to keep filling. I am abashed now that I ever worried. Of *course* Turner pulled it off. Of *course* she wrote a final book that gives us the Gen we love, doing the amazing, impressing things we know he can do, all while taking the story to a conclusion that both is interestingly surprising and feels, in hindsight (oh, Turner is the master of hindsight revelations) like the only natural conclusion that could ever have been. What an impressively difficult thing to pull off - Turner is her own kind of Eugenides, and thus should never be underestimated.

>135 scaifea: AHH I'm excited! A Conspiracy of Kings is next up for me...I'm aiming to read one book in the series per month, which means I'll get to Return of the Thief in March. Glad to know I have nothing to worry about! :)

>135 scaifea: And of course, I am looking forward to reading Thick as Thieves this month! :)

>136 christina_reads: Christina: *bounces* YAY!! Oh, you'll LOVE it!

>137 DeltaQueen50: Judy: Woot!! So, so good.

CAT#19: Everything Else



21. The Bacchants by Euripides
One of my favorite plays to teach. A play that dares to tackle the role of Dionysus and the tension between traditional religion and the newer cult rites in his name, performed at a festival honoring that very same god. Traditional roles are conflated and blurred in such beautifully-done but ultimately brutal ways here (I mean, it *is* a Greek tragedy). Euripides *always* pushed all sorts of limits and I love him dearly for it.

CAT#14: Romance
BingoDOG #12: Book with a love story in it



22. Camp by Lev A. C. Rosen
Every summer Randy Kapplehoff goes to a camp for LGTBQ+ teens, a place where he feels safe to be the nail polish wearing, musical theater loving, fabulous fashion rocking gay he truly is (something he can't do at school) along with all the friends he's made there over the years. He's also harbored a massive crush on another camp member for several of those summers, and this year he has a plan to win over the masc4masc playboy and make him fall in love, although that plan means he'll need to put all those things he loves being and doing on hold. A Shakespeare romcom plopped down into a gay summer camp: both main characters pretending to be something they're not, fun side characters with their own romance stories going on, and a play (or musical, in this case) within a play (novel). For me the working through the "it's okay to be the gay you you are, no matter what form of gay that takes" seemed a little belabored and the dialogue around it a bit repetitive and very slightly clunky at times, but for a teen audience who may be struggling with those issues, it's probably just the right amount. And so, I think it's fun and doing important work in the field, and I can happily recommend it.

CAT#19: Everything Else



23. Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly

Although Iris is only 12 years old, she is a wiz at fixing up old radios. But as the only deaf student, she feels left out at school, and since her dad never really learned sign language, she doesn't feel completely in the loop at home either, even though her mom and brother did learn. Still mourning the death of her grandfather and feeling her grandmother's sorrow driving a wedge between her and her only other deaf relative, Iris seeks comfort in throwing herself into researching the existence of a unique whale, so unlike other whales that he cannot communicate with any of them through song. She becomes determined to find a way to fix Blue55's loneliness, mostly likely because she can't seem to fix her own.
This Schnieder Award winner from last year is okay, but there are a few things that, for me, keep it from being great. Iris didn't feel quite likeable enough for me to root for her as much as the story needs its reader to root for her. Also, the parallels between her story and the whale's (they're both outsiders and can't seem to find a family that will listen and understand them,...) are interesting ones, but the similarities between them don't need constant signposting. I got there pretty quickly on my own and I think middle grade readers will, too, and they really don't need *that* much help with it. There were also a few inconsistencies in the storyline (or maybe I was just not interested enough to remember any explanations that were somewhere given to sort things out?); for example, the biologists have trouble getting close enough to tag the whale so they can track his movements, but then Iris is somehow...tracking his movements through an app on her phone? Um, what? Anyway, sweet idea, but not super-well carried out, as it seems to me.

>141 scaifea: Seems like Song for a Whale was written by an interpreter rather than a Deaf person, too, per another reviewer. Even with your quibbles I thought maybe I'd pick it up, but with also a not-quite-personal representation, I think I'll pass too.

>142 pammab: Yes, I didn't add that to my review, but it's true that it's not an #ownvoices read, and I know some people find that very problematic.

CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
February RandomCAT: Fruits & Veggies



24. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
So, there's a baddie sorceress woman who's made herself Empress, some other unsavory sorcerer-types who want to depose her, a handful of soldiers of various types, a bunch of fighting, and...? Other...stuff? Honestly, I couldn't be arsed to pay the attention needed to sort through all of this business. I like high fantasy. I really, very much do. But this was nuts. Erikson tries to set out his world building all at once in a big brain dump right in the first few pages and it's just too much. Then he seems to realize how unwieldy that is and around page 10 starts trying to lay more of it out in the hint-hint-nudge-nudge way (having characters make off-hand references to geographic and ethnic details and then just leaving them there as foreshadows to be sorted out later), but this is also at best clumsy and unwieldy and at worst just very much more confusing-making. If any of the characters or plot details had grabbed me, I would have tried to shuffle on, but by 50 pages in, nothing had yet seemed worth the massive effort it feels like it would take to sort it all out. And that shouldn't really be my job as the reader, so yeah. I'm jumping ship.

CAT#19: Everything Else

More re-reads in preparation for my mythology course:



25. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
A story of hubris and nemesis, fate vs. free will, stubbornness vs. yielding to wisdom, and the dangers of being hellbent on pursuing knowledge without listening to that wisdom. Freud loved it, and so do I.

26. Antigone by Sophocles
Antigone was one of Oedipus' daughters, doomed by birth to follow in her father's stubborn footsteps. This play is another study in the dangers of rigid pride, blind faith in one's ingrained beliefs, and the disastrous pointlessness of clinging to those beliefs despite everyone around you trying to help you see the logic you're refusing to understand. Timely in a super-sad way, really, but Antigone is one of my favorite characters from Greek mythology, for her tragic and very human shortcomings, but also for her stubborn courage. I both love her to bits and want to shake some sense into her, which means, I think, that Sophocles has done his job well here.



26. Agamemnon by Aeschylus
The first play in the only full trilogy we have extant of the ancient Greek tragedies, and hoo boy, it's a doozie. Agamemnon's violently tragic homecoming from the Trojan War becomes the template from which all other homecomings are measured. And for good reason. Lots of amazing scenes in here, from Clytemnestra cajoling Agamemnon to step on the red carpet she's laid out for him (and therefore essentially forcing him to commit hubris), to the big reveal of her bloody deeds inside the house, to Cassandra's incredibly emotional and delightfully creepy dialogue with the chorus about knowing what's going to happen in the house - and to her - all while knowing no one will believe her (and still she bravely enters the house, knowing she's walking to her death). Toward the beginning of this play there's a passage that made me cry for the first time while reading the Greek not because it was so difficult to translate (and it is, actually, some of the most difficult Greek we have extant (also, before this I had most definitely shed tears of frustration while trying to read Greek (I'm looking at you, Thucydides)), but because of the beauty of the language.

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books
February GenreCAT: Memoirs/biography



27. Upon the Head of a Goat by Aranka Siegal
This memoir follows Piri, a young girl in a mid-to-lower class Jewish family living in Hungary during WWII, through hearing rumors of mistreatment of Jews in other areas, to being evacuated from their home and moved into a ghetto, and ends with them being packed into the train headed for Auschwitz. It's sad and moving and terrifying, and, I think, one of the more mature picks for the Newbery Honor list I've read (which are generally books aimed at middle grade readers - I'd put this one firmly in the YA category). Guardedly recommended - it's certainly not a happy read, but fairly well done for what it is.

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books



28. Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens by Patricia Lauber
A non-fiction Newbery Honor Book about the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 and the area's subsequent regrowth. Eh. Clearly meant for kids, but it accomplishes this in simplistic language only. I mean, come on, this is a cool topic, so a book for kids about it should be more interesting than this one is. Also, the photos included were weirdly hard to figure out; for example, some of them were meant to focus on something that was *way* in the background of the actual photo, and a couple had blurbs that talked about features of the mountain that I could not find in the photo at all. Some sort of arrow pointing out said feature would have been great and seems like an obvious necessity to me. Anyway. I'll file this one in the Could Have Been Cool But Missed the Boat box.

>147 scaifea: Ugh, photos that are not clearly labelled or whose captions don't match the contents are so frustrating!

>148 rabbitprincess: Correct. And especially in a book for kids! Yoicks.

17. Audiobooks



29. A Promised Land by Barak Obama
Look, I love Barak Obama to bits. To absolute bits. But. I think he needed a slightly more aggressive editor here. This is sooooo looooong. And while I am happy to have learned the behind-the-scenes deets on issues like the economic crisis, the difficulties in presenting a universal healthcare plan, and the logistics involved in bringing our troops home from abroad, I really didn't need quite *that* much minutiae. So he's still my favorite president, but I firmly believe that Michelle is a much better memoirist.

>150 scaifea: -I've got this on audio and in hardcover. I have a feeling I'll like the political minutiae :)

>151 katiekrug: Oh, I bet you will, Katie! It's definitely a good book, just maybe not exactly up my current street.

>150 scaifea: I'm reading this currently and enjoying every word. He is my favourite president too, although I know little about US presidents. I have to say I enjoy political minutiae. I'm also in the middle of one of the volumes of Winston Churchill's The Second World War so I'm getting my fill of political maneuvering.

>153 VivienneR: I'm so glad you're enjoying it, Vivienne! But ooof, I'll leave the Churchill to you, for sure.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



31. The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner
This middle grade book is a collection of four stories, each following a day in the life of a child living in Cheshire, England, and spanning four generations in the same family. There are clues in each story that link it to the next and/or previous ones and the connections are subtle and fairly clever. And so I feel that I should like this one more than I did. The idea is a good one, but sometimes it felt like I had to work much harder to figure out the linking clues than I really wanted to, which leads me to believe that some kiddos would miss them entirely and quickly would be lost. The Cheshire dialect was in parts a bit of a challenge as well. In the end, it falls into the largish bin of Books with Good Ideas but What Should Have Been Written By Neil Gaiman.

CAT#19: Everything Else

More re-reads for my mythology course:



32. The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus (Myth course readings) - 9/10 = A
Orestes returns home seeking vengeance for his father's death. The chorus in the middle of this one is so fabulously creepy.

33. Eumenides by Aeschylus (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
Orestes, having had his revenge, is now plagued by the Furies and seeks asylum in Athens. There are so many crazy-good things about this last play in the trilogy: the dark and creepy imagery, the fact that it's crawling with gods (not a common thing for Greek tragedy), and the aition of the murder court at Athens. All excellent stuff.


34. Electra by Euripides (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
My very favorite version of Electra and one of the reasons I love Euripides so much.

>156 scaifea: Love Electra!

>157 Tess_W: Oh, yay! I love that we have three different versions from all three extant tragedians and they're all so different. Euripides' version is my favorite, though.

CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
February AlphaKIT: K



35. The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany
The people come to the lord of the realm and ask him to find them a magic lord to rule them in his stead. He recognizes the foolishness of their request, but sends his son to the elvish world to find and bring back the daughter of the elf king as a wife. Things...don't go as planned. She turns out to be like any other Other Wife, unsuited and unwilling to conform to common ways. Also, the elf king isn't exactly best pleased with the arrangement. Consequences ensue.
*Sigh*
I was excited about this one. I tend to love this kind of thing, and when I read Neil Gaiman's introduction to the book, in which he practically gushes over how wonderful the story is, I couldn't wait to get into it. And then...I couldn't. Get into it, that is. It was written in 1924 but pretends to be much older, language-wise, which I found irritating. And the narrator is too far removed from the characters for my taste, which is, I realize, another old-timey quality, so kudos to Dunsany, I guess, for mastering his fake language antiquities. But I'm frustrated by my not really enjoying it, because not only Gaiman, but tons of other name brand authors absolutely love this book and I just can't see why. Gah. I have FOMO and I'm mad about it.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



36. The Goalkeeper's Revenge by Bill Naughton
A small collection of stories centered around children from working-class families in England in the 1930s. Fair-to-middling, these. I'm not sure that they've aged very well or that kiddos now would much enjoy them.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



37. Conrad: The Factory-Made Boy by Christine Nostlinger
Bertie Bartolotti gets an unexpected package one day and opens it to discover that it's a factory-made child. He's very well-behaved (he's been programmed to be), which completely befuddles the untidy, crazy-clothes-wearing, non-conforming Bertie. Her gentleman friend, though, thinks that Conrad is a perfect little boy and volunteers (rather rudely, if I'm honest) to be his father. And so they begin a sort of life together, until one day Bertie gets a letter from the factory stating that they've discovered the mistaken delivery and will be round to pick up the child soon. Conrad must change his always-obedient ways to escape reclamation and stay with the slightly strange but loving family he's stumbled into.
A little weird and sort of goofy, but I did love Bertie and Conrad tons by the end. Aimed at middle grade readers and I think they'd enjoy this kind of thing.

CAT#19: Everything Else

More re-reads for my mythology course:



38. Medea by Euripides (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
Euripides at his rip-roaring finest. I mean, damn, this is GOOD. The man could play his audience like a lyre and used and twisted established myths to force his audience to think about all sorts of uncomfortable issues. The poetic Bernie Sanders of his day and I love him to pieces. Medea is the paradigm for all the mythic fears the Greeks had about women, and Euripides both humanizes her and pushed the limits of her monstrous behaviour.



39. The Frogs by Aristophanes (Myth course readings) - 9/10 = A
Greek comedy pales in comparison to its Roman counterpart, but this one is pretty fun. Slapstick and raunchy to the limits. Poop jokes and rude gestures abound. But it's a good entry for a myth class because it turns myth on its head in a very different way from how Euripides does so. And I do love a good breaking of the 4th wall.

CAT#19: Everything Else

More re-reads for my mythology course:



40. Metamorphoses by Ovid trans. Stanley Lombardo (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
An impressive compilation of myths, all under the rubric of change (something or someone undergoes a transformation of some kind in every story). A Roman take on Greek myths, Ovid puts his own special twist and sense of humor into every tale, weaves each story into the next and embeds stories within stories within stories seamlessly, all while using a Greek meter on a language not made for such things, and succeeding brilliantly. Always a wild and fun ride.



41. Iliad by Homer trans. Stanley Lombardo (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
A story about rage and glory and the pettiness of gods and men, the tragic pointlessness of war, and the consequences of our choices. There are passages in here that give me goosebumps every time.



42. Odyssey by Homer trans. Stanley Lombardo (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
An adventure of the highest quality, and a story about a man desperately trying to find his way home, a boy navigating the waters of adolescence and manhood without a father, the dangers of curiosity, the value of cunning, and the difficulty of coming home after being a soldier abroad. More goosebumps to be had, folks.



43. Aeneid by Vergil trans. Stanley Lombardo (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
And if you think Homer is good, hoo boy, hold Vergil's wine cup. He sets out to pay tribute to Homer with a Roman version of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, written, as Ovid does, in a language which doesn't naturally fit the epic meter, and simply blows Homer right out of the water. A new kind of epic hero for a new empire, with nods to his Greek predecessors and a fascinatingly uneasy encomium to Augustus' New Rome.



44. The Histories by Herodotus trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
Father of History and Father of Lies, Herodotus knows how to party. By which I mean he writes history that reads like fantasy. Because, for the most part, it is. An absolute hoot every time.

I have new-to-me translations of Iliad and Odyssey (by Caroline Alexander and Emily Wilson, respectively) and am so looking forward to reading them! Maybe a late 2021, early 2022 project.

>164 rabbitprincess: Oh, yay! I hope you love them! I'm not familiar with the Alexander translation, but I wasn't at all impressed with the Wilson one. I know others like it, though. For me, it will take a lot of talent to best Lombardo's translations.

CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
February AlphaKIT: T



45. Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
A Retelling of the Cupid and Psyche story through the point of view of one of the sisters, casting her in the light of a heroine (sort of), where she was a villain in the original. I went into this one excited at the prospect of such a retelling, but I'm afraid I'm a little disappointed. The general idea of revamping the sister into a more complex character is a good and interesting one, and there are some very cool passages in which the idea of how myth changes to suit the needs of the changer is grappled with. Two things kept me from really liking it, though: 1) the main character (the sister) isn't at all likable, and for this version of the story to work, the reader really needs to be rooting for her, which I just couldn't do; and 2) toward the end Lewis whips out his Let's Make This a Metaphor for the Christian God pen, and just, ugh. Nope. So, in the end, cool idea but it just doesn't quite work for me.

>166 scaifea: Interesting review! I haven't read any C.S. Lewis beyond the Narnia books. I want to but somehow expect I'll find it difficult or be disappointed, so I haven't got to it so far.

>167 MissBrangwen: This was my first venture beyond Narnia, too. This one certainly wasn't difficult, at any rate.

>166 scaifea: I think C. S. Lewis related everything he wrote to his Christian beliefs (though I must admit I haven't read any of his scholarly output as an English literature professor).

>169 Robertgreaves: Yep, Robert, I suspect that's true.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
BingoDOG#14: Set in or Author from the Southern Hemisphere



46. My Sweet Orange Tree by José Mauro de Vasconcelos
Zezé is a five-year-old boy living amidst poverty and in an abusive home. The adults in his life have convinced him that he's an evil child and doesn't get presents for Christmas because he isn't worthy of them in the eyes of Jesus. In truth, he's an incredibly intelligent child, creative and intuitive, and he longs for affection in a way that will break every reader's heart. His strength throughout all the hardships he faces keeps you rooting for him, but also makes the inevitable trauma that breaks his spirit that much more of a gut-punch. This is a bleak read, but it also has its beautiful moments and if you brave the bleakness, you'll be rewarded with getting to fall in love with Zezé's sweet but mischievous little soul.

CAT#5: Hugo, Nebula, and other SF and Fantasy Award Winners



47. Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
A man finds out that he has leprosy and then proceeds to act completely selfishly and horridly self-centeredly across two worlds and throughout the remainder of the novel. The main character has absolutely no redeeming qualities at all, and the story reads like bad D&D fic gone completely off the rails. The only way this book could hold any interest at all to me is if it's read as happening wholly in the MC's mind, and even then I don't think I can muster up enough bother to care. How this is considered a keystone of fantasy lit, I have absolutely no idea.

>47 scaifea: It was considered groundbreaking when it came out because of the uncertainty as to whether it was real or all taking place in Thomas Covenant's mind and because he was such an unpleasant character. At the time there weren't quite so many Tolkeinesque fantasies about and of course Dungeons and Dragons didn't exist yet.

I re-read the first trilogy a couple of years ago and it really didn't stand up to the test of time. I suspect it only worked if you read it in your teens or early twenties around 1980.

>173 Robertgreaves: I’ll give you the unpleasant character part, but honestly I wasn’t looking for people to take the influential bit literally. And D&D was invented in 1974, but of course it needn’t be around before the book was written for me, having just read it now, to think that it reads like bad D&D fan fic.

>175 Robertgreaves: Really? I didn't know that. I associate D&D with the 1980s.

>174 scaifea: When read a lot of SF&F novels in the 1980s-90s fans regularly joked about terrible fantasy novels mostly being either bad D&D fanfic or bad SCA fanfic, lol.

>176 spiralsheep: Ha! Yep. There's a lot of quality Scifi and fantasy from those years out there, too, though, of course.

>177 scaifea: Yes, there wouldn't have been so many fantasy fans if there wasn't good genre work to read, obviously. And also some not especially good work that was still important because it helped create new subgenres, such as urban fantasy and fantasy of manners. But even back when it was much more difficult to get a book published there was, as you noted above, someone's barely disguised D&D campaign (or SCA fandom or drug-addled late 1960s hangover or whatever).

>178 spiralsheep: Agreed, all around!

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



48. Manolito Four Eyes by Elvira Lindo
Chronicles the adventures of a boy living in Madrid with a cast that includes school his friends, his little brother, and his eccentric grandpa. This one didn't really work for me. I suspect that it's a difficult thing for an author writing from the 1st person POV of a child to find just the right balance between sounding too precocious and turning kid dialect into a poor caricature. I'm afraid Lindo misses the mark here for me and veers way too far into caricature land, although to be fair, it could be a matter of cultural difference or a not-great translation. At any rate, it won't make any of my Favorites lists.

CAT#19: Everything Else

More re-reading for my mythology course:



49. The Early History of Rome, Book 1 by Livy
More re-reading for the myth class. Livy's...not my favorite, but I still have a certain fondness for him. He's not as dazzling as Ovid, nor as goosebump-inducing as Vergil, and he's not the wild ride that Herodotus is, but he has his merits. I have the myth students read the first book in his history because it's just as full of mythology as Herodotus is this early on and it's worthwhile comparing the two and how they each (and therefore how the Greek and the Romans) use mythology for different purposes. It's also fun to have them think about Livy in terms of Vergil: both on slightly uneasy terms with Augustus and that is reflected in their works in interesting ways.

CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie



50. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A year in the life of LIW's future husband when he was a kid. He grew up on a farm (obvs) and so we follow all the work that happens on a farm through each season. I love that part of it, but I think Wilder does not at all excel at explaining the details of certain things, in this book or in her other books: descriptions, for example, of how to make a sled or a yoke always leave me cross-eyed and none the wiser, and the narrative would be better without them. However, we still enjoy the series as a read-aloud project - Charlie's happy with them and I loved them as a kid, too, and am enjoying the revisit.

CAT#14. Romance



51. The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar
Nishat is entering her Transition Year in her Irish high school, has just come out to her parents with unhappy results, and has a crush on her worst enemy's cousin. So when a business project is announced as also a competition for a nice cash prize at school, she dives into it with a distracting passion for winning with her henna designing business plan. Her crush and her enemy team up and decide also to offer a henna business, though, (one of them unaware of the tone deafness of the gesture and the other very maliciously aware of it) and Nishat's short-lived happiness comes crashing down in a spiral of cultural appropriation mixed with homophobia and racism, and she worries whether her friendships, her crush, and her family ties will survive. This one was slightly rough going for me at first - I found the actions of the bully almost too frustrating to keep reading - but it smooths out in the end and turns out to be a fair YA novel on the subjects. Not a favorite, but I'm certainly not unhappy that I read it.

CAT#19: Everything Else



52. Cursed by Karol Ruth Silverstein
Ricky is a teen trying to adjust to living with the severe arthritis she's developed in the past few months. Life has changed drastically for her in other ways lately, too: her parents have recently divorced, she's moved in with her father to be in an apartment with no stairs (much easier, in theory at least, for her painful condition), and this means a new school, too. But she has to walk the few blocks to school, plus face accessibility issues and bullying once she gets there, and it's just all too much. So she starts skipping school. And gets away with it for months. She eventually gets busted, then suspended for cursing at a teacher almost immediately after returning to school, which leads to some harsh reality facing: take on a pile of extra work - and extra after-school meetings with the teacher she hates - or don't pass ninth grade. But things do start changing for the better once she starts communicating just how difficult things have been for her to her parents, her new friends, and her new doctor.
I struggled with this one at the beginning because I had a hard time getting past Ricky's angsty angry bad attitude. She evolves and grows throughout the story, though, as do her parents, and it became obvious to me at some point (much later than it should have, really, silly me) that this was a major point to the novel: awareness and communication help all parties to change for the better. In the end, it's actually a very good read and makes some very good points about accessibility, the importance of communication (for kiddos to *tell* their adults what's going on with them openly and honestly and for the adults to listen and in general be more aware of what's possibly not being said). And it has reminded me of one of the reasons I love reading MG and YA books: it's been a fair while since I was that age and it's easy to forget how hard it can be and the specific challenges kids at those ages face. I feel that I gain and maintain much more empathy for young people by stepping into the shoes of these characters, and it helps me keep a healthy respect for what they face every day. Books matter. Books do important work. And this one and others like it in the genre do important work on me.

CAT#19: Everything Else



53. Heroides by Ovid (Myth course readings) - 9/10 = A
A collection of epistolary poems, in which women from myths write letters to the heroes who have wronged them. Ovid gives a voice to these female characters, but his patent tongue-in-cheek style is still very evident. Impressive yet infuriating in parts, which, let's be honest, makes for excellent student discussion.



54. The Apocolocyntosis by Seneca (Myth course readings) - 9/10 = A
The title translates to "The Pumpkinification" and refers to Claudius getting deified after his death. Seneca clearly doesn't approve and here gives us a silly satire to prove it. I have students read this one so we can talk about the whole issue of the Romans turning their leaders into gods so nonchalantly, plus the text itself gives us a fascinating take on the underworld/afterlife.



55. Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman (Myth course readings) - 10/10 = A+
*happy sigh*
This is Gaiman at some of his heckin' best. I love it even more every time I read it. I'm walking a fine line here, and if I lose my balance I'll tip over into verbose, giddy gushing, so instead I'll just say this: Toward the end, when the raven Matthew asks Dream why he doesn't just 'poof' the Furies away from the Dreaming and be done, Dream's response is, "Because there are rules. And because they are part of something far huger and older than simple goddesses, and bound and empowered by rules, as I am." This is what myth is all about, those ancient rules, and things older and bigger in scope than the stories themselves. Myths explain the unspoken rules we live by and tell us why those rules are important. And That's why our stories are so vital. Gaiman gets it. He. Gets. It. And I will love him to the end of my days for that.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



56. Tales of the Rue Broca by Pierre Gripari
A collection of stories for children, all set in a semi-magical street in Paris.
Meh. Typical mediocre fare for the time period. S'okay but not any more than just.

CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie



57. Far Away Across the Sea by Toon Tellegen
I read this one earlier this year and loved it so much I immediately bought a copy and convinced Charlie and Tomm to let it be our next bedtime read-aloud. They loved it, too! Here's what I said about it in my first-read review:

I absolutely loved this charming book about a forest full of friends quietly living out their sweet, strange little lives. It's comprised of a collection of vignettes, each one focusing on one or two of the forest inhabitants, each one not about anything in particular and utterly lacking in a progressing plot of any kind, but full of quiet intent and peaceful nuggets of comfy wisdom and tacit joy. It brought a happy handful of sunshine to my heart, and I am grateful for that. Tellegen first created these tales for his young daughter as bedtime stories, but I highly, *highly* recommend them for all ages. An absolute gem.

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books



58. After the Rain by Norma Fox Mazer
Rachel doesn't really know or like her grandfather much, despite spending every Sunday at his house with her parents. But when he starts having trouble breathing and gets a grim diagnosis from the doctor, she starts taking his daily walks with him and gradually comes to recognize the love between them.
A Newbery Honor book that, as it seems to me, won the Honor on the basis of tackling the subject of a family death. It's an honorable idea, but not very well executed here. The writing's okay, but none of the characters are all that likeable. I think for something like a treatment of this topic to work, the author needs to make the characters sympathetic enough that the reader can slide right into their shoes and easily try to imagine what they're feeling and thinking. This story, however, leaves the reader half-interested and wholly on the outside of the events; I just didn't feel invested at all.

>183 scaifea: and >184 scaifea: and >187 scaifea: These all sound like lovely books!

>185 scaifea: Heroides sounds great! I love epistolary stories! How have I never heard of this? Maybe because all we ever hear about are the top 5, maybe 10, classics that everyone is supposed to read. We did read Lysistrata in my freshman humanities class, and I did love that.

I have yet to read The Kindly Ones. I graduated from college before the series ended, and thus lost my access to comic books. And never managed to get around to it since then. Meant to collect them all in the collected graphic novels, but after years of going nowhere after the initial finds, I gave them away. You do a great job selling them and Gaiman as an author.

>189 justchris: Yeah, the Heroides are not what Ovid is best known for, but they're definitely worth a read.

Check your library - you may be able to find the Sandman collections there. I'm plopping my students down toward the end of the series with The Kindly Ones, but if you can, I'd recommend starting at the beginning, of course. There are tons of references to the rest of the run in this one.

CAT#19: Everything Else
March RandomCAT: Surprise! (This was a Christmas present from Charlie)
March AlphaKIT: R



59. Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
Just days after the events of the first book, Wade makes a discovery that changes the world (both virtual and real) forever, and it opens up a brand-new quest. But things aren't wonderful for Wade for long; his life starts falling apart and it's only his obsession for the new contest that keeps him going. When the quest itself turns live-threateningly serious on a massive scale, he'll have to start mending bridges and bring the High Five back together to try to beat the game in time, or disaster on a scale never known before will mean an end to everything.
This is a great follow-up to RP1 and I loved it to bits. My couple of very tiny quibbles: 1) The writing starts off a little rough and honestly had me worried that the whole thing was going to be a disaster. But Cline pulls out of the early awkwardness and finds his old stride in time, and once the storyline kicks in, it's nearly as fun a ride as the first book. 2) I thought one of the sections of the quest dragged a bit, and it was right at about 2/3 through the book, which is a bad place for things to slow down. Again, though, Cline recovers and finishes pretty strong. 3) The reconciliation of Wade and Art3mis seemed sudden and too easy? Not that I wanted them fighting the entire time, but she seems to relent and for no given reason very early on. It just felt weird and unsatisfying.

Love your comments on >184 scaifea: Cursed and I did have to take a look around for >187 scaifea: Far Away Across the Sea now that you recced it again. Lots of nice reviews.

>192 pammab: Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy both of them if you get round to them.

17. Audiobooks



60. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone follows the eponymous gem's troubled history from its original home in a Hindu temple in India, through a series of thefts, and focuses on a final robbery after it resurfaces as a birthday present to a wealthy young British heiress.

Touted as possibly the first British detective novel, it's overall a fun ride, although a few things about it keep me from giving it an A. The characters are nicely drawn, but a few of them are more irritating than I'd like to have to endure, and this is made worse by the narrative structure of the book: Collins breaks up the story into several sections, each narrated by a different member of the plot, and a couple of these characters are nearly unbearable to me. It's an impressive exercise in creating flawed characters and I recognize that the reader is meant to see them as comical in those flaws, but I have no patience with the kinds of flaws they're given (members of older generations thinking they're better/wiser than people younger than them just because they've lived longer, with a healthy dash of salt-of-the-earth folks are better than anyone else, and religious fanaticism; both are frustrating and not amusing to me). My other complaint is that the original theft of the moonstone is a clear act of colonialist hubris, and although I suspect that Collins is trying craft the story at least in a way as a commentary on such a thing, the Indian characters who strive to retrieve the gem are cast as wholly unsympathetic people - exotically evil - and I take a heaping pile of issue with that.

Honestly, I would *love* someone to write a companion novel from the viewpoint of the Indians, who are frustrated at nearly every turn in trying to regain what's rightfully theirs by ridiculous and privileged white men, who are so desperately trying to hold on to what they've stolen. I would read the *heck* out of that novel.

I have The Moonstone on audio to listen to, also. I don't think the colonialism will bother be as much as you--it was written in 1868 and a product of its time. I am wondering if these books that contain colonialism will soon be "banned" books because they are not PC? I just read where there is a petition in some southern US states to remove Gone with the Wind from the libraries. I'm a "all the books on the shelf" type of gal. That doesn't mean one has to read them, but they should be there in a free society.

>194 scaifea: I couldn't get through The Moonstone, myself, but I would totally read a companion novel like that!

>195 Tess_W: I couldn't find any news coverage of such petitions. These concerns that un-PC books will be banned are kinda disingenuous along the lines of OMG, the PC police are running amok destroying our culture. As opposed to wanting damaging cultural narratives to be questioned or situated within important context that examines those narratives. What I did find was this article about HBO-Max pulling Gone with the Wind from its streaming service: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/hbo-max-paused-streaming-gone-wind-because...
Does that mean it's gone forever? Probably not. But I acknowledge that such literature classics promote white supremacist/colonialist worldview by their very nature. Unquestioning consumption of them is not helpful and actively perpetuates the harmful narratives. Consumption with dialogue, understanding of the context and the embedded messages, and all of that can be very helpful. So I'm with you on books being available, but also on the importance of context for understanding them

>197 justchris: exactly, context--the time period it was written! The part about the petition, was told to me by a colleague who is from Atlanta. I know that someday, probably in the not too distant future, a generation will judge our reading material/movies thusly, also. I have always thought it a bit unfair to evaluate a piece of literature of the past by today's standards. Now, that doesn't mean that I think colonialism or racism is okay, (because I most definitely do not!), but that it was just a part of the times.

Sorry, Amber, did not mean to hijack your thread.

>195 Tess_W: >197 justchris: >198 Tess_W: I'm very much against banning books and of course I understand that books are always already a product of their time, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to get irritated by things such as racism or colonialism when I read them.

>196 rabbitprincess: Right? I *need* someone to write that book!

CAT#19: Everything Else



61. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Historical fiction about the life of a geisha in Japan starting with her childhood and moving through her training and the turns her life takes through WWII and beyond. I enjoyed the story quite a bit up until the end, when I became annoyed at the main character's life choices and the path the love story took. I felt the novel would have been more interesting and would have ended on a much stronger note had Sayuri shown more actual character growth (or maybe she did grow and just in a way I didn't want her to?). Also, I'm slightly uneasy with the fact that the author is a white American male. The writing is good and the story is fairly interesting, but just because he can doesn't really mean he should. I now feel like I should seek out authentic geisha stories by #ownvoices authors.

>195 Tess_W: >197 justchris: >198 Tess_W: >199 scaifea: Just chiming in. I think it's ironic that people who might normally chime in against "book banning" are now on a war to limit access to certain books--like Dr. Seuss. That doesn't mean the other side isn't doing the same. Christian colleges and universities and booksellers pulled Ravi Zacharias' books off the shelf when his sexual scandals came out after his death. I enjoy reading books set in other time periods and cultures. Because I enjoy reading books set in colonial India, but I separate that culture from today's. Reading those books gives me insight into that culture. Does it mean I agree with everything I read? No. If we removed every book that offended someone, we would not have a single book remaining. I do, however, think a certain mindset exists (on both sides of the spectrum) which believes if we limit access to books with objectionable elements, they will eventually go away. If we believe that, we delude ourselves. I also believe the publishing industry (power of the press) tries to use its influence to persuade people to believe as they do. I won't go into it in detail, but I find myself more comfortable reading older books or non-fiction books than many books by today's authors. I still read a lot of newer books, but I find I disagree and object to many elements in them.

>201 thornton37814: Yep, I'm agin' book banning pretty much wholesale.

To be clear, though, the Dr. Seuss thing wasn't anyone calling for a ban; it was the estate people making the decision on their own, yeah?

>201 thornton37814: you said it much better than I! TY!

>202 scaifea: Yes, but it's being applied to other things now too. I'm seeing "banning" on both sides (or at least things that would make ALA's censorship attempts lists).

>204 thornton37814: Well, I'm agin' in on both sides, then.

CAT#15: Unread Books from my Shelves
March GenreCAT: Action/Adventure



62. The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Lucas Corso is a mercenary book detective: for the right price, he will hunt down rare manuscripts, authenticate possible forgeries, and even sometimes relieve rightful owners of an item in their expensive library, again, for the right price. Here we find him working on two separate cases: working to authenticate a manuscript of Dumas' "The Anjou Wine," and tracking down - and acquiring at any cost or means - the only other two existing copies (his client already has the third) of a book that claims to hold the secrets to summoning Satan himself. Soon after taking on the two jobs, Corso finds himself in what seems to be some strange novel-come-to-life play, in which he's one of The Three Musketeers being pursued across Spain, Portugal, and France by Rochefort and Milady, all while very possibly consorting with a demon in (gorgeous and nubile) human form.
With its complicated double plotline and its twists and mysteries, this one reads like a puzzle begging to be sorted, and it drops literary references to be picked up like breadcrumbs while also scattering seeds of ambiguity: it this *really* about Lucifer and demons walking amongst us, or are those seeds just more crumbs in disguise? It's delightfully clever - an homage to Dumas, classic detective novels and their main characters, and an excellently creepy treatment of the supernatural. The story is intense and interesting, and the characters are excellently crafted. I loved it.
Also, funny story: about 3/4 through it, I realized that parts of it (the demony parts) were starting to feel very familiar, and then it hit me that The Ninth Gate (the Johnny Depp movie) seems really close to some of the plot. I looked it up, and yep, the movie is (loosely) based on this novel. But despite Depp looking gorgeous in glasses, I'd say choose the book over the movie, because the movie, if I'm remembering rightly (it's been *ages* since I've seen it), leaves out the Dumas stuff, and so knocks the cleverness factor down by at least half. But then again, Depp in glasses, so...

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



63. Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
8-year-old Willie is one of the many London children evacuated to the countryside during WWII. He gets placed with the town curmudgeon, Mr. Tom, and thus a beautifully unlikely pair is born. Willie comes from a poverty-stricken part of London and has been physically and mentally abused by his mother. He's small and thin and weak; he's also far behind where he should be in school. But Mr. Tom, despite his gruff exterior (forged by his own tragic backstory), is all kindness and gentleness when it comes to caring for the boy, and Willie soon starts to thrive. He makes friends, finds confidence in himself, and learns that love isn't terrifying or painful. But then his mother writes that she wants him back home and both he and Mr. Tom have some heavy decisions to make.

Oh, but this is a lovely book. I have an absolute soft spot for Evacuated London Children stories, and this is one of the best. Not only is the relationship between Willie and Mr. Tom so very well crafted, but all the other members of the small country village have depth and their stories are lovingly told as well. It's a perfect mix of heartbreaking and happy-making without being at all saccharine. Highly recommended.

>207 scaifea: Did you know it had been turned into a TV film?

>208 Robertgreaves: I do - my husband apparently watched it when he was a kid and loved it.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



64. The Liverpool Cats by Sylvia Sherry
Rocky lives on the edge of poverty with his borderline-abusive mother, his nonverbal little sister, and a mostly-absent stepfather. His older brother, whom he worships, has been in prison long enough that their sister has never met him, and Rocky seems to be headed in the same direction as a member of a gang of kids looking to break into more serious "jobs."

The book strikes a good balance between the bitterness of Rocky's world and the glimmer of hope in his character's development from blind acceptance of his lot as a Bad Kid to an awareness that there's more out there that he could accomplish. Rocky is a nicely drawn character (rough but also malleable and fundamentally a kind soul), as is the Liverpool neighborhood in which he lives. As it turns out, I enjoyed this one more that I suspected I would.

CAT#1: Banned Books



65. The Ugly American
A connected collection of vignettes, all centered around the fictional Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan and the Americans stationed there by the US government. I honestly didn't think I'd enjoy this one at all, because war and politics are very much not my reading jam, generally. But these stories are so well told, the characters so well drawn, and the point of the authors so well made that, in fact, I loved it. I never would have picked it up had the book not been on the list of banned books I've been working through for ages. It was banned for political reasons, and it's not difficult to see why: Lederer and Burdick wrote the thing to draw attention to the ridiculous attitudes Americans had toward the people in SE Asia, their self-isolation once stationed there (all-US cocktail parties and only shopping at the commissaries and such), and the buffoonery of the official decisions and (in)actions that resulted. Very readable and still relevant.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



66. The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler by Gene Kemp
Follows the ups and downs of a school year for Tyke Tiler, including taking care of a friend, Danny, who has much more trouble at school than Tyke, both mean and kind teachers, a hectic but loving home, and adventures in an abandoned mill.

Above-average entry in the genre of first-person school narratives. The story was fun and the characters believable; I was particularly impressed with how I was completely fooled until the very end into thinking Tyke was a boy. (I assume this was the point and not that I was just weirdly dense about it, because it *did* seem to be a purpose-filled reveal, with no indication of her gender previous to the last couple of pages).

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



67. The Haunting by Margaret Mahy
Barney is being haunted by his possibly-dead Great Uncle Cole, but he doesn't want to tell anyone because it would just upset them.
A neat premise with a couple of fun twists and a flash of lovely writing here and there, but it felt like more of a quick sketch than a fully fleshed-out story. That's a shame; if the characters had been given more depth and the story more time and detail, this could have been a real corker.

>206 scaifea: I started reading the description of The Club Dumas and I kept waffling as to whether it was a real or a fictional book! That's pretty funny to me, because by your comments on it, it was obviously fiction, and the first sentence is obviously fiction as well. But somehow the rest still felt potentially real to me. Sounds like a good book to read after I have some Dumas under my belt.

>212 scaifea: Unfortunately I clicked the spoiler on The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler and now I can't unsee it! Sounds like I might have just ruined one of the major selling points of the book with that click.

>214 pammab: I would kind of love it if it *were* real! It would be a pretty cool world to walk around in, and I wouldn't mind rambling around in it with Corso, to be honest...

Ha! Oh, the temptation of The Spoiler. So siren-like.

CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie



68. The Whistle, the Grave, and the Ghost by Brad Strickland
Lewis Barnavelt is at it again, and this time, during a camping trip, he finds a magic whistle that summons a lamia (an ancient vampire-type creature). As usual, he and his friend Rose Rita decide that it's best not to tell the adults about it because that always works out so well for them (yoicks). But, of course, it all works out in the end, with a nice little surprise twist along the way.
I've said it before but clearly that's not stopping me: I love this series because it's perfect for middle grade kiddos who like their stories just a little bit creepy but not actually scary. The characters are old friends and it's always fun to meet up with them again. Charlie continues to love the series, too.

CAT#15: Unread Books from my Shelves



69. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Young sisters of marriageable age but of little yearly allowance living in a cottage and taking long walks and meeting young men of marriageable age and falling in love but not communicating all that well about it and then being heartbroken when said men turn out to be actual walking turds but then forgiving same turds when they turn out to be not quite as awful as originally thought (but still pretty terrible, honestly).

So. Not nearly as good as Pride and Prejudice, but not terrible, either. Sort of. If I let myself think too hard about it, though, I could probably get pretty angry. I mean, the only actual decent man in the novel gets sidelined as a consolation prize?! Yoicks. Both sisters (as much as I do love Elinor) need a good sense-shaking-into and possibly a healthy smack upside the head. The wicked women in the plot were deliciously so, though, so there's that, I guess.

17. Audiobooks



70. Middlemarch by George Eliot
Ugh, I couldn't justify finishing this one. Eliot is hit-or-miss for me (Adam Bede was awful with raisins but I enjoyed Silas Marner just fine), and this one is a giant miss. I can't manage to care about any of the characters and the plot is clearly going someplace that will absolutely annoy me and it's taking its sweet-ass time getting there. I tried hanging in there, but just no. So I'm out. I'm done. And I'm also counting it toward my total reads for the year because I've done my suffering (6 hours of it! In Azkaban!) and I've earned the tick mark.

17. Audiobooks



71. Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes
A childhood memoir in free verse, this Printz Honor Book takes on Grimes' troubled early years with a schizophrenic mother, an unreliable yet loving father, an abusive step-father, and times in and out of foster care. It's one in a happily-growing number of #ownvoices narratives, although it didn't quite work for me. It's an important story and I'm glad that Grimes is brave enough to put it out there, but her writing style, I think, just isn't to my tastes. I'm certain that it would work well for others, though.

CAT#14. Romance



72. Chaotic Good by Whitney Gardner
Cameron and her twin brother, Cooper, are adjusting to life in smaller-and-more-backwoodsy-than-Portland Eugene, so when Cameron walks into the local comic shop looking for inspiration for her next cosplay costume, she is horrified at how the dude-bro behind the counter mistreats her as just a girl trying and failing to be a True Geek. She's suffering from massive troll attacks on her blog for her recent win at a con with her amazing cosplay designs and this is the last straw. So she has Cooper help her transform with the ultimate cosplay: into a boy. And the transformation opens up so many doors for her, including one into a fun D&D group at that same comic shop, with a completely dreamy DM. But keeping the secret will of course mean trouble down the line and Cameron needs to find the confidence and strength to be proud of her abilities *and* her gender.

This book is a perfect storm of all things I love: Shakespearean nods, comfortably predictable yet still well written YA romance, a main character who can sew amazing cosplay, excellent and totally loveable characters with wonderfully happy-making and believable interactions and relationships, and a fun D&D side story. If any of that is your jam, you *need* to read this book.

CAT#19: Everything Else



73. The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi
Elin is the daughter of an outcast; her mother is a foreigner who was loved by the prince of the people they now live among, loathed yet needed by them for her special ability to care for and train the water beasts -the Toda - that they use as weapons. But when one of the beasts dies, she is sentenced to death. She leaves Elin saved yet orphaned, carried on the back of one of the warrior beasts to another life, but one in which she will return to the skills of her ancestors, possibly dooming the kingdom with the discovery of her birthright abilities to communicate with Toda and Royal Beasts alike.
Hm. It's...okay. The story is fine: it's fairly interesting if not wholly original - it's so much in the vein of the How to Train Your Dragon movies (*not* the books) in concept (and minus the humor) that it's difficult to believe either that Uehashi was heavily influenced by the movies or that both have been influenced by another, older work (which seems more likely, really). The dialogue is stilted in places, although I'm not sure whether that's an issue with the original text or a product of the translation. Overall, I enjoyed this one fine, although I'm not invested enough to read the second volume.

CAT#1: Banned Books
April AlphaKIT: A



74. Another Country by James Baldwin
Rufus is a jazz musician in NYC, a black man down on his luck as a result of a toxic relationship with a white southern woman. The novel follows the fallout of this relationship and the ripple-effect consequences its ending has on Rufus's circle of friends.

Baldwin's works all have the same effect on me: I recognize his talents in the language he uses and the way he crafts his novels, but I never really enjoy them. They're just...not my thing. He is absolutely excellent at what he does - gritty books in which people and their relationships with one another are the entire story - and I'm never sorry I've read them because of how good a writer he is, but I just don't enjoy novels in which the focus is on not-exactly-likable characters doing not much else except interacting with other not-very-likable characters.

CAT#19: Everything Else



75. Lumberjanes Vol. 17: Smitten in the Stars
The 'janes are at it again, this time half of them follow along and support a fellow camper who's looking for proof of alien life, while the other half have a close encounter with a Norse goddess.

This series continues to be one of my very favorite things for its insanely clever wit and its all-encompassing acceptance. (In particular this time around for its revealing of the goddess Diane as a grey ace in loving, NBD style. Just...so wonderful.)

CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
April AlphaKIT: W



76. The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison
A high-epic-like fantasy written in the 1920's in fake Tudor English and which chronicles the story of a war between different peoples living on Mercury but it's not really Mercury but instead is Middle Earth and, oh, I give up. Honestly, it reads like a toddler telling a story a la Tolkien. Just...reread Tolkien and call it a day.
Seriously, though, if you like this kind of ye olde fantasy stuff, go for it - this very well may be your jam. It is not, however, mine.

17. Audiobooks



77. Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean
In 1727, a group of boys and three men set off from Hirta for the yearly bird hunt on Warrior Stac, this time, though, the boat doesn't come back for them after the usual couple of weeks. Loosely based on true events, this YA novel and Printz Honor Book tells the story of how the boys (and three adults) learned to survive as the weeks turned into months with no signs of rescue.
Think a slightly gentler Lord of the Flies, but with Scottish accents. In other words, it's excellent and I loved it. There's a wide range of characters among the boys (and three adults) and McCaughrean does a great job imagining what their reactions and interactions would be to being stranded for so long. I'm fascinated with the idea that this is based on actual events and I really want to learn more about Hirta's history. Oh, and I highly recommend the audio version - Angus King's accent is beautiful and, of course, perfect for this text.

>225 scaifea: OOH. I love me some Scottish brogue.

>226 justchris: You should think about giving this one a go, then - the story is definitely worth it!

Hi Amber, you definitely got me with Where the World Ends, it sounds like a great read and I am looking forward to getting to it eventually.

>228 DeltaQueen50: Yay! I hope you love it, Judy!

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books



78. In the Beginning: Creation Stories from around the World by Virginia Hamilton (Newbery Honor Book) - 7/10 = C+
A collection of creation myths from a range of cultures. I was excited going into this one because I love this sort of thing, but as it turns out, the book is pretty dry. Disappointing, really. Surely there's a way to retell these stories in a more engaging way? Especially since the intended audience is kids? *shrug*

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
BingoDOG #20: Book You Share with 20 or Fewer Members on LT



79. Max and Sally and the Phenomenal Phone by Miloš Macourek
Two young friends are given a detached handset from a phone as a gift for helping a strange old gentleman find his glasses. It turns out to be magic, of course, and they have silly adventures.
Fun for young kiddos, I suspect, but not one that reads well across age groups.

CAT#15: Unread Books from my Shelves
April RandomCAT: Let's Go to the Library!



80. BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara
O'Hara's roman à clef follows a handful of New Yorkers and their lives, all of whom have some connection to 20-something slightly-scandalous gal-about-town, Gloria Wandrous, and it culminates in the affair she has with the older, married Weston Liggett and the aftermath of that affair.
I usually don't like this kind of novel very well; the characters are a too ordinary-everyday kind of flawed (I generally need my characters to be flawed in a more supernatural or flashy or epic kind of way, I guess) and the plot spends too much time inside their heads, and I usually get impatient with that sort of thing. But O'Hara's writing is good enough that I don't mind it, I suppose, because I kind of loved this book (and I kind of loved Appointment in Samarra, too). I'm not sure that I'm supposed to like these characters - they're not exactly made up of loveable actions and motives - but I do, and maybe that's the point? Maybe that's O'Hara's special talent? Anyway, I loved it and I am beginning to think that I love him, too.

(I chose this book for the April RandomCAT category because I share it with Katie!)

CAT#4: 1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Turn Into a Newt
May AlphaKIT: N



81. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
Corwin is suffering from amnesia, which he thinks is a result of a near-fatal car accident, which he also thinks was not exactly an accident at all. As he fakes his way through conversations with one sister and a brother, he slowly puts together a backstory for himself, and it doesn't always feature Earth as the setting.

Hoo boy. This 1970s first-in-a-series fantasy has some issues. Honestly, I think Zelazny couldn't quite decide what he wanted his book to be: it starts out as High Fantasy suffering from memory loss and thinking it's a noir detective novel, and from there the inconsistencies pile up, including a waffling between 'normal' vernacular and the thees and thous of fantafancy speak. It's...grating. It also seems to fall (probably via one of the many plot holes) into the pit of writers who've read and loved Tolkien and decide that, "Hey, I can write a massive world-building epic series, too!" and who, tragically, can't. The plot just seems to be one part tagged onto another tagged onto another, with no real flow or logic between the episodes: "and THEN...and THEN...AND THEN..." with each scene more comically cartoonish than the last. Overall story-arcs matter, folks, and should be more than a flimsy excuse to attach weird worlds and underwater mirror cities and sex with green-haired ladies to the plot. Yoicks.

(Apologies to anyone who loves this series - I'm honestly glad that it has a following and has found love elsewhere.)

>233 scaifea: I read the whole omnibus. There are only so many times you can get away with introducing a new character who reveals that everything that's happened so far must be re-interpreted as a malevolent plot by some other character and it waaaay exceeded that number of times.

>234 Robertgreaves: Oh goodness, well you’ve helped firm up my resolution not to continue with the series, then!

CAT#16 Books from my Read Soon! Shelves
May GenreCAT: short stories/essays
BingoDOG# 1: One-Word Title



82. Stories: All-New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio
A collection of short stories, some fantasy, some mild horror, all of which center around the idea of "and then what happened?"

As I mentioned earlier, I tend to shy away from short story collections because I find them so difficult to get through. I'll just get settled and comfortable in one and then, ope!, it's over and I have to start getting settled again into another one, and that feels sort of exhausting to me. I was willing to give this one a go, though, because Neil Gaiman is one of the editors. And I enjoyed a handful of the stories (Gaiman's contribution I'd already read and loved elsewhere), but it still felt like more of a chore than a pleasure to get through the book. That's completely on me and not the fault of the stories or the curators. If you like Gaiman's sort of stuff, you'll likely like these tales, and there are some pretty big names on the list of storytellers (Peter Staub, Diana Wynne Jones, Joe Hill, Michael Moorcock,...). So take my rating with a heap of salt and leap right in if those names appeal.

CAT#19: Everything Else



83. Visitors from London by Kitty Barne
A group of siblings spend their summer holidays staying in the country with their very cool aunt Myra, whose favorite answer to their many requests is "Well, I don't see why not?" They get a surprise message that the country estate they're staying on will be home to a small group of London evacuees, and thus starts their adventures in fixing up the place in preparation and then all their hard work to keep their new guests healthy and happy.

What a lovely story this is: boisterous, generally happy, and well-adjusted kiddos helping their London charges adjust and then thrive in their new country setting, with just the right amount of grumpy adults and childhood mischief mixed in. I absolutely loved it. Many thanks to Julia for the recommendation!

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up


84. Storm by Kevin Crossley-Holland
A very short book (a short story in book form, really) about a young girl who must make a night journey in a storm for the doctor because her older sister is in labor. She gets help from an unexpected and possibly supernatural source.

I suspect that short stories are some of the more difficult things to perfect in the writing biz. How to be succinct but also fit in everything the story needs to be complete seems like it would test a writer's strength more than most other forms. This story doesn't succeed on a few levels, but mostly because it's too short; the ending is much too abrupt, as if the writer reached a required word count and refused to go any farther, so he revealed the ending solution and tagged a The End on it, dusted his hands, and left. It's too bad, really, because the idea behind the story is a good one, and were it fleshed out considerably more, could have made for an excellent middle grade book.

17. Audiobooks



85. Dig. by A. S. King
Five teenage cousins tell their own versions of their family's history of abuse and racism in this Printz Award winner. A little slow to get started, but once each individual story begins to unravel, it becomes difficult to put down until you'll find yourself eager/anxious to understand how they all become interwoven. It's a mystery novel, a treatise on systemic racism, a supernatural thriller, and a tale of hope for the future within the younger generation. It's dark and clever and devastating and moving, and I highly recommend it.

CAT#19: Everything Else



86. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
A fantastic middle grade novel in free verse about twin brothers and their changing lives both on and off the basketball court. It's beautifully done, with varying methods of verse that reflect the situations and emotions as they change throughout, and with a story that grabs you right from the beginning and holds you to the end.

A reread for me - Charlie read it for a school project and I decided to join him. (He loved it, too!)

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



87. The Rose and the Ring by W.M. Thackeray
Thackeray's Christmas pantomime for children follows the general tropes of other books of this ilk written in the 1800s: there's silliness for the kiddos, but it's also filled with social and political quips clearly intended for adults. Neither have aged well and the whole thing just didn't land for me. I think I have a low tolerance for this particular genre: the plot is flimsy, and the feeling that the author/narrator is constantly wink-winking and nudge-nudging you with his jokes becomes tiresome fairly quickly. *shrug*

CAT#9: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction



88. Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
This Pulitzer winner from the late 1940s is long and dense, with tons of characters, and a time span of only three days for its 600+ pages. And it's (technically) a war book. Not a lot going for it, really, in the way of making me interested. But honestly it's not half bad - there were some long slogs, but when it was interesting, it was very nearly a treat. A Moby Dick minus the whale? Sort of. The writing is good, although not quite Melville good, so not quite good enough to keep me from getting frustrated with those slog sections. It would probably help if I were more interested in the intricacies of military admin, or, to be honest, military issues in general. Interesting (and possibly important) for its place in literary history and the history of race relations in the military. If this sort of thing interests you, chances are you'll have more patience for it than I did.

CAT#16 Books from my Read Soon! Shelves
May RandomCAT: Let's Play Monopoly!



89. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Rachel rides the commuter train into London every day and watches the same row of houses - and the people living in them - every morning and evening. She develops a mythology around a particular couple, making them into a model of a perfect, happy marriage, in contrast to her own shambles of a life. So when one morning she sees something that doesn't fit into that perfect image, it rattles her. And when the woman is reported missing the next day, Rachel feels compelled to get involved.

I really enjoyed this engrossing thriller, told through the unreliable narratives of three women. A real page-turner, it made me impatient (in the best way) to discover the turns the story would take. Small points off for an ending that was a little blander than I was hoping for (I wanted the reveal to be more twisty), but otherwise an absolute hoot of a read.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



90. Sunday's Child by Gudrun Mebs (1001 Children's Books) - 7/10 = C
Jenny lives in an orphanage, surrounded by children who get to visit their 'Sunday Foster Families' while she stays back on her own. Until one day, a woman comes to be Jenny's 'Sunday Mommy,' and Jenny learns to love and be loved by Laura, and eccentric writer of children's books.

It seems that there was a time in the 1980s when writing about children in foster care was a trend. This middle grade book fits into that category, but there are better examples of the subgenre out there. Here the characters seem trope-ish and flat, and the author's attempt to write in the voice of an eight-year-old doesn't quite succeed. The plot is too simplistic as well, I think: Jenny is sad then she meets Laura and is happy, with a slightly strange attempt at conflict tagged on just before the Happy Ending. So yeah, if you want to explore MG books with foster care as a main subject, I'd look elsewhere.

CAT#19: Everything Else



91. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
This is one of those books that I'm glad I've read because now I know what it's about and what it is and can place it in its little cubby of literary history. But...I didn't really like it much. It's okay, and I get that it's important. But, well, for me at least, it's...not great. Again, I get that it's maybe in some ways groundbreaking - that notion of making the reader leap from one character's stream of consciousness to another like an alien predator is probably pretty innovative for Woolf's time? - but I don't even think I can comfortably say that the writing is exceptional. It's not awful by any stretch, but there weren't any passages that made me stop and admire the language. I also felt like I couldn't see the plot for all the character's thoughts fogging up the glass, which is how some people like their novels, I know, but it's definitely not my jam. And I'm fairly certain that everyone and everything in the book has a serious case of ennui. I'm just not a Woolf fan, I suppose.

CAT#14. Romance



92. Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat
A fun start to a m/m fantasy romance trilogy. It's a pretty slow burn (in fact, not much really happens at all in this first book), but it's a promising beginning.

CAT#17 Audiobooks
BingoDOG#23: Book with the Name of a Building in the Title



93. High School by Sara Quin and Tegan Quin
The sister duo known as Tegan and Sara take alternating chapters to tell their memoirs based on their high school years, which cover both their personal lives and the start of their band.

I've been a fan of their music for a good while now, so it was interesting to get a glimpse of their discovery of music, their relationship with one another, and their experiences and struggles in surviving high school and in discovering and settling into their sexuality. Although they were quite a bit wilder than I ever was at that age (not that that's saying much, to be honest), I think I would have very much identified with their stories as a teen; I certainly enjoyed and appreciated it as a non-teen, too.

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books



94. Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers
12-year-old Jamal is facing stressful situations on all sides: he's having trouble at school. which is exacerbated by the casual racism of his principal; his older brother is in jail for killing a man during a robbery; he feels a low-grade constant worry for his mother, who works too hard out of necessity and is herself worried sick over her oldest son; and he is now facing pressure from his brother's old gang not only to join them, but also to take his brother's place as their leader. When the neighborhood gang lord gives him a gun to help solidify his new position, Jamal at first balks, but then becomes dependent on the gun for a feeling of security, forming a love/hate relationship with the weapon. The gun, of course, leads to nothing but trouble, and Jamal's only constant - his sweet and kind and loving best friend, Tito - gets caught up in the consequences.

This one feels pretty heavy for a Newbery Honor Book, but then again, if there are middle grade kids getting pulled into such a violent life, then there should be middle grade books out there tackling the subject. There's no happy ending here, but it's an important read, nonetheless. Jamal feels very real, and his emotions and reactions to the situations he finds himself in are believable, which is not an easy writing goal to accomplish. Overall, recommended.

CAT#1: Banned Books
June AlphaKIT: C



95. Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
The fictional history of a gebelawi (alley/neighborhood) in Cairo, but it's really an elaborate allegory for/retelling of Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. At first I loved it, and that love sustained me through the Cain & Abel section and through the first part of the Moses bit, but then the variation in the saga (and it is, as it seems to me, much longer than it needs to be) leaked out and I lost interest. It's clever to a point, and I think the cleverness would have won out with a bit more editing.

CAT#18: Books Read Aloud with Charlie



96. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Ma, Pa, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and their bulldog Jack move to Minnesota this time, live in a sod house for a bit, then move into a new home built by Pa and a friendly neighbor. They live through a swarm of grasshoppers and several blizzards this time around, and Laura discovers leeches in a stagnant pond (*cringe*).

This is the book in the series that introduces us to the setting for the classic tv show, complete with Nellie Oleson and her bratty curls. I'm fascinated by how much more I can see in the story reading it as an adult. As a kid, I blindly loved the whole family (although Mary always struck me as too goody-goody), but now it's clear that Pa was probably always just a half step ahead of creditors and his poor life choices would be comical if they weren't so tragic. But Laura is still a girl I hugely identify with, just as I did as a kid, and I'm happy that Charlie is enjoying the series (although he's a much more sophisticated reader than I was and has few illusions about the wisdom of some of Pa's choices).

CAT#19: Everything Else



97. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki
A YA graphic novel about a toxic romantic relationship between two teenagers, and how one of them gradually realizes that toxicity and how it's also making her a bad friend in other areas of her life. A good, realistic portrayal of teen relationships, and the illustrations are excellent.

17. Audiobooks



98. The Swallows by Lisa Lutz
Alex Witt starts her teaching job at a swanky private high school with a trunk full of reservations tucked away with the other personal baggage she brings with her. It doesn't take her long to start suspecting that something bad is going on among the students and that the other faculty either don't know what's happening or choose to ignore it with a 'boys will be boys' kind of attitude. A small cohort of female students decides the enough is enough, and with Witt's not-fully-witting guidance, they stage a full-scale revolt that has more serious consequences than anyone could have predicted.

It's difficult to classify this one: it's part mystery and part thriller, but not fully either, and it seems to be labeled as Adult Fiction, although a strong majority of the characters are YA (it also won the Alex Award, so it clearly does straddle that particular distinction). Whatever category it belongs to, it's also an excellent read. The characters are sharply drawn and the voices a credibly distinct; there's also not really one character I'd say that I liked, but even so I was definitely rooting for a few of them throughout - and there are a handful of characters whom it is very easy to hate. The suspense is nicely done and the climax is satisfying. Recommended.

CAT#19: Everything Else
BingoDOG#11: Impulse Read



99. Steeple by John Allison
A young new apprentice chaplain arrives in the small village of Tredregyn, eager to spread the Good Word through community service, but what she finds there is a priest with a Moby Dick sized obsession with fighting sea monsters nightly and a church of Satan with a healthy congregation, which seems surprisingly not all that evil. She's got some mental adjustments to make as she settles into this strange new town.

Witty, weird, and adorable in turns, this first volume comic collection is an absolute hoot. I instantly wanted to be friends with every character in here, and that's quality writing, right there. Definitely recommended for fans of comics/graphic novels with smart and hilarious dialogue and folks who don't mind walking the borderline for the slightly heretical.

>253 scaifea: I truly love John Allison's work. Even the stories that aren't to my particular taste are still good. I've read all of the webcomic of Steeple but the print miniseries is still on my To Read shelf along with his other newish Wicked Things (with a character from the old Bad Machinery series). Unfortunately I've finished Giant Days several times, because of his many excellent series that's my favourite.

Steeple trivia: Allison decided to crash/lose the motorbike because he was tired of drawing it, lol.

>254 spiralsheep: I love the Giant Days that I've read (it's not readily available through my library, unfortunately), and that's why I picked this one up after I saw that another LTer had read it. He's excellent and at this point I'll read pretty much anything he does.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



100. Journey to Jo'burg by Beverly Naidoo
When their baby sister falls seriously ill, two young South African siblings set out from home to make the 200+ mile journey to Johannesburg to find their mother, who works as a housekeeper for a rich, white family.

This middle grade book has some issues, I think. It seems clear that the point of the novel is to point up some of the major problems with apartheid, but at the same time it seems to downplay those problems too much. The dangers and massive injustices inherent in that system are mentioned and then, weirdly, glossed over quickly, and the ending is a little too pat and trite.

It's possible I'm overreading these elements, because I was aware going into it that the book was written by a white woman from South Africa. Naidoo has a history of standing up for equal rights and speaking out against apartheid, and that's wonderful, of course, but I still don't know how I feel about white people writing stories for PoC. Maybe, at the time, it was an important step toward handing that authority over? So maybe it was a good first step in children's lit, but I do know for certain that there are now, happily, more and better versions of this kind of story out there by #ownvoices authors.

CAT#19: Everything Else
June AlphaKIT: D



101. Dao de Jing by Laozi
I breezed through this one fairly quickly, with the intention of rereading it often and sometimes more thoughtfully. Even at a too-fast pace, this is a calming delight of a text. Much of it does, in fact, need more time and mental effort, but this time through I loved it for its soothing and simply-stated precepts that hint at contemplative depths. In short, I'll be back for more.

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
BingoDOG#5: Arts and Recreation



102. My Friend the Painter by Lygia Bojunga Nunes
A young boy narrates the process of grieving for his friend and upstairs neighbor, a painter who committed suicide.
Meh. It feels like it's trying to do too much at once by both describing how grief looks and feels to a child and also talking about how the main character learns to appreciate art. It also falls into the trap of making a young character seem unrealistically precocious.

CAT#16 Books from my Read Soon! Shelves
June RandomCAT: Everything Old Is New Again
BingoDOG#25: Book with or about magic



103. Drowned Country by Emily Tesh
(Spoilers ahead for Silver in the Wood)

A sequel to Silver in the Wood, this short novel follows Silver as he grapples with his new role as Green Man and his wrecked relationship with Tobias, all while helping find a young woman who may have been kidnapped by an ancient vampire.

I love the Silver/Tobias storyline and how it's framed within the other world of forest spirits and fairy lands. My only complaint is that I could have read a ten-book series instead of two novellas about these two. *sigh*

CAT#17: Audiobooks
BingoDOG#16: Suggested by Another Generation


104. The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan
Will and the other wards his age are facing the day that they are chosen as apprentices by Baron Arald's masters. Most seem excited, but Will is more nervous than anything else; he wants to follow in his late father's footsteps and be a warrior, but he's afraid that he's too small. His fears are realized when the battle master rejects his request to join the ranks of warrior apprentices. Instead, he is chosen by the ranger, Halt, to learn his trade. And so starts Will's life as a ranger's apprentice.

I loved this first book in the Ranger's Apprentice series. Lovely world building and plot setup, with fantastic characters all around. I'm completely in love with Halt already, and Will is adorable and extremely root-for-able. I particularly enjoyed how and early antagonist gets smoothly transitioned into a fast friend instead of evolving into the tiresome "I'll get you for being better at something than me!" vibe. Overall, highly recommended and I'll be continuing with the series, I suspect.

>260 scaifea: Well, shoot, this series wasn't even on my radar, but now it's going on my TBR list. Thanks for the BB!

>261 christina_reads: Ha! I hadn't heard of it either, but one of my mythology students recommended it to me this spring - I'm so glad he did!

CAT#3: 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up



105. Captain Fracasse by Théophile Gautier
A bit of fluff about a destitute young Baron who leaves his in-ruins estate to travel to Paris with an acting troupe and falls in love with a pretty young member of the group. Aaaand that's about it. Not a lot of substance here, but it's a fun little story anyway.

CAT #2: Newbery Honor Books



106. The Dark-Thirty by Patricia McKissack
A collection of spooky, supernatural stories from the oral traditions of African Americans in the South, retold for a middle grade audience. The stories are great, as folklore always is, but the writing is weak in spots: there are some bits of awkward phrasing, and some of the stories are placed in narratives that are unnecessary and clunky. But if you're into folklore, the tales themselves are worth enduring the faults here.

CAT#6: Favorite Author Bibliographies
CAT#17: Audiobooks


107. Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
Mr. Shaitana invites M. Poirot - along with Inspector Battle and Mrs. Oliver (a murder mystery writer) - to a most unconventional dinner party, with the intention of showing off to them his most prized collection: the other four guests are murderers who have all gotten away with their crimes. Of course, by the end of the evening there's a dead body and four suspects. Poirot, Battle and Oliver get to work solving the crime, and of course Hercule wins out in the end.

Although it started out a little slow, by midway through I was 100% caught up in the story and, as always, completely fooled right up to the end. There are way more than just the one murder here to solve, since part of the investigation involves sussing out the crimes each of the suspects had previously committed, and of course there are other murders along the way. Absolutely tons of red herrings, of course. I do so love it when Agatha tricks me like this, bless her.

>265 scaifea: One of my favorite Agatha Christies!

>266 christina_reads: I think it may be one of mine now, too!

CAT#13: Cozy Mysteries
BingoDOG#22: Senior Citizen as a Protagonist



108. A Likely Story by Jenn McKinlay
Librarian Lindsay is at it again, running the library by day and helping the local sheriff solve a murder by...well, also by day (she seems to miss a lot of work). This time a local hoarder/recluse pair of brothers becomes the focus when one of them is found dead of a gunshot wound and the other turns up missing. All the regulars are in attendance in this volume of the series, and Lindsay is still wavering between ferry-boating hunk Sully and the famous British actor who slightly stretches the limits of believability with his barely-likely residence in this small town.

Despite its weaknesses (uneven writing, marginally absurd plot devices,...), I still love this cozy series. I generally don't guess the culprit too early in the story, and I genuinely like all the characters. I want to live in Lindsay's town and frequent her library and be friends with her friends - and her - which makes these books perfect escape reading.

>268 scaifea: Oh hello, thanks for the reminder of your representative for the cozy mysteries category! :D *heart-eyes emoji*

Also glad you liked Cards on the Table. I *really* didn't like it when I read it, but I may have just been supremely bored with the bridge segments ;) Maybe I'll re-read in audio.

>269 rabbitprincess: *snork!* You are most welcome for the Sherlocking. *sigh*

Yeah, maybe try it again on audio - I just tuned out the bridge business. I used to be able to play, but it's been so many years now that I can't remember much of anything about the game and I agree those bits were less that riveting.

>270 scaifea: Oh good, I found a version narrated by Hugh Fraser. That will do nicely.

>239 scaifea: Noted!
>243 scaifea: Also noted! I love new takes on Rear Window
>253 scaifea: Wrong touchstone

>271 rabbitprincess: That's the one I listened to! He's excellent.

>272 justchris:

1) I hope you like that one.
2) RW itself was a new take on a Cornell Woolrich story, which was a new take on an H. G. Wells story. There's nothing new under the sun.
3) To be honest, I hate touchstones and most of the time I can't be arsed to triple check them as they seem to need.

CAT#15: Unread Books from my Shelves
BingoDOG#9: Classical Element in the Title
June GenreCAT: Historical Fiction



109. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
A novelization of the Battle of Thermopylae, with an extensive fictional background for the main character.
Yeah. So. I read about half and skimmed the rest. Not my jam. My two big issues with it: 1) It's way too graphic and violent for me, which, admittedly, is very much an "it's not you, it's me" thing, because of course a novel about Spartan soldiers and the battle in which nearly every single Greek soldier was killed is going to be violent if it's going to be accurate. But, again, that's not my jam. And 2) Pressfield clearly did his research and good for him, but he seems intent on his readers being constantly aware that he did his research. There is *way* too much detailed explanation of how the Spartans trained their army and the mechanics of the army itself, which is of course fascinating, but belongs in a history text and not a novel. Do the research, yes, and definitely use that research to help you write an accurate and believable story, but please don't regurgitate all that research onto the page. Possibly it was more annoying for me as a Classicist who already knows all the historic details? But I suspect that others would get pulled out of the story by the sheer volume of the stuff, too. The big take-away here: Pressfield is no Madeline Miller (and now I *need* Miller to write a novel about Leonidas).

The new thread is up - come join me over there!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/332977#n7531055