The theory is that I'm reading to the moon and one page = 1 kilometer. You can hit the 'reading to the moon' tag to see past entries.

This update includes 2 books or 632 pages. Because why read books when I can read not-books? idk.

On my graphic, that looks like this:



Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated. Fiction/Biography. Apart from the momentary hilarity of the capslock Rabbis before that got old, this book was dull, uninspired, and used various stereotypes of non-native English speakers to seem folksy and cute.

Naomi Novik - His Majesty's Dragon. Fantasy, Alternate History. Cute. I think the developing of the relationship between Temeraire and Laurence is really well done, and I like the fact that there are women included in the story. Despite the fact that it might have been easier to leave them out, they do feel like an important aspect of the worldbuilding.

Comments welcome either here or on Dreamwidth ().

The theory is that I'm reading to the moon and one page = 1 kilometer. You can hit the 'reading to the moon' tag to see past entries.

This update includes 19 books or 6091 pages.

On my graphic, that looks like this:



Ellen Kushner - The Privilege of the Sword. Fantasy. I'd heard good things about this book, through yuletide-related channels, but it was most excellent. <3 Katherine.

Pamela Dean - Tam Lin. Fiction. Very interesting, but odd. Though things do happen...it doesn't feel like it has an actual plot, but more that things kind of happen but aren't the focus of the book. I'm not sure how to explain it.

Suzanne Brockmann - Breaking Point. Romance, Thriller. I still don't know that I care for the style of the book but OMG Jules. <3 I just. <3. \o/

Paul Flynn - Commons Knowledge: How to be a Backbencher. Nonfiction. Necessarily a bit dated, but useful/interesting nonetheless. Read both because of general interest and for research for my big bang.

Malinda Lo - Ash. Young Adult, Fantasy. I wasn't terribly impressed by this, it seemed to be lacking in a couple of things - world-building, foreshadowing. I don't know, it just felt a bit too fairytale for me.

Catherine Kirkwood - Cut Away. Fiction. The characters interactions are very good, and I really enjoyed how the same time period would be shown from different PoVs and how they felt like different scenes. Warning for transphobia from a character, but it's not from the author, and it's Alexandra's thoughts that dominate the book.

Suzanne Brockmann - Into the Storm. Romance, Thriller. Her writing has definitely improved since the early books. Despite a tragic lack of Jules, for the most part, this was still pretty enjoyable. Her character building is pretty good. Though the whole 'people only say things that hurt to people they're dating because they're in over their heads and are afraid of getting hurt' is a bit annoying.

Bernard Beckett - Genesis. Science Fiction. This was a rather interesting philosophical exercise of a book. Where I thought it was going was definitely not where I went, in a way that sit back and smile for a bit. A rather good bit of assumption challenging.

C. F. Bentley - Harmony. Science Fiction. This did not have great characterization, in fact the characters frequently made me annoyed at their lack of emotional maturity. And the set up of the society of Harmony made me head-desk in a major way.

Ellen Kushner - Swordspoint. Fantasy. Oh, Alec. Sometimes I wonder why Richard St Vier loves you so, and sometimes I know. You're such an adorable mess-up, though. And you do manage to do some things more right than I would have expected, and than anyone else expects you to.

Simon R. Green - Daemons Are Forever. Urbanish Fantasy. The strength of this book, more than plot or characters or anything else, is its dialogue. Molly and Eddie have awesome conversations, but so do random side characters.

Suzanne Brockmann - Force of Nature. Romance, Thriller. This is the book where Robin made himself lovable. Also, Robin/Jules, squee. But the various other characters in this book were pretty awesome too.

J. L. Langley - The Englor Affair. Romance, Science Fiction. While I'm not my brother, with a whole lecture about why Monarchies! In Space! are awful, I'm still not super fond of them. That being said, this book was enjoyable enough. It did seem like wrapping up the plot became unimportant, once the main characters had told each other how much in love they were.

Jacqueline Carey - Santa Olivia. Dystopia-esque, Fiction. The main character of this book, Loup (pronounced Lou), is mixed race: latina and black, lesbian, and awesome. The storyline was pretty compelling, and the characters were all quite well drawn.

Simon R. Green - Something From The Nightside. Urban Fantasy. John Taylor is a somewhat interesting character. This was a reread, because my local library has most of the Nightside books (I own this one) and it'd been a while since I'd read it, so I didn't remember hardly anything.

Astrid Amara - Intimate Traitors. Romance, Dystopia. Though fairly predictable the plot was somewhat interesting, even if it wasn't so much the focus of the book.

Suzanne Brockmann - All Through the Night. Romance, Thriller. Aww, Robin. <3. He really came into his own here. Also, got married. And there was plot stuff in this book too. I think so, anyway.

Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman - The Fall of The Kings. Fantasy. It was probably a mistake to read this so soon after reading Swordspoint, as I think a large part of the reason I wasn't terribly fond of Theron is that I resent him for not being Alec.

Suzanne Brockmann - Into the Fire. Romance, Thriller. I just want more Jules/Robin. The other characters are developed, certainly, but the emotional lines seem to repeat a lot. And there's overlap in terms of Jules/Robin too, but anyway. The short of it is that I'm getting a bit bored.

The theory is that I'm reading to the moon and one page = 1 kilometer. You can hit the 'reading to the moon' tag to see past entries.

This update includes only 4 books /o\ or 1481 pages.

On my graphic, that looks like this:



Bold means I highly recommend it.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood - Pashazade. Alternate History/Science Fiction/Cyberpunk. Reread for bookclub. I still adore this book so much. So should you.

Suzanne Brockmann - Flashpoint. Romance? Skipped a number because of supply available from my library, plus I was getting bored. It seems better, but I'm still not that enthused. Ah well, soon Jules.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood - Stamping Butterflies. Science Fiction. Grimwood does this thing with his single books (that is, ones that aren't part of a series) where you think he's got a number of unrelated subplots but the answer to one turns out to fairly quickly resolve the other in a way that actually works. Also, I do like what he does with the not making his stories terribly Western-centric.

Suzanne Brockmann - Hot Target. Romance/Thriller. Oh, Robin. Also, Jules is so much amazing.

The theory is that I'm reading to the moon and one page = 1 kilometer. You can hit the 'reading to the moon' tag to see past entries.

This update includes 15 books or 4568 pages.

On my graphic, that looks like this:



Heimito von Doderer - The Waterfalls of Slunj. Fiction. I love it when there's a narrator with a distinct voice, and this one is certainly that. He also references by page number the page number on which he lied to you at a larger point. Fun times.

Mercedes Lackey - Magic's Pawn. Fantasy. The first half of this book semi-bored me, then it suddenly got loads more interesting.

Brian Katcher - Almost Perfect. Young Adult. It's hard to talk about this book without spoiling the ending, but I'll say that Katcher makes great effort to show what makes a transgendered girl feel accepted, and what doesn't. Painful.

Elie Wiesel - Night. Memoir. Sometimes there are books you need to read. And sometimes you need to reread them five years later, and discuss them in class.

Dale Peck - Sprout: or My Salad Days, When I was Green in Judgment*. Young Adult. Sprout is absolutely hilarious. Also, it's kind of weird to read a book this modern.

Tony Kushner - Homebody/Kabul. Play. So good. Made me think, as well it should have.

Stephen Graham Jones - The Bird is Gone: A Manifesto. Future Fiction(/Murder Mystery). I'm not entirely sure what's going on in this book, but I believe the background is that at some point the US government decides on the Conservation Act, which kind of gives the Dakotas back to the Indians/Native Americans. There are all sorts of implications to this, one of the main being how do they distinguish people as Indian? The answer turns out to be a strain of pink eye which only affects the Indians (it's not really broken down any more than that). There are also papers, and you have to be able to say which tribe is yours and also you can't possess artifacts from any of the other tribes. There's lots more going on as well, like the idea of anthropoligists lurking in the background with binoculars.

Alex Sanchez - Rainbow High. Young Adult. I think I've taken all the books about high schoolers I can read for a while, because I kept getting annoyed with the characters, even when it wasn't their fault.

Pamela Hayes - The Other Woman: a Story About Three Transsexuals. Fiction. I thought it was very interesting, and well worth reading.

Tony Kushner - Death & Taxes: Hydriotaphia & Other Plays. Plays. Pretty cool. My favorite was probably the last, if just because there are sixteen male characters and seven female and if performed onstage the playwright suggests one actor depict them all (as they never interact with each other).

Various - How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity. Short Stories/Young Adult. Interesting. Very different styles among the stories.

Frank McCourt - Angela's Ashes. Memoir. This book makes me want to find small children and hug them.

Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried. Memoir/Fiction. Interesting, though a reread so rather less interesting from the angle.

Mira Grant - Feed. Fiction. OMG. So much awesome. I mean seriously. So, yes, this is a book about zombies. It's also a book about politics. But even more than both of those, it's a book about blogging. It's also a book of PURE AWESOME.

Suzanne Brockmann - The Defiant Hero. Romance? Mmph. Parts of it were good and parts of it were quite dull.

Bold if I'd highly recommend them.

The theory is that I'm reading to the moon and one page = 1 kilometer. You can hit the 'reading to the moon' tag to see past entries.

This update includes 14 books or 3800 pages.

On my graphic, that looks like this:



Alex Sanchez - Rainbow Boys. Alex Sanchez is a really talented writer. This is again, Young Adult, but more on the adult end of things. Addresses so many important things.

Fabian Nicieza - Cable & Deadpool: The Human Race. Still much <3.

Fabian Nicieza - Cable & Deadpool: Bosom Buddies. Hahaha. I'm still laughing about this one.

Paul Auster - Invisible. A rather disturbing book. Graphic incest. Murder. Manipulation.

E. Lynn Harris - Invisible Life. Thought-provoking novel about bisexuality in the life of a black male.

Fabian Nicieze - Cable & Deadpool: Living Legends. Bahahahahaha. I quoted a quarter of this book to chat. For reals.

Suzanne Brockmann - The Unsung Hero. An easy read, certainly. Not my usual, but not necessarily that different in feel from some of the fanfic I read.

Alex Sanchez - So Hard to Say. It's about a kid who thinks he's gay, told from his perspective and the perspective of the girl who's interested in him. Very well done.

A. Lee Martinez - Divine Misfortune. It's the gods at their best, full of squabbles and petty disagreements, and board games. A rather funny book.

Seanan McGuire - A Local Habitation. Rosemary and Rue (the first book in the series) had disappointed me. This didn't. In fact, I thought it had just the balance of humor and drama which it needed.

Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn. Interesting. Much better than his collection of short stories (but I loathed those, so). Unique narrative voice.

John Williams - Stoner. Compelling like a train crash. (Which isn't to say it's badly written, just that it's not an optimistic tale of love and academic triumph.)

Mohja Kahf - The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf. Not as good as her poetry, after all, it's not concentrated the way that was, but still a beautiful piece of literature. There are times I want to rage at Khadra (the main character), times I want to give her a hug, and times she puts into words some of the thoughts I have.

Alex Sanchez - The God Box. As long as his books continue to be good, I won't feel guilty about getting them from interlibrary loan only to read them in a day.

Bold if I'd highly recommend them.

So I stole this from hh and converted it to metric, because I use Imperial measurements as curse words. So the theory is that I'm reading to the moon at a page = a kilometre. I started recording with the beginning of the Spring semester, and I'm going to try to update about monthly.

This update includes 14 books or 2906 pages.

On my graphic, that looks like this:



Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot. I know this play so well it felt like I'd read it before. Although, honestly, I'm pretty sure I'd read at least the first 20 pages before.

Brian Malloy - Brendan Wolf. The main character's hero might be Chris McCandless, but in no way is Brendan glorified like McCandless is in Into the Wild. It has this touch where Brendan spent less time explaining his thoughts to us this could pass as surreal.

Julie Anne Peters - Luna. It's YA from the POV of a the sister of a transgender girl. I don't know. In some ways it was very well-done and all that. It just didn't impress me terribly much. I think that's more a matter of the intended audience than anything else, though. Someone would have to be more knowledgeable about YA (and being transgender) than me to say if it was everything it should have been. It was an enjoyable reading, but I skimmed more than I usually do, because I don't feel like reading about teenage crushes.

Mohja Kahf - E-Mails from Scheherazad. This is a book of poetry by an Arab-American woman. I thought her poems were quite good/intriguing. She's great at capturing the emotion of a scene, which is kind of what poetry needs.

Shel Silverstein - A Light in the Attic. Honestly I'd only read a couple of Shel Silverstein poems before. They were surreal, and a couple were a bit creepy, but for the most part they were light-hearted and fun.

Anthology - Does Your Mama Know?. An anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out stories. My main issue with this book is that at 293 pages, with an average of less than ten pages per story, these were surface examinations and they got a little repetitive.

Marshall Moore - The Concrete Sky. Fairly clever dialogue. The plot kind of staggers back and forth between "Oh yeah, saw that coming" and "Wait, what?!" It was an enjoyable read though, and fun to read something set in DC.

James McBride - The Color of Water. I read this in High School and remembered it as being fairly good. I was not disappointed.

Fabian Nicieza - Cable & Deadpool: If Looks Could Kill. ZOMG, Cable & Deadpool! So much love and amazingness.

Fabian Niceiza - Deadpool vs. The Marvel Universe. Yeah. I don't really know much Marvel beyond what I pick up from the movies, so this was very confusing. Still funny, but not as satisfying.

Alex Sanchez - Bait. YA, this one I quite liked. Sanchez successfully paints his main character as a fairly complex, and not always easy-to-identify with but overall still likable, character. Also, does a good job of addressing that sexual child abuse does not lead to homosexuality.

Jim Hines - Goblin Quest. Funny, but disturbing at times.

Fabian Nicieza - Cable & Deadpool: The Burnt Offering. Cable and Deadpool working together makes the same kind of sense most wacky crossovers do. It's so much fun.

Donald Hall - The One Day. Odd. It's a poem, and more like a mosaic of experiences than a story.

Bold if I'd highly recommend them.