The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.
What are you currently reading?
I’m still halfway through Kushiel’s Dart, and I’m most of the way through Brian Fagan’s book on Cro-Magnon peoples. It’s interesting in itself, but a lot of the info isn’t new to me at all, and some of it is a little out of date. Also, it might not be the best choice while in the middle of some species of flu-like virus, though luckily that seems to be pretty much over now.
What have you recently finished reading?
Not much, regrettably. I just finished How the Zebra Got Its Stripes by Léo Grasset, though; it’s entertaining and sometimes informative, but pretty light and very short. And now I know more than I wanted to know about the sex lives of hyenas.
What will you be reading next?
I’m not sure, but I’m tempted to reread The Goblin Emperor to see out the year after my sister bet me that I’d read it at least twice this year and in fact, I proved that I haven’t even read it once in 2017. Oddly though, I’m not sure if I quite feel like it…
What are you reading? Get anything interesting for Christmas that you had to dive straight into?
Three Stones Make a Wall is an overview of a lot of different archaeological sites and how archaeology is actually done there, and how it has been done in the past. It only glancingly deals with sites about which whole books can or should be written, but it does so by highlighting everything that’s so fascinating about them, and it definitely whetted my appetite for more. It’s easy to read and not technical at all, and if you have read specialist books on any of the digs mentioned — Schliemann’s dig at Troy, for instance — then it won’t be new to you, but Cline’s enthusiasm makes it worth reading anyway.
His choice of sites is reasonably diverse, too, including Greek and Roman sites, Native American sites, Biblical sites and more. Honestly, if you’re looking for a general book to give you a survey of archaeology, or give you some ideas for sites you want to learn more about, I recommend this whole-heartedly. It’s the pop-archaeology book I was longing for, after a childhood raised on Channel 4’s Time Team. It includes a list of sources, so you can look things up for yourself, and contextualises each dig and discovery beautifully. In retrospect, I’m giving it five stars for being exactly what I wanted at exactly the right moment.
If you’re looking for something substantial, it probably won’t be for you, but if you’re grasshopper minded like me and enjoy the idea of getting a tour of half the globe in archaeology, it’s great.
It’s nearly Christmas! I’m so excited to give my family their presents, I might explode! I’ve done a better job of keeping secrets than I normally do, at least… How’s everyone doing? Are you celebrating Christmas or an equivalent holiday, or is it just an ordinary day/week/month for you? Whatever it is, I wish you safe, happy and warm.
Like our bunnies, safely at the bunny hotel without us. But since we’re apart, here’s a picture of the two of them cuddling, last week.
New books
Perhaps a slightly odd combination… but I’m looking forward to all three.
Almost all of these short stories worked for me, which is a wonder (I can be picky!). Each of them had some really fascinating ideas, and the only one that left me cold was ‘Love, Caycee’ (and even then, I liked the idea, it’s just I don’t think it quite came together into a story I found fun to read). Of course, one of my favourites is the one featuring Isabella Trent, particularly for the last letter in the narrative. Of course Isabella would get herself arrested over a matter of science!
But the others are all worth the time too, and I particularly liked ‘Once a Goddess’, the first story of the collection. Brennan is really great at atmosphere, as these stories show; each of them evoked its own landscape in my head.
If you’re already familiar with pop science books about diseases, this isn’t really going to surprise you any. It’s competently written, though at times the statistics are a little off (as another reviewer pointed out). I don’t agree that he’s too unduly alarmist, though; our current environmental and social conditions are just about perfect for a pandemic (viral or otherwise) to sweep through the world’s population. If you doubt it, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry should disabuse you of that notion, rapidly. And our world is more interconnected now, not less.
I hoped that this might be a little more in depth, given Wolfe being a biologist and all, but there’s nothing that really elevates it above other pop science books available. It’s honestly rather forgettable.
In the first book, sometimes I found myself doubting that the Firefly references were intentional because they just felt misplaced (“I am a leaf on the wind”… during a successful flight?! why would you do that to me?!). In this book, the references just… I don’t know it couldn’t be heavily inspired by Firefly, when there’s a scene in which one character wonders if “bi zui” (shut up) is the only Mandarin the captain knows. Hmmm… sounds so familiar… And if this is like Firefly, I think I know exactly what the next book is going to be like based on a tiny scrap of the summary. Two words (well, a name): Adelai Niska.
It’s not a bad thing that it’s reminiscent of Firefly, but it can be distracting. Still, it has a lot of features which aren’t like Firefly, like the Maori bruiser Apirana (who would actually prefer not to beat people up for a living). There’s sweet relationships between various members of the crew, and everything trucks along fast enough to keep me interested. It’s derivative, yeah, but it’s entertaining, and I’m along for at least one more book.
The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.
What are you currently reading?
Actually, I’m not in the middle of anything at all, except Kushiel’s Dart, which I’ve been persistently not feeling like reading. Too much terrible stuff happens to Phèdre and Joscelin, and I’m just not in the mood for their world right now. Hopefully I’ll get it back soon…? I am 50% of the way through, so I don’t want to just stop, though of course it’s a reread so I know what happens.
What have you recently finished reading?
I’ve just finished Priam’s Gold, by Caroline Moorehead. It’s about Heinrich Schliemann, the man who excavated at Troy to prove that Homer’s epics were referring to real historical events. It’s partly a biography of Schliemann, but it does also trace his whole archaeological career and the later movements of the treasure he found. That means there’s a couple of chapters on WWII and the way both sides looted art.
Other than that, I just read Winterwood, by Dorothy Eden. It’s a Gothic-ish mystery/romance, sort of in the vein of Mary Stewart’s work, and it actually gave me a couple of surprises…
What will you read next?
I don’t know. I honestly feel like some very familiar rereads — Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell, maybe, or The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Cat Valente. Maybe even some Mary Stewart, though I’ve been spacing out those rereads a bit. It is the time of year to snuggle down and be cosy around here, after all…
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 27th March 2018
If you’ve read Sarah Andersen’s other books or seen her comics online, you know more or less what to expect from this book. It’s not groundbreaking, it’s not a story, it’s just a bunch of cute strips by someone who is having a lot of fun and has some things to say — and that’s great. This book did change things up a bit by including a section on art and being online in this day and age; not bad or untrue, but I was kind of disappointed that it wasn’t more strips speaking for themselves (although the section is illustrated).
It’s a fun collection, and I still find myself saying “it me!” when I read Andersen’s strips about anxiety, introversion, etc. Not sure how much of this will be new if you’ve read the strips online, though — I read them only sporadically, and still recognised quite a few.
I don’t know many bloggers who don’t want to grow their blogs, and I think we’ve all heard pretty much the same advice. Post regularly (but not too much), review new books (but don’t make it all ARCs that other people can’t get yet), review the stuff your readers are interested in (but don’t get too specialised), take part in memes and tags (but not too many)… It can get to be an obligation. I don’t know about anyone else, but I find myself picking my next book because “oh, it’s been a while since I reviewed a fantasy novel” or “everyone must be bored of non-fiction reviews, I should pick something else”.
And you know, the advice isn’t bad if you just want to grow your audience, maybe sell some books through affiliate links (not one so far from mine!), be a popular blogger with a ton of followers, get all the ARCs…
But I found myself looking at the books I’m hoping to get for Christmas and briefly thinking I’d like to reread the rest of the series… and then thinking, hm, no, I reread that earlier this year, nobody wants to see me review that again.
Wait, what? Who am I reading for? Why have I suddenly turned my hobby into a job? Why do I have to periodically keep having this realisation?
I don’t follow other people’s blogs because I necessarily want to read the books they do, or want them to review particular things. I follow other people’s blogs to share the joy of reading, and I don’t have to share their taste closely for that. And it’s valuable to me to know if someone whose taste I know has read a book five times in a year, because hey, that means it’s exceptional in some way! And while I don’t read much of certain genres or authors, if I see a blogger tearing through all the books by a certain author, first of all, I’m glad for them, and second, maybe it’s worth a try as a gateway into the genre. Enthusiasm is a real recommendation.
So here’s my endeavour for the year ahead: read the books I want to, not the books I think I should. Reread when I like. Don’t worry about varying my reviews or writing some deathless original prose about a book I’ve read five times now. I’m just going to share what I’ve enjoyed, and why I’ve enjoyed it, and if that’s neither useful or interesting to people, that’s fine. It turns out I’m not here for the audience, for the affiliate link sales, for the ARCs. I’m here to share how much I love reading.
(Not that that means things will necessarily change. I like doing Stacking the Shelves, commenting on other people’s posts, reading and reviewing books of all genres. I just might not worry too much at all about whether I’m posting too many non-fic reviews in a row or whether it’s excessive to read The Goblin Emperor again.)
Hence: Project More Joy. And to share a bit of joy around, here is Breakfast Bun hiding under a cabbage leaf.
“Sssh, I’m a secret!”
Here’s hoping you’re all along for the wild, book-enjoying ride with me.
Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of The Insect That Shaped the American Frontier, Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Well, that title is a heck of a mouthful. I picked this as the next target for operation “be less scared of bugs by learning about them”, since locusts are not likely to be a problem where I am, but they’re just freaky enough (particularly in some of the accounts of locusts blotting out the sky) to make me a little bit uncomfortable. Less safe than bees, but further away.
In any case, Locust is a mostly interesting discussion of locusts and their impact on the North American frontier. People starved thanks to locusts, and the damage they caused is almost beyond imagining now — because they disappeared. The book follows the people who tried to predict locust movements, who tried to fight them, and who tried to find them again after their disappearance to solve the mystery of why. It gets a little long-winded at times, particularly where it goes into biographical details about people I frankly can’t be bothered to retain information about (important as I’m sure they were in their own lives), but there is a lot of interesting information as well.
I’m still halfway through Kushiel’s Dart, and I’m most of the way through Brian Fagan’s book on Cro-Magnon peoples. It’s interesting in itself, but a lot of the info isn’t new to me at all, and some of it is a little out of date. Also, it might not be the best choice while in the middle of some species of flu-like virus, though luckily that seems to be pretty much over now.
Not much, regrettably. I just finished How the Zebra Got Its Stripes by Léo Grasset, though; it’s entertaining and sometimes informative, but pretty light and very short. And now I know more than I wanted to know about the sex lives of hyenas.
I’m not sure, but I’m tempted to reread The Goblin Emperor to see out the year after my sister bet me that I’d read it at least twice this year and in fact, I proved that I haven’t even read it once in 2017. Oddly though, I’m not sure if I quite feel like it…
