Sunday Books
Mar. 11th, 2024 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressIt's SundayBooks! Hello SundayBooks! What have you been reading? It's been like...a little over two weeks, but there's been a lot of being sad and not being very good at doing books instead of tragic quiet dopamine seeking. Anyways.
(reminder, because it comes up a few times: Talia is the name of my ereader.)
Finished Reading Recently
So it turns out that like...back in 2007, wonderful weird author Cat Valente wrote a series of short stories in the form of a little blog about Weird Games TM. Invisible Games is weird and a little creepy and does a tantalizing job of telling you just enough about something to get you curious. The story Killswitch apparently has earned minor fame as a creepypasta, but I liked The Lenentine Cards best --sad and ephemeral and beautiful and breathtaking. I enjoyed the trawl!
I'm continuing the Pathfinder-Book-Club by reading more Wayside School (by Louis Sacher)! It turns out Wayside School is Falling Down has all the most iconic stories that I remembered (as mentioned in a previous entry), and I think that must be my favourite of the series (although I haven't yet gotten my hands onto Sideways Stories for a reread, and I do recall liking the ice cream chapter of that). Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom was...fine? It was fine. It probably would've been amazing if I was eight, and it's certainly not bad in any way, but it's fascinating to see what does and doesn't land.
Meanwhile, amazing while age eight1 and amazing while age 34-and-a-half is Louis Sacher's masterpiece Holes. It is just...such a flawless piece of storytelling? Watching our heroes learn and grow and improve themselves? Watching the different threads of the different stories slide together and link and connect? "Who did God punish?" goes so fucking hard as a line. Despite the fact that I've read this book easily a dozen times before, I found myself tearing up at the end. It really is a magnificent story.
I am loving _loving_ having some middle grade chapter books on the Kobo, stuff that is comfortable and easy to read and doesn't tax the brain too much, because les'be'real, the brain is taxed. And it turns out at some point in the past, I purchased Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce for some reason, because obvs I was itching to read it or something. So that's been on Talia --it was on her as soon as I logged in with my account-- and I reread it just recently. Squire is still my absolute number one Tammy book forever, but Lady Knight is pretty good too. Kel does my heart a good.
And I finished the second volume of Squirrel Girl: Squirrel You Know It's True. I'm absolutely enjoying the heck out of these, they're just bulkier than the tiny little ereader, so it's been slow going.
Currently Reading:
I re-picked-up That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon and am chugging along. I've gotten through at least one smutty part (oo!), and our hero has straight up said to herself "ah shit, I'm gonna wind up fuckin' a demon" and that is Good. I am Looking Forward To It. Someone mentioned that apparently there is some kind of vague twitter controversy, possibly because the language is "too modern" for "fantasy" at which point a) are the demons also too modern? how about that magic? is that too modern? stop being weird and b) by "too modern" do we mean "there are black people and I don't like it" because really, stop being weird. The only actual complaint I can think of2 is that it's all a little simplistic and happily-ever-after but I'm given to understand that's the whole point of romance, and also do you have any idea how soothing it is to read something that's _not hard_?! My life is hard, I don't wanna read books that are also hard. I wanna read books that are fun and funny and fluffy and sexy and smutty and where our heroine has pink hair and fights alligators to turn them into gumbo and is definitely gonna Fuck A Demon.
Especially because I'm also reading In The Serpent's Wake for realsies, and oh no, there's a lot of very serious dealing with colonialism and collapsing disparate cultures into one and it's not bad, none of this is bad it's actually quite good, but I'm incredibly worried about That Asshole showing up and I'm worried about people getting seriously hurt and I'm worried about how we're gonna deal with these quite difficult problems of identity and culture and "are we the baddies?" and I like Selda but fuck, she is a queen and the monarchy doesn't become good just because you like the people in it. That was quite the run-on but I think you get the idea --I think the book is good and enjoyable but it's not the same kind of candy.
Reading in the Future:
My first-ever hold came in, and now I have The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches on Talia for reading purposes. I think it's another romance?
I also still have Swordspoint and in fact renewed it once so should Get On That and read more than like one chapter.
And there are six more volumes of Squirrel Girl in my posession and another six or eight not?
Also I got 2/3 more Alanna books from the library, with the most hilariously awful cover I've ever seen on The Woman Who Rides Like A Man. The cover I grew up with is on the left. The one I am going to read is on the right:
I just...no words, just laughing my ass off.
I still need to embark on a project to a) find various books I have bought in various years and centralize them on my laptop or a hard drive or whatever and b) then put them on Talia. Baby steps!
Books books books. <3
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Haha, yes! Technically I was eight years old the day Holes was published, although I probably did not successfully read it between then and my ninth birthday, eight days later.
2: I mean, besides things like "I don't want to read stories with sex in them" at which point cool, good for knowing yourself
(reminder, because it comes up a few times: Talia is the name of my ereader.)
Finished Reading Recently
So it turns out that like...back in 2007, wonderful weird author Cat Valente wrote a series of short stories in the form of a little blog about Weird Games TM. Invisible Games is weird and a little creepy and does a tantalizing job of telling you just enough about something to get you curious. The story Killswitch apparently has earned minor fame as a creepypasta, but I liked The Lenentine Cards best --sad and ephemeral and beautiful and breathtaking. I enjoyed the trawl!
I'm continuing the Pathfinder-Book-Club by reading more Wayside School (by Louis Sacher)! It turns out Wayside School is Falling Down has all the most iconic stories that I remembered (as mentioned in a previous entry), and I think that must be my favourite of the series (although I haven't yet gotten my hands onto Sideways Stories for a reread, and I do recall liking the ice cream chapter of that). Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom was...fine? It was fine. It probably would've been amazing if I was eight, and it's certainly not bad in any way, but it's fascinating to see what does and doesn't land.
Meanwhile, amazing while age eight1 and amazing while age 34-and-a-half is Louis Sacher's masterpiece Holes. It is just...such a flawless piece of storytelling? Watching our heroes learn and grow and improve themselves? Watching the different threads of the different stories slide together and link and connect? "Who did God punish?" goes so fucking hard as a line. Despite the fact that I've read this book easily a dozen times before, I found myself tearing up at the end. It really is a magnificent story.
I am loving _loving_ having some middle grade chapter books on the Kobo, stuff that is comfortable and easy to read and doesn't tax the brain too much, because les'be'real, the brain is taxed. And it turns out at some point in the past, I purchased Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce for some reason, because obvs I was itching to read it or something. So that's been on Talia --it was on her as soon as I logged in with my account-- and I reread it just recently. Squire is still my absolute number one Tammy book forever, but Lady Knight is pretty good too. Kel does my heart a good.
And I finished the second volume of Squirrel Girl: Squirrel You Know It's True. I'm absolutely enjoying the heck out of these, they're just bulkier than the tiny little ereader, so it's been slow going.
Currently Reading:
I re-picked-up That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon and am chugging along. I've gotten through at least one smutty part (oo!), and our hero has straight up said to herself "ah shit, I'm gonna wind up fuckin' a demon" and that is Good. I am Looking Forward To It. Someone mentioned that apparently there is some kind of vague twitter controversy, possibly because the language is "too modern" for "fantasy" at which point a) are the demons also too modern? how about that magic? is that too modern? stop being weird and b) by "too modern" do we mean "there are black people and I don't like it" because really, stop being weird. The only actual complaint I can think of2 is that it's all a little simplistic and happily-ever-after but I'm given to understand that's the whole point of romance, and also do you have any idea how soothing it is to read something that's _not hard_?! My life is hard, I don't wanna read books that are also hard. I wanna read books that are fun and funny and fluffy and sexy and smutty and where our heroine has pink hair and fights alligators to turn them into gumbo and is definitely gonna Fuck A Demon.
Especially because I'm also reading In The Serpent's Wake for realsies, and oh no, there's a lot of very serious dealing with colonialism and collapsing disparate cultures into one and it's not bad, none of this is bad it's actually quite good, but I'm incredibly worried about That Asshole showing up and I'm worried about people getting seriously hurt and I'm worried about how we're gonna deal with these quite difficult problems of identity and culture and "are we the baddies?" and I like Selda but fuck, she is a queen and the monarchy doesn't become good just because you like the people in it. That was quite the run-on but I think you get the idea --I think the book is good and enjoyable but it's not the same kind of candy.
Reading in the Future:
My first-ever hold came in, and now I have The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches on Talia for reading purposes. I think it's another romance?
I also still have Swordspoint and in fact renewed it once so should Get On That and read more than like one chapter.
And there are six more volumes of Squirrel Girl in my posession and another six or eight not?
Also I got 2/3 more Alanna books from the library, with the most hilariously awful cover I've ever seen on The Woman Who Rides Like A Man. The cover I grew up with is on the left. The one I am going to read is on the right:
I just...no words, just laughing my ass off.
I still need to embark on a project to a) find various books I have bought in various years and centralize them on my laptop or a hard drive or whatever and b) then put them on Talia. Baby steps!
Books books books. <3
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Haha, yes! Technically I was eight years old the day Holes was published, although I probably did not successfully read it between then and my ninth birthday, eight days later.
2: I mean, besides things like "I don't want to read stories with sex in them" at which point cool, good for knowing yourself
no subject
on 2024-03-11 05:13 am (UTC)Augh jeez.
(The cover on the left is also the edition I read first, but I think I would have made the same noise at the cover on the right no matter what.)
no subject
on 2024-03-11 03:11 pm (UTC)This. :(
no subject
on 2024-03-11 08:55 pm (UTC)My middle grade candy of choice is Tiffany Aching! I've been continuously rereading Tiffany Aching and the Witches books on rotation for like... a year now. It's relaxing I guess? Speaking of which, I picked up Wool of Bat in a bundle recently, and I really want to put together a group to play it.
That is *the worst cover.*
no subject
on 2024-03-14 03:13 pm (UTC)~Sor
no subject
on 2024-03-15 03:16 am (UTC)(Tiffany Aching reading order is: Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, I Shall Wear Midnight, The Shepherd's Crown.)
I have also read a book!
on 2024-03-13 12:24 am (UTC)I agree with the needing non-complicated entertainment/fluffiness. I have been putting down books and shows because that is just not what I can handle right now.
Re: I have also read a book!
on 2024-03-14 03:17 pm (UTC)~Sor
no subject
on 2024-03-15 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2024-03-15 09:10 pm (UTC)