Current Reads

Started listening to The War of the Worlds audio book. It's enjoyable, very creepy.

There's a radio drama featuring the casts of various Star Treks of that available, too. That was loads of fun.

Awesome. Thanks Algae!

I'm reading The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon. I read some reviews of it when it came out and they weren't the kindest but when I saw it in the library, I thought what the hell. I'm about half way through and while it's not the best read ever - so much info dumping at times - it's good enough that I want to find out what happens. I wouldn't buy it but I'll definitely look for the sequel in the library.

I just finished reading two books: The Good Girl by Mary Kubica that tells the story of a woman's kidnapping through three perspectives. It was a fast read. Some holes, I thought, but ultimately a good read.

And finally I read The Martian, which I enjoyed though I admit to having skimmed portions of the uber-sciency explanations. Man, were those detailed and tough to wade through (for this English major, at least). But I loved the main character so much that I didn't care and ended up really liking it. I hope the movie doesn't ruin it. I was picturing Matt Damon as Mark Watney the whole time, so that works!

Currently reading Time Salvager by Wesley Chu. Pretty solid, interesting take on time travel and future environmentalism. And I just picked up Rules for Werewolves by Kirk Lynn. This looks interesting, in that it's a novel done entirely in dialogue. Normally I'd raise an eyebrow at that, but Lynn is already a renowned playwright, so, if anyone could pull of 'entirely in dialogue'....

Just finished The Woman Who Wasn't There, about a woman who pretended to be a 9/11 survivor and was a leader of the effort to get recognition and help for survivors. Holy crap, what a story. As it turned out, it seemed like it would be relatively straightforward to fact-check her story (and biography), but no one did it for years. She was evidently charismatic and convincing, and I guess you would tend not to assume that someone would make up something so horrific.

A couple of days ago I stumbled across a blog review of a book called Part Wild, a chronicle of one woman's naive, sincere, and ultimately deeply misguided effort to own a wolfdog (in this case a wolf-husky cross named Inyo.) I got it out of the library last night and think it's one of those books I'll have to skip through first to get the overview of the story, then go back and read all the way through.

Obligatory Spoiler For A Story With Animals:

The author is very open about her reasons for choosing a wolfdog, and relentless in her self-assessment after the fact, including her early view that a dog is a "degraded" wolf, a lesser animal than a wolf. As the story continues, dogs join the family and the author end up with a much better understanding of the nature of a dog, and the nature of a wolf, and ways both animals are adapted to live in a particular environment. The story ends up with a deep and compelling appreciation of dogs. The author ends up much sadder and a great deal wiser.

There are research notes provided for each chapter and they make pretty compelling reading as well. Also, she cites a number of interesting studies on dogs, wolves, domestication, and the Belyaev silver fox experiment (she actually visited the Russian facility where the experiment takes place) that will give animal lovers a lot more great reading.

By the end of the first chapter I promised my cats that we would not be getting a wolfdog. I have a feeling a closer read of the whole book is unlikely to change our minds.

Currently reading The Rabbit Back Literature Society, which seems good so far, though I can't entirely see what it's doing just yet. There are odd things going on with some of the books in the town of Rabbit Back's library--like key events being changed in Crime and Punishment, for example. And then there's an implication that your average garden gnomes are anything but. How it will all come together I couldn't guess, but I'm invested in finding out.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Station Eleven and am LOVING it. It's hard to put down!

Okay, finished Rabbit Back Literature Society and it was a big bucket of MEH. Now onto The Man in the High Castle in preparation for binge-watching the series on Amazon over Thanksgiving. Who says alt realities and Nazis and Thanksgiving don't go together?

I read the e-ARC of the latest Vorkosigan book - I liked it, although it was a bit dry, but I guess that is to be expected from Cordelia's POV. There was one person who expressed surprise that it seemed like

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. If this is the last book I thought it was a nice way of coming full circle.

They made the e-ARC freely available on the Baen website, right?

I've seen some gnashing of teeth over What That Means in terms of release date and awards eligibility.

RiverThames wrote:They made the e-ARC freely available on the Baen website, right?

I've seen some gnashing of teeth over What That Means in terms of release date and awards eligibility.

Yeah, they did.

Act Like It by Lucy Parker was reviewed on Smart Bitches and I thought, oh that sounds like something I'd enjoy reading, and then I left it at that. Then there were more tweets by people saying how much they loved the book and I thought, oh I should really buy that then because I'm in the mood for something that's a fun interesting read, so I did.

TL;DR: I bought a book.

So anyway, I REALLY loved it. I started reading it yesterday morning (big mistake) because my Guides were being enrolled last night and it was a joint ceremony with the Brownies so I had to be at the hall early to get it organised and I honestly did wonder briefly if it would be wrong to cancel because I wanted to keep reading. But as a responsible adult, I put the book down and went to give the kids their badges. And then I came home and stayed up until the wee hours to finish it. (No regrets - kinda)

The main characters are both actors in the same play; Lainey has just broken up with her boyfriend and found out about it through social media, Richard is a talented actor but very grumpy and nobody likes him, and they end up being coerced into a faux relationship because he needs the good publicity and she'll get profits for a charity that's very close to her heart. It's very humourous and even though you know they're going to end up together, it's a lot of fun and interesting to see how they get there. I especially liked Lainey. She was very refreshing the way she tackled things and people and her faux relationship.

It's well worth a read.

Literally just started reading that this evening. And bought it for the same reason!

Queen Six, I did the same thing. It was a fun read and I really liked Lainey.

Made me in the mood for more "actors with arranged relationships", so I started listening to What I Did For Love, but I'm not enjoying it as much.

Did anyone bother with The Girl in the Spider's Web, the "continuation" of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series? I'm about a hundred pages in and it's so freaking boring. I can't decide if I should bother to keep going or just give up. There's like a million characters, none of them all that compelling yet, and not enough Salander.

Currently halfway through Girl Waits With Gun and am enjoying it. It's set in the early 1900s and follows a trio of sisters who find themselves the target of the douchebag son of a rich family. Danger ensues, secrets are revealed, and a girl does indeed wait with a gun. We'll see what happens in the back half but so far I'd recommend this. And the cover is lovely. Just saying.

I've got that book waiting for me at the library! I'm excited to get started on it, and I agree that the cover is lovely!

I just finished Girl Waits With Gun and rather enjoyed it. I liked that the writer plays the whole thing in a more understated  way rather than pushing the characterizations and situations too far into cliche territory. Constance, for example, is a believably independent, strong, and modern woman within the context of her era (and not a character who feels like she belongs in 2015, if you know what I mean). And I quite liked how Stewart portrays the

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Additionally, Stewart handles the

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I think Stewart's shown herself to be a very thoughtful and measured writer with this novel, and I'll be tuning in to the next one to see where she takes these characters.

I decided to read Girl With Gun based on what you guys said about it and I liked it a lot, although the prose is a bit . . . I don't know how to describe it, I feel like a lot of novels nowadays kind of try too hard to make prose quirky for lack of a better word. But I liked it a lot and bonus for me, it took place in New Jersey so I knew a lot of the landmarks.

I read Liane Moriarty's What Alice Forgot this week and I found it very engrossing. In that, I pretty much blew my whole day to sit and read it even though I had baking and what not to do at home but I got that done after 11pm because that's how I roll when a good book is there.

I found the book engrossing in that I wanted to find out what happened to all of them and I was interested in their story but I found the characters a bit...frustrating? I mean, I understood how things could have gotten the way they did in all their lives but there were things like

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So they annoyed me at times but at the same time I was sympathetic but at the same time again I was thinking these were people who could probably have solved a lot of their problems if they'd sat down and actually talked to one another honestly. But then again, that's easy to say because sometimes you don't want to aggravate things by speaking up...etc etc.

So yeah. I had a lot of thoughts after reading that book.

My last book of 2015 is Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, which has gotten a lot of attention (not the least of which was Obama naming it his fave book of the year). It was really good. Where the story sometimes broke down for me--I did roll my eyes a few times--the writing saved everything. Groff can f'ing write and it elevated the story well beyond your average tale of a marriage. I liked the second half (the wife's part) the best but thought the book as a whole was worth it--horrifying, amusing, melodramatic, witty, twisty.

Totally just got from the library and am so psyched to start on it tomorrow! Girl Waits With Gun was great, so I recommend it to one and all! I really loved the dynamic between Sheriff Heath and Constance. It felt authentic and palpable, and they mutually respected one another, which I thought was super cool. He didn't condescend to her or her sisters, and also I loved how different the sisters' personalities were.