Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone had a good week. We're bracing for some snow and rain this weekend and it is a long weekend.

My only finish this week was Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. It was typical Mary Roach. I will be starting a re-read of Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal for neighborhood book club.

I am still listening to Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books. This was recommended by someone in my neighborhood book club. It has been okay for me. But I'm finding the characters to be portrayed more extreme than reality.

I am also listening to Bookshops & Bonedust. Once I finish the other audiobook this will go faster. I am enjoying this so far.

On my kindle I'm reading my Amazon first read choice, Some Other Time. I'm not far enough into it yet to have an opinion.

QOTW:
What is the most intimidating book you’ve ever read?

I remember as a pre-teen I read Papillion. That was a dense book to get through. It was not my typical genre and I still recall it was a struggle.

For me recently-ish, I DNF'ed Alexander Hamilton. I just couldn't get through it before the library renewals were due. I did find it interesting but it was slower reading for me.

Hello, all!

It's been another busy week at work, but the worst of it should be done for a little while. Thursday night we went to see the new Captain America movie. It wasn't perfect, but we both enjoyed it a lot.

Finished:
Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - 3.5 stars - Popsugar's book of interconnected short stories. Minor spoiler: (view spoiler)[I didn't like that the action moved to another cafe that just happened to have the same time travel capabilities with the same rules as the first. It seems like the time travel might be tied to the family running the cafes rather than the location, since only certain women can pour the magic coffee. But I'd rather spend more time unraveling the mysteries of the original location. (hide spoiler)] Still, I enjoyed the stories themselves, for the most part, although some were very sappy.

The Apothecary Diaries (Light Novel): Volume 11 by Natsu Hyuuga - 4 stars - no prompt. Still enjoying this series.

Comics & manga:
Chihayafuru, Vol. 29
Don't Call it Mystery (Omnibus) Vol. 9-10

Currently reading:
This Ends in Embers by Kamilah Cole - not planned for a prompt.

Upcoming/Planned:
A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall for Popsugar's book set in or around a body of water.

QOTW:
Mostly, I find large nonfiction tomes most intimidating. Like Susan, I also had to give up on the Hamilton book halfway through. It's good, but dense. I can't really think of anything else in recent memory, though.

No long weekend for me, alas.

The T in LGBT: everything you need to know about being trans - Another book by a YouTuber, this time a trans guy from the UK. It's designed to be useful to people who may be trans as well as allies, although generally that means the main text is directed to trans people with little sidebars from his wife about allyship. It's pretty basic and a bit UK-centric.

Slippery Creatures - I liked Hither, Page and its sequel, and Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ aggressively recommends K.J. Charles for that, so here we are. This one is also m/m romance set after the war, but it's the first war rather than the second, and the author says it was inspired by Golden Age spy pulp rather than village mystery. It was fun and I really loved the two female supporting characters, but I wasn't super into the romance. I'd probably read the other two if the library had them, but I'm unlikely to spend a money.

QOTW: That I've actually read... well I picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and put it back down several times before I brought myself to check it out, but once I started, it was lots of fun and no longer intimidating. I guess Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment were intimidating, and I'm not sure I got a lot out of them. My father-in-law strongly recommended Hawaii but it's like a thousand pages and I haven't been able to bring myself to attempt it.

Hi all,

We were supposed to see Phantogram Thursday for our Valentines date, but someone got sick so it's postponed. Didn't really have anything else planned, that was our date night. Didn't really feel like driving into Detroit on a really cold windy night without the concert to go to, so just ate at the only really decent local restaurant we have left and called that as good as it gets this year. Snowed all weekend so we didn't really want to venture further. Friday I had ran out to Joannes before snow started to grab some supplies before it closes. I'm so upset, i have nowhere else really reasonable to get fabric at. Michael's selection isn't great.

This week I finished:

She's Up to No Good - This isn't my usual genre, but it was alright. I liked a bit more than I expected. Felt a little long and jumped around a lot.

A Sorceress Comes to Call - I really loved this. I enjoy T Kingfisher in general, and her take on dark fairy tales are always fun. Also I'd gotten this is an book store splurge with a gift card, and the hard cover is lovely with gold embossing and varnishes on the cover.

Currently reading:

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity - still plugging through this. I keep having to stop and process a while. So much stuff in my life that makes sense now.

The Z Word - a queer rendition of the zombie apocalypse. Be gay, fight zombies? The blurbs kept emphasizing how funny it is. It's...a dark comedy at best, not really laugh out loud at all. More queer drama, some dark funny quirks, and zombies.

QOTW:
Hm...Maybe The Count of Monte Christo. I don't love classics to begin with. I tend to find them hard to wade through, with the changes in language and attitudes and pacing. So taking on a 1200 unabridged version of a classic was pretty intimidating. It took me 6 months to get through, mainly because i got stuck on a section that was SO LONG and SO BORING and i put it down for something like 4 months before finally making a deal with myself to read at least 2 chapters in between every book I read just to make some progress and get it done eventually. Once I got past that section it did get better. But man, you could tell the dude was getting paid by the the word.

Oh and I did attempt the Tale of Genji. maybe I had a bad translation but I think i maybe made it a 1/3d of the way through before I just tapped out.