lycomayflower reads what she's got in 2017

Welcome to my 2017 reading thread! Click here to go to my intoduction post. The photo above is a goodly representation of my literary fiction plus two shelves worth of TBR (top two on the right).

This first post contains an on-going list of the books I've read this year, with the most recent reads at the top. Click on the book title to go to the book's post within the thread, where you will find a review. Numbers in parentheses are page counts for each book. Click here to visit my 2016 thread.

Completed Reads

Total Pages: 9,083

42.) Roller Girl (240)
41.) Hyperbole and a Half (369)
40.) Girling Up (177)
39.) Harry Potter for Nerds (303)
38.) The Tales of Beedle the Bard (116)
37.) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (111)
36.) Pride and Prejudice (audio)
35.) Quidditch Through the Ages (107)
34.) How to Survive a Summer (338)

33.) The Nix (732)
32.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (870)
31.) Witch, Please (audio)
30.) Playing for Her Heart (175)
29.) How to Bang a Billionaire (349)

28.) Harry, A History (audio)
27.) The Book That Made Me (220)
26.) The Norths Meet Murder (239)
25.) Beyond Heaving Bosoms (284)
24.) The Soldier's Scoundrel (308)
23.) O! Pioneers (170)

22.) A Bear Called Paddington (174)
21.) Natural Law (282)
20.) The Clancys of Queens (audio)
19.) Our Numbered Days (64)
18.) Holding the Cards (223)
17.) The Deep End (461)
16.) Childhood's End (224)

15.) Waiting for the Flood (78)
14.) The Crossover (237)
13.) The Fallen (254)
12.) The Expats (500)
11.) The Tolkien Family Album (90)
10.) Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees

9.) Christian History Issue #78: J.R.R. Tolkien (audio)
8.) Bandersnatch (audio)
7.) Letters from Skye (290)
6.) The 5 Love Languages (203)
5.) Rings, Swords, and Monsters (audio)
4.) Tolkien and the West (audio)
3.) A Gentleman in the Street (336)
2.) Nowhere Ranch (236)
1.) A Man Called Ove (337)

Introduction Post

Hello! My name is Laura, and this is the tenth year I've kept an LT thread tracking and reviewing my reading. I read pretty widely, but I'm most likely to read romance, memoir, mysteries, YA, sci-fi, fantasy, and literary fiction. I'm in my mid-thirties, worked as an editor until this past spring, am married to a fellow reader, and carry on living in the south (it's been the majority of my adult life now) despite constantly missing winter and wanting to move back north (I grew up in north-east Pennsylvania). When I'm not reading, I like to do photography, write, crochet, bowl, swim, and watch TV. This year I'm also trying to get back into blogging at https://wonderatsix.blogspot.com/. Please feel free to talk to me there or here on LT. I love a good bookish conversation!

This year I'm continuing with some goals from 2016, looking to read more books by diverse authors (especially by poc, trans, and lesbian authors), poetry, literary fiction from my shelves, and loooong books I've been avoiding "because I won't make my book count goal." I'm also hoping to limit my book buying, shooting for only 2-3 per month (very low for me), and thus also readying much more from my shelves.

My favorite books read in 2016 were:

For Real
Symptoms of Being Human
A Castle Full of Cats
Ancillary Justice
Nimona

And finally, some pictures of my reading buddies:


Luthien, desperately trying to keep warm

and


Thursday, pretending she wasn't in trouble for "digging" the couch just moments before

I am part of the group.
I love being part of the group.
I love the friendships bestowed upon my by dint of my membership of this wonderful fellowship.
I love that race and creed and gender and age and sexuality and nationality make absolutely no difference to our being a valued member of the group.

Thank you for also being part of the group.

Happy new thread, and happy new year!

Welcome back!

Happy New Year!

Hiya!

Happy reading in 2017, Laura!

Visitors! Hello, all!

>3 PaulCranswick: What a lovely sentiment! Thank you for being part of the group!

>4 foggidawn: Thank you! You too!

>5 drneutron: Thank you! And thank you for always getting the group up and running!

>6 DianaNL: Thanks! You too!

>7 laytonwoman3rd: Oh, hi.

>8 FAMeulstee: Thank you! Back atcha!

Hi, Laura! Gosh, but Thursday is the cutest. Love that gangling, awkward-yet-still-adorable phase. Mario has moved on to the adorable yet ginormous phase.

Happy new year, Laura! Your reading buddies are adorable.

Happy new year and new thread, Laura! Bookshelf porn and adorable beasts. You're already off to an awesome start. :D

Hi, Laura. Just stopping by to drop a star. I love the pics of your reading buddies.

Love the photos of your reading buddies. What do they think of each other?

>14 Familyhistorian: "What do they think of each other?" Ha! That's the question, isn't it?

>15 laytonwoman3rd: I had a cat and dog that enjoyed playing together. Funny to look at as the cat was small (under 10 pounds) and the dog was a golden retriever/shepherd mix (about 80 pounds).

Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday. In celebration, a toast:

*stands up. raises glass* The Professor!

Durn! I forgot. Sorry, Professor. But I haven't forgotten whose birthday TODAY is...

I thought of you yesterday when I saw elsewhere that it was The Professor's birthday - I just knew you'd be raising your glass!

And Happy Birthday to YOU today!! I hope it turns out to be the best one yet!

Happy birthday, Laura! Hope it's fabulous!

Oh, Happy Birthday! Hope you're having a great day.

Stopping by, Laura, to plop my star, only to walk in on the birthday celebration. Never too shy to pick up a glass and toast your continued health and great reading. And there's cake! As Julia Child says, a party without cake is just a meeting!

Happy New Year, Laura! (And a belated raised glass to Tolkien and happy birthday to you)

Looking forward to following your reading in 2017.

>10 scaifea: Every time Thursday has another growth spurt, I mourn just a bit that the last phase of cuteness is gone. But it's always replaced by a new cuteness phase! And she could stop growing any time, honestly. I was thinking the other day that she was starting to look like she was kind of grown up, but now her feet are starting to have that too big look again. So maybe I'm in for ginormous.

>11 tymfos: Thanks!

>12 MickyFine: Thanks! It's hard to beat books and adorable beasts! =)

>13 rretzler: Hiya! The reading buddies sometimes inhibit reading more than anything else, but they're soft and adorable, so.

>14 Familyhistorian:, >15 laytonwoman3rd:, and >16 Familyhistorian: So far Thursday tries to "play" by bouncing around like a fool and barking. Luthien finds that absurd and responds by slinking off (and occasionally getting in a good swat on the pup's snout!). She also likes to sit on the side of the gate where the pup can't get and just looking down her nose at Thursday. Thursday thinks that's very rude and reacts by trying again to get the cat to play.

>18 laytonwoman3rd: Ooo, pretty black and white cake. You'll be 'round shortly with it, yes?

>19 scaifea: Lol, yep, always have to raise a glass to dear old JRRT. Afterall, I wouldn't be me without him. And thank you! It was a pretty excellent day.

>20 MickyFine: Thanks!

>21 rretzler: Thanks! It was pretty great!

>22 michigantrumpet: Thanks! Anything without cake is a darn shame, if you ask me!

>23 bell7: Thank you!

1.) A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman, translated by Henning Koch ****

The story of a curmudgeon and how he came to care about his neighbors. This is described everywhere as "charming," and I call shenanigans on that. I didn't think it was charming at all. Tragic, dark. With some funny moments and a gentle journey towards uplifting in the end. Not charming. Worth reading, but also by turns predictable and repetitive. They've made a movie, and if they've done a good job, I think this will be the rare beast where I enjoy the movie more than the book. It felt, as I was reading, that the story would be better suited to a visual medium. Not sorry I read it (not at all), but not sure I really recommend it either.

***For Book Club

>25 lycomayflower: thanks for this. I was afraid there may be just too much hype over this one and you have convinced me of that. I'll take a pass, thank you for taking one for the team!

>25 lycomayflower: Hmmm. Mulling this one even more than I've been mulling (I just can't decide if I want to or not).

>25 lycomayflower: my thoughts too. Decent, worth the read, not stellar.

>26 lauralkeet: >27 scaifea: if you're considering this one, I'd recommend audio. Listening to the repetitiveness wasn't quite as tedious as I imagine trying to read it would be.

Happy 2017, Laura!

I'm a fan of Ancillary Justice and Nimona, too.

>26 lauralkeet: You're welcome! I'm kind of bummed, to be honest, as I was hoping that his other books would be things to look forward to. Oh well.

>27 scaifea: Well, it certainly wasn't bad. It just wasn't what I was expecting and didn't really grab me ever. Many of the women in my book club did really enjoy it, although they seemed to be reading it differently than I was. They mostly thought it was pretty light, and I thought it was definitely leaning toward dark.

>28 dragonaria: Ooo, I wish I'd thought of audio. I bet I would have enjoyed it more that way.

>29 jnwelch: Hi, Joe! I keep meaning to read more of the Ancillary series, but I haven't gotten there yet.

2.) Nowhere Ranch, Heidi Cullinan ****

Roe Davis left his hometown to escape the judgment of his family and works as a ranch hand throughout the midwest, moving on from each job before he can get attached to anything or anybody. At his latest job, he runs into his boss in a gay bar, and they decide it will be more convenient to sleep with one another than to keep driving the hours to the nearest suitable bars--provided this arrangement doesn't turn into a relationship or anything. And then emotions and things. Roe's unpleasant and damaging relationship with his family is a strong thread throughout, influencing his decisions and creating obstacles to his ability to find an HEA.

For about the first three-quarters of this, I was leaning toward mildly disappointed in it--it seemed an absolutely competent romance but not much else, and with maybe too much sex on the page than was warranted given the work it was doing in the story. And then the last sixty pages--hoooboy. She nails. it. There's a whambam of an emotional payoff, and all the pieces come together to turn the story into a satisfying whole. The book starts, "My name is Monroe Davis, and this is the story of how I found home." And he does, and it's lovely.

Had us some snow on Saturday--the first time Thursday had seen any of the stuff on the ground.


Making tracks.


"I'm a snow dog. Gots me a snow stick."

Dogs get so happy in the snow :-)

>32 lycomayflower: Aww, those photos of Thursday are delightful. :D

>32 lycomayflower: awww, I love dogs who love snow.

3.) A Gentleman in the Street, Alisha Rai ***

Akira is a formidable business woman and has a reputation for being sexually adventurous. Jacob started raising his three younger siblings in his early twenties when their parents died, and he's considered pretty buttoned up, especially by Akira. They do not get on, each thinking the other disdains them. Guess what? They don't.

I've heard great things about Alisha Rai, but this book didn't do a lot for me. The set up is decent, and for the first sixty or so pages I was pretty invested, especially since Jacob's particular brand of "I repress myself because of my responsibilities but I really just want someone to tell me it's okay to let go" hangup is kind of *buttonsmash* for me, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I kept waiting for exploration of the characters' problems, but they seemed to get over them without really dealing with them. This is edging toward more cynical than I care to be about this novel, but: sometimes it felt like they got over their issues because they were in a romance novel and they had to get over their issues for things to come out right. Meh.

Also, there's a lot of sex here, some of it super filthy (and look, if *I* say it was super filthy, it was super. filthy. I've read a lot of this stuff, and it takes a lot to get an eyebrow raise out of me.). And that's fine. But it never felt particularly well integrated into the plot. If you're writing straight-up erotica, the sex doesn't need to do anything but be sex. Any other time, it needs to do something else too. This didn't feel like erotica, but it felt like much of the sex was only there to be sex. Another way to put my disappointment with the sex in this book is this: for me, for sex in a novel to be interesting, it needs to contain a tension in addition to the sexual tension. One or more characters need to be discovering something about themselves, their partner(s), their sexuality, their feelings, something. Otherwise it's just slot A tab B, and I can only sit still for, say, one of those in a book. A Gentleman in the Street just had too many sex scenes without any additional tension to make them interesting.

>33 FAMeulstee:, >34 MickyFine:, >35 lauralkeet: Thanks! It was an absolute joy to see her so happy and having such fun! Then it turned into icemud and taking her outside in it every two hours was kind of torture.

>30 lycomayflower: The rest of the Ancillary series is great, too. Very satisfying (to me, anyway) conclusion.

>32 lycomayflower: what an adorable furbaby!

>36 lycomayflower: Appreciate the commentary. I suspect I would find your review far more interesting than the book!

>37 lycomayflower: The initial gambol in the snow is always the high point but it always gets messy at some point but you'll remember the good part from the photos. Happy belated b'day - that is a great looking cake - too pretty to cut really.

>40 Familyhistorian: I mustn't take credit for the cake...it's just a photo I snagged from the interwebs. I'm afraid Laura was reduced to making her own birthday cake this year!

>41 laytonwoman3rd: It's the thought that counts, Linda. Besides, far less calories in a virtual cake.

>41 laytonwoman3rd: At least she made sure she had a cake she truly likes! Happy belated birthday!

>38 jnwelch: Cool. I'll have to try to remember to get to them!

>39 michigantrumpet: Thanks!

LOL. Fair enough.

>40 Familyhistorian: Yeah, the pictures are already a delight, and it was only a few weeks ago!

>41 laytonwoman3rd:, >42 Familyhistorian:, >43 michigantrumpet: I'm used to having to make my own birthday goodies, I'm afraid. With a birthday right at the beginning of January like that, I very often face leaving whoever I was visiting for the holidays right before the birthday hits (especially when I was in school). I don't mind it, really. And this year, a very good friend was able to be in town for a day and that day was my birthday! So it all worked out.

4.) Tolkien and the West: Reclaiming Europe's Lost Literary Tradition, Michael D.C. Drout ****

5.) Rings Swords and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature, Michael D.C. Drout ****

Two Modern Scholar courses on audio. The first was largely about how Tolkien used and revitalized techniques and themes of medieval literature in his fiction. The second (wait for it) explores fantasy literature, with a large emphasis on Tolkien. Interesting material (the first the more so for me), and Drout is great at presenting it. Recommended if this is your bag.

>45 lycomayflower: I've been meaning to do a top to bottom re-read of Tolkien and this looks like some great supplementary material!

>46 drneutron: Ooo. Would that be The Hobbit, LotR, and the Silmarillion? More? Less? I think the Drout lectures would absolutely be great supplementary material. Do you also know about Corey Olsen ("the Tolkien professor"), who does a podcast, including chapter-by-chapter discussion of all the books? I've very much enjoyed his stuff too. Aaaand, I listened to some more audio books that might be up your street that I'm reviewing right now and will pop up down-thread in just a few minutes.

At a minimum Silmarillion, Hobbit, LOTR. I'd like to get into some of the auxiliary material, but we'll see... A podcast may be a bit much, but some written coursework would be doable.

6.) The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman ***1/2

I don't read a lot of self-help type books, but I often have the same problem with the ones I have: they have a center of good information wrapped up in annoying presentation. The 5 Love Languages fits that description. The idea at the core of the book--that different people communicate love differently--seems like a pretty good one, but I found that "save your marriage by learning your spouse's love language" presentation irritating, both because it's oversimplistic and because it unnecessarily limits the usefulness of this information--this approach to thinking about communicating would work with anyone you care about and certainly isn't relevant to couples only if things are bad between them. I also found Chapman's discussion of some thorny issues (like abuse, like depression) waaaay too simplistic and lacking in the appropriate level of outreach (which could be as simple as offering contact information for support groups) to readers who might need help.

If you can get past those presentation irritations (or if they don't bother you), there's some good info here. Over years of counseling couples (it's unclear to me whether Chapman has any training in counseling or if he just has a lot of experience through religious organizations--I think it's the latter, and while that means I probably wouldn't seek him out for therapy, it doesn't, in my mind, disqualify him from sharing what he's learned through that experience), Chapman realized that not everyone expresses love in the same way and not everyone "hears" expressions of love in the same way. He lists the five ways he's observed couples express (and receive) love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. He claims that for most people, one of these ways will be more effective than the others (and that one or two of them will have little effect whatsoever). Problems can arise if one tries to express her love in a way (a "language") that is ineffective for the recipient. So, if one's "love language" is quality time and one's partner (or mother or friend or whoever; I maintain that there's no reason this should be limited to romantic partners) spends very little time with one but gives one lots of gifts, one will not feel very loved. It's kind of a simple concept but I can see how individuals could easily miss that their way of saying "I love you" just isn't being heard.

I picked this up because it is everywhere, and my curiosity about it eventually just wore me down. Not a bad read, and does have some good advice at the center. Worth a spin through, but probably good choice for taking out of the library.

>48 drneutron: Ah ha. I'm toying with a reread of LotR shortly myself. It's been awhile. I have yet to get through The Silmarillion. Maybe this year!

7.) Letters from Skye, Jessica Brockmole ****

An epistolary novel featuring letters between a young poet and one of her fans (who quickly becomes a friend) just before and during WWI and those between the poet's daughter and her boyfriend at the start of WWII. Ostensibly the story is about the daughter figuring out what happened in her mother's early life, but there's really very little mystery to that (and what events we don't fully understand immediately are very easy to predict). The novel has a certain charm though, and I found it quite enjoyable. Brockmole uses the epistolary form to very good effect, and the characters are fun to hang out with. Recommended for light reading when you want something delightful.

8.) Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, Diana Glyer, read by Michael Ward ****

I'm on a kick of Tolkien and Tolkien-adjacent stuff these days. This is an exploration, geared toward a lay audience, of the specific ways the Inklings influenced one another in their work. A nice listen on audio, but I understand that Glyer did a more academic version of this work and I think I may need to put my hands on a print copy of that. Because natch. Recommended if you're interested in Tolkien or Lewis or the Inklings as a whole.

9.) Christian History Issue #78: J.R.R. Tolkien

The audio version of one issue of the magazine Christian History. This issue was devoted to JRRT. Very hard to follow on audio, as it was difficult to know when the audio was moving on to a new piece and to understand how the information was laid out/being presented. Some interesting tidbits in here, but for the most part not anything I didn't already know.

Here it is February (every. dang. year.), so a currently reading pile:



And some photos of Thursday Pupdog goofing around with "her" blanket:


"Yes, that was the name. I was Gandalf. I am white now. Saruman as he should have been."


"This is not the couch you are looking for."


"What?"

Aww, cute puppy!

>49 lycomayflower: I believe Chapman has spun the idea into several different books for various types of relationships.

Oh she's so cute. Great captions too!!

>55 foggidawn: Thanks!

Yes, I believe he has. In every permutation imaginable. Which kind of contributes to my slight annoyance with him? He could have just made this book very slightly longer instead of repackaging the same material in so many different titles.

>56 lauralkeet: Thanks!

You would like to drop February from the calendar? What would keep January from bunking into March, then? (Pogo had this problem with Albert once, as I recall...although it may have been days of the week. Now I'll have to go read aaaaaalll the Walt Kelly.)

>54 lycomayflower: Nice pile of books, Laura, I just finished the complete The Lord of the Rings, have fun with The Fellowship of the Ring.
Thursday is adorable!

>58 laytonwoman3rd: Yes! Boot it out! And send November along with it! Just magically go from January to March, with no gross February weather and other nonsense bleeding into them, either.

>59 FAMeulstee: Thanks! Thursday is a goof. A most adorable goof.

I feel like it's definitely time for a full LotR reread. It's been too long.

What get rid of February and just go into March? No, no a thousand times no. March is a horrible month where terrible things happen. If any month should disappear, it should be March.

Interesting piece on romance novels on CBS Sunday Morning today, for you, Dr. Koons. I expect there will be video eventually, although right now it isn't coming through.

Is it going to make me cross?

Ah HA! It did NOT make me cross. Decent little piece. Sarah Wendell forever!

>63 lycomayflower:, >64 lycomayflower: Why would I point you to something that would make you cross? *Mom eyebrow*

Nosing in on the mother-daughter teasing to say thanks for the interesting read. No guilt romance reading for all!

>61 Familyhistorian: Get rid of 'em both then, I say!

>67 MickyFine: We're all mad here. ;-)

YES to no-guilt reading of all kinds!

I always think that February and March simply make us a lot more grateful when April turns up. Or I try to think that.........it rarely actually works and I end up grumpy, cold, muddy and rain-soaked! Plus my birthday is in February so I don't want to get rid of that........though I was *supposed* to be born in April so maybe I shouldn't be so keen on it.

Thursday looks angelic with her blanket! Very cute.

10.) Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees, Beth Moon *****

A photography collection with a couple of short essays related to the subject of the photography. The photographs are all night shots of ancient trees against star-laden skies. They are stunning. Someday I'm going to convince myself to shell out for my own copy of this, but in the meantime I suspect this is going to become a frequent re-check-out from the library.

>69 lunacat: Well, there is that. Good things are more better in contrast to bad things. Maybe we should end January, then have a week-long party where we celebrate all the Feb/March birthdays, then have April.

Thanks! "Angelic." Hmph. She looks that way a lot, but she's a right pill! An adorable, wonderful pill, but a pill for sure.

But pill pets are always the most fun. I can say that from experience.......I own a cat who insists on regularly emptying all my clothes drawers whenever he gets the chance........along with a lot of other annoying behaviours!

11.) The Tolkien Family Album, John Tolkien and Priscilla Tolkien *****

A big format, short collection of Tolkien family photos and family anecdotes compiled and written by two of J.R.R. Tolkien's children and published at the centenary of his birth. Most of the pictures are ones I'd never seen before, and the little tidbits of family history and anecdotes were, if not earth-shattering additions to our knowledge of his biography, nevertheless a delight to read. I'm not sure how I managed to be ignorant of this book's existence for twenty-five years, but I'm thrilled I came across it and added it to my Tolkien collection.

>72 lunacat: LOL. Those clothes don't GO there, clearly.

12.) The Expats, Chris Pavone ****

When ex-CIA agent Kate Moore moves to Luxembourg with her husband Dexter and their two young sons for Dexter's job in finance security, Kate slowly begins to suspect that her husband is not exactly what he seems. The story has thriller roots, with some suspense and detecting/spying, but it almost has more in common with character study and a portrait of a marriage. It was pretty page-turner-y for me (though it did also seem to take a long time to get through) despite its lack of a lot of action scenes. I enjoyed its slightly less violent/action-packed take on the thriller, as that (especially the violence) tends to turn me off these sorts of books all together. The end felt perhaps a bit anticlimactic while somehow seeming pretty right too. I'm glad I read it.

13.) The Nine Lives of Chloe King: The Fallen, Liz Braswell ***1/2

Teenager Chloe King is living a normal life in San Francisco with her mom until one day she survives a 200-foot fall without injury. From that moment on, she discovers more and more strange abilities, such as retractable claws and feline grace and speed. Chloe doesn't really understand what's happening to her, but eventually events and new acquaintances start to reveal the truth.

This was an enjoyable, quick YA read. I imagine I'll carry on with the rest of them some day since I'm somewhat intrigued about what's going on. The story does ask for a lot of suspension of disbelief, however, and I suspect many readers would find it hard to pass that hurdle. Some of these are to do with the paranormal goings on, but honestly a lot of them were just realism tics, too: Chloe and her friends seem way too grown up for just-turned-sixteen, both in their own behavior (drinking and smoking that seems casual, responsible and for its own sake rather than new or rebellious or thrill-seeking) and in the behavior of adults toward them (Chloe appears to have free rein to roam the city without telling her mother where she's going or when she'll be back).

Some good and varied reading over here, Laura. I want to read something by Chris Pavone soon.

Have a great Sunday.

>77 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul!

14.) The Crossover, Kwame Alexander ****

A novel in verse about twin boys who play basketball. Enjoyable, though kind of heartbreaking in the end. Better poetry than it is a novel, though that's not really a criticism as such. Some of the poems about actually playing basketball on the court are amazing.

15.) Waiting for the Flood, Alexis Hall ****1/2

Reread. Alexis Hall does character like nobody else. This novella packs in hard-hitting but tender moments. Love, love, love it.

ETA: I'd been meaning to reread this for a few months now, and I just checked to see when I read it last year. The end of February. Weird.

I love the puppy pictures!

Hello, Laura!

>81 tymfos: Thanks!

>82 alcottacre: Well, hi! Good to see you around!

I call it... *booming pretentious voice* Portrait of a Reading Slump.


Books I've started in the last three months and not finished for no particular reason.


Lookit all those bookmarks 30 to 100 pages in!

>84 lycomayflower: That is a little terrifying.

>84 lycomayflower: Now that's a slump!

>85 MickyFine: It is incredibly frustrating. I gave myself a strict talking to this afternoon along the lines of "just bloody well stick with something, anything until you're done." We'll see.

>86 foggidawn: I don't know if I should be proud or concerned. It's not the worst one I've ever had, at least? And they always go away eventually. But, bleh.

Wow...

>84 lycomayflower: Get that stuff off my bed! How am I supposed to sleep there with all those interrupted narratives?

>84 lycomayflower: Oh, goodness. That even looks daunting to the like of me (but also a little exciting - don't judge me!)...

>84 lycomayflower: If I counted well those are 39 books.... very frustrating. I hope you manage to finish one soon.

Oh, my. I get in my slumps where I keep starting things I can't finish, but. . . oh, dear. I hope you find a book that feels worth sticking with soon!

My reading slump is not quite of the epic proportions that you are going through Laura but it is pretty bad too. I have ten books on the go at the moment and whilst I am enjoying a few of them I don't seem to be making very significant headway.

Have a great weekend and finish some bloody books!

Slumpsville here too. I find a Sherrilyn Kenyon book usually eases me back into reading. But then I live for snark.

>88 drneutron: ...is one word for it. :-p

>89 laytonwoman3rd: Oh, hush.

>90 scaifea: This is why I love you, Amber.

>91 FAMeulstee: Thanks!

>92 tymfos: Thanks!

>93 PaulCranswick: Aren't they the worst? Thanks for the weekend wishes!

>94 dragonaria: Boo, slumps. They should leave us all alone, already, yeah?

Well, I've been slowly climbing out of the reading slump, mostly by reading things that don't require too much of me. I'm still starting more than I'm finishing, but at least I've finished *some* things. (Though I'm also behind on reviews--at least one of these I'm about to review I finished a few weeks back.) I'm meant to be on a modified book buying ban this year (so far "modified" has pretty much meant "not really on a book buying ban"), and I mean to try to remotivate myself to do a version of a book buying ban to try to reduce the rampant choice I'm faced with when I go to pick out a book. I think that's a little piece of my trouble. Too many books clamoring for attention, so it can be hard to focus on just one long enough to finish it.

16.) Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke ***1/2

Alien ships show up at Earth, hovering about over major world cities, and then things happen. I enjoyed the SyFy series based on this book, and was interested to read it. I had a little trouble getting into it though, partly because I kept trying to remember exactly how it was differing from the show but also because Clarke was less interested in his characters than in his ideas, and that is always a hard sell for me. Still, I'm glad I read it.

***For Book Club.

>96 lycomayflower: Glad you're starting to feel like you're coming out of the slump. :)

17.) The Deep End, Kristen Ashley ***1/2

I feel like I had a lot to say about this erotic romance between a Dom and her new "alpha" sub, but I waited too long to sit down and write my review and most of it has gone out of my head. I think it mostly boiled down to: 1) the book is compelling, as Ashley's books always are, but 2) it was too long, by as much as one hundred pages (during which most of the emotional thrust (sorry not sorry) of the story had already been resolved and the heroine ends up in danger (which is a thing I usually don't care for in romance novels, so maybe I was unfairly prejudiced about that piece)), 3) too much of the sex (especially in the back half of the book) did nothing but be sex (where most of it should have also done something else too, such as tell us more about the characters), and 4) Ashley's style, which often lends a sense of authenticity to her characters and setting (especially in dialogue) also frequently gets in its own way, too often creating sentences that are either simply longer than they need to be or are downright confusing in their construction. On the whole, I greatly enjoyed the first two thirds of the book but read the last third just to finish the book. Which is a dang shame, because, as with all of Ashley's books that I've read, the characters are interesting and the story has that something that makes you want to keep reading. If only it had been tighter, in both plot and sentence-level writing.

>98 MickyFine: Thanks, Micky!

18.) Holding the Cards, Joey W. Hill ****

Many of the elements of this book were very similar to those in The Deep End--BDSM relationship, female Dom, male sub--and boy is this a better showing of that basic setup (a lot of things about the two books were different too--I don't mean to imply that they were the same book). The characters are more fleshed out (does that need a "sorry not sorry"? I can't decide), all of the sex is multi-purpose (all the sex scenes had a purpose in addition to being sex scenes), the sentence-level writing is better, and the pacing is good. Despite all the sex and edginess, something about Holding the Cards is almost sweet. I loved the characters in the end, and loved the emotional journey they went on. This was almost a clutch-it-to-my-chest-at-the-end-and-sigh read. There's definitely something about a Kristen Ashley book that's hard to resist, but if someone asked me to rec a m/f BDSM romance with a female Dom, I'd give them the Joey W. Hill.

>95 lycomayflower: Yah! Fur Sure! Like you I'm slowly crawling out of the slump. And I'm with you on the book buying ban. I came to the realization a few years back that just because I owned the book, it did not automatically impart its wisdom. Weird, huh?

Happy Tuesday!

>102 dragonaria: I came to the realization a few years back that just because I owned the book, it did not automatically impart its wisdom. Ha! Yep. I think I also got into a mindset during grad school where I was trying to gather books to me that I thought I would need to/should/might one day want to read. We had an excellent, excellent used bookstore in town and I would just go trawl it a few times a semester and come away with ten or twenty books for twenty or twenty-five dollars--many of them things I would have to read for my comps. Because so much of their stock came in through the university students off-loading the texts they didn't want after their classes were over, their stock turned over fast, and I felt like I had to grab things when I saw them (and they were cheaper there than I was likely to get them anywhere else in the near future). Now I'm still trying to break that habit. Only a very (very) small number of the books I buy now are at all likely to become hard to come by a year or two from when I see them in the store/first hear about them. It's so unnecessary to do this gathering in thing anymore, and yet. A hard habit to break (especially since I do so enjoy a bookstore!) But I'm also sure that 90% of my difficulties in reading slumps arise from having too many recent acquisitions all vying for my attention at once.

19.) Our Numbered Days, Neil Hilborn ****

A poetry collection in which many of the poems are about mental health--both dealing with mental illness and just being mentally healthy (or not). Sometimes funny, often heart wrenching. Full of both lines and whole poems that are absolute gems.

20.) The Clancys of Queens, Tara Clancy, read by the author *****

Clancy's memoir of growing up in Queens, shuffling among the houses of her mother, of her father (which amounted to a one-room shed), of her maternal grandparents (a duplex in which other members of her large, extended, Italian-American (on that side--Irish on the other, natch) family lived), and of her mother's long-time boyfriend, who grew up poor and working class but then became rich, to the tune of fancy digs in the city and a second home in the Hamptons. She explores what it was like to grow up in the Boroughs in the 80s, how moving among not only so many houses but two social classes affected her, how she realized she was a lesbian, the power and variety of her friendships, and the relationships with her family. Absolutely hilarious with a tender heart beating at its core, and Clancy reads it to perfection. Recommended in any format, but do yourself a favor and listen on audio, where you'll get the experience of Clancy's timing and accent, which enhance the book wonderfully.

Boroughs. Not that other guy.

Jeez Louise, Ma. Let a person finish the process of getting a ting posted and looked over before you come in here with your big grammar stick, ya know? Aren't youse supposed ta be someplace anyways?

21.) Natural Law, Joey W. Hill ****

Homicide cop MacKenzie Nighthorse goes undercover in a BDSM club to try to suss out a Mistress who is gaining male subs' trust and then killing them off-site. As serial killer premises go, that's pretty terrifying, but for the most part it's just there to set the romance plot in motion, provide the impetus behind some scenes with Mac's colleagues (Mac is part of the BDSM scene before he goes undercover, but they don't know that), and sets up a danger!climax. All that is fine--it's a romance, not a murder mystery--but the book did feel a bit uneven, with a lot of police-y stuff in the beginning, a loooong interlude in which Mac seems to pretty much forget that he is a cop with a case, and then a return to the Plotty McPlotplot of the serial killer in the end. The resolution of the murder plot is also almost entirely a function of the murderer overplaying her hand rather than of any real detective work, but, again, not a mystery novel. (This, aside from the fact I tend not to like violence in my romance novels, is another reason I, personally, don't usually care for romantic suspense. I do like mystery novels, so these "and then a miracle happens" resolutions to mystery plots annoy me.)

All that being said, the stuff that happens between characters *because* they get thrown together by that plot is pretty awesome. Mac and Violet, the heroine (and a Mistress at the club who becomes kind of his contact within it--among other things), are both interesting characters and their relationship is fun to watch. Mac's interactions with his sergeant, Darla, are also some of the best scenes in the book. Doesn't quite pack the emotional punch as the other Joey W. Hill I recently read (Holding the Cards) (nor did I love it as much), but still a good read.

>84 lycomayflower: I hate to think how my unfinished shelf would look for the past 5 years of being in school. I bet it would rival yours though.

22.) A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond ****

The first Paddington Bear book. I had somehow never read these (or had them read to me) as a kid (though I still did know quite a lot about Paddington--the hat and the marmalade sandwiches and whatnot). The book is just a little too episodic for me to fall completely, smashingly in love with it as an adult, but gosh was it fun anyway. Very pleasant to pick up and read a chapter here and there. And the illustrations (Peggy Fortnum) are the best.

>110 lycomayflower: I never encountered the Paddington books as a child either. I did not read them until I read the first several to my girls.

>109 alcottacre: Ha! I bet it would too!

>111 alcottacre: Isn't it funny the little gaps we sometimes have in our reading? Paddington feels odd to me, that my mom wouldn't have known about him/introduced him to me. Certainly I think we would have loved him.

>108 lycomayflower: Poor MacKenzie Nighthorse has a pretty bad case of book name. :P

>108 lycomayflower: Yeah...we have "preview" for that. And we were where we went in plenty of time. Bob Casey for President. Now, please!

>113 MickyFine: LOL. He sure does. The whole book I was going "Nighthorse? *MacKenzie* Nighthorse?"

>114 laytonwoman3rd: THHHHSSSSBBBBBTTT

Such disrespect for the Senator!

>116 laytonwoman3rd: *blink. blink* You! YOU, ya goofball!

Oh Paddington! We love him and are currently on a re-read. His hard stares and his difficulty with paws. So adorable. And yes Peggy Fortnum is amazing - Charlie has a print of one of her Paddington drawings on one of his walls.

>115 lycomayflower: I still think my favourite case of book name is Aurora Teagarden from Charlaine Harris' cozy mystery series (librarian in small town solves crimes!). I've only read one of the books (I'll likely go back to them sometime this year) but I have a soft spot for the Hallmark films based on them with Candace Cameron Bure in the main role. But seriously bad case of book name.

>118 scaifea: His hard stares and his difficulty with paws. Hee! Did you all see the recent movie? Any good?

>119 MickyFine: LOL. Hmm. Now I want to check out those films.

23.) O! Pioneers, Willa Cather ***1/2

Meh, Cather. I read My Antonia sometime in my teens and didn't care for it. Read O! Pioneers in masters degree school and didn't care for it. And I still don't care for it. The descriptions of the land are pretty amazing, and I like some of the characters okay, but for the most part I'm just not gripped or intrigued or fascinated or angered or annoyed or anything really until the end, when Frank shoots his wife, Marie, and Emil, and Alexandra is all "well, honestly, it's more their fault than yours, Frank, because, you know, carrying on and doing the what-not." Aside from my general "sorry, can't" re: "it's okay to murder your wife and her lover because adultery," Alexandra's reaction to it given her otherwise quite (proto-) feminist attitudes about everything else make me all verhoodled in my brainmeats. This is one of those books I feel is far more important to literature than it ever will be entertaining, enlightening, or appealing to me.

***For Book Club

>121 lycomayflower: You crack me up. Srsly. Verhoodled in your brainmeats. *shakes head gently to protect own cerebral organ*

>120 lycomayflower: No, no interest in seeing the movie. I have a very firm idea of what Paddington looks like and how he sounds and acts and moves and I need noone else trying to change that, thank you.

>121 lycomayflower: "...far more important to literature than it ever will be entertaining, enlightening, or appealing to me"
Ah, so like Plato is for me, then. Yup, I get it. I've never read any Cather (another one of those how-in-the-world-do-I-have-multiple-degrees-in-the-Humanities-and-still-haven't type things), but I suspect I will at some point and I'm not going in with any happy expectations.

>121 lycomayflower: nice rant. Have to agree with you on that one. I've enjoyed some of Cather's books but others have fallen completely flat.

>121 lycomayflower: I do like Cather a lot, My Antonia being one of my all-time favorite books, but the one for which she she may be better known, Death Comes for the Archbishop, I liked significantly less. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

>121 lycomayflower:, >125 alcottacre: What Stasia said. My Antonia is my favorite. Your points are legit re O Pioneers!, but I still loved it. She's one of my favorite authors. The Song of the Lark is a lesser-known one of hers that I thought was very good.

>122 laytonwoman3rd: *bows*

>123 scaifea: Ah ha. I understand that, totally.

Oh, I hope you *do* enjoy the Cather when you get to her, especially if you're going to read her anyway. But I'm proooobably done with her.

>124 lauralkeet: Which ones have you enjoyed? (Despite having *just* declared myself done with her, I feel sort of compelled to keep trying? *gives self side-eye*)

>125 alcottacre: Yep! It would be a pretty boring world if we all liked the same things.

>126 jnwelch: Interesting. *notes down The Song of the Lark in case I'm ever feeling Cather-y again*

Fiiiiinally I have written another blog post, in which I discuss that reading slump I've got going.

Death Comes for the Archbishop...definitely one of Cather's best.

>128 lycomayflower: Excellent post. Also, I like your blog's wallpaper.

>129 laytonwoman3rd: *squints at you*

>130 foggidawn: Thanks! Isn't that wallpaper the best? Just one of the backgrounds you can pick on the site, but I love it.

>131 DianaNL: Thank you! I hope yours was lovely!

24.) The Soldier's Scoundrel, Cat Sebastian ****

Set in Regency England, this romance follows Jack Turner, who is a kind of Regency-era fixer who takes jobs for women only, and Oliver Rivington, an aristocratic second son who has just sold his army commission after being seriously wounded in the leg. The two cross paths when Oliver tries to hunt down just why his sister would have paid Jack two hundred pounds. The two become friends while they are both busy trying not to fall in love with each other, and they investigate one of Jack's cases while they're at it.

It took me a little bit to get into this one, but once I did, I was strongly invested, both in the heroes as characters/in their love story and in the case they were investigating (although it probably bears mentioning that there isn't a whole lot of true investigating on the page). Two things struck me about this story that I really enjoyed. The first was that the realities of the dangers of engaging in a same-sex relationship in early 1800s Britain were fully recognized (even if the HEA is a wee bit hand-wavey) without casting a pall of dread over the whole story. Second was the way women remain important to the story (which is often, though certainly not always, not true in m/m romance). Both men have women in their lives who are important to them (even if they aren't on the page a huge amount of the time), and Jack's work (and specifically the case they work on during the bulk of the story) hinges on the ways women are given little or no recourse by their society when they are wronged.

Absolutely recommended to anyone who enjoys this sort of thing.

Been at it again: new blog post recommending my favorite bookish podcasts.

>134 lycomayflower: So happy Witch, Please made the list. :D

25.) Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels, Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan ****

This discussion of the romance genre by two of the women behind Smart Bitches,Trashy Books is equal parts informative and tongue in cheek. They provide the history of the genre, discuss the many tropes associated with it, and explore the reasons why so many women love it and why so many women are maligned for loving it. An enjoyable read with a lot of substance, though the constant nudge, nudge humor grew tiresome by the end.

26.) The Norths Meet Murder, Frances Lockridge and Richard Lockridge ****

This is the first book in the Norths murder mystery series, and it was my introduction to the series as well. My mother's been a fan of this series forever, but somehow I'd never got round to reading one til now. I enjoyed this very much, most especially the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. North themselves, and the friendship they strike up with Weigand, the detective investigating the murder the Norths meet. I was less excited about the straight investigation bits, but only because I liked the Norths so much, not because there was anything wrong with the story itself. Will be checking out some more of these.

27.) The Book That Made Me, edited by Judith Ridge ****1/2

A collection of short essays by thirty-two writers on the subject of the book that "made them," that was most influential in their lives, that stuck with them. What a fun read this was! And it grew my TBR quite a bit too (oops, not oops?) As most of the writers were from Australia or New Zealand (with a handful of UKians), many of the essays also served as interesting glimpses into childhood in cultures I'm not terribly familiar with. Recommended.

DNF: The Dig, Michael Siemsen

This is our read for Book Club in April, and at halfway, I still just can't get into it. It's a sci-fi thriller about an archaeology dig what turns up a man-made artifact in a layer millions of years before man was around. The main character has a psychic ability to "read" objects, actually experiencing the last event that occurred when a previous owner was in contact with an object. I was intrigued by the premise, but the writing lands with a clink half of the time (not quite so bad as to make a clang, but just not quite right either), none of the characters interest me much, and I found myself desperately wanting to skim the bits that take place in the distant past, the ones attached to the mysterious object. Meh. I hope the other members of the club enjoyed it more.

>135 MickyFine: I love Witch, Please so much. I may have to listen to it again once I (finally) finish my current reread of HP. I only know about W,P because of someone here on LT. Might have been you? Or Nora, maybe?

28.) Harry: A History, Melissa Anelli, read by Renee Raudman ****

I read this back in 2014 and enjoyed it quite a bit. Was looking for something on audio to be background while doing a lot of chores and putting books into LT and whatnot and thought this one would be fun to revisit. And it was. Anelli does a great job giving the history of the HP phenomenon. A few parts dragged for me this time (mostly the bits that I was never super interested in (like Wizard Rock) in the first place), but that's really just an interest-level thing. I wasn't in love with Raudman's reading (she makes everything sound really precious. Yuck.), but she did a good enough job I was content to carry on listening. I very much recommend the book if you're interested in the history of HP or fandom.

>140 lycomayflower: It could have been either of us. I was sharing it eveerywhere when I discovered it last year. They totally motivated the HP re-read last year. Also, when taking a bath (one of my favourite places to listen to podcasts) if I have no new podcast episodes to listen to, I will listen to the Teenage Sex Romparoo episode because it's so delightful. Or the Prisoner of Azkaban film episode because their shock when they discover Neale has a film degree amuses me so much.

>142 MickyFine: Hehe, the Teenage Sex Romparoo ep

Today at my blog I get lowkey terribly upset about changes to the way Barnes and Noble shelves their new releases: http://wonderatsix.blogspot.com/2017/05/but-where-are-new-releases.html

>143 lycomayflower: Right? :D

>144 lycomayflower: Your mom pointed me here re your blog post. As a bookstore employee in an independent bookstore (only PT these days), I can't speak for what B&N does, but I'm with you in not doubting that it's some "brilliant" idea from corporate probably based on some sort of marketing study or perhaps to hide the fact they are stocking less. I sympathize.

In our store, we have a couple of separate hardcover sections. Thus, we have a HC fiction section, a separate HC SF section, and a HC nonfiction section, which might satisfy a buyer like yourself. A regular shopper would probably spot the newest additions to those sections. The hardcovers are usually out for about a year, plus or minus, before their paperback version appears, but book retailers often return unsold copies to the publisher as soon as they can for credit. I'm told the chains are ruthless about this and return HCs as soon as they are able, We used to return HC after the paperback replacement came in but budgets are tight these days, and we've been returning extra copies earlier than we used to. Having also dealt with used books, I can tell you the rule is that no one is going to buy the hardcover after it's been out 6 mos, they'll wait for the paperback.

Because we have the separate hardcover sections, what we call "face-outs" probably don't have the impact they might elsewhere. A book with 4 or 5 copies is apt to end up face out, or a new title will (whether or not it has multiple copies), or one with an interesting cover, or one that is a staff pick (or some of us might put our favorite authors face-out. Shhhh...). Sometimes there is no room on the shelves for any face-outs. I suspect B&N has a very specific rule about book arrangement.

One of the managers at our store does tend to rearrange the store regularly (like in, moving sections around). I'm not sure exactly what that is about (sometimes there may be a good reason, but mostly I think it's a control issue), and it drives me nuts. Again, I sympathize. I think I'll print out your blogpost and drop it on a desk in the office.....

>144 lycomayflower: I was a big Border's bookstore fan, never much cared for B&N - I can't really tell you why - just something intangible. I was always able to find what I wanted more quickly at Borders, and I guess I liked the atmosphere. B&N seemed to have a lot more other stuff taking up space rather than books. The last time several times I went into the B&N, I discovered that I could also buy Legos there. Personally, if I want Legos, I'll go to the Lego store or ToysRUs - not the bookstore. I want books in my bookstore. That's probably why even before Border's closed, I was on Amazon. I do miss browsing, but I can find what I want much more quickly, and still browse, its just not as satisfying as holding the actual book. I agree with you that B&N not having new releases front and center is likely going to hurt their business - but I bet some marketing genius thought it was going to help!

Sorry to hear you're in a book slump - that stack of DNFs looks really daunting. I've considered asking you to list them so the rest of us know what to stay away from, but I'll save you the work. 😉

Ooof, I'm pretty sad to hear about the B&N re-organization stuff. I kinda love their New Releases tables, and I like that they have (had) separate ones for hardcovers and New Releases in Paperback, too. I only get to a B&N two or three times a year (there aren't any round these parts, but I make a bi-yearly pilgrimage to the huge one in Columbus, OH), so I won't be too sad about it until the end of June, I guess, when we're going back to Ohio again.

Thanks for visiting the blog, everyone! I really appreciate it.

>146 avaland: Ooo, thanks for all this behind-the-scenes bookstore info! Fascinating. I'm glad to see some people agree with me on this new releases issue. I wondered if maybe it was just me, being weird over here.

>147 rretzler: When I lived in Knoxville, we had a Borders and a Barnes and Noble about a block from each other. I much preferred the Borders then. I, too, thought it was more of a *book* store than B&N was. The B&N I frequent now is nicely laid out and feels decently cozy though, even if they do have a lot of stuff that isn't books or tightly book adjacent.

Yeah, making a list of all those slump books would be daunting. And I'm not at all sure they all deserve avoiding--I think I'm just a odds with things and finding it hard to settle into reads.

>148 rretzler: Ditto! Awesome graffic!

>149 scaifea: As far as I can see, Barnes and Noble is keeping the tables out front with new releases on them. It's the separate shelves at the start of each individual section that have been done away with. So the ability to browse new releases is not completely gone, but those tables usually only have a smattering of genre titles on them, and I think I'm right in saying that spots on those tables are promotions paid for by the publishers, while the books on the new release shelves were just all the hardcover new releases in each section/genre. Better than a stick in the eye, but still a shove in the mud, I say.

>150 lycomayflower: Oh, I get it, okay. Huh. Interesting. And also not good.

Wishing you a great weekend, Laura.

29.) How to Bang a Billionaire, Alexis Hall ****

I have said before that Alexis Hall can do no wrong, and I stand by that. His writing is *amazing*. Probably consistently the best sentence writing of anyone of my generation that I've read. (Seriously.) He's also brilliant at characters generally and specifically at making me care about his heroes and their romance woes within pages of meeting them. How to Bang a Billionaire is true to form for that quality. Beyond that I have to suspend judgement a bit because I feel like this first volume does not provide enough of a sense of what he's doing with the billdom trope to decide if he's pulled it off. I loved the characters, I liked their interactions, there's enough stuff happening for some good potential dilemmas, obstacles, etc. But this is only the beginning of the story, and I won't be able to decide how much the whole thing succeeds until I see more. I'm all in though.

30.) Playing for Her Heart, Megan Erickson ***1/2

Nerdy folks overcoming their problems and falling in love. I enjoy the nerdy milieu of this series, and they are fun, quick reads. As with the first in the series, I felt the book just didn't quite hit the spot satisfy ...there's no non-innuendo way to say this you guys so just sorry not sorry okay? Fun, enjoyable, still something missing.

31.) Witch, Please, Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman ****

Well, I went and listened to this again. (My earlier review is here, should you care to look at it again.) I enjoyed this podcast on a second listen and still think it is an *excellent* source for feminist readings of the Harry Potter novels and movies, but I was also more annoyed this time at the things I think they get wrong or with which I just don't agree. That's probably more a reflection on the situation than anything else--afterall, the eps remain static, presenting precisely the same argument they did the last time I listened to them, but I have had time to think about them and develop my responses and counter arguments. And they can't talk back to me when I yell at them. In addition to my continued irritation with their failure to engage fully with the mode in which the texts often operate, this time two specific things jumped out at me as grating:

1) the often sneering tone they take on when discussing Rowling's statements about the books and/or characters after their publication. McGregor and Kosman repeatedly remark that they aren't interested in authorial intention, and that is *fine*--it's a common position in literary theory and criticism and it shuts down a lot of impossible conversations about "what the author meant"--but it's absurd to expect Rowling to take on that position herself about her own work. Their exasperation with, for example, Rowling's statement that Dumbledore was gay seems to cross over into some kind of bashy territory rather than remaining a critical position from which they are examining the texts (this is made worse by the fact that almost every time they bring up this statement by Rowling, they misrepresent what she said, making it sound like Rowling made some big, pre-planned announcement *designed* to retcon an LGBTQ character into her story where what she really did was answer a fan question about Dumbledore's love life by saying she thought of him as gay.)

2) their interpretation of the centaurs as indigenous peoples. This is the one where I wish I had them at my dinner table so we could have a nice, friendly-shouty chat over scrumptious snacks because I think their reading is possible but they also fail to rebut the obvious counter-argument (this being the problem with potentially contentious readings in extemporaneous discussion--I'm sure that if they had written a paper about the topic*, they'd have addressed the issue). And I want to hear that rebuttal. My reaction every time they bring up this reading (that the centaurs are coded as indigenous peoples, that they are othered, that they are positioned as an other with access to nature/myticism-based wisdom, that they are required to stay within the borders of specified land, that they use bows and arrows, etc), my knee-jerk reaction is, "Or they're centaurs?" I'm no expert on Greek myths, but much of what they see as indigenous markers in the centaurs are also characteristics, I believe, of centaurs in those myths. Basically I just want to hear more about how they would justify their reading while taking into consideration the entire context of the text (rather than how they *do* address it, which is to assume there are no counterarguments to this reading and to shut down the possibilities of them with an attitude of "ug, this stereotypical representation of native peoples is so gross.") I guess I'd say I'm less disagreeing and more looking for a fuller, more nuanced discussion.

TL;DR: Podcast still excellent; more annoying this second time round. Have you some specific examples of my original assessment that they sometimes allow their critical lens to over-determine their reading.

*One or both of them may have, by the way, and if anyone wants to point me to such a thing, I'm interested in seeing it. But I currently have no knowledge about that one way or the other.

>152 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! I think I've had two great weekends since then! (I should come to my thread more often. *sheepish look*)

This past Saturday was the Roanoke Harry Potter Fest, a Potter-themed festival put on in downtown Roanoke for the first time this year. A few blocks were cordoned off and lined with vendors; surrounding shops "became" locations in the wizarding world, like the house common rooms, Honeydukes, etc; various professors and other speakers who work on/talk about Harry Potter offered classes (talks) on various topics; and in the days running up to the festival and on the day itself the movies were shown, quidditch matches played, and a Yule Ball thrown. Husbeast and I went and had an excellent time! We enjoyed walking around the vendors and seeing all the fans in their various nerd!represent get-ups (many people (including Husbeast and I--Ravenclaw!) wearing house colors, some dressed as HP characters, some sporting other fantasy/sci-fi themed shirts, hats, etc. The highlight of the day for us was hearing John Granger (author of The Deathly Hallows Lectures, among several other books) talk about ring composition in the series. He was personable and smart and funny, and we got to talk to him briefly both before and after his talk. I'm hoping the festival (with a few tweaks--communication wasn't great this year, and the whole thing would be that much better if they got more HP-themed vendors and convinced all the participating shops/restaurants to fully commit to decorations and themes--this year some went all-out and some... didn't) will become an annual thing.

Picture of John Granger and me, both of us with equally whacky "Hey, we're havin' fun and meetin' people expessions!":

>157 lycomayflower: Great photo! Love the t-shirt. I have this version of the same quote.

I still say John Granger and Bill Nye the Science Guy are the same person. At the very least, they buy their ties in the same place.

>157 lycomayflower: >159 laytonwoman3rd: *SNORK!* When I first glanced at the photo, I thought, "Oh good lordy lou, she's gone and met Bill Nye!" Jealous, I was. Now I'm happy to say that I can be pleasantly happy for you for meeting this non-Bill person.

>157 lycomayflower:, >160 scaifea: I thought that was Bill Nye, too! I was thinking how lucky you were. :-)

>157 lycomayflower: >159 laytonwoman3rd: >160 scaifea: >161 jnwelch: Ditto!!

32.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling ****

I *finally* finished HP5 in my current reread of the series. I think I've been dipping in and out of Phoenix for... a year? Something like that. For me the appeal of HP is primarily two-fold: fold one is the magic, the delight, the joy, the familiarity, the fun and other pleasant words as well. Fold two is the Plotty McPlotplot coupled with the Themery DiThemetheme stuff about love and sacrifice and family and humanity. And see, HP5 falls down *hard* on fold one (not a criticism, exactly: I'm sure it was intentional on the part of JKR and it's an integral part of the overall structure and scaffolding of the series et blah blah blitty blah cetera) in that it just isn't fun or delightful or joyful and the whole point of so much of it (Umbridge) is to unfamiliar Hogwarts for Harry and the reader. And as far as fold two, it's not that there aren't important plotty or themey bits, it's just that the real meat of the plotty bits comes at the end of HP4 and throughout HP6 (comparatively, anyway) and the most themey of themey bits comes in HP7. So, for me, Phoenix is just a lot of unpleasant blerbity in between stuff I like *so* much better. It's not a bad book (not by a long shot) and from a somewhat objective perspective, I don't have anything against it. But it is getting harder and harder for me to get through it each time I reread the series.

Bullet Points of Noticingness (back-half heavy, as it's been a minute since I read the beginning) (oh, right: spoilery, probably)

--"Christmas on the Closed Ward* is killer, eh? The Longbottoms, you guys. *Neville.*

--All the books have these bits where the narrator is like, "And then a lot of weeks went by in which the characters, like, went to school and stuff and now we're jumping to the next important part, go!" but this one seems to have a lot more of those moments than the other books. I felt like I was stuck in wheel-spinning summary land a lot. This could just be my impression because I'm not in love with this book, or it could have been intentional on JKR's part because that's kind of what this time in the story *is*, or it could just be that this is a good thing to point at when one kvetches that HP5 is too long. *shrug*

--I don't think HP5 is too long. What, exactly, would you take out?

--Wow, Umbridge is treated really, really badly at the end, y'all. Like, cold, Hermione, just leading her into the forest like that knowing that the centaurs will not take it well. On the Witch, Please podcast it's suggested that Umbridge is probably raped when the centaurs carry her off, and I was a little "sure, maybe? but not necessarily, probably?" but now I've read it again, I dunno, man. Something pretty awful went down, that's for sure. And no one treats her with any humanity at all afterwards. Ron intentionally triggers her; *McGonagall* allows students to chase her out of the castle? I mean, where is the compassion for the human spark even if that spark is in the body of someone who has committed evil acts? This is almost the whole point of VoldyBaby in King's Cross at the end of HP7, right? I'm not sure what to do with all this. (Also, having reread the second half of HP5 right after relistening to Witch, Please, I'm more sympathetic to the reading of the centaurs as indigenous peoples. I still think their argument needs work as an argument though.)

--Further to above, Hermione just *uses* the centaurs for her own purposes without even really *thinking* about it. A nice illustration of the problems the wizarding world has with its thinking about sentient beings who aren't human. Though I wouldn't mind if it had been brought forward a little more, honestly.

--Fred and George's exit. Ha! The best. And Filch leaving a little piece of the swamp intact because it was such good magic. Love.

--Lots of little moments between Harry and Ginny in this book that if you know what's coming it's nice to mark. Ginny is a lovely quiet support for Harry that he basically isn't even really noticing yet. It's pretty well done.

--It always, always bothers me that Harry doesn't berate himself about not having opened Sirius's gift of the mirror earlier. He might have been able to contact him with it instead of charging off to the ministry! But he never makes that connection. He thinks he might be able to contact Sirius with it even though he's dead, but he never goes "Derp, I might have avoided the whole thing if I'd had this." Feels like a missed opportunity.

--The Dumbledore Explains It All chapter is just great here. The way he talks about caring for Harry and not being able to bring himself to tell Harry what's really up and that he was wrong not to. *sniff* (And then you remember that Dumby's *still* not telling Harry everything and you're just like "Albus, you completely morally ambiguous schemer, you.")

--Half the order showing up to tell the Dursleys not to be such abusive jerks at the train station. Ha! Brilliant.

--Gosh but I *love* the prophecy and the way it is completely true but only in that Voldemort made it true through his actions and his choices about what he thought it meant.

ETA: I just went and checked: it's been just over four years since I last finished HP5 and just a couple of days under one year since I last finished HP4.

Links to my reviews of HP 1-4 in this format:

HP1
HP2
HP3
HP4

>158 MickyFine: Thanks!

>159 laytonwoman3rd:, >160 scaifea:, >161 jnwelch:, >162 rretzler: LOL. I can't say that I thought of the resemblance at the time, but now it's pointed out, it's inescapable.

>163 lycomayflower: Excellent Noticing Points. I both love and really don't love this book in the series. And I'm with you on just how cold Umbridge gets treated, but at the same time I'm totally okay with it and that has always made me feel like a bad person. I kind of feel as if JK leads us into that on purpose, wants us to walk that fine line ourselves and not just witness Hermione et al. doing it for us.
And Harry's blockheadedness irritates me in this one more than in others, mostly, I think, because my boyfriend's life depends on him and he blew it. Gah.

It's the next one on the list to read with Charlie after our break (Charlie has expressed an interest in trying it this summer so we'll see if he's ready), but I know that I'll have trouble reading THAT part when we get to it. It's difficult to read aloud through massive sobbing.

>163 lycomayflower: Great points! I don't recall if you did points like this for the other 4, so I'm going to have to go back and look. It's been at least a year since I've read any of them, with so many books intervening, but I would have to agree with many of your points, especially the one where it seems that nothing happens for a while, and then there's an important event. I always felt so cheated - it seemed like there should be more in the parts that were skipped, but then I guess the book would be longer (which I would not have minded.) I have been frustrated with Harry many times; he does tend to charge off without always trying to understand. The mirror is one indication of this, his refusal to learn occlumency is another. In fact, I would almost go so far as to say that it is Harry's actions that often result in people getting hurt, yet when he comes to the "rescue," he is considered a hero. I guess if he acted differently, though, the books would probably not be as good.

>163 lycomayflower: Order of the Phoenix is probably my least favourite of the series but all that stuff in the Ministry of Magic is just SOOOO fantastic.

Am I the only person in the group who hasn't read Harry Potter?

33.) The Nix, Nathan Hill ****1/2

*Well.* This is the best experience I've had reading literary fiction in yonks. Given my tendency lately to put books down without finishing them, I was a little wary of picking up a 700+ page piece of litfic, but I was also looking for some litfic that would kind of get me back into the groove of litfic. Not sure exactly what about The Nix made me think it was the book to do that, but it sure did. It took me about three weeks to finish this with fairly steady reading, and that feels decidedly like an accomplishment to me these days. It was long and it took a minute to read and I still stuck with it to the end. Booyah! Hill would be on my "Yay!" list if for only that, but, you guys, this book. It's awesome.

The story revolves around Samuel Andresen-Anderson, a teacher of freshmen comp at a university, and his mother, Faye, who abandoned him when he was a child but has resurfaced in Samuel's life through some highly publicized legal trouble she's landed herself in. The narrative moves among the present (2011), Samuel's childhood (1988), and Faye's teenaged years (1968), and explores their family dynamics. Those narrative moves are extremely satisfying, but what most interested and impressed me about The Nix was the way it presents and examines American attitudes toward media, news, and politics. Over the course of the novel we see the protest/riot around the Democratic National Convention in '68 from the perspective of several characters protesting as well as from the police; from the perspective of Walter Cronkite covering it; from the perspective of "average Americans" watching the coverage. We see a very talented player of a MMORPG who is addicted to the game. We see a publisher trying to capitalize on a scandal before it leaves the collective American consciousness. We see family stories and how they do or don't stack up against reality. All these threads come together well, and as a whole they create this amazing look at narrative and story and news and reality and belief and how all those things play together to create individual and mass perceptions of the world that drive events but which are, to degrees we really can't even fathom from any one point of view, wildly untrue. You know that little frisson you get when you're reading a thriller or mystery or other puzzly book and you realize how it's all going to come together? I got that sensation in the last forty pages or so of The Nix at how he was bringing all his story and thematic threads together.

This is decidedly the best book I've read so far this year. It's engaging, entertaining, well written, and says what it has to say masterfully. Read it, read it, read it.

>165 scaifea: I kind of feel as if JK leads us into that on purpose, wants us to walk that fine line ourselves and not just witness Hermione et al. doing it for us. Yep! The more I reread these books (and the more I read about them) the more I feel like JKR almost always knows exactly what she's doing.

And Harry's blockheadedness irritates me in this one more than in others, mostly, I think, because my boyfriend's life depends on him and he blew it. Gah. *sniff*

but I know that I'll have trouble reading THAT part when we get to it. It's difficult to read aloud through massive sobbing. Oh, geez. I can't even imagine reading some bits of these books aloud to a kid. I can just imagine said sprout looking at me going, "Okay, *what* awful thing is coming up *now*? Cause you've been pretending you're not blubbering for three whole pages."

>166 rretzler: Yeah, it's interesting to look at Harry as a flawed hero, isn't it? He's not necessarily all he's cracked up to be all the time. Which I think is part of the point, really.

I've gone back up to the HP5 review and added links to my listy reviews of the previous four, should you be interested.

>167 MickyFine: Yes! Once the climax gets rolling, OotP is great. Just, so much shouty Harry and durm and blah to get through first.

>168 PaulCranswick: Weeeell, prooobably not? But, I mean, why haven't ya, huh?

>170 lycomayflower: Well, we'll see if I can make it through Order of the Phoenix soon enough - Charlie wants to start it as soon as summer vacation begins... Yoicks.

>1 lycomayflower: What lovely bookcases. I imagine it took a lot of time to place the books in such a wonderful, eye-catching manner.

>168 PaulCranswick:

But you have at least seen the first movie?!?

It makes Potter lovers even of those who stumbled around words through the first book...

I was working with high risk and medical leave students when assigned to one who had been my 4th grade student - what fun!

As she got tired, she wanted me to keep on reading that first Harry Potter (which I had never heard of). It was distinctly unimpressive.
Only rarely have my daughter and I ever preferred the movie to the book: movie rocks!

>169 lycomayflower: Hmmmm...700 pages eh? "read it, read it, read it" eh? OK, maybe I should? Eh?

>171 scaifea: Ooo, I hope it goes well. (I'm not surprised he wants to carry on again already. The pull of the story is mighty hard to resist.) I wonder what an eight-year-old will make of Shouty!Teenaged!Harry.

>172 Whisper1: Thanks! It did take awhile to get them all arranged, but credit for them being eye-catching must go to the books themselves. It's just alphabetical order!

>173 m.belljackson: Oh, interesting! You like the movies better? I'm not sure I've met anyone who prefers them to the books. What don't you like about them? Can I ask if you ever went beyond HP1?

>174 laytonwoman3rd: *menacing whisper* Reeeaad iiiiiit. *makes face* And iffen ya dun like it, I dun wanna hear about it.

>173 m.belljackson: "It makes Potter lovers even of those who stumbled around words through the first book..." Ummmm....no. My husband tried the first movie, without having read any of the books, and it did not "take" with him. And both @lycomayflower and I really think he'd enjoy the whole story line if he could get into it, but now he doesn't want to try the books.

>175 lycomayflower: Honestly, that's the part that I'm most worried about, not the scary factor or the tragedies. I'm worried that he'll not connect with what's going on with Harry and so get frustrated with the story before it gets started. We'll see how it goes. I'll have to prepare some sort of Well, Teenagers Can Be Weird speech. He's already decided that middle school kids are strange, as he has witnessed their after-school antics this year (we drive past the middle school on our way home from *his* school everyday).

>176 laytonwoman3rd:
>175 lycomayflower:

Your husband sounds like a sensible guy - I didn't read past Book 1 and enjoyed the earlier movies.
Not a fan of violence in the later ones.

>177 scaifea: Yeah, I think HP5 makes more sense if you're either a) currently in puberty or b) have passed through it and can see Harry's reactions for what they are. :) Much luck having that convo with Charlie!

New blog post up today! More about reading slumps--this time I give tips about avoiding them in the first place!

To the blog!

>176 laytonwoman3rd:

Which Harry Potter would you recommend as The Best?

Thank you.

I'm sure LW3 will answer too, of course, but: for me, Prisoner of Azkaban and Half-Blood Prince are most representative of the series at its best. But Deathly Hallows is a masterpiece. Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite of the movies.

Challenge accepted (although I haven't steeped myself in these books nearly as long and thoughtfully as the mayflower has). It's hard to pick one of a series like this as "the best"...each one is essential to the overall myth in its own way, and they develop as the characters do. Furthermore, I really need to do a complete re-read. Nonetheless, I will say that I am very partial to Prisoner of Azkaban.

>180 lycomayflower: Somehow I wanted to shout "Squirrel!" long about your fourth paragraph. You've probably lived with too many dogs!

>184 laytonwoman3rd: That miiiight have been intentional.

>185 lycomayflower: I suspicioned as much.

>182 lycomayflower:
>183 laytonwoman3rd:

When I couldn't reach my daughter (now 41, and still wanting to drive me to Florida for the Harry Potter experience)
by phone to see if she had the Harry Potter books at her house,
I checked the kid shelves upstairs and found a wonderful mix of soft and hard covers, maybe including all titles.

I'll start again with the first book, a Scholastic Press 1997 U.S. printing...
Harry will be my fiction, with ARTIC DREAMS the deep, deep non-fiction, and a new romance by Penelope Lively
to round out the final evening of reading for May, 2017.

Thank you - I'm looking forward to getting to your favorites.

We've seen all the movies - the first is still our favorite and the only one we own,
sitting with the other VHS > La Bamba, Back to the Future, Waiting to Exhale, Polanski's MACBETH,
POCAHONTAS, The films of Charles and Ray Eames, THE FULL MONTY ...

>182 lycomayflower:
>183 laytonwoman3rd:

Hello again -

Last week, I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and I love it > 5 Stars!

Here's what happened: my student had handed me the SECOND Harry Potter book
to read to her.

She was a page or two into the chapter on Dobby -
THAT was my introduction to the series and where my unimpressed reactions arose.
Dobby is as intrusive a character as Jar Jar Binks. And the writing was not memorable.

With so many modern novels featuring unlikeable characters,
it is no surprise that adults are drawn to Harry Potter.

>188 m.belljackson: Interesting comparison of Dobby and Jar Jar... I have a peculiar fondness for both of them, actually!

>188 m.belljackson: I'm so glad you enjoyed the first one! The second is one of my least favorites in the series--definitely not a good introduction--though it *is* important to the overall plot. I had not thought of that comparison between Dobby and Jar Jar. I'm not a big fan of either (though I like Dobby a lot better). They do have some similarities. Worth thinking about further, maybe.

>189 laytonwoman3rd: I *know* I didn't just hear you say you are fond of Jar Jar Binks. *side eye*

>190 lycomayflower: So do I have to turn in my Perfect Mother badge?

>191 laytonwoman3rd:

Well, likely nothing that drastic -

yet, I remember reading about a STAR WARS fan who reworked a couple of the films,
editing Jar Jar totally out.

We'd love copies of those!

Saw an edit once where Jar Jar turned out to be a Sith Lord - preeeety funny!

>191 laytonwoman3rd: Oh I guess not

>193 drneutron: LOL

>195 lycomayflower: I really enjoyed that one. Thanks for sharing!

Ditto. Thanks!

>196 MickyFine:, >197 jnwelch: Thanks for reading! Glad you enjoyed it.

34.) How to Survive a Summer, Nick White ****

Recounts a young man's time as a teenager at a religious camp designed to "cure" homosexuality. The novel uses a horror movie loosely based on the camp as a device to bring past experiences to the fore for the main character, and this juxtaposition of the real abuse that occurred there and the terrors of the horror film is both the most interesting thing about the book and the most disappointing--it brings up fascinating questions and parallels I don't think it does enough to resolve, and ultimately that part of the book seems to drop away. The story is set in the deep south, and while I could see that White was bringing details of that setting into the narrative, they didn't quite come together to form the kind of richness that setting makes me expect. An uneven novel, but still one I am very glad to have read and which I recommend despite its flaws.

DNF: Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnelly

Really bummed I couldn't get into this one, as I was quite looking forward to it. The psuedo-thirties setting and the diversity of sexuality, race, and gender expression is right up my street, but none of it stuck in my mind. I couldn't keep the motivations of the characters straight, I saw details that should build the word but weren't working on me, and blamed if I could sort what the actual heck was going on.

I'm posting over on Litsy these days, too, so if anyone is over there, come say hi. Same user name, same Batchannel. Having a lot of fun this month with Bookriot's photo challenge over there.

35.) Quidditch Through the Ages, Kennilworthy Whisp, J.K. Rowling ****

Somehow I'd never read this before now. An entertaining hour's read with a few "I see what you did there" moments.

36.) Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, read by Rosamund Pike *****

If you are a P&P fan or an audiobook fan, get thee to your audiobook distributor of choice and put this version in your earballs. My, but did I love this! Pike (who played Jane in the 2005 P&P movie (exquisitely, I feel)) performs the novel to perfection, giving each of the characters a distinct voice, interpreting them each brilliantly, and never over doing it (which is one of my primary issues with the 1995 BBC mini-series). I can't recommend this reading enough.

37.) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander, J.K. Rowling ***1/2

Had never read this one before now either. Not as entertaining as Quidditch Through the Ages for me.

>203 lycomayflower: Rosamund Pike is definitely my favourite Jane. I can see the appeal. Sadly, I can't get my brain to do audiobooks. :(

>204 lycomayflower: There's an audio version of that one read by Eddie Redmayne. Maybe that would make it more appealing? :D

>205 MickyFine: I have a terrible time with fiction on audio unless I already know the story really, really well, so I understand.

Oooo, I do quite like Eddie Redmayne. I'll have to keep that in mind. Thanks for the heads up!

Big surprise, this one's going to be. ;-)

38.) The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling ****

This one was a reread. The best part about these is absolutely Dumbledore's commentary on each of the tales. I think "The Tale of the Three Brothers" is by far the best (but that could be because that's the one that's actually part of the HP story). I enjoyed "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" too, and "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" actually made me say, "Yikes" out loud at the end.

Interesting article about a digital archive of children's picture books.

39.) Harry Potter for Nerds, edited by Travis Prinzi ****

A collection of essays about Harry Potter. A mixed bag. John Granger's and J. Steve Lee's essays on the structure of the books and the series were very good. A fair number of the others were pretty interesting. A few were nigh on incomprehensible. A number of these seem to suffer from not answering fully enough what conclusions their observations lead to. Definitely hit and miss, though some of the hits are dang near worth the price of the book.

40.) Girling Up: How to Be Strong, Smart and Spectacular, Mayim Bialik ****

I enjoyed Bialik's holistic approach to helping young women learn about the process of growing up. In addition to the info about body changes I remember from such books when I was a kid, she addresses things like dealing with stress and making intentional choices about your values, what's important to you, and how to live the life you envision for yourself as you grow from childhood into adulthood. The writing is perhaps geared young enough that teens over thirteen or so might not be interested, but as I imagine the expected age range on this one would be roughly 9-13, that's probably okay. Would rec to a tween girl if I knew any.

41.) Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh ****1/2

A collection of essays from Brosh's blog, each one includes stick figure drawings illustrating the essay. Very funny and most of the essays are very affecting as well. Her pieces on depression and motivation are particularly good. The piece on moving her dogs (simple dog and helper dog) to a new home had me laughing so hard I scared *my* dog. Recommended.

42.) Roller Girl, Victoria Jamieson, ****1/2

I loved this middle grade graphic novel. The story revolves around Astrid's new-found love for roller derby and her desire to go to roller derby camp over the summer. There's a lot here about working hard and committing to something to get to your goals, a lot about female role models and the importance of sports--and all of that is really great. But at heart this is a story about friendship--about how friendships change as we grow from children into teenagers, about how friendships change shape in those years, and about how friendships, especially as we get older, take effort. I thought Jamieson's handling of this subject was spot-on, tender and real without ever being preachy or lesson-y. Recommended.

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