Quondame - 75 down and more to go (Page II)

The books I don't often read but most often buy have to do with crafts and costume.

#80) Maps to Nowhere



Several interesting tidbits, uneasy appetizers. Lady Trent's letters are a hoot!

Happy New Thread, Susan! And I found Maps to Nowhere uneven, but the Lady Trent letters were a real treat. I'm glad you are continuing with the Kencyrath series, albeit with caveats. I am surely a less critical reader than you, but I do enjoy her writing.

>3 ronincats: The Kencyrath books are getting rather easier to read, which is surely to be hoped and expected of a mature artist.
As for critical, I don't give very many books 5 stars. Not only do they pretty much have to be worthy of a major award, but I have to totally love them and find them memorable. A 4 star is award winning quality, though I might not have given the award. On the other side, from the first time I attended a SF convention and listened to the an author reading, hitting specifically on bits that made the fans go 'oooh' but which were otherwise awkward, corny, sentimental, or twee I took against a certain sort of automatic queue in series writing, and which always looses a book at least a 1/2 star.

Happy New Thread, Susan! I haven't bought a craft book in years and never a costume book. Suddenly I'm feeling quite virtuous. Thank you!

Another way we're reading twins - though mine tend to be fiber arts rather than costume (anything from knitting to braiding, netting/knotting, tablet weaving...). I've got a few costume books, but my sewing for the body tends towards the simplistic (my persona is late 1100s English because that's loose tunics, mostly) or unwearable.

Happy new thread, Susan!

>6 jjmcgaffey: Knitting✔︎, knotting✔︎, tablet weaving✔︎, though more knots than than nets. After spending 3 decades in the early 19th century, I'm now (officially) 11th cent. Romanian with a Norse father & name, so loose tunic are well known around here. I've been fascinated by costume and fashion though for 60 years and there are few periods I am totally indifferent to. 1830s & 1930s I just don't get, except for the bias which I couldn't wear. I also have several period cook books which are shamefully neglected.

>1 quondame: >8 quondame: it’s a pet hate of mine when TV or film gets the costume wrong. We’ve just started watching Woman in White on the BBC and I really can’t cope with it at all as one of the main character goes around wearing some type of diaphanous nightdress type dress that would probably have got her thrown out of any type of respectable society on sight. This is supposed to be the 1850’s, by the way, and not a crinoline in sight.

>9 SandDune: That sounds astoundingly bad, worse even that Reign. Because of hearing issues I don't enjoy much TV or video these days.

Happy new thread, Susan!
>1 quondame: I have no books at all that have to do with crafts or costumes. Happy to know who is buying those ;-)

#81) Fashion Museum: Treasures



Pretty, but too lightweight and surprisingly prone to certain misconceptions, this is museum catalog lite. Clothing of the last 100yrs is all high fashion as in most collections, so that any record of what people really have worn or do currently wear will be in snapshots and Facebook posts.

The cover photo is neither credited or explained, though the shoes on the back cover are included in the interior.

Read to fill in the musical 'fa' for TIOLI April challenge #15

>11 FAMeulstee: So do you collect any non-fiction for hobbies and interests? I sill have Unix and UI manuals from my computer programmer days, but that wasn't really ever a hobby for me.

>12 quondame: Only 138 non-fiction books on a total of 2126 books. We have a few nature books (birds, trees, plants), a few atlasses, some dog books and a lot of art books. Now we try to add only art books.
I culled all the old COBOL books and recently my husband culled his Bridge and Cook books. We don't have much space, so if we want to buy books, first some books must go .

>14 FAMeulstee: My husband has books about comics as well as comics & reprints. He also likes histories. I consider my fashion books in the Art category and like museum catalogs, Outside class I only had reason to use COBOL once - we had sensor reports that needed organizing and evaluating and that to me looked just like financial stuff, so.. For decades I worked at assembly language level and then PL/M & C, but took courses in whatever was going on - until I got pregnant and lost automatic concentration. My kid pretty much took up (spare) time for a bit after, as has been know to happen.

#81) October



This is like an outline of what happened to whom in St Petersberg in the first 10 months of 1917. Some background is given for the situation and how in Feb 1917 bad choices on bad days lead to the fall of the government and resulted in a group that didn't seem able to govern leading the government (Provisional Government) and a group with many different ideas about what leadership should be trying to avoid governing (Soviet). It details how the Bolshevik influence grew and ebbed and coalesced in response to successes, failures, treachery, attacks, and leadership until they were pretty much the only popular group with coherent leadership.

It is in the Glossary of Personal Names that I found heartbreak.

Miéville gives brief descriptions of 55 people

55
-17 dead before Lenin in 1924
38
-2 deaths at unknown times, probably outside Russia
36
-13 people fled Russia - Trotsky killed on Stalin's orders
23
-13 people executed by Stalin or died imprisoned during his lifetime

Only 5 of the listed individuals outlived Stalin

I read this because I enjoy this author's fiction and respect him as a person of beliefs. I have very little interest in 20th century history, communism, or the Russian revolution. Oh, and for the The 2018 Nonfiction Challenge Part IV: History in April

Happy new thread Susan and well done for whizzing beyond 75 books already.

Happy new one!!

Happy new thread!

#82) Cloudbound



To much politics for my taste, but they are important to the development of the narrator/protagonist. Most of the action is concentrated in the last, much more pleasant to read, half of the book, although the results of political decisions are bitterly harvested. I did not buy the prevalence of seemingly faceless 'black wings' the antagonist is able to deploy since every other character is deeply enmeshed in family, political, and business connections not so much hierarchical. Also the base of the towers and spires, seems rather too much for the barren seeming of what supports it.

>17 PaulCranswick: >18 Berly: >19 mstrust: Thanks, and good reading to you too!

#83) Farmer Giles of Ham



The first Tolkien I ever read, I remembered this as hilarious and original - and it was in 1960 when I was 11. It's still an amusing riff on making an alliance with a dragon rather than slaying it. The absurd anachronisms of blunderbuss and sugar pastry as well as the traditional ones of knights in 4th-5th cent Britain were entirely overlooked at that first reading.

Read for TIOLI April challenge #9 - book by an author where the second letter of the first name is the same as the second letter of the last name

#84) Smith of Wootton Major



A deceptively simple tale of a fairy touched man, how he became so, his wanderings into fairyland and encounters with fairies, and his life at home as a smith. Written in a detached somewhat wistful tone.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #6 - an egg or a bird on the cover

Are you going to read Leaf by Niggle? I always think of these three together, and that is my favorite. You were way ahead of me. I didn't read Tolkien until 1966 when the paperback editions of LOTR came out in the US.

>23 ronincats: Well, to make up for that I didn't read LotR until the early 70s - then a friend and I started a day by day read each year for about 5 years. We'd start on the day Frodo left the Shire. I still have the falling apart books with some of the day marks.

#85) Big Nate: I Smell a Pop Quiz!



Why would I want to read about a stupid smart-Alec bourgeois white boy? Even in comic form this was a drag. So I liked Calvin, but he was smart.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #14 - A word in the title has an average Scrabble™ score of > 2.5 - Quiz averages 5.5

This is going to be a long month if I continue to have to graze out of my favored field for TIOLI entries... So far I still have to get through these two, which are also about middle class young white men. They do seem to make themselves miserable.

and

The good news is I've found slots for some of what I was going to read anyway:

#85) May Day



A novella, a story and 25 Aphorisms. The aphorisms are by far the most enjoyable.

The title novella takes place during the de-mobilization after The Great War, and two of the recently freed soldiers are one thread, another is a young man visiting the city for pleasure including a dance for his Yale fraternity, a previous roommate who has made a mess of his life, and a young woman once of some importance to the distressed young man. Everyone is mostly drunk, most of the story and it feels like you are getting all of their hangovers.

You probably don't want me talking about the male gaze. The drunken male gaze is even worse.

In Winter Dreams, well, a man enthralled by his own enthrallment to the object of that gaze is about as bad as it gets without the incels getting involved.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #13 - Start or Finish a book on the appropriate day in May (I thought this up myself without having a stack of candidates lined up)

I've never heard of that one from Fitzgerald. BB! Thanks for the review. And you're already at 85?!

#86) Yeast: a Problem



Well, that was strange. If you like argument about Christian belief and practices such as was/might have been current in mid-19th century England, along with descriptions of the wretchedness of the rural poor after enclosure, and do not mind the brutally casual misogyny of the time which excoriates the intellect of the female to whom it has denied the rigors of education while exalting her methodologically unique heart.
All the co-incidence of a Dickens novel with none of the playfulness, there are some gems to be found in the pages. There is a sort of superior humor at the level to which people deceive themselves into comfort, love, or other forms of self-satisfaction, which is about all that kept me going until the next theological outpouring, of which there are many. With a fragmentary classical education, and only hints of the religious landscape of mid-19th century England, I felt a significant lack of background to understand what points were being made in those screeds, but I admit to being more interested in getting through them than in understanding them.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #15 - Read a book where one word of the title or the author's name is an ingredient for baking bread

#87) Waikiki: In The Wake Of Dreams



This book was the companion to a documentary of the same name and the writing is like scraps of narration wrapped around photographs and some pretty regrettable artwork. It covers history, music, personality, and lots of hotels. For such a slender book it is rather rough going, each page or two a different subject and sometimes a different style. Some of the photographs are interesting but the dating is at best haphazard and attributions minimal, usually just an image service with no date or photographer. And the last three pages are all written as if the were meant to be the one and only last page, with at the very end a 'it's up to you' device.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #1 - Read a book with the bespectacled author’s picture somewhere on or in that book

>29 quondame: Hej Sue, you are well ahead of me :) I just read the first 20 pages or so ...

>31 paulstalder: From your thread I can tell that this is much more in your line, than mine. Perhaps you can tell me what they were arguing about. I've read some 19th cent English literature and, other than Dumas, a very little in translation from other parts of Europe, but not much beyond the name of a few heresies was particularly understandable in the CoE vs Protestant discussions.

#88) Lumberjanes Vol. 1: Beware The Kitten Holy



Both my husband and daughter insisted I read this series. It is something special. Over the top and wry, 5 girls in Roanoke cabin at Lumberjanes camp have adventures while avoiding or ditching their frazzled counselor. Each episode is preceded by a half page of text describing a merit badge, including the Pungeon Master badge, which we see before it is described.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #18 - Read a book recommended to you by a spouse/partner/significant other or, if single, by a close friend

#89) Horizon



The final volume of the Bone Universe series, it turns out that ground based adventures aren't as compelling as ones at the top of the bone towers (Updraft} or in the mysterious clouds (Cloundbound). I kept dozing off while reading, though that is probably as much the fault of dachshunds that insist on food at 6 AM as the pacing of the story. Issues of scale keep intruding to keep disbelief at bay, but the journey of the characters still has something to recommend it.

Meets TIOLI May challenge #10 - Read a book with characteristics of a vacation spot in the title

#90) Horizon



While this is a bit of a send up of all the band-of-rogues taking on a quest under threat-of-death/géis it works pretty well if you just take it straight. There is an angsty disgraced paladin harboring a dead demon, a forger/theif and an assassin who is not a nice guy, and a cleric from an order of geniuses with women issues. The on the trail adventures are distinctive enough to be interesting and the writing carries the story right along.

Meets TIOLI May challenge #14 - A word in the title has an average Scrabble™ score of > 2.5, Boy averages 3

#91) Lake Silence



A more adult tale in World of the Others which takes place after the YA Lakeside series. Vicki is trying to make a go out of The Jumble, a lakeside establishment near the village of Sproing, that she received as a divorce settlement. Just as she has the main building and a set of cabins ready for the summer guests a dead body proves to be the tip of the iceberg of the troubles outsiders bring to Sproing and The Jumble. Vicki has allies in dealing with the troubles, though they are in danger of doing so much they make her feel unable to take care of herself. Good characters, interesting setting and interactions and flows really well.

Silen a god of woodland

Meets TIOLI May challenge #9 - Read a book with a character from Greek or Roman mythology in the title or author's name

Just dropping by to wish you a lovely Sunday, Susan.

#92) Trillium



The trillium is the MacGuffin in this tale of star-crossed lovers out of time and lost in loneliness. Of racing against time as family hinders with help. Saving the last remnant of the human race seems a good deal less compelling when they are depicted as anorexic impediments or destructive enablers, and the nearly incoherent main characters spend frames paralyzed with angst. Lots of visual tricks - in the art and it has it's accomplishments.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #12 - Read a book with the name of a specific flower in the title

Happy new thread Susan!

>33 quondame: I've enjoyed the Lumberjanes books I've read too - I don't think I could read many back to back but they're fun to dip in and out of.

>35 quondame: And I've taken a book bullet for Clockwork Boys. I've never read any of T. Kingfisher's/Ursula Vernon's books and have been meaning to try some for a while.

#93) Bound in Blood



This set of episodes of Jame progress through military training at Tentir and as she meets her obligations as Earth Wife's Favorite for the native Merikit, finds out more secrets of her own family. We get brief views of Torisen as he deals with a soul bound tapestry, famine in his hold, and partial revelations about Jame. Maybe after this volume Torisen will be less tiresome. Nothing painful, but the feel is of a bunch of episodes and some conflicts thrown in to bulk it up, so it is less involving than To Ride a Rathorn.

Read along for Chronicles of the Kencyrath: We continue to read on from God Stalk

#94) Planet of Twilight: Star Wars



I like the first three SW movies and some of movies excluding I-III, but I guess I'm not much of a fan. Luke, Leia and Hans do not interest me. Leia is kidnapped while doing something there is no reason for her to do that is ever made clear since there are plenty of problems she could be dealing with. She has to struggle to learn to use the Force in spite of what Anakin did. Luke is mooning over a lost love who told him she needed to be on her own. They both end up on a planet while a space plague originating there devastates the fleet and bases of the Republic and mysterious needle drones attack without any nearby mother ship. Not all that well paced and each time I was going with the flow, the vocabulary would jar me out of it.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #21 - Read a Star Wars book

#94) The Stone Girl's Story



A good solid story of how stories about who we are can determine who we are. Good characters, good plot, it flows well enough if not perfectly. Something in the language, dialogue and description doesn't mesh with the almost mythic tale being told.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #2 - Read a book That Has A Title Word That Starts with the Letter G

>42 quondame: I like! -- 'stories about who we are can determine who we are' yep!

Looking back -- Yeah, plenty of Fitzgerald's work is not that great. I love his aphorisms too.

I'm liking Kencyrath better than you do, I think. I enjoy Torisen and all his problems even though, yeah, I know some of it is just delaying the inevitable. I love all the animal familiars.

#95) The Book of Lost Things



The power of stories to inform and shape is the theme in this cross between Labyrinth and Once Upon a Time with minimal women with agency. My main gripe is that, perhaps because of David's loss of his mother to death, and his villainization of his step-mother, the women and females of his otherworld are all villains, if secondary. But even so, even given enough information to deduce the calumny of the Crooked Man (Once's Rumpelstiltskin is so close a fit) David has to have it detailed for him.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 17. SCHOOLHOUSEROCK! Rolling Challenge The Book of Lost Things

#95 already! You are cruising! : )

>43 sibylline: Have you read The Book of Lost Things? It is more about stories, given as rather twisted classics, than about the book of the title, which is yet another MacGuffin.

>45 Berly: It's those pesky TIOLI, I'm trash at LI. And I am reading some interesting stuff I wouldn't otherwise. The average is still not good though.

>46 quondame: I am sure it is just a rating slump. ; ) Bound to pick back up again.

#96) Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time



As a previous reader noted in pencil a through the volume I read - illustrations please! Very readable, a nice calculation on what level of detail would keep a casual reader interested while fairly informed. A horologist would find this skimpy indeed, but such are not the intended audience.

Read for the 2018 Nonfiction Challenge Part V: Maps, Geography and Geopolitics in May!
Meets TIOLI May challenge 16, Read a book with a one word title that also has a multi-word subtitle

#97) Baker's Magic



12 year old runaway Bee is taken in by a baker and her abilities manifest. An imprisoned princess, a reluctant blacksmith's apprentice, an evil mage, an island of dotty old mages, two floating islands and a kingdom's worth of trees all feature with one of the most delightful pirate queens of children's literature.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 3, Read to a book from YA Sync 2017 or 2018

#98) Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking



Entertaining and educational in all kinds of ways, this is both journalism and a journalists journey with lessons on writing, researching, life, and consequences. I did a google search for muckraking humor, and this was the title that resulted. And it is. The articles are infused with a wry viewpoint directed at the subject, the author, and the audience. Jessica Mitford advises that the best writing is about a topic that engages the interest of the author, and proves it with a lackluster final article on Egyptology, in which her interest was marginal, and which is entirely without the glow of involvement which leavens all her other essays.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 5, Read a book by or about a muckraking author

#99) The Black Tides of Heaven



Intriguing tale of twins born to the Protector who intended only one child to satisfy a deal made with the Abbot. At age 9, tje Proctor reclaims Mokoya who is a prophet, forcing the aged Abbot to also return Akeha. At 17 they seek out the young man Mokoya's prophesy has revealed will be the new Abbot and Mokoya confirms her gender as female to join him at the Monastery. Akeha confirms as male, leaves the capital for the southern reaches of the Protectorate and eventually commits to the Machinists rebellion. A tragic accident some years later causes Akeha to return to the capital and face his mother. The cast of characters is necessarily small in such a slim book, but rather too slim to give weight to an empire. What is shown of the land and characters is well done, but action is more prominent than atmosphere.

Meets TIOLI May challenge 17, SCHOOLHOUSEROCK! Rolling Challenge The Black Tides of Heaven

#100) The Red Threads of Fortune



This much tighter sequel to The Black Tides of Heaven, flows quickly and introduces another delightful character.
Mokoya, no longer a prophet after the tragic death of her daughter, has gone into the desert hunting naga with her oversized raptor Phoenix, believing her daughter's soul pattern is embedded in Phoenix. Following reports of a naga, a dragon like creature, of huge size and abnormal behavior, she encounters Rider, who is mounted on the naga Bramble who Mokoya mistakes for her target at first. With Rider, whose entanglements and abilities stir Mokoya into new realizations about the nature of her own prophetic nature, Akeha, and Mokoya's husband the Abbot Thennjay Mokoya must work to save the desert city Batanaar and the rebel Machinists sheltering there.

Meets TIOLI May challenge 17, SCHOOLHOUSEROCK! Rolling Challenge The Red Threads of Fortune

#101) The Great Passage



The love of words and words of love. This tale of the making of the dictionary to be called The Great Passage, a guide to the sea of words tells of the great love of 3 men for words and the art pf capturing them to share and also 3 different, very human love stories. Well translated from Japanese, there must be some enormous loss in only in the context of the word play, but what's left is quite substantial for the length.

One of 9 books made available for free by Amazon in celebration for World Book Day

Read for TIOLI May challenge 11, Read a book you acquired on or after January 25, 2018

#102) The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu



In fact the saving of the books of Timbuktu seems to have been well enough planned and executed that it cannot in itself take up many chapters of any book. We are given a survey of the known history of Timbuktu, an interesting introduction to Abdel Kader Haidara and how he traveled though the Niger area collecting manuscripts, then established private libraries in Timbuktu resulting in around 400,000 volumes dating from the 15th century onward in 45 libraries. Then we follow the history of the jihadists who lead the invasion in Mali and how the military was in no shape to resist. After that comes the actual rescue, with a couple of hair-raising incidents, but no direct loss of manuscripts. The French offensive which routed the jihadists just as they were moving toward the capitol to the death of one of the 3 jihadist leaders. The manuscripts are left in a better situation at the end, but not in Timbuktu.

Well enough written and balanced to keep a predominantly fiction reader from putting it down. However, it had no illustrations and the fly-leaf map sucked.

Another book covering the same rescue The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu: The Quest for this Storied City and the Race to Save its Treasures by Charlie English may give a slightly less glorified report.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 19, Read a book about "old" books/writings

#103) Honor's Paradox



Jame continues her adventures in Tentir and as the Earth Wife's favorite. Her twin Torisen seems to have softened his line on his Shanir relations, but there is hardly a mention of it. Somewhat less episodic that the last volume, it still jumps around a fair amount.

#104) Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire



Interesting characters, decently done local, this tale of a new off the boat medical officer with the Roman army in Britain who almost immediately gets tangled with young slave women living and dead and maintains his professional distance at least technically. Gaius Petreius Ruso has left behind a debt ridden family and is trying to send them enough to keep their deceased father's debts from being called due. The broken-armed slave girl he purchased could be sold for a large profit and the hard-assed administrator is into him for expenses inured for her care, no one seems interested in looking into the deaths of two slaves from the same whore-house bar where he has stashed Tilla while she heals.
A pretty good read which could have used a good deal of tightening up as it was getting a bit same-old same-old 2/3 of the way through although the climax pulled together nicely.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 8, Read a book whose title contains a word or words that are not in the book's main language

Goodness, I lost your thread somehow, Sue! So I have some catching up to do ... I enjoyed Maps to Nowhere when I got it as an ER book. It was my first by Marie Brennan, but I definitely want to read more, especially the Lady Trent books. And we agree on Longitude — as with most of Sobel's science-y books, I found it quite accessible to a layperson like me. Have you read The Glass Universe? It's a history of "the ladies of the Harvard Observatory" and really interesting.

#105) Lilith, Darkness and Light



No. Just no. Don't even consider picking this up. The author may be under the impression that because he has read a lot, he understands what he has read and can write. He really can't. he has no sense of phrasing, and frequently misuses words. This is a disjoint portion of a tale in two parts - in the first iconic figures clash at the end of an age and in the second the three are re-incarnated all over the place. There is a little something almost worth reading in the samurai training in a far future feudal Nippon, but it's pretty much buried under rote constructions. The title character is a complete bugaboo - not an individual just an evil force used as a device. Not to mention the women were totally male gaze objects when they weren't a source for ick.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 4, Read a book that has a body part in the author's name D.A. Heeley

>57 rosalita: I'll have to check out The Glass Universe. I'm finding non-fiction to me more agreeable these days.

#106) Dark Deeds



A perfectly fine space opera caper story with a medium body count and some decent characters. Since this is the third of a series, I wasn't quite as invested in the characters as I might have been and since the plot involves setting up a caper on the quick to ransom the most competent member of the crew, I might have been more involved if the characters were already important to me. Like most caper stories, it is the setups that make it, and these really didn't. Too easy to find the mark, and no real follow up for the whole fight sequence except to raise capital that was only marginally needed because of the size of the other payoff.

For a book I picked up from the new books shelf because it’s title matched the conditions of a current challenge, this was completely painless.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 20, Read a book with a two-word title, both starting with the same letter

#107) Operation Bunny



A fun children's book which reinvents fairies without doing them much damage. Emily Vole was found in a hat box at a train stationed and adopted by the most narcissistic couple ever who turn her into a drudge when they have triplets. Her only relief is the old woman next door and her talking cat. Adventure ensue when Emily is shown some special keys which come alive for her. The illustrations are delightful.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 7, Read a book where part of the author's name begins with G for a sweep!

#108) Saltation



Theo Watley's school days, in which she proves she is more than the Anlingdin Piloting Academy on Elyot can handle, indeed more than she herself is quite up to handling, but she is learning even as her socialization skills are lagging. This time through the book it's episodic nature was pretty apparent if not jarring. After Theo's initial adjustment to the school there is a large time gap just proceeding her next round of difficulties conjured up by Eylot localism and culminating with her expulsion. Another gap covers her two years training as a pilot for Hugglelans leaving her a first class pilot when she encounters an invalided Win Ton and leaves him in Uncle's custody as she becomes pilot for Uncle. This book ends at the same point as I Dare.

A decent episode in the story and OK for both space opera and school day narratives, Saltation has both the virtues and weaknesses of many Liaden™️ stories, in that, however well written it still seems like its own fan fiction. Norbears appear, indeed our oldest friend Havelin greets her at the Pilot's Guild office. Bowli ball features in the plot. I find Theo's initial relentless instance on minimal socialization annoying as it isn't that she's rebuffed, just that it people annoy her and she'd rather be studying, which seems a bit dense for someone who, with her background and at her age, should know the necessities. That she improves, but with the 'wrong' crowd we are told more than shown.

Back in 2008 I was a supporter of the crowd funding campaign that financed the production of this book and this is my 3rd recorded read.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #15 - Read a book where one word of the title or the author's name is an ingredient for baking bread

#109) Ghost Ship



Reassembling the whole Liaden™️ Korval clan with their arch enemies The Department of the Interior in disjoint pursuit. A majority of the action follows Theo Watley as she advertently but not quiet carefully follows Uncle's itinerary until the ghost ship Bechimo jumps in to save her ass. Somewhat disjoint and making a point to touch base with all our favorite clan members and most of their associates, but no norbears, the narrative has a gaping hole where story Prodigal Son goes. It was enjoyable to spend snippets of time with the many survivors of the Departments efforts, but this is about my least favorite book in the series. And it is the start of an increasingly long series of books in which my favorite characters, Shan and Priscilla are pretty much ignored. I guess only scout level pilots are of interest to the authors.

I read it because, well I just finished Saltation & there it was on my kindle.

Meets TIOLI May challenge #2 - Read a book That Has A Title Word That Starts with the Letter G

#110) Artificial Conditions



Murderbot has gone to investigate the massacre he (may have) committed and encounters a sarcastic intelligent shuttle who/which rather severely against his intuitions gives him help and support which he/it accepts on the bases of shared media appreciation. Seeking a way to get to the surface so he can investigate he gets employment from a group of young entrepreneurs trying to recover data illegally reft from them. This turns out to be not entirely to his benefit and the information he finds for himself is less than satisfactory.
An enjoyable if bloody story of growing up artificial. This murderbot doesn't want to be more human, but at least has to appear so to retain independence.

Meets TIOLI May challenge #9: Read a book with a character from Greek or Roman mythology in the title or author's name Artificial ConditIons

Just stopping by for a speak, Susan. You are one reading woman!
I'm happy that I have *Great Passage*, *Bad-Ass*, and many Liadens to look forward to. I just can't make myself get back to Kencyrath yet....too many better books and way too little time. I'll bet I have *Poison Pen* too.......... yay! Meanwhile, you make Artificial Conditions look interesting. Thanks!

>65 LizzieD: Thanks for stopping by. I always enjoy reading the Liaden books, but largely in a guilty pleasure sort of way. I think having bunches of tedious stuff I'm supposed to be doing in making me dive into reading harder than usual. Martha Wells is always worth reading, I hope you enjoy her Murderbot stories!

#111) Medusa Uploaded



This is a great deal of fun if you like first person assassin narratives, or can at least tolerate them in the interests of seeing bad guys get proper comeuppances. We are also treated to underdog chameleon taking on new identities including the exposure to treats of Life of the Rich and Powerful scenes. Classic music is named to evoke the mood, to sound track, many of the scenes. The implantation of music libraries used as a cover for interfaces to Medusa units is major plot point, though really the whole plot with all it's twists and improbabilities is really just a bulletin board for the fun capers of our heroine and her paired Medusa. The end of chapter forebodings are rather annoying.

I pulled this from the new book display because of the title and was about to ditch it when I found another book that works for TIOLI #9, but once I dipped into it I found it hard to put down. I don't buy into the society set up of the generation ship of half a million people, nor does the author particularly justify it, but it makes a great set up for murders in support of revolution tales. Also the choices of music seemed really stodgy, partly because I've heard of them all and I'm no musician at all. I found the movie choices more interesting.

Read for TIOLI May challenge #9: Read a book with a character from Greek or Roman mythology in the title or author's name

#112) The Flowers of Vashnoi



I enjoyed this visit with Ekatrina as she encounters the untidy leftovers of the Cetagandan invasion and bacj country mores. It seemed to place Cordelia's administration in a bad light, making her an absentee landlord of the reprehensible sort, but well somebody has to screw up for there to be a story. And I'm still mad at Cordelia fro thinking 6 girls at born together is even close to a good idea. Ekatrina does some admirable 'what would Miles do' bits and Miles shows some parenting issues, and nobody does much damage, though damage has been done.

Meets TIOLI May challenge 1, Read a book with the bespectacled author’s picture somewhere on or in that book

>68 quondame: I'm thinking that the lands where this takes place have only recently been considered viable for patrolling and not believed to HAVE any inhabitants--were it not for Enrique's scientific work, only rangers would have (known) access. Cordelia's work has been in the settled area of the province, albeit the "backwoods". Which is not in the vicinity of the radioactive city. Ha, meets the criteria of being acquired THIS WEEK.

>69 ronincats: It does meet 11, but I shifted to 1 to make it a shared read. I picked up all the free translated books from Amazon in April so 11 wasn't a stretch. I understand that Cordelia was busy elsewhere, but she had lots of time with Piotr was on planet for the trials 30yrs previously. People were her thing. Still burnt that LMB had her decanting 6 daughters all at once.

#104) Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire



Ruso goes north so Tilla can visit her home area, with nearly fatal results. There are some similarities to novels where an innocent gets entangled in a local political nightmare, but not quite the grimness. The story flowed smoothly and at developments were pretty natural. I am still enjoying the characters.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 8, Read a book whose title contains a word or words that are not in the book's main language

>62 quondame:, >63 quondame: 'however well written it still seems like its own fan fiction'

Yes, that's the problem I sometimes have with this series too despite enjoying them. :-) Ghost Ship is the next in my series read so I may try to get to that one before the end of the month for a shared read.

>68 quondame: That ones patiently waiting on my kindle but I am determined to finish Assassin's Quest first...

>72 souloftherose: It's so short, it can slip into waiting for a meeting.....

I listened to all of the Medicus novels, loving the reader and the stories, not sure I would have loved them as much reading on the page. Will never know!

Let me see, didn't know there was a further Murderbot, so that goes on the WL.

Somehow I am a total sucker for the Lee-Miller saga -- I maybe like the first three (together in a huge volume called The Crystal Variations -- esp the first one about saving the tree and then the adventures of Theo best.

I apologize for being so scarce. Things have been complicated. I'm fine, everyone is fine, just complicated.

>74 sibylline: Glad to hear from you, complications are at best interesting. My dad, whose taste in books was much more romantic than mine, lent me two Meisha Merlin omnibuses of the Lee & Miller novels and Plan B, of which Agent of Change was my least favorite. I think I picked up I Dare when it came out and rather liked it. What is with the turtles and their magic. I've read what Lee says about them, but really, they keep me from taking any action they are in seriously. I joined the crowd funding for the second Theo book. I might also have supported the 1st, but not enough to get the signed edition.

#105) Every Dead Thing



A well written book with a certain awesomeness to it. Charlie Parker is a New York Detective whose wife and child have been murdered in particularly gruesome manner. We follow Parker as he encounters a serial child murderer/abusers through the underworlds of the east seaboards then to New Orleans where connections to his families murders are showing up. Lots of bodies, some graphic descriptions, a certain antiseptic tone. The pacing is good, though the finish of a case in the middle of the book does throw it off a bit. Not my usual thing.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 17, SCHOOHOUSELROCK! Rolling Challenge The Red Threads of Fortune

Well I'm off to war, won't be back until Tuesday. My daughter has custody of the house and dachshunds so I hope to return to the land of keyboards with little incident.
Good reading!

Have fun storming the castle, Sue!

Heating up the brew at Potrero War 2018. I love camp fires, and they are improved with the proper bibations. Marshmallows to roast and songs to beguile the night with good company.

What is it about vacations that leaves you feeling more tired than before you left. Well, for me, since I'm retired, vacations are a lot more work and effort than sitting around reading or even wrangling dachshunds. I've now caught up on all my starred LT threads and will update my books soon.

Oh, nice looking libation container!

#106-110

So I've read some books - my Kindle got quite a work out.



Though I checked out all of these for my kindle I own copies of Making Money, Od Magic, and there is probably a copy of Siddhartha on my husbands shelves. Only Magic for Beginners was not a re-read.

#111) The Book of Kells



I remembered the actual Book of Kells to playing a bigger part than it did in this story, but I still love the adventure in 10th cent Ireland - it holds up just as well after I've spent a few years in the SCA discussing dress and life of the period, which makes it among the better researched historical novels. Characters, plot, settings are all interesting and well done and it just keeps moving.

Read for TIOLI May challenge 19, Read a book about "old" books/writings

#112) Maggot Moon



What a dreary -what if Hitler won- story of a dyslexic youth whose parents and only friend have been disappeared and whose only comforts are his grandfather and his imaginings. Tales of the horrors of repression really only interest me 1) the the oppression was real and not speculative or 2) are written by Ursula Le Guin or an author of similar quality, if any. This is the second book in a row I've read with an odd eyed main character, one brown one blue. I liked John from The Book of Kells much better.

Acquired for for TIOLI May challenge 20, Read a book with a two-word title, both starting with the same letter

Read for TIOLI June Challenge 10: Read a book where the author's name has the same vowel in first and last name

Od Magic is one of my very favorite McKillips.

#113) Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures: Stories



Interesting characters, two from college in the first story and two more picked up in medical school, with occasional others as they become physicians and encounter patients, though this is a somewhat non-standard take (afaik from having read my sisters residency novel/memoir and assorted MD TV series) but original more in details than thrust. Somewhat grim at its best.

Read for TIOLI June Challenge #1: Read a book of short stories by an author born in Canada

>84 ronincats: Forgotten Beasts of Eld is my favorite McKillip, in fact pretty much my favorite standalone fantasy, then comes The Book of Atrix Wolfe and a few others before Od Magic - the old magical beings reminded me of the sea children from Riddle-Master, not so much in impact as in not completely meshing with the narrative.

You got me with Od Magic and with the MacAvoy -- definitely a fan of hers! (and of the Book of Kells!

#113) Who Fears Death



For me this is more interesting and original than the Binti books. The characters and setting and culture(s) were intriguing and the magic both clear enough and mysterious enough to keep me wanting to learn more. It could have done without the last two epilogue chapters and been more powerful for it, as having the heroines mastery of her skills, temper, and impulse was the least original aspect of the story. The pacing was a bit jerky and sometimes it was necessary to 'push through', though never painful.

Read for TIOLI June #2: Read a book that is dedicated to the author's father

#113) Queens of Sorrow



A somewhat plodding finish to the Queens of Renthia series. The characters are pretty much who they are, the pacing is too slow and fundamentally sabotaged by the choice to have three story lines end at the same time in different spirit confrontations/conflicts. Ven's sister is a fun touch and his mother amusing, but insufficient to carry more than a chapter.

>89 quondame: I have the first in that series here in my tbr pile, but it sounds like I should depend on the library if I want to read on after that.

>90 ronincats: Really all but the tiniest bit of interesting world building is in the first book. The rest is lots of angst over things that they don't have time for and not very realistic power plays.

#114) Space Opera



So this is like having your extremely witty, quite bitter friend brainstorming about aliens in your lap by way of Robert Adams, Terry Pratchett, and 20th century popular music. Every snappy comeback, stored up bon mot, and staircase wit gets its exercise. Entertaining but exhausting, I would recommend spacing reading it over a few days, but for myself would have lost track of what was going on if I did so. The last minute save is not my favorite form of redemption, but whatever depths this book was meant to address, it did so with rather stock'y', if interestingly clever, characters. Why, for instance, couldn't it have been a woman regretting the untimely death of a man if you must fridge someone for regrets. It almost got an additional because she has a character express an opinion about Coco Channel with which I agree.

Meets TIOLI June #10: Read a book where the author's name has the same vowel in first and last name

#115) The Weight of Ink



I found this more pretentious than profound. It could have covered this young 17th century Jewish woman doesn't like being relegated to womanly duties but must be a scholar wrapped in an 21st century people with regrets discover her story through fortuitous cache finds, in about a third of the length and saved the reader a good deal of time without losing one idea.The characters and the built world of 17th century London are worthwhile, but barley worth reading the many letters full of theology/atheology which can be nothing terribly new to people receptive to the ideas and disturbing to people who are not. And to provide our scholars with such a complete revelatory document is just lazy.

Acquired for TIOLI May challenge 19, Read a book about "old" books/writings
Meets TIOLI June #9: Read a book set in at least three different time periods

#116) I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land



What's there is well written, but a hallucinogenic visit to the a storage area for books of which no copy remains isn't really a story, just a sort of cautionary tale.

Meets TIOLI June #15: The Parts of Speech Rolling Challenge -> Pronoun '''I'''

#117) The Inn at Lake Devine



Natalie, named for an aunt killed in the holocaust, becomes mesmerized by The Inn at Lake Devine from which her family is casually discouraged as Jews from trying to make a summer reservation. After she and her parents drop by to check it out she gets a summer camp cabin mate to invite her to share a room there, making connections with that family and with the husband and of the family which owns the inn. 10 years later the course of her life is redirected because of these connections. The story moved along pretty well, the characters were not particularly sympathetic or involving and the subject matter and scenery were either worn out or not of particular interest to me.

Meets TIOLI June #6: Read a book with a body of water on the front cover

Do foreshadowing statements in novels -little did I know-I should not have been so sure-soon I would be proven wrong-but things did get worse-etc-etc bother any one else? They always make me want to throw the book across the room. I was reading along quite nicely, absorbed in the story and some stupid author had to remind me that it was a story and she was just jerking the characters about. I'm bothered the most by the false alarm instances, but would gladly do without every reading such a statement again.

>92 quondame: I've liked several of Valente's books; I'll probably pick this one up.

>96 quondame: Oh yeah! Boring, and annoying. I hadn't thought of it as the author reminding me it was a book, but yes.

#118) Mudbound



Aside form the annoying foreshadowing statement, the import of which is born just by the novels characters, setting, and plot, this reads well and is in fact quite cinematic in most of its aspects - the characters are clear and given some depth, the setting it relentless and the social situation grimly explored. And yes, the black man bears the brunt of the violence, only to be expected given the set-up. OK, yeah Pappy doesn't survive, but since that's in the first page and we're told at the start what a shit he is, it's all the lead up why they're burring him in that way.

Read for TIOLI June #17: Read a book whose title is a compound word

#119) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas



Bruno, a rather simple minded nine year old boy, the son of a concentration camp commandant, makes friends through the fence with Shmuel and you know it won't end well.
A very strange read with a very hard to believe in central character, it is still moving.

Read for TIOLI June #3: Read a book with a cryptogram of D-A-D hidden in its title

Well, that was 5 rather grim reads in a row. The short I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land missed out on the themes of racism and Jewishness which admittedly were slight and peripheral in Mudbound, but not since my early 20s, under the sway of an infatuation with my Jewish boss, have I read so many grim books. That I would/will undoubtedly be collected along with others of Jewish ancestry in the next pogrom, doesn't cheer me at all.

#120) A Study in Charlotte



The modern day descendants of Holmes and Watson meet at a New England boarding school and make a connection as it becomes clear they are being framed for murder and assault. Charlotte Holmes is a troubled drug using cast off from her wealthy family, while James Watson is raking advantage of a rugby scholarship away away from the too costly school in London. The characters were decent, though James Watson is a bit too good to be real, but the story telling is weighed down with an over elaborate plot and has real pacing issues.

Well, I find that even with a slant of Holmes/Watson fun, I find middle-to-upper income level white problems less interesting than tales including diversity themes. Although a favorite gay uncle is mentioned, so +0.1.

Read for TIOLI June #16. Read a book which would have been a shared read in this year (May #3)

#121) Saga Book One



A Space Opera about the/a chosen family's flight through space pursued by both sides of an inter-planetary war told from the view of the infant offspring of two combatants, one from either side of the conflict. The parents are the undistinguished deserter and his jailor/lover and are joined by his parents in their flight. The artwork is interesting and very good at expressing the young father's fecklessness and the young mothers intensity as well as the many delights and horrors of the planets they flee through.

Some months ago my daughter brought this series to my attention and I had previously read as much as 2/3 of this volume, but maybe only 1/2.

Read for TIOLI June #16. Read a book which would have been a shared read in this year (May #17)

#122) The Dream of Scipio



All the blurbs on the back cover of the edition I read are for An Instance of the Fingerpost. That is a much more readable work, unreliable narrators and all. This story is a chopped salad of three historical crisis in Provence, 5th century goth invasion, 14th century plague in Avignon, and the Nazi invasion of France. A manuscript written by the Bishop Manlius in the 5th century is read by the poet secretary Olivier who discovers and transcribes a manuscript and 20th century scholar Julian who studies both Manlius and Olivier trying to delve to the truth behind their writings and legends. As important as an individual woman is to each of these men, Pears really doesn't make them convincing, and his construction either continually gets in the way of his story or is there to obfuscate it's lacks. I really don't like Vichy France as a story setting, but if you are going to pull 3 'end of civil life as we know it' periods from French history, it does limit your choices. I was considerably more interested in the 5th and 14th cent. sections, but felt the 5th was given a bit of a short shrift.

Read for TIOLI June #9: Read a book set in at least three different time periods

#123) Where the Red Fern Grows



A coon hunting obsessed teenager in the Ozarks saves nickels and dimes for two years to get two red hounds, trains and hunts them for an unspecified number of months, wins an champion contest and loses them when they save his life from a mountain lion This book is so whitebread it leaks mayo. And for a non-Christian the idea that God answers prayers for hound dogs and gives help felling trees seems gobsmackingly self-centered. And the Red Fern of the title is a legend tacked on with a complete corsage of sentimentality at the end. All set in a rural poverty deep enough to prevent the purchase the two red hounds, but free of any mention of tapeworm, toothache, or indeed any childhood illness.

I'm a dog lover, so the connection the boy has for his dogs is moving, but they seem too much a means to an end.

Read for TIOLI June #4: Read a book from Public Broadcasting System network's The Great American Read

#124) The Death and Life of The Great Lakes



A good overview of crises in the Great Lakes, what has caused them, what has been done to fix them - not always separate things, and how they show the vulnerability of all N. American fresh water bodies and waterways. Not and unpleasant book with a charming affection for many of the figure with rolls in or reports on the problems and the actions to address the problems.

Read for TIOLI June #5. Read a book about the environment

#125) The Essex Serpent



This book starts with an interesting cast if a little heavily weighted toward usual-unusuals with it's abused wife, autistic boy, lesbian(well bisexual) companion, obsessed physician and throws them at a seemingly perfectly happy family in a rectory going through a spot of trouble in the community. Really, all the characters and the first 1/2 of the book are totally charming and then it all goes way melodramatic and the carefully nurtured miasma caused by the idea of the serpent is bashed away. It does pull itself back together, but it has gone too far.

Meets TIOLI June #12: Read a book that takes place in or around a beach/ocean

#126) Blood and Circuses



A fun romp in a 1928 Australian Circus that is as absurd as it is improbable but a sweet easy read with a bit of a body count, hardly more than required for a mystery.

Read for TIOLI June #11: Read a book connected to a circus act, name the act

#127) I Murdered My Library



This book says it all. I truly dread dealing with my book accumulation after 19 years in a 2400sq ft house. I so feel this, kindle and all.

Read for TIOLI June #7: Read a book where the author's last name is also a noun (not a proper noun)

BB for I Murdered My Library - I'm in the process, which will be a very long one barring some catastrophe like hers (downsizing is a catastrophe for stuff. Small and slow, but a catastrophe).

#128) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly



A very dense and rich book about a few months of life as a victim of locked-in-syndrom, A real testament to a life of the senses.

Read for TIOLI June #12: Read a book that takes place in or around a beach/ocean

#129) The Return of the Soldier



With her usual exquisite prose marred a bit by her usual tendency to show it off, Rebecca West tells what might be the ultimate 1st world problem story about a mature man who when wounded in the Great War, loses memory of the last 15 years of devotion to his father's business and providing more than comfortable lives for his wife and female relatives. Told from the viewpoint of his besotted cousin, a childhood friend, who despairs both over his re-connection with the now dumpy love of his youth and the need for him to forgo the comfort she gives to return to an adult live.

Read for TIOLI June #7: Read a book where the author's last name is also a noun (not a proper noun)

#130) Fables: Vol 14: Witches



Mostly stories featuring characters I don't like reading about: Mr Dark, Ozma, Bufkin and the yakky heads. Some fun art and a few great moments. The after game spread is really cool.

Read for TIOLI June #13: Read a book from a series of more than 5 published books which is not the first in timeline or written order

#131) The Book that Made Me



A congenial congregation of Australian & New Zealander writers discuss books and stories and the power of plot and language and character and ideas and illustration to move and change us. With what must be at least a few must reads for anyone.

Read for TIOLI June #10: Read a book where the author's name has the same vowel in first and last name

#132) Pride and Prejudice



Back in 1962 I stayed up all night reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time, got up to say good-bye to my sister who was returning to college, and fell asleep with my contacts (hard) in and woke up in pain. Took my contacts out and everything was a white blur. Total panic. A few blinks later it was a smidgen better and I calmed down a bit. The next day I was fine. Not something I'll ever forget, but Pride and Prejudice was an instant favorite, which I re-read obsessively through my twenties and thirties (70s & 80s) along with every other Jane Austen novel. I now appreciate the book more for it's sly humor than any overt romance, although from the first I felt that Charlotte was absolutely right to marry Collins, after all, if she lived, she'd be the mistress of Longbourn.

It must be nearly a decade since I last read this, and though I thought about doing so from time to time, never quite felt like getting into it again, which was strange as previously I would return to it time and time again, sometimes within weeks, seldom more than 3 or 4 years. The flow, the dialog, the characters nurtured something ever hungry in me. But then not. Not that I was ever disappointed when I had read it, not that any other book or writing made me think it any less than the best book ever, I just didn't feel a need for the shape of it and did feel that it's pages were over familiar. In the last I was, of course, wrong. The language is such to make this read, though different from every previous read just as delightful. Perhaps perusing it in the limited sized Kindle format made me pay closer attention to each sentence. And each sentence was rewarding.

Re-read for TIOLI June #4: Read a book from Public Broadcasting System network's The Great American Read

#133) Mouse Mansion



A simple sort of story, just a sequence of scenes set in a most unusual and quirky 'doll' house where the inhabitants are mice. The house itself is ever so much more interesting than the adventures Julia and Sam have moving through it. I collect miniature tools and saw a set I've come across often, along with a couple of other miniatures I recognize.

Read for TIOLI June #8: Read a book with the name of a house or property in the title

#134) Oh, look!



Colorful picture book, good with over under around between.

Read for TIOLI June #15: The Parts of Speech Rolling Challenge

#134) Thirty Fathoms Deep



A solid tale solidly told of bringing up gold from a sunken treasure chest. Front loaded with a great deal of technical information about the bends and deep sea diving equipment extant in the 1920s, the meat of this book is retelling of barely survivable diving mishaps/disasters, spiced with how to get drunk 30 fathoms deep and a battle with pirates.

Written by my great uncle, the son of late 19th century Jewish emigrants turned Episcopalian, this illustrates the difference between the early 20th century notion of blending pot and our current notion of diversity. The named good guys are relentlessly anglo-norman, the bad guys include the Spaniard Pedro and the pirate crew is a motley scum of the earth. The cook valet Fritz is so stereotypical 'darky' it just plain hurts. As for character development, it would be hard because there is hardly a whiff of character to begin with. A bit of banter among the 4 divers is about it.

Read for TIOLI June #14: Read a book where the author's surname matches an ancestral surname

I've been away from your thread for a couple of weeks and you have been busy!!! You are having fun with this reading list, it would appear. Gets you into some strange places! My ROOT reading of books that have been listed here since I joined in 2010 that I STILL haven't read, is a little bit the same way. Although I tend to pick books in a way that feels random, I think having the ROOT list upped the ante in a helpful way, as I have plenty of books around that my eye just glides over time and again.

#135) The Hills Have Spies



A slow starting adventure featuring Mags son Perry whose talent is animal mindspeach. At 13 his training to be a spy has had him escaping mock kidnappings, working with Mags in the city shop, weapons training and fortuitously being a dog-boy. Then a retired heralds reports of disappearances are brought to Mags attention and Mags and Perry head to the Pelagir hills. Lackey's most touching stories are of people whose pain and vulnerability find comfort and companionship among the heralds or other good folk, and really Perry's worst problems are more mild insecurities about his abilities and desire to employ those abilities, so almost none of the typical Lackey outsider finds a home.

Meets TIOLI June #13: Read a book from a series of more than 5 published books which is not the first in timeline or written order

>118 sibylline: I have for years just read whatever new F&SF looks interesting and filled in with re-reads of favorites and a few recommendations. The TIOLI is like being inundated with recommendations, as are other threads on LT and 75 Books list in particular. I keep telling myself I should throttle back and get some cleaning and housekeeping done, but it's not happening.
I have followed the miserable MIL comments with great sympathy. Mine would have been a total disaster except that she lived in Hawaii and couldn't afford the airfare to CA unless we sprung for it. Every summer my husband and daughter went to visit for her birthday and at about 11 my daughter came home to tell me she finally understood why I didn't go with them - she had been left alone with grandma for 10 min and was treated to vile disparagement of both me and her father. But she has been gone for some years now, and only missed with relief. So sad.

#136) The Children of Blood and Bone



A somewhat novel type of magic and setting, this story of 4 young people of two families who battle to return or prevent the return of magic to the world while running for their lives is too much one thing after another for me. The action pretty much never lets up, but it isn't written quite fluidly enough to keep this reader up and kept leaving me trying to figure out what happened while it rushed off to a new scene.

Meets TIOLI June #15: The Parts of Speech Rolling Challenge

Wow, #136! You're unstoppable!

>122 mstrust: More like addicted, incurable. But with great libraries most fixes are free.

#137 ) Gods Behaving Badly



This is a fun romp with momentary jewels, but nothing with a lot of carats. And nerds in love just aren't all that charming, nor is Alice's unrelenting niceness anything other than annoying artifice.

Read for the TIOLI June #15: The Parts of Speech Rolling Challenge

#138 ) Keepsake Crimes



A lightweight murder mystery with the estranged wife caught in the social circle of the murder and targeted by pointed ill-will. The scrap booking shop she runs serves as gossip central in a mild tornado of witty remarks. Is it possible to get more first world than scrap booking?

Read for TIOLI June #2: Read a book that is dedicated to the author's father

#139 ) Full Body Burden



This is not a book I enjoyed reading but Iversen's deceptively simple prose sure packs a wallop. In paralleling the interior secrets of her families silence in the face of her father's alcoholism and the ravages sustained by that with the government and community silence and denial of the damage that plutonium from the Rocky Flats facility, she makes our own complicity with those denials clear.

A 1st cousin once removed, Daniel Ellsberg makes a cameo in this tale as a protester at Rocky Flats.

Read for TIOLI June #5. Read a book about the environment

#139 ) Full Body Burden



A good, well paced read with something to say about appreciating life, though the nice guy protagonist narrator is not anything special, nor really are any of the characters and the cover purely sucks. It's fun to visit with Shakespeare et. al. but gimmicky too.

Read for TIOLI June #9: Read a book set in at least three different time periods

#140 ) The Ashes of London



A mixed bag of characters caught in the political minefield that was Restoration London - as London burns James Marwood, a young clerk in Whitehall prevents a boy from running into St. Paul's only to discover he's rescued an ungrateful young woman who bites him and flees with his second best cloak. He's the son of a man recently released from the Tower and she, Catherine Lovett, the daughter of an uncaught regicide, and both of those parents belong to a sect preaching the coming of King Jesus in 1666. If things aren't already bad enough bodies start turning up.
A well told story that moves smoothly through murky politics and takes us all over what's left of London. I never quite buy into either James or Catherine - they just seem puppets moving the plot along, but the peripheral characters have some flavor.

The map on the Kindle is rubbish, and a good map would have been great to follow the action though burnt and unburnt London - I found a few online that together provided most of the locations, though I guess none of them bother labeling Ludgate - I guess if you don't know where it is you shouldn't bother to read a book set in London.

Read for TIOLI June #14: Read a book where the author's surname matches an ancestral surname (potential shared read)

I've enjoyed catching up on your thread; lots of interesting BBs here.

I had Updraft on my TBR, but then I noticed it was part of a trilogy, so I removed it. It didn't seem like the story would sustain my interest for three volumes. It sounds like they might be a bit separate from one another, though?

#141 ) The Sea of Time



Unlike the two or three previous books in the Kencyrath series this one doesn't seem to keep it's diverse threads split between Jame and Torisen, their present their pasts, the far past and the interchange of dreams, well in hand and moving well together. Stuff happens, stuff has happened, stuff that has happened is visited and the smallest fraction are recovered from the past. A few good moments, but a serious let down from the way the series had been going.

Meets TIOLI June #13: Read a book from a series of more than 5 published books which is not the first in timeline or written order - in fact, the Kencyrath series read was why I proposed this challenge.

>129 libraryperilous: Thanks. As it happens the three books starting with Updraft form one continuous story. No time elapses between Cloudbound and Horizon.

#142 ) Dog Songs



Lots of dog love, elegantly expressed. You will find your dearly remembered and much loved dogs here, indomitable hounds, bounding big ones, coy small ones. Those whose essence it is to look to us and, somehow, love us and accept our love.

Read for TIOLI June #14: Read a book where the author's surname matches an ancestral surname (shared read) - Oliver is a great* uncles given name, and considering I have 10 generations of un-mined ancestors in New England, may be off on some branch as a sur-name.

#143 ) Stardust



For all it's magic and strength, it's story and the telling don't entirely mesh for me.

Read for TIOLI June #17: Read a book whose title is a compound word

#144 ) The Curio Dealer's Wife



A brief glimpse of the medieval Japanese detective, Akitada as he deals with a claim that the curio dealer is an imposter.
Without having read any of the books in this series, this story communicates a great deal of the character of the detective and the world in which he works without any direct exposition.

Read for TIOLI June #14: Read a book where the author's surname matches an ancestral surname (great⁵grandmother Parker)

#145 ) Only Human



This is a rather rough read, almost no straight narrative it is somewhat implausibly presented as transcripts of dialog of different character pairs interspersed between present earth and near past planet of the giant bots. Very reflective of modern political nastiness, the solution, while established in the bot planet portions, is still dues-ex-machina. And the add on bit makes it a little too feel goody.

Meets TIOLI June #15: The Parts of Speech Rolling Challenge

#146 ) Swan's Braid and Other Tales of Terizan



A collection of lively tales with clever solutions to improbable dilemmas concerning difficult thefts. It's hard to believe that a competent thief would so often be pressured in the same way to take on thefts that are all death traps. The point of thievery is gain without pain.

Read for TIOLI June Challenge #1: Read a book of short stories by an author born in Canada

I'm taking a BB for Dog Songs. And it seems like it would be a good gift for several people I know too. Thanks for the review!

>137 mstrust: Enjoy!

#147 ) The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts



Love, courage, living and what it takes. Tess's mother has survived a horrendous bleeding stroke and multiple complications and with her step dad is taking her to Italy while Tess is working a season in a carnival sideshow. Due to a divorce when she was too young to have clear memories Tess does not trust her mother's love and denies love in return, at least outwardly. Her mother's stroke has blown away her hope of a verbal resolution, but not all hope and her stint as a sideshow performer is her act of courage and resolution, which like all challenges reveals more than expected.

Well written, well paced, and teaming with personalities and life this is a rare journey.

Read for TIOLI June #11: Read a book connected to a circus act, name the act

#148 ) The Farthest Shore



it's been many years since I read this, possibly in the 1990s when I bought Tehanu and re-acquainted myself with the original Earthsea. Not a long book, but densely written it requires more attention than many much longer books, and is also much more rewarding. LeGuin's astonishing prose in itself tracks the mood of the young prince Arrien who journeys with the Archmage Sparowhawk to find the cause of the draining of magic from their world, without knowing that he himself is on a fated quest.

Read for TIOLI June #6: Read a book with a body of water on the front cover

#149 ) Thendara House



One of MZB's longer Darkover novels, and one in which she did write as a continuous part of the series, clearly having it's sequel in mind and taking advantage of The Shattered Chain's character and plot. It still has some strange jerks in it's story telling as if scenes from multiple drafts were never entirely integrated. Thendara House could fairly be described as a feminist tract, but the quality of the characters and the validity of multiple types of interaction kept my interest on more than one read, though this is by no means a favorite.

Unfortunately this book seems much more relevant than any time in the previous 20yrs when I read it.

Read for TIOLI June #8: Read a book with the name of a house or property in the title

#150 ) Moral Disorders and Other Stories



This series of stories captures periods in the life of Nell from the birth of her younger sister to dealing with the last years of her parents lives. The voice is mature throughout, told in language which has accepted the ambiguities of the past. I was left feeling I wouldn't be able to recognize these individuals involved other than the ex-wife and the real estate agent after ½ an hours conversation, but the language has a hypnotic quality and in the descriptions creates a dreamlike claustrophobic sense of entrapment.

Read for TIOLI June #1: Read a book of short stories by an author born in Canada

#151 ) Flight Behavior



This is a good, well written book for which I was not the best audience. Good characters, well plotted if a bit on message, this miracle/disaster story takes place in rural Tennessee when Dellarobia, a young wife and mother, is jolted from the path of what may be a huge mistake by a vision of fire, which turns out later to be a misplaced migration of Monarch butterflies. At stake is to live within family and community with few choices, and fewer good ones.

Read for TIOLI June #2: Read a book that is dedicated to the author's father

#152) The Little Prince



I am less comforted and entertained by the foibles and failings of adults than I was as a child or in my prior adulthood. Somehow the roll of what adults do wrong struck me as callously unrelenting this time. Things are just so grim these days and lyrical and wistful as the book is it did not just now overcome its cynical trashing of adults.

Read for TIOLI June #4: Read a book from Public Broadcasting System network's The Great American Read

BTW, does anyone else find it strange that a French book shows up on The Great American Read? I think this was read to me in French almost as soon as it was in English, though I didn't understand it.

#153) Claws for Alarm



A cosy mystery in which no effort whatsoever was made toward realism, lots of designer shoes are envy'd, the men are frequently remarkably handsome in hunky ways, and the cat communicates clues with scrabble tiles. Bletch! Spit! Hack!

I wanted to read Claws for Alarm for TIOLI #6,but neglected to check the author!


Meets TIOLI June #3: Read a book with a cryptogram of D-A-D hidden in its title

>145 quondame: Who woulda thunk there'd be two books with that same title!?!

#153) Dragonflight



So the 5 decades haven't been entirely kind to this novel. The hyper male behavior of F'lar and all his shaking of our heroine Lessa was probably at least partially to place the book further away from the Mary Sue of Restoree and expand the readership among men. The plot is still good and the flow works and there are still amusing moments. However, the decline of crafts in the 400 years free of threadfall is entirely inexplicable and unexplained and that there was no population explosion when resources weren't eaten up supporting dragons and fighting is also just given.

Heaven only knows where my own copies of this went. I read my husband's first edition because every single e-copy at three libraries was unavailable.

Read for TIOLI June #17: Read a book whose title is a compound word

I certainly got a lot of books read in June. 47, spurred by an unusual competitive streak in the TIOLI challenge I managed a full sweep of shared reads plus a few, encounter a good many books I would otherwise remain completely ignorant of.

But I didn't finish everything I meant to finish - books I had to return unread to the library:

The Glass Universe Dava Sobel
Helliconia Winter Brian W. Aldis
City of Stairs Robert Jackson Bennett
The Woman in the Woods John Connolly

Books I checked out for June challenges that I may or may not get to:

1 Finding Magic Tany Huff
2 The Queen of the Tearling Erika Johansen - prequel to potential shared read The Invasion of the Tearling
7 Fever Crumb Phillip Reeve
7 Gain Richard Powers
8 Pilgrim's Rest Patricia Wentworth
8 The Birchbark House Louise Erdich
10 Circe Madeline Miller - this was left over from May!
11 The Book of Speculation Erika Swyler
13 The Gates of Tafmeth P.C. Hodgell - OK I was going to read this anyway, but I meant to read it for the challenge I submitted!
14 On the Bottom Edward Ellsberg
14 Kettering; Master Inventor Sigmund A Lavine

And, while I was reading these are the books I checked out just to read that I haven't gotten to.

Servant of the Underworld Aliette de Bodard
Master of the House of Darts Aliette de Bodard

So let's see how many of >148 quondame: I get read in July! I'm currently deep into The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

#154) The Book of Speculation



An interesting tale of discovering the tragic loss of your mother is one of a string of almost identical deaths in a direct line for almost 200 years. Somewhat oppressive in mood the pace of the story sometimes drags but does keep moving, the characters are rather good and the whole ultimately satisfying.

Acquired for TIOLI June #11: Read a book connected to a circus act, name the act (It would also meet #12)
Meets for TIOLI July #8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#155) Fever Crumb



This young adult novel set millennia after the Downsizing in the London a of steampunk ice age still retaining more recognizable place names than we have of Roman Britain. B@tersea? really? There is humor and some interesting characters and a bit too much in the way of challenges for our young heroine Fever, a rather high body count, and it is hard to see the point. It fails of the joy of youth set loose in a fantastic world and doesn't convince of youth with quest.

Acquired for TIOLI June #7: Read a book where the author's last name is also a noun (not a proper noun)
Meets #16: Read a book with a warm colored (red, orange, yellow, peach or pink) cover

47 books read in one month? Outstanding!! Woot, woot! I think I have read about 8 of them. Dragonflight brought back memories!!

#156) Circe



If Odysseus is one of your favorite characters, this book is rough on him
A gritty take on Greek Mythology, this book follows Circe from her earliest existence growing up in the Titan court of her father Helios under the uneasy shadow of the Olympians. Although there are some interesting points made in the early portion of the novel in Helios' court, the similarity to lots of other outsider in an abusive family stories was a bit of a drag, but once Circe is exiled to Aiaia the pacing and tone make for much more pleasant reading. The view of the Greek gods and associates is dead on vicious. Only the potential at the end spoils the true grit cynicism.

Reserved for TIOLI May #9. Read a book with a character from Greek or Roman mythology in the title or author's name
also considered for TIOLI June #16. Read a book which would have been a shared read in this year

Meets TIOLI July#8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#157) Where the Shadows Lie



If the story had not depended for much of it's interest on Lord of the Ring connections then it would deserve a higher rating, but the gimmicky aspects of the mystery kept alerting me to the fact I was reading fiction and I am a LotR fan. I like the characters and the setting, the pacing, and the way the complications were layered on.

This appeared on my Kindle courtesy of my husband, and I started it because I was temporary Kindle dependent for reading and thought I might have downloaded this as a BB or for a prior challenge.

Meets TIOLI May #4. Read a book where the author's first and last names have the same number of letters

#158) The Gates of Tagmeth



I'm getting a very middle of WoT series feeling - Jame goes here, Jame goes there, things, some rather interesting, happen, but the overall plot hardly moves. At least in this installment 1) the viewpoint was mostly straight forward 2) the sever daddy issue was dealt with even if it felt a bit perfunctory after all the trouble he's been.

For the read along Chronicles of the Kencyrath: We continue to read on from God Stalk

#158) On The Bottom





My Great Uncle _______________________The Raising of S-51___________________________The Divers who braved real dangers
Commander Edward Ellsberg_____________________________________________________________________ Cmd. E.Ellsberg over the breech

The raising of the submarine S-51 from 160'+ beneath the ocean off the coast of Rhode Island in 1926 established my great uncle's career as both a salvage expert and an author. Growing up in their hometown of Denver, his success was constantly in my mother's awareness, as her father, his brother, had no such success. So this story goes deep in my mother's family's history, much as his nephew's Daniel, goes into mine.

Written over 90 years ago, the volume I checked out from the library is 89 years old, torn, stained, missing pictures, rebound at least a couple of times and sporting 5 punctures that go 40 pages in from the title page. This doesn't read quite like fiction, as it really isn't, but is sort of an incident by incident short story retelling of how the S-51 submarine was raised from 160+ feet of water in stormy seas. What is mostly absent in this narrative, except at the beginning, is anything above the level of what was going on at the scene. Since the impetus for this mission was almost entirely political and the initial urge was to contract out the inevitable failure, there must have been a fair deal of second guessing going on when the winter called a halt and new divers had to be trained, not to mention when a storm wrecked the first effort at raising the S-51. Clearly, the S-51 was raised, and much was learned and new technologies established.

As mentioned above, I checked out the ancient hardback, but it is now available cheap for the Kindle on Amazon: On the Bottom

Acquired for for TIOLI June #14: Read a book where the author's surname matches an ancestral surname
Meets July TIOLI #15: Read a Book where a name in the title or author matches a close family relative

>156 quondame: Cool! The story sounds interesting - I like this kind of stuff - but the family connection makes it great. Did you create the TIOLIs about family surnames, or are you subverting them with all these books actually about your family? Neat either way.

>157 jjmcgaffey: Those were submitted by Lori Thornton(thornton37814) who noticed family names in her TBR pile. It turns out that Lori and I were able to find a common ancestral name for the June challenge. All three of my siblings have published, as well as my mother's cousin Daniel Ellsberg, and my cousin Barbara Helen Berger. The best are Barbara's beautifully illustrated children's books.

Wow, that's a lot of authors in one family!

>156 quondame: Sounds very interesting

>159 mstrust: Authoring is sort of 3rd string with my siblings and not entirely their own efforts. They are all high level techno-achievers and sometimes that spins off into books.

#159) Starless



A complete save-the-world fantasy with a good combination of new and classical elements. It brought home that in presenting world building advantage a very young protagonist being educated outside the mainstream of the action is a great advantage. I found the fist ⅔ of the narrative more enjoyable as the we follow our protagonist prepare for the roll of shadow or protector of the young princess, finally meet the young princess and embark on the voyage to a new home which takes an unexpected turn. After that it becomes more of a Baron Munchausen tale of overcoming overwhelming challenges with the special talents of a special crew. There are even zombies. My least favorite adversaries. The pace is sprightly throughout, the quick changes of scene in the last ⅓ make it a bit frenetic. The characters are very well done, the world intriguing, though desert strongholds are overdone, and the plot original enough and angled enough from norm to be worthwhile.

Meets TIOLI July#8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#160) The Privilege of Peace



Another adventure of ex-Gunnery Sergent Warden Torrin Kerr and her team, a solid space opera adventure with some new players and old villains. I can never quite buy into the ultimate power of the Gunnery Sergent, but as a pillar of a fun tent to play in it works pretty well.

Meets TIOLI July#8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#161) A Personal Matter



Bird, a young man awaiting the birth of his first child in a profoundly self absorbed state and when told the child has a fatal disfiguring defect seeks solace in whiskey and the company of a former lover. Full of unpleasantness and ending abruptly in a few implausible paragraphs, this is so not my sort of book. Can I shower now?

Read for TIOLI July #1: Read a book whose title’s opening letters names an animal

#162) The End of the Matter



Flinx as hares off following clues to finding his father he saves an unusual alien from assassins, thereby getting them on his trail, and heads off planet in search of a large man who once had a mini-dragon, possibly, even likely, Pip. There are narrow escapes, alien temples, revelations, and big bangs. The usual stuff, with the usual body count and humor.

Read for TIOLI July #2: Read a book with a word in common with your most recently finished book

#163) When Voiha Wakes



Love, art, loss and gender rolls in a fantasy setting with zero body count. Although the protagonist travels, there is no adventure to this tale, it is the adult equivalent of Kiki's Delivery Service without all the drama (I'm speaking about the rescue at the end of the movie.) But the heartbreak is real, the drama completely within the context of the constructed matriarchal society which separates men to the crafts and arts and women to the administration and land holding. This book was buried in dust on the top of my bedroom 'special shelf' mostly reserved for comfort read and books I know I'll re-read.

Read for TIOLI July #3: Read a book you find on the top shelf

#164) Guards! Guards!



The first of the City Watch sub-series, this volume introduces Vimes and Carrot and expands on Nobby and Colon, the latter more positively than in subsequent Watch books. Also, the Patrician, Vetinari, gets featured development. The Librarian is also a contributor. In some ways Guards! Guards! is a turning point in the series where more time is spent getting into the characters and less on dealing with the fabulous aspects of the plot, but it still hasn't achieve the supple elegance of Going Postal. Despite the positive resolution, this is also one of the darkest of the Discworld books.

Read for TIOLI July #5: Read a book with at least two identical words with 4 or more letters in the title not including the subtitle

>167 quondame: This was the book that really hooked me on Pratchett. And the City Watch series continues to be my favorite (albeit closely followed by DEATH and Susan!).

#165) Wolf Moon



A good werewolf, an evil bard, a bunch of really nice people who run an inn in a valley isolated by winter.
The first encounter between the shapechanger and the Inn folk is all tell, she was this, he was that, get them in a relationship and get on with the plot. The characters in this weren't sufficiently developed by the time the nasty mind control bard causes them problems, to cause me to care enough for them so that the nastiness described wasn't just reading about icky stuff, not concern and involvement. This is a story which could certainly use more indirection too - we know from the first that the werewolf is just a nice misunderstood shapechanger and the bard is a baddy with mind control.

This is not a good introduction to Charles de Lint

Read for TIOLI July #13: Read a book by an author you follow online

#166) City of Stairs



New and amazing world with interesting characters tackling intriguing challenges. This reads very well and balances the fantastic with the bureaucratic. The end was a bit over neat and cute for me - I think the work would have balanced better with a more ambiguous end, but that is a personal niggle. It's a bummer that the gay guy is the only central character to die.

I think I meant to read this for one of the May or June TIOLI challenges, but no idea which - it was a BB from Paula hairballsrus

Meets TIOLI July#8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

Nice review! The others in the series are really good too.

City of Stairs - YES!!! Like Jim I am a devoted fan of the series. I think they get even better as he writes along.
I agree with you completely about Weight of Ink and Essex Serpent. I was happy to get the latter through ER, but I sort of ended up wishing I had spent my precious time on something else...not that they were bad.
I liked Medicus and have never read further. (Lord, grant me more reading time!) I've ordered a used copy of Crystal Variation since I enjoy visiting Liaden, and have put Ashes of London on the wish list since I like Taylor. I also liked Flight Behavior even if it's not among K'solver's best. And I'm glad that you pretty much liked Circe. It's on my Kindle for sometime.
You do a LOT of good reading, my friend.

Keeping up on your many and varied reads here. Happy weekend!

#167) Outcasts of Order



A good solid, very solid, middle book in The Mongrel Mage sub-series of of the Recluse saga. A middle book, it is about trying to establish a place and not being free to do so and moving on, with more or less difficulty and damage. I would have been happy with ⅔ to ½ the length, as the day to day format seemed to draw the story out quite beyond it's contents. It is never painful and not quite dull enough for me to just abandon it as I did the whole Recluse series in the late 90s. I started again with Cyador's Heirs, and this is the slowest since then.

Meets TIOLI July #17: Read a novel where a named domestic animal is a secondary/important character

>171 drneutron: >172 LizzieD: >173 Berly: Thanks!

#168) The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane



Although the initial chapters of the book, with the young Akha tribal girl standing somewhat apart from the values of her community bothered me in that I place more value of seeing from a different viewpoint than an assumed sympathetic one, once the story got over the introduction to Akha culture and the plot started moving I was utterly absorbed. We track the life of Li-yan and her disastrous first love resulting in the birth of a daughter she must give up and later her leaving with her bad-choice husband that separates her from her people. Later, when he has died the customs prevent her returning to her village but connections she has made earlier open a career path and she eventually becomes a tea merchant specializing in the teas of her home region. There are short interspersed chapters which acquaint the reader with her daughter Haley in America. The concluding chapters are mostly tamely wildly romantic, which was a bit cloying, but by then I liked the characters so much that it was hard not to want the best happy ending for them. Mostly this is a love story to tea and the Yunnan Province in China in which the oldest tea trees grow.

Read for TIOLI July #6: Read a book with a word in the title that is also contained in a song title on Billboards Top 100 week of June 23, 2018

#169) The Glass Universe



The view of the Harvard College Observatory under the directors Edward Pickering and Harlow Shapely and the women calculators and astronomers who worked and build reputations there is almost all pretty high level more a discussion of a not quite accidental group of women who made substantial contributions to astronomy and astrophysics. There is almost no hint of what the community life or individual life of the dedicated women was like, and lacking any real villain beyond a crushing paternalistic system, the only hint of scandal Pickering's somewhat profligate and decidedly glory hound of a brother was always geographically distant, and unwillingness of Harvard's President Lowell to accept women as officially associated with Harvard is not dissected as to whether it had to do with astronomy or women and he was hardly an exception if the latter. So this isn't quite the interesting tale of Longitude, but it is a painless discussion of late 19th and early 20th century astronomical advances.

Meets TIOLI July #9: Rolling Challenge: Red White And Blue

>177 quondame: Glad you found something of value in that one, Sue. I have to say a lot of the science-y stuff went over my head but I appreciate that the roles of women in these non-traditional fields in being exposed in books like this and Hidden Figures.

>178 rosalita: There was more about the individual women and their achievements as the book went on, but for the first portion they were almost incidental to the establishment of spectral astronomy. For a couple of years in college I hung out with my boyfriend's astrophysics social group of grad students - there was a boarding house just west of Berkeley campus where he and another physics grad student had rooms as did I for a time and where a hometown friend also lived. My (then ex) boyfriend went on to get a Nobel prize a decade or so ago.

It sounds like the opening section of The Glass Universe was superfluous for you, Sue. I can assure you that without it I would have been even more lost than I was! I'm glad Sobel decided to bring us ignoramuses along on her ride.

>180 rosalita: Not at all, other than the lack of money and recognition since Nobel did not fund his award in math or astronomy, all the rest of the history was never spoken of, and even having grown up among scientists I knew of very few other awards. The young men and women all were very much involved with the late 60s early 70s political issues when they weren't worrying about their advisors. I just wanted a feel for what the life of these women was like on a day to day basis, what were their thoughts about the choices they made and some more personal stories. There are hints in the mentions of Antonia Maury and her not being included in Mrs. Draper's bequests of a story, but other than noticing that she was cautiously valued, there are few clues to what really went on.

>181 quondame: I do agree that some more insights into their day-to-day personal interactions in and out of the observatory would have been very welcome. Perhaps there just wasn't enough documentation for Sobel to feel comfortable including? Regardless, you're spot on that it would have added an extra, welcome dimension to an interesting story.

>167 quondame: Darkest because of Vimes' problems?

Enjoying Sobel discussion!

>183 sibylline: Not really anything to do with Vimes - Vetinari tells Vimes that there aren't good people and bad people just bad people who are on different sides, and that sort of is a pervasive mood in the book, but not quite as much in later Night Watch and Death books.

Thought I'd pop in and say hello!

#170) The Once and Future King



Some time in the early 1960s I must have mentioned The Once and Future King to my dad, or I saw him reading it - and he asked me if I knew what king was meant, and then explained how that applied to Arthur, then mostly familiar to me from Prince Valiant. Before 1970 I had read as many versions of King Arthur as I could find, and a host of other novels set in medieval milieux, some from my dad's boyhood collection. A very few non-ficton books got included. Nor did I stop reading them, though I've probably missed more than a few since then.

The time when it was written and the time when it is read matter a great deal in this retelling of the King Arthur legends - T.H. White deliberately sets the story in a post Norman conquest 'Gramarye' and prefixes imaginary or legendary to the names of 12th-15th century figures, and the technological level is mostly late middle ages. There is an appropriateness to this as to some extent the Saxon antagonists of Mallory's story were the victims of the Normans who promulgated the iteration of the older tales on which Mallory based his book.
Except for the first part, this is not an easy read at all, and re-reading it after decades I certainly notice it's combination anti-fascist/anti-anarchist message much more than I did in the 60's or 70s. It is full of cleverness, and there are action scenes, but mostly there are dialogs - between Arthur and many others, among the Morgause's sons, between Lancelot and Guenever, and others, only occasionally in the midst of action. A brilliant section deals with the quest for the Holy Grail by having the surviving questors relate their tales, directly or indirectly to Arthur and Guenever and indicating the effect these tales have on Arthur. Still I am not and never have been happy T.H. White's Arthur of simple slow thought any more than I like other author's gay or bisexual Arthur. All of the other characters given any portion of dialog, and the young Wart are well, are well done.
So when I read this long ago the take away seemed to be look what good and just times we live in now - but just now it seems like the candle is truly in danger of going out.

Read for TIOLI July #10: Re-Read a book

>185 thornton37814: Hello! Thanks for visiting!

>186 quondame: The Idylls of the Queen is my favorite Arthurian tale, but White's is a close second.

Someday (and you make me hope it's sooner rather than later, Susan), I'll read *1ce and F*. My nostalgic, preferred Arthur novel is Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset. I don't remember social commentary sneaking into it. It's up for rereading someday too.

>188 libraryperilous: Idylls of the Queen was one I read early on, but that type of verse isn't for me, and I remember getting bored by what seemed to be the same adventure over & over, change the names, go mad, bash your brother.... I still have a great affection for Howard Pyle's romanticized KA and books of tales.

>189 LizzieD: The Sword at Sunset was the first ever Roman Britain version I remember reading. It left a pretty strong impression.

So what was the version where Arthur has to explain to Merlin why Guinevere had to placate the man who had kidnapped her?

#171) Death Comes for the Archevishop



A book full of beauty which I cannot love. There is a smugness to the tone and attitudes that made me want to toss it across the room more than once. I have a love for desert country and an interest in history so that kept me going, but other than his love for the southwest country I don't find much attractive about Will Cather's civilized subject.

Read for TIOLI July #12: Read a classic novel about the history of your country

> 191 I remember reading that one several years ago, and while there is no plot, I did love Cather's descriptions of the area. I know a lot of people love her writing, but it has been hit or miss for me.

>191 quondame: I enjoyed the descriptions in that one too. What amazed me was the extent of the archbishop's travels in that time and age!

>19 mstrust: I had an early 19th century great*3 aunt who went to Burma as a Baptist missionary, though I believe she was brought up Congregationalist.

#172) The Bluest Eye



Oh man is this a different read than what I remembered from when it was published. I think my mind took one or two elements and made a pearl around them so what I remembered was equally dark but so ungrounded. A long discussion of poisonous self loathing and self deception, the beauty of the language is such a contrast with the relentless harshness of what is describes. I understand much more now about the diminishing wear of daily blows to self-validity and also of madness. This is not a book to like, it is a work to try to wake you up with shock therapy.

Read for TIOLI July #7: Read a book that relates to a New Year's Resolution you made this year
(proposed shared read, as I make no resolutions, but am all for reading books from lists and the 1001 is only as annoying as some.)

#173) Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing



I'm partial to Ursula K. Le Guin, and have only had temporary fits of wanting to throw one of her books across the room. I was always wrong to want to, but sometimes thinking hurts so much the mind closes it down well in advance. This is short and lighter weight but she shines through.

I will include this as my read for The 2018 Nonfiction Challenge Part VII: The Arts in July

#174) The Lens of the World



I really like this book. If you can enjoy minimal-magic fantasy and you haven't read this book, I recommend it. By minimal magic fantasy, I mean that no one relies on spells or prayer for results in day to day life, there may be no more apparent magic than in our world but the setting is recognizably not our world another planet in our universe. A coming of age story about a young man who starts off with no known family other than support at a military school and no place in his society that he wants to accept.

Read for TIOLI July #11: Read a book that has been on your shelves for more than 5 years

#175) Superheros Suck



Shay, a high school junior goes with her sister Evie, who is her guardian, an insurance claims adjuster, to the site of an ongoing superhero vs super villain conflict. Soon the two of them head a superhero regulation bureau at the office and laboratories of the billionaire member of the superhero trio. Given superheroes the unbelievable stuff is that an insurance company would spend money in advance of need, that universities would part with esoteric expensive lab equipment, that anti-super human weapons could be assembled with a soldering iron, that no 3-D printers were mentioned, though nano-bots were constructed. The writing was good and suitable to the action and plot, the characters were kind of interesting but kept doing things as if jerked on plot strings. Shay, is attracted to superhero Max's attraction to her, though it turns out she is hosting the soul of his lost love who was implanted in her by super–villain Lucian when Lucian killed her and Shay's parents. So it's complicated because Max is too old for Shay. Shay's gay friend Ollie drops out half way through, which is never resolved. Overall, the author is promising, but this book is too dependent on arbitrary actions and treating the real world elements with hand waving.

Read for TIOLI July #14: Read a book won from the Member Giveaway or Early Reviewer in 2018

#176) Queen of the Tearling



The Queen's heir, 19 year old Kelsea must leave the cottage where she was raised by a couple with not outside contact and cripplingly little knowledge of the current state of her kingdom and try to make her way to the capital with a double handful of Queen's Guards. Although the first section is pretty much a long chase scene it seems static and unflowing. Later the writing picks up some momentum but there there are arbitrary acts and awkward choices of language that balked absorption in the narrative. Not a bad young queen takes over a kingdom in peril, and extra points for a plain faced heavy set queen, but I found nothing particularly attractive in the way post apocalyptic setting, the characters or the sparse magic that was acknowledged but not understood.

This appeared on the buzzfeed 11 Of The Best Fantasy Series You’ve Probably Never Heard Of, which includes several I have heard of and like.

I think I put the Tearling books on my list for a possible shared read back for:
TIOLI February #16: Read a book with title word or author name starting with GOLDSILVERBRONZE when Judy (DeltaQueen50) read it.

Meets TIOLI July#8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

So so glad you loved the MacAvoy -- I think she's a splendid writer and I became very attached to that story and the characters.

I'm with Peggy -- loved the Sutcliffe version of Arthur best too! In fact, now I want desperately to reread it as it has been forevah since I read it.

#177) Brief Cases



Interesting glimpses into the world of Harry Dresden Chicago's wizard. Many feature character's other than Harry, as Molly goes out on her own in several, one features John Marcone and another Waldo Butters. Molly gets a pretty bum deal, while Harry gets quality, if interrupted, time with his daughter, Maggie.

Meets TIOLI July #17: Read a novel where a named domestic animal is a secondary/important character

>200 sibylline: This must be at least the third read of that one - I'd go ahead with the others, but I have so many Library books due before the end of the month and so little time.

I think I've thoroughly scrambled the Arthurian oeuvre that I couldn't distinguish my favorite from the resulting mess of yolk and white. The story that sticks with me though is Howard Pyle's Marriage of Sir Gawain, and I don't know the antecedents of that and cannot give any specifics on alternate versions.

So I'm off on my yearly 4 day quest to indulge in faunching over fabulous costumes while picking up a bit of knowledge and repressing the keenest feelings of inferiority in pure gosh wow.

Costume College is on!

Have a fun four days! That ball gown is gorgeous, and so is the reddish dress in the background.

Those costumes are amazing. That gown in front is absolutely stunning.

#178) The Last Dragonslayer



Jennifer Strange is an non-magical foundling doing whatever needs doing at one of the last agencies for magicians in a world where magic has been fading away for centuries. When everyone with a hint of precognition starts predicting the death of the last dragon, precipitating a land rush toward the shielded lands reserved for that dragon into which only dragon slayers can go, it turns out that Jennifer has a special roll to play. This is a fun, sprightly read, the characters are made for the plot, not bad, but not for investing in.

Meets TIOLI July #8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#179) So You Want to Be a Wizard



If this book was at all interesting when it came out, it isn't in comparison with what's been available for a long time now. Nothing fun or even interesting in navigating a all the hardware is out to get you Manhattan by the 12 & 14 year old protagonists.

Meets TIOLI July #8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#180) An Argumentation of Historians



I am really, really tired of Clive Ronan. I'm not sure what would happen to the series without him, and it seems Jodi Taylor has the same problem because he isn't eliminated yet. The long, stuck at the end of the 14th century sequence was underwhelming. The end-to-end disasters continue to keep Max's life from being dull, though we aren't required to spend much time on her hospital stays. Some humor, some development and good reading.

I've been waiting for this one since April when richardderus listed it as his 65th 2018 read

>204 mstrust: >205 Narilka: It was pretty amazing this year. The theme of Dressing the Royals meant that it was pretty much wall to wall crowns and tiaras and ball gowns, since of course Royals don't wear tweeds. I was both overwhelmed and a bit bored. It was 16th, 18th & 19th century for at least 80%+ if the costumed participants with only specks of sf (alien queen) or humor (drag queens). There were a few fairies, but I don't much like fairies, and a GoT Royal or two.

>206 quondame: I haven't gotten as far as you have with the St. Mary's series (I've got And the Rest is History up next) but I totally agree with your feeling about how tedious the Ronan storyline has become. I kind of wish she would ditch the idea of some grand over-arching storyline and just go back to straightforward time jumps that get screwed up in imaginative ways.

>206 quondame: Huh. I love Duane's Young Wizards series - I've been reading, and rereading, them since they came out. So You Want to Be a Wizard is probably my second or third favorite, among the...8?... books of the series. Oh well, one man's meat...

#181) A Shadow in Summer



An intriguingly obscure and increasingly difficult to establish control of supernatural entities has protected the city states of the long gone empire from predatory powers with advance war technology. An old trader, his primary local aid, her apprentice and two young men, all well drawn, get caught up in the struggle for power in an unfortunate intrigue that both succeeds and fails.

Meets TIOLI July #8: Read a book that appears on the same LT list as a book you've read this year

#182) A Feast of Sorrow



A good assemblage of fact and speculation that involves food and politics at the highest levels in 1st century Rome. The protagonist is a good guy head cook who becomes the intimate of one of Rome's uber-rich but strangely unconnected patricians, Marcus Gavius Apicius. In fact the weakest aspects of the story are that Apicius is such a wanna be with only a harpy mother, wife and daughter as relations. This is a not entirely pleasant visit to a re-created Rome at the end of Augustus' reign and into Tiberius's.

Meets TIOLI July #16: Read a book with a warm colored (red, orange, yellow, peach or pink) cover

Both of these were checked out onto my Kindle and were overdue, so I've been sulking about in airplane mode for 6 days.