ghoti_mhic_uait

I have a few ideas, and the top 8 books on my to read pile are all things which might be eligible (mostly for Lodestar for YA fiction)

The books I was mostly excited about are:

Adult novels:

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (Roanhorse also in her second year of eligibility for Campbell). This is a postapocalyptic mystery with Coyote. I love all of those things, so I loved this. OWn voices fantasy is where it's at, and rightly so.

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee. This is the third in the Machineries of Empire series (which I think makes this eligible for series nomination too). Mil SF, beautiful, horrific and coming to a spectacular close in this book, read this you will not be sad. Well, you might be sad, but you'll not regret it.

YA:
Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron. By far my favourite book this year (and I think Cameron is eligible for Campbell). It's about a girl whose mother dies and then angels start falling out of the sky, so girl's father takes her to chase angels, and there is romance and loss and it's all about family of choice and doing the right thing and I loved it so much (especially the bi disabled love interest who is the best love interest since Olivia from Into the Drowning Deep). If you love me you should read this book; if you love books you should read this book; if you have a couple of hours with nothing to do you should read this book; if you love Scotland or angels or cute teenage lesbians or coming of age stories, you should read this book. It's short, even if none of that sounds like you, read the book anyway.


Damsel by Elana K Arnold. This took a while to grow on me but it did. It's sort of a fairy tale but turned on its head, like a grown up Paper Bag Princess. It's about toxic masculinity, and has a really satisfying ending.

Aru Shah and the End Of Time by Roshani Chokshi. If you've spoken to Judith recently, she's probably enthused at you about this book; it's the first time she's ever had a book that she's read and then immediately wanted to lend to all her friends so she can talk about it. It's a save-the-world book with an unwitting hero in Spiderman pyjamas, really full of pop culture references and really fun. I can't wait for the next!


Shorter fiction:

Lost Objects by Marian Womack is a collection of beautiful, complex climate change shorts, which is well worth reading but some of them were published earlier. I'm going to reread and think about which to nominate, but I'd mention that Kingfisher was nominated for the BFSA awards, and it is an uncomfortable story about birds, writing and marriage which I would definitely recommend.

All The Time We've Left to Spend by Alyssa Wong, about JPop and love and regret
https://firesidefiction.com/all-the-time-weve-left-to-spend

The Rose McGregor Drinking and Admiration Society by T Kingfisher, about fairies
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-rose-macgregor-drinking-and-admiration-society/


Campbell:
Rivers Solomon (An Unkindness of Ghosts) is in their second year of eligibility. If you haven't read An Unkindness of Ghosts, but like scifi with autistic protagonists, or books about the Antebellum South, or scifi with historic themes and contemporary relevance, this is the book for you.


What about you? got any recs for me?

Jack took the children and I to Oasis Camel Park in noth Suffolk. I can't get the photos off the camera atm but I will eventually, and then there will be pictures. It's very small, but if your day can be made by seeing 5 different types of camelid (and goats and donkeys and stuff) and maybe feeding some and stroking them, and you drive or have a handy driving friend, then it's perfect.

I've also mentioned Hamerton zoo a few times recently. They specialise in unusual animals - binturong, jaguarundi, oncillas, aardwolves for the dictionary fans, and tayra (an unusual mustelid).

Film wise, I'm still buzzing about Cars 3, which I absolutely loved. If you love films about intersectionality, with a side story about learning to be a better ally, then this is the one - protagonist Cruz is, well, I don't even know where to start with her, but she's believably imperfect, interesting and just generally, I loved it.

I've been rereading one of my favourite childhood books, Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer. It's a fictionalised autobiography. Protagonist Lucinda is left behind when her mother has to go to Italy for her health (it's not clear to me why, but that seems like the sort of thing that American doctors suggested in late 19th Century USA) and suddenly finds herself with a lot more freedom, to explore New York and find herself as well as make friends throughout the city. This quote on tragedy is possibly my favourite bit, where Lucinda's uncle is explaining tragedy to her (in the context of Shakespeare): "what happens must be inevitable - unescapable. It must make you feel right about the ending. And great tragedies must have beauty in them; otherwise what's the use?"

I've been watching Andi Mack. It's a Disney show about a girl who learns that the person she thought was her sister is actually her mother, and the family coming to terms with the secret being out. It's a nice family drama and I particularly like that it's good at having conflict while being sympathetic to all of Andi, her sister/mother and mother/grandmother. Similarly, Andreas has got into Stuck in the Middle, a Disney show about being the 4th child of 7, and how it can be tricky but actually, she's surrounded by people who love her and the balancing act of a big family is not glamourised but works like it looks like it does in real life.

I've been listening to more music too, but I don't think I have a thing that stands out particularly to recommend.

Today we went shopping, ostensibly for clothes for me but we spent most of our energy in the book department of Smiths. I wanted two or three not-black dresses with high necklines, defined waists, circle skirt and at least 3/4 length sleeves, something like this would be ideal except I'm not sure about red, a cardigan and a pair of shoes. What I got was a sleeveless navy shift dress, a cardigan, four books (for the children) and two pairs of shoes. And some fruit, but we ate that already.
ETA: It occurs to me that rmc28 already told me where to get the ideal dress as described above, and it's eShakhti, but if any of y'all know where to get them in the UK, I'm interested to hear where.

I've not been in the White Stuff shop before, it was as pleasant as a shop can be. They have a waiting room with a TV showing children's stuff and colouring and things, and I think I spotted a coffee pot. And helpful staff, an clothes that don't make me look like a sack of potatoes, for similar price to M&S, whose design principles seem to be 'everyone loves chips, right? So that's what we want people to think of when they see someone wearing our clothes'.

Judith recently agreed that, rather than pack a ton of books, I could load some onto an ebook reader on her tablet. When we went to Hungary, she packed 47 books. While we were out she remembered that the McDonalds free ebooks are Kobo brand, so she'd like Kobo, and I have installed that and am filling it with books. She's got a bunch of Ever After High short stories, a couple of Tinkerbell books, some free things I figured might be worthwhile but haven't read, Pollyanna, Black Beauty, Heidi, the first Harry Potter, the first two Narnia and Minnow on the Say by Philippa Pearce. Because I can never resist a book recommendation, and because it's fun to think about, what would you give to an 8 year old who is just becoming enthusiastic about books, and who likes the sort of thing I mentioned (plus Worst Witch, American Girl books, Lord of the Rings). Also, do any of y'all have experience of using the Kobo app for Project Gutenburg books? Is it easy, or should we find a different app for that?


This weekend marked two years since the flapjack muse and I started dating. It feels quicker than that, largely because I'd had a crush on him for years, but also because neither of us quite felt confident so it felt like a very casual series of one off dates for months before we realised it was probably a relationship. But also, because of said feelings, and because he has long been a good friend it feels like longer too. We celebrated by a day in London; a visit to the House of Illustration, which had a Jo Brocklehurst exhibition. Brocklehurst did a lot of drawing in clubs, lots of gay bars and punks and generally an artist of the alternative scene. She also spent a lot of time doing Alice in Wonderland themed drawings, which were simply delightful. Because of working in such dark spaces, she used a lot of neon and UV reactive colours, which make her work really distinctive. Or maybe she used those materials already and that's why the darkness of the clubs didn't bother her.

Then we walked to the Thames, because both of us love walking through London, and we ate ice cream on the beach until it was time for dinner. Dinner we ate at Ethiopian restaurantLalibela, lots of lamb and pumpkins and aubergine and plenty of injera, and delightful coffee ceremony coffee afterwards.


Reading: Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone, as I enjoyed Three Parts Dead which I just finished
Watching: finishing up Orange is the New Black, and there's more coming
Eating: I will definitely cook something any minute now
Playing: Jack and I played Small World which is a fun rise/decline of civilisation game, and he beat me 94 - 91. Andreas and I played mancala. The rest of us have been playing Lego Harry Potter, which has lots of sliding staircases.
Making: I bought a new bobbin plate for my sewing machine, so I totally intend to start sewing again soon.

Monday morning means Emerald City, which is Oz for grownups. It's based on not just the first book, but subsequent books, and I'm less familiar with those. I think there's some new stuff thrown in, and certainly I can think of at least one character where they've amalgamated two and I'm pretty certain they were separate in the book. But it's gripping, I'm loving it.
Content note: there's a trans* kid who gets forced off his meds. It's so emotionally hard, and that's the point, to show how he really needs that help.

I'm reading Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire, which is the latest InCryptid and told from Antimony's perspective. Lots of roller derby and lots of fun. Also Taking the Village Online which if you like academic parenting books, you might be interested in, but otherwise, maybe not? IDK.

Playing: Colin just got the Ghostbusters boardgame so we haven't played that yet but it's our next plan. I haven't been playing so many games recently though.

Also, yesterday I made blackbean enchiladas which made Colin happy, and Jack cooked for me so that made me happy. A nice salsa though, finely chopped onion, tomatoes, mixed salad leaves, lime juice and a lot of pepper. And lime and black pepper soured cream, I normally just offer plain soured cream or yoghurt, but that was a good plan. Also in recent menu, mixed nuts fried with rice wine and rice vinegar, they were really good.

Not so much exactly what I've been reading as what kind of thing I've been reading.

13 in total.

6 written by women
7 written by men

(I think)
3 written by authors of colour,
10 written by white authors

4 fantasy
4 non fiction
3 slice of life
1 poetry

Actually, right now I'm reading Oz Reimagined which Colin gave me, a set of short stories inspired by The Wizard of Oz.
Knitting my Alice gloves still, photo when I'm done
Watching The Secret World of Alex Mack with Judith (90s Nickelodeon show about a girl who gets caught in a chemical accident and has to hide that she has resulting superpowers - I loved it then, and I'm enjoying introducing the rest of the family to it)
Playing, well, I got dragged into a Skylanders game yesterday but mostly

Over on Facebook there's a meme going around. This is the original:

"WANTED: Participants for a book-loving social experiment. Comment if you want to participate and I’ll send you details. What do you have to do? Buy your favourite book and send it to a stranger (I’ll send you a name and address.) You will only be sending one book to one person. The number of books you will receive depends on how many participants there are. The books that will show up at your door are the other people’s much loved stories #SaveTheCulture #BookExchange #LongLiveBooks"

In all the posts I've seen of it, there have been people expressing reservations about the pyramid nature of the scheme, and I share those. So I fixed it.

If you want to play, I made a swap over on Elfster. This means that I don't know who each person gets, it's entirely mystery. Buy a book, one you love, as a present, and send it. Someone else will do the same for you, and hopefully it'll be a way of trying something new.

https://www.elfster.com/exchange/view/21629452/59c345/ is the signup link, I put in a sign up deadline of 2nd January and an exchange date of 18th January, so shopping can wait until after the busy period and there is hopefully a nice thing at a time when lots of people are feeling a bit glum. Hopefully, because the idea is that it's something you love, it'll be a bit easier than trying to work out what other people like!


ps this might get international, so let me know if you don't want to send outside your country.

There's a competition being run by a book shop in London, Win a book a month for the rest of your life. It's a book of their choice, based on what you tell them about your preferences - and presumably they hone their recommendations over time, although it doesn't say that. A nice prize.

The competition is a prize draw, picked from a hat, but the question is quite interesting. Which book, published since 1936, has been most influential on your life?

Well, for me it's always going to be childhood books. Books like In A Blue Velvet Dress (the first time I met a protagonist like me) or My Sister Sif had a deep influence in a way that books I read as an adult. "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" lead me to Japanese literature and an interest in Japan - but it hasn't been as deep a fascination as that with Iceland, which came about after reading "Iceland Saga" by Magnus Magnusson. For grown up books those are definitely two of my choices, although something like Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto echoes in my mind more than the Murakami.

For modern 'people like me' books I'd say 'A Trifle Dead' by Livia Day. Set in a cafe in Hobart, and peopled with a cast of characters reminiscent of my friends, I love that about it. I don't so much feel that I need that now - I don't need a community of people identical to me. But I do need to know that they're out there in fiction so that other people can see them, feel like they're not alone?

Or maybe it's something like deadkidsongs by Toby Litt. A book that feels like the Mahler of the title, horrific and gorgeous. That feels like an answer that would be approved rather than the right answer, though.

What do you think?

Yesterday I made a dinner so nice Jack wrote it down. So I figured that I'd give you a 'here was my day' post even though I haven't written up Spain.

I almost finished Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole and had to leave Sailing to Serantium by Guy Gavriel Kay at a particularly exciting point, so quite a frustrating book day. Both excellent in very different ways - and there was a point where about 6 or 7 train journeys in a row featured a pretty woman reading Kay as one of my fellow passengers (not the same woman) so I assume that reading Kay makes me more attractive?

Tom and the littles and I played Splendor, which is a resource management game - Andreas is an interesting person to play with, because he wants to stockpile rather than manage his resources. At the end of the game, Tom won but Judith and I were both within a turn of winning so pretty well balanced I think.

Dinner was pasta with broccoli (because our cauliflower had gone off) and cheese sauce; pasta and broccoli cooked separately because the children don't eat sauce (they had cheese with it, and we also had baby sweetcorn with it). This particular cheese sauce, I melted some butter and fried some mushrooms (I meant to add onions and garlic here but forgot), then added a spoon of mustard, stirred well, and added a splash of milk several times stirring well, then a generous dash so the mushrooms were all covered, maybe a pint and a half in total? At this point I added fresh sweetcorn kernels (just sliced off the cob) and a lot of grated chededar and grana padana, and kept stirring until it thickened. Mixed it into the pasta and broccoli, then grated more cheddar on the plates when iut was finished.

After dinner we played Princess cupcakes game, which is a child-aimed game where you have to build your princess' cake before the time runs out. Andreas is very enthusiastic about this game :) And then Transformers Shuffle, which is a nice battle card game, a good family game and you can play it on the tray tables on aeroplanes, which is what I was hoping when I bought it at the airport :) It also isn't all about turn taking ,everyone plays on every turn, so might be good for more impatient players?

Today I had 9 reservations to pick up from the library, due to the library being about to start charging £1 per reservation. I've started on A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan and, if you like, will let you know how I like it.


That also means I returned Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, onto the Arbury Court library shelves, so if you're interested, now's a good time to grab it. It's set in a magical Georgian England, and follows the adventurer of said sorcerer, who is a freed slave struggling for acceptance in a conservative gentleman's club of magicians, and a young lady of unknown ancestry but great magical talent. Plus there are dragons. The tone is modern rather than period, but it doesn't seek to overlay modern morality, rather catches the spirit of the time.

I'm not sure who recommended this book, because I never write that down when I put books into my to read list, but whoever it was, thank you!


For everyone else, I really loved this book. It's about water and tea and life and death, and the interaction of these things. It's post-apocalyptic dystopia, but focussing on one woman and her struggle, rather than the big picture. The apocalypse was vclimate change and a plausible future if we don't do something - the world was plausible and consistent, but a nice background to the main character, Noria, and her life, loves, hopes and fears.

It's beautifully written, the metaphors aren't laboured but rather free flowing. I think this is now my favourite fantasy book about tea - feel free to recommend more!

Also, that is now four books in a row which I have had enough thoughts about, so either I've been reading thinky books or I've been just generally in an introspective mood, which is possible.