September's List

 With the beginning of school, reading went right off the table and I started having trouble getting the writing in as well. That's the bad news. The good news is that even with the crazy state of the world right now, school is going well. Teenagers are still teenagers, but living through a crisis tends to mature them and bring awareness. It gives me hope that the world might not just run off the rails. :)

Any way...time to get back on track with reading. I'm planning for 5 books a week. It'll never happen, but it will give me some variety even towards the end of the list

The List:

1. Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty
2. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
3. The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
4. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
5. Hero at the Fall by Alwyn Hamilton
6. The Turn by Kim Harrison
7. Another Man's Moccasins by Craig Johnson
8. Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle
9. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller
10. The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman
11. Seeing the Spectrum by Robert Rozema
12. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
13. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
14. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
15. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
16. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
17. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
18. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
19. Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
20. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

August - Big List

Welcome to a new school year! Yay and wahoo and stuff! So, my experiment with dropping the daily posts to work on my other writing seems to be paying off. I started out with a goal of one page a day, I'm now up to two and sometimes even three. I've missed a couple days in there, but generally I've been pretty faithful and consistent with it.

I will look at adding back in some blogging, but no promises...I'm much happier with putting my production into something creative :)

1. Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty (YA)
2. The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco (YA)
3. The Game of Lives by James Dashner (YA)
4. Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman (YA) - Finished 8/1/2020
5. Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher (Professional Book)
6. Hero at the Fall by Alwyn Hamilton (YA)
7. The Turn by Kim Harrison
8. Another Man's Moccasins by Craig Johnson
9. Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle (Professional Book)
10. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (Professional Book)
11. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (YA, Reread)
12. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (YA, Reread)
13. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (YA, Reread)
14. A List of Cages  by Robin Roe (YA)
15. Seeing the Spectrum by Robert Rozema (Professional Book)
16. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (Short Stories)
17. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell (Short Stories)
18. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (YA)
19. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (YA) - Finished 8/2/2020
20. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (YA)
21. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (Short Stories)
    

Kevin Wilson - A New Favorite

My summer TBR recommendations came in and on the list was a book published at the end of 2019 called Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson. Owing to my prodigious amounts of reading, I usually try to buy books used or find them in the library. I found a copy at the Buford location of 2nd and Charles along with a copy of Wilson's first book The Family Fang. 

I dove right into Nothing to See Here  and was done by the next day. I just couldn't put it down. This is mostly literary fiction with a single element of magical realism. I've always liked magical realism when it works. (It doesn't always) It worked quite well in this. Nothing to See Here is the story of a woman named Lillian who, despite a great deal of early promise, is expelled from her prestigious school when she takes the fall for her roommate's illicit drugs. She's angry and bitter but restless with her circumstances. When her old roommate writes her to beg for help with her husband's children from a previous marriage, Lillian finds herself wondering where the catch is. The catch is that those kids spontaneously burst into flame when agitated. I found I identified strongly with Lillian. Those poor kids really got to me and, while her relationship with Madison, the roommate, should be incomprehensible, it felt familiar somehow.  I think Wilson really nailed his writing of the kids, Roland and Bessie. Those kids felt real, damaged, dangerous, and sympathetic all at once.  

I was so happy with my experience that I picked up The Family Fang next. Unlike Nothing to See Here, this was straight literary fiction. This one is about Buster and Annie, the two children of noted performance artists, Caleb and Camille Fang. Caleb and Camille actively involved their children in their bizarre and sometimes disturbing artistic endeavors. As adults, Buster and Annie distance themselves from the deliberately chaotic lives of their parents, but find themselves returning home after poor choices put them in some difficult situations. The narrative moves between the two kids but also back in time to descriptions of the various performance art pieces. The whole thing is deliciously absurd, but it's also this amazing convoluted story about relationships and trust. It blew me away but I found myself slowing my reading pace down so that I could appreciate the craft more.

I loved these two books so much that Ryan hopped online and ordered me the remaining three books that Kevin Wilson's published so far. I haven't read them yet but Wilson has already earned a place among my favorite authors. 

July - A Big List

It really feels like I'm doing too much in the way of book lists. I'm going back to monthly lists. There's nothing wrong with the list posts really, but it's not what I intended to do with the space. I'm trying to really broaden my focus on non-YA lit. I like YA but it's not as stimulating somehow. So here's the list...more than half of which is not YA.

1. Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty
2. If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha (Finished 7/11/2020)
3. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
4. Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher (Nonfiction, Non-YA)
5. The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith (Non-YA)
6. Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison (Finished 7/5/2020)
7. The Good, the Bad and the Undead by Kim Harrison (Finished 7/6/2020)
8. The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson (Non-YA)
9. Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson (Non-YA)
10. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (Non-YA)
11. I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee (Finished 7/3/2020)
12. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (Nonfiction, Non-YA)
13. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
14. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
15. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
16. Seeing the Spectrum by Robert Rozema (Nonfiction, Non-YA)
17. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (Non-YA)
18. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell (Non-YA)
19. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
20. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
21. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
22. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
23. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson (Finished 7/2/2020)
24. Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson (Non-YA)
25. Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine by Kevin Wilson (Finished 7/9/2020)
26. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (Non-YA)

Week 25: 6/21/2020 - 6/27/2020

I've been fighting a summer cold all week and I'm behind on a couple of things. All the same it was a productive week. 

I've started laying paths in the garden. This time I'm putting pea gravel down and laying edging all around. It's a slow and laborious process but I'm also finding it very satisfying. I keep forgetting to water though which is becoming a problem.

We are set up to start painting the bathroom but I want Thomas out of the house when I treat the walls with a fungicide film which is slowing me down some.

I've now make two different ramen meals (the real stuff and not the horrible instant packs). It's a type of cooking I'm not as practiced in. In a bowl of ramen, there are a number of individual components that must be prepared separately. Each individual component is relatively straight forward and easy to prepare but the difficulty is in having all the components ready at the same time and putting the bowls together. Now that I've done it a couple times, the process feels less intimidating but it's still a juggling act. I have enough of this first batch of base to try another two ramen meals to practice with which is exciting.

For the next week I really want to finish the Little House on the Prairie books and really focus on writing. 

The List:

1. The Science of Good Cooking by Cooks Illustrated (Nonfiction)
2. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
3. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Non-YA)
4. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (Non-YA)
5. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
6. Seeing the Spectrum by  Robert Rozma (nonfiction)
7. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Finished 6/22/2020)
8. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
9. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
10. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
11. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
12. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Horror Means the Good Guy Loses

Some things are cultural. In American films and books, the bad guy generally loses. There are exceptions of course, but the bad guy gets caught (or dies) and the monster is vanquished. That's not true of Asian film and literature. 

I noticed it first when watching "The Ring". I've never been so terrified by a ghost story. Here is a story where the characters encounter a ghost and there is literally nothing they can do. They are going to die. Even when they think they've gotten away, they are snatched back...and they die. It's horrifying.

It's true for psychological thrillers too. 

I just finished reading The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong. It's a Korean novel about a young man who wakes up in a pool of blood and can't remember what happened. The entire thing takes place over three days while the protagonist sorts through a persistent case of amnesia and the body count rises. 

It's a quick read and it's not more gory than other thrillers. The horror factor comes from the "surely not" effect. As in "he won't get away, surely not".  It makes sense. The idea that the bad guy gets caught and punished is very comforting and conversely the bad guy triumphing is more horrifying. It just seems like we pull that particular punch more often and that Asian lit is more willing to go there.

Or may I don't really read enough in the genre. Maybe it's simply what is getting translated and ported over... but it does seem like a trend.

Gravel Under the Surface

One of my (many) projects involves digging out the front strip of "lawn" between the side walk and my garden boxes and turning it into a garden bed....specifically an okra patch. I needed to dig out the old paths in order to reset them so I thought, why not dig out the bed at the same time. Everything was going well until I got close to the crepe myrtle. Suddenly, every shovel stab ended about two inches under the surface grinding against stone. Turns out there's a huge patch of gravel out there under a thin layer of dirt and weeds. Ryan thinks its the remnants of old landscaping but I think it's more like driveway gravel. Regardless it's annoying; I can't functionally shovel the stuff and I end up on my knees peeling off sod and sifting out chunks of rock. I haven't really decided what to do about it.

Aside from being annoying, it's a pretty neat metaphor for life. Most of it's easy digging but the rocky patches get in the way. Those rocky patches have to be dealt with some way or other. I could sift out all the little rocks or I could cover it over with my new path which is probably what I'm going to do in this case. (There's too much shade for okra under the crepe myrtle anyway)

There's a lot of gravel in life.

Also, Korean psychological thrillers are really creepy.

Book Binging

I had a slow start to my reading year. My goal is 175 books, but when Covid hit and we all moved to distance learning, I just couldn't, somehow, make myself read. It's no great matter whether I make the goal or not, the goal is for fun and to keep me motivated. So, when I fell behind, I didn't really sweat it. 

In theory, if I were on pace for the goal I'd finish June with 87.5 books on the finished stack. I'm currently sitting at 70 books. It has just occurred to me that it's possible to be back on pace for the mid point. It means reading 17 books in 15 days, but it is possible. It's a silly thought. I shouldn't even really consider it, but part of me really wants to give it a go.

Wouldn't it be cool...

Week 24: 6/14/2020 - 6/20/2020

I read an article about "Book Hangover". It's the feeling of despondency after finishing a good book. Sometimes the feeling is so deep that the idea of picking up another book is unappealing. It's a feeling that I'm pretty familiar with. I think it's probably more applicable to any project. When a book is finished or a project completed, there's this sense of dissatisfaction. It can be tough to get through. And yet, there is always another book and a new project. 

That's my random observation for the day. 

This week's List

1. The Science of Good Cooking by Cooks Illustrated (Nonfiction)
2. What Elephants Know by Eric Dinerstein (Finished 6/14/2020)
3. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
4. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
5. Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
6. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman (nonfiction)
7. The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong (Finished 6/17/2020)
8. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Non-YA)
9. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (Non-YA)
10. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
11. The Bone Clock by David Mitchell (Non-YA)
12. The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman 
13. Seeing the Spectrum by  Robert Rozma (nonfiction)
14. Scrawl by Mark Shulman
15. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Finished 6/15/2020)
16. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Finished 6/16/2020)

Wonder Woman. . . and pizza

Today, Monday, is the family play-date. We host our niece for the whole day to play with Thomas and then switch over to her house across the neighborhood for a build-your-own pizza night. For the summer, at least, we will do this every Monday. Mostly, the kids take care of themselves. They play and we the adults do other things and occasionally referee disputes.

So, today in my spare time between referee calls I finished building the second replacement garden box. I finished reading Wonder Woman: Warbringer and started reading (for the 18 millionth time) The Andromeda Strain. I also cooked a summer squash soup, vegan pasta salad, and made whole wheat pizza dough. It was a busy, good day. 

Wonder Woman: Warbringer was a surprisingly good read, by the way. Leigh Bardugo did a good job crafting a narrative that made Wonder Woman feel relevant and sympathetic. I remember the character from when I was a kid as distant, oddly perfect, and sterile. The Diana Prince that Bardugo describes is still otherworldly. As a semi-mythical Amazon, she couldn't really be "the girl next door", but she's also a lost teen who desperately feels the need to prove herself as an Amazon. She's insecure and absurdly capable. She's emotionally vulnerable and nearly invulnerable to bullets. She's a study in contrasts and it works for the character. 

Despite a prohibition from bringing mortals to the Amazon's immortal island of Themyscira, Diana dives into the ocean to rescue Alia Keralis after watching her ship explode from shore. She brings her back to the island, which causes all kinds of problems and launches her into the real world to avert a mythological crisis. It turns out Alia is the many times great granddaughter of Helen of Troy who was herself the daughter of Nemesis (according to this) and is a catalyst for global strife called the warbringer. People want Alia dead, but Diana thinks she can save her and possibly earn herself a proper place among the Amazons. 

Huzzah.

It was a surprisingly fun read. Maybe it was my mood, but I found myself engrossed in the narrative. The blend of greek mythology and super hero narrative was engaging.

Week 23 6/7/2020 - 6/13/2020

Another busy week. It's strange how busy breaks can be. There is always so much stuff to do and it gets exhausting. I've been averaging about five books a week which is a pretty good rate. The gardening is continuing at a good clip too but it really seems like I'm having much bigger issues with insects this year. I'm digging up and replacing my two oldest garden boxes. When we dug up the second box, we found a snake nest. There were three DeKay's Brown snakes coiled up together in a little ball. Thomas was super excited. 

This week's List

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo (Finished 6/8/2020)
2. White Cat by Holly Black
3. The Science of Good Cooking by Cooks Illustrated
4. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (Finished 6/9/2020)
5. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
6. What Elephants Know by Eric Dinerstein
7. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
8. Ringworld and Other Stories by  Philip Jose Farmer (Non-YA)
9. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
10. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (Non-YA)
11. Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
12. A Time of Angels by Karen Hesse
13. The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong (Non - YA)
14. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
15. Beyonder: A World Without Heroes by Brandon Mull
16. The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman 
17. Seeing the Spectrum by  Robert Rozma (nonfiction)
18. Scrawl by Mark Shulman
19. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
20. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Victorian Mysteries or Chili?

Cooking is one of those things that takes time and is a labor of love. Many, many people only have the most basic skill in the kitchen. They may love food and love to eat, but that doesn't necessarily extend to preparing the food. Some people learn to cook well as an expression of love for their family. Left to their own devises they'd live on cheese sandwiches and salads, however their families inspire them to provide wholesome food, and so they cook. Some people though, just love the process of it. There is something about cooking that is essentially practical alchemy. It's magic combining ingredients in a way that transforms and elevates them into something new.  

That being said, I spent about half my day today cooking. I made my favorite chili recipe which starts with rendering the fat out of half pound of bacon. Rendering fat isn't something that is really talked about in most modern cookbooks but it's a fairly basic skill, and most home-cooks have done it even if they didn't know what to call it. It's a slow methodical process. It isn't hard, but it can't be rushed without risk of burning what ever you are rendering the fat from. I end up with about half a cup of bacon grease and that is what gives my chili its intense rich flavor. I love the stuff and I love making it.

I also mowed the lawn. Also satisfying.

I'm reading the second book in a series of Victorian mysteries written by Philip Pullman called the Sally Lockhart mysteries. This one involves the spiritualist societies that were so common at the time. I enjoyed the first book in the series (A Ruby in the Smoke) and I have high hopes for this one - The Shadow in the North.

Week 22 5/31/2020 - 6/6/2020

I am behind with the blog. However, I have been amazingly productive over the last five days. In the last five days I rebuilt one of my oldest garden boxes (and incidentally dumped an entire nest of ants down my shirt as the board they were nesting in crumbled in my hands - I look like I have the pox lol). I planted out two boxes and everything is starting to come up wonderfully. I waged war on the cat briar growing up next to the house. I'm not sure I won, but the cat briar didn't either. The exterminators came and evicted all the wood bees and carpenter ants.

Inside the house, I deep cleaned the kitchen floor and organized my dry goods. I just emptied out the freezer, and reorganized it. It turns out that we have about five pounds of sunflower seed and that about a quarter of the space was taken up with various forms of freezer cold packs.  I also reorganized the toy bins...but that is part of a much bigger project.

I also read Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley which is part of an excellent series that I intend to say more about later. It was about 600 pages and was a significant investment of time.

This Week's List:

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
3. What Elephants Know by Eric Dinerstein
4. Ringworld and Other Stories by  Philip Jose Farmer (Non-YA)
5. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (Non-YA)
6. The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong (Non - YA)
7. Ghost-Spider: Dog Days Are Over by Seanan McGuire (Finished 6/3/2020)
8. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
9. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley (Finished 6/2/2020)
10. Spider-Geddon: Covert Ops by Priest (Finished 6/2/2020)
11. The Shadow of the North by Philip Pullman (Finished 6/5/2020)
12. The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman 
13. Seeing the Spectrum by  Robert Rozma (nonfiction)
14. Little House In the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Finished 6/6/2020)
15. Little House on the Prairie by Laura IngallsWilder

Week 21: 5/24/2020 - 5/30/2020

Well after all that, I neither read nor wrote, but that's not unusual for the last week of school. It all ends up being a mad dash of grades and post planning. I'll get back to it this week, so I'm holding on to the same list from last week

The List:

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. White Cat by Holly Black
3. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
4. What Elephants Know by Eric Dinerstein
5. The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong (Non - YA)
6. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
7. Clue: On Stage by Jonathan Lynn (Finished 5/26/2020)
8. Ghost-Spider: Dog Days Are Over by Seanan McGuire
9. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
10. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley (Non-YA)
11. Spider-Geddon: Covert Ops by Priest
12. Packing For Mars by Mary Roach (nonfiction)
13. St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell (Non-YA)
14. Zom-B: Mission by Darren Shan (Finished 5/25/2020)
15. Zom-B: Clans by Darren Shan (Finished 5/25/2020)

Week 20: 5/17/2020 - 5/23/2020

So I utterly failed on the writing angle of things, but I did manage the feat of reading 7 books in 7 days which I feel bizarrely proud of. I also spent some time this week putting plants into my garden boxes and clearing more of the crazy and the year end dash to finish off school is in progress. All and all a successful week but this week I want to make sure I do a post every day.

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. White Cat by Holly Black
3. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
4. What Elephants Know by Eric Dinerstein
5. The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong (Non - YA)
6. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
7. Clue: On Stage by Jonathan Lynn
8. Ghost-Spider: Dog Days Are Over by Seanan McGuire
9. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
10. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley (Non-YA)
11. Spider-Geddon: Covert Ops by Priest
12. Packing For Mars by Mary Roach (nonfiction)
13. St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell (Non-YA)
14. Zom-B: Mission by Darren Shan
15. Zom-B: Clans by Darren Shan
16. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (Non-YA)

Week 19: 5/10/2020 - 5/16/2020

I over hauled the list for this week. I've gotten back into the reading zone, so it's time to get the complexity going again. I still have a hefty amount of YA but there are two nonfiction titles in there and two non-YA fiction in there too.

The List:

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. How to Eat by Mark Bittman and David Katz (Finished 5/11/2020)
3. White Cat by Holly Black
4. Iron Man: The Gauntlet by Eoin Colfer (Finished 5/13/2020)
5. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
6. What Elephants Know by Eric Dinerstein
7. The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong
8. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
9. Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider Spider-Geddon (1) by Seanan McGuire (Finished 5/10/2020)
10. Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider Impossible Year (2) by Seanan McGuire (Finished 5/10/2020)
11. The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (nonfiction)
12. Crazy House by James Patterson (Finished 5/11/2020)
13. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling (Finished 5/10/2020)
14. St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell (Non-YA)
15. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (Non-YA)

A Busy Satisfying Day of Reading

It's always hard at the end of the school year to maintain focus. I empathize greatly with the kids. Today was hectic in the extreme. Along with teaching my classes, I also worked today to iron out the final details of the High School Summer Reading and helped with the Middle School summer reading set up. I also cooked us a breakfast and a lunch and "facilitated" Thomas in cooking dinner. Busy as the day was, I still managed to finish three books. I was almost done with one when I woke this morning and two were graphic novels, so it's not as crazy as it sounds.

All three books were very good. In fact, all the books I've read this week have been winners. There is something just delicious about trying a new book and being excited about it.

Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon

So what started me on this extended project to catch up on the more recent Spider-man was seeing "Into the Spider-Verse."  However, you can't just dive into "Edge of the Spider-verse". Oh no, no, no. To properly understand what's going on, you have to read "Spider-Noir", "Spider-Ham", "Miles Morales," and "Spider-Gwen." All of these are fun, and involve characters in the movie. So, good on that. However, when I finally got into "Edge of the Spider-Verse" and "Spider-Verse" I found that it had very little to do with the movie.

I have a student who apparently read the comic books first and had a very dim view of the movie. His view was that the movie was nothing like the comic series and he didn't like what they did to Miles's character either. I can see his point. It would seem, at first, like the movie has nothing to do with the comic books aside from sharing some characters. I've come to the conclusion that the events of "Into the Spider-Verse" happen just before "Edge of the Spider-Verse"

My reasoning is that soul sucking life-force vampires bent on devouring all the spider people in all of the dimensions of the multi-verse is a pretty big omission. These vampires are called The Inheritors and are the central conflict for both Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon.

So, I get to continue liking the movie.

Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon are equal parts bedlam and inspired. (See my post about the Spider-Verse) Spider-Geddon sees the return of the Inheritors and the legions of spider people fighting them. Miles develops nicely and I have to admit that there are several new characters I would like to see more of such as Spider-Punk and several of the Spider-kids.

I don't know. It's fun, but I can see why people get obsessive. You almost have to be obsessed to keep it all straight.

Week 18: 5/3/2020 - 5/9/2020

Well in terms of getting back into the reading, this week was definite progress. I cleared something like six titles. I tailed off at the end of the week but it is still progress. That being said I'm largely leaving the list alone and continuing on with it in the next week.

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty (Finished 5/5/2020)
3. The Gauntlet by Eoin Colfer
4. Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney
5. Alex & Eliza by Melissa de la Cruz
6. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
7. Spider-Geddon by Cristos Gage (Finished 5/4/2020)
8. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
9. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
10. March: Book One by John Lewis (Finished 5/5/2020)
11. March: Book Two by John Lewis (Finished 5/5/2020)
12. March: Book Three by John Lewis (Finished 5/6/2020)
13. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
14. Zomb-B: Gladiator by Darren Shan (Finished 5/6/2020)
15. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Rewrites

Ok, so if the author of a series of novels kept rewriting their basic concept over and over into different versions we'd all be annoyed. Yet, when they do it in comic books, we love it. Is it the visual nature of the medium or the simple longevity of the property that makes it acceptable?

I bring this up because I'm currently reading through Spider-Gwen which is a rewrite of Spider Man. There's at least a half dozen versions of Spider Man/Spider Woman/ Spider Girl/Spider Ham floating around currently. All of the old comic book properties have had similar rebirths.

I suppose that it isn't just comic books that get away with this, but I can't think of anything else currently that just get's to rewrite the backstory of its characters.

Experiments in Tailored Book Recommendations

On the week that we heard from the school that we were all moving to distance learning to support social distancing, I signed up for a somewhat unusual book service: mytbr.co . I've been getting ads through Bookriot for it for a while and it always intrigued me. This is a service where people, they call them bibliologists, look at a person's interests, reading lists, and stated goals and then recommend them books.

On one level, I look at a thing like this and go - "I'm surrounded by books I need to get around to reading, why would I need someone to recommend me yet more books." Except, I get into ruts. I read the same, albeit large, group of authors and then I read the books that my students or friends recommend to me. Everything else is rather catch as catch can. So, on a completely different level, even though I'm sitting among piles of books, having someone recommend me books with the instructions of getting me out of my rut seems like an intriguing idea.

When faced by the prospect of weeks upon weeks of social distancing and isolation, I decided it was a good time to try it out and hopefully vary my reading menu. I signed up for the service, filled out the questionnaire, linked them to my goodreads profile and set about waiting. I did not wait patiently.

Two weeks later, my personal bibliologist, Amanda, sent me a letter with three recommendations in it. (If I was willing to pay more, they would have also sent me the books from an independent bookstore in Portland, ME, but I like sourcing my own books.) I had only vaguely heard of one of titles at all, through ads on bookriot, and they all sounded interesting. So far, so good. I've read all three of the books now.

The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James -This one (particularly the twist at the end) made my skin crawl, in a good way. It was recommended to me in part because I said in my form that I like gothic romances, and I do. (I just don't read them much any more.) True to the genre, it is quite eerie. I found myself really liking both of the female protagonists: Alice and Rachel. Alice is so horribly tragic. She becomes a governess for a creepy set of twins (Edward and Constance) out in the isolated countryside in postwar Britain. Rachel is a modern day gallery owner who inherits by surprise the same estate that Alice works at. Both characters struggle with love in some way in this weird spooky house and are betrayed by the men they love. The juxtaposition of the two betrayals -- Alice being betrayed by Jonathan de Grey out of a twisted kindness and Aaron's betrayal of Rachel for decidedly nefarious reasons-- made for an interesting kind of contrast that gets the reader questioning the nature of the house's curse. Despite being a creepy twin, I loved how ultimately sympathetic Constance ended up being too.

Reading this had me thinking of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. I'm going to have to go do a reread.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid - I plowed through this one pretty quickly and finished it feeling pretty pissed off and unsettled. Don't get me wrong it's a good book and an engaging story but I find the racial issues frustrating from all angles and at its core that's what this book is really about. Emira is black and is a nanny for a wealthy white family - the Chamberlains. Frankly, I found the treatment of Alix Chamberlain, the mother, completely unfair up until the second to last chapter where a flashback sort of turns the context of what is happening with her on its ear.  I mean sure she was awkward, misguided, and self-deluded all the way through, but she came across as well intentioned for most of the book, if very cringe inducing to read. So watching her get shamed was very uncomfortable. Without the flashback in the second to last chapter, it just felt like I was watching a tragically insecure person getting bashed.  That flashback changes everything; I wish it had been included earlier in the text. Having a more complete understanding of Alix's past actually changed the lense through which I viewed her and made her actions through the book both more tragic and more suspect. I like Emira but she just seemed so...passive most of the time. It seemed like she was being encouraged to be indignant and appalled by her friends when she didn't really feel that way and when her friends didn't really have the full picture.

 It got under my skin - obviously. Good art does that, so mission achieved I guess. However, I can't honestly say I enjoyed it. I found it a valuable read because it challenged my thinking, which is always a good thing from time to time.

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - This took me a good second to really get into and I can't imagine why because it is excellent. I already have the Stiletto on the way to read. Myfanwy Thomas wakes up alone in the rain without her memory and a series of letters from her previous self (who apparently knew this was going to happen). The whole narrative is a process of the character figuring out what is going on. This felt like a spy novel set in a supernatural world. I liked the gritty feel of the world and how sassy Myfanwy was. O'Malley really didn't pull any punches with the violence or ick factor which is refreshing in something like this. It did get a little crazy how bizarrely lucky Myfanwy kept getting though.

The complexity of the world reminded me very much of the The Bone Season Series by Samantha Shannon.

All in all, this was a good set of recommendations. Two of the three were excellent. I really enjoyed them. The third was a good book, even if I didn't really enjoy it. I did have a strong emotional reaction to it partly because it does a good job of capturing the complexities of a problem that I personally find very frustrating. Whether or not I enjoyed reading it, it did do an excellent job with its material.

Week - whatever it is now 4/26/2020 - 5/2/2020

I took a break from reading over spring break and it expanded. I started by not reading and soon I wasn't writing. I did a lot of cooking and yard work, but it's kind of like my brain stuttered to a stop. I suppose a little of that is a good thing, but pretty soon I got that old itch that just made me look for something wrong.

So I'm picking things back up and I'm getting back into the swing. No more turning into a puddle in the absence of social contact. Sometimes I think my whole memory is stitched together by my reading. I'm living through an incredibly turbulent period of time and I worry that when some one asks me about it, I'll wonder what I was reading. Kidding, but only a little. I really do tend to remember what was going on when I read a given book. I've read maybe one book in the last three weeks.

I shall soon go insane if I don't turn it around.

So, list. Here is a long-ish list full of easily digestible reads to get my pallet warmed up:

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty
3. The Gauntlet by Eoin Colfer
4. Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney
5. Alex & Eliza by Melissa de la Cruz
6. The Game of Lives by James Dashner
7. Spider-Geddon by Cristos Gage
8. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (Finished 4/28/2020)
9. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
10. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
11. Spider-Gwen: Predators (4) by Jason Latour (Finished 4/28/2020)
12. Spider-Gwen: Gwendom (5) by Jason Latour (Finished 4/28/2020)
13. Spider-Gwen: The Life of Gwen Stacy (6) by Jason Latour (Finished 4/28/2020)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis
15. March: Book Two by John Lewis
16. March: Book Three by John Lewis
17. Edge of Spider-Geddon by Jed MacKay (Finished 4/30/2020)
18. Sally Lockhart Mystery: The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman (Finished 4/29/2020)
19. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
20. Zomb-B: Gladiator by Darren Shan

I will read as many of these as fast as I can. I make no commitment to sticking with this next week. Most of these are really short and heavy on graphic novels and YA, the point of this is to get the fly wheel goin.

Week 13: 3/29 - 4/4

In terms of reading, this was a pretty good week. Trump extended out the Social Distancing advisory out til April 30 so this 40 book list I started last week (now 36) seems less ridiculous than it did. If I keep a rate of 4 books a week, that's 10 weeks or the end of May. If I average 5 books a week, that's only 8 weeks. I'll probably get tired of reading from the list somewhere in there and change it up. In any case, this is beginning to look like we are settling in for the long haul.

I've already talked a bit about my reading from last week, and I'm saving The Woman in the Mirror for a later group post, so I'll leave this with just one micro review.

Internment by Samira Ahmed is a book that came out in the last couple of years and that one of my coworkers highly recommended. This falls nicely into the area of speculative fiction. It isn't quite mainstream because it posits either an alternate present or a near future where something has happened so that non-Muslim Americans have turned against Muslim Americans and rounded them up in internment camps. The main character, Layla, is a teen-aged spitfire who has a natural flare for resistance. While the adults are more or less willing to go with the flow and try to wait out the camps, the teens band together to make their plight visible and heard.

This is a book that is making a point. It does a good job of pointing out the kind of thinking that lets a populace go along with blatant prejudice and the thinking of the members of the minority that lets it happen to them. There is always a sense of "but that couldn't happen here, it couldn't happen to me" that lets people ignore horrible things happening right in front of their faces. Internment also does a good job of examining the realities of confining a whole group of people. Regardless of intention (assuming there are positive intentions in there), it's a situation that lends itself to abuse. At the core, it is an act that allows a group of people to be judged based on some sort of arbitrary factor instead of who they are as individuals, which is wrong. I suspect that kind of thinking is the easiest way for an average person to become evil because it's not about hate really; it's about fear. Anyone can be afraid.

There are a lot of good things about Internment, but the writing was uneven and the plot a little forced. It's a book that could have really used more space to develop.  Given space to develop the secondary characters, a lot of the odd moments would have felt more genuine.

Plague List 2020:

1. Mosquitoland by David Arnold
2. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
3. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty
4. The Deceivers by Alfred Bester
5. White Cat by Holly Black
6. Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
7. The Gauntlet by Eoin Colfer
8. Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney
9. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
10. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
11. The Circle by Dave Eggers
12. Riverworld and Other Stories by Philip Jose Farmer
13. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
14. Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle
15. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
16. Razor Hurst by Justine Larbalestier
17. March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
18. March: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
19. March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
20. Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt
21. Edge of Spider-Geddon by Marvel Authors
22. Spider-Geggon by Marvel Authors
23. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
24. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
25. Here, There Be Dragons by James Owen
26. The Search for the Red Dragon by  James Owen
27. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
28. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
29. Miles Morales Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds (Finished 3/30/2020)
30. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
31. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
32. The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas
33. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
34. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
35. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
36. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Week 2 of Distance Learning Done

I find myself oddly optimistic. This whole situation is weird and scary. I worry about my students and family, but so far no one is sick. 

Teaching at a distance is oddly exhausting for both the teachers and the students. Everyone is showing the strain, but at the same time we are all really pulling together. You'd think sitting in my rocker teaching class would be easier, especially since I have the afternoons off. However, the reality is that we spend a lot more time retooling the lessons and even though the "hangouts" help with delivery, it's not the same. It's hard to track what's going on with the students and I know it's hard for them to track as well. We spend those afternoons reteaching, tutoring, grading, and communicating with students and parents. It's hard.

And yet, some of the students seem to be embracing this new format. I wouldn't hesitate to go back to the traditional classroom, but this could definitely be worse.

On a more personal level, I'm going stir crazy but I'm also really enjoying some aspects of this. I'm getting to cook more and read more.

Thomas is struggling some with the change in routine and the lack of activity. But he's adjusting as we all are.

Life moves on, as always.

Comic Book Plot Lines: Spider-Verse

Something weird happened in the 80's and 90's to comic plots; they went completely bonkers. Superman is dead! Superman is alive again! Superman is from an alternate evil reality! Miss an issue and you are completely lost. Like many of my exact age group, we just didn't get hooked into superhero comics until they calmed down some (or at least we had reasonable reading guides available online).

Honestly, as much as I like graphic novels as a form of literature, I still don't read superhero comics much.

And then "Into the Spider-Verse" captivated me. Once it came out on Netflix, I watched the thing on a loop for a solid week. In response to this, Ryan started buying up copies of the related comic book collections. I think, in part, he just wanted to watch something other than Miles Morales on the T.V. thwipping around and learning how to be a hero. In hindsight, I can't blame him...I was obsessed.

The first big block of books came in for my birthday and he's been supplementing them as I move forward in the various series. I'm still working at it because in order to read the related material for that one movie, it involves reading hundreds of pages of graphic novel across a half dozen inter-related and inter-connected series. Get far enough along and you start getting into even more related series all of which are in the spider-verse. It's an aracnoplosion. :-P

I just finally got through the Spider-Verse collection which is this 648 page tome of crazy. There are all these alternate dimension spider people grouping up and splitting off to take on various tasks while being pursued by a family of energy vampires who want to destroy them. It sounds crazy complicated and it is crazy complicated but someone on that writing team is a plotting genius because it all works and is fun to read.

My only potential criticism is in how they cut all the various stories together. The editor (or whoever) decided to streamline the main plot line and push all the side missions off to the second half of the book. So the "story" is resolved about half way through the book and the rest of it, dips backwards into the narrative at several points to what groups of spiders were off doing in the meantime. It works, but I think it would have been better to read it all a little more chronologically. Maybe, it's hard to say. I guess the risk of that is losing the reader off down a branch and losing track of what is going on in the main story. *shrug*

Ok, so that's done and dusted, but I'm still not done reading all the Spider-Verse material. Back to it I guess.

Isolation

I've been thinking lately about isolation as a concept.  Obviously we are all experiencing some degree of isolation while waiting out COVID-19. In my somewhat suspect sense of timing the first book I picked up off my list is Internment by Samira Ahmed which presents a near future where a prejudiced government rounds up all the Muslims and sticks them in internment camps which is another form of isolation.

Isolation is interesting as a device because it doesn't need to be literal physical isolation. Isolation can be an internal feeling or a social dynamic. A person can be isolated while within a crowd because it's about the lack of connection between people. It's hard to write a story about isolation. The plot tends to become more internal to the characters but I was thinking about books that feature isolation as a major component to the narrative.

Shipwreck stories are an obvious area. Robinson Crusoe, obviously. But Life of Pi by Martel as well, I suspect (I haven't read it yet.)

There's also Speak by Laura Halse Anderson which is a case of social isolation of a rape survivor.

We have always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson relies on isolation for its spookiness. Stephen King has also used isolation to create tension. Misery is a prime example of this.

There has to be more....thoughts?

Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

It's always sad when a movie adaptation of a series of books fails, and it is particularly frustrating when the series fails right before the last movie. tsk. tsk.

The books themselves are actually an excellent example of the dystopian sci fi trend in YA literature. Most people point to Hunger Games as the prime example, but even though I think Hunger Games is a better book than Divergent, the Divergent Series is stronger over all than the Hunger Game Series. Warning: while I try to avoid huge spoilers here, it is the nature of the beast that there will be a few unavoidably.

Divergent, the first book in the series, sets the stage of a future Chicago shut off from the rest of the world. The populace is split into five factions that each promote a specific virtue. Abnegation values selflessness, Candor values honesty, Dauntless values bravery, Erudite values intelligence, and Amity values peaceful coexistence. Each member of the community goes through a test that is supposed to determine which faction they should be in. The main character Beatrice is born in Abnegation but chooses to switch to Dauntless when she is 16 after finding out during the test that her brain isn't wired for any of the factions making her something called "Divergent". Most of the book is her training process and realizing that there is something sinister to the tensions between Abnegation and Erudite concerning the governing of the community.

All the writing is from Beatrice's, or Tris's as she becomes, point of view. The narration is straight-forward and easy to follow. While there is a healthy does of intrigue, Tris feels like a pawn pushed around by much more powerful members of the community which is appropriate for the story. That being said, there are plenty of hints about the bigger picture that lay the groundwork for the next two books.

Insurgent comes next. Abnegation is decimated and Dauntless is split. Tris is on the run with Four, her brother, and a couple others. Erudite hunts them and they seek sanctuary first with Amity and then Candor. Why would Erudite hunt them? Because they are Divergent which is presented as a quality that could become a downfall of there society. A mystery emerges surrounding the divergent and information held in trust by Abnegation. Somehow the leader of Erudite comes to find out this secret which leads to a lot of the events of the first book. Tris and Four have a new mission but their relationship is strained by a mutual lack of honesty.

This book is also solely from the point of view of Tris. It is structured more like a crime caper in some ways. The characters are constantly on the move and having to react. There are a couple of rough scenes in it when Tris is captured, but mostly it is a solid easy read that does an excellent job of continuing the character arcs of Tris, Four, Peter (bad guy from book one), and Tris's brother Caleb.

Allegiant is the third book in the series and up until this last week the only one I hadn't read. I have a student in my first period class who was doing a reread and inspired me to bump the book up my to-read list which is why the massive reread. In this book we finally find out what is outside the boarders of future dystopian Chicago. It's an odd sort of the inside reflects the outside situation and Tris finds herself in conflict once again. Additionally, Four finds pieces of his core identity challenged in a way that rocks their whole relationship and his relationship with their friends.

The point of view in this book shifts between Four and Tris. It is always tough to end a series like this in a world where there are plenty of unhappy endings. A writer's job, therefore, is to make the deaths of beloved characters meaningful which can be hard. This is where the Hunger Game Series went seriously off track. Roth pulls it off though and this is an excellent read straight through to the end.

Overall, this is a good series. It's just a shame what happened to the movies. The first movie sticks pretty close to the book and the changes make sense in the interest of preserving the plot while reducing the amount of time needed for the movie. The second movie, though, makes huge shifts in the plot and introduces whole elements that aren't in the books. Taking a step back from it, I think I can see what they were trying to do, but I think it simplified in a way that detracted from the character development that was such a strength in the books.

I haven't watched the first Allegiant movie yet. I'm actually strangely hesitant to do so since I know they will never finish off the story. Again, sad.

Week 12: 3/22 - 3/28

It is strange how exhausting teaching from home is. It's difficult to separate home from life. The kids struggle too. The disruption of routine makes even easy things hard to do.

I too am feeling the difficulty of disruption. It's difficult sometimes to get moving and everything feels floaty. Time is just passing. Obviously, I'm running classes but it's all very surreal.

I've decided to run home to old patterns and created a mega list. 40 books to read during "the plague". It feels a little like living in The Decameron.  Obviously, I'm not going to get all through this list if we go back to class by April 13, but it'll give me something to work through. I'll try to get the writing going again too.

Plague List 2020:

1. Internment by Samira Ahmed (Finished 3/25/2020)
2. Mosquitoland by David Arnold
3. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
4. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty
5. Spider-Man/Spider-Gwen: Sitting in a Tree by Brian Michael Bendis and Jason Latour (Finished 3/25/2020)
6. The Deceivers by Alfred Bester
7. White Cat by Holly Black
8. Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
9. The Gauntlet by Eoin Colfer
10. Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney
11. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
12. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
13. The Circle by Dave Eggers
14. Riverworld and Other Stories by Philip Jose Farmer
15. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
16. The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James (Finished 3/25/2020)
17. Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle
18. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
19. Razor Hurst by Justine Larbalestier
20. March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
21. March: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
22. March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
23. Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt
24. Edge of Spider-Geddon by Marvel Authors
25. Spider-Geggon by Marvel Authors
26. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
27. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
28. Here, There Be Dragons by James Owen
29. The Search for the Red Dragon by  James Owen
30. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
31. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
32. Miles Morales Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds
33. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
34. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
35. Spider-Verse by Dan Slott (Finished 3/25/2020)
36. The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas
37. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
38. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
39. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
40. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Week 11: 3/15/2020-3/21/2020

I think we can all agree that it has been a crazy week, beyond crazy really. With all that's happening with COVID-19 and the media, it really feels like I've stepped into one of my sci-fi novels. We, in the teaching world, have been scrambling to create online learning environments to keep the learning together going for our students.

It's going to be an interesting time and probably a bit tough going for us for a while. We'll get through it, of course, but it makes me think on how this must be affecting others. This is going to be a difficult time for many and if/when public transit shuts down, I worry for people living in Atlanta's food deserts. This isn't the easiest city to navigate at best of times. 

I think maintaining routines and a sense of normalcy is going to be important for everyone, so here's my list. As predicted there's a lot of overlap from the previous one.

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. Spider-Man/Spider-Gwen: Sitting in a Tree by Brian Michael Bendis and Jason Latour
3. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
4. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
5. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
6. Razor Hurst by Justine Larbalestier
7. Edge of Spider Verse by Marvel Authors (Finished 3/19/2020)
8. Spider-Verse by Marvel Authors
9. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
10. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
11. Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Finished 3/18/2020)
12. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
13. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
14. Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. Smith (Finished 3/19/2020)
15. The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas
16. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Shakespeare Tavern - Much Ado About Nothing

My husband and I planned to see two members of the Pogues play a concert last night. It got cancelled due to concerns with Covid-19. Since we already had a sitter set up, we looked for a an alternate venue.

We ended up at the Shakespeare Tavern for the preview night of "Much Ado About Nothing". It was hilarious, absolutely worth having to work today on four and a half hours of sleep. I know everyone is worried about illness, but this was full of much needed and well acted levity. It could get shut down at any point so hurry up and go see it while you can.

https://www.shakespearetavern.com/index.php?/performances/show/much_ado_march_2020/

Guilty Secrets

I have a deep dark secret and I feel oddly shamed by it.

I love teen romances. There, I said it.

I've spent most my live mocking people who read these things. I've snorted at the sap-factor, and chortled at the cheese. Then I read one because a student insisted that it was good and I always read a book a student recommends. I liked it too. I never thought I would, but it was actually really good and sweet in a way that didn't rot my teeth.

These books offer more than watered-down regency romance. I think most of the mainstream romance market is either focused on sex or a heavy dose of cynicism. It's always the wounded heroine finds love in spite of her deep seated mistrust of love. Or, wounded bitter man needs the love of a sweeter more optimistic younger woman to remind him what is good in life. Or whatever... add a sex scene to a book and the plot diagram can get even more ridiculous.

I reject the idea that love is necessarily about sex and it doesn't need to be cynical at any age. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed my fair share of tawdry romance novels but the stories don't end up being all that interesting really.

Teen romances are different. It's all about the characters with these. The relationships tend to be more focused on emotion and character development. Sex rarely enters into it, and if it does, it's a side note. In many ways, these books are the natural inheritors of the gothic romance. Ok yes, they are a little sappy and a little saccharine, but in a pleasant way.

Here's my top 6 +1 list for authors in this genre:

1. Nelson Jandy - Not the most prolific of authors, but I'll Give You the Sun made me ugly cry. That doesn't sound like much of an endorsement in hindsight, but honestly a good cry now and then is cleansing. The Sky is Everywhere  is her big romance and it's a messy gorgeous story about a teen recovering from the loss of her older sister and the complicated emotions that come out of that kind of grief. 
2. E. Lockhart - What I like about Lockhart is that her characters struggle with themselves. They aren't deeply wounded or deeply flawed. They are just very real feeling teenagers dealing with teenager stuff. There's something nice about that and the characters are appealing for the exact way they reflect an iconically normal teenage experience.
3. Sandhya Menon - Embrace the culture shock. I love Menon's books because she does an excellent job writing romances that involve Indian cultural expectations. I think most non Indians have a hard time wrapping their heads around the viability of arranged marriages. Menon writes these beautiful sweet books where her characters struggle with integrating Indian culture in Western culture. Her characters are vibrant and totally believable and,through her writing, I feel I'm closer to understanding.
4. Rainbow Rowell - Ok, this is a guilty pleasure. I haven't read anywhere near all the books she's written but I love how she writes about us geeks in love. I think I love them because I find myself in them. It's beautiful dorky love among the nerds.
5. Nic Stone -  A newish author, and not everything she writes has a romance angle. However, Stone earns a place on my list for Odd One Out which takes on romantic relationships in the increasingly non-binary world we live in. Both her books are excellent though.
6. Nicola Yoon - Her books make me cry. Every. Single. Damn. Time. So far she's written two: The Sun is Also a Star and Everything, Everything. The Sun is Also a Star might be the most emotionally devastating book that I've ever read. 

+1. John Green - Green doesn't really write romances. He writes anti-romances which isn't as negative as it sounds. Most of his books involve some character dealing with crush fall out in some direction. I've never read a book from him that I didn't love and I put him in this list because sometimes the romance doesn't work or simply fails to launch and that's a good story too.

For the purposes of this list I didn't include any genre authors and I admit to my neophyte status.

Week 9 & 10 - 3/1/2020-3/14/2020

Ok, folks.  It turns out that having a cold-slash-sinus infection for three solid weeks will derail most plans. I feel (at the moment) as though the ick is finally over, so I'm going to, tentatively, restart my projects. I realize I've said this several times already this calendar year, but in my defense, I apparently was in denial about having "the plague." Hopefully, this time I will stay healthy and be able to keep things going.

So in the interest of keeping things moving here's what I've read in the past week and what's on the list for the rest of this one. I'll do my spot reviews in the next couple days.

1. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
2. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
3. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
4. A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King (Finished 3/9/2020)
5. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
6. Razor Hurst by Justine Larbalestier
7. Spider Gwen: Most Wanted by Jason Latour et al (Finished 3/10/2020)
8. Spider Gwen: Greater Power by Jason Latour et al (Finished 3/10/2020)
9. Spider Women! by Robbie Thompson et al (Finished 3/11/2020)
10. Spider Gwen: Weapon of Choice by Jason Latour et al (Finished 3/11/2020)
11. Spider Gwen: Long Distance by Jason Latour et al (Finished 3/12/2020)
12. There's Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon (Finished 2/25/2020)
13. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
14. Divergent by Veronica Roth (Finished 3/4/2020)
15. Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Finished 3/6/2020)
16. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
17. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
18. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
19. The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas
20. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Obviously, this is a ridiculously long list. Some of them are quick reads - Some are new acquisitions for my school library. In any case, I predict that I will continue working this list into week 11. According to Good Reads, I'm about 9 book behind pace, so I'm due for a catch up week week . . . or two.

Is It Possible...?

to overdose on reading? I've read four books in three days and I feel kind of . . . stuffed. Like overfull in the head space. My emotions are all really close to the surface and I have a bad case of the fidgets. Of course there are signs that I also have another cold creeping up on me, maybe that's what's going on with me. Maybe not.

I guess at a certain point, the brain just shuts down and can't take in any more information. I haven't hit that point yet but I remember it from college. The brain just gets tired and I think I'd have a hard time getting to that point with YA, but then maybe I underestimate it.

I think it's time for a day off reading, clear off the cobwebs and get other things done. Hopefully, I will feel more like myself tomorrow.

Power Reading

There is something satisfying about powering through books. In the last two days I've finished three books. Now these aren't significant works. No one, probably, read these books and said "ah, yes! My life is now changed." Yet, does that matter? Reading leads to more reading. It's a habit that propagates itself.

So, no. It doesn't matter. All reading is good and it doesn't matter the material. I get so sick of people book-shaming themselves and my kids. A book read, even if it is vapid mind candy, is worth more than a book gathering dust on a shelf. That book could be the most heart rending beautiful piece of literature ever written, but if it isn't read - it is still just a hunk of paper. The value is in the reading.

I'm currently working my way through Darren Shan's Zom-B series. This is teen horror. The books are all short (150-180 pages) and features short chapters and plenty of white space on the page. The narratives are straight forward and full of violence and gore. Seems like fluff, right? Sure, it is. However, hidden in there are things like dealing with racism and prejudice, handling loss, and navigating morally grey situations.

This isn't high literature. Not by a long shot, but it is worthwhile and it has one my most difficult to entice readers, reading it. One book read is worth ten sitting on the shelf.

Week 8: 2/23/2020 - 2/29/2020

Hey so it's a leap year this year....that's cool. Leap years always make me think of the Pirates of Penzance. What would it be like to be born on February 29th... probably pretty boring.

It' was a pretty nothing week for goals all around. Writing was a zero and I spent most of the week picking at the Dashner novel. I finally finished it today. So, yeah. Struggling to get back on that horse...so to speak. Oh well, a new week means a new chance to succeed.

I'm giving myself a bigger than usual list with the hope that the added variety will get me on a book a day routine for a catch up week... We'll see. I also need to clear the decks on some things, so either they get read this week or they get shelved.

Here it is:

1. The Rule of Thoughts by James Dashner (Finished 2/23/2020)
2. Riverworld and Other Stories by Philip Jose Farmer
3. The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto
4. A Time of Angels by Karen Hesse
5. Fantasy Stories Chosen by Diana Wynne Jones
6. A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King
7. There's Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon (Finished 2/25/2020)
8. Zom-B: Angels by Darren Shan (Finished 2/24/2020)
9. Zom-B: Baby by Darren Shan (Finished 2/24/2020)
10. Love Soup by Anna Thomas
11. Where Do you Get Your Ideas? by Fred White

Week 7: 2/16/2020 - 2/22/2020

lol, so for all that I started out well, I followed up my first day by getting slammed with a sinus infection. Yesterday was the first day I woke up feeling completely healthy. It wasn't a good week for goals, but I'm going to cut myself some slack and start in on the writing habits tomorrow. I did manage to keep up on my reading though and finished four books.

Darkest Light by Hiromi Goto - this is the follow up to Half World. After Melanie returns to the normal world with the baby Gee, he grows into a teenager. However, it would be a bit much to expect kid to shed all the effects of a millennia spent as a monster. Eventually, he has to return to Half World to deal with his origin. This is a case where a sequel is stronger than the first book. Gee is an easier protagonist to relate to and his internal struggle felt more real than Melanie's did. While there are still flaws in the plot, and it is still a little heavy on exposition, this is a much more polished work.

The Underdog and Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak - after accidently reading the third book in the series, I had to go back and read the first two. It wasn't a hardship and they are very short. I'm not generally a fan of slice of life stories, but these are really good. All three books are from the POV of Cameron Wolfe, who is the youngest of three boys growing up working class in Australia.

In Underdogs, Ruben and Cameron are sort of these punk kids with no direction and no motivation to find one until Cameron starts working with his dad on Saturdays and meets what appears to be his first real crush. He is instantly smitten and thinks about her obsessively. The book is really about Cameron coming to terms with himself .

Fighting Ruben Wolfe is about slightly older Wolfe boys. A high school hall fight defending his sister's honor brings Ruben to the attention of a shady underground boxing promoter. Both he and Cameron start fighting on Sundays. At first, they tell themselves that they are helping out the family finances, but eventually it becomes something that they are doing with and for each other. There is a beautiful story in here about being brothers and what that means, but with a slice of life narrative, there is obviously much more than just that going on.

I'm really surprised by how much I liked these books. It isn't what I usually go for, but I would easily recommend these books to others.

Spider Man Noir: The Complete Collection - this was next in my read through of the Spiderverse books and much easier going for me than Spider-Ham. This is like a Dashiell Hammett make-over on the Spider Man stories. Set in a gritter pre-WWII world, this Spider Man wields a gun and takes human life. The villains are all speak-easy thugs and crime bosses. I loved it. It's a far cry from the awkward pimply teenaged hero that I'm accustomed to, but it still holds onto some of the odd naive do-good aesthetic.

I'm really not sure how next week is going to go. I've been reading in spurts instead of consistently. I'm not sure if there is a problem with that or not, but it bears watching. So the list:

1. The Rule of Thoughts by James Dashner
2. The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto
3. A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King
4. There's Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon
5. Love Soup by Anna Thomas
6. Where Do you Get Your Ideas? by Fred White

Day 1: Establishing Habits

Not an awsome day for starting a project. I'm having a hard time kicking my cold and I'm frankly just not feeling it. Nevertheless, here I am...writing. Yup. Writing. Spilling forth the creative powers of my brain on to the page.

Powerful powers.

Creative ones.

Yeah.

Not feeling it.

Anyway. So far so good. I'm not super loving the sequel to Half World. I do like Gee as a protagonist a great deal more than I liked Melanie though. I think he's more relatable, and less self-shaming.

Week 6: 2/9/2020 - 2/15/2020

Well up til I was felled by the cold to end all colds Thursday night, it was a very good week for meeting goals. I managed about four books, completely toasted my reading synapses and then spent two days layed out but the cold. Writing went well too up to that point. I was getting writing done both in the morning and in the evening pretty comfortably. So, now I know it can be done.

They say any habit takes a month to establish. So let's make that the goal. One month: write in the AM, write in the PM, and read at least 100 pages every day.

Let's do this!

Last week's reading was like swimming with the flow; it was easy. At the same time, I found myself captured by some pretty difficult narratives.

Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak was a book I picked up randomly because I knew the author. In case it escapes you, this is the guy who wrote The Book Thief. Turns out Zusak is an Aussie, which surprised me for some reason.  Getting the Girl turns out to be the last book in a trilogy. There is no indication of this anywhere on the cover of the edition I have, and I only found out when I entered it into goodreads. (I have since bought the first two books in the series and will aim to read them this week)

So, ok Cameron Wolfe is the youngest of  four kids (three of which are boys.) He desperately wants to be with a girl. Sex is a part of it, but it's not the whole thing. This is the story of Cameron getting the girl...who happens to be his brother's ex.

This was a surprisingly difficult read to start out because a lot of the terminology was heavy on Aussie jargon. Once I got  used to it, after 20 pages or so) it was fine, but I'll probably have to pull it from my classroom library for that reason. I'll have to see how the first two books go. I should also note that I'm a much bigger fan of this book than The Book Thief.

Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop by Reginald Bakeley is a faux instruction manual for guarding against the faerie menace. It's presented as a series of articles published originally in Britain and republished as a group in the U.S. The articles are anecdotal in nature and the author, Bakeley, comes across as both angry and bitter. He even goes so far as to discuss cooking and eating the fairies that he captures which seems more than a little sinister. I finished it in a matter of a few hours. While it will never be my favorite things ever, the attention to detail was impressive and it was interesting how it hang together as a sort of narrative without telling a story in the traditional sense.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven was a gut punch that I blasted through in about a day and a half. It was an intense read that left me emotionally spent. I wrote a full review if you are interested.

Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider Ham: The Complete Collection Vol. 1. Alright, Ryan and Thomas got me this for my birthday after it was clear that I was a big fan of "Into the Spiderverse."  Peter Porker was my least favorite of the spider people. Came to find out that they took some pretty serious liberties with the character when they pulled him from the 1980's comic book. It's like he got a Warner Brothers make-over. The comic books are like reading a pun-riddled version of Spider Man filtered through Archie comics sensibilities. Honestly, that's why it took so long to get through. I liked it just fine, but I couldn't read more than a couple issues at a sitting. I'm really rather looking forward to reading these with Thomas. It's a fun introduction to most of the Marvel properties.

Ok, so next week I'm focusing on finishing a couple of series I started. Here's what's up:

1. Spider-Man Noir: The Complete Collection (Finished 2/13/2020)
2. Darkest Light by Hiromi Goto (Finished 2/12/2020)
3. Fantasy Stories edited by Diana Wynne Jones
4. Where Do You Get Your Ideas? by Fred White 
5. The Underdog by Markus Zusak (Finished 2/12/2020)
6. Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

This book wrecked me. I spent a time period greater than 30 minutes crying my eyes out as I finished reading the last chapters. I didn't really know what this book was about when I picked it up. I bought it for my classroom library because it won a Goodreads Choice award.  I generally trust the Goodread awards when it comes to YA (some of the other categories not so much.)

So, when I stuck it on the list for this week all I really knew was that it was a romance of some sort and that it was probably good.

Both of these things are true.

What I didn't know, though, is pretty important if you are handing it to a teen. This is the story of Violet and Finch who meet one day at school while they both independently consider throwing themselves off of the school's belltower. Violet is pretty normal for a kid who survived a car wreck that killed her older sister. She's pretty messed up, obviously. Finch is something else. Obviously he's got some problems, but it's not immediately clear why he's on that roof. However, he talks Violet down from the ledge and is immediately smitten. Violet not so much, however she is cured of her suicidal tendencies.

Finch pursues Violet and over the course of the novel it becomes clear that he's an undiagnosed bipolar.

The story is told from the point of view of both Violet and Finch. It's pretty raw in many places and it ends tragically. It's a tough read from an emotional point of view, but it's a good one.

This is valuable in my library because it explores bipolar disorder in a compassionate way. I don't know if it is actually like this, but it matches up with what I know. I have/have had bipolar students and much of this felt familiar. This is also valuable because it takes on the issue of suicide in a comprehensive way. Suicide is something that tends to generate some pretty binary and judgemental attitudes. While I would never be in a position of condoning suicide, I also know enough that I realize that it's never a simple choice and that the families left behind need more support even though the tendency is to stigmatise. This book does an excellent job of exploring that.

I will never read this book again.

Maybe you should go read it.

4 for four

ok, that's it. I've finished four books in four days. My brain is feeling kind of toasty and I think I need a break. I followed up my death marathon by finishing Volume 1 of Spider Ham which amounts to a kind of tonal whiplash.

I'm going to take a day off and try to remember what I do when I'm not binge reading. All that's left on my weekly list is a Stephen King novel and a writing book neither of which look to be particularly quick reads.

What is it I do when I'm not reading...

The Cautionary Aspects of the Prodigal Son

I teach the parable of "The Prodigal Son" every year in British Literature. I hate that parable. I get the point of it, but I can't help feeling a great deal of empathy for the older brother.  In the preamble to the parable Jesus says:

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." (Luke 15:7)

This suggests that the most valuable act, and therefore the harder act, is to admit being wrong and repenting it. However, I think that many times the harder thing is to do the correct thing day in and day out. The older brother does the right thing every day and ends up feeling unvalued. This is always a point of great debate in my classes, which is fun. The seniors get pretty impassioned about it.

So in terms as being a just a person - I sympathise with the older brother. However, when I think about getting my students to read, I find a different perspective. I have plenty of students who come to me already reading on their own. They know what they like already and I enjoy talking to them about their reading. However, what gets me really excited is when a kid who doesn't enjoy reading has a breakthrough moment and finds a book they love. I teach for those moments. Nothing else quite feeds the soul of what I do, like being able to give a kid that experience.

So that's my one soul out of 99. However, what of the ninety-nine? What they are and what they do should be valued, I believe, on the same level even if it isn't as glamorous. It's a puzzle.

I hate that parable. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't more a cautionary tale about valuing the steady ones, than a story about forgiveness.

Leaps and Bounds

Yesterday morning I was six books behind my pacing goal, now I'm only four books behind. I've managed to read two books in two days. I won't be able to keep it up, I know, but it still feels pretty good.

It turns out I've been reading a lot of books heavy on the death. It's not intentional, just the way things have worked out. However, official note to self... find some happy things to read next week.

Week 5: 2/2/2020 - 2/8/2020

On the surface, this looks like another disappointing week. Of the three books I'm going to talk about today, one of them is a hold-over from the previous week. I'm six books behind pace, which feels like a large number at this point in the year. And yet it feels like I've made more progress over the last week than is immediately obvious. For one thing, I'm in the middle of three books which should start wrapping up soon. One of the books (Afterworlds) was just under 600 pages long and I've started gulping down reading again.

This week I will focus on building my writing back in, while holding onto the reading.

Half World by Hiromi Goto - This is something I picked up this year for my Fantasy Lit class, so it falls neatly into my exception about books related to professional life. Truly what I was looking for was a book that blended aspects of Japanese mythology into it's fantasy setting. While it does do that, Half World isn't the best example probably.  However, this is a very good book with an unconventional protagonist and an unusual premise. Melanie Tamaki is a child born of two beings which are strictly speaking what I would consider a type of ghost. In this world, spirits follow a three stage cycle of reincarnation. The human world is the realm of the flesh. When people die, their spirits go to the Half-World which is a kind of purgatory where the souls are purged of their trauma from life. They then go to the Realm of Spirit as pure spirits. When the spirits begin to fade, they are born again as humans. The realms are out of balance and require something impossible to happen to fix it. The characterization was vivid with even minor characters making a strong impression. It's a gritty, grim story with some irksome plot holes, but still very much worth a read. It turns out there is a sequel that I will have to track down.

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher - this is a book surrounded by notoriety. When Netflix aired a series based on this book, there was a lot of concern. There is always a lot of concern when "the kids" are deeply interested in something with difficult themes. In this case, suicide. I remember sitting in a staff meeting where the discussion had long since gotten out of hand and thinking - nobody writes about suicide as a good thing. Its narrative use is as a tragedy. Which isn't to say that a teen can't commit suicide with the misguided hope of causing tragedy, but that almost certainly wasn't the aim of book or the TV series adapted from it. Nevertheless, everyone was concerned but realized that we couldn't stop them from watching the thing and we all resolved to be super vigilant for the warning signs of a teen contemplating suicide (which as high school teachers we should do anyway.) In time, the hubbub died down and we all moved on. Sometime during all that, I bought a copy of the book for my classroom library with the intent of reading it just in case. I finally got around to it this last week. The entire premise of this book is that after Hannah Baker's suicide, a set of seven audio tapes are slowly making the rounds to the thirteen people who played some particularly important role in the last couple years of her life. We hear these tapes from the perspective of Clay Jensen who is number eight on the list. As he listens to the tapes we hear both her words and Clay's recollections of events while he crisscrosses town to visit the important places on the tape. Clay is a nice kid and he was personally devastated by Hannah's death. This is a good illustration of how the small events and everyday cruelties of highschool weigh a kid down. It was grim, it was gritty, but it ended on a hopeful note.

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld - At some point I decided that I would buy any book Scott Westerfeld writes for my classroom library...and because I just like the way his brain works. This is a massive book because it is really two 300 page novels shuffled together in alternating chapters. One book is about Darcy Patel who wrote a novel in a month and sold the draft to publisher for a massive amount. She's 18 and decides to delay college while she moves to New York and tries to be a writer for three years. The other book is the novel Darcy Patel wrote about a girl, Lizzie, who after nearly dying during a terrorist attack, gains the ability to cross over to the afterlife and guide souls on. She falls in love with another such person and discovers that her mother is haunted by the ghost of her childhood friend who was killed by a serial killer. It sounds like it should be a mess and hard to follow, yet strangely it all hangs together well and is an interesting insight to the writer's process of revision. Darcy's section is full of discussion about the Lizzie section. At some point I'm going to have to reread this for structure.

Heading into the next week, I'm still playing catch up and so much of the list is YA or otherwise very short. I'm having a startlingly difficult time getting through the complete volume 1 of Peter Porker.

1. Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham: The Complete Collection Vol 1 (Finished 2/5/2020)
2. Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop by Reginald Bakeley (Finished 2/3/2020)
3. Revival by Stephen King
4. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (Finished 2/4/2020)
5. Where Do You Get Your Ideas? by Fred White
6. Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak (Finished 2/2/2020)