Summing It Up: January

I liked writing the RMODB summaries at the end of each month last year so I've decided to write up little summaries of what I read each month this year, especially since I'm no longer writing full posts about every single book I read. It's also an easy type of post that I don't have to think too much about but that is also distracting. I need both of those things right now.

I listened to Betsy-Tacy and The Tale of Despereaux for the Top 100 Chapter Books Project over at The Estella Society. I only have three books left for the project (that I've been doing since September 2012) and they're all rereads (Pippi Longstocking, Anne of Green Gables, and Charlotte's Web). I already know they're all good so I'm looking forward to these comfort reads over the next month and a half.

I also listened to The Raven Boys (first in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle) and Wintersmith (third in Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series), both rereads and both definitely comfort reads. They are what is getting me through the horrors of being an American right now. In fact, I'm currently listening to I Shall Wear Midnight (book 4) and I just downloaded The Dream Thieves (book 2). Maybe when I'm done with these series I will start on Harry Potter or Thursday Next relistens!

I have a couple of review books to tell you about -- All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, Sea Change by Frank Viva, and Shadowsmith by Ross Mackenzie. They were all good for different reasons so I'll see if I can get posts written up in the next week or so to spread the good word!

Finally, I read The Old Curiosity Shop, my first new Dickens in a while, and I loved it. It was almost more like a Wilkie Collins book with its dark plot and vivid characters. I'm glad that this was the one I happened to pick up at the beginning of this month.

Right now I'm finishing up my first climate change book -- The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh. I have SO much to say about it so that will be another post you can look forward to soon. Reading about climate change from a non-Western perspective has made a huge different in how I think about it.

It really felt like I didn't read much this month but this isn't bad. I'm glad I took the time to gather this all together!

What was your favorite read of January?

Putting one foot ahead of the other,

K

New-ish Release: Ghostland

This past weekend I participated in the 24 in 48 Readathon and the book I started with turned out to be a great one and probably my favorite of the weekend -- Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey. On the surface, this is a collection of some of the different kinds of hauntings, grouped by the types of places where they happen -- private houses, commercial buildings, civic buildings and graveyards, and whole cities. The wonderful surprise of the book is the fact that Dickey talks mostly about the social reasons for believing in ghosts, the shortcomings of local folklore, the whitewashing of ghost stories, and other tangents. This was an incredible social science volume and I found a wealth of things to think about.

For example, one of the locations that claims to be highly haunted is an area of Richmond, Virginia called Shockoe Bottom, one of the two main ports for the reception and trade of slaves from Africa. It seems obvious that there would be copious amounts of pain and sadness in this area, right? But here's the catch. All of the ghost stories attached to local bars and stores are about WHITE ghosts. Yep. But Dickey is smart and so he spends almost all of the chapter talking about all of the horrors and history that could have/should have been preserved by ghostly means and only briefly mentions the actual stories that you will hear in Richmond. I loved this.

With very thoughtful assessments of asylums, prisons, and even religions, I couldn't get enough of this book and I plan to buy a copy (this was a library book) and use it as a launching place to learn more about some of these issues (ie, Spiritualism as a feminist movement, the history of Kirkbride psychiatric hospitals, and the haunting trope of "Indian burial grounds").

Digging up the past,
K

Announcing: #MarchMagics and #DWJMarch, 2017 Edition

On my post about Discworldathon, Lory and I were going back and forth in the comments about which Pratchett books we could focus on for this year's March Magics event. She suggested the Death books as nobody else on the schedule had chosen them and then, all of a sudden, I had a super fun idea!

(Sidenote: If you've somehow missed this event I host annually, DWJ March began in March 2012 as a celebration of Diana Wynne Jones and last year I added Terry Pratchett as he had passed the year before. I changed the name to March Magics but a few of us didn't want to let go of the DWJ March name so now it kind of has two names. I guess this is the 6th year of the event!)

I've wanted to focus DWJ March on Chrestomanci for a while and there are four main books and they happen to be about nine-lived enchanters. When paired with four of the five DEATH books (I'm skipping Hogfather since it will have its own celebration in December), we end up with ...

A Matter of Lives and DEATH

(My alternate event name was The Lives and DEATH Brigade ... Anyone #teamlogan out there?)

To give all of you enough time to dust off personal copies, shop, or get your library holds in on all eight books, here's the basic schedule:

Week 1: Charmed Life and Mort

Week 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant and Reaper Man

Week 3: Conrad's Fate and Soul Music

Week 4: The Pinhoe Egg and The Thief of Time

I'll post the actual dates for each book around the middle of February. Also, I would love to have guest posters to share thoughts, come up with discussion questions, or whatever else you think would be fun to do with any of these books. If you're interested in being in charge of one or more of these books, let me know in the comments or send me an email.

Are you excited about the theme this year? Will you try and read all eight books? How many will be rereads? (Seven of the eight will be rereads for me and I'm so excited!)

Feeling the magic building up,

K

Mid-January Update

I didn't want to get out of the habit of posting so here's a little look into what I've been doing so far this month.

The Raven Boys by Azeher on DeviantArt

I just finished a relisten of The Raven Boys and loved it more than I did the first time. I caught a lot of the clues that I wouldn't have known to look for before and I felt so much more for these characters that I now know. As soon as The Raven King comes out in paperback, I'll get a nice matchy set of the books to own (even though I ADORE them on audio).

I am just past the mid-point of The Old Curiosity Shop. I decided to start the year with a Dickens chunkster from my TBR and I'm not regretting the decision. It's a great story and I'm totally invested in finding out what will happen to Little Nell, Kit, and more.

And, finally, I'm working on a massive project with all of the CDs I've collected over the years. I have most of them stored away in boxes and the rest on a tower and the tower had accumulated a rickety stack of unfiled discs on top. So, I pulled out the boxes to file stuff away and realized that not all of the discs were on my server. Since I'm also getting ready to move my music to the cloud (if anyone has recommendations, let me know!), I decided to digitize everything. I'm done with the tower and halfway through the 16 boxes--did I mention that I worked at two different record stores when I was in my teens and 20s and took ample advantage of the employee discounts??--and it's taking forever but it's worth rediscovering things like rare tracks on singles.

Anyway, what have you all been up to? Any big home projects? Reading something fantastic? Making something beautiful?

Doing all of the things,

K

New Release: The Book Jumper

I know I'm posting a lot at the moment but I just checked the release date on this gem and it's TODAY in the US and I wanted to make sure that I helped spread the word about this fantastic new YA novel.

When I needed a book to get me happily reading again in early December, I spotted Mechthild Gläser's The Book Jumper on my review stack and couldn't resist the beautiful cover and intriguing title. Well, the premise is exactly what you might think it would be. Amy Lennox and her mother have had some tough times in Germany and so they retreat to the family estate on the island of Stormsay, a fictional Shetland Island off the coast of Scotland. What Amy doesn't know before going is that both the Lennox family and the other ancient family on the island, the Macalisters, while teens, can enter the book world and they have charged themselves with maintaining order and the integrity of the stories. Amy's grandmother sends her right off to book jumping lessons which she takes to immediately. At these lessons, she meets Betsy and Will Macalister and they all get involved in a mystery that is emerging both on the island and in the world of fiction. Who is stealing ideas and items from stories and why did the thief kill Sherlock Holmes?

Though you might be familiar with the idea of book jumping from Jasper Fforde's stellar Thursday Next series, its use in this story still feels fresh and unique. Amy is a girl damaged by bullying and she is more than ready to escape into fiction. The book world is fun for her but quickly becomes dangerous, just as the happenings in the real world become more mysterious and unexpected. It's a fantasy YA that still explores some very real issues.  I enjoyed just about everything about this book even though parts were bittersweet. I hope that more readers fall in love with it the way I have!

Trying to jump for the millionth time,

K

Announcing #Discworldathon

I keep meaning to mention a really cool event that this blog is actually going to be a part of in 2017! Bex of An Armchair By The Sea is hosting #Discworldathon through the entire year and I'm the March portion of it with #MarchMagics (and yes, #DWJMarch will still be happening as well ... don't worry!).

From Bex:

Whether you're an afficionado, a total newbie or somewhere in between you're more than welcome to join at any point throughout the year.

We have lots of fun bookish stuff in store for you and fellow bloggers will be hosting events throughout the year. If you'd be interested in hosting a readalong, themed month or anything else get in touch as there are a couple of hosting spots open still.

January starts at her blog and the entire schedule for the year is up as well. The readalong book for the month is Wyrd Sisters.

I'm not quite sure yet what my focus will be for March Magics but I'm thinking about Discworld short stories. There are some, right? ;)

In health (so not in Ankh Morpork),
K

New Year, Ahoy!

So, big lesson learned ... Don't Write My End of Year Post Right After Finishing Reading a Book About The Holocaust. I was not feeling my best or most positive last night when I finally sat down to write and I honestly couldn't really see the point of summing up such a disappointing year. But today I finished re-listening to A Hat Full of Sky, the second of Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series, and felt entirely different. I *want* to set goals for 2017. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to be the change.

“There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” - Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Today, I made some incredibly delicious banana bread, ran a bunch of errands, and decided to write this, my 1400th post for this blog! It's only 8:40pm on the west coast of the U.S. but I'm seeing lots of New Year's wishes coming in from around the world and it's giving me hope (as is the snow that is coming down). I grabbed a chunkster off of my TBR last night to start the new year with -- The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. In the coming year, I'm going to keep reading from my own shelves, throw in some library books that will expand my worldview and educate me, and find the causes that will benefit the most from my attention.

I know the days ahead are going to be up and down emotionally and intellectually but I really want to make an effort to push the balance toward hope, light, and love. I hope that you all will join me in this goal.

Resolving,
K