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What I read and watched in March
So. March. The month were a Monday was a perfectly ordinary day at work and then Wednesday the prime minister had a press conference and Thursday we all got sent to work-from-home. Which was okay for the first 1½ week and then suitable work-from-home work started drying up fast. So - starting tomorrow I'm spending what's left of this year's vacation. It was supposed to have been spent after Easter on a trip to New York, but, well - looking at the news, NY really isn't the place to be right now.
It still sucks.
I hope everybody's okay. Hiding at home or going to work, but staying healthy.
Books I've recently finished reading
Erin Morgenstern: The Starless Sea
This was a disappointment, since I actually enjoyed the author's previous book. This one - it has some references to Alice in Wonderland, but the most consistent feel I got from it was that it wanted very much to be a grown-up Neverending Story. Even the protagonist's name - while nowhere near Bastian - gave me that feel. And - it simply doesn't ever get there.
Julian Voloj & Henrik Rehr: Husk kilden når du drikker vandet
Rainbow Rowell: Wayward Son
This book - takes too long to get started, and while it has some nice moments (the main characters visiting a US renaissance faire was fun), it never really feels like it gets anywhere. It doesn't help that a lot of it felt like Rowell's critique of Rowling's magical America, which is fair enough - but reading a book by an American writing British characters visiting America gets - odd. I dunno. I also felt that - while it's actually interesting to see Baz interact with other vampires, the author really missed the chance of having that plot be balanced with Simon Snow interacting more with the dragon that seemed quite convinced he was a dragon hatchling. I think having the both of them offered serious alternatives to the world of Magick and working that out might have been interesting instead of the road trip plot (I am not in general a fan of road trip plots.)
Kousuke Oono: The Way of the Househusband vol. 1.
Amusing, but I really hope the second volume will start having a bit more plot. Scary yakuza doing household chores is fun for a few moments, but not an entire series.
Martha Wells: Exit Strategy
I am looking forward to the next book in this series.
Martha Wells: The Siren Depths
Martha Wells: The Edge of Worlds
Martha Wells: The Harbors of the Sun
I might have sneakily taken all these books home from work, on account of no other libraries being able to request them anyway. This series is fun - bisexual, dragon-ish shapeshifters and sundry other sentients in a world that isn't quite. Honestly, this feels less like straight-up fantasy to me and more like the setting for a planetary romance, just, without the visitor from another world.
Genevieve Cogman: The Secret Chapter
I do enjoy a good heist story. Also, the fact that most of the new characters were Fae and in this universe that means "embodying archetypes" meant that I could happily visualize them as some of my favourite tv show characters.
Ben Aaronovitch: A Rare Book of Cunning Device
Book might be a bit - it's a free audiobook of about 30 minutes length, featuring the investigation of what turns out to be a mechanical book hiding out in the British Library. Nice, but too short to be much of a story (though I always like the addition of a cool librarian character to a given canon.)
What I've recently watched
3. Totoro
Okay, strictly speaking that was february, but I forgot to add it to the post.
And - apart from that - lots of news? Well, and I've started watching Mo Dao Zu Shi, conveniently available with English subtitles on youtube. So far so good.
What I'm reading now:
Richard Morgan's Woken Furies, which takes far too long to start getting interesting, Barbara Hambly's Those Who Hunt the Night (and can I take five seconds to recommend the National Emergency Library? 1.5 mio. scanned books, ready to be read, for the duration of the currentInterNational Emergency - and lots of good stuff there (*fingers crossed it doesn't get shut down - there is the predictable controversy. Question: does the US not have library money for authors?*), and a fan translation of a Chinese novel called They All Say I've Met a Ghost, about a good socialist academic who is remarkably oblivious to the fact that all the students and coworkers at the school he's been hired to teach at are, well, ghosts.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 23
It still sucks.
I hope everybody's okay. Hiding at home or going to work, but staying healthy.
Books I've recently finished reading
Erin Morgenstern: The Starless Sea
This was a disappointment, since I actually enjoyed the author's previous book. This one - it has some references to Alice in Wonderland, but the most consistent feel I got from it was that it wanted very much to be a grown-up Neverending Story. Even the protagonist's name - while nowhere near Bastian - gave me that feel. And - it simply doesn't ever get there.
Julian Voloj & Henrik Rehr: Husk kilden når du drikker vandet
Rainbow Rowell: Wayward Son
This book - takes too long to get started, and while it has some nice moments (the main characters visiting a US renaissance faire was fun), it never really feels like it gets anywhere. It doesn't help that a lot of it felt like Rowell's critique of Rowling's magical America, which is fair enough - but reading a book by an American writing British characters visiting America gets - odd. I dunno. I also felt that - while it's actually interesting to see Baz interact with other vampires, the author really missed the chance of having that plot be balanced with Simon Snow interacting more with the dragon that seemed quite convinced he was a dragon hatchling. I think having the both of them offered serious alternatives to the world of Magick and working that out might have been interesting instead of the road trip plot (I am not in general a fan of road trip plots.)
Kousuke Oono: The Way of the Househusband vol. 1.
Amusing, but I really hope the second volume will start having a bit more plot. Scary yakuza doing household chores is fun for a few moments, but not an entire series.
Martha Wells: Exit Strategy
I am looking forward to the next book in this series.
Martha Wells: The Siren Depths
Martha Wells: The Edge of Worlds
Martha Wells: The Harbors of the Sun
I might have sneakily taken all these books home from work, on account of no other libraries being able to request them anyway. This series is fun - bisexual, dragon-ish shapeshifters and sundry other sentients in a world that isn't quite. Honestly, this feels less like straight-up fantasy to me and more like the setting for a planetary romance, just, without the visitor from another world.
Genevieve Cogman: The Secret Chapter
I do enjoy a good heist story. Also, the fact that most of the new characters were Fae and in this universe that means "embodying archetypes" meant that I could happily visualize them as some of my favourite tv show characters.
Ben Aaronovitch: A Rare Book of Cunning Device
Book might be a bit - it's a free audiobook of about 30 minutes length, featuring the investigation of what turns out to be a mechanical book hiding out in the British Library. Nice, but too short to be much of a story (though I always like the addition of a cool librarian character to a given canon.)
What I've recently watched
3. Totoro
Okay, strictly speaking that was february, but I forgot to add it to the post.
And - apart from that - lots of news? Well, and I've started watching Mo Dao Zu Shi, conveniently available with English subtitles on youtube. So far so good.
What I'm reading now:
Richard Morgan's Woken Furies, which takes far too long to start getting interesting, Barbara Hambly's Those Who Hunt the Night (and can I take five seconds to recommend the National Emergency Library? 1.5 mio. scanned books, ready to be read, for the duration of the current
Total number of books and comics read this year: 23