I am not sure I will ever be able to express what reading this felt like, except to hope that some other people read it who know me and understand. Wow.
I think this book at once has some beautiful and subtle moments while also holding a moral clarity that is relentless and refreshing. It took me a while to move through, but I’m glad I read it.
I’m only two chapters in and I’m already crying and furiously highlighting and its clear this book will be as good as everyone says. I’m already in love with Sam and Sadie.
I read fewer books and fewer pages this year than last year. That’s ok– 2022 saw the conclusion of the Scholomance Trilogy and The Founders Trilogy, both of which ended in deeply emotionally satisfying ways. It also so the continuation of the Checquy novels, Dan Moren’s Galactic Cold War, the Nisibidi Scripts, and more, which all had strong entries.
I enjoyed everything I read this year, but I’m not sure that anything was truly a standout. Robert Jackson Bennett has now had two trilogies in a row that I adore and felt stuck the landing. Naomi Novik was already a favorite with both Uprooted and Spinning Silver, but the Scholomance books have cemented her alongside Robert Jackson Bennett, NK Jemisin, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Becky Chambers as “writers I will buy sight unseen until they prove otherwise.”
I still have a lot of sequels to catch up on, including by some authors in my “must read” list, so I expect 2023 to be off to a quick start. I’ll stick with my goal of 40 books, because that seems to be about right in terms of level of “challenge”, though I still wish I could ramp up to 52 a year.
I listened to a few audiobooks this year (non-fiction) that I continue not to track (and a couple of non-fiction books). I really miss iTunes University lectures, so I think I’m going to try and find more lectures to listen to in place of podcasts next year.
Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett
was a fantastic ending to a fantastic trilogy. With his second triology complete, RJB has solidified himself on the list of writers that I will blind-buy everything they write. 📚
Still thinking about how
The Golem and the Jinni
and
The Hidden Palace
read so effortlessly after what is clearly a mammoth amount of work to produce them. The setting (and world building) are just so rich.
January 22, 2022
The wonderful moment when you have 35 mins remaining in your current book when your next library hold becomes available. 📚
I have replaced the Photos link in the navigation to the new Books. Photos can still be viewed from the Archive page, just by clicking on the photoblogging category link on the top of that page.
This is not a photo blog, though I often post pictures, and I’ve decided that having a whole separate navigation item just to link to an Archive page with only photo posts wasn’t that important.
Instead, reflecting my long hobby of reading (and tracking my reading on variouswebsitesthat are not my own), I’ve added a Books section. A few bits of note:
I generally only track fiction reading of books I read with my eyes. I’ve already started to change this slightly in 2021, having tracked some non-fiction, but I would not take this as an exhaustive list of all long form things I have read and/or listened to.
I am using a combination of Micro.blog’s bookshelves features and images with Bookshop.org affiliate links. In some cases, this has caused me to use ISBN listings that do not have great images from Micro.blog to try and ensure that all the links take you to a valid place to buy some books.
Lastly, for other folks who are using Micro.blog and might want to do something similar, I am considering releasing a plug-in, but won’t do so without considerable interest. I write my blog modifications mostly for myself and am not super interested in making them highly configurable to other theme environments. In this case, I think it’s actually quite simple to extract the functionality as I currently have it. However, if you want a far more flexible book page experience, I recommend Moondeer’s bookshelves plug-in. It’s highly configurable and Moondeer seems motivated to maintain a solid, general purpose book architecture. That said, even if I don’t release this as a plug-in, I’d be happy to share any template code or CSS that might be helpful to others.
Of course, this whole project wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t procrastinating from doing work or reading my current book, which I admit may have to go into the “did not finish” pile, at least for now.
January 15, 2022
Getting close to having my new Bookshelf page looking the way I want. Sneak peek. 📚
August 22, 2021
Delighted and a bit surprised just how moving the final pages of Howl’s Moving Castle (📚) was, given my broad guess (given movie and foreshadowing) of where things were headed.
Even though I’ve already read it, the Incredible Doom hardcover release is very exciting. Can’t wait to go pick up my pre-ordered copy @AtomicBooks during my lunch break.
Got @bogart’s book. It’s gorgeous, and settling in its new place of honor.
I think this book broke my brain. It’s everything I typically don’t like, and I’m still not positive I’m sure what I read, and yet I devoured it. Rather than my confusion leading to frustration, I found it propulsive. I wanted every layer of unreliable narration on top of half-overhead statements by characters on top of non-linearity shellacked onto me as I was reshaped by reading this the way Harrowhawk can reshape her own bone.
What the fuck was that?
Please get Alecto the Ninth into my hands immediately.
Jason Becker
