Reading (and associated) Wednesday
Jan. 16th, 2019 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
copperfyreI have seen a bunch of people doing Reading Wednesday, so on that note I am going to test out using Dreamwidth to help my goldfish brain remember what media I am consuming! Also I like to think this might help me read more, which is a goal I have decided I am going to achieve this year.
Reading
Lots of CJ Cherryh mostly! Well, 'lots', by which I mean I finished the third Foreigner book at the beginning of January, and have just started the fourth, which takes place after a time jump. I am adoring them, they are amazing, and I really think that they should be on more 'Awesome Sci Fi More People Should Read' lists. They have some of the best aliens - if not, frankly, the best aliens - I have ever read, and the world building is mindblowingly good and excellently explored. I could write screeds about the cultures and the characters, but I'm too tired for that right now. Her prose is also gorgeous and I am frequently bookmarking passages and lines to go back to later and just glee over. The one problem with them is that I need a decent amount of functional brain to read them (otherwise I miss things! And I am less delighted by them!) so sometimes I start reading and then go, 'Wait, nope, I need a less brain book right now."
On that note, I finished Posterchildren: Origins by Kitty Burroughs on the bus this evening, a book I have no memory of buying and also no memory of what it was about. It turns out it's about superpowered teenagers at school (sort of Sky High meets Mallory Towers). It was good as an 'I Do Not Have Enough Brain To Read Foreigner' book, and I enjoyed it, though it sort of felt like it ended just as the plot kicked off. Most of the plot was 'school shenanigans!' which once I reminded myself that this was a genre that existed, were fun, but there was other bigger plot that kept poking its head up and then suddenly came to the forefront in the last chapter, which was kind of weird. But it was delightfully full of queer and POC characters, and the characters in general were great and absolutely the strength of the book. So, fun, but paced oddly.
Watching
kalinara has taken up the role of introducing me to things (Including CJ Cherryh, but also TV, and this is great, because I really enjoy having a built in person to go and flail at about things I am reading/watching) so over the last year we've watched The Walking Dead, Shadowhunters, Grimm, and Earth Final Conflict, and have just started making inroads into Highlander, which is delightfully hilarious. I don't know if I am more charmed by the fact that approximately two days after seeing someone behead a dude and then have ecstasies via lightning our young normal person decides to go live with the beheader and his girlfriend without apparently a second thought, or the fact that Duncan MacLeod has walked straight out of a romance novel and is really committed to that concept. It's great, what an utterly ridiculous show.
Listening
Very slowly I am making my way through The History of Rome by Mike Duncan while at work, and promptly forgetting the names of everyone involved a minute after they are mentioned, which means I have to go back and relisten to bits a lot. So I still haven't reached the end of the Republic yet, and I'm not sure how much is actually sinking in beyond the very broadest of brushstrokes. But I like the way it's put together, it is super informative, and Michael Duncan's frequent exasperation about Roman choices is really entertaining.
Reading
Lots of CJ Cherryh mostly! Well, 'lots', by which I mean I finished the third Foreigner book at the beginning of January, and have just started the fourth, which takes place after a time jump. I am adoring them, they are amazing, and I really think that they should be on more 'Awesome Sci Fi More People Should Read' lists. They have some of the best aliens - if not, frankly, the best aliens - I have ever read, and the world building is mindblowingly good and excellently explored. I could write screeds about the cultures and the characters, but I'm too tired for that right now. Her prose is also gorgeous and I am frequently bookmarking passages and lines to go back to later and just glee over. The one problem with them is that I need a decent amount of functional brain to read them (otherwise I miss things! And I am less delighted by them!) so sometimes I start reading and then go, 'Wait, nope, I need a less brain book right now."
On that note, I finished Posterchildren: Origins by Kitty Burroughs on the bus this evening, a book I have no memory of buying and also no memory of what it was about. It turns out it's about superpowered teenagers at school (sort of Sky High meets Mallory Towers). It was good as an 'I Do Not Have Enough Brain To Read Foreigner' book, and I enjoyed it, though it sort of felt like it ended just as the plot kicked off. Most of the plot was 'school shenanigans!' which once I reminded myself that this was a genre that existed, were fun, but there was other bigger plot that kept poking its head up and then suddenly came to the forefront in the last chapter, which was kind of weird. But it was delightfully full of queer and POC characters, and the characters in general were great and absolutely the strength of the book. So, fun, but paced oddly.
Watching
kalinara has taken up the role of introducing me to things (Including CJ Cherryh, but also TV, and this is great, because I really enjoy having a built in person to go and flail at about things I am reading/watching) so over the last year we've watched The Walking Dead, Shadowhunters, Grimm, and Earth Final Conflict, and have just started making inroads into Highlander, which is delightfully hilarious. I don't know if I am more charmed by the fact that approximately two days after seeing someone behead a dude and then have ecstasies via lightning our young normal person decides to go live with the beheader and his girlfriend without apparently a second thought, or the fact that Duncan MacLeod has walked straight out of a romance novel and is really committed to that concept. It's great, what an utterly ridiculous show.
Listening
Very slowly I am making my way through The History of Rome by Mike Duncan while at work, and promptly forgetting the names of everyone involved a minute after they are mentioned, which means I have to go back and relisten to bits a lot. So I still haven't reached the end of the Republic yet, and I'm not sure how much is actually sinking in beyond the very broadest of brushstrokes. But I like the way it's put together, it is super informative, and Michael Duncan's frequent exasperation about Roman choices is really entertaining.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-18 03:03 pm (UTC)I feel this SO HARD. Especially since historical Romans often had very similar names-- I'd need, like, a "who's who" for a podcast like that.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-18 06:24 pm (UTC)