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My last reading post was in August. So:
A Quiet Afternoon, edited by Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold. This is a collection of quiet stories for pandemic times, which I found soothing enough that I was sorry when I got to the end. Stories I particularly liked: "Salt Tears and Sweet Honey," by Aimee Ogden, a friendly, lesbian selkie story; "The Baker's Cat," by Elizabeth Hart Bergstrom, because of how it talks about food and the smells of food; "Twelve Attempts at Telling About the Flower Shop Man (New York, New York)," by Stephanie Barbé Hammer, maybe in part because I miss living in New York, and "The Dragon Peddler," by Maria Cook, about a boy who can see dragons in a world where most people can't, and who wants a dragon of his own. [Published by Grace and Victory Publications. I know one of the editors, having met her (online, of course) during the pandemic lockdown.)
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher, about a magic user who can only do baking-related magic, and whose familiar is a sourdough starter. The story starts when the heroine finds a stranger's corpse in her aunt's bakery, and finds herself accused of the murder. I liked this a lot.
Imaginary Numbers, by Seanan McGuire, is the latest in her InCryptid series. This one is mostly about Sarah Zellaby, the decidedly non-human cousin of Verity, Alexander, and Antimony Price, the viewpoint characters of the previous novels in the series. Fun, though it did hit one of the weak points of first-person narrative, namely "why on earth are you telling us this?" Recommended if and only if you liked the previous InCryptid novels, in part because it contains major spoilers for the events in those books.
The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth Armin, is about people, initially strangers to each other, fleeing a damp, chilly London to spend a month in a castle in Italy. The evocative descriptions in this one are mostly of flowers. Jo Walton recommended this, and it's old enough to be free on Project Gutenberg even in the US.
Meanwhile, I got partway through The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan before I had to return it to the library. It's good nonfiction, if not what I'd call encouraging, at least so far: I've read through discussions of invasive species going back to the days of the Erie Canal, and what was done to restore, or reconstruct, the ecosystem, and stopped at chapter 9, which introduces the zebra mussels.balance).
I've also read some short stories, but overall less than I hoped given that I'm trying not to doomscroll, which means very little time on Twitter and a carefully curated selection of news websites.
A Quiet Afternoon, edited by Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold. This is a collection of quiet stories for pandemic times, which I found soothing enough that I was sorry when I got to the end. Stories I particularly liked: "Salt Tears and Sweet Honey," by Aimee Ogden, a friendly, lesbian selkie story; "The Baker's Cat," by Elizabeth Hart Bergstrom, because of how it talks about food and the smells of food; "Twelve Attempts at Telling About the Flower Shop Man (New York, New York)," by Stephanie Barbé Hammer, maybe in part because I miss living in New York, and "The Dragon Peddler," by Maria Cook, about a boy who can see dragons in a world where most people can't, and who wants a dragon of his own. [Published by Grace and Victory Publications. I know one of the editors, having met her (online, of course) during the pandemic lockdown.)
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher, about a magic user who can only do baking-related magic, and whose familiar is a sourdough starter. The story starts when the heroine finds a stranger's corpse in her aunt's bakery, and finds herself accused of the murder. I liked this a lot.
Imaginary Numbers, by Seanan McGuire, is the latest in her InCryptid series. This one is mostly about Sarah Zellaby, the decidedly non-human cousin of Verity, Alexander, and Antimony Price, the viewpoint characters of the previous novels in the series. Fun, though it did hit one of the weak points of first-person narrative, namely "why on earth are you telling us this?" Recommended if and only if you liked the previous InCryptid novels, in part because it contains major spoilers for the events in those books.
The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth Armin, is about people, initially strangers to each other, fleeing a damp, chilly London to spend a month in a castle in Italy. The evocative descriptions in this one are mostly of flowers. Jo Walton recommended this, and it's old enough to be free on Project Gutenberg even in the US.
Meanwhile, I got partway through The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan before I had to return it to the library. It's good nonfiction, if not what I'd call encouraging, at least so far: I've read through discussions of invasive species going back to the days of the Erie Canal, and what was done to restore, or reconstruct, the ecosystem, and stopped at chapter 9, which introduces the zebra mussels.balance).
I've also read some short stories, but overall less than I hoped given that I'm trying not to doomscroll, which means very little time on Twitter and a carefully curated selection of news websites.
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