Kyrie

This was a decent collection of book essays, though it skewed a bit towards the turn of the century (late 1800's - early 1900's), and because of that, the essays tended to be mostly by older white men, writing about collecting books before the wonderful invention of the internet. A good chunk of them were from New Yorker writers, to give you an idea of what to expect.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing - everything was still fun to read. It just got kind of repetitive in places.

My favorite essays ended up being the ones that focused on the history of books and bookmaking. There's this wonderful essay about various Bibles that were made through the ages, and I adored it. I don't even really like the Bible, as a book, but the history of its many permutations? Just fascinating.

I picked up this book shortly after Ursula K. Le Guin died this year. I'd read an essay of hers last year, and it spoke to me on an emotional level. I don't often get moved like that, so I promised myself that I'd finally get around to reading more of her work. I wanted to start with some of her essays, and figured this was a good place to start. (It's actually a collection of her blog posts, but it just came out, and the cover is gorgeous...I'm easily swayed by pretty covers.)

The rest of this is going to be more personal associations with the book than a objective review, so I'm going to put it under a spoiler tag.

I was procrastinating on reading it - because I procrastinate on reading everything I say I'm definitely going to read - when I got the news that my mom and youngest brother had been in a house fire. Started by my other brother that lived there.My husband and I scrambled to get up to Ohio, to be there for them. I packed my Kindle, my tablet...and I grabbed this book, for good measure. You can never have too much reading material.I started reading this book the morning of February 28th. Just a few hours afterwards, I was given the news that my mom had died. It wasn't unexpected - she had several preexisting health problems, and the smoke inhalation didn't help things. The only part of her brain that was still functional when she got to the hospital was the part that controlled her respiratory system. She was never going to recover from that, and it was amazing that she lasted as long as she did.These are the memories that are now going to be associated with this book for me.In a way, I think it's kind of fitting. Almost poetic. After all of that, with everything else that's still going on as a result of the fire...I feel like there really is no time to spare.

Guess who bought herself the Stith-Thompson Index for her birthday?

2017 was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

My original reading challenge was 400 books - the same amount I managed to read in 2016. Unfortunately, life - babies, mainly - got in the way of me being able to read as much as I would have liked. With Baby #2 six months old now, and on his way to a normal sleeping pattern, I'm hoping that I'll be able to make up for that this year.

Some of my other goals for 2017 were to read more non-fiction books (check) and to clear out some of my monstrous TBR lists. Which...er...I did cut out a lot of books that I was iffy about reading, or that I'd lost interest in. But for the most part, all I really did was shuffle everything around into a handful of incredibly specific TBR lists, to fool myself into thinking that I've got less to read than I actually do.

Starting with 2017, I've decided to keep a list of my top 5 favorite reads of the year (taken from my Favorites shelf before it gets dismantled and repurposed into the Favorites shelf for the new year). In the end, these were the books that I ended up feeling the most strongly about:

1. The Property of Hate - I saw this webcomic mentioned in a group that someone I follow is in. And since every other comic that I follow seems to be going to permanent hiatus, I was looking for something new to read. And HOLY HELL was this worth it. The story has a Phantom Tollbooth feel to it, and the artwork is AMAZING. It made me hunt down everything else Sarah Jolley has created, and it was not a mistake. (Side effect: I'm thinking about starting to read Duck comics now...that woman has sold me on Gladstone Gander.)

2. It Devours! - Big shock there. I was excited for this book the second it was a possibility. Night Vale is one of those series that just so perfectly fills a hole in my life that I never knew existed until the first time I listened to the podcast. I love the look it takes at faith vs science, and the character development for Carlos. I swear his arc in the book broke my heart.

3. The Secret History of Fantasy - Dude. This anthology is to blame for so many books being added to my newly shuffled-around TBR lists. But the main reason it makes my list of favorite books for the year is solely because of the Le Guin essay near the end. Despite how it may seem based on this list, I'm not often moved to emotion by what I read. But this was another read that made my heart feel things. And I'm a sucker for fantasy as a genre.

4. Winter Tide (The Innsmouth Legacy #1) - I need to spend more time reading HPL-fic...especially in this particular vein. I adored Lovecraft Country last year, and Winter Tide was amazing in its own right. I mean, the main character is a woman from Innsmouth, who is naturally part Deep One.

5. Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners - This was one of the books I hunted down as part of my resolution to read more non-fiction. I borrowed it from my library, but it was so much fun that I need to get myself a physical copy, so I can keep it forever and ever and ever. This was honestly one of the funniest books I read this year.

Honorable Mentions: These books didn't make the top 5, but they were memorable in their own ways.

* The Hating Game - It's very rare for me to find a romance novel that I actually love.

* From Holmes to Sherlock - A fascinating look at the sheer scope and dedication of the fan base. (The first story was published in 1887, and the fandom has never died.)

* Meddling Kids - I wish I could have loved this book more than I did...such potential.

In 2018, I plan on focusing some more on clearing out the endless TBR piles. Well, to try, anyway. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that I'm not going to end up adding three books for every one I actually read.I'm also going to finally get around to reading all of the Sherlock Holmes stories...because it's getting a bit ridiculous at this point that I've read so many books about the writing of Sherlock Holmes without having read any of the stories. (Except Blue Carbuncle - that one got read a couple of weeks ago because of Christmas.)

We'll see how this goes! Here's hoping for a happy 2018 - I mean, it can't be worse than 2017. Right?...right???

Ouch. My heart.

It Devours was somehow even more amazing than the first Night Vale book.

March 15, 2017:
We have a title and release date! AND a description!

January 17, 2017:
Yesssssssss....

Finally made it through this one!

This was an interesting look at the history of cannibalism. The author purposely goes out of his way to avoid sensationalism, which I appreciated.

I mean, I can appreciate sensationalized cannibalism. I lived in Colorado for several years. I went through an Alferd Packer phase. Cannibal, by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is one of my favorite musicals.

(I was a strange child. I also went through a Lovecraft phase - still a Lovecraft fan - and a taxidermy phase.)

But, that's not what this book is. It's a response to the question of whether or not cannibalism is normal in humanity.

And for what it is, the book's not bad. The last third dragged a bit, when the focus shifted from examples of cannibalism in nature and in human history, to looking at mad cow disease, scrapies, and kuru. (There was another one in there, but it escapes my mind at the moment.)

Editor's Note: Past Maki doesn't know what she was talking about. Re-reading this review, the brain-altering disease section of the books sounds absolutely fascinating! Maybe it's because I'm writing this post covid, where the idea of communicable diseases is such a recent memory.

Breaking it down, this story reads like Scooby Doo + The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, with a pinch of The Dunwich Horror and The Thing on the Doorstep thrown in, for good measure.

It could have been great.

The random jumps between regular third person narrative and a screenplay format felt jarring, every time one changed into the other. It ended up feeling, to me, less like a stylistic choice, and more like a way for the author to handle dialogue without cycling through the same handful of verbs.

And don't get me started on the dog.

The dog himself was fine - the descriptions of him were a bit goofy, but it was fine. That reveal at the end though...sighs.

For the most part though - once I got past the repeated random jumps to screenplay - it was an enjoyable book. The story itself is interesting...I mean, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is my favorite Lovecraft story. So I was totally there for that.

The characters were interesting enough, but the setting felt like it overshadowed them. (Figuratively AND literally! Haha!)

The town of Blyton Hills, the haunted house, and the mines were wonderfully built up. I loved the setting. All things considered, it was probably my favorite part of this book.

I think that if this were ever translated into a movie, or a short TV/streaming series, it would be a stronger story. It feels like that's what it wants to be, anyway.

I was not ready to read this. Definitely not ready.

I just had my second child back in June. And this book has a LOT of mistreated babies. Babies forcefully taken away from their mothers. Scared babies left to cry. Presumed baby murder. The hormones are still going strong, so the mistreated baby scenes just kicked me in the gut.

The story is...intense? It's not really the sort of mystery where you can see the twist coming. There's no information that lets you piece together what's going on ahead of time. It's interesting enough, though. The characters aren't the smartest people out there, but thanks to the above spoiler, I got a really emotional reaction out of it.

The ending kind of ruins things, though. Or well, the epilogue, really. For me, the story feels stronger without the epilogue there to hold your hand and explain the ending to you. :/

I really enjoyed Jackelope Wives, but I think I prefer this companion story.

Jackalope Wives was a lovely bit of mid-western US folklore...but Tomato Thief steps things up by throwing in some Russian fairy tales, as well. (A blend of the firebird legend, and Koschei the Deathless.)

And I'm finding that I really enjoy the idea of train gods. Or, just trains being mythical creatures in general, I suppose. I did love the imagery of Where the Trains Turn.

Crossing my fingers that if there's another companion story in the set, it's about the train gods.

This isn't a terrible collection of “literary wonderlands”...it just isn't a very comprehensive one. It's basically a subjective “Best Of” list in book form, which skews heavily towards science fiction. There are a LOT of dystopians on the list.

Each book is briefly described in a 2 - 3 page essay, with pictures.

Still, I managed to use it to find more books to read. I've got a handful of books from it that I didn't know existed, but liked the sound of. (And I'm supposed to be cleaning OUT my to read list this year...oh well.)

This was written by one of my absolute favorite returning guests. She sent me a copy because she remembered that I like to read. So, of course I've got to read this. <3

I won't be rating it, though - I strive to avoid bookish nepotism.

I've absolutely got to save a link to Ursula Le Guin's essay from this book. I don't want to lose the words when I've got to grudgingly return this book to the library.

I'd originally grabbed this for the short stories by Patricia McKillip, Susanna Clarke, and Neil Gaiman, only to realize - slightly disappointed - that I'd already read those particular short stories. Lady of the Skulls, “John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner”, and Snow, Glass, Apple respectively.)

But, I don't mind rereading those. Their authors are on my list of favorites for a reason.

There was a story by Gregory Maguire that I hadn't read yet, “Scarecrow”, which was a lovely, more traditional look at the land of Oz.

I'm hunting down books by Steven Millhauser and Robert Holdstock, thanks to their stories - “The Barnum Museum” (which hits that same sweet spot for me that The Night Circus did) and “Mythago Wood” (which has wonderful imagery of primeval forests).

January 27, 2017
I'm calling it now. This is gonna be the February Owlcrate book.

February 20, 2017

I'm not entirely sure what to think on this one. My gut reaction is to take this book as a parody romance...except the book takes itself a bit too seriously for that. (Secret chicken empires aside.)

And while the writing is kind of goofy, it never really lapses into the hyperbole and exaggeration you would expect from looking at it. For all intents and purposes, it reads like an actual attempt by KFC to put together a romance novel.

I...I guess they wanted to find a way to compete with the Arby's online campaigns?

Very interesting book, especially the first few chapters, which dealt with various theories on how humans created written language. At some point I'd like to hunt down a book that focused more on that, because while it's something I've thought about, I didn't realize just how fascinating that history was.

The rest of the book is dedicated to the science of reading - how reading works in the brain, how dyslexia affects that process, and the way reading is viewed and taught in schools.

I learned quite a bit from the later sections. Like - my mother's approach to teaching me reading was to use the whole language approach, which involves teaching children to memorize and recognize whole words. My grandparents, on the other hand, set me up with Hooked on Phonics whenever we came to visit. So growing up, I had both major approaches to teaching children to read shoved at me.

It definitely gave me something to think about, as my own daughter approaches reading age. I guess that's why I'd picked this up in the first place.

My daughter grabbed this one from the library when I told her to pick out a book. That's probably less to do with the fact that she actually wanted to read this book in particular, and more because she was just grabbing everything she could off the shelves, and this was the first book that happened to slide out from the ensuing book avalanche.

It's not very long at all. The story itself is about turning bedtime into an adventure. The illustrations are very nice, and everything has a red and gold color theme to it, which gives it a sort of regal, medieval feel. I definitely thought it was a cute book.

Of course, now my daughter knows what helmets are, and she demands that I put everything she can find on her head as a helmet. Boxes...actual hats...aluminum foil...

I enjoyed the story just fine. I mean...it's Neil Gaiman. Even when he's writing off the wall (or in the wall?) fairy tales for children, I have a lot of fun reading his work.

...okay. His fairy tales are actually my favorites. Stardust continues to reign supreme as my favorite Gaiman book, even as I get closer to catching up on his backlog of stories.

That artwork, though. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have nightmares. It's absolutely terrifying.

I can only pray that they don't have Dave McKean do artwork for a re-release of Coraline.

It's a bunch of pictures of disembodied baby heads making various faces. That's all this book is. My daughter had fun staring at them, though, and that's what counts.

Not going to lie - I was mostly in it for the fox illustrations. They're just gorgeous.

The story itself is a message about how urban development is effecting wildlife. Bits of it come across as preachy, with the fox narrator lamenting its separation from its family. Which, okay. It's touching, and sad. But the fox narration is so...human...that it creates a bit of a disconnect from what is, essentially, an animal book.

I can appreciate the message of the book as a whole, though, and those overpass/tunnels to help wildlife get across highways are really cool.

I've been trying to squeeze in more books about words this year. (The amateur etymologist in me demands it!) I saw this one in the new non-fiction section of the library, and figured it would make a nice, quick read in between the behemoths I generally go to the library to find.

The word collection is definitely nice - it's a fun blend of interesting and beautiful words. There were a handful of words I hadn't come across before, which, as much as I read books about strange words, was a very pleasant surprise.

...but I spent nearly the entire time I was reading this distracted by the absolutely stunning illustrations.

I've got my own copy of this now, because the thought of parting with the book (and its pictures) made me sad.

This is, officially, the first Batman comic I've read. Don't get me wrong - I know plenty about the Caped Crusader. I've culturally absorbed knowledge of the character, and the history of the comics. I've watched/read other people reading Batman comics. I've read a handful of books written about the Bat.

But I've never ventured into Batman comic territory on my own before.

I chose this one as my entry-way into Gotham for one reason, and one reason alone: it has a secret society of owl-themed cultists, whose presence is written off as the stuff of nursery rhymes.

That's almost pure Maki catnip. I mean...you've got owl symbolism, a secret society, cultists who live underground (hello, Lovecraft!), and nursery rhymes. All rolled up into a Batman-flavored treat!

And for my first foray into bat country...it was pretty good. The story got a bit confusing in places, but I have enough off-hand knowledge of the world and characters that I didn't get too badly lost.

The nursery rhyme itself, though...rhythm, guys! You were doing so well up until that clunky last line!

The majority of these quotes come from the Series of Unfortunate Events. But, since I like that series, I really liked this book.

Of course, this came in the mail the day after I'd just finished watching the Netflix adaptation of the Series of Unfortunate Events.

This means two things:

1. I recognized a lot of the quotes that I may have otherwise forgotten came from the books, seeing as how it's been a while since I've read them,

and

2. The voice in my head narrating the book was Patrick Warburton's.

I feel like something got lost in translation here. The synopsis of the book is much more concise than the actual story itself.

From what I can gather, the story is set up around a matching game, but aside from the first couple of pages, the book doesn't really bring that fact up. Is the story unfolding supposed to be a force outside of the story itself, flipping over the various pieces of the game and influencing what Rabbit runs into, until they finally find the Other Rabbit? Who knows!

The story pretty much plays out like this: Rabbit is looking for the Other Rabbit. He runs into a Thing. The Thing tells him that they don't know where the Other Rabbit is, but this Other Thing might. On the way to the Other Thing, the original Thing finds its counterpart and they run off together, until Rabbit is left on his own to look for the Other Rabbit.

The illustrations are well-drawn and even striking at times, but the story is just all over the place.

2016 was another difficult reading year for me. Between work, my daughter, and the news that I've got another child on the way, I didn't get to read as many books as I was hoping to. So much for dreams of hitting 500 books - maybe next time. I'm not holding my breath on it actually happening, but I like to aim high.

(And don't even get me started on reviews! I barely wrote anything at all in 2016.)

As it was, I only managed to get my reading challenge as high as I did for 2016 by reading a lot of comics and manga.

Like, a good 1/3rd of my “read” list from 2016 is made up of comics and manga.

That wasn't all bad, though. I enjoyed the Steven Universe comics by KaBoom, read the entire MarvelNOW Deadpool series, Monstress, and Steam Wars (a fun little steampunk parody of Star Wars). Oh! And Spider-Man/Deadpool was just amazing.

For full-length books, because I didn't have as much time to read this year, I tried to focus more on reading books I was pretty sure I'd like, rather than my usual give-everything-a-try-book-buffet approach. And I read a lot of books I ended up loving - the Greatcoats series and the Shadow of the Wind series are both auto-buys for me now. There were two new Night Vale books (of scripts), and Disney published Journal #3 in its entirety. (If the special edition ever gets a good price drop, I'm totally there for the blacklighting.)

I attempted (and lost track of) a Lovecraft re-read with my youngest brother. I don't feel terrible about that, though because 1) he doesn't spend much time on here and 2) I've read just about everything Lovecraft's written, anyway. So that freed up a bit of room for some Lovecraft-fic, instead.

I also meant to get through more of the Discworld series this year. I really did. Every year I keep telling myself I'm going to finally get through that series. But, like I said - not as much time to read. And I take the time to savor every Discworld book I read.

Let's see...I signed up for a YA book subscription service, Owlcrate, that has been working out very well for me. Pretty much every book I've gotten so far has been something I'd have been interested in reading, anyway, and the bookish swag that comes along with it is tons of fun.

I'm probably going to have to end up padding out my 2017 reading challenge with even more comics and short stories, but I'd like to focus more on my monster of a TBR list this year. Every so often, I just have to go through and cut off books that I had been interested in reading, but with everything else going on, I just don't have the time or energy to get to.

So, yeah. There's my summary of 2016, and my hopes for 2017.

Here's to another great year of reading!

I had a lot more fun with this one than I was expecting I would.

Another book I'm reading, The Natural History of Make-Believe: A Guide to the Principal Works of Britain, Europe, and America, mentions The Water Babies, and its (probable) influence on Rev. Charles Dodgson - better known as Lewis Carroll.

And since I've been enjoying my casual perusal into the history of folklore and fantasy, I figured, “Why not?”

Well, there were several reasons why not. The story itself is incredibly dated. There are several uncomfortable comparisons made in the book, and the narrator repeatedly addresses the reader as a young British boy.

The narrative thread is all over the place, with the narrator frequently stopping all plot progression to follow marginally related tangents, my favorite of which was definitely the several page rant about whether Water Babies exist (which they may or may not, but you can't prove it!!!), where the narrator gets more and more offended by hypothetical questions.

“But there are no such things as water-babies.” How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood—as folks sometimes fear he never will—that does not prove that there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.

The plot is a fairy tale wrapped in heavy-handed moral dressings.

But for once, going into the book knowing what to expect helped. I knew the book was going to be kind of preachy, and heavy-handed. So I had fun with it.